Revelation chapter 13/ who is the 1st Beast, the 2nd Beast, the Image of the beast and what is the Mark of the beast?
Revelation chapter 13/ who is the 1st Beast, the 2nd Beast, the Image of the beast and what is the Mark of the beast?
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Here's what I found: The first beast in Revelation is a powerful, serpentine figure described as having seven heads and ten horns, emerging from the sea. It is often interpreted as a symbolic representation of an Antichrist figure, gaining its power and authority from the dragon (Satan). This beast is characterized by blasphemy, persecution, and the ability to cause the world to worship an image of itself. In Revelation 13, the "image of the beast" refers to a likeness or representation of the first beast, the one from the sea, which is believed to symbolize an Antichrist figure. The image is created by a second beast, who deceives people into worshipping it and giving it the same authority as the first beast. This image is capable of speaking, performing signs, and even killing those who refuse to worship it.
As far as the mark of the beast, In Revelation 13, the "mark of the beast" is a symbol of allegiance to the beast, a figure representing the Antichrist and a deceptive system. It is placed on the right hand or forehead and is required to participate in economic transactions. The mark is associated with the number 666, which represents the name of the beast.
Just an fyi, some people interpret the 'who they are' in many different schemes as well as the motb.
As far as the mark of the beast, In Revelation 13, the "mark of the beast" is a symbol of allegiance to the beast, a figure representing the Antichrist and a deceptive system. It is placed on the right hand or forehead and is required to participate in economic transactions. The mark is associated with the number 666, which represents the name of the beast.
Just an fyi, some people interpret the 'who they are' in many different schemes as well as the motb.
This 'number of man' keeps bringing me back to the thought of humanism, which 'emerged' in the Renaissance. And, reading through the Britannica's Definition, Principles, History, & Influence inspired an image of a beast with multiple heads (and John Calvin, and Erasmus head the list of 'Key People')
Sorry, what group of "key people" do Calvin and Erasmus head? Surely you aren't saying that John Calvin is one of the beast's heads?This 'number of man' keeps bringing me back to the thought of humanism, which 'emerged' in the Renaissance. And, reading through the Britannica's Definition, Principles, History, & Influence inspired an image of a beast with multiple heads (and John Calvin, and Erasmus head the list of 'Key People')
Within the encyclopedia's extensive definition of humanism, Calvin is featured of those that drew from that particular philosophy (within the subheading "Humanism and Christianity). He is exampled among others such as Machiavelli (who is brought up under a different category of humanist).
All are free to draw their own conclusions from this, at any rate, but I just found it a little more than interesting. Humanism emerged about six hundred years ago. The beast has 7 heads and one of the heads has 3 crowns, which makes me wonder if this age, currently the 7th, is representative of that 'head.'
As I continue considering the notion, as I tend to do unless I can manage to dismiss it as just vain imagination, and therefore a waste of time, I've found myself also considering the possible identity of the whore of Babylon and the correlation between her and the beast. I should link the Britannica article, but if anyone is interested enough to search it out for themselves, it is readily available to retrieve. Humanism involves the Arts & Humanities so, this leads me to a notion that, if indeed the 7th head is currently presenting itself (having noted that at the heart of humanism is oratory mastery and its influence on thinking (who do you suppose might go down in history as the greatest orator of all time?), the crowns could well resemble such subjects aspired toward in pursuit of Liberal Arts studies, politics, music, and theater. And who has found themselves at ground zero of exposure, naked, of late? Politicians, rappers, and the Hollywood elite.
This imagery
“And I stood upon the sand of the sea, and saw a beast rise up out of the sea, having seven heads and ten horns, and upon his horns ten crowns, and upon his heads the name of blasphemy.
And the beast which I saw was like unto a leopard, and his feet were as the feet of a bear, and his mouth as the mouth of a lion:
and the dragon gave him his power, and his seat, and great authority.”
Revelation 13:1-2
This image doesn’t begin here with johns vision but places like here in daniels about 650- 700 years prior
“Daniel spake and said, I saw in my vision by night, and, behold, the four winds of the heaven strove upon the great sea. And four great beasts came up from the sea, diverse one from another.
The first was like a lion, and had eagle's wings: ……And behold another beast, a second, like to a bear, …… After this I beheld, and lo another, like a leopard, which had upon the back of it four wings of a fowl; the beast had also four heads; and dominion was given to it.
After this I saw in the night visions, and behold a fourth beast, dreadful and terrible, and strong exceedingly; and it had great iron teeth: it devoured and brake in pieces, and stamped the residue with the feet of it: and it was diverse from all the beasts that were before it; and it had ten horns.”
