Asia
Revelation 1:4: “John to the seven churches that are in Asia.”
The words “in Asia” are in the Greek text of verse four but are not in the Greek text of verse eleven. The KJV in verse eleven inserts “which are in Asia” at the translator’s privilege. This is an example of a translator assuming that the “in Asia” of verse four represented the literal seven churches named in verse eleven. It is my belief that it did not.
This passage seems to describe the geographical setting of the addressees of the book, “in Asia.” Are these churches to be understood as merely seven literal churches, located in Asia Minor at that period of time? Much time, effort, and expense have been exerted to find the location of these churches. While some of their locations are quite well attested, others are vague. Some of these churches and their locations were so small and insignificant at the time that there is no certainty as to their location, if they existed at all in the natural sense.[1] This suggests that the Revelator used these seven churches symbolically.
Cosmic Geography:
Scholars now recognize that in ancient times there was a sense of “Cosmic Geography” or, as some call it “Astrological Geography”,[2] or “Zodiacal Geography” (Malina, pp. 103, 190). This system likens certain geographical areas on earth to certain constellations or configurations of stars in the heavens.[3]
The constellations are pictured as having been engraved by God upon the broad expanse of the heavens: “Art thou not it that hath cut Rahab, and wounded the dragon? (Isaiah 51:9)
The word Rahab means ‘proud’ as does its kindred word Rachab, meaning ‘proud’ in the sense of pride in its ‘broad expanse’. The phrase “cut in pieces” means also ‘engraved.’ In other words, God engraved the broad expanse of the heavens with the constellations. He “wounded (‘pierced’, or ‘transfixed’) the dragon“. Compare Isaiah 27:1:
In that day the LORD with his sore and great and strong sword shall punish leviathan the piercing serpent, even leviathan that crooked serpent; and he shall slay the dragon that [is] in the sea. (Isaiah 27:1)
The great constellation called Draco, the Serpent, appears to be impaled by the pole star, so that point cannot move, although both ends of the “Serpent” move about the pole.
These seven churches in their proper perspective are the earthly image of a heavenly reality, just as the Temple was intended to be an image of the heavens when rightly constructed and used. John, a mortal man, speaks to the literal, earthly churches with a message that is intended to bring them into conformity to the heavenly Pattern which he is allowed to view and describe in the vision of 1:12-20. It is God’s will for them to be like the seven candlesticks in the right hand of Christ in the heavens.
Geographically, Asia Minor, the location of the seven literal churches, appears on a map to be shaped like a horse’s head, its nose extended to the Bosporus, its mouth at Ephesus, (eph-sus in Hebrew, = ‘mouth of horse’), its front hoof in a running position at the Sinai.[4] The seven literal churches may have been situated within Asia Minor in a pattern resembling the prominent stars of the constellation we now commonly call the “Big Dipper,” but known variously in ancient times as the “Great Bear,” or Biblically, ‘Âsh[5], the Sheepfold, from whence perhaps we can trace the etymology of the word ‘Asia’.
In the Greek text of 1:4 the term is: ὴn tή Άsίa. This is a dative phrase. The word ‘Asia‘ here could be the Hebrew word ‘âsh transliterated into the Greek and given a dative case ending. It might, therefore, be used symbolically as “the former (or lesser) sheepfold”, meaning the Churches in Jerusalem. This symbolism is also borne out by Psalm 48:2 where “Mount Zion”, symbolizing Jerusalem, is said to be “on the sides of the north“, the location of ‘âsh.[6] Whether or not this etymology is true, the apocalyptic writer could well have used the similarity of sound as a means of play upon words, a common literary device in the Hebrew Scriptures.
The term ‘ayish is used in Job 38:32 but Job 9:9 spells the word ‘âsh. In both cases the RSV translates “the Bear”, but the KJV as “Arcturus” (BDB, p.747, 736).[7] However, the idea of “the Bear” is a Hellenistic idea and not the view held by Old Testament Israel.[8] There it was used symbolically variously as the Menorah, the Seed Sower, the Threshing Wain, or the Greater Sheepfold.[9] These names make it imminently appropriate as a symbol of the universal Church. In Mesopotamia it was also known as the Great Chariot (Malina, 92).
Some scholars believe the vowel pointing should be ‘iyûsh, meaning ‘to lend aid, come to help.’ By metathesis this word in verb form would become yeshua`, ‘he comes to help, or save’ (BDB 747 and 736), the Hebrew form from which we have the English “Jesus.” Perhaps the writer used this also as a means for a play upon words. If so, the phrase would read: “…the churches that are in Jesus.”
The term “seven churches” should be understood to mean “the Covenant Church“[10] for the Church is One Body, the Body of Christ, and therefore one Church. (Eph. 1:23; Romans 12:4, 5; 1 Cor. 10:17; 12:12-20.) In the same manner, the “seven Spirits before the throne” should be understood to mean “the Covenant Spirit”, for there is One Spirit, Ephesians 4:4.
The message of the book of Revelation is to the Churches. Since Jerusalem and the nation of the Jews, had rejected the warnings, it is the Churches that now must be warned, lest they fall into a similar error and reap a similar judgment. Just as the earthly City and Nation had been images of heavenly realities, so the Church is now to be the Body of Christ in the earth. And just as Jerusalem and the Nation fell, so, too, does the Church suffer destruction when she falls away from her Living God. Eusebius describes the fall of the true Church in terms reminiscent of the Fall of Jerusalem:
But all marvels pale before the archetypes, the metaphysical prototypes and heavenly patterns of material things – I mean the re-establishment of the divine spiritual edifice in our souls.
