The Biggest Story Of Our Time: Self Extinction (Mark Steyn: Its The Demography, Stupid Alert)

Suppose for a moment that the birth in Bethlehem that Christians celebrate this week never happened --that it is, as the secularists would have it, mere mumbo jumbo, superstition, a myth. In other words, consider it not as an event but as a narrative. You want to launch a big new global movement from scratch. So what do you use? The birth of a child.

If Christianity is just a myth, then it is, so to speak, an immaculately conceived one. On the one hand, what could be more powerless than a newborn babe? On the other, without a newborn babe, man is ultimately powerless. For, without new life, there can be no civilization, no society, no nothing.

"The world has collapsed," announces a BBC newsman in a new movie. "Only Britain soldiers on." Europe in 1940? No, 2027. Adapted from P.D. James' dystopian novel, Children Of Men is set on a planet in which humanity is barren. That's to say, it can no longer reproduce. And you'd be amazed at how much else collapses with the fertility rate.

You might have a hard time finding ''Children Of Men'' at your local multiplex. It's a more pertinent Christmas movie this holiday season than ''Bad Santa 3'' or ''The Santa Clause 8,'' but Universal seems to have got cold feet and all but killed the picture. In an enthusiastic review in Seattle Weekly, J. Hoberman observed: "Universal may have deemed 'Children' too grim for Christmas, but it is premised on a reverence for life that some might term religious." Granted, he's in the godless precincts of Seattle, that last bit of the sentence -- "some might" -- seems a tad qualified. Obviously, Christianity has a "reverence for life." So too does Judaism: all that begetting the eyes glaze over at in the Old Testament, going right back to God's injunction to be fruitful and multiply.

Christmas is a good time not just for Christians to ponder the central proposition of their faith -- the baby in the manger -- but for post-Christian secularists to ponder the central proposition of theirs: that religion is a lot of goofy voodoo nonsense and that any truly rational person will give it the bum's rush. The problem with this view is that "rationalism" is looking less and less rational with each passing year. Here are three headlines from the last couple of weeks:

• • "Mohammed Overtakes George In List Of Most Popular Names" (Daily Telegraph, London)

By comparison with America, those three societies are very secular. Indeed, Russia spent three-quarters of a century under the most militantly secularist regime of all: Under Communism, the state was itself a religion, but, alas, only an ersatz one, a present-tense chimera. As a result, Russians more or less gave up begetting: Slavs are in steep population decline, and, on present trends, Russia will be majority Muslim by 2050. And the Russian army will be majority Muslim by 2015. In western Europe, societal suicide isn't quite so advanced, but the symbolism is still poignant: "George" isn't just the name of America's reviled cowboy president, but of England's patron saint; the national flag is the Cross of St. George, under which Englishmen sallied forth to smite the Mohammedans in those long-ago Crusades. Now the Mohammedans have managed to smite the Georgians big time, not by conquest but simply by outbreeding. Mohammed is also the most popular boy's name in Brussels, Amsterdam and other Continental cities.

But forget Islam: In Europe, they're inheriting by default. There are no Muslims or any other significant group of immigrants in Japan and yet the Japanese are engaging in a remorseless auto-genocide. Already in net population decline and the most geriatric society on earth, their descent down the death spiral is only going to accelerate. As the BBC reported, "The imbalance is threatening future economic growth and raising fears over whether the government will be able to fund pensions. But Chief Cabinet Secretary Yasuhisa Shiozaki said: 'It's impossible for the pension system to collapse due to the declining birth rate because we will adjust the amount of money put into it.' "

Oh, OK then. But, just as a matter of interest, when you "adjust" the amount of money you put into the pension system, whose pockets are you going to "adjust" it out of? Japanese and European societies are trying to secure the future on upside-down family trees in which four grandparents have one grandchild. No matter how frantically you "adjust," that's unsustainable.

What's the answer? Cloning? Artificial intelligence? Well, here's another story you may have missed in recent days. Sir David King, the British government's chief scientific adviser, has turned in a bunch of reports on issues likely to arise in the next 50 years. Among them is a study on "robot rights." In a nutshell, if robots advance to some form of consciousness, they'd be entitled to welfare. The state would be obliged to provide "robo-healthcare," as the report puts it, plus no doubt robo-pensions and all the rest.

These are four stories you may not even have seen, what with all the really important stuff happening in the world, like Miss USA not being fired by Donald Trump, and Matt Damon dissing Dick Cheney. I'm a big 24/7 demographics bore, as readers of my new doomsday book will know, but even I'm a little taken aback at the way its thesis is confirmed every day by some item from some part of the map. These stories are all one story, the biggest story of our time: the self-extinction of most of the developed world.