Daniel 7:2-7
note daniel sees four beasts rise up from the sea , with a total of seven heads and ten horns. Who look just like this
“ a beast rise up out of the sea, having seven heads and ten horns,
“the beast which I saw was like unto a leopard, and his feet were as the feet of a bear, and his mouth as the mouth of a lion:”
then daniel is told what those beasts are
“These great beasts, which are four, are four kings, which shall arise out of the earth. Thus he said, The fourth beast shall be the fourth kingdom upon earth, which shall be diverse from all kingdoms, and shall devour the whole earth, and shall tread it down, and break it in pieces. ….
Daniel 7:17, 23-24 KJV
daniel sees a series of visions regarding these four kingdoms or rather here he doesn’t see a vision but is interpreting a dream of the same thing this tells us Babylon is the first beast in daniels vision and then another would take power after Babylon . Then another that would rule over the whole earth . Finally a fourth that would destroy the earth
“This is the dream; and we will tell the interpretation thereof before the king. Thou, O king, art a king of kings: for the God of heaven hath given thee a kingdom, power, and strength, and glory. And wheresoever the children of men dwell, the beasts of the field and the fowls of the heaven hath he given into thine hand, and hath made thee ruler over them all. Thou art this head of gold. And after thee shall arise another kingdom inferior to thee, and another third kingdom of brass, which shall bear rule over all the earth. And the fourth kingdom shall be strong as iron: forasmuch as iron breaketh in pieces and subdueth all things: and as iron that breaketh all these, shall it break in pieces and bruise.”
Daniel 2:36-40
In another instance daniel is told that media Persia is the second kingdom and grecia is the third. The one with four heads. This being Greece’s Alexander the Great’s , four generals who ruled after he died. And finally we see the ruler of the ten horns kingdom rise up
“The ram which thou sawest having two horns are the kings of Media and Persia. And the rough goat is the king of Grecia: and the great horn that is between his eyes is the first king.( Alexander the Great )
Now that being broken, whereas four stood up for it, ( his four generals who ruled in his stead ) four kingdoms shall stand up out of the nation, but not in his power.
And in the latter time of their kingdom, when the transgressors are come to the full, a king of fierce countenance, and understanding dark sentences, shall stand up. And his power shall be mighty, but not by his own power: and he shall destroy wonderfully, and shall prosper, and practise, and shall destroy the mighty and the holy people.”
Daniel 8:20-24 KJV
remember where the beasts power and authority came from …
“the dragon gave him his power, and his seat, and great authority.”
This is only one sample but the point is read the visions of Daniel when the first head ( Babylon ) was ruling and then read johns vision of this when the sixth head was ruling aboit 6-700 years later .
“And there are seven kings: five are fallen,( in johns past Babylon, Persia , Greeces four sections of the divided kingdom of Alexander that eventually formed the Roman Empire which was ruling in johns day the sixth head
and one is, (#6 johns present day )
and the other is not yet come; and when he cometh, he must continue a short space.#7 ( johns near and immediate future )
And the beast that was, and is not, even he is the eighth, and is of the seven, and goeth into perdition. And the ten horns which thou sawest are ten kings, which have received no kingdom as yet; but receive power as kings one hour with the beast.”( more distant future kingdom )
Revelation 17:10-
I’m simply saying other prophets saw visions before John did and those other visions are where more details of things like that mysterious giant beast with seven heads John sees or those two olive trees John is told about or those four riders on horses John sees or that lamb who was slain and yet lives who John sees or the rider on the white horse , the battle of armegeddon ect those things are all foretold and seen on visions before johns and that’s how his makes any sense
Yes the first beast came from it the Antichrist, also known as the Lawless One in biblical statement. And again yes, the Image is the likeness of the first beast, I disagree that it is symbolize the Antichrist. The imperial Rome before is the first beast but it was dissolve at the time of Napoleon Bonaparte in 1800s as the deadly wound of the 1st beast, but later it healed and revived and what is now the European Union! The Image is the United Nations, to make comparison between United Nations and European Union... what I understand the 1st Beast is the Roman Empire the true antagonist of the Christians since Jesus's earthly time, that later became a Holy Roman Empire controlled by Papacy for centuries until the rule of Napoleon. But then the prophetic revived Roman Empire is now European Union. Let us what the Google says…”Is the EU the New Roman Empire? But now there seems to be a fundamentally new kind of empire: the European Union. ... It has a flag, a directly elected parliament, a huge budget, a powerful bureaucracy, and central laws that supersede national laws of individual EU states. It is expanding, and in size already comparable to the ancient Roman Empire. Since the book of Revelation chptr 13 tells about the Image of the 1st Beast, probably the United Nations is the Image of the prophetic revived Roman Empire which is European Union. What does the European Union and the United Nations have in common? At the political level, the European Union works in close cooperation with the United Nations in such areas as peacekeeping, development, human rights or humanitarian assistance. The EU has a judicial component International Criminal Court while UN has the International Court of Justice.
