Why The Book of Revelation Was Written

[Mintaka]

Heh, I just went to that website too!

Okay, so it’s just “petalon.”

The word in Hebrew, which is used for “plate” but really means “blossoms” is “ṣîṣ”.

It’s the word used to describe the “blossoms” on Aaron’s rod, which pointed his line out as the priests, and which was placed in the Ark of the Covenant as a testimony to God’s will.

A similar miracle is traditionally associated with Joseph, who guarded Mary as the new Ark, and whose home was Jesus’ childhood home. (Because of Joseph and Mary, Christians also associate the blossoming rod with chastity or virginity.)

So if somebody was being literary, you could definitely say that John also “bore the blossom” by being Mary’s guardian and thus having the new Ark in his home, as well as by being a Christian bishop-priest. (His reputation for virginity and chastity would also be implied, most likely.)

 

[irenaeuslyons]

Steve, it’s Polycrates, not Polycarp.

“[T]o pin Polycarp [sic] saying that John the Apostle was a HIGH Priest is silly- there are probably translational or transcription issues to blame.”

Two things. Polycrates wrote that John was “a priest who wore the petalon.” That’s his claim. It might be ‘silly’, but that’s what Polycrates said. Nobody is saying we should accept his words as historically accurate.

Also, you can’t really just ascribe everything to “translational or transcription issues” unless you can back it up. (In other words: please explain why you think this passage from Polycrates suffers from said issues.) It’s true that the word petalon (literally ‘leaf’; cf. the English word ‘petal’) is open to a number of possible meanings, but if we’re talking in the context of the Jewish priesthood, it can only mean one thing: the golden plate on the high priest’s headgear with “Holiness to the LORD” engraved on it. Ergo, “a priest who wore the petalon” = high priest.

http://www.maranathamrc.com/Images/image058.jpg

I think the problem is that we’re not really talking about the same thing here. Let me sum up what I’ve said:

(1) It’s possible (not 100% certain) that the author of John’s gospel (or the sources of the author’s tradition) belonged to or had connections with Jerusalem priestly circles.
(2) Does that automatically mean the author of the gospel - let’s call him ‘John’ for convenience - was a priest, or at least, had connections with priests? Maybe, maybe not. We have no way of knowing the actual fact, because aside from this inference we really have no firm evidence for or against it.
(3) It’s true that Polycrates bishop of Ephesus claimed a John, “who was both a witness and a teacher, who reclined upon the bosom of the Lord” to be (high) priest, but you cannot really count it as proof that ‘John’ (i.e. the author of the gospel) was historically a priest. Polycrates’ quote has enough problems as it is to be a sure proof of that.

The problem is much of your post are speculations based upon an assumption. You take for granted that ‘John’ was historically a Jewish priest and construct what you said based on that assumption.

Well, John was a Jew, and a Christian, and a priest. So that could make him a Jewish priest I don’t think it was according the old Law, but rather the new Law given by Christ. I think John wore that gold on his forehead to show that he belonged to the new priesthood. It was either to mock them or imitate them. Whatever it was, it must have been metaphorical.

Priests were set apart, yet John was already deemed illiterate and common by the high priests themselves in Acts.

"Now when they saw the boldness of Peter and John, and perceived that they were uneducated, common men, they wondered; and they recognized that they had been with Jesus. "
Acts 4:13

The apostles borrowed from Jewish traditions in many areas. But I don’t think John was trying to continue the Jewish priesthood as if Jesus never did what he did.

 

[Mintaka]

I looked up Numbers 17:5-8 (or Numbers 17:something else, if they use Septuagint verse numbering), and it turns out that “sis” is the Hebrew, but “anthe” is the Greek. Of course, there were different Septuagint versions, and somebody being poetic could just be messing around with related imagery.

Also, it’s true that thanks to Scripture, a lot of early Christian burial imagery and writing about saints mentions wreaths, crowns, palm branches, etc.

So there are a lot of ways you could go with this.

 

[patrick457]

Priests were set apart, yet John was already deemed illiterate and common by the high priests themselves in Acts.

"Now when they saw the boldness of Peter and John, and perceived that they were uneducated, common men, they wondered; and they recognized that they had been with Jesus. "
Acts 4:13

This actually brings me back to what I said earlier. It is thought that Polycrates (or Ephesian Christians in general) might have gotten the idea of John being high priest from an earlier verse in this chapter (4:5-6): “On the next day their rulers and elders and scribes gathered together in Jerusalem, with Annas the high priest and Caiaphas and John and Alexander, and all who were of the high-priestly family.”

They saw a ‘John’ being referred to here, and, applying a form of exegesis on the text (which conflates different people with the same name into one person), exegetically interpreted/combined this ‘John’ who belonged to the high priestly family with John the apostle. (After all, does not John 18 say that the unnamed disciple was known to the high priest?) In other words, the tradition that John the apostle was high priest is not historical nor metaphorical, but exegetical. (This would also explain why Polycrates also conflated Philip the Evangelist from Acts with Philip the apostle.) Of course, this interpretation would be at odds with, even contradict, the general context of the passage, but let’s be honest: certain Jewish and early Christian forms of exegesis, such as this ‘combine people with the same name’ method, do not really care much about the context.

 

[irenaeuslyons]

This actually brings me back to what I said earlier. It is thought that Polycrates (or Ephesian Christians in general) might have gotten the idea of John being high priest from an earlier verse in this chapter (4:5-6): “On the next day their rulers and elders and scribes gathered together in Jerusalem, with Annas the high priest and Caiaphas and John and Alexander, and all who were of the high-priestly family.”

They saw a ‘John’ being referred to here, and, applying a form of exegesis on the text (which conflates different people with the same name into one person), exegetically interpreted/combined this ‘John’ who belonged to the high priestly family with John the apostle. (After all, does not John 18 say that the unnamed disciple was known to the high priest?) In other words, the tradition that John the apostle was high priest is not historical nor metaphorical, but exegetical. (This would also explain why Polycrates also conflated Philip the Evangelist from Acts with Philip the apostle.) Of course, this interpretation would be at odds with, even contradict, the general context of the passage, but let’s be honest: certain Jewish and early Christian forms of exegesis, such as this ‘combine people with the same name’ method, do not really care much about the context.

Thanks Patrick, one other thing came to mind. John was the younger brother of James. I think(?) the priesthood under the Law could only go to the firstborn in a priestly family. I could be wrong on that

Regarding Act4:5-6
I think the connections between John and the High Priests look strong in English because word order has strong implications in English. Does Koine Greek word order have implications other than prominence? Do the “and” clauses actually say something about the other “and” clauses that are closest to them? I would think they are independent, but I don’t know for sure.

v5-6
“their princes(rulers)”
“and ancients”
“and scribes,”

“were gathered together in Jerusalem”

“And Annas the high priest,
and Caiphas,
and John,
and Alexander,
and as many as were of the kindred of the high priest.”

Each list above looks ordered by prominence and not necessarily vocation.

Perhaps they are juxtaposing the first list with the second list. i.e. Princes/Ancients with Annas/Caiaphas, and Scribes with the rest.

 

[steve53]

Josephus documents the succession of High Priests with great care, though there is some confusion on the years of tenure of Annias in the A.D. 50’s.

“John” is not listed as a High Priest.

FWIW John was a common name in those times and in that area.

 

[patrick457]

Josephus documents the succession of High Priests with great care, though there is some confusion on the years of tenure of Annias in the A.D. 50’s.

“John” is not listed as a High Priest.

FWIW John was a common name in those times and in that area.

The ‘other’, longer version of Acts - the so-called Western version of Acts - has “Jonathan” in place of “John,” which Josephus-wise has more verisimilitude (a Jonathan did become high priest around AD 44).

Thanks Patrick, one other thing came to mind. John was the younger brother of James. I think(?) the priesthood under the Law could only go to the firstborn in a priestly family. I could be wrong on that

Well, the high priesthood was longer hereditary; it had not been since the time of Herod the Great. Priests were appointed by whoever is in power into position. (Though you might say that it was ‘hereditary’ in the sense that most high priests since the time of Herod tend to be chosen from one of four families: the houses of Boethus, Phiabi, Ananus, and Camithus.)

I think the connections between John and the High Priests look strong in English because word order has strong implications in English. Does Koine Greek word order have implications other than prominence? Do the “and” clauses actually say something about the other “and” clauses that are closest to them? I would think they are independent, but I don’t know for sure.

First, I’d caution about this approach. Yes, things are lost in translation, but it’s not necessarily always the case that the ‘back to the Greek’ approach that some folks do will yield a better understanding of the text. In other words, it’s easy to miss the forest for the trees.

In any case, the possible origin of Polycrates’ claim about John is really simple. It’s just:

A ‘John’ appears in Acts 4:6 = One of the apostles is named John = Since they share the same name, let’s exegetically combine them together into a single person

It’s no different from the exegetical conflation of the various Philips (Philip the apostle, Philip the Evangelist) and Zechariahs (Zechariah father of John the Baptist, Zechariah son of Barachiah) and Marys (Mary Magdalene, Mary of Bethany, Mary of Clopas, Mary mother of John Mark, Mary the mother of James and Joseph/Joses, the Mary of Romans 16:6, etc.) and Jameses (James son of Zebedee, James son of Alphaeus, ‘James the Younger/Less’, James brother of Jesus) in the NT.

 

[patrick457]

To get us back on topic:

When he opened the third seal, I heard the mthird living creature say, “Come!” And I looked, and behold, a black horse! And its rider had a pair of scales in his hand. And I heard what seemed to be a voice in the midst of the four living creatures, saying, “A quart of wheat for a denarius, and three quarts of barley for a denarius, and do not harm the oil and wine!” (Revelation 6:5-6)

The wine trade was more profitable than cereal crops like wheat or barley, so Roman owners of provincial estates tended to cultivate vineyards instead grain fields. The end result is, of course, a surplus of wine but a shortage in grain. Local landowners were more interested in producing crops that brought in a better financial yield per arable acre. Market demands made the production of oil and wine far more attractive, often leading to scarcity in the essential cereal crops in the provinces. Inflation was already heavy at the end of the 1st century: famine, however, always drove inflation out of control. So the funny thing is, the prices of staples like wheat or barley (the ‘lower-quality’ grain) are grossly inflated, while production of oil and wine proceed unabated.

In around AD 92, the Emperor Domitian (reigned AD 81-96) tried to pass an Empire-wide ‘vine edict’ restricting vine production in places like Asia, banning the planting of any new vineyards and ordering half the vineyards in Asia and other provinces to be uprooted. A severe famine had just hit the Empire, and Domitian was seeking to increase the production of grain by eliminating mediocre vines occupying land that could be plowed and was better suited for cereal crops than wine-growing.

Now Asia Minor as a whole was really a place which was so dedicated to the production of wine and olive oil that that its own cities often needed to import grain from Egypt or the Black Sea, at added expense (much of the grain produced in the Empire was exported to Rome). Grain was really the mainstay of maritime trade in those days, with 2000 to 3000 grain ships travelling from Sicily, Africa and the Black Sea region to Rome every year. So while owners and shippers profited - in fact, while only owners and shippers made money out of it - most people in Asia often had to pay higher prices for their food. Not just them: even the people in the provinces where this grain was produced also often paid high prices for it, and in times of shortage went without. Really, the only one who purchased grain cheaply in those days was Rome (around 150,000-200,000 families in the city received a daily, free grain supply) - with the money supplied, in part, from the tribute of client states.

Back to Domitian. As you can guess, his attempts proved unsuccessful. After all, the provinces were making money in oil and wine production, and Domitian comes and ruins all that. Ultimately, the edict was simply ignored by the provinces. In Gaul (modern France) particularly local vine-growers were not too happy with the imperial command, and legions had to be sent in order to enforce obedience. (Thankfully, the vineyards in Bordeaux did not suffer too much.) Despite the reluctance to enforce the edict, that doesn’t mean that it did not have any actual effect: Domitian’s edict is believed to have largely impacted the growth of the wine industries in Spain and Gaul. Plus, it stayed on the books for years - although not strictly enforced - until the emperor Probus (reigned 276-282) finally repealed the measure two centuries later in AD 280. But the fact that the measure was unpopular was really a good thing: had it been strictly enforced, places like Philadelphia (cf. Revelation 3:7-13) - dependent on wine production - would have been particularly hard hit.

Supposing that Revelation was written during Domitian’s reign, the order to not damage the oil or the wine would have resonated to John’s audiences in light of the vine edict. You have Domitian trying to damage viniculture in Asia Minor in light of the recent famine, and what does the voice say? “Do not damage the oil or the wine.”

 

[patrick457]

(Continued)

Just a little note about the wheat and barley. Many of us have white (wheat) bread on our tables today, but up to the 19th century in fact only the rich ate white wheat bread made of refined flour on a regular basis. The poor who could only buy little to no wheat usually resorted to cheaper grains like barley or rye. Unlike today, these were not considered ‘health foods’; they were ‘inferior’ cereals better used as animal feed. In fact, the 3rd century BC poet/comedian Diphilus declared in praise of white bread that “bread made of wheat, as compared with that made of barley, is more nourishing, more digestible, and in every way superior. In order of merit, the bread made from refined [thoroughly sieved] flour comes first, after that bread from ordinary wheat, and then the unbolted, made of flour that has not been sifted.”

“A quart (choinix) of wheat for a denarius, and three quarts of barley for a denarius.”

The price of grain mentioned here costs at least five times and as much as fifteen times what it might in better conditions. (In Sicily for example, wheat only cost eleven to sixteen times less than the price portrayed in John’s vision.) A quart was the average daily consumption, the daily ration of a man. In other words, you’ll have to spend all of your daily wage to buy wheat flour enough to feed yourself - never mind your family - for one day. Barley might feed three people, but then again ancient households tended to be larger than that (no nuclear families back then). Plus, there’s the stigma of it as mentioned of being a ‘poor man’s grain’ and animal fodder. And most importantly that doesn’t take into account taxes and other expenses on which one might also spend that single denarius on.