[Music] The apocalypse, doomsday, the end of the world—it's a gloomy subject that many world religions have approached. In Christianity, the last book of the Bible, the Book of Revelation, contains a frightening vision of cataclysmic events, demonic horsemen, and even a few multi-eyed, Bible-accurate angels for good measure. This book is, without doubt, the strangest and most disturbing book in the whole Bible, so naturally, it's a topic I had to cover on this channel.
You may have heard of the Book of Revelation but may not be so familiar with what actually happens in the book. For example, where does the number 666 fit into all of it? If you're looking to learn more about the biblical apocalypse, well, you're in the right place.
I've crafted together this handy introductory video; you never know when you might need it. Before we start, it's worth noting that I'm going to examine the Book of Revelation from a secular, non-religious perspective. The book is highly symbolic and probably not meant to be taken literally, so at occasional moments throughout the video, I'll explain what some of the symbolism may mean using the interpretations of biblical scholars.
Disclaimer out of the way, bring on the apocalypse! The word "apocalypse" itself comes from the Greek, and it literally means "to uncover. " That's actually why it's called the Book of Revelation; it's all to do with something being revealed, in this case, the end of the world.
There's a rich history of these apocalypses in the Old Testament, but they don't necessarily have anything to do with the end times. Sometimes, they're just these startling visions of the otherworldly, like a glimpse of God's throne in the Book of Ezekiel or a dream featuring four strange beasts in the Book of Daniel. The Book of Revelation is from the perspective of a guy called John.
We don't know much about this character; it's not the same John who baptized people in the Jordan, nor is it the same person who wrote the Fourth Gospel. No, this is an entirely different John. It turns out that there are a lot of people called John in the Bible.
In fact, some scholars believe that this particular John might not have existed at all. Like most books in the Bible, the Book of Revelation was written and edited by anonymous authors, and so John may have been a pseudonym. Scholars say that the oldest part of the book was probably written around 65 CE during the reign of Emperor Nero and may have reached its final form at around 95 CE during the reign of Emperor Domitian.
Both of these emperors, particularly the first one, Emperor Nero, were known for their brutal persecutions of early Christians—a significant detail in order to understand the worldview behind the Book of Revelation. It was written in a frightening time for these first Christians, and their anxieties were captured on the pages containing a frightening collection of visions about the end of the world. Let's turn to the contents of the vision itself.
We start off in the idyllic Greek island of Patmos, where our main character, John, has been exiled. Behind him, he suddenly hears a booming voice calling his name. He turns around only to see a spectral figure bathed in bright light, surrounded by seven golden lampstands.
This unnamed person, who some believe to be Jesus himself, has a very strange appearance. He is enrobed in white, with eyes like fire, and protruding from his mouth is a sharp, two-edged sword. Yes, this description is in the text, and trust me, it's not the strangest we've yet to see.
This strange figure tells John to write to the seven churches dotted across the Mediterranean to give them a heads-up about what's about to go down. Once he does so, John is immediately whisked up into heaven. From there, John gives a spectacular account of everything he sees.
In front of him is a giant throne with 24 smaller thrones surrounding it. The central throne is so bright, glistening like many precious stones, that he can't actually make out the figure sitting on it, but we can safely assume that it's meant to be God himself. However, his attention is quickly drawn to four strange, multi-eyed beasts that are floating around near the throne.
Although the Bible calls them simply "living creatures," you may already be familiar with them as Bible-accurate angels—good friends of the channel. At this point, here's a description he gives of them: "Around the throne and on each side of the throne are four living creatures, full of eyes in front and behind. The first living creature is like a lion, the second living creature is like an ox, the third living creature with a face like a human face, and the fourth living creature like a flying eagle.
All four living creatures, each of them with six wings, are full of eyes all around and inside. Day and night, without ceasing, they sing. " A very strange description indeed—a winged lion, ox, humanoid, and eagle, covered in eyes from head to toe and singing praises to God eternally.
