The Conspiracy Hypothesis*

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THE JUDEO/CHRISTIAN CYCLES

END-TIMES (c. B.C. 869, A.D. 132, 1132, 2132)

| TIME: The World Is a Stage | Millennial End-Time Drama | Millennial/Bi-Millennial Cycles | William Miller | Antiochus IV Epiphanes | My Discovery |

The “End-Time”

The “end time” is believed by Christians to be a period of years during which certain Bible prophecies will be fulfilled. The primary sources for the belief in an “end time” and a “millennium” -- a discrete 1,000-year segment of time associated with the end-time -- are prophecies found in Daniel and Revelations, coupled with words attributed to Jesus in some of the Gospels, plus certain writings of Paul. These are traditionally the area of study of branches of theology known as eschatology and chiliasm, but the subject also has been popularized by certain Christian writers, the foremost of whom is possibly Hal Lindsey, and there are a number of websites expressing a variety of point-of-views on this topic. These schools of thought are at least traditionally divided among themselves as to whether or not Jesus will return in power and glory during the “end time” and will or will not personally rule over all the nations of earth for a 1,000 years. Based on Revelations, there is also believed to be another, earlier millennium during which Satan (or the Devil) is to be imprisoned in a “bottomless pit”, however after this thousand years has expired he is to be set loose for a “little season” to pursue his nefarious designs. Each of these millennia is to be capped by a resurrection of the dead, believed by some to take place on earth (in the future only) and by others to take place (both past and present/future) in heaven.

My study of end-times is limited to the Christian (and The URANTIA Book) perspective. There is as well a Jewish eschatology which concerns the advent of the Hebraic idea of the “Messiah”, and the topic is likely covered in other religions also.

The “little season” wherein evil is allowed relatively free course is equivalent with the “end time”, and the prophecies concerning it foretell the advent during those years of a “beast”, which represents both a despotic planetary hegemony and its political leader, the “Antichrist”, whose name will somehow be translatable into the numbers 666. He (or she) will be paired with a religious leader who bears the Bible sobriquet of “False Prophet”. There are foretold also during this end time to be bearers of light and truth who will be severely persecuted by the Antichrist “beast” and the “False Prophet”, but after these evildoers come to their end at Armageddon (both a geographical location in present-day Israel and a symbolic name for World War III or the “final war”), then the government of the whole earth is to be placed into the hands of the “saints”, or more literally: “the people of the saints of the Most High” (see Dan. 7:27).

All of the above millennial-ending events, whether Christ does or does not return, will mark the beginning of the new millennium, wherein he will or will not visibly rule over the entire planet and its nations, all depending on if you are reading the theologies of Pre-millennialists, Post-millennialists, A-millennialists, Millennialists, or an independent webmaster (such as moi) with his (or her) own often singular ideas. These divisions of millennialist thought also concern the relative placement of an event known as the “Rapture”, wherein Christians believe that Christians and others believe that others will be taken into the sky and “translated” directly from flesh into spirit in the same manner as were Enoch and Elijah. I do not deal with that subject at all on this website, but direct the reader to The URANTIA Book where it is termed “Adjuster fusion”, for further and more advanced information on the topic.

There is, obviously, a lot of room for confusion in trying to make sense of these very far from clear end-time prophecies. Symbols abound and thus they are open to a variety of interpretations. Another factor to be taken into consideration (which usually is not) is the corruption and distortions which have crept into the text, as well as those parts of their visionary foundations which have been lost. The URANTIA Book does much to restore intellectual overall balance to the otherwise prophecy-based concepts. And my discovery of the cyclic nature of these and previous millennia -- the secondary subject matter of URANTIAGATE : A Portal to the New Revelation of Jesus -- puts the prophecies into a context which helps to explain them by comparison with their historical precedents. History does indeed repeat itself, and the end-time has been experienced at least three times before, at the termination of each millennium since the beginning of the Judeo/Christian religion at the time of Abraham. In reality, as the cycles show, the “end time” refers to the transition period between these millennia … the point where the end of one becomes the beginning of the next. And we are presently at the beginning of just such a transition!

Dali melting clock hanging on a branch (detail)
The nature of time, itself (click image to see whole painting in new window)
The end-time prophecies, as it turns out, do not relate only to the present (or some would say “future”) millennial transition, but to people and events in previous ones as well, some being specific and others being more general. But in order to understand the nature of the Judeo/Christian millennial cycles, as well as their recurring real-life dramas symbolized and described by these prophecies, and which are reenacted during their various end-times, we must first gain a fundamental appreciation of the nature of time, itself.

TIME: “The World Is a Stage”

“Time,” according to The URANTIA Book, “is the stream of flowing temporal events perceived by creature consciousness.” Jesus taught that “as man ascends, as he progresses inward, the enlarging view of this event procession is such that it is discerned more and more in its wholeness. That which formerly appeared as a succession of events then will be viewed as a whole and perfectly related cycle … ” (1439 B) The URANTIA Book also contains two other very intriguing statements concerning the nature of time:

  1. “As regards an individual life, the duration of a realm or the chronology of any connected series of events, it would seem that we are dealing with an isolated stretch of time; everything seems to have a beginning and an end. And it would appear that a series of such experiences, lives, ages or epochs, when successively arranged, constitutes a straightaway drive, an isolated event of time flashing momentarily across the face of eternity. But when we look at all this from behind the scenes, a more comprehensive view and a more complete understanding suggest that such an explanation is inadequate, disconnected, and wholly unsuited properly to account for, and otherwise to correlate, the transactions of time with the underlying purpose and basic reactions of eternity.

    “To me it seems more fitting, for purposes of explanation to the mortal mind, to conceive of eternity as a cycle and the eternal purpose as an endless circle, a cycle of eternity in some way synchronized with the transient material cycles of time. As regards the sectors of time connected with, and forming a part of, the cycle of eternity, we are forced to recognize that such temporary epochs are born, live, and die just as the temporary beings of time are born, live, and die”(365 C).

We already are very much aware of such cycles as they pertain to nature.

The curtain falls, a millennium passes, and it rises on the same play.

Each season’s special characteristics repeat themselves periodically, but similar repetitions in the drama of politics and religion, church and state -- two of the most powerful social forces which man has yet created -- are nowhere near as visible to us yet.

However we do at least acknowledge as truisms the ideas that “history repeats itself” and “those who do not learn the lessons of history are destined to repeat its mistakes”.
Shakespeare
image
William Shakespeare
The great bard, William Shakespeare, may have seen it even more clearly when he wrote that “all the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players”. He spoke of the various dramatic scenes in each individual’s life, but his words apply equally to the overview of aeons. Shakespeare’s view -- applied to vaster ages -- seems to reflect the essence of the second intriguing statement mentioned above:

  1. “The sectors of time are like the flashes of personality in temporal form; they appear for a season, and they are lost to human sight, only to reappear as new actors and continuing factors in the higher life of the endless swing around the eternal circle” (366 B).
The URANTIA Book also says that “human society has evolved in agelong cycles” (763 D), and that evolutionary religion “advances slowly in generation epochs and agelong cycles” (1006 A). Such cycles it teaches are modified and uplifted by periodical revelations (Paper 92 4:1 through 5, 1004 A).

The word “age”, of course, represents an imprecise length of time, but at least one “spiritual age” is measured in The URANTIA Book to be exactly “one millennium” in length:

“ … a spiritual age, a millennium of cosmic enlightenment … ” (231 D)
It also states that the “new and oncoming social order” which will result from the New Revelation of Jesus “will not settle down for a millennium” (1086 C).

