And the winepress was trodden outside the city, and blood flowed out of the winepress, as high as the bridles of the horses, to the distance of one thousand six hundred stadia. (Revelation 14:20)

This verse seems to have been literally fulfilled when thousands of fugitives from Gadara were cornered by the Roman army at the Jordan River. For miles along the Jordan, the men of Gadara could not cross the river as a result of a strong current due to recent rainfall. There, the men of Gadara “sustained the darts that were thrown at them as well as the attacks of the horsemen who beat many of them, and pushed them into the current.” (Josephus: Wars of the jews)

The Jordan River is 251 kilometers long which is exactly 1,600 stadia.

Josephus says “And the Jordan could not be passed over, by reason of the dead bodies that were in it, but the lake Asphaltitis [the Dead Sea] was also full of dead bodies, that were carried down into it by the river.”

"With thousands of bloodied corpses flowing from the Jordan into the Dead Sea, this bitter sea had truly lived up to its name both literally as the Dead Sea and symbolically as the Red Sea, having been made red with the blood of the dead." - Steve Gregg, ed., Revelation: Four Views a Parallel Commentary 

The sea literally became blood. (Revelation 8:8)

"On the eighth day of the month Xanthicus, and at the ninth hour of the night, so great a light shone round the altar and the holy house, that it appeared to be bright day time; which lasted for half an hour. This light seemed to be a good sign to the unskillful, but was so interpreted by the sacred scribes, as to portend those events that followed immediately upon it." (Josephus, Wars, Book 6, Section 288)

"And when he opened the seventh seal, there came silence in heaven about half-an-hour." (Revelation 8:1)

Who was Mystery Babylon, Mother of Harlots?

Son of man, cause Jerusalem to know her abominations, and say, Thus saith the Lord God unto Jerusalem;

Thou didst trust in thine own beauty, and playedst the harlot because of thy renown, and pouredst out thy fornications on every one that passed by. . . and in all thine abominations and thy whoredoms thou hast not remembered the days of thy youth, when thou wast naked and bare, and wast polluted in thy blood.
Ezekiel 16:2, 3,15 , 22

I will show unto thee the judgment of the great whore that sitteth upon many waters; with whom the kings of the earth have committed fornication, and the inhabitants of the earth have been made drunk with the wine of her fornication. . .and upon her forehead was a name written, Mystery, Babylon the Great, the Mother of Harlots and Abominations of the Earth.
Revelation 17:1 - 2 , 5 - 6

For all nations have drunk of the wine of the wrath of her fornication, and the kings of the earth have committed fornication with her, and the merchants of the earth are waxed rich through the abundance of her delicacies.
Revelation 18:3

Thus wast thou decked with gold and silver; and thy raiment was of fine linen, and silk, and broidered work; thou didst eat fine flour, and honey, and oil; and thou wast exceeding beautiful, and thou didst prosper into a kingdom. And thy renown went forth among the heathen for thy beauty: for it was perfect through my comeliness, which I had put upon thee, saith the Lord God.
Ezekiel 16:13 - 14

And the merchants of the earth shall weep and mourn over her; for no man buyeth their merchandise any more: the merchandise of gold, and silver, and precious stones, and of pearls, and fine linen, and purple, and silk, and scarlet, and all thyine wood, and all manner vessels of ivory, and all manner vessels of most precious wood, and of brass, and iron, and marble, and cinnamon, and odors, and ointments, and frankincense, and wine, and oil, and fine flour, and wheat, and beasts, and sheep, and horses, and chariots, and slaves, and souls of men.

And in her was found the blood of prophets, and of saints, and of all that were slain upon the earth.

Rejoice over her, thou heaven, and ye holy apostles and prophets; for God hath avenged you on her.
Revelation 18:11 - 13 , 20 , 24


Wherefore, behold, I send unto you prophets, and wise men, and scribes: and some of them ye shall kill and crucify; and some of them shall ye scourge in your synagogues, and persecute them from city to city: that upon you may come all the righteous blood shed upon the earth, from the blood of righteous Abel unto the blood of Zechari´ah son of Berechi´ah, whom ye slew between the temple and the altar. Verily I say unto you, All these things shall come upon THIS GENERATION.

