What Do You Do With a Chocolate Jesus? (24 page)

Most interpret these locusts as satanic warriors. Our buddy Hal Lindsey likens them to military helicopters in a global war. For Charles Manson (yeah,
that
Charles Manson) this passage referred to The Beatles: hair like women (mop tops), lion’s teeth (their voices), iron breast plates (electric guitars), and the noise of many chariots (that damned rock ’n roll music). Since this verse is found in
Revelation 9
, Manson equated it with the White Album song
Revolution 9
. This demented thinking inspired his “Helter Skelter” murders, which he thought would trigger a global race war that would leave
him
in charge. Okay, he was nuts. But it shows how dangerous this prophecy business can be, even if it sounds less deranged coming from a king, a preacher, or the occasional president.

The nightmares continue, and 200,000 warriors storm out of the east to slaughter a third of humanity. The Ark of the Covenant shows up at one point, and a great red dragon with seven heads and ten horns appears and tries to devour a heaven-sent infant (yes, yes, presumably Jesus). The seven-headed dragon probably stands for Rome—a city on seven hills—or perhaps seven Roman emperors. Or, if you’re Hal Lindsay, it’s the European Union back when it had fewer members than it does today. In any case, God rescues the infant.

A war rages in heaven. Satan and his army are booted out, so they turn their fury against man. Then, from the sea rises a
second
dragon: The Beast. The antichrist. Actually, he’s a charismatic world leader (a charismatic dragon?) who rules for three-and-a-half years. And his number is 666!

Creative math worthy of a Hollywood studio accountant has been employed to link this number to almost anyone with a household name. Hebrew numerology assigns a numerical value to each letter, so if you spell out the name of your antichrist nominee just right (did you include a title or a middle name?) you can make it add up to 666. But that’s only one method of coming up with the number. There are many other ways, which is what makes the whole business such a crock.

The earliest candidate was Emperor Nero, the first persecutor of Christians. His name can be made to calculate out to 666. Problem is,
Revelation
was supposed to be about the future and Nero died decades before the book was written. Not to worry, though. There are plenty more candidates where he came from, chief among them:

Emperor Caligula, Emperor Justinian, various barbarian kings, most popes, the Catholic Church, Mohammad, Saladin, Genghis Khan, King Philip of France, Martin Luther, King George III of England, Napoleon Bonaparte, Czar Peter the Great, Friedrich Nietzsche, Kaiser Wilhelm, Benito Mussolini, Adolph Hitler, Franklin Roosevelt, Josef Stalin, Nikita Khrushchev, David Rockefeller, JFK, Pete Seeger, the European Union, Henry Kissinger, Jim Jones, Jimmy Carter, Anwar Sadat, Rev. Sun Myung Moon, Ronald Wilson Reagan, Mikhail Gorbachev, David Koresh, Pat Robertson, Bill Gates, Yasser Arafat, the Ayatollah Khomeini, Saddam Hussein, Osama bin Laden, Dick Cheney, and even Barrack Hussein Obama.

 

Of course, it’s quite possible that nobody’s name fits 666, and for good reason.
It’s the wrong number!
The oldest surviving copy of
Revelation
, from the third century, actually claims the number of the Beast is 616. This would seem to toss out all the candidates mentioned above and send
Revelation
freaks back to their calculators. But if we try really hard, we can come up with something for this alternative number. How’s this? The area code for Grand Rapids, Michigan is 616. Now look at a map. Michigan is shaped like a hand—which is exactly where Scripture says we will receive the mark of the Beast! No?

“Also it [the Beast] causes all…to be marked on the right hand or the forehead, so that no one can buy or sell unless he has the mark…” [Rev. 13:16–17]

 

This ominous mark gets some fundamentalists in a tizzy over things like bar codes, credit cards, and even union labels on commercial products. (They must figure Satan is a Teamster. I’m sure he belongs to the NRA.)