But when, through the envy and jealousy of the demon that loves evil, she, [the Church], became by her own free choice a lover of sensuality and evil, the Deity withdrew from her, and bereft of a protector, she was soon captured, proving an easy prey to the inveiglements of those so long bitter against her. Overthrown by the battering-rams and engines of her unseen and spiritual foes, she came crashing to the ground, so that not even one stone of her virtue remained standing on another in her; she lay full length on the ground dead, her natural thoughts about God gone without trace. As she lay prostrate, made as she was in the image of God, she was ravaged not by that boar out of the wood visible to us, but by some destroying demon and spiritual beasts of the field, who inflamed her with sensual passions.[11]
The Church did not hold fast to the warning.[12]. (See Introductory article “Genre: Apocalyptic“.)
[1] Bruce J. Malina. On the Genre and Message of Revelation. Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson Publishers, 1995, p. 73: “… socially insignificant communities.” Hereafter cited in text.
[2] Bruce M. Metzger, “Astrological Geography”, Chapter VII, Apostolic History and the Gospel: Biblical and Historical Essays presented to F. F. Bruce on his 60th Birthday, eds. W. Ward Gasque, and Ralpha P. Martin, Grand Rapids, Michigan, Eerdman’s Publishing Co., 1970. 123-133.
[3] See Metzger, Apostolic History, 123-133. Although Metzger discounts the connection between the list of nations given in Acts 2:9-11 with a certain astrological treatise by Paulus Alexandrinus who lived in the fourth century AD, he does not disprove the connection. He seems unaware that the ancient view of the cosmos and the Biblical use of the stars is not “astrology” but rather a unifying view of the universe. The ancients used the stars for telling time and for navigation and the intimate knowledge of the stars was extremely valuable for these purposes. While this use of the stars was not “astrology” neither was it the equivalent of our modern “astronomy”. Perhaps other writers have named it more appropriately “Cosmic Geography”.
Metzger, however, cannot deny a connection between geography and astrology: “It cannot be denied that in antiquity there may well have been some remote connexion between geography and astrology, revealed perhaps in the custom of beginning to enumerate a list of lands and countries starting in the East (at the rising of the sun). At the same time, however, it is doubtful whether the average cultured Greek and Roman writers were any more conscious of such a connexion than the modern Englishman is aware of the astrological matrix from which the word ‘disaster’ arose” (Note 2, p. 132).
Metzger, as well as the average cultured Englishman, is unaware of the fact that the whole earth was mapped in relation to the heavens, that cartography and chronology depend upon a knowledge of the heavens, that in ancient times navigation by land or sea depended upon a knowledge of the heavens.
Another fact that the average cultured Englishman is unaware of is that the Jews in the first century were scattered throughout the Roman Empire, and that there was a very strong, powerful and rich colony in Babylon. He says of the phrase “Judean Mesopotamian” that “Why Mesopotamia should deserve to be called ‘Judean’ is not easily explained.” This shows his total unawareness of the strength of the Babylonian community of Jews.
[4] See Strong’s #5906. D. S. Russell mentions that the apocalyptic writers sometimes used their own versions of the alphabet for their writings so that their enemies or the uninitiated could not read them, (Russell, 109).
The Bosporous is the strait that connects Asia Minor to Europe between the Marmara Sea and the Black Sea. Western Asia Minor is thus often referred to as the ‘Bosporous’. The name ‘Bosporous’ in Greek may be the words ‘bous’, and ‘phoros’, meaning a beast of burden.
The Greek name “Ephesus” might have been used to play upon its Hebrew meaning “horse’s mouth.”
[5] See also Joseph A. Seiss, The Gospel in the Stars, (Grand Rapids, Michigan, Kregel Publications), 178. Hereafter cited in text.
[6] The Qumran community apparently believed that Paradise was situated in the north, for the alignment of their graves shows that their heads were placed to the south, contrary to Jewish and Christian practice, so that at the resurrection they would rise facing the north. See Joseph T. Milik, Ten Years of Discovery in the Wilderness of Judaea, English ed., RB volume 65, (London, SCM Press, 1959), p. 104 and RB, vol.65, 1958, p. 77.
[7] The term ‘arctic’ is from the Greek arktos, a bear. From this has come also the name of the star ‘Arcturus‘ and the north polar regions of the earth.
Ges. Lexicon defines ‘âsh as “The constellation of the Bear… Ursa Major… Gk. and Roman, the wain … a bier… perhaps nightly watcher … to go about by night; … because of its never setting,” (Lexicon pp. 625, 659).
The word Arcturus is composed of artos + ourous, a ward, guard, (watcher). The star now commonly known as Arcturus is located by following the curve of the ‘handle of the Big Dipper’. It is easily located because of its brilliance. It is a star of the first magnitude. It may at times have been considered as part of the constellation of Ursa Major.
[8] “Epiphanius further recounts how they possessed a vocabulary of their own in Hebrew for the zodiac and other celestial beings” (Malina, 74).
[9] See my Commentary at 1:12 “Seven Golden Lampstands”.
[10] See my Commentary at 1:4 “Number ‘Seven‘”.
[11] Eusebius, History of the Church, 10.4.58.
[12] See Santillana, and von Dechend, Hamlet’s Mill. See also Thor Heyerdahl, Early Man and the Ocean, A Search for the Beginnings of Navigation and Seaborne Civilizations, (Garden City, New York, Doubleday and Co, Inc.), 1979