Hello @Mem/@DavidLamb, interesting study, thanks 
Under Britannica's definition heading of "Humanism", my search for "John Calvin" resulted in only two hits, one simply naming him as a "key person" (w/o any explanation) and the second in a single sentence that you can see below (from the 4th paragraph under the subtitle Humanism and Christianity):
God bless you!
~Deuteronomy (David)
p.s. - there is MUCH more to look into about all of this. If I find anything worth sharing, I will report back
Under Britannica's definition heading of "Humanism", my search for "John Calvin" resulted in only two hits, one simply naming him as a "key person" (w/o any explanation) and the second in a single sentence that you can see below (from the 4th paragraph under the subtitle Humanism and Christianity):
Last, humanism repeatedly fostered the impulse of religious reform. The humanistic emphasis on total authenticity and direct contact with sources had, as its religious correlative, a desire to obliterate the medieval accretions and procedural complexities that stood between worshippers and their God. The reform-mindedness of such humanists as Petrarch, Boccaccio, Desiderius Erasmus, and François Rabelais was balanced on the religious side by reformers such as ~John Calvin~ and Philipp Melanchthon, who employed humanistic techniques in their own cause. And the reform movement, while it may have modernized and thus preserved Christianity, rang the death knell for a medieval culture whose essential characteristic had been participation in a universal church.
So, I looked at Britannica's article on Calvin Himself and discovered that it had more to say about him as a humanist .. see below to read the opening two paragraphs of the definition, subtitle Intellectual Formation (Machiavelli, on the other hand, was mentioned quite often in Britannica's definition of Humanism).
Historians are generally agreed that Calvin is to be understood primarily as a Renaissance humanist who aimed to apply the novelties of humanism to recover a biblical understanding of Christianity. Thus, he sought to appeal rhetorically to the human heart rather than to compel agreement, in the traditional manner of systematic theologians, by demonstrating dogmatic truths. His chief enemies, indeed, were the systematic theologians of his own time, the Scholastics, both because they relied too much on human reason rather than the Bible and because their teachings were lifeless and irrelevant to a world in desperate need. Calvin’s humanism meant first that he thought of himself as a biblical theologian in accordance with the Reformation slogan scriptura sola. He was prepared to follow Scripture even when it surpassed the limits of human understanding, trusting to the Holy Spirit to inspire faith in its promises. Like other humanists, he was also deeply concerned to remedy the evils of his own time; and here too he found guidance in Scripture. Its teachings could not be presented as a set of timeless abstractions but had to be brought to life by adapting them to the understanding of contemporaries according to the rhetorical principle of decorum—i.e., suitability to time, place, and audience.
Calvin’s humanism influenced his thought in two other basic ways. For one, he shared with earlier Renaissance humanists an essentially biblical conception of the human personality, comprehending it not as a hierarchy of faculties ruled by reason but as a mysterious unity in which what is primary is not what is highest but what is central: the heart. This conception assigned more importance to will and feelings than to the intellect, and it also gave new dignity to the body. For this reason Calvin rejected the ascetic disregard of the body’s needs that was often prominent in medieval spirituality. Implicit in this particular rejection of the traditional hierarchy of faculties in the personality, however, was a radical rejection of the traditional belief that hierarchy was the basis of all order. For Calvin, instead, the only foundation for order in human affairs was utility. Among its other consequences this position undermined the traditional one subordinating women to men. Calvin believed that, for practical reasons, it may be necessary for some to command and others to obey, but it could no longer be argued that women must naturally be subordinated to men. This helps to explain the rejection in Geneva of the double standard in sexual morality.
To finish reading this section, click here: https://www.britannica.com/biography/John-Calvin#ref13433
Finally, there are humanists like hedonist, Hobbes, and the pragmatic cynic and atheist, Machiavelli (and many others), whose humanist philosophies and ethics led to the Enlightenment and beyond, far afield from what the religious humanists believed, envisioned and taught, whether Catholic or Protestant - e.g. Ethics - Machiavelli, Morality, Politics | BritannicaGod bless you!
