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This is my new dog, Mikey. I'm having trouble posting pics from my iPhone. They all come in upside down. This is the only one I've been able to get right, and what I did then won't work anymore. If anybody knows anything please help.

Three stories, three words each. God is love. God loves me. God loves you.

Yes he has Pam...I've had him for about three months now, and I have some great pics if I can figure out how to post them. I think me and Mikey are going to go for a ride now, (he loves to ride) and maybe stop at the baseball field and throw his ball some. When I come back I'm going to load photoshop onto this laptop I'm using and see if I can make something work with that. :))

I dream of building a house or sections of it entirely from a single gem (huge) stone.. Add layers of other gem stones.. Play with gemstone colors.. All natural and precious materials.. In heaven..

Just look at the comments people make on the internet news/articles and see how mean and uncivil people have become.

I wonder what the inhabitants of Sodom would have said if we asked them this question? They had great material wealth, a prosperity that was unmatched in their region. It wasn't without reason that Lot and his family sold their livestock and became city dwellers… I'm sure you guys get my point. What we view as progress isn't necessarily an improvement in God's eyes. Sure, we have been given many blessings that our forefathers didn't have, especially here in the western world we are extremely privileged from a material point of view. But then again, we've paid a price for all of this. I live in a so-called Christian nation, one of the wealthiest nations on Earth, but only 5% of our population goes regularly to Church. We were much poorer 100 years ago, but back then church attendance was nearly universal. Yes, science has advanced. But we should also keep in mind that the wealth and prosperity in our world are unevenly distributed. Some of us are so well fed that we could afford to lose weight, but there are still hundreds of millions who go hungry to bed every night. Almost 800 million people globally are suffering from chronic malnourishment. This might be a little less than it was a decade ago, but it demonstrates that our conceptions of progress might be somewhat flawed. I have an easier life than my great-grandparents, but many people are less fortunate than myself.

This is an obituary thread, and the above comment is out of line, in my opinion. Perhaps the forum should have a "venom" thread, where people could malign the dead and keep old wounds open by an inflicting a drop or two of vitriol every so often.

Live Streaming will be available, in conjunction with the memorial service tomorrow for Pastor Larry Caviness. Sabbath, March 12 4:00 PM PST Vallejo Drive Church 300 Vallejo Dr. Glendale, CA. To access online: Go to graceunconditional.com

The god of the perpetrators IS a delusion.

Erhmm..... if the oil is used as a *representative* of the Holy Spirit, that's one thing.... but if "power" is invoked into the oil (and that's what it's beginning to look like), that's sounds eerily like witchcraft...

I would modify this statement to say that all are freely offered eternal life. We don't have to accept the gift, though. You can hold a dead person in "everlasting contempt". I know people who continue to hate others long after the others are dead.

Jackson, Isn't it kind of circular logic to use EGW's own statements to prove that she was a prophet? I'm not saying anything bad about her. I'm confident that Paul and Peter both operated in the prophetic gift. They both openly preached that Jesus would come within the lifetime of the people listening to them at that time. The were both wrong. Does that mean we should throw their writing out of the Bible? NO! Does stating that it's possible that EGW - like the apostles of old - could have been mistaken about some things? They have the event right, but they have the timing wrong. Hasn't it been the great hope of all believers that Jesus would return during their lifetime?

Think of it as a masterpiece in the making

I'm working on the photos and getting more frustrated by the minute. I may need to take a break before I break something. : ) No, he's not that heavy yet...he's still lean. I hope I have what it takes to train him. He deserves to be trained. I know how but it's a lot of work.

Reading through your well referenced documentation Thomas, and Joe's review of Obama's support of the Islamic agenda, was GREAT!! I can see Islam as the 7th "head". I'm just not sure THAT head will also be the 8th head. Gabriel told the prophet Daniel that the vision of the Ram and Goat was for the "time of the end". "for the vision belongeth to the time of the end" (Dan 8:17 ASV) "the vision refers to the time of the end" (Dan 8:17 CJB) "at the time of the end shall be the vision" (Dan 8:17 KJV) "the vision pertains to the time of the end" (Dan 8:17 NAU) "the vision concerns the time of the end" (Dan 8:17 NIV) "the vision is for the time of the end" (Dan 8:17 NRS) I'm thinking the ENTIRE vision is describing events to take place at the "time of the end". Traditional Christian explanation has been to put most of it back in ancient history. Daniel 8:19 He said, "Behold, I am going to let you know what will occur at the final period of the indignation, for it pertains to the appointed time of the end. (NAU) The events described in this vision will BRING the END of this age! NOW - the RAM, pushing North, South, and West - but not East towards China. Daniel is told the "two horns--they are the kings of Media and Persia". WHO are these "kings" at the "time of the end". Islam is made up of Sunni and Shia. I believe these are the "two horns". Persia IS Iran. Iran is Shiite. The center of the Median empire was Northern Irac, Southern Syria. The Kurds claim to be descendants of the Medes. This is where ISIS is. ISIS is Sunni. This RAM is going to do something so terrible that the WEST (the Western powers - the goat) will finally react with great force. The Western powers - led by the "notable horn" = the United States, will come at the Islamic forces with great fury. And they WILL soundly defeat them!! Could it be the Iranians finally land a bomb, and destroy the Old City of Jerusalem? What happens at this battle? Daniel 8:7 "And I saw him confronting the ram; he was moved with rage against him, attacked the ram, and broke his two horns. There was no power in the ram to withstand him, but he cast him down to the ground and trampled him; and there was no one that could deliver the ram from his hand. (NKJ) So there's the END of the 7th head - the end time Muslim empire. But what comes AFTER the Ram is stomped on? Answer: The little horn In the WEST, the "notable horn" is "broken without hand". A financial collapse??? In it's place 4 horns grow. And out of one of the 4 comes a little horn, that subdues the other 3 horns. This little horn "grew exceedingly great" and "(v.11) "exalted himself as high as the Prince of the host" and "by him the daily sacrifices were taken away, and the place of His sanctuary was cast down". The trampling of the sanctuary and the host will last for 2300 evening/morning. Then the sanctuary will be "cleansed" (set right). This definitely involves Jerusalem. The "little horn" ON the "terrible beast" takes over the Temple Mount, and exalts himself. I believe he will demand that all men serve him. The little horn has all the earmarks of the Antichrist!! Now - just exactly WHO this will be - pope or other - we don't see yet. THIS IS ALL END TIME!!!! I personally believe the "notable horn" represents the USA. Who else could lead and power a war against Islamic nations? After the war, our economy is broken and the nations of the world don't need us any longer, to fight their battles. The 4 horns come up IN PLACE OF the big notable horn. The four horns are the SAME AS the "four beasts" of Daniel 7. Lion, bear, leopard, and terrible beast. The little horn comes out of the "terrible beast" in the Daniel 7 vision. It comes out of one of the 4 horns in the Daniel 8 vision. This is the rise of the 8th "head". This is WHEN it comes to power. After war between the West and the Ram. Personally - I see this war coming like a freight train.

Error # 1: Once saved always saved. What does Paul state? "...for it (the 2nd coming, see verse 1) will not come unless the apostasy comes first...." 2 Thess 2:2

Error # 2: That the anti-Christ (the man of sin) is something outside of Christianity. What does Paul state? We have already seen that in 2 Thess 2:2 Paul has already warned against apostasy. Apostasy is rejecting Christ as our righteousness. See Hebrews 6:4-6 and 10:26-31 This apostasy is related to within the Christian church.

Yes but more intense study might show us God didn't really mean what it says in Romans. Makes sense something vital to our salvation would be left a mystery for thousands of years Romans 1:20-32 Rom 1:20-32 For since the creation of the world his invisible attributes — his eternal power and divine nature — have been clearly seen, because they are understood through what has been made. So people are without excuse. (21) For although they knew God, they did not glorify him as God or give him thanks, but they became futile in their thoughts and their senseless hearts were darkened. (22) Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools (23) and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for an image resembling mortal human beings or birds or four-footed animals or reptiles. (24) Therefore God gave them over in the desires of their hearts to impurity, to dishonor their bodies among themselves. (25) They exchanged the truth of God for a lie and worshiped and served the creation rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen. (26) For this reason God gave them over to dishonorable passions. For their women exchanged the natural sexual relations for unnatural ones, (27) and likewise the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed in their passions for one another. Men committed shameless acts with men and received in themselves the due penalty for their error. (28) And just as they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them over to a depraved mind, to do what should not be done. (29) They are filled with every kind of unrighteousness, wickedness, covetousness, malice. They are rife with envy, murder, strife, deceit, hostility. They are gossips, (30) slanderers, haters of God, insolent, arrogant, boastful, contrivers of all sorts of evil, disobedient to parents, (31) senseless, covenant-breakers, heartless, ruthless. (32) Although they fully know God’s righteous decree that those who practice such things deserve to die, they not only do them but also approve of those who practice them.

He has a plan.

It's rather simple: Our Country is becoming more and more corrupt daily. After all, corporations are people and money is free-speech. This is what our Supreme Court tells us. The reality, however, is that power and money are used bribe politicians. "We the people" has been replaced with "we the powerful, wealthy elites"! That's what controls Washington. Therefore we have a plutocracy, not a true republic. John Locke said, "Where-ever law ends, tyranny begins". As Ellen White stated, "Political corruption is destroying love of justice". The USA is ripe for tyranny and according to the Bible that tyranny will come in the form of the Papacy. Thus the religious dogmas imposed, through a union of church & state, will be nothing short of a self-righteous attempt to make our politician leaders appear as "angels of light".

Heaven is our home. God is Love!~Jesus saves!

