Tuesday, May 10, 2005
Bible Research
Turns out the mark of the beast is 616, not 666. Check out the link above for a National Geographic report about new developments in the study of ancient papyri. Pretty exciting stuff! Of course, there are those who are threatened by any new evidence that contradicts their understanding of Scripture. But it serves nothing (certainly not God) to insist on the purity of a given version of the Bible, or to deny that human ambition and error were involved in its compilation. The truth of the Bible is not in its "accuracy."
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Speaking of 666/616, did Laestadius' views on the "end times" differ from the typical Lutheran view of his day? Did Laestadius ever write about the book of Revelation and other apocalyptic sections of the Bible?
ReplyDeleteThis is from LLL's Sermon No. 2 (1851, Second Sunday in Advent):
ReplyDelete" . . the world is now in such condition that civil government cannot remain intact . . . all Christianity has ended on earth and been replaced by a great darkness . . . a great revolution will occur whereby civil government is overthrown . . . the devil has been loosed . . . unless some change happens in the belief and lives of the people . . . the end of the world will be near."
It is interesting to note that Martin Luther near the end of his life said that he didn't expect the world to last another 20 years.