But at this point, you may have already watched my video on Bible-accurate angels, and you may be familiar with these creatures in the Book of Ezekiel in the Old Testament. They feature in a magnificent vision the Hebrew prophet gives of God's heavenly throne. In that video, I suggested that they likely developed from the Mesopotamian cherubim known as Lamasu.
Sadly, however, there are none of those wheels with eyes, known as Ophanim, to be found in this account. Not much else is said about these four eldritch hybrids other than this. Although some have interpreted their multi-eyes as a symbol of God's all-seeing nature, others see it to be deliberately creepy.
Now, I don't know about you, but I certainly see why they think this. Description of the four living creatures. Next, before John comes another strange beast.
It is described as looking like a lamb, although it has seven horns and seven eyes; because, of course, it does. It also looks like it's been slain. Because of this, many associate this being with Jesus, who is sometimes called the Lamb of God.
Whatever it is, the lamb creature holds in its hooves a large scroll with seven wax seals. With this, the apocalypse is truly underway. When the first seal is broken, out comes a man on a white horse, wielding a bow and wearing a crown.
This is the embodiment of conquest, the first of the four horsemen of the apocalypse. Seal two is broken, and out comes a horseman on a striding red horse, holding a large sword. This is the horseman of war.
Kinda similar to conquest, in my opinion, but whatever. Seal three is broken, and out comes a rider on a black horse, holding weighing scales. This is the horseman of famine.
Finally, the fourth seal is broken, and out comes a rider on a pale horse, the embodiment of death itself. With four of the seven seals broken, the lamb creature hands the four horsemen a quarter of the earth's population to destroy, either through violence, famine, pestilence, or death. Okay, so there are three seals left and three unpleasant events left to transpire.
Luckily, seal five is a bit of a dud; nothing really happens other than the souls of the martyrs are given nice white robes and told to wait around a bit for the final judgment. But when seal six is opened, things get really nasty for people on earth. No sooner than the seal is broken, and there is a giant earthquake—an earthquake so large that, quote, "every mountain and island was removed from its place.
" If we take this literally, this kind of earthquake would far surpass the magnitudes of the biggest recorded earthquakes, like the 1960 Valdivia earthquake in Chile that measured 9. 5 on the Richter scale. Such a large earthquake would be particularly bad news for anyone living on tectonic fault lines.
As well as a cataclysmic earthquake, the sixth seal would also make the sky turn black. Were it to happen, perpetual darkness would be devastating for Earth, especially for plant life, which requires sunlight to perform photosynthesis. Interestingly, such events have actually happened before and are often caused by major volcanic eruptions.
In 536 CE, during a period of European history aptly known as the Dark Ages, a giant volcanic eruption, believed to be from Indonesia, triggered what is known as a volcanic winter. This is when vast quantities of volcanic ash enter the atmosphere, dimming the sunlight and causing rapid cooling. Writing from Constantinople in 536, Byzantine historian Procopius wrote that, quote, "during this year, a most dreaded portent took place, for the sun gave forth its light without brightness, and it seemed exceedingly like the sun in eclipse, for the beams it shed were not clear.
" Other contemporary writers, as far away as Ireland, have attested to the same extreme weather, indicating that this phenomenon may have been widespread at the time and that the earth was indeed in a volcanic winter. If giant earthquakes and volcanic winters were not enough, the sixth seal also describes how, quote, "the stars of the sky fell to earth. " Now, if an actual star collided with the earth, then that would really be the end, as earth would be engulfed in a much larger ball of flame and plasma.
It is more likely, therefore, that the author is referring to a meteor shower. Often, these are quite harmless; earth orbits through many space rocks every day, resulting in beautiful shooting stars. Things get dangerous, however, when these rocks are big enough to not fully burn up in the atmosphere.
One such occasion was the Tunguska event in 1908, where a meteoroid of an estimated 100 meters landed in eastern Siberia, flattening the surrounding forest of up to 2,100 square kilometers—that's 830 square miles. Being in Siberia, the land was sparsely populated, so only three people were believed to have been killed. Had this landed on a city in 1908, then it would have been truly catastrophic.
