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DRAFT: A Chiastic Reconfiguration Of Revelation 12

Kuruvilla Thomas
Bangalore
Published on 14 September 2023 *



Revelation 12 Timeline

Fig. 1


Introduction

This study treats Revelation 12 as a cryptochiasmus in order to arrive at a coherent reconfiguration of the text ( see definition of cryptochiasmus in [1] ). If you wish to skip the technicalities of a chiastic parse, you may read starting from Section 4 of the Discussion section, which has the reconfigured text.

With this reconfiguration, we show that this prophecy in Rev 12 is about 3 kinds of "women" and their "offspring" during 3 distinct Periods. Through signs in the heavens, this prophecy reveals several important dates: the date of the Creation of the World and that of Satan's fall, the day Christ is deemed worthy to rule over mankind (Rev. 5), the date of the start of the Millennial Reign. As we see in our reconfiguration of Revelation 4-22 [6], this chapter at the heart of Revelation is key to interpreting the book.


Note:
We will use the term "Judahite" to refer to the Israelites - primarily those of the tribe of Judah and their descendants - that remained after the Assyrian exile of the Northern Tribes; we will try to avoid the term "Jew" to avoid the confusion it introduces.


Discussion

1. Presuppositions

We base our parse of this difficult prophecy on the assumption that it refers to 3 Periods:

  1. The Sign of the Dragon, Satan's Fall and Eve's temptation (4034-4032BC). We get the 4034BC date from our parse of Daniel 12 [7].
  2. From the Start of Christ's Ministry to the Escape of Judahite Christians during the First Jewish–Roman War (26AD-73AD).
  3. The Woman in Heaven Portends the Start of the Millennial Reign (2017AD-2027AD).

2. Parsing the chiasmus

We will use the NIV Bible for this parse.

Parsing this chiasmus involves dividing portions of the text into three categories as above. We will call the time of Satan's fall Period 1, the period of Christ's ministry and the First Jewish-Roman War Period 2 and the time of the Start of the Millennial Reign Period 3.

Parsing this chiasmus is complicated by the fact that the three Periods are about 3 different unnamed women and their 3 unnamed offspring. We take the position that the woman in Period 1 is Eve and her child is Mankind, the woman in Period 2 is the God-fearing Judahite community and her offspring is Christ, and the woman in Period 3 is a constellation of stars and her child, Jupiter, represents the Millennial Reign of Christ.

Categorizing Revelation 12

Vs 1-2 appear to belong to Period 3. We take this pregnant woman to be a sign in the heavens in the form of an alignment of stars and planets.

Vs 3-4a belong to Period 1. The "red dragon" sign in the heavens portends Satan's fall.

Vs 4b-6 belong to Period 2. The beginning of Christ's ministry and his ascension into heaven. The escape of the early Judahite Christians to the mountains.

Vs 7-9 belong to Period 1. Satan and his angels are defeated and cast down to earth.

Vs 10-12 belong to Period 3. A victorious announcement in heaven at the start of the Millennial Reign. Pre-Millennial Tribulation.

Vs 13 belongs to Period 1. Satan's fall to the earth and Eve's temptation.

Vs 14-17 belongs to Period 2. The Judahite Christians are protected from the Roman Army during the First Jewish-Roman war.


Original text

We color-code the chiastic units of the original text (NIV) below for easy visual identification using: red for Period 1, blue for Period 2 and green for Period 3.


Revelation 12 1 A great sign appeared in heaven: a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet and a crown of twelve stars on her head. 2 She was pregnant and cried out in pain as she was about to give birth.
3 Then another sign appeared in heaven: an enormous red dragon with seven heads and ten horns and seven crowns on its heads. 4a Its tail swept a third of the stars out of the sky and flung them to the earth.
4b The dragon stood in front of the woman who was about to give birth, so that it might devour her child the moment he was born. 5 She gave birth to a son, a male child, who “will rule all the nations with an iron scepter.” And her child was snatched up to God and to his throne. 6 The woman fled into the wilderness to a place prepared for her by God, where she might be taken care of for 1,260 days.
7 Then war broke out in heaven. Michael and his angels fought against the dragon, and the dragon and his angels fought back. 8 But he was not strong enough, and they lost their place in heaven. 9 The great dragon was hurled down—that ancient serpent called the devil, or Satan, who leads the whole world astray. He will be [a] hurled to the earth, and his angels with him.
10 Then I heard a loud voice in heaven say:
“Now have come the salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God, and the authority of his Messiah. For the accuser of our brothers and sisters, who accuses them before our God day and night, has been hurled down. 11 They triumphed over him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony; they did not love their lives so much as to shrink from death." [b] 12 Therefore rejoice, you heavens and you who dwell in them! But woe to the earth and the sea, because the devil has gone down to you! He is filled with fury, because he knows that his time is short. [c]

