This interpretation, no doubt, has much appeal to it, and does seem to conform rather well to Biblical chronology the Ussher Chronology, for example, dates creation at B. Even such a skeptic as Stephen Jay Gould has written that "the date rests comfortably with the most important of chronological metaphors—the common comparison of the six days of God's creation with 6, years for the earth's potential duration.
Under this widely accepted scheme, the earth was created years before the birth of Christ and could endure as much as years thereafter "Fall in the House of Ussher," Natural History , November , p.
Lest anyone misunderstand, he goes on to note that this is "a proposition soon to be tested empirically and, we all hope, roundly disproved" ibid. Since Dr. Gould is or, at least, has been an atheistic Marxist evolutionist, one can understand why he would hope that this proposition would soon be disproved. He—as well as others in the "we" to whom he referred—cannot enjoy the prospect of being there "when the Lord Jesus shall be revealed from heaven.
There are many, on the other hand certainly including myself , who would be delighted if this interpretation turned out to be correct. However, there are problems. Practically all New Testament scholars are convinced that Jesus was born several years before the A.
Most would say 4 B. While this would work well in terms of Ussher chronology, making the creation date to be B. More importantly, with all due respect to the many sincere Bible students who advocate this interpretation, the Bible nowhere says that the seven days of Creation Week correspond to seven millennia of earth history.
II Peter 3 does not say that "one day means a thousand years," but rather that "one day is with the Lord like a thousand years. That is, God can do in one day what would normally require a thousand years. Peter even calls it "willing ignorance" to ignore the overwhelming evidence for supernatural creation and the worldwide cataclysmic deluge in favor of interpreting world history in terms of evolutionism and uniformitarianism II Peter Although this particular prophecy does not necessarily prove the nearness of Christ's return, there are many others which do.
But we may not realize how fickle words can be. They are fickle because language, at its root, represents a perception of reality— our perception, which isn't necessarily shared by anyone else. Words reflect what we believe or make believe.
There is no guarantee anyone will ever completely understand our words—and we know from experience how easily they are misunderstood. Our immediate listeners typically understand because they share our context, but otherwise, words and their meaning can be slippery and difficult to pin down. That's all the more true for words that describe someone as mysterious as God.
But as it turns out, this divine revelation in human language is insufficient, as the translation by Jewish translator Robert Alter illustrates. Alter notes that "rivers of ink have since flowed in theological reflection on and philosophical analysis of this name," which could also be translated as the more familiar "I Am That I Am," "I Am He Who Endures," and many other possibilities.
Of course, God knew that a name was inadequate to reveal his full nature, so he used a long historical narrative full of poetry, instruction, and visions in order to communicate who he is in relation to us. By studying this comprehensive work, the Bible, we find out about—indeed, find —God.
But language is not merely a medium to convey information about the story of the Bible. Language itself is a crucial part of the narrative, something core to the Bible's very nature. In the beginning, language set divine creation in motion "God said , 'Let there be …'" in Genesis 1.
And in the end, Revelation tells us, worshipers will stand before God "from every nation, tribe, people, and language " [my emphases]. According to the Bible, therefore, language is centrally important in God's dealing with us, and ours with him. Between Genesis and Revelation lies the birth of the church, an event that in the biblical narrative is also marked by language—namely, language translation. According to Acts, as soon as the apostles were filled with the Spirit, they started to speak in languages that were immediately understood by the many bystanders, who represented "every nation under heaven" This supernatural translation event marked the beginning of the great and ongoing mission project at whose very core lies Scripture translation.
These two short paragraphs hardly do justice to the uses of language in God's purposes for us. The larger point is that he has spoken to people at special moments in history and employed written language in Scripture to communicate with us.
When Paul proclaims in Galatians, "There is neither Jew nor Gentile," he states one of the strongest tenets of our faith: There is no difference in the value of a person based on origin. In the same manner, there is no difference in the value of particular languages and how they express the Word of God. Yale historian Lamin Sanneh, who has written extensively about the translation of the Christian message, notes, "God, who has no linguistic favorites, has determined that we should all hear the Good News 'in our native tongue.
Andrew Walls, a leading British missiologist, maintains that the translation of the Word is a reflection of the very nature of Christianity. In fact, he points out that Jesus' incarnation as described in John —"The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us"—is the very first act of translation. This divine act of translation gives us ultimate confidence in the further successful translatability of the Bible. As Walls says, "There is a history of translation of the Bible because there was a translation of the Word into flesh.
