The Book of Revelation is filled with prophetic visions of apocalyptic events. But if the astonishing conclusions of a Biblical researcher from Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz (JGU) are correct, this text may have been doing more than just predicting future disasters. According to Dr. Michael Hölscher, a researcher from the JGU Faculty of Catholic Theology, the Book of Revelation is interspersed with language taken directly from Roman-era curse tablets , written scripts that were meant to bring harm or bad fortune on someone who had somehow cheated, exploited, threatened or wronged someone else.
Rather than just predicting terrifying events, some of the words and phrases included in Revelation may have been meant to bring on those disasters, as a way to seek revenge against Roman authorities persecuting or oppressing Christians in the first century AD, when this final book of the New Testament was composed.
The Book of Revelation’s Surprising Connection to Roman Curse Tablets is Revealed
In the Roman world of ancient times, curse tablets were widely used by people from all walks of life. On thin sheets of flattened lead, the vengeful person would inscribe incantations and destructive desires designed to bring calamity and catastrophe into the lives of the targets of the curse. What the former hoped would happen to the latter was often described in vivid detail, and rituals might be performed to make sure the curse tablets would induce the requested effects.
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