And, that is not what I said. My posts were made in a context where some of those who did not believe Claudia went on the attack and attacked her personally. That is wrong. Further, if you read the several posts that I made on that subject you will see that I made the following conclusions: 1) I believed Claudia. 2) I believed that the finding that her charges against MV were not sustained, was the correct finding. As has been said by others, both several years ago and recently, this is not the place to dig up all of that gossip, which much of it was. So, let us let this aspect rest. God has often used flawed and imperfect people. MV was both flawed and imperfect as well as used, in my opinion, by God. The fact that God may be using someone should never be taken as a sign that everything about them is in harmony with the will of God. That is the lesson that we should take with us today.

redemption .. science and song ........................................... Mom likes my cooking! ................................... Lassie rescued Timmy again!

I was beyond words when I heard the broadcast this morning.

The war has ended.

Wrxdod16, You might want to look for threads by Robert or Samie. There are LOTS of them. Or you might want to start another thread yourself, to ask your question. This thread is more for discussing end time events.

Joe, I believe that true Israel has always been "faith Israel". It's just that most were also DNA Hebrews, until the "Christians" began to preach the Gospel to non-Hebrews.

This evening I was studying the final lesson for this quarter on redemption and ran across Revelation 21:1-2 (part) [New English Translation] "Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life—water as clear as crystal—pouring out from the throne of God and of the Lamb, 2 flowing down the middle of the city’s main street." Put this text next to some of the news stories lately - Flint and St. Louis struggling with elevated levels of lead in their water supplies and the Japanese trying to clean up the remains of a nuclear reaction gone bad and dumping some of the radioactive material into the ocean. The earth's water supplies are getting more and more polluted and impossible to use. In contrast, note what the verse says about heaven - the water there would be absolutely pure - "clear as crystal". No pollution, no trash, no bad chemicals, no taint of sin or sinner, no one profiting from God's bounties. Just absolutely pure water. Another reason to long for heaven.

Um, no, it was not 'proven that the planet is not warming up'. Look at the data. It's very simple indeed. The warming is irrefutable.

"For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord." (Rom. 6:23) "For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God" (Eph. 2:8-9) Both eternal life and salvation are gifts - undeserved. You can't have one without the other.

Hello Wrxdod16 Nice to meet you here. I put them two together! Though I am sure we have great theologians who can do the opposite thru word meanings and whatnot. GOD has put forever in our hearts and here to salvage from sin in every way. JESUS HIMSELF GIVES HIMSELF to us. HE is LIFE ItSelf! That same LIFE regenerates our Heart to Bask in HIM and in doing so creates love for self and others. Heaven's Society own way of being in eternity. Selfless and putting others first and esteeming others higher than own Self. I guess that would be the short answer May the Joy of the LORD be your strength!

She had a prophetic gift, but she did not hold the office of "Prophet". She didn't even consider herself a prophet. There are many things in her writings which I cannot correlate to scripture. I have been blessed by her writings; but I only commit to my personal faith that which I find in scripture. Not knocking EGW; just saying that I am just as influenced by other writers as I am by her (including many non-SDA authors); but my beliefs are based on scripture only. Basing it on anything else puts me in a cult.

I have taken the time to confirm the reliability of EGW's writings to my satisfaction. That is settled for me. I do not have to prove EGW. Thus without a doubt her writings (correctly understood) have more credibility than others folks who never had the blessing of divine inspiration. You may choose to discount her views, others have tried and failed. But when all is said and done: Bible first, EGW second, and history (history is not as reliable as it once was with the revisionists trying to do their dire work).

hch, Thank you for your response. It is generous for you to take the time out to compose it. I also appreciate the fact that you are writing a book on some of these things, so it gives me an opportunity to challenge myself, whilst perhaps helping you at the same time in your attempts to get the facts, before you publish. There were many things in there that needed to be addressed, and my attempt to be succinct in response has failed. The reason why is because I think its always important, when making a case for truth, to ensure that it’s not just me saying what I’m saying, but that it is actually supported by others who are specialists in their field. So forgive me for the length of my response. If you tire throughout the reading, it might be easier to go straight to the conclusion and then backup to the sections that are related so that you’re able to see the actual evidence in black and white. Also, I think its important to get clarity about one thing before proceeding, otherwise we’ll end up like ships passing in the night. The reason I say you’ve interpreted the 7th Head as Pagan Rome is because you actually typed it: “7) Pagan Rome killed the Manchild, who arose from the dead and ascended to heaven.” I certainly didn’t attempt to misrepresent you. This might be a genuine typing error, to which I can forgive. But I need clarity that this is a mistake, since you’ve levelled against me the allegation of misrepresentation. Now since you say “Fact 2: The Papal-Roman Empire is the 7th Head on the beast in Rev 12” I’ll now just presume that that is exactly what you mean. No hard feelings on my part. Facts I think it is also important to understand what a ‘fact’ is. A fact is something that be verified (1 Th. 5.21) by evidence (2 Pet. 1.16) and independent/impartial (1 Tim. 5.21) and credible (Lk. 1.1-3) sources, which in this case is independent historical and sources and Biblical evidence. Since you haven’t verified or proven any historical claims with any independent historical sources and Biblical evidence then to claim something as ‘fact’ in bold is highly presumptuous and is yet to be proven. It’s not that I’m trying to discredit you. It’s just that you’ve simply iterated a view, but haven’t referenced it with any independent support, or use a coherent process of argumentation/logic to decipher the text, in order to demonstrate that it was indeed a fact. I could do the same and start telling people, ‘The King of England has many wives. He’s also gay. He’s actually not the real king at all but a stand-in for the real king whom somebody assassinated to which the royal family has covered up so as not to lose face. It’s a fact.’ Who will take me seriously? I’d have to have some evidence of this, like wedding certificates of all his wives, letters of his gay lovers, authentic highly credible testimonies from multiple independent sources, like eyewitnesses to testify to this, anything of this nature. Motivation and Methodology Revisited There are two reasons why it should be obvious that I feel you have in fact actually “fit [it] into the pigeon hole that I have been so neatly placed,” (to use your words). The first reason is, you don’t provide any evidence at all to demonstrate how the Papacy directly succeeded the Roman Empire after its Fall. You simply presume it. Little else matters if this pivotal foundation, on which everything else is built, cannot be demonstrated by a clear assessment of the Fall of the Roman Empire. This you haven’t shown. The second reason is that this presumption is based on clear bias towards the Adventist traditional position, as opposed to an objective investigation of actual historical facts. This is easily seen when you say: “You can dispute Ellen White's explanation that the first beast in Rev 13 but she is right so I won't waste my time on this faulty dispute.” You start off with Ellen White’s interpretation and take it as fact, without question. But you still have to prove that what she says is true. And again you say “Disagreeing with history, Ellen White, and the entire historical department of the SDA Church won't change the facts.” Again, you equate Adventism with fact without question, as if to say, that what they say automatically makes it fact by its own merit. That’s the equivalent of saying, ‘they are right because they simply said it was true.’ You haven’t proven anything only asserted you’re belief in it. Both of these factors contribute to the predetermined Papal Rome 7th Head conclusion, and therefore instead of objectively search for the truth, the road is paved for attempting to fit Rev. 12, 13 and 17 into that predetermined conclusion. So like I stated first, this is bad methodology. One must start with evidence and build to a conclusion based on that evidence, not start with a conclusion and ignore evidence that contradicts it. The Seventh Head Still Follows the Sixth: The Islamic Ottoman Empire Still Follows the Roman Empire No matter how one wants to interpret Rev. 12 it still has to be in harmony with the clearer explanation given in Rev. 17. Why? Simply because the 6th Head is followed by the 7th in both cases. Pretty straightforward. And since we agree that the 6th Head is the Roman Empire, the 7th must be the empire that followed it. To decipher this, one must find out when the Roman Empire falls. And based on works from historians, it turns out that the Roman Empire was conquered in 1453 finally and completely by the Islamic Ottoman Empire (see Rageh Ommar, The Ottomans: Europe’s Muslim Emperors, ‘Episode 1,’ (Salford: BBC, 2013)), as I presented earlier (see my first post on the first page of this discussion with all the quotes from historians). Here are the points in summary: The transfer of the capital, thus the governing centre, of the Roman Empire from Rome to Constantinople in 330, shifted the centre of gravity from the West to the East. The Empire subsequently split into two halves, East and West, in 395, so that when the Roman West fell in 476, the Roman Empire continued on from the already governing capital of Constantinople in the East. It is firmly recognised by historians that the eastern half of the Roman Empire existed up until 1453, a thousand years after the fall of western half, and that they saw themselves as Roman. The mandate of Islam to conquer Constantinople and the Roman Empire, and the relentless pursuits of succeeding Muslim Caliphs to fulfil it, prove not only the Roman Empire’s continual existence even after the western half had fallen, but also that the Islamic Ottoman Empire was the successor to the Roman Empire. The conquest of Jerusalem by Caliph Umar in 638, and the indelible mark of persecution that Muslims have had generally on the Jews from the time of Prophet Muhammad up until today, also supports the candidacy of Islam for the 7th Head. The gradual annexation of Roman territory by successive Sultans-Caliphs of the Islamic Ottoman Empire, additionally support the candidacy of Islam for the 7th Head. The final conquest of Constantinople by Sultan Mehmed II of the Ottomans in 1453, and thus the Final End of the Roman Empire, prove decisively that the Islamic Ottoman Empire is the 7th Head. The legitimate claim of Sultan Mehmed II of being the natural successor and heir to the Roman Empire adds enormous weight to this fact. And yes, all of these are historical facts – check the numerous references on my first post which is on the first page of this discussion. In addition to this, if you look at the previous 6 empires they have 3 common factors: (1) succeeding the preceding empire by conquest (for example, Babylon was conquered by Cyrus the Great of Persia, Persia was conquered by Alexander the Great of Macedon, the Hellenistic Empires of the Seleucids and Ptolemies were conquered by Rome); (2) conquering the Land of Israel and affecting the Jewish people – notice that your very own criteria of typologically “killing the Manchild”, either in the form of Israel, the Jewish people or Christians, agrees with this very point; (3) focussing on the Middle East. From these commonalities it is very obvious that we must look for the one that (1) conquered the Roman Empire, (2) conquered the Land of Israel and affected the Jewish people, (3) focuses on the Middle East, to identify who the 7th head is. The Islamic Ottoman Empire fulfils all those criteria, including fulfilling your criterion, whereas the Papacy at best partially fits the 2nd criterion, which I want to look at next. The Criterion of Using the Death of the Manchild (Rev. 12) You have said: “The 7 heads in Rev 12 align with the powers that tried to kill the Manchild.” This typological criterion actually turns out to benefit the case for the Islamic Ottoman Empire more than it does the Papacy. This is because Islam has had more to do with conquering, subjugating and even attempting to destroy Israel, and with persecuting Jewish and Christian people in one way or another, than the Papacy ever did. Conquering Jerusalem The Papacy certainly never conquered Israel. Islam did, only 16 years after it had officially begun in 622: “638 – In southern Syria (Palestine), Jerusalem falls to an army led by Abu Ubayda. Caliph Umar travels to Jerusalem, where he prays to Allah on the Temple Mount” – Justin Wintle, The Rough Guide: History of Islam, (London: Penguin Books Ltd, 2003), p. 52. Whilst the Crusades were ‘called out’ by Pope Urban II in defence of Christians in the East against the marauding Muslims (“He [Pope Urban II] then turned to the plight of Jerusalem, where Christian pilgrims were being regularly robbed and persecuted by the city’s Turkish overlords. It was now, he emphasised, the duty of Western Christendom to march to the rescue of the Christian East.” – John Julius Norwich, The Popes: A History, (London: Vintage Books, 2012), p. 114), the Pope never laid claim to having conquered Jerusalem, or being its king. This was left to the crusaders themselves: “A new Kingdom of Jerusalem is proclaimed, to be ruled by Geoffrey of Bouillon, who assumed the title ‘Defender of the Holy Sephulchre’ – the site where Jesus Christ was supposedly laid to rest after his Crucifixion. Within weeks of the Christians’ triumph, however, disease and famine spread among their ranks, persuading many to return home; by the year’s end the crusaders’ numbers have faled to no more than 60,000. Nothwithstanding, the fall of Jerusalem leads to the creation of four main Christian states: the Kingdom of Jerusalem, at one point stretching as far south as the Red Sea, and to the north of this the County of Tripoli, the Principality of Antioch and the County of Edessa.” – Justin Wintle, The Rough Guide: History of Islam, (London: Penguin Books Ltd, 2003), p. 175. Pope Urban II died never knowing their conquest (“Pope Urban, however, never knew of their victory. He died two weeks later, shortly before the reports reached Rome.” – John Julius Norwich, The Popes: A History, (London: Vintage Books, 2012), p. 115), and the immediate succeeding Popes concerned themselves with affairs primarily in Rome (since that’s where their monarchical seat was based), that led to their unpopularity and eventual miserable deaths. This supports the understanding that the Pope did not in fact conquer Jerusalem/Israel. That conquest by the crusaders, in any case, did not have much impact on the Islamic world (“From the Muslim viewpoint, the Crusades seem not to have been quite so significant – at least at the time.” – Justin Wintle, The Rough Guide: History of Islam, (London: Penguin Books Ltd, 2003), p. 181), and was short-lived after being re-conquered by the great Saladin (1099-1187 – that’s 88 years compared to about 1200 years of Islamic rule). Islam only lost Jerusalem to the British as a result of the First World War. Supplanting Temple Mount Worship and the Trinity Muslims also indelibly and eternally stamped their mark on the city by planting an Islamic shrine – the Dome of the Rock – on top of the Jews most holiest site, Temple Mount, in 691-2 thus supplanting it. In it, are writings that defiantly mock Christianity specifically by having written in effect ‘God is one God, exalted above having a Son,’ (Qur’an 3.19; see also “He is God, one, eternal; he does not beget nor is he begotten” – Qur’an 112:1-3) thereby denying one of Christianity’s most central beliefs, the Trinity (see Bernard Lewis, The Middle East: 2000 Years of History From the Rise of Christianity to the Present Day, (London: Phoenix Press, London, 2005), pp. 68-70; see also Waldemar Januszczak, The Dark Ages: An Age of Light, ‘The Wonder of Islam,’ (Salford: BBC, 2012)): Muslim caliphs banned Jews from worshipping at the Mount in 720 for a thousand years (see Simon Sebag Montefiore, Jerusalem: The Making of a Holy City, ‘Episode 2 – Invasion, Invasion, Invasion,’(Salford: BBC, 2011)), and even today, the Jordanians are actually still in charge of it, and still prohibit Jews from praying on it (Times of Israel, “Right-wing activist, Glick, returns to Temple Mount,” 1 March 2016). Persecution of Jews from the Dawn of Islam This antagonism against the Jews started from the Prophet of Islam himself, slaughtering 700 Jews after they had surrendered, and taking their wives as sex slaves, setting the example for posterity: “627 – Because the Meccans had been aided by the Quarayzah Jews, Muhammad orders the immediate massacre of 700 Quarayzah men, and arrages for their women and children to be sold into slavery. From this date no Jews remain in Medina, except those few who have already converted to Islam.” – Justin Wintle, The Rough Guide: History of Islam, (London: Penguin Books Ltd, 2003), p. 30. “The Qurayzah [Jews]… chose to surrender to the Muslims. After some deliberations Muhammad decided to put the fate of the tribe into the hands of the Muslim warrior Sa’d bin Mu’adh… When Sa’d rode up on his donkey, Muhammad told him, “These people are ready to accept your judgment.” Sa’d replied: “I give the judgment that their warriors should be killed and their children and women should be taken as captives.” The Prophet of Islam was pleased. “O Sa’d! You have judged amongst them with the judgment of the King (Allah).” He confirmed Sa’d’s judgment as that of Allah himself: “You have decided in confirmation to the judgment of Allah above the seven heavens.”… Sa’d’s sentence was duly carried out, with Muhammad himself actively participating. According to Ibn Ishaq [Muhammad’s biographer], “The apostle went out to the market of Medina, which is still its market today) and dug trenches in it. Then he sent for [the men of the Qurayzah] and struck off their heads in those trenches as they were brought out to him in batches.”… Ibn Ishaq puts the number of those massacred at “600 or 700 in all, though some put the figure as high as 800 or 900.”” – Robert Spencer, The Truth About Muhammad: Founder of the World’s Most Intolerant Religion, (Washington: Regnery Publishing Ltd, 2006). pp. 129-130. A whole account of Muslim persecution of Jews can be read in Mark Gabriel, Islam and the Jews: The Unfinished Battle, (Lake Mary, Florida: Charisma House, 2003), and Andrew Bostom, The Legacy of Islamic Antisemitism: From Sacred Texts to Solemn History, (New York: Prometheus Books, 2008), as well as Serge Trifkovic, The Sword of the Prophet: Islam – History, Theology, Impact on the World, (Boston: Regina Orthodox Press, 2002). A profound documentary by Pierre Rehov titled The Silent Exodus (2009) recounts the chilling persecution of Jews by Muslims just before the modern state of Israel was born. The Attempted Annihilation of Israel Just as it is Reborn in 1948 And even when Israel was reborn in 1948 a coalition of Arab nations was formed to snuff out and thus annihilate the fledgling nation: “On 14 May [1948] David Ben Gurion proclaims the state of Israel inside Palestine… Ben Gurion’s proclamation provokes the First Arab-Israeli War as Israel’s neighbouring Arab nations take collective action, guided by the Arab League. Egyptian, Iraqi, Syrian and Jordanian forces converge on Israel, but are repulsed.” – Justin Wintle, The Rough Guide: History of Islam, (London: Penguin Books Ltd, 2003), p. 378. This attempt has been continuing ever since in several wars after, including the famous Yom Kippur War in 1973. Even to this day, the rhetoric coming out of the Islamic world against Israel and its inhabitants is for its annihilation. The Greatest Persecution of Christians on Earth are Committed by Muslims In addition to that, today the biggest persecution on earth is against Christians and is predominantly committed by Muslims (see George Thomas, “Islam’s War on Christians: Worst Yet to Come?,” CBN News, (9 January 2015)). The Superiority and Peak of Islam During the peak of Islam from the 16th century, Western Christian civilisation, which included the Papacy itself, was terrified and in awe of Sultan Suleman The Magnificent of the Islamic Ottoman Empire: “A war leader, and a great administrator, a man of considerable cultural achievement, a man who was interested in learning, Suleman is one of the most impressive figures of the age” – Prof. Jeremy Black, University of Exeter (The Ottomans: Europe’s Muslim Emperors, (Salford: BBC, 2013)). “The Ottoman Sultan really stood out as perhaps the most powerful man in the world in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Ruling over this vast territory with all of the wealth that the empire enjoyed, the Ottomans were able to put together an army that was really the fear of Europe. And it that sense you could point to the time of Suleman as the period in which Europe was really in awe of and terrified by the Ottoman Empire.” – Dr Eugene Rogan, University of Oxford, in The Ottomans: Europe’s Muslim Emperors, ‘Episode 2,’ (Salford, BBC, 2013)). “It is no wonder that the people in Christian Europe think of the Turk as a figure of fear. When you’re thinking of the Horsemen of the Apocalypse the people depict that in paintings as Durer does. One of the Horsemen is depicted as a Turk. Children are told that if they aren’t quiet in the evenings, if they don’t go to sleep, a Turk will get them.” – Professor Jeremy Black, University of Exeter, in The Ottomans: Europe’s Muslim Emperors, ‘Episode 2,’ (Salford, BBC, 2013). “If you asked any European, ‘Who are the Muslims?’ they would’ve said ‘The Turks, The Ottomans. They are the ones that we are afraid of.’” – Professor Robert Hillenbrand, University of Edinburgh, in The Ottomans: Europe’s Muslim Emperors, ‘Episode 2,’ (Salford, BBC, 2013). “Sultan was a name to be conjured with, in London as in every other city in Europe.” – Professor Lisa Jardine, University College London, in The Ottomans: Europe’s Muslim Emperors, ‘Episode 2,’ (Salford, BBC, 2013). The Ottomans already possessed European lands in Eastern Europe as far as Hungary and the Mediterranean as far as Greece, and came as close to Central Europe as far as the borders of Vienna: “Suleman spent a quarter of his reign on the battlefield, and expanded the empire almost to the peak of its power. He captured Baghdad, and brought modern-day Iraq under his rule. He did the same with Budapest and Hungary. Victory first at Rhodes and then in key Greek provinces gave him control of the eastern Mediterranean.” – Rageh Ommar, The Ottomans: Europe’s Muslim Emperors, ‘Episode 2,’ (Salford: BBC, 2013). So as we gather all these historical realities together – (1) The Conquest of Israel and Jerusalem; (2) Commandeering Temple Mount and supplanting it with the Dome of the Rock, and defying Christianity’s core Trinitarian belief; (3) The Persecution of Jews from the time of Muhammad; (4) The Partnership of Muslims in the Holocaust led by the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, Muhammad Amin Husseini (Nazi Collaborators: The Grand Mufti); (5) The Attempted Annihilation of the Modern State of Israel and the continuing wars to do so, even to this day; (6) The Persecution of Christians, in history as well as in modern times on the grandest of scales; – we are faced with the reality that, on top of the fact that the Islamic Ottoman Empire succeeded the Roman Empire in 1453, it overwhelmingly fulfils the criterion of the persecution of Israel, Jews and Christians. Therefore I ask, what reason did you have for leaving them out of your list? Islam is the biggest one to fulfil your criterion! The Alleged 1260 Years What about the 1260 years? Well, you simply ignored the historical reality that the Ostrogoths ended in 550s (Encyclopaedia Britannica), which was even supported by a seasoned Adventist scholar (Samuele Bacchiochi). Your reaction was just continuing believing the invented reality, that says the Ostrogoths ended in 538. But ignoring historical realities by actual historical works aren’t a good way of saying that your version is true – on the contrary it’s the best way to demonstrate that its not true. Let’s look at your claims in more detail. The issue is about the Papacy rising to supremacy after being established in 538, thus beginning its reign of persecution: “The 1260 years of papal supremacy began with the establishment of the papacy in A. D. 538…” – Ellen G. White, The Great Controversy, (1888), p. 266. “When Justinian’s general Belisarius liberated Rome in A. D. 538, the bishop of Rome was freed from the control of the Ostrogoths, whose Arianism had resulted in their restricting the developing Catholic Church. Now the bishop could exercise the prerogatives Justinian’s decree of A. D. 533 had granted him; he could increase the authority of the “Holy See.” Thus began the 1260 years of persecution as Bible prophecy foretold.” – General Conference of Seventh-Day Adventists, Seventh-Day Adventists Believe… A Biblical Exposition of 27 Fundamental Doctrines, (Review and Herald Publishing Assoc.: Maryland, 1988), p. 156. You expand it a little more: “After Emperor Justinian's appointee Pope Vigilius was installed 29 March 537 the Goth's siege of Rome was broken and King Witigis was virtually powerless after 538. Thus Vigilius was finally enabled to act as the surrogate Western Roman power over state and church. The popes maintained their authority until the French imprisoned Pope Pius VI in 1798.” Lets look exactly at what this traditional position says and then examine it with actual history. According to this position, (1) Pope Vigilius was freed from the Ostrogoths (2) which resulted in the Papacy rising to its supremacy, (3) and thus began a period of Papal persecution. The issue isn’t about King Vitigis of the Ostrogoths specifically. It is about Pope Vigilius being freed from the power of the Ostrogoths. (1) Was Pope Vigilius Free after 538?: Totilla and the Recapture of Rome by the Ostrogoths The answer is only for a certain time, until 546 when Totila, the Ostrogoths’ greatest ruler, reacquisitioned and raided Rome: “Hildebad [the Ostrogoth King] meanwhile had been murdered, as had his immediate successors; and so the way was clear for the rise to power of the greatest, as well as most attractive, of all the Gothic rulers. Totila was Hildebad’s nephew, still in his middle twenties. Once in power he galvanised the Goths as none of his predecessors had done… Within months of his accession Totila was strong enough to drive back one imperial army of 12,000 men from the gates of Verona, and to annihilate another in pitched battle outside Faenza. In the spring of 542, some fifteen miles north of Florence, he completely routed John’s army. By the late summer he had subjugated all Italy apart from Ravenna, Rome, Florence and a few coastal cities. Chief among the latter was Naples; and it was to Naples that he now laid siege. The Gothic blockade of the city was total; and in May the Neapolitans were starved into surrender… The fall of Naples, for the second time in seven years, dealt a further blow to Byzantine morale. In January 544 the Greek generals in their various redoubts wrote to Justinian that they could no longer defend the imperial cause in Italy; it was this letter, almost certainly, that decided the Emperor to send back Belisarius… During this time, however, he [Belisarius] had understood all too clearly how the situation had changed during his absence. It was now no longer just the Goths who were actively hostile; it was virtually the whole population. With the forces at his command he might just succeed in maintaining an imperial presence in Italy; but he could never reconquer it… Almost simultaneously, the army of Totila reached Rome and laid siege to the city… The last chance had been lost: Rome’s fate was sealed. Yet it never surrendered. On the night of 17 December 546 a group of four discontented soldiers of the garrison opened up the Asinarian Gate, and the Goths flooded in… Bessas [commander of the imperial garrison] took flight at once, and several of the Roman nobles rode off with him. The remainder sought refuge in the churches till Totila had brought his men under control, then slowly emerged to resume their search for food until supplies in the city returned to normal. Of the populace, Procopius tells us that only 500 were left. Although the fall of Rome was of little strategic significance, as a symbol it was all-important.” – John Julius Norwich, A Short History of Byzantium, (London: Viking-Penguin Group, 1997), pp. 76-78. This was to happen again in 550, with permanent consequence, which saw the Ostrogoths under Totila stay in Rome permanently, albeit for only a few years: “On 16 January 550, history repeated itself and another group of disaffected Isaurians in the Roman garrison opened the gates to Totila’s men. Whereas in 546 the Goths had entered the city as raiders, they now showed every sign of staying. Many of them appropriated empty houses and settled in with their families; refugees were encouraged to return; damaged buildings were repaired and restored. The following summer Totila revived the games in the Circus Maximus, personally presiding over them from the imperial box. This last insult finally stung Justinian to action. He immediately looked for a new commander-in-chief for Italy, choosing not Belisarius but the eunuch Narses, now well into his seventies.” – John Julius Norwich, A Short History of Byzantium, (London: Viking-Penguin Group, 1997), pp. 79-80. So how could it be true that the Papacy was somehow freed in 538 from the Ostrogoths when it was raided in 546 and occupied in 550 by those very Ostrogoths? That is truly a strange definition of being free. In truth the final end of the Ostrogoths holding Rome occurred a few years later, from their defeat in 552(/554) by the eunuch Narses sent by the Roman Emperor Justinian: “In the early summer of 552 Narses and his army of 35,000 men began their march into Italy. Advancing around the head of the Adriatic to Ravenna, they continued southward down the Via Flaminia, Totila meanwhile advancing up the same road to block their path. So it was that one day towards the end of June the Roman and Gothic armies met for the decisive encounter of the war. It was over quite quickly: the Gothic army was progressively outflanked and outfought until, as the sun was sinking, it fled in panic and disorder, the Byzantines in hot pursuit. Totila himself, mortally wounded, took flight with the rest and died a few hours later. Under Teia, one of the bravest of Totila’s generals, the Goth continued the struggle as Narses advanced southward. Rome itself fell after a brief siege – changing hands for the fifth time since the beginning of Justinian’s reign – but the old eunuch marched on. It was in the valley of the river Sarno, a mile or two from Pompeii, that in October 552 Romans and Goths met for the coup de grace. Teia was soon felled by a well-aimed javelin; and on the evening of the following day the few surviving Goths agreed to negotiate. By the terms of the subsequent treaty, they undertook to leave Italy and to engage in no further warfare against the Empire. That desperate battle beneath Vesuvius marked the defeat of the Goths in Italy. Justinian’s grandest ambition was realized at last.” – John Julius Norwich, A Short History of Byzantium, (London: Viking-Penguin Group, 1997), p. 80. “In the summer of 551, Narses was in charge of operations against barbarian raiders, mainly Huns, Gepids, and Lombards, who were devastating the Balkans. Later that year, with the resurgence of Ostrogothic power in Italy under Totila, Narses headed for Italy with 30,000 troops. He defeated the Ostrogothic forces under Totila (who died of his wounds) in June 552, at Taginae in the Apennines. During the next two years, he crushed scattered Ostrogothic resistance.” – Encyclopaedia Britannica, “Narses,” http://www.britannica.com/biography/Narses-Byzantine-general. Looking at your claims again, it could hardly be said that from 538 the Pope was freed from the Ostrogoths. In truth, this happened from 552 onwards. (2) Was the Papacy in a Position to Persecute?: Pope Vigilius is Cowed, Reviled, Banished and Broken We have already seen that Rome, under Pope Vigilius, was reconquered and reoccupied in 546 and 550 by Totila of the Ostrogoths, and therefore was definitely not be in any position to pursue such an undertaking – it was trying merely to survive and rebuild at this point. But it gets worse. Not only was he not in any position to persecute, he was kidnapped by the Roman Emperor Justinian and brought to Constantinople. There he was pressed by the Emperor and Empress to put his support to an imperial edict called ‘Three Chapters’ against his will (this decree was Emperor Justinian’s attempt to resolve a sectarian dispute between the Orthodox bishops and Monophysite bishops (those who believed Jesus was only God) by condemning another group, the Nestorians, hoping that both Orthodox and Monophysite would unite against a common ‘enemy’). Vigilius eventually capitulated. So much for unleashing Papal persecuting power – more like cowed into submission. “Eighteen months later, however, Totila was at the gates of Rome. Were he to capture the city he might hold the Pope hostage, with disastrous consequences. Justinian acted quickly. On 22 Novemer 545 a company of the imperial guard arrived in Rome, seized Vigilius and carried him off to Constantionple. Once there, the constant pressure exerted by the Emperor and Empress began to wear him down. On 29 June he was officially reconciled with the [Monophysite] Patriarch, and on 11 April 548 he published his Judicatum, in which he solemnly anathematised the Three Chapters.” – John Julius Norwich, A Short History of Byzantium, (London: Viking-Penguin Group, 1997), p. 79. As if that wasn’t worse enough, after retracting his support for the edict, Pope Vigilius was in the end excommunicated by the Emperor: “On 14 May, the Pope issued a so-called Constitutum, declaring the entire agitation to be unfounded and unnecessary and forbidding any ecclesiastic to venture any further opinion on it… Now at last Justinian could treat Vigilius as he deserved. On receipt of the Constitutum he sent the Council three documents. The first was the text of a secret declaration by the Pope of June 547, anathematising the Three Chapters; the second was an oath to work for their general condemnation; and the third was a decree that his name should be struck from the diptychs – virtually a sentence of excommunication. On 26 May the Council formally endorsed the Emperor’s decree and condemned the Pope in its turn, ‘until he should repent his errors’. For Vigilius, it was the end of the road.” – John Julius Norwich, A Short History of Byzantium, (London: Viking-Penguin Group, 1997), p. 81. As a result of the Pope’s re-capitulation he was seen as a traitor by many, and was reviled throughout western Christendom: “The Pope was now generally reviled throughout Western Christendom as a turncoat and an apostate. In Carthage indeed, the bishops went further still and excommunicated him.” – John Julius Norwich, The Popes: A History, (London: Vintage Books, 2012), p. 31. Finally and pitifully he was disgraced, banished, broken in body and spirit, and died miserably of sickness, alone on his journey home: “For Vigilius, it was the end of the road. Disgraced and banished to an island in the Marmara, he was told that until he accepted the findings of the Council he would never be permitted to return to Rome. Not for another six months – by which time he was suffering agonies from gallstones – did he capitulate; but when at last he did so, his surrender was absolute… By now too ill to travel, he remained for another year in Constantinople and only then, in a brief respite from pain, started for home. But the effort was too great. On the way his condition suddenly worsened. He was obliged to interrupt his journey at Syracuse; and there, broken alike in body and spirit, he died. For him there was to be no tomb in St Peter’s.” – John Julius Norwich, The Popes: A History, (London: Vintage Books, 2012), p. 35. My question to those who still continue to believe that in Pope Vigilius was the fury of Papal supremacy and persecution unleashed onto the populace, what part of his actual story do you ascribe this to? It should be undeniably clear by now that this myth is refuted in utter totality. (3) Was this the Time of Papal Supremacy?: Pope Vigilius Marks An All-Time Low for Papal Prestige Did the legacy of Pope Vigilius mark the grand supremacy of the Papacy? Absolutely not. In fact, the abject contrary is true. This was an utter low point of the papal prestige, and this legacy would continue on in Vigilius’ successor: “The story of Vigilius did untold harm to the papacy; and when his successor Pelagius I (556-61) on his accession instantly added his voice to the condemnation, papal prestige lay in tatters. Several sees – including those of Milan and Aquileia – broke off communion with Rome; it was to be half a century before relations were restored with Milan, one and a half before Aquileia and Istria returned to the fold. Meanwhile, in 555 Justinian had decreed that in future the Emperor’s personal fiat (‘Let it be done’) must be obtained for any election of a Bishop of Rome.” – John Julius Norwich, The Popes: A History, (London: Vintage Books, 2012), pp. 35-36. By now it should be obvious that this century and a half old relic from a bygone era, is totally indefensible. It is simply a myth created by prejudice. It cannot be upheld against any serious historical investigation. I have already shown by historical references that the Papacy did not actually fall in 1798 but rather, saw a resurgence in political prowess. The actual fact of the matter is that the political power of the Papacy ended in 1870. And since there was no refutation of either of these points it seems unnecessary to repeat it. Nevertheless, it remains unchallenged and uninjured. The veracity of it is so undeniable that even seasoned Adventist scholar, retired professor of Andrews University, has had to acknowledge it: “The death of Pius VI [1798] can hardly be seen as the "abolishment" or "the downfall of the Papacy." It was simply a temporary humiliation of the prestige of the Papacy. In fact, Pius VI was able to give directives for the election of his successor. Few months after his death, the Cardinals met in Venice on December 8, 1799, and elected Barnaba Chiaramonti, who took the name of Pius VII, in deference to his predecessor. The new Pope was able to negotiate with Napoleon the Concordat in 1801 and the Organic Articles in 1802. These treatises restored to the Pope some of the territories of the States of the Church and regulated the extent of the Papal authority in France. The following years marked, not the downfall, but the resurgence of papal authority…” “In my view, a more important humiliation of the papacy occurred on September 20, 1870, when, as mentioned earlier, Victor Emmanuel II, King of Sardinia and later first King of Italy, captured Rome and took over the States of the Church which included most of the central part of Italy from Naples to Ravenna. The annexation of these territories which the Pope had controlled since 756, was necessary in order to unify Italy into one nation. The loss of the States of the Church in 1870 marks the end of the temporal rule of the Papacy. The Pope was no longer a political ruler with his own territory, known, as "PATRIMONIUM PETRI - The Patrimony of St. Peter." He was left only with the Vatican, the Lateran, and Castel Gandolfo - a situation which has remained unchanged to this very day. The Pope protested, excommunicated Victor Emmanuel, and declared himself "prisoner of the Vatican."” – Samuele Bacchiocchi, End-Times Issues Newsletter, No. 87, A Reply To Criticism: Part I “The Use of E. G. White’s Writing in Interpreting Scripture”, (1 August 2002), http://www.biblicalperspectives.com/endtimeissues/eti_87.html. This myth should once and for all be laid bare, exposed and rejected, or else it will remain a total embarrassment to the Adventist claim of having the truth. Last note about the 1260 years in the way that you uniquely apply it both before (“there were about 1260-years from Moses birth in Egypt until Christ's birth”) and after Christ (“Papal Rome tried to kill the Manchild's people for 1260-years after Christ ascended to Heaven”). There simply aren’t 1260 years between Moses and Jesus, and the 1260 after Jesus that you allege begins in 538 – 500 years after Christ. That’s 500+1260=1760 years! It’s time to rethink and reassess everything that you know. The Alleged Papal Beast To your disadvantage, you didn’t even address my point of how Rev. 13’s own criteria of the Beast being composed of Lion-Bear-Leopard totally disqualifies the Papacy being the Beast. It’s worth mentioning briefly to remind us what the point entails. An empire is defined by its territories (dictionary definition). The Lion, Bear and Leopard represent the empires of Neo-Babylon, Achaemenid Persia and Macedonian Greece. Their empires consisted of territories that spanned the Middle East. Therefore, the Beast Empire consists of Middle Eastern territories that were encompassed by those empires. It turns out that the Pope never owned even a patch of the Middle East, let alone the vast swathes like those empires. The Islamic Caliphate however, has always historically conquered those areas, having a legacy today that leaves Islam’s mark on the region despite the Caliphate finally abolished in 1924: “Within little more than a century after the Prophet’s dead, the whole area had been transformed, in what was surely one of the swiftest and most dramatic changes in the whole of human history. By the late seventh century, the outside world attests the emergence of a new religion and a new power, the Muslim empire of the caliphs, extending eastwards in Asia as far as and sometimes beyond the borders of India and China, westwards along the southern Mediterranean coast to the Atlantic, southwards towards the lands of the black peoples in Africa, northwards into the lands of the white peoples of Europe. In this empire, Islam was the state religion, and the Arabic language was rapidly displacing others to become the principal medium of public life. Today, more than fourteen centuries after the beginning of the Muslim era, the Arab empire of the caliphs has long since passed away. But in all the countries that the Arabs conquered, except only in Europe in the west and Iran and Central Asia in the east, colloquial Arabic, in a variety of forms, remains the spoken language of the people, and literary Arabic remains the principal instrument of commerce, culture and government. As the language of religion – of scripture, theology and holy law – Arabic spread far beyond the lands of Arab speech and later beyond the limits Arab conquest into many regions in Asia and Africa that never knew Arab rule.” – Bernard Lewis, The Middle East: 2000 Years of History From the Rise of Christianity to the Present Day, (London: Phoenix Press, London, 2005), p. 55. Conclusion I want to draw all the major points together in a quick summary since I have said quite a lot, and it might be necessary to recap: The 7th Head Still Follows the 6th: even by using Rev. 12 as the anchor point like you do, the 6th Head is still succeeded by the 7th Head. Therefore when the Roman Empire falls in 1453 the only candidate available to succeed it is the Islamic Ottoman Empire since it is the Ottoman Empire that ultimately brought down the Roman Empire. The Criterion of Using the Death of the Manchild Qualifies the Islamic Empire more so that the Papacy: the legacy of Islam, from its inception to the present day has persecuted Jews and Christians for 1400 years, and still does so today. At its peak it was the fear of Europe, its Sultan being “the most powerful man in the world,” and was close to total world conquest at the Siege of Vienna in 1684. It has seized Jerusalem and Israel and only lost it after the First World War to the British (by contrast the Crusades only mark a mere 88 years on the city’s timeline). And ever since World War II, the Rebirth of Israel in 1948, and subsequent wars like the Yom Kippur War in 1973, Muslims have sought to annihilate Jews and the state of Israel irrevocably. Even today the rhetoric continues among all radical Islamists, including ISIS and Iran. The Papacy simply doesn’t have that historical and contemporary persecuting clout to outdo Islam on this. The traditional interpretation of the ‘1260 Years’ is an utter myth, refuted by the simple historical reality that in Pope Vigilius (the pope in whose reign was supposed to mark the ‘supremacy’ of the Papacy) marks one of the Papacy’s lowest ebbs, and in Pope Pius VII marks a resurgence in Papal achievements (a pope after the one in whom it was supposed to have fallen). The Beast’s composition indicates a makeup of Babylonian-Persian-Hellenist empire territories to which only Islam, not the Papacy, has fulfilled. We are now in the 21st century where access to information is at an all time high. Books, documentaries, news articles, are available like never before. And yet Adventist leadership still has you believe this mythological relic from the 19th century is a fact, but which is totally abashed by the clear historical data. If pastors would just simply read a history book or encyclopaedia whilst they did their Master’s degree in mythology they might have found that out and saved wasted time and money, and would have prevented leading unsuspecting vulnerable people astray. But their ignorance reveals that the blind are still leading the blind. But its time that this blindness is revealed and perhaps sight can be restored to some again. And since you are writing a book, I would advise you to read other books, especially historical books, if you’re going to be able to sustain one iota of credibility on this issue. Otherwise, someone who knows better will just bring out those facts that refute these myths and will not be so kind. I respect your stand for the truth. Just ensure that it is truth you are actually standing for and not tradition. God be with you in your quest and in writing your book.

