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By Rodney Reeves BI Summer 2008 27 Winged lion on side of the throne of Astarte in the temple of Echmoun at Sidon. This temple complex was for worship of Echmoun, the Phoenician god of healing. Temple dates to the 7th cent. B.C. This is the throne of the Phoenican deity, Astarte.

By Rodney Reeves - lifeway.com · end of the world begins with a heavenly ... Caesar refused the title “king.” ... Throne room at Knossos Palace, on Crete

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Page 1: By Rodney Reeves - lifeway.com · end of the world begins with a heavenly ... Caesar refused the title “king.” ... Throne room at Knossos Palace, on Crete

By Rodney Reeves

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Winged lion on side of the throne of Astarte in the temple of Echmoun at Sidon. This temple complex was for worship of Echmoun, the Phoenician god of healing. Temple dates to the 7th cent. B.C. This is the throne of the Phoenican deity, Astarte.

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WORSHIP IS AN ACT OF WAR in the Book of Revelation. Every vision of the end of the world begins with a heavenly

scene. Sometimes John saw the heavenly temple of God (Rev. 8:3-5; 11:19; 15:5-8). Other times John saw the throne of God and His heavenly council (4:1–5:14; 14:1-5; 15:1-4; 19:1-10). Whether what John experienced was in the temple or around the throne, each of his visions begins with a festal gathering of worshipers. Then God executes judgment on the earth, launching His invasion with armies of heavenly beings—from horsemen to angels—so that “the kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of His Messiah” (11:15, HCSB). The message is plain. The saints declare war on the world every time they gather to worship the One who sits on the throne. The kingdom comes when the God of Israel is praised.

The Cultural DistinctionsThe earlier Romans would have scoffed at such a preposterous idea. They saw the antiquated notions of kingdoms and kings in the East, along with all the trappings of royal pageantry, as irrelevant to the designs of the ever-expanding Roman Republic: a rule of law for all people.1 The glory of Roman rule was to be pre-served by the Senate, not by a succession of kings of royal pedigree.2 Power should be claimed, not inherited. When the republic evolved into an empire and senators accused the emperor of trying to establish a “monarchy,” Caesar refused the title “king.” Even though compliant eastern kings ruled as clients of the empire and imperial provinces welcomed Caesar as their king, the emperor

avoided the vestiges of a monarchy. Imperial rulers never wore jeweled crowns. Roman governors sat on backless chairs, not thrones (chairs with curved backs were for women).3 Indeed, by the first century the glam-our of eastern kings in many provinces was replaced by the drab businesslike duties of Roman procurators.4These Roman officials reminded imperial subjects of the undeniable power of Roman justice every time they rendered a verdict based on Roman law. John ha d firsthand knowledge of the power of Roman law, for he

Above: King Tutankhamen’s throne was carved wood and cov-ered with gold. The throne shows Tutankamun and his wife Ankhesenamun in their garden pavilion basking in the rays of the sun god Re. Lion heads, are on the arms and lion claws on the bot-tom of the legs.

Left: Throne room at Knossos Palace, on Crete. The room likely served a religious function as the priest/king sat on the throne and priests on the benches on either side. The lustral basin was part of symbolic purifica-tion rituals.

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L E S S O N R E F E R E N C E

BSFL: Revelation 4; 5; 14; 21; 22

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was serving his sentence as an exiled criminal of Rome when he saw God and His Lamb enthroned on the day of Christian worship (1:9-10).

Thrones were once the quintessential symbol of power in the Mediterranean world. A king’s throne was his earthly claim to a heavenly power. The earli-est statues and stelae (upright inscribed stone slabs) of the Egyptians, Assyrians, and Mesopotamians picture both gods and kings seated on thrones very similar in style and construction.5 Throne rooms were often located adjacent to temples. Indeed, in the ancient Near East, different cultures seem to make a direct correlation between kingdom and cult, monarchy and deity. Rulers were deified. Gods were enthroned as kings. Therefore, when a subject came to pay homage to his king, he traveled to the temple of his god. Upon entering the throne room, the visitor would see the king’s throne situated on a platform of several steps.

The Thrones’ AppearanceThe description of Solomon’s throne is some-what typical of the time and region, with six steps leading to the throne and statues of animals—in this case, lions—guarding the end of each step (1 Kings 10:18-20). Thrones were lavishly decorated versions of the chairs found in the homes of the wealthy.

Nearly all chairs, whether regal or residen-tial, were made of local or imported wood: boxwood, juniper, walnut, maple, poplar, oak, cedar, ash, cypress, elm, fir, and ebony. The seat, back, and armrests of chairs crafted for the wealthy would be decorated with ivory,

gold, silver, copper, or bronze inlay. The ends of the armrests were often shaped like heads of lions and bulls. Carved into the backs of the chairs would be depictions of the royal family, their gods, or favorite objects and designs. High-backed chairs originated in Egypt and were often decorated with gems, semiprecious stones, colored glass, and a type of glazed ceramic pieces called “faience.” Throughout the ancient Near East, chair legs were carved to look like animal legs (bulls, lions, gazelles) and sometimes were made of hippopotamusivory, accented with gold and silver leaf.6 Bronze legs cast in cylindrical shapes resting on lion’s paws were common among the thrones of Persian rulers during the Roman period.7 The Romans, however, tended to favor

Left: Terra-cotta figurine of a goddess on a throne, perhaps Aphrodite; made in Cyprus; dated to 4th cent. B.C.

