[ExI] East African Rift Valley again

[spike]

-----Original Message-----
From: Damien Broderick [mailto:thespike at satx.rr.com] 
Subject: Re: [ExI] East African Rift Valley again

On 7/15/2011 12:03 AM, kellycoinguy at gmail.com wrote:

>> There is a prophecy that when Jesus returns... There will be a huge earthquake that will split the temple mount and that water will run from there to the dead sea making it's waters sweet. I don't recall  where it comes from... Maybe Revelations?

>I'm guessing you mean the biblical Book of Revelation (unless there's some other "holy book" called "Revelations"?). There's no such text in Revelation, although there are any number of earthquakes. Rivers tended to come to a bad end, as in

>"And the sixth angel poured out his vial upon the great river Euphrates; and the water thereof was dried up"

>What say you, Pastor Spike?

>Damien Broderick 


The prophecies are very vague and those who have expounded on them have taken great liberties with their meaning.  If you read what these "prophets" wrote, you can see they are like astrology, in that the horoscopes are broad and flexible indeed.  An exception would be the book of Daniel, which was very specific, but was written after the fact, with the book disguised as a prophecy supposedly written centuries before.

Damien you are right, there are no specific prophecies about the details of the temple mount, but it burns the christians that there is currently a Methodist shrine sitting upon the site from which either Jesus or his twin brother Hoerkheimer (it is unclear which it was, but prevailing opinion generally holds that it was the former) ascended into the heavens.  Speculation is that one of them will return to the same spot, but of course they wouldn't want to land on that vile Presbyterian structure, so evidently a major earthquake will wreck the place just beforehand.  So the way it is often presented is an extrapolation of the vague horoscopish notions found in both Revelation and some of the old testament works, such as Isaiah.

The great tragedy is that the exact site of the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem is considered most holy by three major religions for three different reasons.  It might eventually be a flashpoint for half of humanity to engage in a horribly destructive war over the name of their favorite imaginary friend and protector.

spike