Antiquitopia

So, another quirk in Revelation occurs in 16:7, when the seven angels are pouring out bowls of divine wrath upon the earth and sea.  In the middle of it, the "angel of the waters" speaks of the Holy One as judge, who is righteous and offers proportional punishments: those who shed the blood of the saints get blood to drink (the waters turn to blood as in the Egyptian plague). In response, the heavenly altar itself speaks (NRSV): "yes, O Lord God, the Almighty, your judgments are true and just." Interestingly, it seems the throne also speaks: "And from the throne came a voice saying, 'Praise our God, all you his servants, and all who fear him, small and great'" (Rev 19:5). This could just be a disembodied divine voice coming from the throne - or the throne is alive, animate.  It is something that occurs intermittently throughout Revelation, too, usually before breaking out in a hymn. I know that in the Songs of the Sabbath Sacrifice the heav...

Yesterday I wrote a post on seeing God and living, even though none should be able to see God (at least face to face) and live. Yet there are many passages in which Jacob, Moses, elders, Hagar, and Manoah and his wife all see God and live and comment upon the fact in astonishment. I had left the discussion of Manoah and his wife until this time because it is quite an extensive, quite astonishing, and under-studied passage. Some initial issues of note: this is one of two passages in which a woman is the primary recipient of the vision of the LORD/Angel of the LORD. It is a special birth narrative comparable to the one of Abram/Sarai, Hannah, perhaps Hagar, and one in which, like Hannah, I think makes an impression on the Jesus birth narratives with the angel's visitations to Mary and then Joseph. But there is so much more to this passage. Quoting from the RSV: And there was a certain man of Zorah, of the tribe of Danites, whose name was Manoah; and his wife was barren and had n...

There is news about a mountaintop open-altar dedicated to Zeus that was used for over a millennium! Zeus' altar of ashes News from the Archaeological Institute of America's annual meeting in Anaheim, Calif. By Bruce Bower ANAHEIM, Calif. — Excavations at the Sanctuary of Zeus atop Greece’s Mount Lykaion have revealed that ritual activities occurred there for roughly 1,500 years, from the height of classic Greek civilization around 3,400 years ago until just before Roman conquest in 146. “We may have the first documented mountaintop shrine from the ancient Greek world,” says project director David Romano of the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia. Ritual ceremonies were conducted in a part of the open-air sanctuary called the ash altar of Zeus. It now consists of a mound of ash, stone and various inscribed dedications to Zeus, the head god of Greek mythology. Romano’s team has found no evidence of a temple or structures of any kind on Mount Lykaion. Work conducted over ...