13 When the dragon sees that he has been hurled to the earth, he will pursue the woman who will give birth to the male child [d].
14 The woman was given the two wings of a great eagle, so that she might fly to the place prepared for her in the wilderness, where she would be taken care of for a time, times and half a time, out of the serpent’s reach. 15 Then from his mouth the serpent spewed water like a river, to overtake the woman and sweep her away with the torrent. 16 But the earth helped the woman by opening its mouth and swallowing the river that the dragon had spewed out of his mouth. 17 Then the dragon was enraged at the woman and went off to wage war against the rest of her offspring—those who keep God’s commands and hold fast their testimony about Jesus.



Retranslation notes for Revelation 12
[a] vs 9 "will be" instead of "was". The aorist tense can indicate a future event.
[b] vs 11 Added closing quote. The announcement in heaven ends with this verse.
[c] vs 12 Removed closing quote.
[d] vs 13 "When the dragon sees that he has been hurled to the earth, he will pursue the woman who will give birth to the male child" instead of "When the dragon saw that he had been hurled to the earth, he pursued the woman who had given birth to the male child". The aorist tense can indicate a future event.

3. Building the reconfigured text


From this parse, it appears that Revelation 12:1-12 forms a cryptochiasmus as below:
A1   1-2 Period 3. Sign of the woman clothed with the sun.
  B1   3-4a Period 1. Sign of the dragon with seven heads.
    X   4b-6 Period 2. Dragon in front of woman. Woman flees to the wilderness.
  B2   7-9 Period 1. Michael defeats the dragon. The dragon is thrown out of heaven.
A2   10-12 Period 3. Announcement at the start of the Millennial Reign

We now reconstruct the passages in the right order based on the chiastic structure above and based on the ordering rules of a cryptochiasmus [1].

We lead with central pivot point 'X'. The corresponding subunits (For example; subunit A1 corresponds to A2) are placed contiguously to form units (For example, A1,A2 is a unit ) so that we get a list of such units.


The sequence selected for rearrangement is:

X  [B1,B2]  [A1,A2]        (1)

(We choose the reverse order for our units so that we get another cryptochiasmus with the rest of the chapter (v 13-17). The rules of cryptochiasmi [1] allow this.)

We have the following sequence when we include verse 13-17:
X         - Period 2
[B1,B2] - Period 1
[A1,A2] - Period 3
v 13 - Period 1. The dragon chases the woman after falling to earth.
v 14-17 - Period 2. The dragon attacks the woman who fled to the wilderness.


We still have text for the Periods in a non-contiguous form. We can treat this as a multiply-applied cryptochiasmus as below.


M1   X Period 2
  N1   [B1,B2] Period 1
   XX   [A1,A2] Period 3
  N2   v 13 Period 1
M2   v 14-17 Period 2

The sequence selected for rearrangement is:
XX  [M1,M2]  [N1,N2]        (2)


Translating this sequence (2) into the subunits of the first chiasmus, we get:

[A1,A2]  [[X], [v 14-17]]   [[B1,B2], v 13]        (3)

Further translating (3) into verse numbers, we get:

[[1-2],[10-12]]  [[4b-6], [14-17]]   [[3-4a,7-9],13]        (4)

We arrive at the reconfigured passage in the next section by rearranging the verses so they are in sequence (4).



