Click on this link and enjoy a meeting of humor and prophetic hubris–Bible style.
Friends,
Avian and Swine flu commingle to make hybrids that fashion pestilences of pigs flying from Mexico City to the rest of the world. Whether these are natural or manmade scourges, WHO knows? Ask the WHO (World Health Organization) while I am still researching the answer.
Obama’s 100th day in office comes fast upon me and conjures Obamaballyhoos. A Specter casts its shadow on the future of the Republicans as a major moderate US Senator jumps the GOP becoming a Democrat bringing Donkeycrats one step closer to a filibuster proof majority of 60. Some of you might remember, I predicted a majority of more than 60 seats in the Senate would happen. I logged this before Obama was elected president. Al Franken will be seated as Minnesota’s senator. Also predicted. I would venture that a few more moderate Republicans will switch sides in the near future.
Many people are writing in and saying, Hey! What do you presciently say about all this surging advent of Aquarian Age pestilent wheezes and political whacks to the status quo, Hogue?
Soon I will say much, once writing deadlines are met, and more of you readers join those lovely supporters who have generously donated to us to keep these blogs coming. Please join them HERE.
In the meantime, I dig deeper into my blog stock pocket to pull out a fifth installment of your comments about my 666 article:
***
A reader complained about my views in “What the Heck is 666 about?” with the following missive that I will answer in this blog. I inserted the brackets, as the letter required I return missing punctuation, capitalization and fill in phrases left hanging without completion. Despite this, I think the reader’s point is important:
[A]s usual you have a very poor opinion [of accepted biblical prophetic interpretations of 666.] [D]uring the time of [C]aligula were there helicopters?
The Book of Revelation has phantasmagorical descriptions of things that at least sound to us like an ancient biblical prophet trying to describe machines like helicopters of our time. [The translation below is from the Oxford Study Edition of the New English Bible]:
Then the fifth angel blew his trumpet; and I saw a star that had fallen from heaven to earth, and the star was given the key of the shaft of the abyss. With this, he opened the shaft of the abyss; and from the shaft smoke rose like smoke from a great furnace, and the sun and the air were darkened by the smoke from the shaft. Then over the earth, out of the smoke, came locusts, and they were given the powers that earthly scorpions have. They were told to do no injury to the grass or to any plant or tree, but only to those men who had not received the seal of God on their foreheads. These they were allowed to torment for five months with torment like a scorpion’s sting, but they were not to kill them. (Book of Revelation, Chapter 9:1-6).
Sunday school conditioning in modern times presses one’s mind to believe that St. John is trying to describe with a limited and labored First-century pre-industrial understanding some futuristic helicopters. Further details from the prophet as to their appearance makes that idea even more compelling, especially if one’s mind is already predisposed to see what Bible students are indoctrinated to see:
In appearance, the locusts were like horses equipped for battle. On their heads were what looked like golden crowns; their faces were like human faces and their hair like women’s hair; they had teeth like lions’ teeth, and wore breastplates like iron; the sound of their wings was like the noise of horses and chariots rushing into battle; they had tails like scorpions, with stings in them, and in their tails lay their power to plague mankind for five months. (Revelation, Chapter 9:7-11)
Beware of how easy it is to have your minds fill in the blanks with those images suitable to your current time’s expectations. Also, notice how simple it is for bias to skip over details that do not match one’s preconceived idea of turning these into modern attack helicopters. Apache helicopters look like locusts because often technology is wise enough to follow nature in design. These locusts are equipped for battle; the iron shields could even be the shields emblems of the US First Cavalry. The lion’s teeth could be the flying tiger teeth some copters have painted on their noses. St. John saw the faces of copter pilots and deemed them human. The sound of the wings thunders like helicopters. He is foreseeing helicopters, right?
What about the other parts of these psychotically imagined monster locusts that definitely do not fit a helicopter, such as being crowned?
Faces like human faces? For one thing, you cannot see the faces of combat helicopter crews. If anything, bulbous helmets and insectoid goggles make pilots look like bugs with a human jaw. Nostradamus comes closer in his prophecies about airmen of flying fleets looking like “half pig men” because of their snout-like oxygen masks.
When does one see hair on a fully suited-up copter pilot, let alone long trailing hair of a woman? Buzz cut? Not!
If you have heard the noise of horses and chariots, they do not make the signature drumbeat of copter wings. If St. John had said they made a noise like charging chariots made to tumult like drumming thunder, then I would be a helicopter-prophecy believer. Helicopters definitely DO NOT have tails like scorpions. They are straight, not curled upwards. Helicopters do not have weapons in their tails but prop-rudders.
Back to the pilots. The syntax of the phrases describing them does not separate these humanlike, woman-haired faces from their lion’s teeth as yours or my mind might presume to do.
Back to the reader’s comment:
READER:
[D]uring the time of [C]aligula were there helicopters? Well maybe flying beasts meant flying dragons? [Y]es?
HOGUE:
Yes. Dragon mythology cannot be ruled out. Many of the monsters in Revelation might be inspired by Ancient Mediterranean folk tales inspired by fossils of dinosaurs uncovered in the times of Rome and Judea as much as they inspired dragon myths popularized in Ancient China and the European Medieval Era.
Folklore from China itself might have inspired albeit unconsciously St. John’s imagination as it is known that trade routes to China from the eastern provinces of Rome were active even that early in history.
John Hogue
(28 April 2009)
LIKE FACEBOOK PAGE * Join Free Newsletter
RSS Links * Hogue’s Author Page
Support HogueProphecy
GET AN ONLINE READING WITH JOHN HOGUE
Email him at hoguebulletin@hogueprophecy.com
Put “Hogue Reading” in Subject line
He’ll send you times, prices and information.
Web Hosting Provided by LunarPages.