Revelation -- 144,000

This blog continues a series from Revelation. This time backing up to the first story about 144,000. Combined with a few other stories they will tell us the total inspired letter counts and size of the carved monument. We start with a few points on the Asbury revival, and end with current project status, especially model size issues.

Asbury Revival (CBN)

If you have not heard, a revival recently broke out at Asbury University in Wilmore Kentucky. This Asbury revival movement is spreading. It has been mentioned by Tucker Carlson on his evening show. So this revival is attracting attention.

The link here is to a CBN article that explains what has been going on. The article, dated 2023-02-17, indicates this was the 10th day of revival. Backing up, this citation suggests this started on Wednesday, 2023-02-08, or 13014-02-01. This looks like a New Month meeting that has not stopped.

At that date Ryan and I were clearly told to start a Daniel Fast, and to start immediately. Something is breaking out in faith communities that are sensitive to Joshua. Ryan and I are in prayer 3 times per day and are now in a prophetic wave dealing with many more intricate details of tabernacle articles and their use in manuscript auditing and recovery.

Check the calendar app for the next new month, 13014-03-01, then First Fruits then Weeks. All have been given to us as important change dates in this new prophetic season.

Paul Vanderklay On Asbury (Youtube)

The link here is to a recording of a live stream by Paul Vanderklay. Paul is a pastor out of the reformed tradition. He is based near Sacramento, CA. He is a walking encyclopedia of church history. If revival as a subject is new to you start with the first 50 minutes or so of Paul's video. You old timers should already know this stuff.

There are 2 conflicting fundamental definitions of revival. The first is spontaneous outbreaks of confession, repentance and prayer. This is usually without preachers on stage. The second definition is a type of daily, often evening, church meetings. The first definition is the most important, and what is happening at Asbury. These events often degenerate into the second form.

Importantly Paul will mention the revival in Korea that lead to the Christianization of Korea at about 1905. In the USA, at the same time, the same move was called the Azusa Street Revival. Though named differently in different parts of the world, it was a world wide move of Joshua. This is how dramatic these events can become.

Big Revival Patterns

From a historical context, note something important. There are big revivals around 1 decade ahead of major wars. The 1904 movement was about 1 decade ahead of WWI, for example.

Big revival movements often spawn what become distinct communities of faith. What are now the Assemblies of God and Four Square denominations are examples of what grew out of the same worldwide movement that Christianized Korea.

There was a similar revival that started around 1855. It was called the Third Great Awakening generally, and in the USA is sometimes called the Businessmen's Revival. It was also about 10 years from the Civil War.

Amy Simple McPherson is usually personally credited with revival in the USA in the early 1930s. As a young woman, she had earlier founded what would become the Four Square denomination. Her work is in the more liturgical definition of revival, where people fan the revival from the stage. In any case, this is more evidence of revival about a decade ahead of WWII.

The early 1990s saw a smaller such move that preceded the wars that followed 911. Again, about 10 years. In that case ~15 preachers in the USA began regional prophetic ministries. They tended to hold traveling prophetic meetings in the revival style.

Each such move like this has a different personality. So they never repeat in exactly the same way.

Watch the Asbury revival to see how wide it spreads or if it fades out. Either can happen, but revivals usually fade out. That would be expected now too.

This sort of movement, if it becomes very wide spread, may delay or mitigate world war. This might be how we don't get nukes tossed around until the end of the decade, so there is important reasons to hope this move becomes widespread.

Also, beware of alpha-male masonic types masquerading as Christian pastors and preachers who usually step in and try and control these movements. By taking the stage they look to be promoting the move but in the end they squelch it because Joshua walks away. Stopping these moves becomes harder as it becomes more geographically widespread.

The Korean version of the Azusa Street Revival had both ongoing prayer and evangelistic meetings. The prayer caves are still there and still used.

Revelation 7 (BRB)

The link here is to Revelation 7 in the BRB. This is the next chapter to look at if you want to follow along in my ongoing tour of Revelation.