4. Revelation 12 Reconfigured

The Woman in Heaven Portends the Start of the Millennial Reign (2017AD-2027AD) (vs 1-2, 10-12)
1 A great sign appeared in heaven: a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet and a crown of twelve stars on her head. 2 She was pregnant and cried out in pain as she was about to give birth.
10 Then I heard a loud voice in heaven say:
“Now have come the salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God, and the authority of his Messiah. For the accuser of our brothers and sisters, who accuses them before our God day and night, has been hurled down. 11 They triumphed over him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony; they did not love their lives so much as to shrink from death."
12 Therefore rejoice, you heavens and you who dwell in them! But woe to the earth and the sea, because the devil has gone down to you! He is filled with fury, because he knows that his time is short.

Christ's Ministry and the Escape of The Early Church (26AD-73AD) (Vs 4b-6, 14-17)
4b The dragon stood in front of the woman who was about to give birth, so that it might devour her child the moment he was born. 5 She gave birth to a son, a male child, who “will rule all the nations with an iron scepter.” And her child was snatched up to God and to his throne.
6 The woman fled into the wilderness to a place prepared for her by God, where she might be taken care of for 1,260 days.
14 The woman was given the two wings of a great eagle, so that she might fly to the place prepared for her in the wilderness, where she would be taken care of for a time, times and half a time, out of the serpent’s reach.
15 Then from his mouth the serpent spewed water like a river, to overtake the woman and sweep her away with the torrent.
16 But the earth helped the woman by opening its mouth and swallowing the river that the dragon had spewed out of his mouth. 17 Then the dragon was enraged at the woman and went off to wage war against the rest of her offspring—those who keep God’s commands and hold fast their testimony about Jesus.

The Sign of the Dragon, Satan's Fall and Eve's temptation (4034-4032BC) (Vs 3-4a,7-9,13)
3 Then another sign appeared in heaven: an enormous red dragon with seven heads and ten horns and seven crowns on its heads. 4a Its tail swept a third of the stars out of the sky and flung them to the earth.
7 Then war broke out in heaven. Michael and his angels fought against the dragon, and the dragon and his angels fought back. 8 But he was not strong enough, and they lost their place in heaven. 9a The great dragon was hurled down—that ancient serpent called the devil, or Satan, who leads the whole world astray.
9b He will be hurled to the earth, and his angels with him. 13 When the dragon sees that he has been hurled to the earth, he will pursue the woman who will give birth to the male child.


5. A Commentary on the Reconfigured Text

5.1 The Woman in Heaven Portends the Start of the Millennial Reign (2017AD-2027AD) (vs 1-2, 10-12)

This Period is structured as a chiasmus. The pivot, X [10-11], is a victorious announcement in heaven at the start of the Millennial Reign in 2027AD. In the subunits, A1 [1-2] and A2 [12], signs in the stars in Sep 2017AD predict the start of the Millennial Reign. So the event in the pivot takes place 9 1/2 years after the events in Unit A.


Subunit A1: Signs in Heaven predict the Start of the Millennial Reign (Sep 2017AD) (vs 1-2)

We believe that the passage in vs 1-2 describes a celestial event that takes place over a period of 10 months (23 Nov 2016-23 Sep 2017) at the constellation Virgo - the woman in this passage - portending the start of Christ's Millennial Reign. We propose that these verses detail two significant moments towards the end of this celestial event:

  1. Part 1: (vs 1) The alignment of stars and planets that takes place on 23 Sep. 2017AD (see Fig 2).
  2. Part 2: (vs 2) Virgo "gives birth" to Jupiter on 8 Sep 2017AD (we believe John was frequently transported to different times in these visions in Revelation - the next verse, vs 3, has a sign from 4034BC).

Note that these signs in the heavens in Rev 12&15 are based on alignments of Solar System Objects, when viewed from the earth, as they pass across a relatively stationary backdrop of star constellations.



  Part 1: The Woman with the Crown of 12 Stars (23 Sep. 2017AD) (vs 1)


Sign of the woman of Revelation 12

Fig. 2


1 A great sign appeared in heaven: a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet and a crown of twelve stars on her head.

The celestial alignment of this verse predicts that the Church of the Millennial Reign will be established in the fall of 2027AD, 10 years after the date of this alignment in 23 Sep 2017AD, and around 6 months after the beginning of Christ's Millennial Reign in the spring of 2027AD (see details on dates under vs 2 below). The combination of ALL the elements of this alignment is unique in history.

