"Lord of lords" and "King of kings" as Hebraic Superlatives

 Introduction

This article delves briefly into the meaning of the expression "Lord of lords" as used in Scripture and, in particular, draws out the Christological implications of its application to Christ in two passages (Rev. 17:14; 19:16).

The New Testament books were all composed in Greek. However, because nearly all of their authors were Jews and they contain frequent quotations and echoes from the Hebrew Scriptures, an understanding of Hebrew can sometimes shed light on the meaning of New Testament expressions. The argument of this article is that "Lord of lords" is a Hebraism and should be understood as a superlative with a sense equivalent to "greatest Lord" or "supreme Lord." Before turning to the New Testament, we need some background on the construct chain superlative in biblical Hebrew.

Construct Chain Superlatives in the Hebrew Bible

Coulter H. George, Professor of Classics at the University of Virginia, explains an important difference between modern English and biblical Hebrew:

For, in contrast to English, where adjectives are inflected for three different degrees—positive (old), comparative (older), superlative (oldest)—Hebrew adjectives do not have this option, so the comparative or, as here, superlative has to be expressed differently, with the phrase 'X of Xs' being a favored way of getting across the idea 'the most X.' But since this is a structure that requires a plural and a construct chain, and therefore works better with nouns, we can see part of what it means for Hebrew to be a language that lets nouns do a little more work relative to adjectives than would be the case in English.¹

Thus, a singular noun in construct state followed by the same noun in the plural is one way of expressing a superlative in biblical Hebrew.² Bruce K. Waltke and M. O'Connor note that the construction need not to repeat the same noun but may consist of two similar nouns.³

Let us look at a few examples from the Hebrew Bible.⁴ In Noah's curse on Canaan in Genesis 9:25, he declares that Canaan will be a "slave of slaves" (עבד עבדים) to his brothers. "Slave of slaves" is a literal ("formally equivalent") translation of the Hebrew, but a dynamically equivalent translation, one that conveys the sense, would be "lowest of slaves" (NRSV).⁵ 

The Torah's instructions for the tabernacle in Exodus 26:33-34 distinguish an area designated "the holy" (הקדש) from an area designated the "holy of holies" (קדש הקדשים). The latter place could only be accessed by the high priest, and even then only once per year, on the Day of Atonement. "Holy of holies" here conveys the sense, "most holy" (NRSV).

In Qoheleth [Ecclesiastes] 1:2, Qoheleth famously declares, "Vanity of vanities!" (הבל הבלים). Again, a dynamically equivalent translation would be, "Absolutely futile" (NET) or "Utter vanity!" Another book traditionally attributed to Solomon uses a construct chain superlative in its title: "The Song of Songs" (שיר השירים, Song of Solomon 1:1). The sense here is, "the greatest song," "the most wonderful song."⁶

In Isaiah 34:10, an oracle against Edom foretells that no one will pass through it for "perpetuity of perpetuities" (לנצח נצחים). The sense is "forever and ever," "for all eternity." A similar construction occurs in Daniel 7:18 (composed in Aramaic), where Daniel is told that the holy ones of the Most High would possess the kingdom for "perpetuity of perpetuities" (עלם עלמיא). The Old Greek version of Daniel renders this expression into Greek as eōs tou aiōnos tōn aiōnōn ("until the age of ages"), and a nearly identical phrase occurs in Greek Daniel 3:90. This construct chain superlative may therefore have influenced the phrase eis tous aiōnas tōn aiōnōn ("to the ages of ages"), which occurs frequently in the Greek New Testament (especially in the Book of Revelation) with the sense, "forever and ever."⁷

There are other examples,⁸ but our main interest lies in construct chain superlatives that are used of God. Certain human emperors such as Artaxerxes and Nebuchadnezzar are referred to (by themselves, and even by God) as "king of kings" (מלך מלכיא in Ezra 7:12, Dan. 2:37 Aramaic; מלך מלכים in Ezek. 26:7). Recognised as a construct chain superlative, this title can be dynamically translated, "greatest king" or "supreme king." In similar fashion, the biblical writers refer to Yahweh himself as אל(הי) אלהים ("God of gods", Deut. 10:17; Josh. 22:22; Ps. 50:1; 84:8; 136:2; Dan. 2:47)⁹ and אדני האדנים ("Lord of lords," Deut. 10:17; Ps. 136:3).¹⁰ Daniel is informed via a vision of a wicked future king who would rise against the שר שרים ("Prince of princes," Dan. 8:25); scholars debate whether this title refers to God himself or to Michael.¹¹ The Hebrew Bible thus uses superlative constructions to describe Yahweh as "the greatest God" and "the supreme Lord."¹² The title "king of kings" is also applied to God in Second Temple Jewish literature, though not in the Hebrew Bible itself.¹³ Notably, in the Old Greek version of Daniel, Nebuchadnezzar qualifies his use of "king of kings" as a self-reference by acknowledging (after his seven-year humiliation) that it is the Most High, "God of gods and Lord of lords and Lord of kings," who has established him on his throne.

To summarise, then, the Hebrew Bible can refer to powerful human rulers as "king of kings," and (possibly) to an archangel as "prince of princes," but the titles "God of gods" and "Lord of lords" are reserved exclusively for Yahweh. All of these titles should be understood as superlatives, i.e. "supreme God," "supreme Lord," "supreme king," etc. Subsequent Jewish literature increasingly uses "King of kings" for God, applying the title to human rulers only in a qualified manner.

King of kings and Lord of lords in the New Testament

With this background in hand, we can turn to the New Testament. The expression "God of gods" does not occur, but "Lord of lords" and "King of kings" occur thrice each, always together (1 Tim. 6:15; Rev. 17:14; 19:16). In the first instance, the referent is God:

I charge you 14 to keep the commandment without spot or blame until the manifestation of our Lord Jesus Christ, 15 which he will bring about at the right time—he who is the blessed and only Sovereign, the King of kings and Lord of lords. 16 It is he alone who has immortality and dwells in unapproachable light, whom no one has ever seen or can see; to him be honor and eternal dominion. (1 Tim. 6:14-16 NRSV)

This passage is plainly emphasising God's exclusive divine status: note the repeated use of the adjective monos ("only"; "alone"). We should understand the author to be using the titles "King of kings" (ho basileus tōn basileuontōn) and "Lord of lords" (kyrios tōn kurieuontōn) as Hebraic superlatives; hence "supreme King" and "supreme Lord." These titles emphatically convey God's unique divine status and power.

Within the wider context of the Hebrew Bible, Second Temple literature and this text from 1 Timothy, it is therefore remarkable to find that in the Book of Revelation, the Jewish Christian author uses the titles "Lord of lords" and "King of kings" for Christ. In Revelation 17, John sees a vision that has obvious resonances with Daniel (e.g., evil kings represented by horns on a beast). An angel explains part of the vision to John, stating that these kings "will make war on the Lamb, and the Lamb will conquer them, for he is Lord of lords (kyrios kyriōn) and King of kings (basileus basileōn) ." In view of the Danielic connections, it is impossible not to see here an allusion to the "God of gods and Lord of kings" of Daniel 2:47, as well as to occurrences of the exact title "Lord of lords" in Deuteronomy 10:17 and Psalm 136:3.¹⁴ The author of Revelation therefore deliberately assigns a divine title to the Lamb, with meaning equivalent to "the Supreme Lord and King." Not content to do so once, the titles are repeated in Revelation 19:16, as the climax of a fearsome Christological vision.¹⁵

Christological Implications

What are the Christological implications of Jesus Christ being designated as "the supreme Lord and King," using a title ("Lord of lords") that is reserved exclusively for God in the Hebrew Bible? Two implications will be drawn out here: one concerning the Christological significance of the title kyrios and the other concerning the idea of Christ's supremacy.

Firstly, the application of this title to Jesus gives the lie to those who—to preserve a "low" Christology (or a confessional commitment to unitarianism)—downplay the Christological significance of the title kyrios. Such interpreters insist that, as used of Jesus Christ in the New Testament, kyrios designates master or ruler in an earthly sense.¹⁶ They emphasise that "God" (theos) is very rarely used of Christ in the New Testament, but overlook that "Lord" (kyrios)—one of the most common New Testament titles for Jesus—is just as lofty a title. Not only is kyrios the usual Greek translation of the Hebrew divine title אדני (which unitarians acknowledge is used only for God), but it is also the word usually used in the Septuagint to render the divine Name itself, יהוה, into Greek! If Christ, then, can be described as "the supreme Lord," can this be anything other than a divine claim? (This is not to deny, of course, that kyrios can be used in a mundane sense like "sir," "lord," "master," and is sometimes used of Jesus in this sense in the Gospels. But it is precisely texts like Revelation 17:14 and 19:16 that show conclusively that a much loftier sense is in view.)

It appears to this writer that, rather than the New Testament writers shying away from calling Christ theos and opting for what they saw as an inferior title, kyrios, they witness to the emergence of a pattern whereby the Father is typically designated theos and the Son kyrios (with some exceptions on both counts), these both being divine titles.¹⁷ The most striking occurrence of this pattern occurs in 1 Corinthians 8:6, where Paul quotes a creedal tradition that—according to the majority of New Testament scholars—splits the language of the Shema` (Deut. 6:4) between "one God, the Father" and "one Lord, Jesus Christ."¹⁸ It is remarkable that this text (like Ephesians 4:4-6) can profess belief in "one Lord" alongside "one God," without any qualification in light of the fact that Second Temple Judaism professed belief that God is the one Lord.¹⁹

Secondly, let us move beyond titles and reflect on what "supreme Lord and King" conveys conceptually about Christ's majesty and power. I am reminded of a post from several years ago on a unitarian apologetics Facebook page that commented on a 6th-century Byzantine depiction of Jesus as "Christ Pantokrator." The writer notes, "'Pantoraktor' [sic] is the Greek word for 'almighty.' Note that Scripture never refers to Jesus in this way; it is a title reserved exclusively for God." He goes on to observe that, in the painting, Christ looks beyond and away from the viewer, which "reflects the imperial aloofness with which Jesus was now associated. He is no longer a man: he is a god-emperor, like the original Caesars."