As I showed last week, the Book of Revelation starts with an introduction and then provides stories that are unpacked by gridding the story against the historical timeline. The trick is to spot how those stories are running backwards against historical time.

At this point in this blog series we are before the work of Solomon. We must use the details of Rev. 7 in order to place it in a historical context. When we do we will learn more.

Since the context of the Book of Revelation itself is the opening of a sealed scroll, with slain writings, this peek at history should also tell us something we need to know about recovering the text itself. Let me paraphrase chapter 7 then take the points in detail.

Rev. 7:1-3 discusses 4 kings holding 4 corners of the land. They are holding back 4 winds. Another king rises in the east. He tells the others to not take action until the servants have been sealed on their foreheads, or more precisely to the text 'between their eyes.' This is only idiomatically forehead.

Rev. 7:4-8 gives a count, 144,000, who are sealed from the various tribes. We consider this tribe list to be the reference list of tribes in their prophetic order.

If you have been with us since the BibleTime.com days you know this is the calendar for identifying tribes in the modern era. They start in 1612 with Russia as Judah and end in 1974 with Benjamin as modern Israel.

We needed and have already used that tribal identity list to recover lost letter vocalization, so this is a fundamental need for correct manuscript recovery. That use of this list is under the umbrella context of Revelation. But, in this pass, we are looking for something before Solomon, in the text itself, and not in our general era.

Rev. 7:9-10 shifts to a group who are given white robes.

Rev. 7:11-17 turns to a question about where did these come from? The answer is they came through the Great Tribulation. It ends with the comment that they are now before Joshua's throne.

Let me unpack these riddles, but in an order that is easier to explain.

Given Robes

To unpack this part of Revelation we must understand those robes. 1 big copy becomes an important Tent of Time/Tabernacle artifact. The story in Revelation began with a tour, so we are supposed to already know basic facts about that robe and its design.

It is called Joseph's robe because it is in his story where we first see it used. Jacob made him the robe and gave it to him.

The robe is made up of a grid of letter cells. My current understanding is 60 letter squares across and 25 letter squares up and down. Those 1500 Squares are used by students learning to draw letters. The arrangement on the robe is a final exam for graduating from basic Alphabet class.

The same canvas as used on the robe is used again to write proportional text. In that form of writing there is room for about double the letter count compared to the square count.

But, this Revelation story is pointing at a time when robes were given as gifts. This is pretty easy to spot in the historical chronology of Joseph. The matched event to this Revelation passage is given in Gen. 45:22 when Joseph gives each of his brothers robes. He gives Benjamin, the youngest, his own brother, 5 pairs of such robes, the rest are given pairs.

This is not exactly the single robe per person math of this Revelation chapter. Joseph is likely telling us in parable about something else.

To start cracking this riddle we need to count how many robes were involved in his gift. There were 12 brothers. Benjamin was given 5 pair, or 10 robes. The other 11 remaining brothers are Joseph and then 10 other brothers. So the other 10 brothers are each given 2 robes, so 20 robes in total are given to them. So a total of 30 robes were given away by Joseph.

There is an unwritten question about those gifts. Is Joseph wearing the same robe? Does he have a pair himself? Unclear at this point but as this unfolds we will find that yes, Joseph has 2 copies himself. The total set of robes, is 32. This is a factor we will use shortly.

144,000

If we back up in the Revelation story to the middle of the chapter we find that there are 144,000 who came through the 'Great Tribulation' and are sealed, each with a robe of some sort.

This is also easy to spot in the historical record. The 'Great Tribulation' is the event called the 'Plagues on Egypt.' There are census counts given for how many (adult males of military age) came out. Those counts may or may not be inspired, but if so, then around 600,000.

This Revelation passage suggests that out of the entire community, men and women, there were 144,000 who were ultimately taken up to the skies. They did not die and are before the throne even now.

The story where this is mentioned is in Judges 2:10. There we are told that by the start of Judges, that Exodus generation had been 'gathered to their fathers.' This is the idiom that means taken up to the skies. The alternative idiom is to 'sleep with their fathers' which means their souls went back to bed with a future father in order to be born again.

To anyone who knows the Christian Bible well, this should be mind blowing because the 144,000 who were taken up is now found in the book as history. It places this event 3,500 years ago, not future.

Of course we know there is a replay of the plagues going on now. Covid kill shots being but a small part. Later this century we should see a similar generation of people who were young during today's plagues who will also come through a great tribulation and will also be gathered. Anyone older needs to walk in the faith of Joshua son of Nun or Caleb.

Significance Of This Census

The literary purpose of Revelation is to explain how to unpack the sealed scroll. How does this census count help that problem?

That generation did something interesting. They famously set up a Tabernacle. That tent is the context of Revelation, so we are in their company as we read the book. Less famously they also carved the text on stone at the mountains of Ebal and Gerizim.

Those 144,000 sealed are dressed in white, like Joseph and his brothers later. They are the tribes that grew out of Joseph and his brothers.

All of this suggests the census given here is the count of squares on a complete monument of inspired text.

This Revelation passage is further telling us the first level of division down from 144,000 is 12 groups of 12,000.

The size of Joseph's robe, 1500 squares, is also telling us a division of blocks of letter counts in the manuscript. 1500 squares is a drawing canvas for chunks of text.

To reconcile these 2 different groups of numbers we need to note that every group of 12,000 is evenly divisible by 1,500. There are 8 robes of letters per tribe of letters.

Overall the 144,000 is also evenly divisible by 1,500. There are 96 robes worth of letters for the entire group of 144,000.

So there are 96 robes worth of squares on the monument. Note that Joseph and his brothers had 32 robes, so this will factor into the 96 evenly, by groups of 3, but keep reading to see how.

Zechariah's Monument Vision

This level subdivision of the 144,000 is not enough to fully understand the monument face. The book of Zechariah gives the rest of the breakdown.

Zechariah 6:1-3 describes a vision of the monument. At the top of Zechariah's vision are 2 mountains. We know those 2 mountains as Ebal and Gerizim. These are the 2 mountains the generation of the 144,000 used to carve the text.

Then Zechariah explains that there are 4 chariots. In English it is unclear if Zechariah mean 4 chariots total? Or 4 chariots per mountain? But fiddling with this you will soon see 4 chariots before each mountain/monument face.

Finally Zechariah puts horses in front of each chariot. Plurals, without any specific other number always implies the number 2. 2 horses in front of each chariot. They are paired in some way to each other, because they are the same type of horse for each chariot, but each chariot is otherwise different.

So now we know enough math to break down the monument and its basic geometry.

96 'robes' of 1500 letter squares. Using a 1 inch letter height on a 1.5 inch square, each robe is 7.5 feet wide, and 3.125 feet tall. There will be some gutter on a real monument face. But like playing cards we must arrange 96 of them to build a carved monument in stone.

48 of these robes are carved on each mountain face. So a mountain face is 1/2 of the monument. Each side of a creek, say, or a valley of some sort, or even a big room in a museum.

So take just 1 side of the monument. The 48 robes break into 4 chariots each. So 48/4 = 12 robes/chariot.

Each chariot breaks down by 2 horses. 12/2 = 6 robes/horse.

At this point, if you are following the math, there are 16 sets of 6 robes that spread across the 2 monument faces.

But Joseph divides his problem into 32. So we want to divide this again, so we get 32 sets of 3 robes. Following the horses, each pair of these 3 are yoked together.

If you play with the problem, 3 robes vertical, is around 10 ft tall. This is about the limit of what is possible on a monument. Running text will be about 80 ft on each mountain. With some gutter, maybe around 90 feet on each side.

This is a large presentation. This monument form is called the stumbling stone in Isaiah 8:14, and 1 Peter 2:7.

Vietnam War Memorial (Wikipedia)

The link here is to the Wikipedia article on the Vietnam War Memorial on the mall in Washington DC. That memorial is 10.1 feet high in the middle, and around 250 feet of running distance. That memorial has a tapered height, which is different than Ebal and Gerizim.

The total rock face of that memorial is similar to what we are discussing here. Imagine standing at the middle of that memorial in Washington DC and you get a feel for how high a carved Testimony of Joshua would be.

Canvas

The robe has cells of fixed width and height at 6 units within each square. 60 across, 25 tall. When learning to draw the letter forms, those cells have letters centered upon each square leaving much gutter, especially left/right of the drawn letter shape. This is a wide, fixed width, form of letters used for beginners.

Regular inspired text is written with minimal spacing between letters. Only a single dot separates letters. We normally call that proportional text, though the letter shapes in this system do not change.

All of the fixed width white space gets squished out when the text is written on paper or carved in stone. This means the monument has room for maybe twice the letter count. My educated guess is 144,000 * 2 = 288,000 letters and punctuations in the final inspired form.

Left/Right compression uses up extra left/right space on each robe. There is no similar compression vertically. Theoretically, there is room for an extra row of punctuation between, or really above, every row of text on a robe.

That gutter space above rows of text is also mentioned and given a purpose in this Revelation 7 passage dealing with the monument. Let me explain.

4 Corners

At the top of Revelation 7 we see 4 kings holding 4 corners of the land. There is also a reference to the 4 winds. Idiomatically the winds are likely 4 compass points. Those kings want all those who are redeemed to be marked on the forehead. Once that is done, the rest can be removed.

This is speaking to the letter squares that we have been counting as though they were pieces of territory. The entire book is about the manuscript and its recovery. So this is speaking to each square where letters are drawn. This is speaking to each square in Joseph's robe. It is speaking to each square where inspired text is written or carved.

Peter saw something very similar. See Acts 10:3 and following. When he was in Joppa he was shown a piece of cloth held by 4 corners. He was told to kill and eat.

We normally take Peter's story to be about clean and unclean food. If it is really about a feature of the text, then killing is to remove the uninspired. Once the false is killed, then Peter can eat. Once the text is rid of the uninspired, then we can read it and eat.

The Forehead

Think of each letter square as though it were a face. The marginal marks that matter to each square are at the top. Those corners are usually shared with adjacent squares. They are always drawn.

These top 2 corner marks are like eyes at the top of a face. Rev. 7:3 says to mark the servants between their eyes before doing harm to the land and seas.

This is describing in very precise technical terms the process of auditing the text. There is room for only 5 dots between the 2 upper left/right corner posts of letter squares. So there are 5 distinct audits that every letter square must pass.

Anywhere each of these audits DOES NOT PASS something has been done to the text below.

This is what Peter is told to kill. This is what Revelation 7 describes as harm to the land and sea.

Let me state this again, Revelation 7 describes the overall monument size in terms of letter arrangement. It then describes the audit process that every square must pass. Only squares that pass are allowed to be carved on the monument. All others must be removed.

Samson's Example

Samson gives a parable for the same system. He draws sweet honey from the carcass of a lion. Honey is stored in cells. These are the squares of inspired text on its proper canvas. Honey spills between cells just as proportional text spreads across the cells of the page.

The dead lion where the honey was found is the uninspired editor's work. If you know how you can draw honey from the carcass of a lion.

Samson's strength was in his hair. What is his hair? The marginal marks above each square that prove the text is inspired.

When Samson's hair is cut, Samson is defeated. When the text is removed from its designed in audit system, it can then be changed. The people are defeated.

David's Example

David defeats Goliath on the same idea. He uses 1 of his 5 stones to defeat Goliath by striking him on the forehead. 5 stones are the 5 audit dots that sit above the face of each cell.

David had his staff with him, though the story does not indicate why that staff was important. David selected 1 stone in particular. He defeated Goliath with a blow to the forehead. That forehead reference in the Goliath story is the same as the forehead references in this Rev. 7 account.

We can defeat big scary texts with stones to the forehead.