We list below the elements of this alignment and their significance :


  Part 2: The Woman gives birth (8 Sep. 2017AD) (vs 2)

2 She was pregnant and cried out in pain as she was about to give birth.

The alignment of stars in this verse predicts that the Millennial Reign will begin in the spring of 2027AD, 9 1/2 years after the date of this alignment in 8 Sep 2017. The constellation Virgo is about to 'give birth to' Jupiter after a 'pregnancy' of 9 1/2 months; that is, Jupiter is about to exit Virgo's 'womb' after looping in it for the preceding 9 1/2 months - from around 23 Nov 2016 to 8 Sep. 2017. As this portentous 9 1/2 month celestial event comes to an end, its fulfilment begins. The 9 1/2 month duration of the event represents the 9 1/2 year period (where a month represents a year) between the sign of Jupiter's "birth" in Sep. 2017 and its fulfilment at the start of the Millennial Reign around 8 Apr 2027AD (the 8 April 2027AD date is from Isaiah 61:2 in [8]). ( The sign of vs 1 takes place 10 months after the start of this celestial event in 23 Nov 2016, indicating that the Church of the Millennial Reign will be established after 10 years, in the fall of 2027AD.)

The "pain" of the woman represents the last throes of progressively increasing suffering, especially for Christians, during the period of tribulation preceding the Millennial Reign (see vs 12) - these are the birth pangs of a new age. Interestingly, about 6 months into Virgo's "pregnancy", in May 2017, Jupiter leaves the side of the "womb" for a bit, and it may be that this "kicking of the baby" represents the start of the Pre-Millennial Tribulation 6 years after Sep 2017, around 26 Sep 2023 (date from [7]).



Pivot X: A Victorious Announcement in Heaven at the Start of the Millennial Reign (April 2027) (vs 10-11)

This Pivot is itself structured as a chiasmus. The pivot, [10b], announces Satan's defeat after the reign of the Beast of Rev 13. The subunits, [10a] and [11], announce the victory of the righteous.


10a Then I heard a loud voice in heaven say: “Now have come the salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God, and the authority of his Messiah.
10b For the accuser of our brothers and sisters, who accuses them before our God day and night, has been hurled down.
11 They triumphed over him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony; they did not love their lives so much as to shrink from death."

The reign of the Beast of Rev 13 (Nov 2023-Apr 2027) is a time of battle between God and Satan for men's souls, and the winner is the side that acquires a 2/3 majority of the souls of men. During the Beast's reign, Satan continually makes accusations against the Saints, trying to claim their souls, but he is defeated. (Satan, in Hebrew, literally means "accuser" - see also Job 1:9-11 and Zech. 3:1. Note that "hurled down" in vs 10 refers to this defeat of Satan, and not to his original fall from heaven in Period 1).

This victorious proclamation in heaven (in April 2027) announces the start of Christ's Millennial Reign and Satan's defeat. Christ's reign will be a time of salvation, power and rewards for the righteous. The righteous win this spiritual battle because they are forgiven of their sins through Christ's death, they spread the world of God to the whole world (Matt. 24:14), and remain faithful to God, even unto death. Those who die for their faith will be resurrected and reign with Christ (Rev 20:4-6).



Subunit A2: Signs in Heaven predict the Start of the Millennial Reign (Sep 2017AD) (vs 12)

12a Therefore rejoice, you heavens and you who dwell in them!

This passage continues from subunit A1[1,2]. At the time of the sign, on 23 Sep 2017, there is a great celebration in heaven (see Rev 5:6-14), because Christ and his Messiah, the "Lion of the tribe of Judah", triumph, so that they can open the seals on the scroll (Rev 5:5) [5]. With this triumph in the spiritual realm, Christ is deemed worthy to rule forever (Rev 5:9,10) and the coming Messiah is figuratively anointed (Daniel 9:24,25 in [2]). So Christ takes control over the world on 23 Sep 2017 (Satan will continue rule the world for another 9 1/2 years, until the start of the Millennial Reign, but within the limits set by Christ).



12b But woe to the earth and the sea, because the devil has gone down to you! He is filled with fury, because he knows that his time is short.