There are several problems with this argument. It presupposes a false dilemma, as though Jesus can either be human shepherd or divine emperor but not both, and that an artist who depicts him as one denies the other. If we take scenes from the New Testament, would we expect an artist painting the Transfiguration or the Ascension—or Jesus as envisioned in Revelation 1:12-15, for that matter—to depict him as making relatable eye contact with the viewer? A second problem with the argument is that it dwells too much on the title Pantokrator. While it is true that pantokratōr ("almighty"; "omnipotent") is not used of Christ in the New Testament, it is not a common word there (occurring only ten times, and in two books). Further undermining this argument from silence is the observation that the concept conveyed by pantokratōr is applied to Christ. Pantokratōr is a compound formed from pas ("all") and kratos ("might"; "power"; "sovereignty"). The operative question, therefore, is whether the New Testament ascribes universal power to Jesus. In the title "supreme Lord and King," we already have our answer. Of course, the evidence goes far beyond this. Since nine of the ten NT occurrences of pantokratōr for God are in Revelation, it is significant that this book twice ascribes kratos ("might") to the exalted Christ.²⁰ Moreover, if we consider the occurrences of pantokratōr in Revelation, it is unlikely that the word is intended to emphasise God's power as distinct from Christ's.²¹ Meanwhile, other New Testament writings describe the exalted Christ as having been given "All authority in heaven and on earth" (Matt. 28:18), as "Lord of all" (Acts 10:36), as having "power that enables him...to bring all things into subjection to himself" (Phil. 3:21), as "before all things" (Col. 1:17), and as sustaining "all things by his powerful word" (Heb. 1:3). The question arises: what power is lacking in Christ, exactly, that he must be not be called Pantokratōr?²²

Conclusion

In conclusion, then, with the Christological title "Lord of lords and King of kings" properly understood as designating Jesus the supreme Lord and King, we can recognise that the Book of Revelation offers a high Christology, in which Christ shares in the exclusive prerogatives of deity, such as absolute sovereignty over the cosmos. While this title is unparalleled in other New Testament texts, it is congruent with the high Christology that emerges from the letters of Paul and the letter to the Hebrews.

• 1 Coulter H. George, How Dead Languages Work [Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2020], 211.
• 2 This is by no means the only way that superlatives are expressed in biblical Hebrew. For a broader discussion, see D. Winton Thomas, "A Consideration of Some Unusual Ways of Expressing the Superlative in Hebrew," Vetus Testamentum 3 (1953): 209-24.
• 3 Bruce K. Waltke and M. O'Connor, An Introduction to Biblical Hebrew Syntax (Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 1990), 267.
• 4 Most of these are drawn from Waltke and O'Connor, Introduction to Biblical Hebrew Syntax, 267.
• 5 The Septuagint translator has also understood the expression to be idiomatic and has rendered it with pais oiketēs ("house slave"), which perhaps represents the lowest rank among slaves.
• 6 The New Living Translation conveys the superlative sense with a gloss: "This is Solomon’s song of songs, more wonderful than any other."
• 7 E.g., Gal. 1:5; Eph. 3:21; Phil. 4:20; 1 Tim. 1:17; 2 Tim. 4:18; Heb. 13:21; 1 Pet. 4:11; Rev. 1:6; 1:18; 4:9-10; 5:13; 7:12; 10:6; 11:15; 15:7; 19:3; 20:10; 22:5. Revelation 14:11 uses the anarthrous construction aiōnas aiōnōn. That this verse departs from the ordinary usage in Revelation is interesting, since Revelation 14:11 alludes to Isaiah 34:10, where a construct chain superlative occurs. The phrase eis tous aiōnas tōn aiōnōn is attested once in the Greek Old Testament, in Psalm 83:5. However, Psalm 84:5 MT does not have a construct chain superlative. The concept of a future eternity is nearly absent from the Hebrew Bible.
• 8 Jeremiah 3:19 is an interesting case. The KJV renders, "How shall I put thee among the children, and give thee a pleasant land, a goodly heritage of the hosts of nations?" It follows the MT, which has צבי צבאות, literally, "beauty of hosts" of nations. However, many scholars argue that this should be emended to צבי צבות, literally "beauty of beauties." R. Abma states, "The word צבאות in the apposition צבי צבאות גוים is, in spite of the א, to be understood as a plural of the noun צבי ('beauty') rather than of the noun צבא ('host'). This is the only case that the noun צבי is found in the plural, so that this plural form may be an unconscious adjustment to the common plural צבאות (cf. the expression 'Yhwh of hosts'). The construction of two identical nouns with the second in the plural expresses a 'superlative idea'... which explains the translation 'an inheritance most beauteous among the nations." (Bonds of love: Methodic Studies of Prophetic Texts with Marriage Imagery (Isaiah 50:1-3 and 54:1-10, Hosea 1-3, Jeremiah 2-3) [Assen: Van Gorcum, 1999],  231). Hence, the NRSV has, "the most beautiful heritage of all the nations." In Jeremiah 6:28, Yahweh describes his people as סרי סוררים (literally, "rebels of rebels"). A dynamically equivalent translation would be, "the most stubborn of rebels" (NET).
• 9 Daniel 2:47 (composed in Aramaic) reads אלה אלהין. The Old Greek version of Daniel adds several further references to God as the "God of gods" ([ὁ θεὸς τῶν θεῶν] in 3:90, 4:30a, 4:30c, 4:34, and 11:36.
• 10 The nearly equivalent expression מרא מלכין ("Lord of kings") occurs in the Aramaic of Daniel 2:47, while the Old Greek version of Daniel 4:34 refers to the Most High as "God of gods and Lord of lords and Lord of kings."
• 11 See Amy C. Merrill Willis, "Heavenly Bodies: God and the Body in the Visions of Daniel," in S. Tamar Kamionkowski and Wonil Kim (eds.), Bodies, Embodiment, and Theology of the Hebrew Bible (London: T&T Clark, 2010), 29-30 n. 63.
• 12 The expression "the greatest God" (like its literal rendering, "God of gods") might seem to undermine monotheism, since it implies the existence of other gods. However, it is clear that monotheism is a concept that develops through the course of biblical revelation. In earlier strata of biblical literature one finds Israel called to monolatry (exclusive worship of God), who is understood as the highest member of a council of divine beings. The status of these other "gods" is gradually degraded until they are reduced to sub-divine beings like angels or demons.
• 13 E.g., as (ὁ) βασιλεὺς (τῶν) βασιλέων in 2 Maccabees 13:4, 3 Maccabees 5:35.
• 14 The Septuagint of both of these passages has the title in the form (ho) kyrios (tōn) kyriōn.
• 15 That the one seen in this vision is Christ is evident not only from his wearing a robe dipped in blood, and the allusion to Psalm 2:9 ("he will rule them with a rod of iron"), but also from the correspondences with the vision in Revelation 1:12-18, where one who likewise has eyes like a flame of fire and a sharp sword coming from his mouth identifies himself to John as the one who lives and had been dead.
• 16 See, for instance, my recent review of a unitarian polemical work, Review of and Response to The Doctrine of the Trinity: Christianity's Self-Inflicted Wound, especially pp. 9-10, 25-27.
• 17 The Father is more commonly called kyrios than the Son theos, but this is to be expected due to (a) it being the established practice in Hellenistic Judaism to use kyrios for God, and (b) the application to the Father of biblical quotations containing the word kyrios.
• 18 See further discussion of this text on pp. 16-18 of my recent Review and Response.
• 19 See Deuteronomy 6:4 and Zechariah 14:9 (both MT and LXX). Note also the Old Greek version of Daniel 3:17, where Daniel's three friends testify, "there is one God who is in heaven, our one Lord, whom we fear, who is able to deliver us from the furnace of fire" (New English Translation of the Septuagint).
• 20 "To him who loves us and freed us from our sins by his blood, and made us to be a kingdom, priests serving his God and Father, to him be glory and dominion (kratos) forever and ever. Amen." (Rev. 1:6 NRSV). A hymn in the throne vision of chapter 5 ascribes "blessing and honour and glory and might (kratos) forever and ever" "to the one seated on the throne and to the Lamb" (5:13). In 1 Peter 4:11 and 5:11, two doxologies ascribe kratos to Christ and to God, respectively.
• 21 For instance, in the first instance (Rev. 1:8), the Lord God introduces himself as "the Alpha and Omega...the one who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty." "Alpha and Omega" (or its semantic equivalent, "first and last," drawn from deutero-Isaiah) are applied repeatedly to Christ in this book (1:17-18; 2:8; 22:13). In another instance, heavenly saints sing to "Lord God Almighty...king of the nations," in what is described as "the song of Moses...and the song of the Lamb." Since Revelation contains other songs sung about the Lamb but none sung by the Lamb, some scholars take the second genitive as objective: "the song about the Lamb" (see David E. Aune, Revelation 6-16 [Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1998], 872-73; Keith T. Marriner, Following the Lamb: The Theme of Discipleship in the Book of Revelation [Eugene: Wipf & Stock, 2016], 174 n. 447). If so, the Lamb is at least indirectly included in the title pantokratōr. Moreover, God's "almighty" status is characterised in terms of his being "king of the nations," which is equivalent to what the book says elsewhere about Jesus, who is "ruler of the kings of the earth" (Rev. 1:5). In Revelation 19:15, it is Christ who treads out in the wine press the wrath of God Almighty. In Revelation 21:22, the new Jerusalem has the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb jointly as its temple.
• 22 Note that the Church Fathers applied the title Pantokratōr to Jesus long before the famous sixth-century painting. According to Lampe's Patristic Greek Lexicon, the term is applied to the Son or the Logos already by second- and third-century writers like Clement of Alexandria, Origen, and Hippolytus of Rome (G.W.H. Lampe, Patristic Greek Lexicon [Oxford: Clarendon, 1961], 1005.

