comments:
My view, which would require a much longer conversation than that which could be had here, is as follows. On the basis of the writings of the Essenes, on the basis of early Christian writings, on the basis of the OT expectation of judgment on Jerusalem, on the basis of the world religious situation (Platonism and Zoroastrianism from the 5th c. BC to the 2nd c. BC), on the basis of the Syraic Church's excellent defense of the Gospel in the 2nd c. AD where some Aristotelian logic is used, on the basis Prof. Michael Cook's excellent work at Oxford on Muhammed and Islam, on the basis of later Medieval and early Protestant writing and more - I think that the city of 7 hills is Jerusalem, not RomeI think that, together with Beale as others have said, the "unholy Trinity" and the symbolic use of 666 refers to the twisted theism of a particular sect of Judaism.Judaism was pluralistic, there were plenty of Orthodox believers that are blown away by the beauty and truth of Jesus, but Jesus weeps over JerusalemThere was a poisonous group within Judaism that had amassed a takeover in the 3rd c. BCJesus and the Apostles gather the elect from among Jewish people (Judean and Hellenisitc)The "Judaizing" movement that executes a counter punch against the early Messianic movement that results in real affliction and suffering for the early Church (from within Judaism)Observably Christianity rejects the introduction and use of works like The Book of Jubillees, Enoch, the Psalms of Solomon and so on, which contain a cosmic dualism of the Zoroastrian sort - and us vs. them worldview morphed into YHWH is for us and against "them"Observably Rabbinical Judaism/Masoretic Judaism (of the Ben-Asher school) rejects those spurious extra-biblical books too shifting focus to TorahAnd a third group that is yet formally organized, but representative of that poisonous so-called "Judaism" (that certain schools of Judaism, like the Essenes and lots of other rabbis rejected) emerges. Islam forms as a combo of- poisonous non-biblical Judaism- with some Christianity-Judaism of the Biblical sort- Manichaeism (which itself is an offshoot of the old Zoroastrianism)- plus a splash of Arabic paganism- all run through an Aristotelian filter to make it all fit logically And that the Prophet Muhammed is the beast. He dies in 632 AD and the scorpion plague (of Revelation) emerges. Judgment came upon Judea/Jerusalem (NOT general Jewish people - but the Jerusalemite leadership - like Ciaphas the High Preist and the Sanhedrin (who are modelled after Persian Satrapy). Early Christianity, on the basis of Jesus's woe oracles in Jerusalem, is aiming to re-proselytize mis-proselytized Jews and Gentiles in Judea/Samaria/Galillee and beyond in Hellenistic Judaism on the basis of the real nature, character and ways of YHWH as evidenced and enacted and taught in, through and by the Lord Jesus Christ. And that, if true, proves the poison-Judaism school wrong, whose headquarters is Jerusalem. In God's strategic brilliance, freeing Jewish Christians from Judaism (not unlike freeing Israel from Egypt in the Exodus -- already alluded to by Isaiah who make explict reference to Zoroastrianism in Isa 45, (compare the Zend Avesta Gathas, Yasna 44), and embracing the Gentiles in the same Christ with the same Gospel, that works at the slave layer of the entire Roman empire to eventually overthrow the "gods of Rome" and Caesar -- which was the great Jewish hope -- thereby creating a civilization that could stand against the coming Beast, for the larger spiritual war, so to speak. Tragically however, Islam used the Aristotelianism, originally taught by the Syriac Church, to become weaponized against Christianity, together with military conquest. And in the Medieval period in Spain, the Christian necessity of out-philosophizing Islam changed Christianity. And that over-Aristotelianization needed to be corrected for by the Protestant Reformation. But the Reformers themselves were never unaware of the continuing threat of the Ottomans/Islam and had some pretty important things to say about it.