"John" the "Revelator"

A feature article by an Alumbo member, Nov 28, 2007         

Lyrics by Depeche Mode
...
By claiming God - As his holy right
He's stealing a God from the Israelites Stealing a God from a Muslim, too
There is only one God through and through Seven lies, multiplied by seven, multiplied by seven again Seven angels with seven trumpets
Send them home on the morning train
Well who's that shouting?
John the Revelator!
All he ever gives us is pain
Well who's that shouting?
John the Revelator!
He should bow his head in shame
...

The last book of the Bible, the Revelation, has caught much attention. It is completely written in a figurative language. Since the Revelation can't be read literally, there are interpretations necessary, which is important to notice. Some people have even been able to predict the near future, according to its historical interpretation. This book is not mentioned in the Qur'an, therefore I don't want to evaluate it, neither in the negative, nor in the positive sense.

But there has to be some criticism on its interpretations. When Martin Luther translated the Bible into the German language, he concluded that the papacy is the antichrist. This is because the Revelation mentions the city on the seven hills, which seems to be Rome, in a negative sense. So such kind of interpretation produces hate against the Catholics. Of course the present Pope has shown his intolerance towards Islam, but also apologized for it. This action is just telling that the Pope is just a human being, who also makes mistakes, so I don't want to beat that dead horse.

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Of course the Catholics believe, that the Revelation is part of their scripture. But they tried to do everything, to get the Catholic Church out of the focus, with shifting the events of the Revelation into the future, with their interpretation. This included the rejection of a phrase like "the time is at hand", when the Revelation was written.

Another problem of interpretations of the Revelation is, that only a very small minority of the Jews will be saved, so it is intolerant to Judaism.

So in summary the different interpretations of the Revelation produce hate: Protestants against Catholics, Christians against Jews, Christians against Muslims etc. I don't want to have hate in my heart, therefore I have to ignore the Revelation.

I would like to tell You about a project, where two men worked together to translate the Qur'an into the German language: Adel Theodor Khoury, a Catholic, and Muhammad Salim Abdullah, a Muslim. I was in contact with Muhammad Salim Abdullah, and he is a very wise man. Due to my Protestant background I had a lot of prejudices towards the Catholics, but I learned from Mr. Abdullah, that it is much more important to have peace. I think I didn't understand it immediately, since prophecy seems to tell there will be a future war. Of course in the current situation it appears inevitable, but there is also another way to go.

My point is: a war can never be justified to be the fulfillment of prophecy, may it be the Judaism claim to the Holy Land or the Muslim claim to the Holy Land, because Islam will rule the world one day. Let Allah be the judge.

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