A Tale of Two Cities: The Bride and the Whore in the Book of Revelation

The Apocalypse of John contains some of the most striking feminine imagery in the Bible and indeed in all of ancient literature. Two female figures, in particular, stand out as dualistic counterparts: the Bride and the Whore. This article explores these two figures against their biblical and early Christian background, with a view to correctly interpreting them.

The Bride

On the one hand, we have "the Bride, the wife of the Lamb." This woman appears in the latter visions of the book (chs. 19 and 20-21), where the bridal imagery is part of a broader picture of the consummation of all things as the Lamb's marriage feast. She is also identified as a city, "the holy city, new Jerusalem" (21:2, 9-10).1 The people of God have already been depicted as a woman in Revelation 12, using imagery that draws heavily on Genesis 3 ("the seed of the woman"). The metaphor of the Church as the betrothed or the bride of Christ is found elsewhere in the New Testament, in the "great mystery" expounded in Ephesians 5:22-32 (cf. 2 Corinthians 11:2). Such imagery is undoubtedly rooted in the language of the Hebrew prophets, who depict Yahweh as a bridegroom or husband and Israel as his bride or wife.2 The New Testament's recasting of Jesus in the role of bridegroom, possibly based on Jesus' own words,3 has profound Christological implications, but our focus in this article is on the bride. Besides using feminine imagery for Israel as a whole, the Hebrew Bible also uses feminine imagery for cities. In Ezekiel 16 and 23, for instance, the cities of Jerusalem, Samaria, and Sodom are depicted as sisters whose misdeeds bring shame on their family.4 The holy city of Jerusalem is frequently referred to in the prophets as the "daughter of Zion" or "daughter of Jerusalem,"5 and this name for the city is echoed in the Gospels (Matthew 21:5; John 12:15). Meanwhile, the identification of the Church with a transcendent Jerusalem is also found elsewhere in the New Testament.6 Thus, when the author of Revelation depicted the Church both as a woman and as a transcendent city, he built on rich biblical foundations, and was not the only New Testament writer to use such imagery.

The Whore

The other woman in the Apocalypse is the "Great Whore," who is described in a lurid vision in Revelation 17:1-6. A whore or prostitute is of course a radically different image from a bride. The Bride is clothed in "fine linen, bright and pure," symbolising "the righteous deeds of the saints" (Rev. 19:8), the Whore also wears "fine linen," but of a different colour, "purple and scarlet," which undoubtedly correspond to her "abominations and impurities" (Rev. 17:4), her violence and sensuous luxury. The Whore holds in her hand a "golden cup" full of abominations. While Revelation does not explicitly associate the Bride with a cup, the Eucharistic connotations of the "marriage supper of the Lamb" for which the Bride has prepared herself are obvious.7 Furthermore, the Whore, like the Bride, is identified with a city, namely "Babylon," "the great city that has dominion over the kings of the earth"(Rev. 17:5, 18). Earlier in the book, "the great city" is said to have "the symbolic names 'Sodom' and 'Egypt'" and is identified with the place "where their Lord was crucified," i.e. Jerusalem (Rev. 11:8). The Whore Babylon is mentioned briefly in Rev. 14:8 and 16:19, described in lurid detail in chapter 17, and is the subject of a judgment woe in chapter 18. As with the Bride, much of the language used for the Whore draws on the biblical prophets. The antithesis between Jerusalem and Babylon is exemplified by the imprecations of Psalm 137. The exact name "Babylon the Great" (Greek: Babulōn hē megalē) used in Revelation 17:5 is taken verbatim from Nebuchadnezzar's boast in Daniel 4:30 LXX. The phrase "the/this great city" in the prophets is used of Nineveh (Jonah 3:2-3) and of ungodly Jerusalem (Jeremiah 22:8). The phrase "Fallen, fallen is Babylon!" (Revelation 14:8; 18:2) is taken from Isaiah 21:9. Much of the imagery used of the Whore in Revelation 17-18 is borrowed from oracles against Babylon in Isaiah 13-14 and Jeremiah 25 and 50-51. The Hebrew Bible never explicitly calls Babylon a whore or prostitute, but the oracle of Isaiah 47 implicitly does. There, the "virgin daughter of Babylon," "daughter of the Chaldeans," is told, "Your nakedness shall be uncovered, and your disgrace shall be seen...you shall no more be called the mistress of the kingdoms" (Isa. 47:3-5). This same oracle accuses Babylon of "sorceries" (Isa. 47:9, 12), a charge that is leveled at the Whore in Revelation 18:23. The metaphor of a prostitute is applied explicitly to Nineveh in Nahum 3:4-78 and to Tyre in Isaiah 23:16-18.9 Israel and Judah, Samaria and Jerusalem are also frequently labelled as a whore in the Hebrew prophets.10 The Bride in Revelation is an aggregation of biblical prophetic language about the people of God and the holy city Jerusalem, while the Whore in Revelation is an aggregation of biblical prophetic language about various ungodly nations and cities, both Gentile and Israelite. The Whore is thus a composite figure,11 which militates against interpreting her as corresponding to any one historical city or entity.

The Bride and the Whore as an instance of the Two Cities Motif

Although Revelation never mentions the Bride and the Whore together, there is clearly an implicit comparison between the two, an apocalyptic subplot that we might call, in Dickensian fashion, "a tale of two cities." These two entities share much in common: they are both women with symbolic apparel and cities with symbolic names. The Whore is the Bride's evil antithesis, her ugly stepsister. The Bride is the wife of the Lamb, the singular King of Kings who receives authority from God (Rev. 2:27), who loves the Bride and ransomed her with his blood (Rev. 5:9). The Whore sits astride a Beast (who receives authority from the Dragon, Satan; Rev. 13:2-4) whose many heads and horns represent numerous kings. She fornicates with these kings and dominates them, but they and the Beast hate her and make her desolate (Rev. 17:2, 16, 18).

This ecclesiological antithesis between two women or two cities is not unique to Revelation in early Christian literature. It is found in Paul's allegorical interpretation of Sarah and Hagar in Galatians 4:22-31, where the apostle contrasts "the present Jerusalem" who is "in slavery with her children" with "the Jerusalem above" who "is free, and...is our mother." The two Jerusalems recur in the Letter to the Hebrews, where the author describes "the city that has foundations, whose designer and builder is God...a better country, that is, a heavenly one" (Hebrews 11:10, 16). The readers are told that they have "come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem" (12:22). Subsequently, referring to the earthly Jerusalem (specifically "outside the gate" where Jesus suffered), he emphasises, "For here we have no lasting city, but we seek the city that is to come" (13:14). This "two cities" contrast appears again in The Shepherd of Hermas, a second-century apocalypse that is surely relevant to the interpretation of Revelation inasmuch as it is "the other major work of early Christian prophecy which has survived."12 The Similitudes or Parables portion of the book contains the following passage:

1 He said to me, 'You know that you slaves of God are living in a foreign land. For your own city is a long way from this one. If then,' he said, 'you know your own city, where you are about to live, why are you preparing fields, expensive furnishings, buildings, and pointless rooms for yourselves here? 2 Anyone who prepares these things in this city, therefore, cannot return to his own city. 3. You foolish, double-minded, and miserable person! do you now understand that all these things belong to another and are under someone else's control? For the ruler of this city will say, 'I do not want you living in my city; leave it, because you are not living by my laws.' 4. And so, you who have fields and houses and many other possessions—when he casts you out, what will you do with your field and house and whatever else you have prepared for yourself? For the ruler of this country rightly says to you, 'Either live by my laws or leave my country.' 5. And so what will you do, you who have a law from your own city? Will you completely renounce your own law for the sake of your fields and whatever else you own, and follow the law of the city you are in now? Take care, because renouncing your law may be against your own interests. For if you want to return to your own city, you will not be welcomed, because you have renounced its law; and you will be shut out of it. 6. And so take care. Since you are living in a foreign land, fix nothing up for yourself except what is absolutely necessary; and be ready, so that when the master of this city wants to banish you for not adhering to his law, you can leave his city and go to your own, and live according to your own law gladly, suffering no mistreatment. 7. Take care, then, you who are enslaved to the Lord and have him in your heart. Do the works of God, remembering his commandments and the promises he made; and trust in him, because he will do these things, if his commandments are guarded. 8. Instead of fields, then, purchase souls that have been afflicted, insofar as you can, and take care of widows and orphans and do not neglect them; spend your wealth and all your furnishings for such fields and houses as you have received from God. 9. For this is why the Master made you rich, that you may carry out these ministries for him. It is much better to purchase the fields, goods, and houses you find in your own city when you return to it...' (Hermas, Similitudes 1.1-9)13

The parallels between this parable and the New Testament texts we have mentioned are impressive. Hermas's two cities correspond to two laws, just as Paul's two Jerusalems correspond to two covenants (Gal. 4:24-26). Hermas emphasises detachment from the goods of the present city in favour of the goods of the future city, just as Hebrews does (11:9-16; 13:12-14). Hermas teaches that failure to obey God's commandments will result in exclusion from the future city, just as Revelation does (21:27; 22:14-15). Also, Hermas notes that the respective cities have rulers (God and the Devil),14 just as Revelation identifies one city as that of God and the Lamb, and the other as that of the Beast (who is empowered by the Dragon, i.e. the Devil).

Noting that both Hebrews and Hermas use "city" interchangeably with "country," and contrast the two cities temporally as present and future, we may be justified in linking the "two cities" motif with the "two worlds" or "two ages" motif that is a prominent feature of Second Temple Jewish and early Christian literature.15

The foregoing parallels represent, in this writer's view, compelling evidence that the Bride and the Whore in Revelation correspond to the two cities motif found elsewhere in early Christian literature, which basically contrasts the moral, spiritual, and economic life of those who belong to God (the Church) and those who do not, together with the conflict between the two communities and their diverging eternal destinies.