The duration, for which The URANTIA Book is to be the chief source of epochal revelation also is apparently a thousand years: we are told that its expansion of our concepts maintains certain limits so as not to “deprive the thinking mortals of the next thousand years of that stimulus to creative speculation which these partially revealed concepts supply” (330 B). This may well also be the reason that the millennial and bi-millennial cycles which I describe on this website are not plainly revealed: “Overrevelation”, we are told, “stifles the imagination”. The supernal revelators also confess that they are “not at liberty to anticipate the scientific discoveries of a thousand years”, either. Again, this appears to be a direct reference to the length of the fifth (The URANTIA Book) revelation’s epoch.

Finally, it can be inferred from one statement in The URANTIA Book that the “present system of directing planetary affairs” are carried out according to millennial cycles, but other interpretations are possible as well (see 1025 D), however nothing rules out this meaning.

I have only been privileged to see the historically repeating millennial “end-times”, wherein the drama of life begins, the actors all play their parts to the end of the script; then the curtain falls, a millennium passes, and it rises on the same play to be performed again, but this time with different actors reprising the earlier roles, while adapting them to their own unique mannerisms and to newly furbished sets (or “continuing factors in the higher life”). This was not revealed to me in a vision or in some other strange manner, but was found by tracing the chronological prophecies of Daniel back to the beginning of the Judeo/Christian era -- the time of Abraham and Melchizedek. It is purely a matter of history and arithmetic, supported by the teachings of The URANTIA Book and the Bible.

If this human drama was staged every generation, or even every hundred years, we would be as aware of its replay as we are the return of spring -- or, for a closer analogy, the transition weeks between winter and spring. What keeps us from suspecting the truth is the duration of the cycle. And these thousand-year-long increments of time do not even accord with our standard calendars, which unfortunately were set into their current format of B.C. and A.D. in an arbitrary manner which reflected neither the actual birthday of Jesus -- their purported transition point -- nor the real beginning and end times of the millennia, as reflected from eternity.

“The Millennial End-Time Drama”

Our end-time play’s dramatis personae consists of four major roles: two heroes, Elijah and Elisha; and a pair of evil villains whom I will call the “Beast” and the “False Prophet”, using the names for them found in The Revelations of St. John the Divine (Bible). The actual staging requires that they be known by their real, mortal identities and names, however. They are in fact totally human (to dispel any myths to the contrary). The villains are simply wrong! But fanatically so! They follow “the way that seemeth right unto a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death” (1566 C and Proverbs 14:12).

Certain scenes of armed combat always take place at Jerusalem, which in every instance but one, is conquered and its Hebrew inhabitants both slaughtered and/or otherwise disposed of harshly (driven out of the land, sold into slavery, etc.). The single end-time war variation took place when the defenders of the “Holy City” under the leadership of King Jehoshaphat sought supernal protection. Rather than fight they used an apparently revealed psy-war tactic of freaking out their enemy with music and song! This so confused the invaders that they were able to be successfully overwhelmed and defeated by local tribes which then rose against them. So the roles and actions are subject to improvision, and following supernal direction pays real dividends (both constitute “continuing factors in the higher life”).

The plot calls for the Elijah figure to present a statement of higher truth and to prepare the audience for the entrance of the Elisha figure. During this whole episode both heroes and/or their followers are severely persecuted by the two villains. “Elijah” then makes his exit in some dramatic, often gruesome way. Once he was pulled upwards from the stage amidst a fireworks display, that was good. Another time he had his head served up on a platter, that was bad. Last time, after being castrated, he retired to a monastery filled with evil monks who plotted to take his life. Somehow he died a natural death in spite of all this! At least his death was presumed to have been from natural causes. He died in his 63rd year. His life was definitely dramatic, almost out of Shakespeare.

“Elisha”, afterwards, makes real the truth-presentation of his fellow actor, and brings about a sometimes symbolic “cleansing of the sanctuary”. Sooner or later the villains are defeated, and the followers of “Elisha” eventually claim victory. These followers will, after a millennium, appear in the roles of the villains for the next performance! Thus, the cycle repeats itself.