~Deuteronomy (David)
p.s. - there is MUCH more to look into about all of this. If I find anything worth sharing, I will report back
As you see, Erasmus, who was a defender of free will, was listed as a 'key people' along with John Calvin, so I wasn't 'saying' Calvin is one of the multiple heads as much as the heads represent the multiple 'offshoots' from the (influence of the collective) body of humanism. I haven't really thought much, yet, into whether any of these mentioned as "Key People" might be representative of its crown though.
and @Deuteronomy
I remember seeing there isn't much mention of Calving but seem recall if only a little more mention. However, attempting to go back through to find that, a short elaboration about his stance re: the catholic church, I'm reminded this computer does not facilitate much extensive study. I might've been segue somehow to a different article, similar to where your research led you but, it seems my 'good for not much more than chat' operating system seems more interested in loading ads than allowing me to view the material with any sort of ease. Thank you for your contribution in the research. It looks like I'll have to dust my old off office/study computer.
A key verse in understanding the book of Revelation is chapter 1, verse 3-“Blessed are those who READ and those who HEAR the words of this prophecy.” This was written for people in the first century as well as those of us in the 21st century. The book must be “timeless” and one that will “bless” readers from AD100 to AD 2000.
I find it hard to believe the readers in the first century or those in centuries to come, would be blessed by reading about John Calvin or Hitler or any other famous person who lived 1000 years in the future. There is no doubt that the book is “symbolic” and it’s not always clear who the symbols represent. But many of the symbols are more “general” than specific. Like “Antichrist” would be a certain KIND of people who you could find in every century—even in the first century.
The beast out of the sea had “great authority” verse 2. ALL THE WORLD followed him, and they said “who is able to make WAR with him? Authority was given to him over every tribe, tongue, and nation. This sounds like a government. A government with great authority over tribes, languages, and nations of the world. He makes WAR. But he is not just any government—he blasphemes God; he blasphemes His name, His tabernacle, -
and those who live in heaven. Satan granted him the authority to make WAR with the saints. Some think this is “ANTI-CHRISTIAN GOVERNMENTS. I’m inclined to agree. Saints from every century can be blessed by reading that those who lead into captivity ( governments) will go into captivity and those who kill with the sword will be killed with the sword. Especially these early Christian’s who were being persecuted by Rome. But this beast is “timeless” because he can arise at any time in any century. It’s a message we, living 2000 years from Rome, can appreciate also.
The second beast is the beast out of the earth ( chapter 13:11). This beast has great authority too. BUT his work is different. He performs great “signs”. He can make fire come down from heaven. He DECEIVES people by the signs he can do. His job is to get people to build an image of the beast and worship it and to cause as many who will not worship the image of the beast to be killed. He is the one who puts the mark of the beast on the ones who worship him. This is religious persecution. Some believe this beast represents ANTI-CHRISTIAN RELIGIONS. Again, I agree. Both of these beasts span all centuries and all generations of people. Everyone, whether Jews or gentiles, from 100AD to 2025 AD can be blessed and can identify with the words of this prophecy when we read,
It’s a book for all people, for all time.
I find it hard to believe the readers in the first century or those in centuries to come, would be blessed by reading about John Calvin or Hitler or any other famous person who lived 1000 years in the future. There is no doubt that the book is “symbolic” and it’s not always clear who the symbols represent. But many of the symbols are more “general” than specific. Like “Antichrist” would be a certain KIND of people who you could find in every century—even in the first century.
The beast out of the sea had “great authority” verse 2. ALL THE WORLD followed him, and they said “who is able to make WAR with him? Authority was given to him over every tribe, tongue, and nation. This sounds like a government. A government with great authority over tribes, languages, and nations of the world. He makes WAR. But he is not just any government—he blasphemes God; he blasphemes His name, His tabernacle, -
and those who live in heaven. Satan granted him the authority to make WAR with the saints. Some think this is “ANTI-CHRISTIAN GOVERNMENTS. I’m inclined to agree. Saints from every century can be blessed by reading that those who lead into captivity ( governments) will go into captivity and those who kill with the sword will be killed with the sword. Especially these early Christian’s who were being persecuted by Rome. But this beast is “timeless” because he can arise at any time in any century. It’s a message we, living 2000 years from Rome, can appreciate also.
The second beast is the beast out of the earth ( chapter 13:11). This beast has great authority too. BUT his work is different. He performs great “signs”. He can make fire come down from heaven. He DECEIVES people by the signs he can do. His job is to get people to build an image of the beast and worship it and to cause as many who will not worship the image of the beast to be killed. He is the one who puts the mark of the beast on the ones who worship him. This is religious persecution. Some believe this beast represents ANTI-CHRISTIAN RELIGIONS. Again, I agree. Both of these beasts span all centuries and all generations of people. Everyone, whether Jews or gentiles, from 100AD to 2025 AD can be blessed and can identify with the words of this prophecy when we read,
It’s a book for all people, for all time.