The Biblical Book of Revelation? Do you pay much attention to it? What is your perspective on this?
The Book of Revelation, as you know, is supposedly nearly 2,000 years old. To the best of my knowledge no surviving original source has survived, or it exists in the Vatican archives. This means that there is no conceivable way that we can verify the accuracy of its translation, or whether anything has been added, changed or deleted. Lets face it, many centuries have passed and any Pope could have arranged an alteration to its contents. Without an original source, or quelle, we basically have to rely on faith and trust that there has been no tampering. This can prove extremely difficult considering the various dark phases the Church has passed through.
But haven't the Dead Sea Scrolls proved the accuracy of the Bible?
Certainly not. The scrolls were placed in the caves of Qumran before the time of Christ. They verify the accuracy of certain Old Testament writings but have nothing to do with the New Testament. This is regardless whether some scholars theorize that John the Baptist was, in fact, a member of an Essene community. It is fairly well established that the community at Qumran was destroyed by the Romans prior to the birth of Christianity. This is further substantiated by the fact that no New Testament writings, for example the Gospels, were found amongst the Essene scrolls. That their so called Teacher of Righteousness may have been Christ is pure speculation.
Whether Jesus was an Essene, or associated with the Essenes, is irrelevant. Jesus himself adhered to the sect of the Nazarenes, so, John the Baptist, being his cousin, would also have been a member of that sect, this includes the majority of his disciples. The Essenes were purely Jewish and adhered to the Jewish faith. There are some suggestions that the Essenes had gentile branches, which may be possible. Jesus came from Galilee, also regarded as the land of the gentiles, possessing an entirely different dialect and speech, including different religious beliefs. The Jews did not think too favorably of those from Galilee. Don't be surprised to one day learn that the entire genealogy line of Jesus has been fabricated. Simply because the Church needed to connect Jesus with Old Testament prophecy and to the House of David as the preordained savoir prophet. Remember, the Jews themselves never accepted Jesus as their long awaited savior.
Anyway, this is leading away from our discussion on Revelation.
Yes, but this is interesting. Isn't Old Testament prophecy proof that Jesus was the ordained Jewish messiah? It's there in black and white.
Not really. How can anyone prove that, for instance, Jesus rode into Jerusalem on the back of an ass, as foretold in Old Testament prophecy, written centuries before the time of Jesus. How do we know that first century Christians, years after the crucifixion of Christ, or even later Church Fathers, needing to convince people that prophecy linked to Jesus, simply just scanned through the books of prophecy, taking a scripture here and taking a scripture there and built a scenario around Jesus actually having physically done these things? Whether Jesus actually did these things, or whether early Christians trying to authenticate their belief simply associated ancient prophecy into the life of Jesus we'll never know.
You understand what I'm saying? They needed to convince people that Jesus was the ordained Jewish prophet so they fabricated events of his life to coincide with ancient prophecy. Don't be surprised to discover one day that the life of the historical Jesus was probably very different than what the gospels proclaim. What if he wasn't the son of a carpenter, but perhaps a prince from the Parthian Empire? Now this may sound very harsh, and even infuriating to a practicing Christian, but it may be exactly what the Knights Templar discovered. A discovery the Church absolutely would not welcome. The Knights played a dangerous game and in the end they lost.
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