But before Christ's Millennial Reign, Satan is given one last chance to win souls during a short period of intense worldwide tribulation and deception - the Reign of the Beast (Rev. 13). Around 6 years after this announcement, the first 5 seals are opened (Rev. 6:1-11) and the reign of the Beast begins. So although this is a time of rejoicing in heaven, the people of world ("earth and sea" refers to the whole world) will see a time of great suffering.


Note: The Hebrew year of this start of Christ's reign - Tishri of 2017 to Tishri of 2018 - is most likely a 50th year of the Jubilee cycle. So the 50th year of the Jubilee cycle starts on the 17th and 67th year of each century, and the end of the world comes 950 years (19 Jubilee cycles) later in 2967AD.


5.2 Christ's Ministry and the Escape of The Early Church (26AD-73AD) (Vs 4b-6, 14-17)

The Period is arranged in the form of a two-unit chiasmus:

A1 4b-5 Events Before the War: Christ's ministry (27AD-30AD)
  B1 6 The beginning of the Judahite flight (Mar 70AD)
    X 14 The Judahites are protected in the mountains (Mar 70AD - Sep 73AD)
  B2 15 The end of the Judahite flight (Sep 73AD)
A2 16-17 Events after the War: God protects the Christians (Sep 73AD)


Subunit A1: Events Before the War: Christ's ministry (27AD-30AD) (vs 4b-5)

4b The dragon stood in front of the woman who was about to give birth, so that it might devour her child the moment he was born. 5 She gave birth to a son, a male child, who “will rule all the nations with an iron scepter. And her child was snatched up to God and to his throne.”

The "woman" in this Period is the God-fearing Judahite community at the time of Christ, and the child is Jesus Christ. The dragon, or Satan, tried to tempt Jesus away from God and into worshipping Satan ("devour the child") at the very "birth" of Jesus' ministry (see Matthew 4:1-11).

After his ministry and death, Christ was resurrected and ascended to heaven ("snatched up to God"). He will rule the nations with a rod of iron through his Messiah (see also Psalm 2:9) during his Millennial Reign in Period 3.



Subunit B1: The beginning of the Judahite flight (Mar 70AD) (vs 6)

6 The woman fled into the wilderness to a place prepared for her by God, where she might be taken care of for 1,260 days.

As soon as the Romans arrived in Jerusalem at the midpoint of the First Jewish–Roman War (66–73 AD), in Mar 70AD, Christian Judahites ("woman"), followed Jesus' advice (see Luke 21:20-21) and escaped to Pella in the Transjordanian mountains in a journey that took around 10 days [4]. They were to be protected at Pella for 1,260 days (see [2] and [3] for details on this period).



Pivot X: The Judahites are protected in the mountains (Mar 70AD - Sep 73AD) (vs 14)

14 The woman was given the two wings of a great eagle, so that she might fly to the place prepared for her in the wilderness, where she would be taken care of for a time, times and half a time, out of the serpent’s reach.

The Judahites had divine assistance and protection in their flight and at their refuge ( "...two wings of a great eagle..." - see similar image in Isaiah 40:30, Exodus 19:4). The 'woman' is protected from the Romans for 3 1/2 years ("time, times and half a time"), which is around 10 days more than the 1,260 days of vs 6 according to the Hebrew calendar of that particular period - presumably the 3 1/2 years includes the 10 day journey to the wilderness. For a more detailed analysis of these time periods, see the appendix of our paper of the "70 weeks of Daniel" [2].



Subunit B2: The end of the Judahite flight (Sep 73AD) (vs 15)

15 Then from his mouth the serpent spewed water like a river, to overtake the woman and sweep her away with the torrent.

The "river from the mouth of the serpent" is the large Roman army sent to finish off any remaining Judahites towards the end of this war (bodies of water represent a multitude of people, see also Daniel 9:26, Isaiah 59:19). The Romans can be thought of as Satan's representatives, because Satan (the "serpent") ruled the world through the Roman Empire at the time - see appendix in [10].



Subunit A2: Events after the War: God protects the Christians (Sep 73AD) (vs 16-17)

16 But the earth helped the woman by opening its mouth and swallowing the river that the dragon had spewed out of his mouth. 17 Then the dragon was enraged at the woman and went off to wage war against the rest of her offspring—those who keep God’s commands and hold fast their testimony about Jesus.

