The Patmos Paradigm

One hundred billion years in the future, another empire discovers the Patmos, which is the complete history of humanity, good and bad. Upon the private viewing, the resident gods declare it too dangerous. The Patmos has within it material that, when viewed, could release the Knowledge of Evil, a concept that could, like a virus, destroy their universe. Likewise, this small Patmos ball is composed of complete atoms, as they could destroy millions of stars. Their governing council sends the Patmos through a series of wormholes to other dimensions. They also call back all their giant space worlds, as ships are a far-distant memory, if another Patmos was somehow dispatched. Life in the Patmos witnessed the chosen earthlings and viewed the earth as it passed through the Great Tribulation, where humanity is rendered extinct. They survived World War III in which the Eagle, Dragon, and Bear die, allowing a silent monster to recreate an old empire and rule the world. He begins his genocide, sparing Israel, which he gives a nice new temple, only to betray them. His empire suffers through twenty-one judgments, which leaves those with his mark doomed as he loses both the physical and spiritual last war and gets a kick from the archangel Michael for the bottomless pit, as the journey for the victors is only beginning.

One hundred billion years in the future, another empire discovers the Patmos, which is the complete history of humanity, good and bad. Upon the private viewing, the resident gods declare it too dangerous. The Patmos has within it material that, when viewed, could release the Knowledge of Evil, a concept that could, like a virus, destroy their universe. Likewise, this small Patmos ball is composed of complete atoms, as they could destroy millions of stars. Their governing council sends the Patmos through a series of wormholes to other dimensions. They also call back all their giant space worlds, as ships are a far-distant memory, if another Patmos was somehow dispatched. Life in the Patmos witnessed the chosen earthlings and viewed the earth as it passed through the Great Tribulation, where humanity is rendered extinct. They survived World War III in which the Eagle, Dragon, and Bear die, allowing a silent monster to recreate an old empire and rule the world. He begins his genocide, sparing Israel, which he gives a nice new temple, only to betray them. His empire suffers through twenty-one judgments, which leaves those with his mark doomed as he loses both the physical and spiritual last war and gets a kick from the archangel Michael for the bottomless pit, as the journey for the victors is only beginning.

* A riveting cross-cultural analysis of imperial myths and their subversion * Color images of contemporary murals showing the power of the la Guadalupena in Chicana/o imagination and resistance today

John Weston has spent many years leading tours of Biblical sites in the Middle East. Now he has brought together a series of meditations, first on the Isle of Patmos, and then on each of the seven churches in present-day Turkey which are mentioned in the early chapters of the book of Revelation in the Bible. With his attractive, alliterative style, the author transports the reader to the place where the Apostle John saw his apocalyptic vision of Jesus Christ. What was it like? What were the themes which were unfolded to him? Reading the first chapter, one could almost be sitting in the Apostle's cave on the Isle of Patmos as the tour guide sets the scene! At appropriate points the explanation is reinforced with a familiar (or unfamiliar) hymn. John, in his vision, received dictated letters for seven first-century churches in cities of the country which is now Turkey. The author leads the reader to each church in turn and the significance of the correspondence it received is reviewed from historical, prophetic and topical points of view. Strong arguments are advanced for the continuing relevance of these letters to churches and individual Christians today. The tour ends with a grand review of each place visited and the comparative lessons to be learned. So is the book simply a tour guide? As preparation for, a souvenir of, or a virtual replacement for a tour of Patmos and the Seven Churches, this book is ideal. But it is much more than that. As an easy-to-read meditation on the early chapters of the book of Revelation, considered within the framework of the prophetic and practical teachings of the rest of the Old and New Testaments, it is a valuable aid to those who really want to know the relevance of Revelation for the twenty-first century Christian.

Two major historical events have led to Patmos being called 'the holy island of the Aegean'. The first is the arrival there in A.D. 95 of the Evangelist, Saint John the Theologian, who wrote the Book of Revelation on the island; and the second is the foundation in 1088, at the beginning of the second millenium of the Christian era, of the Monastery of Saint John the Theologian by the monk Christodoulos, armed with three chrysobulls from the Byzantine emperor, Alexios I Comnenos. During the nine centuries of its life, the Monastery on Patmos has assembled and preserved many precious treasures of art and culture, and, along with the Patmian School, it has supplied the Orthodox Church with patriarchs and other enlightened prelates, and the State and the intellectual world with distinguished personalities. Patmos, Treasures of the Monastery contains chapters on the various kinds of works of art housed in the Monastery from the Byzantine and modern Greek popular traditions, and also on the rare manuscripts and valuable editions in the Library, the richest in the Aegean. These chapters, each lavishly illustrated, deal with the architecture of the fortress-like complex of the Monastery, the outstanding wall paintings and icons, the masterpieces of gold-embroidery and church silver, the exquisite miniatures in the manuscripts, and the other treasures in the Library and the archive.

Exhaustively annotated and illustrated, this explosive work of history unearths clues that finally demonstrate the truth about one of the world’s great religions: that it was born out of the conflict between the Romans and messianic Jews who fought a bitter war with each other during the 1st Century. The Romans employed a tactic they routinely used to conquer and absorb other nations: they grafted their imperial rule onto the religion of the conquered. After 30 years of research, authors James S. Valliant and C.W. Fahy present irrefutable archeological and textual evidence that proves Christianity was created by Roman Caesars in this book that breaks new ground in Christian scholarship and is destined to change the way the world looks at ancient religions forever. Inherited from a long-past era of tyranny, war and deliberate religious fraud, could Christianity have been created for an entirely different purpose than we have been lead to believe? Praised by scholars like Dead Sea Scrolls translator Robert Eisenman (James the Brother of Jesus), this exhaustive synthesis of historical detective work integrates all of the ancient sources about the earliest Christians and reveals new archeological evidence for the first time. And, despite the fable presented in current bestsellers like Bill O’Reilly’s Killing Jesus, the evidence presented in Creating Christ is irrefutable: Christianity was invented by Roman Emperors. I have rarely encountered a book so original, exciting, accessible and informed on subjects that are of obvious importance to the world and to which I have myself devoted such a large part of my scholarly career studying. In this book they have rendered a startling new understanding of Christianity with a controversial theory of its Roman provenance that is accessible to the layman in a very powerful way. In the process, they present new and comprehensive archeological and iconographic evidence, as well as utilizing the widest and most cutting edge work of other recent scholars, including myself. This is a work of outstanding and original scholarship. Its arguments are a brilliant, profound and thorough integration of the relevant evidence. When they are done, the conclusion is inescapable and obviously profound. Robert Eisenman, Author of James the Brother of Jesus and The New Testament Code "A fascinating and provocative investigative history of ideas, boldly exploring a problem that previous scholarship has not clearly or credibly addressed: how (and why!) the Flavian dynasty wove Christianity into the very fabric of Western civilization." -Mark Riebling, author of Church of Spies: The Pope's Secret War Against Hitler