Interpreting the Bride and the Whore in Revelation

The Bride is the easier symbol to interpret, both in the original literary-historical context and for today: the Bride is the Church who, speaking together with the Spirit, ever awaits Jesus' promised coming (Rev. 22:17). The majority of biblical scholars identify the Whore of Revelation with ancient Rome; a minority interpretation identifies the Whore instead with Jerusalem.16 The reference to the woman sitting on seven mountains (Rev. 17:9) and her description as "the great city that has dominion over the kings of the earth" (Rev. 17:18) both point to Rome, the city of seven hills. "Babylon" is used as a cipher for Rome in other post-70 A.D. Jewish literature (and probably also in 1 Peter 5:13), probably because Rome had, like ancient Babylon, sacked Jerusalem and destroyed the Temple.17 However, "whore" imagery in the prophets is most commonly linked with Judah and Jerusalem, and "the great city" is described in Rev. 11:8 as "where their Lord was crucified." The apocalyptic Babylon thus cannot be limited to the physical city of Rome. It is a composite reality that transcends any particular earthly city,18 which was exemplified in John's day by Rome. To interpret the symbol for today, we need to look for the locus of moral, spiritual, and economic corruption in today's world. That locus cannot be identified with any one contemporary city or system. Babylon's footprint can be seen wherever idolatry, greed, injustice, sexual immorality and other abominations flourish. This is not to deny the possibility that a more concrete manifestation of Babylon (like imperial Rome) could occur before the Lord's Second Coming. However, we should exercise the same hermeneutical restraint as Rev. Dietrich Bonhoeffer who, in a sermon of 1935 (at the height of Nazi pomp) preached the following:

Who is Babylon? Was it Rome? Where is it today? Today, we dare not yet say–not because we fear the world! Rather because the Christian community does not know yet–but we see terrible things and revelations drawing near.

Footnotes

• 1 See also Rev. 3:12; 11:1-2; 14:1.
• 2 See, e.g., Isaiah 54:5-6; 62:5; Jeremiah 2:2, 32; 3:20; Ezekiel 16; Hosea 2:16-20.
• 3 See Mark 2:19-20; Matthew 25:1-13; cf. John 3:29.
• 4 See also Isaiah 1:21; Lamenations 1:1ff.
• 5 See, e.g., 2 Kings 19:21; Psalm 9:14; Isaiah 10:32; 62:11; Jeremiah 4:31; Lamentations 2:13-15; Micah 4:8-10; Zephaniah 3:14; Zechariah 9:9.
• 6 See, e.g., Matthew 5:14 (cp. v. 35); Galatians 4:26; Hebrews 11:10, 16; 12:22; 13:14.
• 7 The Lord's Supper in early Christianity is where the cup of blessing, the cup of the Lord's blood, is drunk (1 Cor. 10:16; 11:20-25). The psalmist declares that his response to the Lord's goodness is to "raise the cup of salvation" (Ps. 116:13). St. Athansius of Alexandria, in his Festal Letters 5.3, interprets the "cup of salvation" to refer to the Eucharistic cup. Two earlier writers, Origen (Exhortation to Martyrdom 28-29) and St. Cyprian of Carthage (Epistles 76.4), take the cup of salvation to refer to martyrdom, probably in light of Ps. 116:15 and the metaphor of martyrdom as a "cup" in the Gospels (cf. Mark 10:38-39; 14:36). Elsewhere in Revelation, the "cup" functions as a metaphor for God's wrath, directed at Babylon the Great (Rev. 16:19; 18:6; cf. 14:10). In Rev. 18:6, "repay her double for her deeds; mix a double portion for her in the cup she mixed" suggests that the punishment she inflicted on others will be inflicted on her, so probably the "abominations" in the Whore's golden cup in 17:4 include the blood of the martyrs, with which she is "drunk" (17:6).
• 8 Nineveh is also described in unflattering feminine terms in Zephaniah 2:13-15, which closely parallels oracles against Babylon in Isaiah 13 and 47.
• 9 Language from the same oracle against Tyre (Isa. 23:8) is borrowed in Rev. 18:23. Tyre is also depicted as a female figure in Ezekiel 26:17.
• 10 See, e.g., Isaiah 1:21; Jeremiah 3:1-8; Ezekiel 16; Ezekiel 23; Hosea 2-4; 9:1.
• 11 "the Babylon of Revelation 17-18 combines in itself the evils of the two great evil cities of the Old Testament prophetic oracles: Babylon and Tyre. Of the two, Babylon is the city whose name John uses as a cipher for Rome" (Richard Bauckham, The Climax of Prophecy: Studies on the Book of Revelation [London: T&T Clark, 1993], 345).
• 12 Richard Bauckham, The Theology of the Book of Revelation (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993), 144.
• 13 Trans. Bart D. Ehrman, The Apostolic Fathers, 2 vols. (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2003), 2:307, 309).
• 14 The identity of the ruler of this city is discussed in note 42 of my forthcoming study The Intimate and Ultimate Adversary: Satanology in Early Second-Century Christian Literature.
• 15 For the writer of Hebrews, "the city that is to come" (13:14) is also "the world to come" (2:5) and "the age to come" (6:5). The Pauline letters contrast "this present time," "the present life," "this present darkness, "this present age," "this present world," which is "passing away," with "the glory that is to be revealed," "the life to come," the age to come (Rom. 8:18; Eph. 1:21; 6:12; 1 Tim. 6:17; 1 Tim. 4:8; 2 Tim. 4:10; 1 Cor. 7:31). The Synoptic Gospels likewise contrast "this age" with "the age to come" (e.g., Mark 10:30; Matt. 12:32; Luke 20:34-35). Similar antitheses are probably presupposed in statements about the/this world in the Gospel and Letters of John (see, e.g., John 12:25-31; 18:36; 1 John 2:15-17) and in James 4:4. The temporal contrast is also present in Revelation: the Whore is presently active (as is evident from 17:9-10), while the vision of the Bride is first mentioned (19:7) only after the vision of the Whore's judgment concludes.
• 16 "Most commentators agree that ‘Babylon’ in the Apocalypse is a symbolic name for Rome" (Adela Yarbro Collins, Crisis and Catharsis: The Power of the Apocalypse [Philadelphia: Westminster John Knox, 1984], 57). Commenting on "the great city" in Rev. 17:18, George Elton Ladd wrote, "In the first century, this stood for Rome; but in the end time, it will stand for eschatological Babylon" (George Eldon Ladd, A Commentary on the Revelation of John [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1972], 234). "The identity of this woman leaves no room for doubt: v. 5 gives her name; it is Babylon, about which we know since Rev 14:8 that the name designates with veiled language, but without ambiguity, Rome, the capital of the empire" (Pierre Prigent, Commentary on the Apocalypse of St. John, trans. Wendy Pradels [Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2004], 485). A detailed argument for the Jerusalem interpretation is offered by D. Ragan Ewing, The Identification Of Babylon The Harlot In The Book Of Revelation (Th.M Dissertation, Dallas Theological Seminary, 2002). Further discussion and a refutation of the Jerusalem view can be found in G. Biguzzi, "Is the Babylon of Revelation Rome or Jerusalem?" Biblica 87 (2006): 371-386. See also the summary of arguments for the Babylon and Jerusalem interpretations respectively in A. J. Beagley, “Babylon,” in Dictionary of the Later New Testament and Its Development (ed. Ralph P. Martin and Peter H. Davids; Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 1997), 111-12.
• 17 "Just as Babylon destroyed the first temple and sent Israel into exile, so Rome came to be called ‘Babylon’ in some sectors of Judaism because it also destroyed the temple in Jerusalem and exiled Israel (so Midr. Rab. Num. 7.10; Midr. Pss. 137.1, 8; cf. Targ. Lam. 1:19)" (G. K. Beale, The Book of Revelation: A Commentary on the Greek Text [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1999], 755). "Most of the occurrences of Babylon as a symbolic name for Rome in Jewish literature are in the Apocalypse of Ezra (4 Ezra = 2 Esdras 3-14), the Syriac Apocalypse of Baruch (2 Apoc. Bar.), and the fifth book of the Sibylline Oracles. In each case where it occurs in these three works, the context makes it abundantly clear why the name Babylon was chosen. Rome is called Babylon because her forces, like those of Babylon at an earlier time, destroyed the temple and Jerusalem. It is probable that John learned this symbolic name from his fellow Jews and that it quickly became traditional" (Collins, Crisis and Catharsis, 57-58).
• 18 "As a symbol, Babylon embraces more than the empire, city, and culture of Rome. It is the sphere of idolatry and worldliness under the temporary control of Satan, a worldliness in opposition to the people and work of God, a worldliness epitomized first by Babylon and then by Rome. Babylon as the mother of harlots and abominations in opposition to God (17:5) is the antithesis of the Church as the Bride of Christ, the New Jerusalem, and the Kingdom of God" (Duane F. Watson, “Babylon,” in Anchor Bible Dictionary, 1:566). Beale refers to the city of Revelation 11:8, which he identifies with Babylon, as "the ungodly world-city" (The Book of Revelation, 593). Later, he avers, "The ungodly social, political, and economic system dominated by the Roman Empire placed believers in the same position as Israel was in under Babylon...Therefore, here in the Apocalypse Rome and all wicked world systems take on the symbolic name ‘Babylon the Great’ (op. cit., 755). He summarises his view: "‘The great city’ has been identified as Jerusalem, Rome, or the ungodly world system, which would include Jerusalem, Rome, and all other wicked people groups. The third view is preferable" (op. cit., 843). "Any institution or facet of culture that is characterized by pride (see on v 5), economic overabundance, persecution, and idolatry is part of Babylon" (op. cit., 856).

