Ozzie,
That is a very interesting post, as is the 95 Awake article on the catacombs. I've been in the catacombs in Rome and is a very interesting site indeed.
My thoughts lay more towards the assumption that the 144,000 figure is a literal number.
Rome was not the only city that harboured Christian converts, the Apostle Paul alone visited many cities and countries, converting many to Christianity.
Congregations grew quickly. Letters to the congregations of Ephisus, Corinth , Galatia , and Thessalonica, to name but a few indicate conversions, visits to other countries and cities such as Syria , Crete, Malta , and Sicily etc. etc. the list goes on, all of which indicates a healthy Christian activity in those places. And thats only Paul, there would have been conversions in Africa , Egypt , Ethiopia etc.
So, my thinking is that given all those converts in all these places, surely the 144,000 figure, if taken literally would have been filled before the great Apostasy took hold and possibly even a few after.
Even in an ancient world without the aid of modern publishing techniques, the word still managed to get around.
Spartacus alone with the aid of 70-80 gladiators managed to raise an enormous army in a very short space of time.
73 BCE: Spartacus escaped with 70-80 gladiators, seizing the knives in the cook's shop and a wagon full of weapons. They camped on Vesuvius and were joined by other rural slaves, overrunning the region with much plunder and pillage, although Spartacus apparently tried to restrain them. His chief aides were gladiators from , named Crixus and Oenomaus.
72 BCE: Spartacus had raised about 70,000 slaves, mostly from rural areas. The Senate, alarmed, finally sent the two consuls (L. Gellius Publicola and Cn. Cornelius Lentulus Clodianus), each with two legions, against the rebels. The Gauls and Germans, separated from Spartacus, were defeated by Publicola, and Crixus was killed. Spartacus defeated Lentulus, and then Publicola; to avenge Crixus, Spartacus had 300 prisoners from these battles fight in pairs to the death.
In the autumn, when the revolt was at its height and Spartacus had about 120,000 followers
Significance of Spartacus: quotation from Erich Gruen, The Last Generation of the Roman Republic (University of California Press, 1974) 20-21:
In view of the above I was thinking if someone like Spartacus, a slave, could raise such an army locally in such a short time, then the early Christians with the aid of the Holy Spirit surely could fill in a quota of only 144,000 loyal kings and priests to rule with Jesus over the period of the first century.
But maybe thats just apostate thinking.
hope the paragraphing works cos I typed this in WORD!
3rd time lucky???????
Edited by - Gizmo on 13 January 2003 1:13:43
Edited by - Gizmo on 13 January 2003 1:17:36