The reality is “the mark of the Beast” refers to Roman coins that were stamped with the image of the emperor—a false idol. As mentioned earlier, using such coins was disdained by pious Jews. Now these coins were being demonized by Christians as well in order to separate believers from the economic prosperity of pagan life. It’s the biblical equivalent of cutting up your VISA card.

Armageddon

The battle between good and evil is drawn between the Beast, with an army of 200 million, and the 144,000 virgin mama’s boys, plus a few warrior angels. They assemble on the field of Armageddon—a place mentioned only once in Scripture. The Hebrew word is
Har Megiddo
—an actual site in Israel where ancient battles took place. There are even road signs pointing the way, just in case you have a hard time finding 200 million warriors.

John then sees the great Whore of Babylon—a coded reference to Rome. She rides a scarlet beast, she’s dressed in gold and jewels, and she drinks the blood of the martyrs. But don’t worry. In the end, she’ll be made “desolate and naked” and her flesh will be “devoured and burned.” [Rev. 17:16] Makes you feel all Christian inside, doesn’t it?

When the battle is over, Satan and the antichrist (the Beast) are cast into “a lake of fire,” and, for the next thousand years, peace will reign on earth—the Millennium you’ve heard so much about.

But some guys don’t know when they’re beaten. At the end of the Millennium, Satan will be free again. (Someone forget to lock the door?) After a little more fighting, a fire consumes the armies of hell and Satan is tossed into the pit forever.
Whew!

Ah, but don’t relax yet because now it’s Judgment Day. All the living and all the dead whose names are not in the
Book of Life
will join Satan in the fiery pit.

Then finally, finally,
finally
…John sees a New Jerusalem, a radiant city of crystal and gold, descend to the earth, and all the chosen will dwell there forever in eternal sunlight. God’s kingdom will have come. And everyone lives happily ever after. Seriously.

As mentioned, at the tail end of the Bible, there’s a brief postscript. Jesus says
three times
that he’s coming “soon.” There’s that word again. Twenty centuries later, we’re still waiting.

Ends of the Earth

Though the author himself says
Revelation
should be read “spiritually” and not literally, history is lousy with self-appointed visionaries who take it literally anyway, and it gets hordes of believers strangely jazzed about the end of the world.

This is not a good thing. If you think The End is near, you tend to do things that help it along and you ignore long-term problems that ought to be addressed. Obviously, you don’t want such people in charge. But their mixture of delusion and paranoia can be very entertaining, and sometimes dangerous. Here are just a few of the hundreds of alarmists who got it wrong over the centuries.

Raoul Glaber:
This monk from Burgundy interpreted a famine, earthquakes, the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in A.D. 993, and the death of Pope Gregory V in 999, as ominous portents of The End. His forecasts had pilgrims to the Holy Land dropping to their knees in fervent prayer over every shooting star or black cat.

Joachim of Fiore:
In the late 1100s, this guy launched the tradition of applying verses in
Revelation
to contemporary events instead of to ancient occurrences. During the Third Crusade, he told Richard the Lionheart (Robin Hood’s king) that Jesus was coming soon to battle the antichrist—who happened to be the pope.

Emperor Prester John:
Around 1219, European Christians heard tales of a warrior prince who was vanquishing their Muslim enemies in the east. He was thought to be Prester John, a Christian hero whom legend said would emerge in the Last Days to reunite the Lost Tribes of Israel. He turned out to be Genghis Khan. Oops.

The Flagellants:
Around 1260, this Italian doomsday cult went from town to town publicly beating themselves into spiritual ecstasy with iron-tipped leather whips. They wanted to assure their salvation by sharing the sufferings of Christ. At least, that was their excuse. Apparently, they were very naughty boys.

Christopher Columbus:
Sure, he was a hard-headed navigator, but he also imagined that the gold he might acquire in the New World could finance the rebuilding of the Jerusalem Temple and thus hasten the return of Christ. The guy was always looking for a shortcut.

