Visions

Today in class we talked about the time period from 174 B.C.E. to 164 B.C.E. when Antiochus IV came to power. This time period ended the streak of kings that did not interfere with Jewish traditions.

Antiochus IV changed their High Priest when they paid him enough money and when they revolted he forced them to eat pork, worship idols, and desecrated the temple.

This persecution influenced the writings of the time and the last 5 chapters of Daniel were written during this era of persecution as apocalyptic literature. In Daniel 7-12 he talks about visions he has of the persecution of the Jews in this time period. Daniel focuses on the afterlife and how Antiochus will be destroyed in the afterlife. He tells the Jews to aspire to get into Heaven rather than to focus on life right now because they will be vindicated in the afterlife. In his visions Daniel sees several monsters each worst than the last with the final one with Antiochus IV being the worst. But in his visions the angel that visits him says that even though this is happening to the Jews now it will pass.

This topic of visions has been with me throughout the whole trip so far because I keep seeing old ruins and thinking how would these look like if none of this modern age stuff was here. What if we were back when the Parthenon was first built and Athens was not a city of 4 million people. Take a second to look at this picture and try to imagine what that would look like without all of the lights


This is a picture of the Parthenon. All throughout this trip I have been trying to imagine how the area we were at looked like 3000 years ago. I keep seeing in these visions of the past a much smaller Athens without the lights and millions of houses that fill in the valley. I see the Parthenon fully completed, the marble buildings of Athens all around the hill, and forests all around the city with the hills surrounding the city. I see the port of Piraeus just down the road with piers full of wooden ships. I see Athenians going to the Acropolis to buy food for the week and talk to their friends and acquaintances about the problems of the day like the threat of the Persians or a grain shortage. All this and more I see in my visions as we go and see different ruins or preserved buildings each and everyday.

Visions can show you extraordinary things. For me I like seeing how Athens was 3000 years ago because there is so much history in every part of this city that it is almost hard to not feel overwhelmed by it.

Until next time

Austain