In what sense does the earth swallow the river? In our paper on "The Seventy weeks of Daniel" [2], we discuss a covenant between God and Titus which permitted the Romans to completely annihilate the Judahites for a 7-year period during the First Jewish-Roman war (Michael stood by - Dan 12:1). After this period, God reinstated Michael's protection of the Christian Judahites (the "earth opened its mouth to swallow the river", where the "earth" represents the spiritual world, as in Rev 13:11).

After this repulse, the dragon (Satan) sets off to war with the other offspring of the Christian Judahite community - Christians in the rest of the world.



5.3 The Sign of the Dragon, Satan's Fall and Eve's temptation (4034-4032BC) (Vs 3-4a,7-9,13)

This Period is structured as a chiasmus. The Pivot, X [7-9a], is regarding a war in heaven (4032BC), in which Satan is defeated . In the Subunits, A1 [3-4a] and A2 [9b,13], a sign in heaven in 4034BC predicts this war. So the events in the Pivot take place around 2 years after the events in the Subunits.


Subunit A1: A Sign in Heaven predicts Satan's Defeat (4034BC) (vs 3-4a)

3 Then another sign appeared in heaven: an enormous red dragon with seven heads and ten horns and seven crowns on its heads. 4a Its tail swept a third of the stars out of the sky and flung them to the earth.

The apostle John was transported back in time, and he was shown this celestial event in the ancient skies that portends Satan's fall with a third of the angels. The seven heads and ten horns and seven crowns of this sign in the heaven represents the structure of Satan's kingdom of angels before his fall, and red seems to be the colour of Satan (cf. Rev 17:3). The 7 "heads" seem to be 7 divisions of Satan's kingdom of angels and the 7 crowns represent the position of leadership of those divisions. But because Satan has 10 horns or 10 "leader/king" angels, they must share power in some way.

This structure is reflected in the heads and horns of the end-times Beast kingdom mentioned in Dan. 7:19-25, Rev. 13 and Rev. 17:7. The 7 heads also correspond to the 7 "historical kings" of Rev 17:10 (the "kings" are the angels in charge of empires); they were sent to the Abyss and re-emerge to form the Beast (Rev. 17:8) [5].



Sign of the dragon of Revelation 12

Fig. 3


We believe the enormous dragon of this sign in heaven is the constellation Hydra (see fig. 3), the largest of the modern constellations; Hydra is a fitting symbol for the dragon, as it is identified with the Lernaean Hydra, the gigantic many-headed water-snake monster of Greek mythology. We take the dragon's 7 crowns to be formed by 7 constellations (those that are bright enough to be on Ptolemy's list) near Hydra's head (as in the crown of the woman in vs 1); we choose as "crown" constellations: Crater, Corvus, Virgo, Leo, Cancer, Gemini and Canis Minor. This group of 8 constellations, which we will call the Red Dragon asterism, covers a significant portion of the sky and encompasses a third of the zodiac signs. We take the 7 heads of the dragon to be formed by some of the stars in the constellation Hydra. Of the dragon's 10 horns, 7 are formed by lines from the 7 heads to one of the stars in the 7 crowns; the remaining 3 are lines to stars in Hydra itself. In fig. 3 above, we reimagine the art depicting Hydra and the other constellations in this asterism to form the 7 heads, 10 horns, and 7 crowns.

Since these portentous signs in the heaven themselves tend to occur on significant dates, we believe this sign that predicts Satan's fall occurs around the time of the creation of the world in 4034BC (this date is from our parse of Daniel 12 [7]). In searching for this sign, we notice 6 solar system objects in transit through the Red Dragon asterism in July of 4034BC, namely: the Sun, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn (for this sign, we ignore the moon; it may not have been created yet - Gen 1:16). From 23 July to 11 September of 4034BC (50 days or 1 2/3 months), four of these objects - Venus, Mars, Mercury and the Sun - leave this asterism at Virgo; Jupiter goes to the very tip of the "tail" of the asterism at Virgo around Jan 1 4033BC before looping in retrograde, and Saturn remains almost stationary alongside Hydra; these last 2 (out of 6) objects represent the third of the stars that are "flung to the earth" by the dragon's tail.