O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets, and stonest them which are sent unto thee, how often would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would not!

Behold, your house is left unto you desolate!
Matthew 23:34 - 37; 38

Alas, alas, that great city, wherein were made rich all that had ships in the sea by reason of her costliness! for in one hour is she made desolate.
Revelation 18:19

Let scripture interpret scripture.

Landscape with Saint John on Patmos, Nicolas Poussin, 1640

According to 1 Enoch 10.12, the judgement was to occur seventy generations from Enoch, during which time the angels who sinned against God were to be kept in bonds until the day of consummation, the great judgement in which the age shall be consummated. 16.1-2

It should be noted that according to Luke, who claims to have "traced the course of all things accurately from the first", there are exactly seventy generations from Enoch to Jesus Christ. In other words, it would not have been presumptuous for Jude to claim that 1 Enoch addressed the concerns of the Christians to whom he wrote. The generation of Jesus Christ had not yet passed away. 70 AD was within that context. (See Jude 1:6; 14-15)

"And all these things as types did happen to those persons, and they were written for our admonition, upon whom the consummation of the ages did come." (1 Corinthians 10:11)

"Know ye not that we shall judge angels? how much more things that pertain to this life?" (1 Corinthians 6:3)

The suovetaurilia or suovitaurilia was one of the most sacred and traditional rites of Roman religion: the sacrifice of a pig (sus), a sheep (ovis) and a bull (taurus) to the deity Mars to bless and purify land (Lustratio).

If a temple were destroyed, the site of the temple must be purified by a suovetaurilia.

According to Professor Watts, professor of New Testament at Regent College, “No Roman tomb was legally protected without a pig being sacrificed.” Obviously, the Temple in Jerusalem was littered with the bodies of dead Roman soldiers in A.D. 70.  Also citing K.M.T. Atkinson, Brain Incigneri points out “that the Romans would sacrifice a pig before the standards [ensigns] at the taking of a military oath, sacramentum militare, shown in coins of the first century BCE.”  The sacramentum militare was the oath taken by soldiers to pledge their loyalty to the emperor.

"And now the Romans, upon the flight of the seditious into the city, and upon the burning of the holy house itself, and of all the buildings round about it, brought their ensigns to the temple. . .and there did they offer sacrifices to them, and there did they make Titus imperator." (Wars 6.6.1.)

"This is the wicked Titus, who insulted and blasphemed God on High. What did Titus do when he conquered the Temple? He took a prostitute with his hand, and entered the Holy of Holies with her. He then spread out a Torah scroll underneath him and committed a sin, i.e., engaged in sexual intercourse, on it. Afterward he took a sword and cut into the curtain separating between the Sanctuary and the Holy of Holies. And a miracle was performed and blood spurted forth. Seeing the blood, he mistakenly thought that he had killed God. Titus saw blood issuing forth from the curtain in God’s meeting place, the Temple, and he took it as a sign that he had succeeded in killing God Himself. As it is stated: “Your enemies roar in the midst of Your meeting place; they have set up their own signs for signs”  - Babylonian Talmud: Gittin 56b

"After this, the Romans quenched the fire, and set up their idols and images in the temple, offering burnt-offerings unto them, and blaspheming, mocking and railing at the jews, and their laws, in prefence of their idols." - Joseph Ben Gorion's Yosippon

According to Josephus, many false prophets and messiahs rose up during the governorship of Festus

"who deceived and deluded the people under pretense of Divine inspiration, but were in fact for procuring innovations and changes of the government. These men prevailed with the multitude to act like madmen, and went before them into the wilderness, pretending that God would there show them the signals of liberty."

And many false prophets shall rise, and shall deceive many.
Matthew 24:11

For there shall arise false Christs, and false prophets, and shall show great signs and wonders; insomuch that, if it were possible, they shall deceive the very elect.
Matthew 24:24

for false Christs and false prophets shall rise, and shall show signs and wonders, to seduce, if it were possible, even the elect. Mark 13:22

Beloved, believe not every spirit, but try the spirits whether they are of God: because many false prophets are gone out into the world. 1 John 4:1

In the next few posts, we will take a look at some of these false prophets and messiahs who are not only mentioned in the Bible, but also by historians (Eusebius, Josephus).

We'll start with Theudus.