This is indeed sad. All presidential candidates say that we must go to the Middle East and destroy ISIS. We don't need to go there - they are already here - just waiting for the word to wake up. The MB increasingly flexes their muscle and interferes with business in America by leveraging the First Amendment (freedom of religion) against us. Over 150 Muslims walked out of a packing plant here in Colorado because management would not allow them to all leave an operating production line to pray 5 times per day. The Muslims did not return to work for 3 days; so they were fired; and the company hired replacements. So the MB cries foul and demands that the packing plant rehire the Muslims. A bakery refuses to provide a cake for a gay wedding and is fined over $135,000 by the government putting them out of business. In the same arena, the government fines a trucking company for firing a couple Muslim drivers who won't deliver beer to stores. Equality for both religions? NOT!! The POTUS almost exclusively (at least initially) blames terrorist Islamic acts on lack of gun control rather than Islamic terror. Tell that to the people for Paris - which has some of the toughest gun control laws in the world - whose people were mercilessly gunned down by Islamic terrorists. Tell that to the people of San Bernardino. There are mosques and Islamic Cultural Centers going up all over the U.S. in small rural areas where there are no Muslims - at least until the new mosques and cultural centers are built. By the way - many (if not most) of these new mosques are financed by the MB. They are also frequently built adjacent (or very close) to Christian churches; and are built larger and taller to imply Islamic dominance over Christianity. This is not a rant against Islam. Most Muslims I know are peaceful and patriotic - just wanting to be left alone to live their lives in safety and security. This is a rant against radical jihadists who by warfare or subterfuge are trying to impose their own version of Islam on the entire world. It is also en expose' on those religious and political ostriches who cling to political correctness and arcane, outdated eschatological assumptions and refuse to even consider the signs of our times NOW rather than what they were 150 years ago. If this attitude doesn't change, I fear that the free world will lose the war before they even realize they were in one. Look at the refugee crisis in Europe right now; and the disrespect Muslim hardliners are showing their benefactors. Do we want that here in the U.S.? If that is our desire, let's stay on the track we're on now; and buy burkas for all of our wives and daughters. Oh yeah! Quit worrying about a National Sunday Law and start worrying about a National Friday Law.