Seal six is pretty brutal: mega earthquakes, perpetual darkness, and meteorite impacts. But there is one more seal left: the seventh seal. Fortunately, just like seal five, seal seven doesn't bring too much calamity.
The book simply says, quote, "there was a silence in heaven for about half an hour. " Perhaps the multi-eyed living creatures from earlier can finally get a break from singing God's praises. You would have thought that the seven seals were enough to end earth; more bad things are on the way.
Almost as soon as the seventh seal is opened, out come seven angels holding seven trumpets. Now you've probably noticed that the number seven appears quite a bit in the book of Revelation: seven golden lampstands, seven seals, now seven trumpets. The number seven is a significant one throughout the Bible.
For example, in the book of Genesis, it reportedly took seven days to create the universe. In the ancient world, this number seven was often regarded as the number of completion. The idea that the number seven was a special number carried on into later Christian tradition, where you also get the seven deadly sins, which, by the way, is another topic I've covered on the channel.
Forget what you've seen about cute angels with sweet little trumpets; these seven trumpets are about to destroy the earth. It's about to get dark, and in the case of trumpet fall, quite literally. Let's quickly rattle off what each trumpet does.
Trumpet one causes fire and hail to rain down on the earth; wildfires soon rage on the planet, and a third of Earth's vegetation gets burnt up. Trumpet two sounds, and a great mountain-sized object falls into the. .
. Sea turning a third of the oceans into blood; it also kills a third of the innocent sea creatures, which is pretty sad. Trumpet three plays, and a star falls from heaven and lands onto the earth's rivers.
The star is even given a name: Wormwood. This is actually a type of semi-poisonous herb, also known as mugwort, which makes sense in the Book of Revelation because Wormwood contaminates all the world's fresh water supplies, making it bitter and toxic. Trumpet four toots, and a third of the sun goes out, shrouding the planet in darkness.
We seem to have already had this one already back in the sixth seal. This discrepancy has led some scholars to suggest that a different author is writing here, perhaps unaware of the previous destruction wrought by the seven seals. Trumpet five, in my opinion, is the strangest of them all.
An angel descends to earth with a big key. The key opens a large trapdoor to a bottomless pit, and out of the pit comes a thick black smoke that eclipses whatever sunlight was left. Then, out of the dense fumes, emerge giant locusts that swarm and cause plagues all over the earth.
Now, these aren't just any giant locusts; they are Book of Revelation giant locusts. And so, they're given a very disturbing description: here goes. They have human faces and long flowing hair.
They wear armor and have little crowns on their heads. Oh, also, they have lion's teeth and giant scorpion stingers because, again, why not? These creatures are given the instruction to sting people, but not enough to kill them.
In fact, it says that people will be unable to die during this time, no matter how much they might wish to. This is absolute nightmare fuel, but there are still two trumpets to go. Trumpet six is sounded, and four angels are released to kill a third of humankind, all of whom helped to exterminate a third of humankind's population.
The final trumpet, trumpet seven, doesn't cause any destruction; instead, there's a little hymn for those in heaven and a few flashes of lightning here and there, but no major destruction on earth. At this point, I'd imagine that the world is practically unlivable. I'm starting to think that calling this video a survival guide might seem a bit pointless.
The water has turned into blood, things are on fire, there's no sunlight anymore, and there are giant manticore-looking locusts stinging people. The Book of Revelation has really gone to town in painting the most disastrous picture possible. Believe it or not, there are still yet more troubles to come, but in the form of three giant monsters.
Up first is a giant red dragon with seven heads and ten horns. So, two of the seven heads have two horns each. The ten of the dragon is so large that, when it sweeps, it apparently casts a third of the stars down.
We find out that the red dragon is Satan himself, who is suddenly attacked and defeated by the archangel Michael. Drgon Satan gets booted out of heaven and is thrown down to earth, and the land swallows him up. After this strange little episode comes the main attraction: the two so-called beasts.
The first beast comes out from the sea. This first beast has the shape of a leopard; it's got feet like a bear and a mouth like a lion. It's got multiple heads, and no surprise, there are seven of them, like the dragon.
It's got ten horns, with a diadem on each of those horns. One of the heads, however, looks to be wounded. Once coming up from the sea, this beast goes around bad-mouthing God and saying all kinds of blasphemies.
The survivors on earth—and yes, apparently, there are survivors—all start to worship this monster. Then suddenly, the earth opens up, and another strange beast comes out from the ground. Compared with the first beast, the description is lacking a bit; all we get is that it has two horns like a lamb but speaks like a dragon, and that's really it.
This beast goes around telling the inhabitants of earth how great beast number one is and performs a bunch of magic tricks to prove it's legit. The character is later known as the false prophet, although you may be familiar with the name used for it in other Christian texts: the Antichrist, literally meaning "the anti-Messiah. " So, should you choose to believe in this monster, it's bad news for you.
This beast goes around and writes a specific number on the foreheads of idolaters: the famous mark of the beast, the number 666. What is significant about this number, 666? Well, many biblical scholars have suggested that it's a code for the tyrannical emperor Nero.
You see, in the classical world, there was this practice of assigning letters to numbers; it's known as gematria. Hebrew letters had this system too, and if you spell out "Emperor Nero" in Hebrew, they add up to the number 666. Some of the oldest versions of the Book of Revelation, like this papyrus manuscript found at Oxyrhynchus in Egypt, have the number 616.
Gematria still works here, just for a different spelling of Nero's name. Interestingly, the Book of Revelation says that in order to buy and sell things, you need to show the mark of the beast. As with today's currencies, Roman coins often featured the head of the head of state—in this case, the emperor.
So, in order to barter and trade, you need to show the mark of the beast, i. e. the emperor Nero's face on coinage.
This interpretation is further supported by the Greek word for "mark," as in "mark of the beast," which is "charagma," and it's most commonly used to refer to the imprinting of coins. What's the emperor Nero got to do with the beast? Well, Emperor Nero, who ruled from.
. . 54 to 68 CE was responsible for a number of infamous Christian persecutions.
Early Christians refused to worship the emperor, who, in the imperial cult, was a divine figure. Instead, they held that their exclusive belief was in God, the God of Israel. This enraged many a Roman emperor, especially Nero, who attempted to persecute them out of existence.
He even blamed the Great Fire of Rome on the Christians, and contemporary writers wrote harrowing accounts of all the suffering this emperor inflicted, such as throwing Christians to lions. As a result, Nero especially became a symbol of evil. So when the Book of Revelation is talking about people worshiping the beast, it refers to the practice of worshiping the emperor.
All this is done in code; those who bear the mark 666, in other words, Nero, will be condemned to suffer for all eternity whilst the earth is under the dominion of these strange beasts slash Roman emperors. Up in heaven, the angels are preparing the final phase of destruction. We've had seven seals, seven trumpets, and now we've got seven bowls.
These bowls are said to be full of God's wrath, whatever that entails. Either way, the bowls work in a similar way to the seals and trumpets; when they're poured onto the earth, bad things happen. Here we go again.
Final one: this time, bowl one is poured onto the earth, and painful sores and boils form on all the people who wear the mark of the beast on their forehead. Bowl two causes the whole sea now to turn into blood, no longer just a third of it. Bowl three causes all the fresh water, the lakes and the rivers, to turn to blood.
Yep, lots of blood in this passage. Bowl four causes the sun's heat to intensify, scorching people on earth badly. Bowl five causes the kingdom of the beast to go dark, and political instability ensues; some have seen this as a reference to the fall of the Roman Empire.
Bowl six causes the river Euphrates—that's in modern-day Iraq—to dry up. Later, the world's armies all assemble and do battle at a place known as Armageddon. Fun fact: the Hebrew word for Armageddon is Ha Megiddo, referring to Mount Megiddo in northern Israel.
Over time, Ha Megiddo shifted to Armageddon, and because of the Book of Revelation, it became another name for the Apocalypse. Bowl seven is your classic Book of Revelation business: lightning, hailstones, and a massive earthquake, which destroys the city of Babylon. However, where Babylon was the great city of evil in the Old Testament, by the time the New Testament was being written, the city of Babylon had long been deserted, having been conquered by the Persians some 500 years before.
So instead, many believe that Babylon is a reference to the capital city of the empire, Rome. Again, it's another example of the Book of Revelation speaking in code. After a third and final round of devastation, which seems to me a tad excessive, the vision in the Book of Revelations begins to near its end.
In fact, the whole thing wraps up pretty quickly, without much of a struggle. The first and second beast are captured by the armies of God and are kicked into "a lake of fire that burns with sulfur," which is probably a reference to hell. Then, the giant multi-headed dragon, which is Satan, is locked up in the pit too and is sealed for 1,000 years.
In this intermission, Jesus comes down to rule the earth until things pick up again. Well, time flies—1,000 years pass, and Satan is released. It's now time for the epic final showdown of biblical proportions.
However, the series finale of the Bible is a bit anti-climactic. All that happens is a shoot of fire zips down from heaven and engulfs the evil army. Satan and all his monsters are cast into the lake of fire and sulfur to join the beasts, and his evil influence finally comes to an end.
The Book of Revelation draws to a close, and we get the Bible's happy ending: a vision of something called the New Jerusalem. It's a description of a wondrous new city made of solid gold. Our protagonist, John, goes to great lengths to describe its dimensions, and it turns out that the New Jerusalem is one giant cube.
Its length, width, and height are 12,000 stadia, which is 2,220 kilometers (that's 1,380 miles! ). In this city, God, Jesus, all the do-gooders, and all the multi-eyed creatures live in perpetual harmony.
It is this vision of a strange sci-fi construction that the Book of Revelation closes with, and with it, the entire Bible comes to an end. So, without a doubt, the Book of Revelation is the strangest book in the Bible, finishing it off in a maelstrom of fire, earthquakes, eldritch creatures, chaos, and calamity. If such an event were to take place, it looks to be a pretty unpleasant affair.
In such a complex and intricate book of the Bible, I haven't managed to explore everything this strange book has to offer, just the main story beats. If you'd like me to cover any aspects that have interested you in this video, do write them down in the comments below. A theme across this book and many other New Testament texts is that Jesus will return and bring with him the second coming and a fiery cataclysm.
The very first communities of Christians believed such an event would happen in their lifetime, but when it never came to pass, the hope was transferred to generations after them, and so on, until the present day. Throughout history, theologians and everyday folk have attempted to figure out when the apocalypse will happen and whether there'll be any warning signs that hint it is on its way. Often, as in always, they get it spectacularly wrong and occasionally embarrass.
Themselves in the process, just like Pope Sylvester feared that the year 1000 would mark the end of the world; some worried that the year 2000 would too, in fear of the Y2K, where computers would cease to function, causing a global technological meltdown. More recently, 2012 was seen as a good year for the apocalypse. Misplaced fears about the Mayan calendar led some to believe that the Earth was on a collision course with the fictitious planet Nibiru.
Just as the Mayan calendar continued, the Gregorian calendar continued, and we're still here today. To my mind, I doubt that anyone can ever predict when the end of the world is going to happen, so for now, we can relax. People have got it wrong in the past, so let's hope they'll continue to get it wrong in the future.
Hey, thanks for watching this video! Really hope you enjoyed this one; it was an absolute blast to make. If you like this kind of stuff, especially this longer form video, a like and a comment also go a really long way.
After a bit of pause in uploads to finish off my university dissertation, I'm glad to say that I've graduated! Thank you all for your patience; more videos to come, I promise. I have plenty of videos that I've been itching to make.
Anyway, I look forward to seeing you next time. [Music] Goodbye!