10 Virgins

The parable of the 10 virgins is another example. The 5 with oil are accepted while the 5 with no oil are not. Inspired text passes all 5 audits and is accepted. Miss any audit and the text is not inspired.

Of course people who are using text which does not pass the 5 audits are like the virgins with no oil. Those people will not be allowed in. This is unlike the 144,000 who where allowed in.

Fundamental Units

We are making major progress on understanding all of the Tabernacles artifacts. This now includes the lamps, staff and shepherd's bag.

Once we got to the staff, the virtual world of the letter shapes met the real world of hard units of measure. The text seems to be using units of measure, like furlongs, which are 1/8th of a mile, in ways that may be inspired.

So inches, cubits and feet are much more likely to have been introduced by Joshua along with the Paleo alphabet. They simply remained as standard units, like the alphabet, but without any memory as to where they came from nor why they were special.

For those that care, the metric system is 10 based, which means prime factors of 2 and 5, written as 2x5. It was introduced in the 1800s, and has no historical basis.

Traditional English units, kept most likely since the time when Rome ruled London, have prime factors of 2 and 3 in various combinations.

Inches are the fundamental base unit. Importantly, for fractions of inches, they are only divided by factors of 2.

I recently stumbled across a note in the manuals for the 3d design software I am using on how units below 1 must be evenly divisible by powers of 2 in order for the computer to not loose precision. This is so even when using floating point numbers.

We studied a similar problem when I was working in the aerospace industry years ago. It did not matter to real world 3d parts in those days, but it did matter in some cases in software code. So there are very real reasons why the smallest unit of measure is defined by having only factors of 2.

Dividing inches by factors of 2 alone, since ancient times, may be a lingering memory of a high-tech past. So let me start with an inch as a fundamental base unit and consider the other English units I mentioned above.

A foot has prime factors of 2x2x3. These are the 2 lowest possible non-1 primes. A cubit has prime factors of 2x3x3. These are also the 2 lowest possible non-1 primes. Note no 5s in these prime factors. Though we don't need it for the work we are doing, the yard, or 3 feet, has prime factors of 2x2x3x3.

The grid system we use for drawing all letter geometries is 6 units wide, or prime factors of 2x3, and 6 units tall, or 2x3. So the grid has prime factors of 2x2x3x3, same as yard. The pen has a 2x3 prime factor value too.

The Staff

The sizes for these things has never had any real measurement, and could theoretically be drawn at any scale. But these prime factors means it has a strong affinity to the English units of measure. So far, so good, but why care?

Then I got to the problem of the staff.

The staff has a fixed length and a fixed number of letter squares, the same count as the width of Joseph's Robe. It would also be expected to be a whole number of cubits. I know that the exact length of cubits is itself disputable, but I will take it to be 18 inches.

This forces the basic stroke lengths of letters and letter squares to be expressed as fractions and multiples of inches, and not fractions and multiples of millimeters.

So, I will be adjusting all models to use 1 inch as the base unit. Cad systems usually run metric, and I have previously used 25mm for a double stroke. Inches are 25.4mm, which will be the new value, which makes letter strokes at exactly 1/2 inch.

Making this adjustment means every model across the entire set will grow slightly in future revisions. Everything ever 3d printed so far is too small.

The working part of the staff, when it is 3d printed, will come out at exactly 5 cubits. The writing on the staff will come out at exactly 1 inch and match any models with a 1 inch size. Models of Joseph's robe, at this scale, will have letters at exactly 1 inch stroke for overall height. Many of the rest of the models will be in 2 inch scale and will be exactly double.

Remember, of course, that this is the path the pen moves on when drawing letters. The ink/plastic/thread of the pen spills out in all directions from these inch values.

This change impacts file names in model files. Files have had names using metric units, not inches. I have pulled all model files off from the bom.paleo.in website until I can address this change.

I've got a few other pending code problems to work on first, so hopefully in another week this is worked out.

These are very, very busy times.

More Later,

Phil