Re: 25 Classic Books That Have Been Banned

On Thu, 26 Jun 2025 00:14:05 +0100, Robert Carnegie
<rja.carnegie@gmail.com> wrote:

On 23/06/2025 22:24, The Horny Goat wrote:

On Sun, 25 May 2025 23:52:43 +0100, Robert Carnegie
<rja.carnegie@gmail.com> wrote:
 

Was he himself writing from Heaven - or from
New Jerusalem - or was he in different places
simultaneously?  I'm sort of assuming that
this isn't the Antichrist writing, who may be
well informed but not authentically pious.

 
Supposedly St John wrote the Revelation when he was exiled to the Isle
of Patmos which is one of the small islands in the Aegean between
Greece + Turkey. He says he had visions and recorded what he saw.
>
Christian sources figure he was at least 80 if not 90 years old when
he wrote it and that it was the last book of the New Testament to be
written.

>
Per <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Book_of_Revelation>
it's probably someone else called John.  But John of
Patmos, I infer, isn't a "Saint" because if he is,
then he may be St John after all.

One of the many books I read over the last couple of years adopted
this position, but most preferred the Apostle to some
otherwise-unknown Elder.

As usual, he was writing shortly before the end of
the world.  But I was asking about a reviewer of
Revelation, who seems to think that "Revelation"
now has happened, and all true Christians are safely
in Heaven with God.  I wondered how, in that case,
he got a book published about it down here on Earth.

One book said something like that, but I think he was a
post-millenialist or perhaps an amillenialist. He believed that every
Christian that ever was or ever will was in Heaven right now ruling
the world in conjunction with Jesus. But, of course, they are also
here on Earth.

This is conceivable if one thinks of Heaven as being in a timeless
Eternity, so there is only one eternal Now. In that case, everyone in
it has always been and will always be in it because there is no Time
when they can not be. Nothing prevents them from also being in the
Universe, which does have Time, for a brief period.

Notice that I say "conceivable". I pass no judgement on its
correctness.

If this makes your head hurt, be aware that that is quite common. It
is /very/ hard to actually imagine what a timeless Eternity would be
like. We are /very much/ embedded in Time and our very thoughts
reflect this.

Even JRRT, who explicitly locates Eru Iluvator in the Timeless Halls,
has him composing and supervising three performances of the Song of
the Ainur -- which is impossible: without time you would have one
eternal Note and nothing more. [1]

[1] In another newsgroup, this led to the assertion that a Typo had
occurred, and that, instead of "Timeless halls", "Timless halls" were
meant. IOW, that Eru Iluvator's halls lacked a certain entity named
"Tim".
--
"Here lies the Tuscan poet Aretino,
Who evil spoke of everyone but God,
Giving as his excuse, 'I never knew him.'"