The Virgin Mary's pregnancy is not the only one in the Gospels. There's another that prefigures it, in Luke 1:13:

"But the angel said unto him, Fear not, Zacharias: for thy prayer is heard; and thy wife Elisabeth shall bear thee a son, and thou shalt call his name John."

Zacharias is surprised to discover his impending fatherhood -- "for I am an old man and my wife well stricken in years." If you read Luke, the virgin birth seems a logical extension of the earlier miracle -- the pregnancy of Mary's elderly cousin. For Matthew, Jesus' birth is the miracle. Luke, a physician, leaves you with the impression that all birth -- all life -- is to a degree miraculous and God-given, if only because without it there can be no world. The obligation to have children may be a lot of repressive theocratic hooey, but it's less irrational than the secular self-absorption of a barren Russia, Japan and Europe. And, if Christianity is a fairy tale, it's a perfectly constructed one, beginning with the decision to establish Christ's divinity in the miracle of His birth: As the song says, "And man will live forevermore because of Christmas Day."

However, John almost certainly wrote the book of Revelation in the 90's AD. This is attested to by Justin Martyr, who was a student of Polycarp, who was a student of John, who wrote the book.

No, John did NOT write Revelation in the AD 90s.

To the best of my knowledge, Justin Martyr NEVER quoted directly from Revelation. There is, I will grant, an allusion to Revelation on his part in Dial. 81.4; but this makes no mention as to the date of the Book's writing.

The entire (idiotic) argument for the AD 90s dating of Revelation rests upon one mis-translation of Irenaeus, which was conclusively proven over 100 years ago to be, in fact, a reference to Caesar NERO (in the AD 60's) and NOT Caesar Domitian (in the AD 90's).

Robert Young, quite possibly the greatest New Testament Greek scholar of the 19th Century, utterly destroys the only documentary "evidence" for the AD 90's date when he writes (Concise Critical Comments on the Holy Bible, by Robert Young. Pickering and Inglis, London and Glasgow, approx. 1885, Page 179 of the "New Covenant" section):

and with this concurs the express statement of Irenaeus (A.D.175), who says it happened in the reign of Domitianou, ie., Domitius (Nero). Sulpicius Severus, Orosius, &c., stupidly mistaking Domitianou for Domitianikos, supposed Irenaeus to refer to Domitian, A.D. 95, and most succeeding writers have fallen into the same blunder.

With the deafening testimony of Robert Young (and by "deafening", I mean that NO "AD 90's-advocate" has EVER been able to answer his contention at all), the ONLY documentary "evidence" for the AD 90's date is demonstrated to be yet one more PROOF for the Neronic dating of Revelation.

The Fellowship of the Ring

There is only one DOMITIANOU Caesar; only one whose very name adds up to Six hundred Threescore and Six in Greek-Hebrew gematriya; only one who was called "the beast" even by his contemporaries in the Romate Senate: DOMITIUS NERO CAESAR.

Continuing our discussion on the praeterist interpretation of Revelation, I've asked my historian friend to do a little research into the matter of the date of the the book and of John's banishment, as per the ante Nicene fathers.

His comments are in quotes, following my post.

He also sent me a web site with detailed arguments for a 90's date of Revelation:

http://www.historicist.com/articles/revdate_4.html

The summary of one of the six arguments is:

"Many other supports for a 96 A.D. date are found in the writing of early church fathers including Tertullian, Clement of Alexandria, Victorinus and Eusebius. They do not merely repeat what was stated by St. Irenaeus, but were themselves scholars and historians. They reached their conclusion based on all available information, some which may not have survived to this present day. Had there been a contrary opinion it would have been mentioned. However, none appeared until the fourth century and later, all of questionable value. "

The entire article should be read. I find it very convincing.

Starting historian's email:

[You] "are correct that St. Justin does not tell us when Revelation was written. All we can tell from St. Justin is that it was already accepted by most Christians as divinely inspired Scripture by the time St. Justin wrote circa 150 A.D., and St. John the Apostle was accepted as the John who names himself as the author of Revelation. But he doesn't testify to the date or circumstances of the writing of Revelation. Here is the passage from the Dialogue with Trypho the Jew "

"And further, there was a certain man with us, whose name was John, one of the apostles of Christ, who prophesied, by a revelation that was made to him, that those who believed in our Christ would dwell a thousand years in Jerusalem; and that thereafter the general, and, in short, the eternal resurrection and judgment of all men would likewise take place."