Millennial and Bi-Millennial Cycles

This millennial cycle has at least two foundations: The first foundation is generated by a bi-millennial supernal input into human affairs -- an epochal revelation. And the second is that its length is apparently determined by the duration of the Paradise-Havona day, which is a mere matter of minutes shorter than one Urantia (earth) millennium. This thousand-year period is the standard time measure throughout the seven superuniverses, which, however, do maintain their own internal times as well (ref. 153 C).

The history, religious traditions, and revelations concerning the Judeo/Christian cycles inform us that each segment was begun by the life and teachings of a supernal Son of God who lived among us as one of us. These two “epochal” revelators stepped forth to begin their missions as unencumbered men of the realm exactly two Havona-Paradise days (2,000 years) apart. Melchizedek materialized in the likeness of the flesh in the year B.C. 1980 (“1,973 years before the birth of Jesus” (1015 A) ). And Jesus stepped forth from his home and family (after having been born in the flesh, having developed to maturity, and having severed his family obligations) entering upon “the second and home-detached phase of his adult life” in A.D. 21* (1418 D -- 1419 A).

*Note: the seeming discrepancy of one additional year is due to the lack of a calendar year between B.C. and A. D. corresponding to the mathematical integer, zero, between positive and negative numbering.

After such supernal, epochal revelations as those made by Jesus and Melchizedek have been presented and the self-bestowed, supernal Sons of God have departed, their teachings begin to evolve. This evolutionary period appears to be contained in the separate, millennial cycles which follow slightly over one hundred years later. The epochal revelations catch hold (to one degree or another), grow, become corrupt and in need of renewal within a 1,000-year period. There are, of course, various upheavals throughout the interim. During each first millennial transition period this renewal takes place. After initially suffering persecution and near-extinction at the hands of the established religionists (who are by this time aligned with the government, and who cling to the traditional teachings), the bearers of renewed truth -- formulated and proclaimed effectively by “Elijah” and “Elisha” figures -- finally overcome and establish their teachings as the new, evolutionary mainstream; and the new cycle evolves for the rest of the millennium until its own end-time, when the drama is to be repeated.

Notice that each of the two epochs consists of two evolutionary millennia. The first millennium begins in both cases on what might be supposed to be the ideal or normal departure date for the Bestowal son on an ideal planet not, such as our own is, still suffering from the evils of an earlier rebellion within its supernal government. The evolutionary bi-millennial cycles are divided at a point which I call the “millennial transition” date or point. The millennial “end-times” or transition “periods” themselves may last several hundred years. However these transitions can be abrupt and distinct, as well.

Only at the middle millennial transition points of each epoch is there a totally human (although spiritually “inspired”) restoration and renewal of religion, but at all of the millennial transition periods the end-time drama is played out. The actors are different each time, and while theoretically the whole world is its stage, up to now the setting has been limited to the areas of Europe and the Middle East. But since the present epochal revelation -- the Urantia Papers -- was received in America, the stage is likely to be broadened accordingly, and may quite possibly include not only the United States, but Asia as well. This last is especially not to be overlooked since the “dragon” -- currently a common symbol for Asia as well as two of its most powerful national entities -- appears as a prominent symbol for one of the great worldly powers making up the “kingdom of the Beast” (ref. Rev. 13:1-4 and Dan. 7:1-7).

William Miller

A number of years ago I encountered the interpretation of certain chronological prophecies in the Book of Daniel (Old Testament) made by Baptist Preacher, William Miller,

William Miller

during the 19th Century. He believed that they pointed to the date of the Second Coming of Christ, in spite of his own adherence to the doctrine of scriptural (Bible) inerrancy, and the fact that Jesus had proclaimed therein that no man nor angel was to know that day and time. And Miller did narrow it down to a specific year and day.