Heavenly Hieroglyphics: A Critique of the Political Heavens Hermeneutic

1. Introduction
2. The Rationale for the Political Heavens Hermeneutic
3. Arguments against the Political Heavens Hermeneutic
4. Contextual Inconsistencies That Follow from the Hermeneutic
 4.1. Passages Where Heavens and/or Earth are Addressed by God
 4.2. Cosmic Conflagrations in the Hebrew Prophets
  4.2.1. Isaiah 24:23
  4.2.2. Ezekiel 32:7-8
  4.2.3. Haggai 2:6-7, 21-22
 4.3. Cosmic Signs and Earthquakes in the Olivet Discourse
 4.4. Heaven in the Book of Revelation
  4.4.1. Revelation 11:11-12
  4.4.2. Revelation 12:7-9
5. Conclusion

1. Introduction

A long-standing mainstay of Christadelphian biblical interpretation has been the notion that Scripture uses cosmological terms like "heaven(s)," "earth," "sun," "moon," "stars," "sea," "earthquake," etc. as ciphers that denote political realities. Proponents of this hermeneutic do not of course insist that every instance of cosmological terminology in the Bible is symbolic; they do allow that such terminology is sometimes used literally. However, particularly in prophetic and apocalyptic literature, the hermeneutic is used quite heavily, resulting in radically different interpretations of a number of significant biblical passages than one would obtain otherwise. We will explore some examples below, but let us first outline the underlying hermeneutical principle in the words of Christadelphian founder Dr. John Thomas and a contemporary of his, Scottish religious writer William Cuninghame. (This serves to illustrate that John Thomas did not invent this hermeneutic; it was popular in the 19th century and probably goes back to the 17th or even 16th century, though I have not researched its origins.)

Commenting on Luke 21:25-26, Cuninghame writes:

Writers on prophecy are generally agreed, that by the Sun, in the language of symbols, is to be understood the Imperial or Royal power of the State, and by the Moon and Stars, the Nobles and Princes, who are under the king in authority; and if the reader refer to Jacob's interpretation of Joseph's Dream... he will find that the principles of this interpretation, are as old as the age of Jacob. They have, indeed, their foundation in nature itself; for since the natural universe is used in symbols, to express the moral and political universe, therefore the heavens and celestial luminaries, must represent the reigning and ruling powers, and subordinate dignities of the political heavens. By the same beautiful analogy, the roaring of the sea and the waves, denotes the populace, rising up in tumult and insurrection against the higher powers of the State."1

In Elpis Israel, the book in which Thomas articulated what would become the Christadelphian belief system, he writes:

By the ‘shining light of prophecy’ we shall be able to interpret the signs which God has revealed as appearing in the political heavens and earth. Events among the nations of the Roman habitable, and not atmospheric phenomena, are the signs of the coming of the Lord as a thief; whose nature, whether signs or not, can only be determined by "the testimony of God."2

What this means is that when biblical prophecy speaks of signs in heaven and on earth (such as in the Olivet discourse of Luke 21:11, 25-26 and parallels), it is symbolically foretelling political events. Thus, "the Bible is not a revelation of geological and meteorological phenomena...God’s signs are not in the atmosphere, or in astronomical appearances".3

Thomas drew an analogy between prophetic symbolism and Egyptian hieroglyphics. The latter

were not vague, uncertain things, but fixed and constant analogies, determinate in their own nature, or from the steady use that was made of them; and a language formed on such principles may be reasonably interpreted upon them.4

Thus, just as each Egyptian hieroglyphic pictogram had a fixed meaning that could be translated, so cosmological imagery in biblical prophecy, such as "heaven," "earth," "sea," "sun," "moon," and "stars," are code-words, each with a "fixed and constant" analogical meaning in human politics. So what are their meanings? Drawing on the work of previous biblical expositors, Thomas writes:

Hence, Mede is fully justified in saying that "Heavens mean Regnum Politicum, a political kingdom; Sun, secular government; moon, ecclesiastical government; and stars, ministers of religion;" but not these exclusively, as Jacob's interpretation of them in Joseph's dream clearly shows. "The Heaven of this political world," says he, "is the sovereign part thereof, whose host and stars are the powers ruling that world. In the highest place, gods or idols; next, kings, princes, magistrates, &c, and other such lights shining in that firmament, The Earth is the peasantry or vulgus hominum, together with the terrestrial creatures serving the use of man." The following writers also all agree that "Heavens" is the symbol for the higher places of the political universe discoursed of: Dr. H. More, Daubuz, Lancaster, Sykes, Dr. Wall, Vitringa, Lowth, Owen, and Warburton.5

Thomas continues, averring that

to 'ascend into heaven' must be 'to obtain new power and glory;' and Daubuz says, 'to ascend into heaven' is to obtain rule and dominion. That 'the sea and the waves roaring,' mean tumultuous assemblies of the people, and the sea by itself, the mass of the people, is manifest from many passages... 'As the sun and the moon, the stars and the sea, are symbolical expressions, to annex a dissimilar interpretation to the word earth, would be to incur the charge of inconsistency.' The earth is generally put for that over which the heavens do rule; but if there be any distinction between it and the sea, as there undoubtedly is, it is that the earth represents the people in a quiet, and the sea the same in a disturbed state. Thus, earthquake must mean, as Sir Isaac Newton observes, 'the shaking of kingdoms so as to overthrow them;' and Jurieu says, 'it is known by all who are versed in the prophets, that in the prophetic style an earthquake signifies a great commotion of nations...'6

Thus the "Rosetta Stone" that John Thomas proposed for interpreting cosmological symbols in Bible prophecy can be summarized thus:

Cosmological Symbol	Prophetic Meaning
Heavens	Rulers; a position of political sovereignty and power
Earth	The masses of people; a position of political subjection
Sun	Gods/idols; alternatively, kings and other secular/civil rulers
Moon	Ecclesiastical government; alternatively, princes and magistrates
Stars	Ministers of religion; alternatively, lesser political authorities
Sea	The masses of people, especially when in a disturbed political state
Earthquake	A great political commotion

What are we to make of this hermeneutical strategy for interpreting cosmological language in Bible prophecy, which we might call the "political heavens hermeneutic"?

2. The Rationale for the Political Heavens Hermeneutic

One argument made by both Cuninghame and Thomas is that the political heavens hermeneutic had widespread support among biblical expositors of their day—at least those whose views mattered to them. However, such nonconformist thinkers did not adopt theological positions because of their popularity. What arguably made this hermeneutic compelling for writers like Cuninghame and Thomas was the way it enhanced the continuous-historical approach to biblical prophecy, which interprets Revelation and much other prophetic and apocalyptic content in the Bible as describing the trajectory of political and ecclesiastical history from biblical times until the end of the age. The historical events that interested these expositors were primarily wars, political and religious movements, the rise and fall of kingdoms and leaders, etc. Since the Bible contains a great deal of cosmological language, if this language is symbolic of political and/or ecclesiastical realities then the Bible will have a lot more to say about these realities. There will be a lot more material for the modern apocalyptic expositor to use in constructing a theological interpretation of political and ecclesiastical history.

More direct, exegetical arguments for adopting the political heavens hermeneutic are offered by Thomas, such as:

THAT language must be symbolical which, being taken from material objects, expresses things incompatible with the acknowledged properties of those bodies; as, for example, where it is said that stars fall to the earth; for since the stars are larger than the earth, they cannot literally fall to it.7

Besides this, Thomas observes that cosmological imagery is explicitly used in relation to human politics in passages such as the oracle against the king of Babylon in Isaiah 14. One could add Rev. 17:15, where the waters on which the great prostitute sits (v. 1) are expressly interpreted as "large numbers of peoples, nations, and tongues." Furthermore, there are passages where cosmological language is used alongside political language. Thus, since Luke 21:25 mentions signs in the sun, moon and stars and subsequently refers to "distress of nations upon the earth, with perplexity," Thomas avers that "we can have no doubt that the latter is literal, and the former figurative".8 The contextual association between cosmological language and earthly political events is said to prove that such cosmological language symbolizes earthly political events.

3. Arguments against the Political Heavens Hermeneutic

The political heavens hermeneutic faces a number of serious problems. First, while Dr. John Thomas stressed its popularity among expositors as one reason for adopting it, this hermeneutic has little support among biblical scholars today. For instance, you may consult words like "heavens," "earth," "sun," "moon," "stars," etc. in any recent Bible dictionary and it is unlikely that you will find any reference to these terms being biblical symbols for political realities. The decline of the political heavens hermeneutic in biblical scholarship is probably tied to the decline of the continuous-historical approach to interpreting biblical prophecy and apocalyptic.

A second problem with this hermeneutic is reflected in Thomas's argument that we must interpret language about stars falling to earth (e.g., Isa. 34:4; Matt. 24:29) symbolically since stars are too large relative to the earth to literally fall to it. We must not press the literal sense to absurdity in order to justify a symbolic interpretation. For instance, Psalm 19:1 says that "The heavens declare the glory of God; the firmament proclaims the works of his hands," while vv. 4-5 describe the heavens as "a tent for the sun, which comes out like a bridegroom leaving his chamber" and "runs its course with joy." Because the heavens and firmament cannot literally talk, and the sun does not literally stay in a tent or "come out" and "run a course" across the sky each day, does this mean we should interpret "heavens," "firmament" and "sun" symbolically here? Of course not—the psalmist is exercising poetic license in describing the literal cosmos.