Girolamo Savonarola:
In the late 1400s, this Dominican friar became a strident moral reformer and one of Europe’s most pious pains in the ass. The Joe McCarthy of his day, he saw enemies everywhere and he believed the flourishing city of Florence would be the site of the New Jerusalem—as soon as he finished destroying everything that was good about the place. Savonarola puked up rage against the opulence of both the city and the Church. He denounced sexual pleasures (naturally), along with makeup, perfume, and most anything that made you attractive in public. He sparked the famous “Bonfire of the Vanities” that called for the incineration of fashion accessories, gambling doodads, “lewd” artworks (including a Botticelli or two), and even musical instruments. The man was a fart in a sack.

He slammed the Church so hard for its excesses that the pope offered to make him a cardinal just to shut him up. Instead, he spent three years revving up intolerance, outrage, and violence, until he ticked off so many people that he was finally accused of heresy. He was excommunicated, tortured, hanged and then burned. Nobody seems to miss him.

Martin Luther:
Only a bit less annoying was the father of the Protestant Reformation, who said, “For my part, I am sure that the Day of Judgment is just around the corner…” That was in the early 1500s.

John van Leiden (a.k.a. Jan Bockelson):
This actor turned panic-peddler joined the radical Dutch Anabaptists and, in 1534, established a messianic little kingdom in Münster, Germany. He claimed everyone but his own followers were about to be wiped out, and he launched his messiah gig by running naked through the streets, then falling into a trance for three days. Somehow it worked. He demanded everyone’s silver and gold, and advocated strict sexual behavior—until he became a polygamist. Under his regime, the people were milked for every dime and anyone who objected was beheaded. After a year of this, his rivals finally rose up, sentenced him to death, and then had him shackled to a stake, burned with hot pincers, and finally de-tongued.

The Puritans:
These religious extremists established early colonies in the New World, and added a new wrinkle to apocalyptic fear-mongering by being so happily enthusiastic about Doomsday. After all, it would see the demise of non-believers and no one would be left to interfere with their joy-killing.

In Leeds, England
back in 1806, a small panic broke out when a hen started laying eggs bearing the words “Christ is coming.” Turns out someone wrote on the eggs, then stuffed them back
into
the poor chicken. Note: This doesn’t work with sheep.

William Miller:
In the 1830s, this character built up a huge following across the U.S. by preaching Jesus’ imminent return. On October 22, 1844, thousands of his followers prepared for The End; some even waited beside their own freshly-dug graves. When Jesus was a no-show, the day became known as The Great Day of Disappointment. Miller’s following fizzled, but a few diehards stuck it out and morphed into the Seventh Day Adventists.

Rev. Jerry Falwell:
Founder of the now-defunct Moral Majority, the right-wing reverend was among those fundamentalist frauds who had millions believing the Cold War was a preamble to Armageddon. In the introduction to his 1983 book,
Nuclear War and the Second Coming of Jesus Christ
, he wrote, “…the one brings thoughts of fear, destruction, and death, while the other brings thoughts of joy, hope, and life. They almost seem inconsistent with one another, yet they are indelibly intertwined.” Falwell also suggested the attacks of September 11, 2001 on New York and Washington D.C. were God’s punishment for America’s tolerance of abortion, homosexuality, or anything else that personally bugged him. He could get like that.

David Koresh:
Born Vernon Wayne Howell, which makes him sound like he lived on Gilligan’s Island, this self-serving guru conned a softheaded crowd of believers in 1993 into burning themselves alive rather than surrender the weapons they collected on their compound in Waco, Texas. Personal theory: No good ever comes from a compound.

The Rapture

The goofy notion that all true believers will suddenly disappear just before the Apocalypse, and thus be spared all the carnage, comes out of the same fuzzyheaded Spiritualist movement of the 19
^th
century that produced William Miller, Joseph Smith, and numberless parlor room séances. The term “Rapture” is never used in the Bible, and the concept doesn’t come from
Revelation
, but from Paul in
1 Thessalonians 4:16–17: