| epicurean said: Revelations is incredibly tough to understand. I'm not sure if John even understood it as he was writing it. Dragons and horns and beasts with many heads and wings, etc., etc. It is interesting to read people's interpretations of it, though. |
He understood it because it's all pretty much analogy. That it's talking about Rome is basically spelled out. It says in Revelation 17:9 that "the seven heads are seven mountains on which the woman is seated."
"Accordingly, the woman sits on the seven-headed beast as a symbol of her "seven hills" -- the seven hills of Rome. The woman is the city of Roman, here depicted as the persecutor of Christians. Then it says that the seven heads are also seven kings. And we can read from its cryptic terminology the references to the Emperors of Rome. The "five fallen" refer to the five emperors who have died: Augustus (29 BCE - 14 CE), Tiberius (14-37 CE), Gaius (37-41), Claudius (41-54) and Nero (54-68)." http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/apocalypse/revelation/white.html
