December 9, 2013 – Revelations 17 – 18

Chapter 17 is about the Whore of Babylon.  I have seen things that feel this is the Catholic Church.  Basically the only connection I can see with that is the 7 hills and that Rome is famous for its 7 hills.  BUT when this was written, Rome was something different than what we think of today.  Although Peter was in Rome and the Pope was established there when John wrote this, Rome was the capital of the Roman empire, not a powerful Catholic Church.  And to think that among all the symbolism in Revelations that you must take the 7 hills to be literal is a stretch.  Plus, the whore is in battle or destroying the witnesses to Jesus.  Remember that until much later, there was no division in Christianity that we see today.

What do I think the whore of Babylon represents.  Something like the ideology of secularism or atheism.  The line that got me thinking in that direction was “The kings of the earth have had intercourse with her, and the inhabitants of the earth became drunk on the wine of her harlotry.” 17:2  I think when you look at the nations of the world and how we are trying to take God and morality out of everything we are doing, this ideology is the real thing that is battling God and drinking the blood of the witnesses of Christ.  Plus, I have written earlier that Revelations, at least to me, feels like it fits better with the characters personifying ideologies and ideas rather than actual people or nations.  It also follows along with the Biblical literature where Wisdom is described as a person etc.