Image with thanks to Kell Bailey
“Pre-Reformation views
Dante equated the corruption and simony in the office of the Papacy with the Whore of Babylon in Canto 19 of his Inferno:
Di voi pastor s’accorse il Vangelista,
quando colei che siede sopra l’acque
puttaneggiar coi regi a lui fu vista…
(Shepherds like you the Evangelist had in mind when he saw the one that sits upon the waters committing fornication with the kings.)
Reformational View
Historicist interpreters commonly used the phrase “Whore of Babylon” to refer to the Roman Catholic Church. Reformation writers from Martin Luther (1483-1546) (who wrote On the Babylonian Captivity of the Church), John Calvin (1509–1564), and John Knox (1510–1572) (who wrote The First Blast of the Trumpet Against the Monstrous Regiment of Women) taught this association.
The Roman Catholic Church denies the claim that it is being referred to by the Book of Revelation as the Whore of Babylon. “
Well, of course it does…
“Most early Protestant Reformers believed, and the modern Seventh-day Adventist Church teaches, that in Bible prophecy a woman represents a church. ”I have likened the daughter of Zion To a lovely and delicate woman.” (Jeremiah 6:2 nkjv) A harlot, it is argued, is representative of a church that has been unfaithful:
“Go, take yourself a wife of harlotry
And children of harlotry,
For the land has committed great harlotry
By departing from the LORD.” (Hosea 1:2 nkjv)
They also believed that the primary location of this unfaithful church is stated in the same chapter.
“And the woman whom you saw is that great city which reigns over the kinds of the earth.” (Revelation 17:18)
The connection noted above on the seven hills of Rome is argued to locate the church.
Identification of the Pope as the Antichrist was written into Protestant creeds such as the Westminster Confession of 1646. The identification of the Roman Catholic Church with the Whore of Babylon is kept in the Scofield Reference Bible (whose 1917 edition identified “ecclesiastical Babylon” with “apostate Christendom headed by the Papacy“).”
Not that I’m under any illusions concerning the ‘spiritual authenticity’ of the bible (c’mon, it’s fiction at best, and poetic, melodramatic, prose at worst), but as least it’s final book of revelation was honest enough to define the criminal institutions it would create.
It goes on to say of the JWits (amongst others):
“Jehovah’s Witnesses believe that the Whore of Babylon represents “the world empire of false religion”, referring to all elements of worldly religions that do not adhere to biblical truth as published by the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society (WTS) and as interpreted and defined by the Governing Body of Jehovah’s Witnesses (the institutional and leadership organizations of Jehovah’s Witnesses).
This includes, but is not limited to, “Christendom“ a term they use to refer to “professed Christianity” (Nominal Christianity) as opposed to “true Christianity”. Jehovah’s Witnesses literature often mentions the Catholic religion when discussing The Great Harlot of Babylon, and the subsequent attack on her by the political powers, signalling the beginning of the “great tribulation”.
Oh, please! Who are the Jwits to point the finger at any other religion for representing “worldly religions that do not adhere to biblical truth as published by…” their entirely non-biblical publications of utter rubbish and bunk created by mere men?
Protip: The jwits are every bit “the whore of Babylon” and ‘the great harlot’ as the catholic church and every other sect.
They do not follow the original King James Version of the bible, having, in fact, ‘edited’ the old and new testaments to ‘conform’ to the same mental illness as the creator of their sick, murderous, and loathsome cult.
Should they claim that they were ‘inspired by god to do so’, you can quite rightfully call them hypocrites and liars, because they also preach that “god does not talk to humans” and that any who claim otherwise, are “demonized”.
The whore, the vATiCaN of Evil (and all Christendom), is adorned in blood that never touched her conscience, bedecked in jewels and wallowing in great wealth stolen from the sweat and toil of those she’s enslaved and kept in poverty. And still, she spreads her legs for ‘the great kings’, her ‘johns’ (political leaders), seducing them to her demented way of thinking, ensuring slavery of the masses and encouraging an increasing gap between rich and poor.
There shall be no pity when She and her lovers are stripped bare, their self-styled power, mocked and crushed, when they’re thrown in the streets to be spat on by their victims, both living and dead, and left for the crows to feast upon. (Metaphorically-speaking, of course.)
MyHeathenHeart
Hey there, Heathen – I’m enjoying your blog here
I come from Mormonism, so thought I’d share that perspective on the “whore of all the earth.” In that faith, much like JW’s (who we referred to as “jay dubs” – “Hey, we talked to some jay dubs today”), I believed everyone else was wrong and we were right. When good ole’ Joseph Smith prayed about which church to join, God told him something that Mormons tend NOT to quote to others in their advertisements now . . . a hard truth that was good for gaining converts in his time of religious fervor, but not so good for business now: “I was answered that I must join none of them, for they were all wrong; and the Personage who addressed me said that all their creeds were an abomination in his sight; that those professors were all corrupt; that: ‘they draw near unto me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me, they teach for doctrines the commandments of men, having a form of godliness, but they deny the power thereof.’”
We referred to the Catholic church in general as the “Whore of all the earth,” Joseph Smith probably borrowing that from the reformation tradition, and felt that other religions were literally whoring out god by paying clergy, and also used the term “whore” to refer to “Babylon” in general, which I understood as the body of “worldly” people and philosophies.
Anyway, I enjoyed this article a lot. There sure are a lot of people out there calling everyone else whores! “You . . . you WHORE!”