Furthermore, this argument from scientific impossibility presupposes a modern, post-Copernican cosmology that the ancient writers and readers of the Bible did not possess. It may be useful to summarize ancient Hebrew cosmology at this point:

The ancient Israelites' view of the physical world can be approximately reconstructed from such texts as Gen 1 and 7-8; Pss 33, 74, 104, 148; Job 38-41; and elsewhere. The universe, for them, is largely a closed entity consisting of three stories or levels. The earth is a flat disk surrounded by mountains or sea. Above is the firmament, a solid dome covering the entire world and resting on the mountains at the edges of the earth. Down in the heart of the earth is Sheol, the abode of the dead. The waters above and the waters below envelop the universe. The firmament overhead is transparent, allowing the blue color of the celestial water to be visible, and it has 'windows' or sluices to let down water in the form of rain. The heavens, including the sun, moon, and stars, are under this vast canopy. The earth is supported from below by pillars sunk into the watery abyss.9

Concerning views of the stars specifically in antiquity:

The Greeks also recognized meteors and comets. They called the meteors "falling stars" because they believed that the sporadic streaks of light were stars falling from the sky.10

Of course, even in modern vernacular meteors are still referred to as "shooting stars" or "falling stars."11 Similarly, in modern vernacular the planet Venus is still referred to as "the morning star." This reflects the ancient belief that planets were actually "wandering stars," a belief reflected in Jude 13 (the word "planet" actually derives from the Greek word planētēs, "wandering").12 Furthermore, the ancients, including the Israelites, believed that stars "were manifestations of gods or heavenly beings."13 That the biblical phrase "host of heaven" (צבא השמים) takes on "two meanings...namely, 'celestial bodies' and 'angelic beings,' reflect[s] a probable association between angels and stars in the Hebrew imagination."14 In short, the ancient biblical writers and readers regarded the stars very differently than we do today, and they would not have seen anything impossible about stars falling to earth. Indeed, many ancients thought they were witnessing this when they saw a meteor "fall" from the night sky, and it is likely that biblical references to falling stars are rooted in the identification of meteors as stars.

The Bible contains ancient cosmological ideas that we now know to be scientifically inaccurate. This calls for a complex hermeneutic, rooted in the notion that the Bible was written to reveal theological truth and not scientific truth, and thus it is infallible in the former but fallible in the latter. When we encounter talk of stars falling to earth, this does not automatically necessitate a figurative interpretation, but it does necessitate a critical interpretation. The description of the sky rolling up and all the stars falling like leaves from a tree (Isa. 34:4) is an ancient way of communicating a massive, consummate cosmic disaster. Perhaps it is hyperbole, or perhaps it really foretells the end of the world.

A third problem with the political heavens hermeneutic is that it wrongly assumes that symbolism in the Bible is based on what Thomas called "fixed and constant analogies." In fact, symbolism in the Bible is fluid and context-dependent. As Ramm explains,

There is nothing in the symbolism of the Bible which demands that each symbol have one and only one meaning. This appears to be the presupposition of some works on symbolism, and it is a false presupposition. The lion is at the same time the symbol of Christ (“the Lion of the tribe of Judah”) and of Satan (the lion seeking to devour Christians, 1 Peter 5:8). The lamb is a symbol of sacrifice and of lost sinners (1 Peter 2:25). Water means “the word” in Ephesians 5:26; the Spirit in 1 Cor. 12:13, and regeneration in Titus 3:5. Oil may mean the Holy Spirit, repentance, or readiness. Further, one entity may be represented by several symbols, e.g., Christ by the lamb, the lion, the branch, and the Holy Spirit by water, oil, wind and the dove. In general, care and good taste should govern one’s interpretation of uninterpreted symbols. An uncritical association of cross references in determining the meaning of symbols may be more harmful than helpful.15

Thus, if we were to find one passage where "earth" symbolizes the common people, this would not establish a fixed principle of interpretation whereby "earth" symbolizes the common people throughout biblical prophetic and apocalyptic literature. Perhaps in a particular context "earth" might symbolize something else. Moreover, the literal heavens and earth are theologically important enough that we would expect them to be mentioned in biblical prophetic and apocalyptic literature, so it would be a serious mistake to assume that "heavens" and "earth" are symbolic terms throughout this literature. Context is the key to discerning between various kinds of literal and figurative meanings.

A fourth problem with the political heavens hermeneutic is that it results in contextually inconsistent interpretations of particular passages. It will be best to illustrate this using a series of examples; these will follow in the next section.

4. Contextual Inconsistencies That Follow from the Hermeneutic

Let us now explore a number of biblical passages where the political heavens hermeneutic has resulted in an illogical, contextually inconsistent interpretation.

 4.1. Passages Where Heavens and/or Earth are Addressed by God

There are numerous biblical passages where the heavens and/or the earth are addressed directly by God as vocatives. One such instance occurs in Isa. 1:2: "Hear, O heavens, and listen, O earth, for the Lord speaks: Sons have I raised and reared, but they have rebelled against me!" (NABRE) An article in a Christadelphian periodical explains:

Isaiah spoke to the Heavens and the Earth of his day, but he did not leave us to guess who he really was talking to. In verse 10 of Isaiah 1, he addressed them a second time. This time he called them the Rulers and the People.  

Heaven = Rulers 

Earth = the People  

The interpretation leaves no doubt. The word "Heaven" refers to the rulers or the government, and "Earth" is the symbolic term for those who were the subjects of the kingdom, the common people.

However, it is not at all clear that "O heavens" and "O earth" in v. 1 correspond respectively to "rulers of Sodom" and "people of Gomorrah" in v. 10. Notice the change in grammatical person in v. 5: verses 2-4 address the "heavens" and "earth" and refer to sinful Israel in the third person ("they"). From verse 5 on, the oracle addresses Israel directly in the second person ("you"). Thus, the addressees in v. 2 are different from the addressees in v. 10. What God is doing in vv. 2-4 is invoking the Torahic legal principle that an accusation be established by the testimony of at least two witnesses (Deut. 19:15). God's two witnesses are the very heavens and earth, which poetically illustrates the magnitude both of God's sovereignty and of Israel's sin. God is applying words that appear repeatedly in Deuteronomy, "I call heaven and earth to witness against you today" (Deut. 4:26; 30:19; 31:28). The "heavens" and "earth" here are figurative to the extent that God is not merely speaking to firmament and terrain; "heavens" and "earth" summarize the entirety of creation (Gen. 1:1), not only the physical cosmos but its inhabitants. Indeed, "heavens" can mean "the inhabitants of the heavens" by metonymy (e.g., Ps. 89:5), as "earth" can mean "the inhabitants of the earth" (e.g., Ps. 33:8). There is no basis, however, for reading "heavens" and "earth" as ciphers for two distinct sets of earthly political actors, namely rulers and ruled.

The use of anthropomorphic language in relation to heavens and earth is common in Scripture and is not limited to their being addressed by God; for instance, they also "see" and "speak" (Ps. 97:4-6). Nor is the use of such language limited to the heavens and the earth: Psalm 96:11-13 invites the sea and all that fills it to roar, the field and everything in it to exult, and all the trees of the forest to sing for joy. If "let the heavens be glad, and let the earth rejoice" indicates that "heavens" and "earth" are symbols for political realities here, consistency dictates that we extend the symbolism and offer allegorical referents in the political sphere to "the sea and all that fills it," "the field and everything in it," and "all the trees of the forest"! A similar argument obtains in Psalm 148, where those called on to praise Yahweh include not only angels and all sorts of humans but "sun and moon... shining stars... highest heavens... waters above the heavens... great sea creatures and all deeps, fire and hail, snow and mist, stormy wind... mountains and all hills, fruit trees and all cedars, beasts and all livestock, creeping things and flying birds" (Ps. 148:3-10). We can speculate on what sort of political realities mist and cedars might symbolize, or we can recognise that this language is poetic. For other similar examples see Isa. 44:23; 45:8; 49:13.

One final passage to mention here is Hos. 2:23-24[21-22]:

23 On that day I will respond—oracle of the Lord—I will respond to the heavens, and they will respond to the earth; 24 The earth will respond to the grain, and wine, and oil, and these will respond to Jezreel.

This oracle has to do with agricultural fertility:

Yahweh's gracious response sets in motion a chain reaction which runs through all the stages in the fertility cycle: deity - heavens (rain) - land (soil) - grain, wine, oil (inclusive of crops, 2.8) - people.16

Political rulers do not exercise sovereignty over crop growth, so once again it is evident that despite the anthropomorphic language used for the heavens and the earth (as "answering" one another), these cosmological terms are not symbols of political realities.

 4.2. Cosmic Conflagrations in the Hebrew Prophets

  4.2.1. Isaiah 24:23

Thomas writes:

In Isa. xxiv. 23 it is written, ‘Then the moon shall be confounded, and the sun ashamed, when the Lord of hosts shall reign on Mount Zion, and in Jerusalem.’ If these words be construed literally, the expression is unintelligible, but if interpreted as the political heavens, the civil and ecclesiastical rulers of their former polity—‘the army of the high ones on high, and kings of the earth upon the earth,’—the saying is full of propriety and force.17

In the wider context of Isaiah 24, this interpretation runs up against serious internal inconsistencies. This oracle begins with a warning that Yahweh "will empty the earth and make it desolate, and he will twist its surface and scatter its inhabitants" (Isa. 24:1). If "the earth" is here a symbolic term referring to the masses of the people, then what are "its inhabitants"? This term would be redundant! Moreover, what is the earth's "surface" if the earth is not literal here? Further along, what are "the ends of the earth," "the windows of heaven," and "the foundations of the earth" (vv. 16-18) if heaven and earth are symbols of human rulers and subjects in this chapter? What sense can we make of Yahweh punishing "the host of heaven, in heaven, and the kings of the earth, on the earth" (v. 21) if these are not literal cosmic terms? It is wiser to interpret the moon and the sun literally here than as political symbols. The description of them as being "confounded" and "ashamed" is poetic in line with the anthropomorphic language used of various cosmological and geographical entities in many passages that are clearly not conducive to allegorization (as discussed above).