And if you sell to your neighbor or buy from your neighbor, you shall not wrong one another» Leviticus , 25, He shall serve with you until the year of the jubilee; then he shall go out from you, he and his children with him, and go back to his own family, and return to the possession of his fathers. For they are my servants, whom I brought forth out of the land of Egypt; they shall not be sold as slaves. You shall not rule over him with harshness, but shall fear your God» Leviticus , 25, A rest carrying gift and relationship with God: everything is his gift and we are able to refer everything to him.
The culture of the "Saturday" changes the quality of life; it leads one back to one's own roots, to the reasons for one's own existence; and can open to the happiness possible in history.
For it is a jubilee; it shall be holy to you; you shall eat what it yields out of the field» Leviticus 25, This consolation will resound in an unforeseeable and complete way in the relationship with Jesus of Nazareth, the Lord, thanks to whom it is possible to live rest and restoration; to have the experience of consolation in the face of every desolation.
Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light» Matthew 11, The letter to the Hebrews, taking departure from Psalm 95, verse 11«he swore in his anger that they should not enter his rest» and referring to the forty years of pilgrimage of the ancient people of Israel in the exodus, makes one meditate in a stupendous way on Christian rest.
I also saw the souls of those who had been beheaded for their testimony to Jesus and for the word of God.
They had not worshiped the beast or its image and had not received its mark on their foreheads or their hands. They came to life and reigned with Christ a thousand years. The rest of the dead did not come to life until the thousand years were ended. This is the first resurrection … Over these the second death has no power, but they will be priests of God and of Christ, and they will reign with him a thousand years.
Revelation It is the final one thousand years, culminating in the resurrection of the dead and the last great Judgment. But we must go back to apocalyptic Judaism in the troubled times of the late Second Temple period B. This notion was picked up and made central by early Christians, who gave it an apocalyptic cast in the New Testament. Various ancient Jewish and Christian sources have suggested that the Book of Genesis anticipates later divisions of time into millennia.
Despite its Christ-centered formulation, Revelation clearly tapped into a concept that had been developing among Jews for centuries. The Greek alphabet has 26 letters. But in determining the numerical value of the letters, the symbol stigma , which is not a letter, was for unknown reasons inserted in the sixth position. In the Greek alphabet the first nine letters including stigma equal one through nine.
The next nine rise by 10s, and the last nine rise by s. The world is to exist six thousand years. In the first two thousand there was desolation [no Torah]; two thousand years the Torah flourished; and the next two thousand years is the Messianic era, but through our many iniquities all these years have been lost.
Sanhedrin 93b. Many Jewish groups in and around the first century C. This Talmudic passage from about the sixth century C. These rabbis did not believe Jesus was the Messiah, yet it is their scheme—giving biblical history a chronological logic—that became, in the hands of Christians, a powerful concept culminating in Jesus Christ.
This document was highly treasured by many Christians, and was even included in the Christian Scriptures by some. He means this: that the Lord will make an end of everything in six thousand years, for a day with him means a thousand years … So then, children, in six days, that is in six thousand years, everything will be completed. Letter of Barnabas This notion that because God created the physical world in six days and rested on the Sabbath, he would create a new world of spiritual perfection over a seven-thousand-year period, becomes commonplace in the early church and is repeated often by the church fathers.
In this world of apocalyptic symbolism, six is the number of humankind operating without God. Seven symbolizes the perfection or completion that the Kingdom of God brings Sabbath rest. The symbolism of six is significant in the Book of Daniel. The Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar makes a statue 60 cubits high and 6 cubits wide for all to worship Daniel This statue seems to represent the glory of his kingdom.
It may even have been a statue of the king himself the text is not clear, and no god or deity is specified. The author of the Book of Revelation seems to be aware of this imagery from Daniel. He describes a false prophet or Antichrist figure, who, in the last days, orders a statue or image to be made of the Beast, which represents a final world kingdom. The number six is the key to his identity:.
This calls for Wisdom; let anyone with understanding calculate the number of the beast, for it is the number of a man—his number is six hundred and sixty-six. Revelation 13 describes a final evil figure identified by the mysterious number , who, at the end of the sixth millennium of human history, causes all the world to worship the image of the Beast, which once symbolized Babylon but for Christians has become the new Babylon—that is, Rome.
Many explanations of the code name have been proposed over the centuries, but one in particular has attracted scholarly support. The author of Revelation, writing sometime between the reigns of the Roman emperors Nero and Domitian C.
In Hebrew, each of the 22 letters of the alphabet has a numerical value. A code called gematria , developed in Jewish apocalyptic and mystical circles, draws connections between two otherwise unrelated words based on the total numerical value of the letters in each word.
A similar system of gematria was common in Greek.
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