The Whore of Babylon

My Jehovah’s Witness friend Hadassah is convinced the scarlet woman in the Book of Revelations, aka the Whore of Babylon, represents all religions except her own.

I respond: the great harlot has to be identified firstly with the city of Babylon, because the Bible says that expressly. She is named. “On her forehead a name was written, ‘MYSTERY, BABYLON THE GREAT, THE MOTHER OF THE PROSTITUTES AND OF THE ABOMINATIONS OF THE EARTH.’" “The kings of the earth, who committed sexual immorality and lived wantonly with her, will weep and wail over her, when they look at the smoke of her burning, standing far away for the fear of her torment, saying, 'Woe, woe, the great city, Babylon, the strong city!’” Revelations 17: 18: “The woman whom you saw is the great city, which reigns over the kings of the earth."

But the passage was written in the time of the Roman Empire, and the woman sits on seven mountains—the seven hills of Rome.

She therefore represents temporal power in general—the urge for power, the urge to dominate. She declares herself “Queen,” and all kings fornicate with her: she is the consort of all kings, the thing they lust after—power.

She is adorned with gold and precious jewels—the urge for material wealth. When she falls, she is mourned by merchants and traders; she also represents then what they most desire or lust after—wealth, worldly goods, material possessions. 

As a prostitute, she also represents the sexual urge. 

The beast on which she rides “was, and is not, and shall be present.” This is not a vision of the future, then, but of something present in both past and future. The mystery is why John says the beast “is not,” although he is writing during the Roman Empire, and the beast appears before him.

I suspect his meaning is that the beast is only temporarily obscured by the prostitute, her diadems, her beauty, the city. That beneath all these seemingly desirable and sophisticated and “civilized” things, is the beast, man’s bestial nature. If one pursues these things, the beast will emerge. For they are founded on the beast; they ride it.

Hadassah associates the scarlet woman instead with religion on the strength of one passage, Revelation 18:23, which she reads as “by her spiritistic practice all the nations were misled.” “Spiritistic practice”? Does that sound a little contrived? The NIV gives that as “magic spell.” Most other English translations have “sorcery.” But the actual word in the original Greek is “pharmakeia.” You may note the similarity with the English “pharmacy,” the preparation and administration of drugs, medicines. And notice that she is holding a poisoned cup: “a golden cup full of abominations and the impurities of her fornication.” 

The simplest interpretation is that physical lusts are like a drug, like wine or some stronger hallucinogen, clouding our perception of reality, poisoning us spiritually. All major religions are opposed to sorcery and casting spells; certainly including orthodox Christianity. None are keen on drunkenness. Instead, it is actually what we now call science that emerges directly from the magical or spellcasting tradition, and from the Babylonian tradition of astrology, mages, and “magic.” “Scientist” literally means the same thing as “mage.” The earliest “scientists” or “empiricists” of Europe were physicians who claimed to be able to heal illnesses with potions. Chemistry, in turn, emerged from alchemy. And one of its first successful products was the distillation of alcohol.

This raises the interesting possibility that the scarlet woman can be interpreted to represent, inter alia, modern scientism: the pseudo-religious creed that science can explain all things and accomplish all things. Which is pretty much shared these days by all nations.