"St. Justin's comment is made in the context of his discussion of the early Christian belief in the Millennium. He tells Trypho, "But I and others, who are right-minded Christians on all points, are assured that there will be a resurrection of the dead, and a thousand years in Jerusalm, which will then be built, adorned, and enlarged, as the prophets Ezekiel and Isaiah and others declare." Thus, it is evident that the Book of Revelation was then widely known and accepted in the Church."

"As for Papias of Hierapolis, based on what Eusebius says, Papias wrote about the Millennium and apparently spoke face-to-face with St. John, so Papias evidently knew of the Book of Revelation. However, he does not help us narrow down when the Book of Revelation was written. Papias flourished in the first half of the second century A.D., and if he spoke to St. John then he likely wrote down what St. John told him circa 100-110 A.D. Revelation would have been written before then, but how many years before then we cannot tell."

". . . it is St. Irenaeus who provides information that allows us to possibly narrow down when Revelation was written. In Against Heresies, book 5, St. Irenaeus says:

"We will not, however, incur the risk of pronouncing positively as to the name of Antichrist; for if it were necessary that his name should be distinctly revealed in this present time, it would have been announced by him who saw the Revelation. For it (or 'he') was seen no very long time ago, but almost in our day, towards the end of Domitian’s reign."

"The pronoun here could refer either to the Apocalypse or to St. John. If the pronoun refers to the Apocalypse, then St. Irenaeus is telling us when the book was written. If the pronoun refers to St. John, then he is telling us the latest time when St. John was known to be still alive. It's not really clear which interpretation is correct. You can make a good case for either option. However, whatever the proper interpretation of the pronoun, the words "almost in our day" pretty conclusively rule out the Neronian theory, because St. Irenaeus was not born until after 100 A.D., whereas Nero died in 68 A.D. St. Irenaeus apparently was born in the early 100s A.D., and the end of the reign of Domitian would be "almost in our day," certainly not the end of the reign of Nero. Therefore we can be reasonably confident that, whether he was talking about the writing of the Apocalypse or the last time St. John was seen alive, St. Irenaeus wasn't referring to Nero in this passage. That is definitely the better case, I think."

"As your interlocutor indicated, some scholars interpret "Domitian" as a reference to Emperor Nero, one of whose names was Domitius. That interpretation is supported by some statements in the early Church Fathers. Epiphanius in the latter 300s A.D., for instance, said the Book of Revelation was written in Nero's reign, and there are some early Christian legends that make Nero the tyrant who persecuted St. John and exiled him to Patmos. Other early legends, however, affirm that it was Domitian, not Nero, who exiled St. John, and there are Church Fathers and other early writers who support the 90s A.D. as the time of the writing of the Book of Revelation. Eusebius, for instance, writing in the first half of the 300s A.D., says that it was Domitian who exiled St. John, who he says survived until the reign of Trajan (circa 100 A.D.). It is possible that St. Irenaeus' reference to Domitian was misinterpreted by some as a reference to Nero, who was for the early Christians the prototype of the monstrous persecuting tyrant. It was known that Nero had Saints Peter and Paul killed, so some Christians may have thought that he also attacked St. John. On the other hand, perhaps the Neronian theory is correct, and the early legends about Domitian persecuting St. John were the result of a misinterpretation of what St. Irenaeus said. When dealing with later legends and traditions, one cannot be absolutely conclusive. One option that should be mentioned, however, is that Revelation was written in the time of Nero, but St. John survived until the time of Domitian. Based on what we know and what early Christian sources say, it is a possibility, even if it is unprovable."

"Unfortunately this important passage of St. Irenaeus has only survived in a Latin translation. The original Greek of this porton of Against Heresies is lost, but from what I can tell, using other early Greek writers who cited or knew of this passage of St. Irenaeus, the original Greek is hypothetically reconstructed in a way that either translation, "Domitius" or "Domitianus," is possible. Still, the chronological considerations I mentioned above support "Domitian" rather than "Domitius"/Nero."

". . . Contrary to your interlocutor, good arguments exist for either the Neronian theory or the Domitianian theory. (If you want to read the pro-Neronian arguments, visit the Preterist Archive on the internet.) Personally I find the Domitianian interpretation somewhat more likely, in part because one would not necessarily expect St. Irenaeus to refer to Nero as "Domitius," which was one of his names from before he was adopted by Claudius Caesar. After adoption, his name was changed to Nero Claudius Drusus Germanicus, but previously it was Lucius Domitius Ahenobarbus."

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