Above: Relief from Nineveh’s South-West Palace, showing Assyria’s King Sennacherib as he watches the cap-ture of Lachish. Sennacherib,

who is seated on a magnificent throne and has his feet on a foot-stool, watches as prisoners are brought before him. The inscrip-tion reads: “Sennacherib, king of the world, king of Assyria, sat upon a nime-du-throne and passed in review booty (taken) from Lachish.”

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ILLUSTRATOR PHOTO/ BOB SCHATZ/ GRECO-ROMAN MUSEUM, ALEXANDRIA, EGYPT (17/22/20)

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a less ostentatious look. They preferred simpler chair legs that were either turned on a lathe or were rectangular in shape.

Archaeologists have recovered only a few actual thrones of the ancient Near East (one being King Tutankhamen’s). Most of what we know about the design and construction of the thrones of eastern kings comes from relief pictures found in tombs, from statues and stelae, or from literary descriptions. Of course, kings’ thrones were much larger versions of the chairs owned by the wealthy. Thrones were decorated with more detailed gold and ivory inlays, elaborate carvings, painted scenes, and were often draped or upholstered with rich tapestries (silk cush-ions, fine linens—especially in Persia). For example, King Tutankhamen’s throne was covered with gold foil, inlaid with over a thousand square pieces of gold, calcite, and faience, with carefully cut and polished blue-glass claws to accent the paws of the lion-legged chair.8 Bronze, silver, gold, and carved decorations—often in the shapes of national symbols (winged griffins, lions, sphinxes, flowers, rosettes)—covered the king’s throne. Sometimes human figurines (royal attendants and sub-jected peoples) carved out of wood and ivory supported the armrests or legs of the throne. Many kings also used footstools, designed and decorated in styles similar to the thrones, with miniature human figures carved into the sides. The symbolism was obvious: here is a sover-eign who rules over all the creatures, subjects, and lands of his kingdom, where his enemies are his footstool.9Many kings traveled with portable thrones, extending the image of their divine rule.10

The View from PatmosEven though John never gave a description of God’s throne, what he saw surrounding the throne matches the features of the thrones we have just described: jewels, pre-cious stones, and colored glass, likenesses of bulls, lions,

winged creatures, and royal attendants (4:1–5:14). To a Roman prisoner exiled on Patmos, seeing God seated on a throne like one of the great kings of old must have appeared to John as contrary to all that was Roman.

Rome may have claimed sover-eign control over the world at that time, but John’s vision reassured those who worshiped the King of kings and the Emperor of emper-ors that the will of God would be effected on earth as it is in heaven.

The Lamb opens the scroll and judg-ment follows (6:1–8:1). The books are opened before the great white throne of God and judgment follows (20:11-15). Bowing in humble adoration on the Lord’s Day, John worshiped his King, hearing the royal attendants and the heavenly chorus chanting: “Our Lord and God, You are worthy

to receive glory and honor and power, because You have created all things,

and because of Your will they exist and were created” (4:11, HCSB). Recalling the imagery of Genesis 1 where God is like a king on his throne issuing royal

decrees—“Let there be . . . And it was so”—these wor-shipers testify God is worthy of praise because He is the beginning and end of all things. For the faithful know that, despite what Rome may claim, one day the heav-enly throne of God and His Lamb will come to earth, and from that throne will flow a river of living water that brings eternal life (Rev. 22:1; John 4:13-14). i

1. Ronald Syme, The Roman Revolution (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1952), 449, 473-74.

2. Ibid., 506-07. 3. Ann Killebrew, “Furniture and Furnishings: Hellenistic, Roman, and Byzantine

Periods” in The Oxford Encyclopedia of Archaeology in the Near East ( OEANE), ed. in chief Eric M. Meyers (New York: Oxford University Press, 1997), 2:358-59.

4. Chester G. Starr, Civilization and the Caesars: The Intellectual Revolution in the Roman Empire (New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1965), 58-61. Roman emperors preferred monuments, statues, and arches as symbols of authority.

5. A relief from the reign of Tiglath-pileser III (744-727 B.C.) pictures deities sitting on straight-backed chairs with carved legs that resemble the throne of Sennacherib; see Elizabeth Simpson, “Furniture in Ancient Western Asia,” in Civilizations of the Ancient Near East (CANE), ed. in chief Jack M. Sasson (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Publishers, 2000), 1657-58.

6. Simpson, 1655, 1666; Harold A. Liebowitz, “Furniture and Furnishings” in OEANE, 2:353.

7. Killebrew, OEANE, 2:357-58. “Only a few pieces of furniture survive in Egypt from the Greco-Roman period, and their quality suggests that much of the furniture manufac-tured then was poorly executed and roughly decorated.” Geoffrey Killen, “Furniture,” in The Oxford Encyclopedia of Ancient Egypt, ed. in chief Donald B. Redford (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001), 1:586.

8. Killen, 1:584. 9. Simpson, 1666-68. 10. John Baines, “Palaces and Temples of Ancient Egypt,” CANE, 305.

Rodney Reeves is professor of biblical studies and dean of Redford School of Theology, Southwest Baptist University, Bolivar, Missouri.

Left: Bronze stool dated to the 1st cent. Roman Governors sat on chairs without backs.

Below: Julius Caesar’s leader-ship helped transform Rome from a republic to an empire. However, even as emperor, he refused the title of “king.”