There’s a lot of good stuff being said here, particularly from 8thDayPriest and JoeMo. I think its always important when trying to look at something as deep and mystifying as Revelation, particularly the 7-headed beast, that it is important to start with a clear indisputable anchor point in the text that serves as a firm foundation in which to build everything else that is discovered from the text on. JoeMo hit the nail on the head when noting how it was the Roman Empire that existed at the time when John received the Revelation. The angel says as much when interpreting it for John: “Five have fallen, one is, the other has not yet come” (Rev. 17.10). The key phrase is the “one is,” indicating the present existence of the 6th empire, which as everyone knows is the Roman Empire. There is the anchor point. The 7th head, the “one to come,” therefore is the one that follows the Roman Empire. Since the 7th head is unnamed, a look at historical reality is absolutely crucial in my mind, to find out exactly who that successor to the Roman Empire is. And the key to doing that is to find out exactly when the Roman Empire ended and who ended/conquered it. The New Division of the Empire: East and West (395 AD) I think its important to begin with some key shifting dynamics occurring within the Roman Empire before any collapse. In 395 AD a vital turning point had been reached in the empire which was that it had been divided into two partitions: the Eastern Empire and the Western Empire: “After the death of the emperor Theodosius in 395 CE, the Empire was split into two, a western empire ruled from Rome, and an eastern empire ruled from Constantinople.” - Bernard Lewis, The Middle East: 2000 Years of History From the Rise of Christianity to the Present Day, (London: Phoenix Press, London, 2005), p. 33. “395 Roman Empire Permanently Divided: …After Eugenius was killed in battle in September, Theodosius became, briefly, the last emperor to rule both the eastern and western halves of the Roman empire. In January 395 Theodosius died of heart disease at Mediolanum and the empire was divided between his two young sons Honorius (r. 395-423), who became emperor of the west, and Arcadius (r. 395-408). This time, the division proved to be permanent but this did not mean that the empire ceased to be a single state because laws passed by one emperor were automatically valid in the other half of the empire. However, in the long run, this arrangement disadvantaged the western half of the empire because it could now no longer automatically draw upon the resources of the wealthier and more populated east.” - John Haywood, Chronicles of the Ancient World: 3500 BC – AD 476, (London: Quercus, 2012), p. 312. The New Rome: Constantinople (330 AD) Prior to that, the Roman Emperor Constantine in 330 made the new capital of the Roman Empire Constantinople (present-day Istanbul), and so the centre of gravity of the Empire shifted from West to East: “Refounded as the “new Rome” by the emperor Constantine in 330, it was endowed by him with the name Constantinople, the city of Constantine.” - Encyclopedia Britannica, ‘Byzantine Empire,’ http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/87186/Byzantine-Empire. “Constantine the Great transferred the capital of the Roman Empire from Rome to Byzantium (330), renamed Constantinople and New Rome.” - Encyclopaedia Britannica, ‘Ecumenical Patriachate of Constantinople,’ ‘Istanbul,’ http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/178827/Ecumenical-Patriarchate-of-Constantinople, http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/296962/Istanbul. “Byzantium considered itself the centre of the world, and Constantinople as the replacement of Rome. Though Greek-speaking, it saw itself as the Roman Empire and its citizens as Romans.” – Judith Herrin, Byzantium: The Surprising Life of a Medieval Empire, (London: Penguin Books, 2008), p. xvii. “The New Rome: Constantine’s ambition was to be sole ruler of the Roman empire, and Licinius’ revocation of the edict of toleration for Christians provided Constantine with the ideal pretext to march east and overthrow him. Christians were far more numerous in the Greek-dominated east than in the still overwhelmingly pagan west and Constantine found plenty of support. Following Licinius’ defeat and execution in 324, Constantine decided to mark his break with Rome’s pagan past by founding a new eastern capital for the empire, named Constantinople after himself, on the site of the ancient Greek colony of Byzantium on the Bosphorus straits. Constantine’s choice of site was an inspired one. Constantinople (Istanbul, Turkey) was a natural stronghold. Situated on the peninsula it was surrounded by sea on three sides and the landward approaches were strongly fortified. The city was also at a crossroads of major sea and land routes, making it a natural commercial and communications centre. While Rome’s population was now in decline, settlers flooded into Constantinople, attracted by its commercial and administrative opportunities, official financial incentives and offers of free bread for the poor.” – John Haywood, Chronicles of the Ancient World: 3500 BC – AD 476, (London: Quercus, 2012), p. 307. The Roman Empire Lived On in the East After 476 AD Therefore, when the Western half of the Roman Empire fell in 476 it did not mean the end of the Roman Empire, contrary to what is popularly thought (among many Adventist leaders/evangelists at least). The Roman Empire in fact continued on in the East for another one thousand years, having already firmly established its new capital in Constantinople and rich resources from the Eastern provinces: “Within a comparatively short time, the western empire was submerged in a series of barbarian invasions, and in effect ceased to exist. The eastern empire survived these difficulties, and was able to maintain itself for another thousand years.” - Bernard Lewis, The Middle East: 2000 Years of History From the Rise of Christianity to the Present Day, (London: Phoenix Press, London, 2005), pp. 33-34. “When the Roman empire in the West fell in AD 476, the empire in the East, based at Constantinople, carried on business much as usual. And did so for another thousand years.” - Jon E. Lewis ed., Rome The Autobiography: The Rise and Fall of the Roman Empire by Those Who Saw It, “Epilogue: The Roman Empire in the East, AD 477-565,” (London: Constable & Robinson Ltd, 2010), p. 397. “The Roman empire of the West came to an end in the fifth century; but the Roman empire – as a continuous legal, cultural and political institution – persisted in the East for another millennium, and its capital, the ‘New Rome’ of Constantinople, was the seat of Roman emperors into the age of gunpowder and cannon; the last of them died only four decades before the discovery of the Americas.” - David Bentley Hart, The Story of Christianity: A History of 2,000 Years of the Christian Faith, (London: Quercus, 2009), p. 233. Romans Not Byzantines Although in modern times the Eastern Roman Empire is termed ‘Byantium’ this was not how they viewed themselves. They indeed saw themselves as Romans of the Roman Empire: “It is worth noting that the ‘Byzantines’ never used the term in this way themselves; right to the end they called themselves and their empire Roman.” – Colin McEvedy, The New Penguin Atlas of Medieval History, (London: Penguin Books Ltd., 1992), p. 30, fn. 1. “The name Byzantine, which is nowadays generally applied to the eastern empire, is a term of modern scholarship, and is derived from the name of the settlement which previously existed on the site of the city of Constantinople. The Byzantines never called themselves Byzantines. They called themselves Romans, and were ruled by a Roman emperor, purporting to enforce the Roman law.” – Bernard Lewis, The Middle East: 2000 Years of History From the Rise of Christianity to the Present Day, (London: Phoenix Press, London, 2005), p. 34. “This eastern half of the Roman Empire is Byzantium. That name was not given to it until the sixteenth century, when humanist scholars tried to find a way of identifying what remained after the collapse of Old Rome in the West. Although they coined a term which has been used ever since, it is important to remember that the inhabitants of the empire called themselves Romans (in Greek, Romaioi), and saw themselves as such. Their claim on Roman qualities was not a vanity or snobbishness. From 330 to 619 Byzantium enjoyed imperial realities as well as ideology.” – Judith Herrin, Byzantium: The Surprising Life of a Medieval Empire, (London: Penguin Books, 2008), p. 25. ‘The very name Byzantine illustrates the misconceptions to which the empire’s history has often been subject, for its inhabitants would hardly have considered the term appropriate to themselves or to their state. Theirs was, in their view, none other than the Roman Empire… they called themselves Romaioi, or Romans.” – Encyclopedia Britannica, ‘Byzantine Empire,’ http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/87186/Byzantine-Empire. The Actual End of the Roman Empire: 1453 Why is any of this important? It’s important because whoever ends the Eastern Roman Empire – which as we have discovered is now resident in the East, with its capital in Constantinople (modern-day Istanbul in Turkey) – is the clear winner for who the 7th Head/Empire is. So when in fact did the Roman Empire end? 1453: “Refounded as the ‘new Rome’ by the emperor Constantine in 330, it was endowed by him with the name Constantinople, the city of Constantine. The derivation from Byzantium is suggestive in that it emphasizes a central aspect of Byzantine civilization: the degree to which the empire’s administrative and intellectual life found a focus at Constantinople from 330 to 1453, the year of the city’s last and unsuccessful defense under the 11th (or 12th) Constantine. The circumstances of the last defense are suggestive, too, for in 1453 the ancient, medieval, and modern worlds seemed briefly to meet. The last Constantine fell in defense of the new Rome built by the first Constantine.” - Encyclopedia Britannica, ‘Byzantine Empire,’ http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/87186/Byzantine-Empire. And who actually caused its end? The Islamic Empire of the Ottoman Dynasty: “The eastern half of the Roman Empire, with its capital at Constantinople, formerly Byzantium. The Eastern Roman Empire survived the collapse of the Western Empire by nearly a thousand years, only falling to the Ottoman Turks in 1453, when Constantinople was taken.” - Bruce P. Lenman, Trevor Anderson, eds., Chambers Dictionary of World History, ‘Byzantine Empire,’ (Edinburgh: Chambers Harrap Publishers Ltd., 2000), p. * “The Empire (31 BC-AD 476 in the West, AD 1453 in the East)… In the 5th century, hordes of trans-riverine tribesmen (eg Huns, Vandals, Visigoths, Ostrogoths) poured into the Western provinces carrying all before them. In 476 with their deposition of the last emperor, Romulus Augustulus, they marked symbolically their destruction of the Western half of the Empire. The Eastern provinces, however, proved more resilient; here the barbarian challenge was contained for another thousand years, until the Eastern capital Constantinople fell to the Ottoman Turks in 1453.” – David Crystal, ed., Penguin Encyclopedia 2nd Edition, ‘Roman history,’ (London: Penguin Books, 2004), pp. 1315-1316. ‘Ottoman forces entered Europe in 1345, conquered Constantinople in 1453, and by 1520 controlled most of south-eastern Europe, including part of Hungary, the Middle East and North Africa.’ – Bruce P. Lenman, Trevor Anderson, eds., Chambers Dictionary of World History, ‘Ottoman Empire,’ (Edinburgh: Chambers Harrap Publishers Ltd., 2000), p. * “After the fall of the west, the eastern Roman empire continued to flourish and under the emperor Justinian (r. 527-65) even won back control of Italy and North Africa… During the seventh century the newly Islamized Arabs conquered Egypt, Palestine and Syria, but their attempts to capture Constantinople failed. Confined to Anatolia and the Balkans, the empire survived, as much by diplomacy as military force, as a bulwark of Christendom in the east. However, a crushing defeat by the Seljuk Turks at the battle of Manzikert in 1071 sent the empire into decline, and the sack of Constantinople by crusaders in 1204 ended the empire’s days as a great power. The final blow came when Constantinople fell to the Ottoman Turks in 1453. To the very end, Byzantine emperors continued to regard themselves as true Roman emperors.” – John Haywood, Chronicles of the Ancient World: 3500 BC – AD 476, (London: Quercus, 2012), p. 324. “On 29 May 1453, two years after the sultan’s accession and seven weeks after the siege began, the janissaries made the final assault on the crumbling walls of Constantinople. The last Constantine was killed fighting among his troops; the crescent was raised above the dome of Hagia Sophia, and the sultan took up residence in the imperial city. With the conquest of Constantinople, for so many centuries the coveted goal Muslim arms, the last piece had fallen into place. Sultan Mehmed II, henceforth known as Fatih, the Conqueror, had sealed the union of the two continents, Asia and Africa, that formed his inheritance, and of the two traditions, Islam and the frontier, that had moulded them. The principality of the frontier fighters had become an empire; its chief, an emperor. This victory established the Ottoman sultanate as the spearhead of Islam pointing to the West, and brought it immense prestige within the Islamic world.” – Bernard Lewis, The Middle East: 2000 Years of History From the Rise of Christianity to the Present Day, (London: Phoenix Press, London, 2005), pp. 110-111. “Sultan Mehmet had promised his men the three traditional days of looting… By then there was little left to plunder, and his soldiers were fully occupied sharing out the loot and enjoying their captives. In the late afternoon, accompanied by his chief ministers, his imams and his bodyguard of Janissaries, he rode slowly to St Sophia. Dismounting outside the central doors… he entered the Great Church… At his command the senior imam mounted the pulpit and proclaimed the name of Allah, the All-Merciful and Compassionate: there was no God but God and Mohammed was his Prophet. The Sultan touched his turbaned head to the ground in prayer and thanksgiving. St Sophia was now a mosque. Leaving it, he crossed the square to the old, ruined Palace of the Emperors, founded by Constantine the Great eleven and a half centuries before; and as he wandered through its ancient halls, his slippers brushing the dust from the pebbled floor-mosaics… he is said to have murmured the lines of a Persian poet: ‘The spider weaves the curtains in the palace of the Caesars; The owl calls the watches in the towers of Afrasiab.’ He had achieved his ambition. Constantinople was his. He was just twenty-one years old. The news of the conquest was received with horror throughout Christendom. The refugees carried the epic story with them; and their story lost nothing in the telling… The Roman Empire of the east was founded by Constantine the Great on Monday, 11 May 330; it came to an end on Tuesday, 29 May 1453.” – John Julius Norwich, A Short History of Byzantium, (London: Penguin Books, 1997), pp. 381-382. Islam’s Attempted Conquest of the West from the Beginning This fall did not simply occur out of the blue. The attempt at conquering Constantinople and the rest of the Western world had begun upon the inception of Islam in the 7th century (and continues on until this day): “Geography alone made its ultimate survival as a Christian capital impossible. It was surrounded by too many enemies – Arabs, Slavs, Turks, Bulgars, Mongols, among others – and from the seventh century onwards was engaged in an almost continuous struggle with the immense power of Islam. With the rise of the Ottoman empire, the Byzantines were confronted with an enemy that could not be defeated, and that could not be resisted indefinitely. – David Bentley Hart, The Story of Christianity: A History of 2,000 Years of the Christian Faith, (London: Quercus, 2009), p. 233. In fact, one of the primary existential features of the Eastern Roman Empire is that it had been protecting the Western world from the designs of conquest by Islam: “Perhaps for us today, the most significant feature of Byzantium lies in its historic role in protecting the Christian West in the early Middle Ages. Until the seventh century, Byzantium was indeed the Roman Empire. It ruled North Africa and Egypt, the granaries that fed both Rome and Constantinople, southern Italy, the Holy Land, Asia Minor as far east as Mount Ararat, all of today’s Greece and much of the Balkans. Then the tribes of Arabia inspired by the new religion of Islam conquered most of the eastern Mediterranean. They fought in the name of a revelation that presented itself as the successor to the Jewish and Christian faiths. Byzantium checked their expansion into Asia Minor and prevented them from crossing the Dardanelles and gaining access to the Balkans. Constantinople held out against numerous sieges… Had Byzantium not halted their expansion in 678, Muslim forces charged by the additional resources of the capital city would have spread Islam throughout the Balkans, into Italy and the West during the seventh century, at a time when political fragmentation reduced the possibility of organized defence. By preventing this potential conquest, Byzantium made Europe possible. It allowed western Christian forces, which were divided into small units, time to develop their own strengths.” – Judith Herrin, Byzantium: The Surprising Life of a Medieval Empire, (London: Penguin Books, 2008), p. xviii. The Ottoman Islamic Empire: The Legitimate Successor to the Roman Empire Finally, what I found absolutely striking was that according to a recent BBC documentary titled The Ottomans: Europe’s Muslim Emperors, the Ottomans, in particular their leader Mehmed II who had just led the enormously successful and unprecedented conquest of Constantinople in 1453, viewed their nascent empire as the natural successor to the Roman Empire! – Mehmet II paralleling himself with Augustus Caesar who changed the Roman Republic into the Roman Empire: “[Presenter BBC News Correspondent Rageh Ommar:] Mehmet saw himself as heir to the Romans, ready to model his new Ottoman Empire as their natural successor. [Professor Karen Barkey:] For the Ottoman Empire Mehmet II is Augustus. He plays the same role, because Augustus changes the Republic into an Empire, and Mehmet II changes the small Ottoman state through the conquest of Constantinople.” – Karen Barkey, Professor of Columbia University, in Rageh Ommar, The Ottomans: Europe’s Muslim Emperors, ‘Episode One,’ (Salford: BBC, 6 Oct 2013). I find this later confirmed by other historical sources: “Nothing could stop Turkish expansionism… On May 29, 1453, Mehmed II rode his white horse into Constantinople, making this proud city his new imperial capital and winning the honorific title of “The Conqueror.” For the West this was a dark moment. For Islam it was a cause for celebration. For nearly a millennium Constantinople had been the foremost barrier – both physically and ideologically – to Islam’s sustained drive for world conquest and the object of desire of numerous Muslim rulers… He was no longer a ghazi “blazing forth the way of Islam,” or even the foremost sultan in the House of Islam. He was the head of a great empire stretching from the Black Sea to the very heart of Europe and the legitimate heir to the universal Byzantine Empire. Manifested by Mehmed’s adoption of the title Sultan-I Rum – “Ruler of Rome” (or rather Byzantium) – and his determination to turn his new capital of Constantinople, or Istanbul as it would henceforth be called, into the leading world metropolis, this alleged continuity was to become a central component of the Ottoman claim to universal empire.” – Efraim Karsh, Islamic Imperialism: A History, (North Yorkshire: Cambridge University Press, 2006), p. 89. “Among the titles Sultan Mehmed claimed for himself was that of ‘Roman Caesar’, signifying his aspiration to succeed to the mantle of the Byzantine Empire at the height of its greatness under Constantine and Justinian… He saw himself as the legitimate heir to Byzantium and as having realized Islamic traditions that the peerless city of Constantinople would one day be Muslim; and also as the epigone of the heroes of the Classical world. He knew some Greek, and his interest in the ancients must have been widely known in contemporary political circles. It was alluded to in his own time by the Venetian Niccolo Sagundino, a native of Euboea, in his account of the Ottomans. Mehmed, wrote Sagundino, was fascinated by the Spartans, the Athenians, the Romans and the Carthaginians but identified above all with Alexander of Macedonia and Julius Caesar. The Byzantine Critoboulos of Imbros (Gokceada) wrote in the preface to his eulogistic biography that Mehmed’s exploits equalled Alexander’s… Mehmed fostered this identification of himself with great warriors of the past… He had the Iliad and the standard life of Alexander, Arrian’s Anabasis of Alexander the Great, copied for his library. The historical tradition Sultan Mehmed tried to keep alive and of which he felt himself to be part reached far back into the past, but his eyes were set on a brilliant future for his empire.” – Caroline Finkel, Osman’s Dream: The Story of the Ottoman Empire 1300-1923, (London: John Murray Publishers, 2006), pp. 70, 80. “The capture of Constantinople bestowed on Mehmed incomparable glory and prestige and immense authority in his own country, so that he began to look upon himself as the heir of the Roman Caesars and the champion of Islam in holy war. It is not true that he had preconceived plans for his conquests, but it is certain that he was intent upon resurrecting the Eastern Roman Empire and upon extending it to its widest historic limits… Mehmed had assumed the title of Kayser-i Rum (Roman Caesar) and, at the same time, described himself as “the lord of the two lands and the two seas” (i.e., Anatolia and the Balkans, the Aegean and the Black seas), a designation that reflected his idea of the empire. During the quarter-century after the fall of Constantinople, he undertook a series of campaigns or expeditions in the Balkans, Hungary, Walachia, Moldavia, Anatolia, the island of Rhodes, and even as far as the Crimean Peninsula and Otranto in southern Italy. This last enterprise (1480) indicated that he intended to invade Italy in a new attempt at founding a world empire.” – Halil Inalcik, ‘Mehmed II: Ottoman sultan,’ Encyclopaedia Britannica Online. Retrieved 14 Feb 2016, http://www.britannica.com/biography/Mehmed-II-Ottoman-sultan. Conclusion It should clear beyond any reasonable doubt that the Roman Empire did not end in 476 as many Adventist evangelists, speakers, leaders and pastors have continuously promulgated to this day, unabated and unopposed. To say so is to actually ignore the historical reality of (1) the transfer of the centre of the Roman Empire from Rome to Constantinople in 330, (2) the subsequent splitting of the empire into two halves, East and West, in 395, and (3) a thousand years of existence of the eastern half of the Roman Empire up until 1453 with the Conquest of Constantinople by the Muslim Sultan Mehmed II of the Islamic Ottoman Empire. All three are powerful and irrefutable arguments against the notion that the Roman Empire ended in 476, and in favour of the successor to the Roman Empire being the Islamic Empire (of the Ottoman Dynasty). It is also fascinating that that Islamic empire only ended less than one hundred years ago in 1924! (as part of World War I). In fact, it was because of its collapse that terrorist groups and states sprang up soon after, like the Muslim Brotherhood, in an attempt to restore the Islamic Empire, and which ISIS has successfully begun to do in our time! Unreal! This speaks to the identity of the 8th Empire/the Beast, which is an extension of this topic but one which I won’t comment on now since I’ve said enough already. Also, to focus on the eastern half of the Roman Empire is very natural from a Biblical standpoint since virtually all the empires are centred around, or focussed from that vantage point: Assyria, Egypt, Babylon, Persia, and even Greece are all empires that are based in the Middle/Near East – even Alexander the Great ironically did not base his empire in Greece but in Babylon, and his empire stretched eastward all the way up to the borders of India. Even when Jesus arrives on the scene under the rule of Romans he focuses his ministry on Jerusalem and Israel, the Middle East. And even in Revelation 13 when we view the Beast, who is effectively the “eighth” empire succeeding the sequence of “seven” (Rev. 17.11), he is represented in the form of a Lion, Bear and Leopard – this harks back to the Lion, Leopard, Bear empires in Daniel 7, namely Babylon, Persia and Greece respectively, which are all historically Middle Eastern empires. Therefore an Eastern Roman Empire focus is fitting to the entire viewpoint of the Bible. To view the 7th or 8th empires as the Holy Roman Empire or the Papacy is completely incongruous to the sequence, and ignores the actual historical reality of what happened to the Roman Empire as I’ve described above. Lastly a personal note. I read and hear many believers when approaching something as serious as the Book of Revelation and Endtime prophecy in general (or any other Bible topic for that matter), where any taking away or adding to Revelation (and that includes removing or adding interpretations of things that are and are not there respectively) has serious eternal consequences, just say things on a whim, or make stuff up in their head, as if just thinking something up makes it true. But truth deserves more serious efforts than mere whim. It deserves hard evidence and tough investigation of actual historical realities. Personally, I find it offensive that many pastors/leaders/evangelists who have a huge influence on the ordinary person, have not even bothered to pick up something as simple and straight-forward as an encyclopedia to verify their so-called historical facts, and are ever-so willing to say things with absolute certainty but which they haven’t even bothered to check out or support with a quote from any historical source. With such a sacred responsibility, I would make sure I checked first. So that’s what I did. And it contradicted everything I was taught as an Adventist. Don’t be fooled. Check out the facts for yourself. You owe to yourself, others and to God Himself who died for you. “Prove all things.” 1 Thessalonians 5.21 “Wisdom from above is… open to reason…and impartial.” James 3.17

wow. just...wow. I think this "obituary" thread is shameful. Woody is right.

I don't associate the name of "Claudia Burrows" with Morris Venden. Heck, I don't even feel inclined to google it... I guess I have a distinct lack of morbid curiosity...