Revelation Differently: The Whore of Babylon
This is the next in my series of posts in this forum about a very different, progressive understanding of the book of Revelation.
The story of the whore of Babylon is the longest subject in Revelation, about 10% of the verses in the whole book. John (the author of Rev) considers it important. When we've unraveled its meaning, we'll find several key takeaways: 1. The symbolism makes sense, if we look at it closely. 2. Revelation is a serious spiritual resource, not a timetable for doomsday. 3. John demonstrates a sophisticated understanding of human society and human nature.
There are two main aspects of Babylon's story:
1. Who she is and what she does
2. What happens to her (her fall)
This post is primarily about point 1. In the process of writing this post, I realized some important new stuff about point 2 that I never noticed before and I haven't fully grokked it yet.
John tells us a great deal about Babylon, although much of what he says is cryptic and rather sensational. But we can make a lot of sense of it. Here is some of what we can know about her and how we can know it.
She is closely associated with the beast (See Revelation differently: the seven-headed beast from the sea that rules the world), with power and the powerful. Rev 17:2-3: "With her the kings of the earth committed adultery... I saw a woman sitting on a scarlet beast that was covered with blasphemous names and had seven heads and ten horns." (My quotes are mostly from the NIV version.)
She is also closely associated with the rich and with wealth and luxurious living. 17:4: "The woman was dressed in purple and scarlet, and was glittering with gold, precious stones and pearls. She held a golden cup in her hand." (Note: In ancient times, purple clothing was a sign of wealth because the dye used to make it was very expensive.) 18:3: "The merchants of the earth grew rich from her excessive luxuries."
She corrupts or distorts people's minds, making them "drunk." 17:2: "The inhabitants of the earth were intoxicated with the wine of her adulteries. 18:3: All the nations have drunk the maddening wine of her adulteries." Some translations use words like mad, crazy, and even deranged for the effect she has on people.
She has a mean and violent streak. 17:6: "The woman was drunk with the blood of the saints and the blood of those who testified to Jesus." 18:24: "The blood of the saints and prophets was found in her, along with the blood of all those who had been killed on the earth.” (Note: "All those who had been killed on the earth" makes it clear that Babylon is not the Roman Empire. Rome is/was not responsible for all the people killed by Hitler, Pol Pot, or street muggers. It's common for liberals to take every negative character in Revelation to be Rome and to take Revelation as a whole to be little more than a polemic against Roman persecution of early Christians. As we saw regarding the beast and we will see regarding Babylon, John has much bigger interests than an empire that ended 1500 years ago.)
She has great power herself, besides being a close associate of the powerful. 17:8: "As for the woman you saw, she is the great city that has sovereignty over the kings of the earth.” Some translations say "reigns over" or "rules over" the kings of the earth. Wow, who could have the power to reign over the kings of the earth? Some powerful secret society? Freemasons or Bilderburgers or whatever? Space aliens with Jewish space lasers? We'll find that it's actually much more sensible.
In some sense, people are "in" her because (18:4) a voice from heaven calls out “Come out of her, my people, so you will not take part in her sins."
Finally, John tells us her name. 17:5: "The name written on her forehead was a mystery:
BABYLON THE GREAT
THE MOTHER OF PROSTITUTES
AND OF THE ABOMINATIONS OF THE EARTH.
In that name we will find the clue that enables us to start unraveling her identity.
Let's look closer at her identity. She is the mother of prostitutes (whores or harlots, in some translations) and of the abominations of the earth. We can quickly rule out the possibility that she is an actual human mother who gives birth to people who grow up to be prostitutes because Babylon has been having her drunken frolics with the beast at least since Nebuchadnezzar was emperor of Chaldea/Babylon six centuries before Jesus. So we can conclude that she is a metaphorical mother in the sense of the source, cause, progenitor of harlots and abominations.
Now let's consider the harlots. Are these actual humans who engage in prostitution or are they also metaphorical, in the same sense that the prophets of Israel often referred to Israel and Israelites as harlots when they strayed from God? We can't be sure yet but the metaphorical meaning seems more likely because John is addressing big, long term issues such as the beast.
She is also the mother of the abominations ("detestable things" in some translations) of the earth. Since we're obviously talking about the earth and not about Alpha Centauri, Mars, or Jupiter, let's just call her the mother of abominations. In previous posts, I've mentioned John's penchant for making allusions to and paraphrases of other parts of scripture. "The mother of abominations" is one of those paraphrases of a very famous scriptural passage, but no one ever notices it. Can you think of the referenced passage? I'll give you some clues.
The mother of abomiinations
The progenitor of detestable things
The source of whatever is vile and loathsome
The root cause of badness and depravity
The root of all evil!
"The mother of abominations" is a paraphrase of "the root of all evil." The love of money, greed, is the root of all evil (1 Tim 6:10). As the mother of abominations, Babylon is greed. However, John doesn't use the word "all" because he doesn't consider greed to be the root of ALL evil. As the mother of harlots, she includes other kinds of evil too. We'll look at that shortly.
