Refuting the Rapture or "Left Behind" Theory

[spauline]

Pretty much, yeah. Here, with my emphasis is, first, the interdenominational Good News Bible’s intro:…and the Catholic NAB states:As you can see, these descriptions are similar and reflect the concensus of SCHOLARLY opinion, Catholic and ‘mainline’ Protestant.

Fundamentalism, being anti-intellectual at its core and therefore incapable of producing scholarship, will no doubt continue to claim that the descriptions in Revelation refer specifically to our own time, to our future, and to the nations of the modern world.

Of course, according to the Navarre Commentary, the ECFs thought it was the spiritual ages of the Church, but who were they? Obviously, liberal rationalist “scholars” know better.

 

[beeliner]

Of course, according to the Navarre Commentary, the ECFs thought it was the spiritual ages of the Church, but who were they? Obviously, liberal rationalist “scholars” know better.

I’ll take rationalism over irrationalism any day.

Some ECFs may have thought that and others may not have.

The point is, the book’s symbolism is so obscure to modern readers that it is easily appropriated by charlatans in order to support whatever agenda they wish to promote.

 

[spauline]

I’ll take rationalism over irrationalism any day.

Some ECFs may have thought that and others may not have.

The point is, the book’s symbolism is so obscure to modern readers that it is easily appropriated by charlatans in order to support whatever agenda they wish to promote.

I agree there are charlatrans, or at best, misguided individuals. I agree wholeheartedly that the book is not about the political permutation of WW IV, or modern nations.

However, do you know what rationalist means? Persons who deny Divine Revelation.

It is liberal, enlightenment based scholarship that would relegate the book to merely coded comfort for the time it was written, for salvation history continues beyond the Early Church. Hence, the Traditional Catholic view, prior to the heretical tendencies of modern times that deny Divine Revelation, was to see it as ages of the Church.

I think the problem is, some Father’s commentaries toward that end tend to lack a systematic nature, and so, in erroneous logic, the modern liberal says, because there HAS NOT BEEN a systematic approach in the way of spiritual historicism, therefore, there NEVER WILL BE, so let us relegate the book back to the times of the Early Church.

This is a mistake. Eventually, the Church shall discern the full meaning of Church history, and the ages Christ wished us to understand, as well as the theological reasons for why humanity will become incurable, that God will have done everything He could to redeem us. In the CCC, this is referred to as the unveiling of “the mystery of iniquity.”

Therefore, the book cannot be merely, much less in its primary sense, resistance literature. In the ultimate sense, it conveys the meaning of the totality of salvation history, including the ages of the Church.

 

[beeliner]

1. However, do you know what rationalist means? Persons who deny Divine Revelation.
2. I agree wholeheartedly that the book is not about the political permutation of WW IV, or modern nations.

1. Well, not really.

Some people who do so may be considered rationalists, but the term’s definition is considerably broader.

In any case, are you claiming that the editors of the GNB and the NAB deny Divine Revelation? That is a very serious accusation.

1. What happened to WWIII? Who won? I must have missed it.

 

[spauline]

1. Well, not really.

Some people who do so may be considered rationalists, but the term’s definition is considerably broader.

In any case, are you claiming that the editors of the GNB and the NAB deny Divine Revelation? That is a very serious accusation.

1. What happened to WWIII? Who won? I must have missed it.

the editors of NAB know about Divine Revelation and accept it, they are just highly influenced by liberal scholarship. If you don’t believe me, compare footnotes in Douhay Rheims and Channoler Rheims with NAB. Differences.

I know we haven’t had WW III yet. The point was, fundies are looking for wrong data, which I concure with you. What i’m saying is, the preterist data is equally useless. What matters is spiritual ages of history, not temporal stuff that early church or end times Christians go through.

 

[beeliner]

the editors of NAB know about Divine Revelation and accept it, they are just highly influenced by liberal scholarship. If you don’t believe me, compare footnotes in Douhay Rheims and Channoler Rheims with NAB. Differences.

I know we haven’t had WW III yet. The point was, fundies are looking for wrong data, which I concure with you. What i’m saying is, the preterist data is equally useless. What matters is spiritual ages of history, not temporal stuff that early church or end times Christians go through.

I don’t have a DR at my immediate disposal. I would be surprised if its notes differed significantly from those I cited, nor do I see what any of this had to do with liberalism. And in any case, you are backing down. You began with accusations of rationalism, now it’s liberalism.

I have no idea what you mean by ‘spiritual ages of history’. When I google the phrase, I get only a link to a somewhat esoteric Protestant website:

ultimateriddles.com/spirtual-life-in-earth-ages.html

Since you probably have no affiliation with that website, I can only surmise that the phrase is your own invention. Looking back over your contributions to this thread, you seem to be saying that everyone else is wrong and you alone have the truth - about the true meaning of Revelation and perhaps other Biblical matters.

If so, why not write something on the matter and submit it to the usual Catholic publishers for appraisal? Failing that, why not just come right out and give us your interpretation in DETAIL and let the other poters here, myself included, have at you?

 

[spauline]

I don’t have a DR at my immediate disposal. I would be surprised if its notes differed significantly from those I cited, nor do I see what any of this had to do with liberalism. And in any case, you are backing down. You began with accusations of rationalism, now it’s liberalism.

I have no idea what you mean by ‘spiritual ages of history’. When I google the phrase, I get only a link to a somewhat esoteric Protestant website:

ultimateriddles.com/spirtual-life-in-earth-ages.html

Since you probably have no affiliation with that website, I can only surmise that the phrase is your own invention. Looking back over your contributions to this thread, you seem to be saying that everyone else is wrong and you alone have the truth - about the true meaning of Revelation and perhaps other Biblical matters.

If so, why not write something on the matter and submit it to the usual Catholic publishers for appraisal? Failing that, why not just come right out and give us your interpretation in DETAIL and let the other poters here, myself included, have at you?

for starters, see patrick467, or something like that, and his thread, the Book of Revelation, step by step, loaded with ECF and later Father’s commentaries. You will see that they don’t cram it all into the first century.

Liberalism and rationalism are similar. Not necessarily the same, but similar. Liberalism, like rationalism, tends to downplay Divine Revelation, and has attitude that when prophecy is purported, it is guilty until proven innocent, rather than the other way around. Rationalism flat out denies that any prophecy is possible.

You want citations. Look, you don’t need a written copy of DH. it is online.

I will have to get back in a few days. meantime, look up DH online and compare how the footnotes of Daniel 2, 7, and 9 compare with NAB. Even the translations.

here’s a quickie, fyi:

Douhay Rheims on Daniel 9:

21 As I was yet speaking in prayer, behold the man Gabriel, whom I had seen in the vision at the beginning, flying swiftly touched me at the time of the evening sacrifice. 22 And he instructed me, and spoke to me, and said: O Daniel, I am now come forth to teach thee, and that thou mightest understand. 23 From the beginning of thy prayers the word came forth: and I am come to show it to thee, because thou art a man of desires: therefore do thou mark the word, and understand the vision. 24 Seventy weeks are shortened upon thy people, and upon thy holy city, that transgression may be finished, and sin may have an end, and iniquity may be abolished; and everlasting justice may be brought; and vision and prophecy may be fulfilled; and the saint of saints may be anointed. 25 Know thou therefore, and take notice: that from the going forth of the word, to build up Jerusalem again, unto Christ the prince, there shall be seven weeks, and sixty-two weeks: and the street shall be built again, and the walls in straitness of times.
21 “The man Gabriel”… The angel Gabriel in the shape of a man.

23 “Man of desires”… that is, ardently praying for the Jews then in captivity.

24 “Seventy weeks”… Viz., of years, (or seventy times seven, that is, 490 years,) are shortened; that is, fixed and determined, so that the time shall be no longer.

25 “From the going forth of the word”… That is, from the twentieth year of king Artaxerxes, when by his commandment Nehemias rebuilt the walls of Jerusalem, 2 Esd. 2. From which time, according to the best chronology, there were just sixty-nine weeks of years, that is, 483 years to the baptism of Christ, when he first began to preach and execute the office of Messias.-- Ibid.

25 “In straitness of times”… angustia temporum: which may allude both to the difficulties and opposition they met with in building: and to the shortness of the time in which they finished the wall, viz., fifty-two days.
26 And after sixty-two weeks Christ shall be slain: and the people that shall deny him shall not be his. And a people with their leader that shall come, shall destroy the city and the sanctuary: and the end thereof shall be waste, and after the end of the war the appointed desolation. 27 And he shall confirm the covenant with many, in one week: and in the half of the week the victim and the sacrifice shall fall: and there shall be in the temple the abomination of desolation: and the desolation shall continue even to the consummation, and to the end. 26 “A people with their leader”… The Romans under Titus.

27 “In the half of the week”… or, in the middle of the week, etc. Because Christ preached three years and a half: and then by his sacrifice upon the cross abolished all the sacrifices of the law.-- Ibid.

27 “The abomination of desolation”… Some understand this of the profanation of the temple by the crimes of the Jews, and by the bloody faction of the zealots. Others of the bringing in thither the ensigns and standard of the pagan Romans. Others, in fine, distinguish three different times of desolation: viz., that under Antiochus; that when the temple was destroyed by the Romans; and the last near the end of the world under Antichrist. To all which, as they suppose, this prophecy may have a relation.

Now go back and look at the NAB. Not even close. If you knew better, you would know Hahn’s host on Scripture matters has alluded to fact that NAB is not the best for orthodoxy. It tends to be watered down and liberal.
…

 

[spauline]

…

Compare DR on the Beast and the NAB:

“A beast”… This first beast with seven heads and ten horns, is probably the whole company of infidels, enemies and persecutors of the people of God, from the beginning to the end of the world. The seven heads are seven kings, that is, seven principal kingdoms or empires, which have exercised, or shall exercise, tyrannical power over the people of God; of these, five were then fallen, viz.: the Egyptian, Assyrian, Chaldean, Persian, and Grecian monarchies: one was present, viz., the empire of Rome: and the seventh and chiefest was to come, viz., the great Antichrist and his empire. The ten horns may be understood of ten lesser persecutors.

An Orthodox scholar, authoring a book based on ECF Traditions of the apocalypse, comments that St. Hypolytus also sees in the eight heads of the beast the possiblity of ages.

Look, man, you are the one who is arrogant and ignorant in this regard, not me. You skim footnotes on a liberally leaning translation of the Scriptures, and consider yourself an expert.

Again, find the thread: The Book of Revelation, step by step
by patrick467 or something like that.

The Fathers down through history have had a heck of a lot more to say about this than the NAB.

 

[spauline]

I’m not saying that I definitely am right, I know I am not the Church. What I’m saying is, first of all, the NAB only reflects ONE layer of meaning possible in Church Tradition. Additional layers the Church recognizes as possible (in their own respective rights) are idealism and historicism, which can also be spiritual.

Futurism is even recognized as possible.

IOW, the Church at least all four of these levels could all be legit in their own layer (multi-dimensionality):

Preterism
Futurism
Idealism
Historicism

The modern interpretation, preterism, is the most liberal. It can be fine, but what I’m saying is, if the Church is going to reveal the mystery of iniquity as cited from 2 Thess 2 in the CCC in the section on the second coming, more layers than merely the NAB will be necessary.

mainly becuase, if you read Ludwig Ott, in fundamentals of Catholic Dogma, you see the Church traditionally views the apocalypse as concerning God’s Plan of Salvation history for the entire human race, and if you understand the types of questions necessary to ponder this, you will conclude that the most sensible way to structure that history, based on Catholic thought, is ages ordered according to their respective spiritual conditions.

btw, if you wanna tear me apart doctrinally, go to my thread and start showing what an insane person I am:

Apocalypse 101: Preterism and Futurism basically useless

 

[beeliner]

I will have to get back in a few days.

Cop-out!

Seriously though, any Catholic who wishes to regard interpretations nearly half a millenium old as somehow more authoritative then those of modern scholarship is free to do so, so long as they are not heretical.

I will stick with the modernists. They have better sources at their disposal and are less likely to be influenced by folklore and superstition.

 

[Bill_Cherry]

Fundamentalism, being anti-intellectual at its core and therefore incapable of producing scholarship, will no doubt continue to claim that the descriptions in Revelation refer specifically to our own time, to our future, and to the nations of the modern world.

So much for the Ecumenical call of Vatican 2:blush:

1 Cor 18-20

or does this seem out of context…

 

[Lost_Wanderer]

So much for the Ecumenical call of Vatican 2:blush:

1 Cor 18-20

or does this seem out of context…

Umm… the online Bible I’m consulting only has 16 chapters for 1 Corinthians.

Couldn’t you just quote it here?