Christophe Hanauer - The Mysteries of the Apocalypse: An Investigation into the Most Fascinating Book in History

A Book by Jean-Marc Thobois and Christophe Hanauer

The Mysteries of the Apocalypse

An Investigation of the Most Fascinating Book in History

The Mysteries of the Apocalypse

An Investigation of the Most Fascinating Book in History

2022 Jean-Marc Thobois and Christophe Hanauer

Previously published by EMETH-Editions (2020) as Les Mysteres de LApocalypse: Une Enquete Sur le Plus Fascinant de LHistoire.

All Rights Reserved.

No part of this book shall be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, magnetic, and photographic, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without prior written permission of the publisher.

No patent liability is assumed with respect to the use of the information contained herein. Although every precaution has been taken in the preparation of this book, the publisher and author assume no responsibility for errors or omissions. Neither is any liability assumed for damages resulting from the use of the information contained herein.

Unless otherwise indicated, Scripture quotations are from the NET Bible http://netbible.com copyright 1996, 2019 used with permission from Biblical Studies Press, L.L.C. All rights reserved.

Scripture quotations marked KJV are from the King James Version. Public domain.

Published by Forefront Books.

Jacket photograph: Dark Star Ltoile Graphique

ISBN: 978-163763-051-8

ISBN: 978-163763-052-5 (e-Book)

I had already been cultivating an interest in theological and spiritual matters for some time when in 2011, I happened to purchase several recordings by a lecturer who was described as an Hebraist of rare quality. As I listened to the first talk about the theme of the end times, I immediately knew I had stumbled onto a work of exceptional importance for the comprehension of Christianity and its founding texts. The approach of Jean-Marc Thobois, the speaker, was quite original, even unique.

Although spiritual revelation can never be more than partial due to our limited perception of heavenly realities, I had just come face-to-face with a system of thought that, in its universality, would challenge my vision of the world. For the first time in my life, I contemplated with wonder a clearly described and comprehensive presentation of the deepest mysteries that inhabit the hearts of men. The classic foundations of theology, far from being undermined, were boldly and precisely illuminated to highlight and give color to these spiritual depths. It would take several years of studying the workmasterful in vastness and complexityfor me to grasp its great coherence and incomparable value. (Many of these lectures are available from the association Keren Isral.)

The theological approach it proposes is, in my view, truly revolutionary in several respects and offers a coherent vision of all Scripture, Old and New Testament alike. Its great originality lies in enriching classic theology with the original contribution of Jewish thought. For us in the West, it can be difficult to appreciate what Christianity isnamely, a Jewish religionand that Hebraic thought is therefore its very soul and essence. The Bible is a Jewish book. The text was written by Jews and principally for Jews.

Over the years, however, the culture of our pagan-European civilization has mixed with the Christian tradition. The biblical message has thus reached our generations in a somewhat modified form, filtered and de-Judaized by 2,000 years of church history and cultural adaptation. We discover Christianity a posteriori, downstream from history. The names of figures in the New Testament are a perfect illustration: the apostle Yochanan has become John, Yaakov has been turned into James, Kefa Bar-Jonah has been renamed Peter, and so forth.

Jean-Marc Thobois was one of the Francophone pioneers who, thanks to his erudition, had the ability to place the Bible back in its original archaeological, cultural, historical, and linguistic context. This man who, even at the end of his life, never ceased asking his fellow human beings, What time is it on Gods clock? suddenly passed through deaths door in March 2020 in the midst of a host of projects and the outset of the global COVID-19 pandemic. His final series of lectures dealt with New Prophecies on the End Times in the Book of Genesis, a subject we discuss in the opening chapters of this book.

The loss of such a distinguished exegete is immeasurable and also raises the question of the role of this pandemic in the eschatological process. Some, indeed, have described this epidemic as apocalyptic.

Jean-Marc Thobois dedicated his life to rediscovering the Jewish roots of the Christian faith, enabling us to recover the Bibles message in its original Hebrew, increasing the precision of its revelation and the quality of its original flavor, smell, and color. As in the restoration of an Old Master painting, the image that emerges is refreshed, and we can better appreciate what its creator desired to communicate.

The fact is that the New Testament is built entirely on Hebrew scriptural foundations, and this is particularly true for the exceedingly mysterious and fascinating book that concludes the Biblethe book of Revelation. Indeed, the church fathers thought it so markedly Jewish that they nearly excluded it from the biblical canon! It contains the visions revealed to the apostle John by the resurrected, glorified Messiah, who announces the events of the end times to warn humanity of the dangers to come and to prepare themselves by changing their ways by repenting.

This text contains more than five hundred citations of or allusions to the Jewish Bible, or Tanakh, and is perfectly consistent with the pronouncements of the Jewish prophets Ezekiel, Isaiah, Daniel, and even Zechariah.

The study of this enigmatic and captivating text convinced us of the merits of creating a documentary series on the theme: Les 7 glises de lApocalypse, produced by Millenium-Production with Ze Watchers and directed by Seven Productions tienne Magnin.

This thrilling film project led our investigation to Greece, Turkey, and around Western Europe, often in the company of Irne and Jean-Marc Thobois or the American professor Mark Wilson, our technical experts for the films theological and archaeological questions. This book is largely a reflection of Jean-Marc Thoboiss lectures and a slight reworking of the preparatory notes for the documentary.

This work is designed to flesh out the topics dealt with in the documentary, which could only present its subject matter in summary fashion. The documentary and this book are therefore complementary. The second part of the book, more specifically, is dedicated to a commentary on the seven letters to the seven churches of chapters 13 of Revelation and owes a great deal to the reflections of Swiss theologian Philippe Decorvet in Reprocher pour rapprocher, published by Emmas.

Our aim is to share with you this extraordinary investigation of over three years that ultimately became a genuine quest for meaning, leading us to reflect on our time in this twenty-first century, its profound and sometimes disturbing transformations, the geopolitical scenario, and the prophecies of the end times.

In essence, we concluded that the end times described in the Bible not only point to a crisis but, above all, to a God attempting to reveal himself by his Word and his Spirit in the reality of men, in anticipation of a cosmic, eternal goal to which man is urged. And so we travel in equilibrium on the river of time, flowing through human history between the past and the still to come of Gods biblical promises. We hope that what little we have glimpsed of these vast mysteries encourages you to take an interest in the message of he who promised: