Publisher's Synopsis
Andre Austin provides new insights into questions that have puzzled the academic community for years about the obscure term of the "Lukewarm" church in Laodicea. Is Lukewarm talking about drinking water or spiritual vision of righteous or sinful deeds or thoughts? Were the Marcionites (Gnostic) Christians who wrote the Epistle to the Laodiceans: ..".to the brethren which are at Laodicea...continue and persevere in good works looking for that which is promised in the day of judgment." But in the book of Rev chapter 3:14-22 presents the church of Laodiceans as needing to repent and to wear white clothes (symbol of righteousness see Rev 19:8). The city grew rich for their medical school which had a specialty for treating the blind and sold glossy black wool for clothes. Two internet websites were relating that the bright white clothes (righteousness) can refer to the Greek Leukos (white). Another website on Wikipedia linked Luke (Loukas) with "From Lucania" which in turn linked with Leukos. If both were right it would be kind of hard to link Lukewarm as a negative concept. The Oxford English dictionary explained Leuk as form of look and Leuke as league, Luke, Lion. I was reading Professor Dennis MacDonald's Does the New Testament Imitate Homer? He claims that the Gospel of Mark and Luke's book of Acts take themes from Homer's Illiad & the Odyssey. MacDonald states at the conclusion of his book: "If Luke imitates classical poetry here, it certainly is possible that he and other early Christian authors do so elsewhere." Building upon that foundation I started to ask myself the question if the Book of Revelations could have been inspired by two characters with similar names of Luke? Ino-Leukothea (White waves/foam) is in the Odyssey 5:333-500 taking off her veil in pity for Odysseus to use as a sail for his plank or beam he uses to reach land. Odysseus strips off his clothes and becomes happy again when his eyes see land and tree. Leukothea is also well known for switching her children's clothes from black to white to save their lives which is a similar requesting being demanded in Rev 3:18. Lukewarm is spit out which can be seen as a metaphor for white foam that have been stirred up, agitated and churned up from the two clay pipes the water is pumped in from two other cities. The other candidate is Leukos, (Illiad 4: 489-500), who is accidently killed. Odysseus takes revenge/justice with a spear and clouding the eyes of the perpetrator. Covering your eyes to do a just act was a literary concept with the deity Tefnut-maat in Egypt. The root word for her name was spit. And her attributes are clouds, mist, dew, rain and moisture. Tefnut was the first deity to be involved in the mythological eye care of Ra. If the Greeks learned medicine and healthcare from the Egyptians there is a chance that the eye disorder of Leukomas (eye problem of seeing white spots or clouds. Luke (Loukas) can be used as a pun for Leukomas. A hint of why the Marcionites told the Lukewarm church to keep looking for Judgement (a trial, justice). All of the theories will be discussed and you the reader can judge with your own eye what theory suits you.