  4.2.2. Ezekiel 32:7-8

This text reads,

7 When I blot you out, I will cover the heavens and make their stars dark; I will cover the sun with a cloud, and the moon shall not give its light. 8 All the bright lights of heaven will I make dark over you, and put darkness on your land, declares the Lord GOD. (ESV)

For John Thomas, this portion of the oracle against Pharaoh is

Another striking illustration of the Scripture use of the heavens and their luminaries as prophetic symbols… This passage is the only one in the entire prophecy that has not been literally fulfilled; and there exists no apparent reason for separating this verse from the whole context, and for not interpreting it as of Egypt’s political heavens, and therefore as having been fulfilled equally with the remainder when Pharaoh’s kingdom was absorbed into the Assyro-Babylonish empire. (Thomas 74)

It is very odd that Thomas claims the rest of the prophecy has been literally fulfilled, because much of it is a figurative description of Pharaoh as "like a dragon in the seas" (Ezek. 32:2). The oracle proceeds to describe how God will capture this dragon in a net and cast it on the ground, where the birds and beasts will feast on it, so that its flesh will be strewn upon the mountains, its carcass will fill the valleys and its blood will drench the land (vv. 3-6). In other words, this prophecy is anything but literal. The cosmic language of vv. 7-8 should therefore not be pressed too literally, but there is no indication that the cosmic terms (heavens, stars, sun, cloud, moon, land) have specific symbolic referents in the political sphere. Indeed, "heavens" has just been used literally (as the abode of birds) in v. 4. A more literal description of the coming judgment on Egypt proceeds in v. 11. There is nothing "striking" in Ezek. 32:7-8 that illustrates the validity of the political heavens hermeneutic.

  4.2.3. Haggai 2:6-7, 21-22

6 For thus says the LORD of hosts: Yet once more, in a little while, I will shake the heavens and the earth and the sea and the dry land. 7 And I will shake all nations, so that the treasures of all nations shall come in, and I will fill this house with glory, says the LORD of hosts... 21 Speak to Zerubbabel, governor of Judah, saying, I am about to shake the heavens and the earth, 22 and to overthrow the throne of kingdoms. I am about to destroy the strength of the kingdoms of the nations, and overthrow the chariots and their riders. And the horses and their riders shall go down, every one by the sword of his brother. (ESV)

Thomas insists that this passage illustrates the political heavens symbolism:

Haggai speaks of those days as well as of the days to come. ‘Thus saith the Lord: Yet once, it is a little while and I will shake the heavens and the earth, and the sea and the dry land;’ which signifies, as is explained in the next sentence, ‘And I will shake all the nations.’”18

Thomas claims that "And I will shake all nations" (v. 7) is an explanation of v. 6 rather than an addition to it (despite the initial waw-conjunction ["And I will shake..."] suggesting addition). What we actually have here is a description of cosmic and political events, not two descriptions of political events, one symbolic and one literal. It is clear from the use of Haggai 2 in Hebrews 12 that this early Christian writer did not interpret "the heavens and the earth" in this prophecy as symbols of political realities. Hebrews 12:18-21 refers to the glorious theophany at Mount Sinai recorded in Exodus 19 before making a contrast: the readers "have come to Mount Zion...the heavenly Jerusalem." So, Israel had encountered God at an earthly mountain, but the readers now encounter Him at a heavenly mountain. The analogy continues with a warning in vv. 25-26 that ends with a quotation from Hag. 2:6:

25 See that you do not refuse him who is speaking. For if they did not escape when they refused him who warned them on earth, much less will we escape if we reject him who warns from heaven. 26 At that time his voice shook the earth, but now he has promised, "Yet once more I will shake not only the earth but also the heavens."

The contrast in v. 25 is between a warning on earth (at Mount Sinai in Ex. 19:12-13) and a warning from heaven. In v. 26 we have an allusion to a literal shaking of the literal earth (Ex. 19:18) contrasted with the promise of a future shaking of both earth and the heavens. The writer's analogy between the earthly events at Sinai and the earthly-and-heavenly eschatological events completely breaks down if heavens and earth in Hag. 2:6 are symbolic terms. The writer would then be comparing apples and oranges, so to speak! Indeed, the things to be shaken according to Hag. 2:6 are explicitly interpreted in Heb. 12:27 as "things that have been made"—a clear description of the physical creation!

 4.3. Cosmic Signs and Earthquakes in the Olivet Discourse

In the Olivet Discourse (Matthew 24 / Mark 13 / Luke 21) Jesus foretells cosmic signs. I will follow Luke's account here:

10 Then he said to them, "Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. 11 There will be great earthquakes, and in various places famines and pestilences. And there will be terrors and great signs from heaven... 25 And there will be signs in sun and moon and stars, and on the earth distress of nations in perplexity because of the roaring of the sea and the waves, 26 people fainting with fear and with foreboding of what is coming on the world. For the powers of the heavens will be shaken. 27 And then they will see the Son of Man coming in a cloud with power and great glory. (Luke 21:10-11, 25-27 ESV)

Now, Thomas's argument was that because the signs in heaven are mentioned alongside political events, the signs in heaven must also refer to political events; thus "heaven," "sun," "moon," "stars" and "sea" are not literal but symbolic of political realities. This interpretation creates a number of contextual inconsistencies. First, it requires us to alternate back and forth between literal and symbolic meaning in adjacent sentences: "Nation will rise against nation" is literal; "earthquakes" are symbolic. "Famines and pestilences" are literal; "signs from heaven," symbolic. "Signs in sun and moon and stars," symbolic; "distress of nations" literal; "roaring of the sea" symbolic; "people fainting" literal; "powers of the heavens" symbolic.

A second inconsistency is that we are asked to interpret cosmological language symbolically in vv. 25-26 even though there is literal cosmological language in v. 27: the "cloud" in which the Son of Man comes is clearly literal for Luke (see Acts 1:9-11). This problem is even more acute in Matthew, which says that "the sign of the Son of Man will appear in heaven," that the Son of Man will come "on the clouds of heaven," and that the angels will gather the elect "from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other" (Matt. 24:30-31). Unless we are going to claim that "heaven" also symbolizes political sovereignty in these three instances, we must concede that "heaven" assumes a completely different meaning in Matt. 24:30-31 than what it allegedly means in v. 29, with no indication of a semantic shift.

There is also a broader contextual inconsistency that arises from cosmic signs that appear within the narratives of the Gospels and Acts. Matthew 2:1-10 tells how the Magi followed a star to find the infant Jesus. At Jesus' baptism the heavens are "torn open," the Spirit descends like a dove and a voice from heaven is heard (Mark 1:10-11). The crucifixion narratives report an extended period of daytime darkness; Luke explains that "the sun's light failed" (Luke 23:44-45). Matthew tells us that the crucifixion was accompanied by an earthquake that was literal but supernatural: it awakened the dead (Matt. 27:51-54). Another supernatural but literal earthquake accompanies the resurrection narrative (Matt. 28:2). In Acts, both Stephen (7:56) and Peter (10:11) see the heavens opened, while Saul is blinded by a heavenly light "brighter than the sun" (26:13) and an earthquake precipitates a potential prison break (16:26). Thus, in the narratives of the Gospels and Acts, we have a number of heavenly signs involving the sun, a star, the heavens opening or being torn, and earthquakes, and all of them are literal. In no case is the cosmological language reducible to a symbolic description of political realities. Thus, when we encounter heavenly signs and earthquakes in the Olivet discourse, we have been contextually primed to interpret them literally. "The sun will be darkened" (Matt. 24:29)? It already was at the cross!

There is thus every reason to interpret the cosmic signs of the Olivet Discourse literally, albeit couched in the language of ancient cosmology (thus by "falling stars" in Matt. 24:29 moderns would understand "meteors").

 4.4. Heaven in the Book of Revelation

The Johannine Apocalypse is replete with symbolic language, including (as we have already seen) an explicit identification of one particular instance of geographical terminology ("many waters") as representing a political reality ("peoples, nations, and languages," Rev. 17:15). However, this does not mean the reader has carte blanche to interpret cosmological language throughout the book (e.g., "heavens," "earth") as symbolising political realities. One reason is that the book mentions "heaven(s)" or "earth" scores of times (over 100 combined), many of which cases are unambiguously literal. Thus one must tread carefully in identifying which (if any) references to "heaven(s)," "earth" and other cosmological terms are symbols for political realities.

Take, for example, the first few mentions of "heaven" in Revelation. In Rev. 3:12, the exalted Jesus refers to "the city of my God, the new Jerusalem, which comes down from my God out of heaven" (cf. Rev. 21:2). Under the political heavens hermeneutic, ascent to heaven denotes coming to political power, so descent from heaven would logically denote losing political power. However, clearly this is not the point being made about the new Jerusalem. Rather, the point is to emphasize the divine, transcendent source of this eschatological city. "Heaven" refers literally to the abode of God here. The next mentions of "heaven" occur in Rev. 4:1-2:

1 After this I had a vision of an open door to heaven, and I heard the trumpetlike voice that had spoken to me before, saying, “Come up here and I will show you what must happen afterwards.” 2 At once I was caught up in spirit. A throne was there in heaven, and on the throne sat 3 one whose appearance sparkled like jasper and carnelian. (Rev. 4:1-3 NABRE)

Here the seer has a vision of an open door to heaven and a voice invites him to "come up here." He then beholds a throne "in heaven," and proceeds to describe the throne-room and its occupants for the rest of chapters 4 and 5. This throne-room "in heaven" remains the setting from which heavenly beings launch the various visionary experiences that follow in subsequent chapters. It seems indisputable that this "heaven" that functions as the setting for the throne-room vision is literal heaven. Could one have a vision of God, the Lamb and myriads of angels in a symbolic political heaven? Clearly not; and in light of this contextual data any application of the political heavens hermeneutic in Revelation would require compelling clues that the cosmological language has shifted toward a symbolic sense.

We will now consider two instances in Revelation where John Thomas understood "heaven" to symbolize worldly political sovereignty in defiance of the context.