But first notice this about her: Babylon is not some geopolitical power center, some nation or group of nations, some cabal or organization of humans. Greed is a human attitude, a way of thinking. That's why her name is on her forehead, because it is about her mind and her thinking. What other kinds of thinking does she represent as the mother of harlots? Well, basically any of our negative thought patterns that "adulterate" our natural love for our neighbors, such as hate, anger, lusting for power over others, whether that happens in a family, neighborhood, work situation, or international relations.
It's easy to see how greed, hate, powerlust, and the various other impure passions explain all that we know about Babylon. Her associations with the beast, with power and the powerful, with the rich and with wealth are obvious. That she distorts people's minds and makes them "drunk:" We say things like "power mad," "drunk with greed," or "crazy with hate." "All the nations have drunk the wine of the wrath of her fornication," (18:3 NKJV) which we can think of as "the intoxicating essence of the passion of her impure desires." Greed, hate, and powerlust dominate and control the nations, from the richest, most powerful kings to ordinary people as we all, to one extent or another, live "in" her, in our own passions.
John shows a sophisticated understanding of human society here with the story of Babylon. All these human passions drive much of what we see in society. In a sense, almost every day, the lead headline in the evening news could be "Babylon's drunken frolics with the beast." Greedy billionaires and billionaire corporations endlessly pressure the beast to give them money and power, haters of all kinds act out their hate and try to get government to act out their hate for them, powermad religious fanatics try to use the power of government to force their theocratic desires on everyone, power mad politicians pander to billionaires to get campaign money to convince haters to vote to give them the power to give trillions of dollars to billionaires. Babylon makes them crazy!
John then tells us the story of Babylon's fall and heaven's delight in her fall, but some of it just doesn't seem to make any sense. He tells us (17:12-17) that ten new kings will arise who will give their power and authority to the beast (not surprising since all kings--in John's view--are part of the 7-headed beast, the whole human institution of evil oppressive nations).
But he also tells us that the beast and the ten new kings will hate the prostitute Babylon. Now wait just a minute! We already know that Babylon dominates and controls the beast, and that the beast runs on Babylon attitudes such as powerlust, greed, and hate. Now he tells us that the beast and the ten kings hate Babylon! Since hate itself is Babylonian, the kings who hate Babylon are concurrently "in" Babylon acting on their hate; it's as if he told us that Babylon hates Babylon and hate hates hate.
It seems like nonsense at first. But here is one key thing about her: Babylon is not some monolithic power center, not one unified, united, organized, centralized group or principle that acts with coordinated effort and intent. In fact, she is a decentralized, disorganized agent of chaos in society. When one king's Babylon lust for power runs up against another king's lust for power, war breaks out because both kings hate the other's lust for power. They both hate the other's Babylon. When ten kings' lusts for power all run up against each other, multiple wars break out. And when ten nations, peoples, and large groups who are all drunk with their greeds, hates, angers, desires for revenge, and lusts for power run up against each other, all hell breaks loose. Society becomes the chaotic frenzy of everybody hating everybody else's Babylon that we see in society at all levels.
In the story of Babylon's fall, John reports a lot of weaping and wailing by kings, rich merchants, and other practitioners of Babylon as their wealth and power are destroyed. We can attribute most of that destruction and loss to one nation/tribe/group conquering another and destroying the other's wealth and power. However, heaven is also cheering and celebrating Babylon's fall. It seems unlikely that heaven is really cheering for one group of greedy powerlusting haters' victory over another group of greedy powerlusting haters. Rather, it seems much more likely that heaven is cheering for people who overcome their own Babylon urges, overcome their own greed, let go of their own hatereds, and so on.
John doesn't seem to tell us just how they accomplish that; apparently we have to figure that out for ourselves. However, it soon becomes clear that the fall of Babylon has great and positive results. (Well, obviously, ending greed, hate, and powerlust would have beneficial effects. But there's more.) In the very next event in the Revelation story, a crescendo of Alleluia comes from heaven, the first time so far in Revelation that we have encountered that joyous sound coming from heaven. Also, there is an announcement of the Lamb's wedding and the announcement that his bride has made herself ready. One of the ways that the bride of Christ makes herself ready is by overcoming Babylon.
We should also note that the call to overcome Babylon is a call, not just to obey all the rules and Thou-shalt-nots, but to become pure in heart. Not just "Don't steal," but also "Don't be greedy." Not just "don't kill," but also "Don't hate. Love instead." Matthew 5:8 tells us, "Blessed are the pure in heart for they will see God." John illustrates the beatitude in Revelation: Not long after the fall of Babylon (becoming pure in heart), the people in New Jerusalem "see his face" (22:4). The pure in heart see God.
Well, this turned out to be longer than expected. But Babylon is a big subject. At the beginning, I mentioned three takeaways for this post. I won't elaborate now, but you might want to look at them. If you made it this far, thank you for reading.
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