Nothing out of the ordinary transpired on Miller’s target dates. There were two of these because Miller failed to account for the additional year required by the lack of any kind of zero year, and after nothing much happened the first time, he pushed the date up another year.
E.G.White photo

Ellen G. White

His interpretation is nevertheless considered to be valid by the Seventh Day Adventist Church (SDA), which organized out of the disillusioned heap of “Millerites” when one of them claimed to have had a vision of the real fulfillment taking place at the designated time in supernal realms, rather than on earth. Since this was not actually the Second Coming, it made everything all right. Others might laugh at them, but then, it hardly mattered because they were already doing so. Ellen G. White bought this alternative and spurred the SDA to greater growth as its chief visionary and “prophetess”, handing down dietary and other rules purportedly received in her own visions from on high. The SDA doctrines hold that the mark of the beast (Revelations) is Sunday church-going, which detracts from “Sabbath-keeping”, the Sabbath being the seventh day of the week (hence their name), that is, Saturday, when they attend church.

Failed or fulfilled in heaven, Miller’s work intrigued me. Citing Bible references, he had taken each “day” of the various chronological figures in chapters eight and twelve as symbolically representing one year of real time. And the pesky and enigmatic “time, times, and a half” he showed -- again by way of scripture -- meant three and one half years, or (at what he said was the Biblical year of 360 days) 1,260 day-years (the figure appears also in Revelations, Chapter eleven).

Miller’s Original Chart
(Click image to see a higher resolution enlargement in a new window (64k) Click here to view an even higher resolution image of chart (210k))

But it seemed to me that Miller had made two serious mistakes. The first, of course, was to try to predict the unpredictable: Jesus’ second coming. This alone could have thrown a monkey wrench into his whole effort, since Miller was required to be true to his highest understanding, and not rationalize Jesus’ words away … as are we all!

Starting Date: Antiochus IV Epiphanes (B.C. 169)

William Miller’s second mistake was in joining together two completely different prophetic visions and treating them as if they were one. He needed a starting date for two sets of prophecies which followed immediately upon Daniel’s visions and their interpretation to Daniel by a supernal being. These two visions pointed directly to the time of Antiochus IV Epiphanes, a Syrian ruler who committed horrible atrocities upon the Jewish people and their religion. This interpretive fact is one
Antiochus IV Epiphanes
agreed to by nearly every Bible exegetist. There is, perhaps, no prophetic fulfillment other than those concerning Jesus which is so well established. Antiochus’ evils were so great that later, Christian scholars came to accept him as typifying (although not actually being) the “Antichrist”, otherwise known in our drama as the “Beast”. The prophecies were deadly accurate! So much so that many believe that they were written after the fact. Daniel’s writings did only first appear during the reign of the Maccabees as far as anyone knows, that is, after Antiochus’ fifteen minutes of infamy.

What Miller did was to ignore Antiochus and -- led possibly by his own desire to be alive at Jesus’ second advent -- to add the numbers associated with Antiochus to a starting date he found for a messianic prophecy in another chapter altogether! This date preceded the time of Antiochus, which, of course, affixed Miller’s target date that much earlier since the duration times remained constant. Our desires to see great things or to be great people so often lead us astray. It is impossible to believe that Miller did not, in all of his calculations, ever add the chronological numbers of days (years) to the date of Antiochus, but the result -- as can be seen here -- would have placed his target date far beyond his lifetime. Why bother with an interpretation at all if its fulfillment will not take place until after your life in the flesh is past? Of course we should all be thankful that this kind of thinking did not stop Daniel from recording what would not happen for centuries, even millennia after Antiochus and the Maccabees had exited the stage, who themselves did not strut and fret upon it until long after Daniel’s death.

My Discovery!

Seeing what I believed were Miller’s mistakes, I decided to find out what would happen if I added the various numbers of years to the date in which the Antiochus prophecy was fulfilled, and which in the words of the book were called "the appointed time”, not only once but twice, and appearing in each of the Antiochus chapters. And that date was so well recognized that I even found it in a footnote to the words “the appointed time” right in my Bible: B.C. 169. Talk about something being handed on a silver platter!

What I discovered was nothing less than the whole millennial structure of the Judeo/Christian epochs, from their evolutionary beginning to what must be presumed to be their end.

(NEXT:) “FIRST END-TIME (c. B.C. 869): Elijah/Elisha”

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