  4.4.1. Revelation 11:11-12

Revelation 11:7-10 describes the killing of the two witnesses by the beast from the abyss. Verses 11-12 describe a reversal of their circumstances:

11 But after the three and a half days, a breath of life from God entered them. When they stood on their feet, great fear fell on those who saw them. 12 Then they heard a loud voice from heaven say to them, “Come up here.” So they went up to heaven in a cloud as their enemies looked on. (Rev. 11:11-12 NABRE)

Now, without being too precise about what the two witnesses/prophets represent (due to space), it is fairly clear from the context that they denote obedient subjects of God who undergo persecution. The "loud voice from heaven" inviting them, "Come up here" recalls the voice from heaven that said these words to John in Rev. 4:1. That "up here" referred to literal, transcendent heaven in chapter 4 strongly suggests that it has the same sense here. (The Elijah typology in this chapter is also unmistakable, with references to prophets having power to shut the sky from rain, and to going up to heaven.) However, for John Thomas, "heaven" here refers to earthly political power, and Rev. 11:11-12 foretells political events that would precipitate the French Revolution in 1789:

Now, "after three days and a half the breath of life from God entered into the witnesses;" that is, after the three months and a half of day-years had fully expired, "they stood upon their feet." The death-period elapsed on Feb. 18, 1789, and in two months and fourteen days after, being May 4, they accepted the invitation of "a great voice from the heaven," saying to them, "Come up hither!" This great voice was the royal proclamation by which the States General were convened, and in which the witnesses took their seats as the third estate of the kingdom. They soon proved their existence there by the events which followed. They ascended to power in a portentous cloud, which burst upon the devoted heads of their enemies; and in the earthquake which followed they shook the world.19

Thomas was clearly so zealous about finding modern political events to have been foretold in Revelation that he had conditioned himself to read "heaven" symbolically without any regard to contextual clues indicating a literal meaning.

  4.4.2. Revelation 12:7-9

A second example comes from the ensuing chapter. In the context of a wider conflict involving the woman clothed with the sun, her male child and the great red dragon, we read the following:

7 Then war broke out in heaven; Michael and his angels battled against the dragon. The dragon and its angels fought back, 8 but they did not prevail and there was no longer any place for them in heaven. 9 The huge dragon, the ancient serpent, who is called the Devil and Satan, who deceived the whole world, was thrown down to earth, and its angels were thrown down with it. (Rev. 12:7-9 NABRE)

Now, Michael is an important figure in Second Temple Jewish apocalyptic. Elsewhere in the Bible he appears in Dan. 10:13, 10:21, 12:1 and Jude 9. In the Old Greek of Dan. 10:21 he is explicitly identified as an "angel" and in Jude 9 (where he is also in conflict with the devil) he is called an "archangel." If there were any remaining doubt in the first-century reader's mind who Michael was, that he was "in heaven" and had "angels" under his command would surely have sealed it. Bear in mind that according to the throne-room vision of Revelation 4-5, heaven is the abode of myriads of angels praising the Lamb (Rev. 5:11-12). Thus, it would seem that when John sees a war in heaven between "Michael and his angels" and another group of angels led by the dragon, which symbolizes the Devil and Satan (as Rev. 12:9 explicitly states), this refers to an actual cosmic conflict.

Not so, says John Thomas. Now, I have previously discussed and criticized the traditional Christadelphian interpretation of other symbols in Revelation 12, (namely, that "woman clothed with the sun" symbolizes a divided and largely corrupted Church and that her "male child" symbolizes the emperor Constantine). John Thomas regarded the whole of Revelation 12 as foretelling the political rise of Christianity in the fourth century A.D. As such, he understood the "war" described in Rev. 12:7-9 as a literal war, not in literal heaven but in the "the Roman [political] heaven,"20 and not fought between literal angels but between corrupt Christians (Michael and his angels) and pagans (the dragon and his angels). In one of the strangest exegetical turns in his entire system, John Thomas understands "Michael" in this verse to refer to Constantine!21 This interpretation will rightly strike most readers as extremely fanciful and out of touch with the context of Revelation and of Second Temple Judaism and early Christianity. However, as in Thomas's interpretation of Rev. 11:11-12, close attention to context has been trumped by an overriding concern to find in Revelation a coded narrative of post-biblical European political history.

5. Conclusion

We can conclude our critique of the political heavens hermeneutic by stating categorically that there is no "fixed and constant analogy" in Scripture whereby cosmological realities such as "heavens," "earth," "sun," "moon," "stars," "sea," "earthquakes," correspond symbolically to respective political realities. Nor is such an analogy present in most of the passages where it has been identified by Christadelphian expositors. In light of passages like Rev. 17:15, I would not want to make a blanket statement that cosmological or geographical terms in Scripture never symbolize political realities, but the political heavens hermeneutic is not a Rosetta Stone that unlocks the hidden, political meaning of biblical prophecy. Rather, this hermeneutic often robs the biblical writers of their poetic license. Even more seriously, it sometimes reduces the transcendent, theological content of the inspired oracles to earthbound, anthropological content, and restricts the Holy Spirit's ability to foretell real cosmic signs of the kind that were so prevalent during the earthly life of Jesus and the early Church. This politicizing hermeneutic is unworthy of a sect that has always eschewed participation in worldly politics.

Footnotes

• 1 William Cuninghame, The Political Destiny of the Earth as Revealed in the Bible (Philadelphia: Orrin Rogers, 1840), 31-32, emphasis added.
• 2 John Thomas, Elpis Israel, 4th ed. (Findon: Logos Publications, 1866/2000), 398-99, emphasis added.
• 3 John Thomas, "The Heavens and the Signs Thereof," Herald of the Kingdom and Age to Come, 5 (1855): 78.
• 4 Thomas, "The Heavens and the Signs Thereof," 73.
• 5 Thomas, "The Heavens and the Signs Thereof," 73.
• 6 Thomas, "The Heavens and the Signs Thereof," 74.
• 7 Thomas, "The Heavens and the Signs Thereof," 73.
• 8 Thomas, "The Heavens and the Signs Thereof," 73.
• 9 Douglas A. Knight, "Cosmology," in Mercer Dictionary of the Bible, ed. Watson E. Mills (Macon: Mercer University Press, 1990), 175.
• 10 Nicholas A. Pananides and Thomas Arny, Introductory Astronomy (Boston: Addison Wesley, 1979), 6.
• 11 "Formerly, meteors were often called shooting stars or falling stars but now these terms are hardly ever encountered in scientific writings for the reason that there is nothing at all in common between real stars-distant suns-and meteors that flame through the earth's atmosphere." (V. Fedynsky, Meteors [Honolulu: University Press of the Pacific, 2002], 5.)
• 12 "In the New Testament (Jude 13), as with all other early Christian literature, planētēs is used only in conjunction with asteres, 'star.' So, in the pre-Copernican cosmological systems, planets were viewed as wandering stars, whose heavenly paths were irregular" (Kyle Greenwood, Scripture and Cosmology: Reading the Bible Between the Ancient World and Modern Science [Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2015], 89).
• 13 J. Edward Wright, The Early History of Heaven (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002), 59. Wright continues: "Judges 5:20, part of a poem that may date as early as the tenth century BCE and that provides insight into early Israelite beliefs, mentions that during Deborah's battle against the Canaanite king Sisera, the stars fought against one another as the human forces battled on earth. The stars, therefore, are gods fighting in heaven, and the outcome of their celestial battle determines the outcome of the battle on earth. Job 38:7 mentions that when God created the world 'the morning stars sang together and all the heavenly beings (בני אלהים, bene elohim, literally children of God) shouted for joy.' The parallelism here of morning stars and heavenly beings indicated that this author equates the stars with the heavenly beings."
• 14 Leland Ryken, James C. Wilhoit, and Tremper Longman III (eds.), "Heaven," in Dictionary of Biblical Imagery (Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 1998), 372-73. Similarly, Wright: "The phrase 'host of heaven' (צבא השמים) designates the vast assembly of heavenly beings and/or celestial bodies" (Early History of Heaven, 60).
• 15 Bernard Ramm, Protestant Biblical Interpretation: A Textbook of Hermeneutics for Conservative Protestants (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1956), 215. Similarly, Mickelsen: "Observe the frequency and distribution of a symbol (how often and where found), but allow each context to control the meaning. Do not force symbols into preconceived schemes of uniformity." (A. Berkeley Mickelsen, Interpreting the Bible [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1963], 278).
• 16 James Luther Mays, Hosea: A Commentary (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1969), 52.
• 17 Thomas, "The Heavens and the Signs Thereof," 74.
• 18 Thomas, "The Heavens and the Signs Thereof," 76.
• 19 Thomas, Elpis Israel, 369.
• 20 "In 312-3, the man-child was born of the Woman as the military chieftain destined to cast the pagan dragon out of the Roman heaven" (Thomas, Elpis Israel, 356).
• 21 "Constantine, as the military chieftain of the Catholic Church, which the Deity had predetermined should have the rule instead of the Pagan Priesthood, is styled in the prophecy ho Michael, the Michael: that is, the Michael of the situation. This name is Hebrew in a Greek dress. The Hebrew is resolvable into three words put interrogatively, as Miyka'el, or Mi, who, cah, like, ail power? Or Who like that power Divinely energized to cast the Pagan Dragon, surnamed the Diabolos and the Satan, out of the Roman heaven? There was no contemporary power under this Sixth Seal that was able to contend successfully against it. Hence Constantine, as the instrument of the Deity in the development of his purpose, is styled "the Michael". He was not personally the Michael, or "first of the chief princes'9 spoken of in Dan. 10:13, nor the Michael termed in Dan. 12:1, "the great Prince who standeth for the children of Daniel's people;" but for the time being he filled the office that will hereafter be more potently and gloriously illustrated by the Great Prince from heaven, who will bind the Dragon and shut him down in the abyss for a thousand years (Apoc. 20:2,3)." (John Thomas, Eureka: An Exposition of the Apocalypse, 5 vols. [Findon: Logos Publications, 1869/1992], 4:102-103). Thomas's interpretation of ho Michael as "the Michael [of the situation]" ignores that proper names in Greek frequently occur with the definite article, including in the only other NT reference to Michael in Jude 9.