We believe that the end date of this sign on September 11 4034BC coincides with the end of the 6 days of creation; as in the case of the two other signs in the heavens (Rev 12:1, Rev 15:1), the 1 2/3 month length of this sign represents the time to its fulfilment in 1 2/3 years (with a month representing a year). So Adam and Eve enjoyed a 1 2/3 year or 20 month period of innocence between their creation and the time of Satan's fall in 4032BC, after which Satan tempted them into eating from the tree of "knowledge of good and evil" (Gen. 2:17, Gen. 3). As seen in our analysis of Isaiah 7-9 [9], all infants similarly experience a period of innocence for the first 20 months, a period of not knowing they must "reject the wrong and choose the right" (see Isaiah 7:15).

How is there a celestial sign before the 6 days of creation of Genesis 1? We consider Genesis 1:1 - "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth" - to be an introductory summary of Genesis 1 (similar language is used in the concluding summary in Gen 2:1), and we take Genesis 1:2 to indicate that the earth (and other stars and planets) existed in some form before the 6 days of creation - note that the work of the 6 days is preceded by the phrase, "And God said". Though the stars and planets of this sign were not visible at the time (light had not yet been created, the stars were not a source of light), they were presented to the apostle John as being red in some sense.


Notes:
  • As far as we can tell, for all these three signs in the heavens (Rev 12:1, 12:3, 15:1), the celestial events that we have selected best fit the description of the sign and the events they portend, though similar events may occur on other dates.
  • Please do not treat these signs in the stars from the Bible as a licence to engage in astrology.


Pivot X: Satan and his Angels are defeated in a War in Heaven (4032BC) (vs 7-9a)

7 Then war broke out in heaven. Michael and his angels fought against the dragon, and the dragon and his angels fought back. 8 But he was not strong enough, and they lost their place in heaven. 9a The great dragon was hurled down—that ancient serpent called the devil, or Satan, who leads the whole world astray.

The great defeat that was predicted by the sign of the red dragon comes to pass. But what constitutes this war in heaven? Apparently, this was a war for the 'souls' of the angels, and Satan and his angels were defeated and lost their heavenly powers, since he won over only a third of them (vs. 3) ( Note that this 1/3 fraction appears in other wars for souls - for ex. Rev. 12:4, 9:15...).



Subunit A2: A Sign in Heaven predicts Satan's Defeat (4034BC) (vs 9b,13)

9b He will be hurled to the earth, and his angels with him. 13 When the dragon sees that he has been hurled to the earth, he will pursue the woman who will give birth to the male child.

This passage continues from Subunit A1 [vs 3-4a]. The woman in this Period is Eve and her offspring is mankind. When Satan loses his place in heaven after his defeat, he will take with him a third of the angels - they become "fallen angels" or demons. Satan will come down to earth and go after Eve to lead her astray (Genesis 3), resulting in the Fall of Man. With this, Satan begins his campaign to win human souls.



Conclusion

With this chiastic reconstruction of the text, we have shown that the passage is about 3 distinct Periods, and while most chiastically structured passages have 3 Periods, this chapter takes the triplet theme much further:

This sophisticated prophecy is further evidence that the Bible is divinely dictated. Alternatively, you will have to believe that John, a human, calculated the alignments of the stars well into the past and future, that he hid his predictions in a complex chiastic design and, most importantly, accurately predicted a number of significant events well into the future.


References

[1] A Definition of Cryptochiasmus
[2] A Chiastic Reconfiguration Of "The 70 Weeks Of Daniel"
[3] First Jewish–Roman War (66–73 CE) by Wikipedia
[4] Flight to Pella by Wikipedia
[5] A Chiastic Reconfiguration Of Revelation 4-22 Part 2
[6] A Chiastic Reconfiguration Of Revelation 4-22 Part 1
[7] A Chiastic Reconfiguration Of Daniel 10-12. Part 2: Daniel 11-12
[8] A Chiastic Reconfiguration Of Isaiah 59-63
[9] A Chiastic Reconfiguration Of Isaiah 7-9
[10] A Chiastic Reconfiguration Of Daniel 8





* First version published on 1 March 2019.