The true "Marriage Supper of the Lamb"

American fundamentalist Christians love to bask in the thought of the great banquet that is the Marriage Supper of the Lamb mentioned in the nineteenth chapter of the Revelation of St. John the Divine, aka the Apocalypse.  They dream of all the delicious foods there will be to eat, the desserts to devour, the drinks (non-alcoholic of course) there will be to be imbibed.

Besides the fact that the entire Apocalypse was written specifically aimed at Christians familiar with actual 1^st century Judaism (which only a minuscule fraction of American fundamentalist Christians are), this is, as its name implies, an apocalypse, a classic example of Jewish-style apocalyptic literature in which nothing is meant to be taken literally.

Even were this an actual prophecy spoken in literal terms, American fundamentalist Christians have clearly not read the text.  They have just seized on the name “Marriage Supper of the Lamb” as an event at which their self-degradation and self-mortification of their lives on planet Earth is rewarded with a triumphal banquet at which they, their families, and their fellow “saved and born again” and “Bible-believing” religious compatriots feast, drink, and make merry to the music of the screams of untold billions thrown into an eternal lake of magma and brimstone to be savagely tortured for infinity.

The mistakes in belief about being with their families and about the timing of their ascent into heaven are subject for another essay.  This is about their utterly erroneous fantasy about the real nature of the Marriage Supper of the Lamb.

A careful reading of the relevant passage reveals (hahaha) that the only ones invited to (Revelation 19:17-18 ) and eating at (Revelation 19:21) the Marriage Supper of the Lamb are carrion birds such as vultures, crows, and ravens after receiving the invitation, “Come and gather yourselves together unto the supper of the great God; That ye may eat the flesh of kings, and the flesh of captains, and the flesh of mighty men, and the flesh of horses, and of them that sit on them, and the flesh of all men, both free and bond, both small and great.”

So, American fundamentalist Christians, fell free to belly up to the metaphorical table, as long as you don’t mind engaging in a bit of actual literal cannibalism.  Except that you’ll have to crash the party, because you are not invited.  This invitation is only addressed to “all the fowls that fly in the midst of heaven”.