Thursday 26 March 2020

Seven seals

In the Book of Revelation, the Seven Seals are the seven symbolic seals that secure the book or scroll that John of Patmos saw in an apocalyptic vision. The opening of the seals of the document occurs in Revelation Chapters 5–8 and marks the Second Coming of the Christ.

At the time when Revelation was written, important documents were sent written on a papyrus scroll sealed with several wax seals. Wax seals were typically placed across the opening of a scroll, so that only the proper person, in the presence of witnesses, could open the document.



But there is another possible meaning of the "Breaking of seven seals which announces the second coming of Christ". 

It has to do with Christ being "the bread of life"...

Since Neolithic times, in Fertile Crescent, farmers stored their grain in storage vessels which were they sealed using stone seals imprinted on clay.


The earliest evidence for this practice was found in Syria and dates to the seventh millennium B.C. You can read about this in "Deciphering Later Neolithic stamp seal imagery of Northern Mesopotamia" and "More Seals and Sealings from Neolithic Tell Sabi Abyad, Syria"...


And we know that palaces and temples were used as grain stores...




Storage vessels from the store room


Seals imprints. 


This is the table showing articultyral year in Levant



You can see that grain (barley and wheat) was sown by December and was harvested by July. 

When grain was harvested, it was stored in storage jars and was used for food until next harvest. Now if I was a grain farmer from Levant, I would have divided my grain into 13 jars. The grain in 12 jars would be used for food. Why 12 jars? Well this way you will know exactly how much you can eat each month so that you can ration the grain and not run out of it half way through the year. The 13th jar would contain seeds for the next sowing. 

Each storage jar would then be closed and sealed probably with a family seal...

Now if the grain was indeed kept like this, then a family would open a new storage jar every new month, and would use the grain contained inside during that month. To to that they would have to break the seal...

Now what is the second coming of Christ? The Second Coming is a Christian belief regarding the future (or past) return of Jesus after his ascension to heaven...Basically, Christ dies, he gets buried, he ascends (Empty grave)...Now we wait...For Christ's resurrection basically...

You know how Grain is used as a symbol of resurrection? It gets killed (harvesting), buried (planting) and resurrected (sprouting and growing)...Year after year after year. 

Now what if "the bread of life" should be taken literally? How long should we wait for the "second coming", "resurrection" of grain? Well, 7 months, from the end of sowing (beginning of December) to the end of the Harvesting (beginning of July). The longest 7 months in the life of any grain farmer whose life depends on the good harvest...

And every one of these long 7 months begins with opening one of the last 7 jars of grain...By breaking the seal which protected it...When the 7th seal is broken, the harvest is finished and the storage jars are refilled...

Was this the root of the 7 seals "vision" about the Second coming of the "Bread of life"???

2 comments:

  1. Nice.
    One bushel equals about 50 pounds (a bit more and depends on which grain). Starvation rations for one person is one pound of grain per day equals about 1600 calories. One bushel is food for 50 days. Seven bushels of grain per person to survive one year.

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