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I think what we've seen in recent years is the emergence of a number of
subgroups in different cultures--even in Japan, but certainly in American
society--that apply in a kind of literal way the idea that contemporary society
is evil, contemporary society is corrupt, the American government in fact is
part of the vast conspiracy, and take that simply one step further and conclude
that therefore we must literally, physically withdraw from society. ...
What are we to make of those things that taken together could be called
doomsday cults?
I think doomsday cults are very significant. I see them in some ways like the
canaries that used to be taken down into coal mines. If the canary died, you
knew that there was a buildup of dangerous gases and you'd better be careful.
It seems to me that doomsday cults tell us something about a contemporary
cultural climate of anxiety, of apprehension, of uneasiness about trends in our
contemporary world. And some groups, usually under the influence of a very
charismatic and potent sort of leader, withdraw from the larger society
and act on their belief system in a quite literal and sometimes catastrophic
fashion.
I think it's also important, though, not to reduce apocalyptic belief to the
doomsday cults. These beliefs are very pervasive in our culture. Many of
people we deal with every day, in fact, if you talk with them, you realize,
hold beliefs that are drawn from particularly interpretations of Bible
prophecy. So doomsday cults are one subset of a far vaster company of
contemporary Americans who take apocalyptic beliefs very seriously. ...
What about this idea of separating themselves out from society?
The idea of separation from the world is a very deep one in the Christian
tradition. Biblical passages: Come ye out from among them and be ye separate.
It's been an appeal within the Christian tradition from the beginning. And the
monastic tradition is in a way an expression of that. It's been resisted
traditionally by those who say, "No, we must be a part of the world. It's not
our duty to simply withdraw." But some groups in our contemporary society have
acted upon that tradition of withdrawal, of separation, and increasingly have
viewed the outer world not as an arena to be won over, to be reformed, but as
an evil arena to be rejected, to be shunned. And out of that insight comes the
impulse to form the small community of true believers that we see occasionally
in these doomsday cults.
The person we know as David Koresh was born in 1959. His original birth name
was Vernon Howell. He was born in Texas, and he was part of a Seventh Day
Adventist family. He grew up attending church. His mother has reported that
he was a devout young man, fervent, memorized the scriptures. And the
Adventists are part of the Millerite movement, which is from the 1830s
and forties, an apocalyptic, end-of-the-world movement, that 150 years later
had settled down considerably in terms of predicting the end. But David, from
the start, grew up with that kind of context of interpreting the Bible. The
Book of Revelation and the Book of Daniel are absolutely the key
texts within that tradition, in terms of giving that movement their identity.
...
David Koresh was part of this Branch Davidian group, an offshoot of the
Adventists. And one of their hallmarks was the very literal interpretation of
the Book of Revelation. And when you open the Book of Revelation, it describes
places, namely Jerusalem. Most of the scenes take place in Jerusalem. And
here's this American Seventh Day Adventist Branch Davidian in his twenties, who
decides in 1985: I'm going to go and see Jerusalem. What does it really look
like? ... What David did was read the Book of Revelation very literally, but
he also combined it with all the other texts of scripture, such as the prophecy
in Zechariah. Both of these texts speak about measuring the city in the last
days. And so he went there with the intention of actually looking at it and
walking the city, particularly up by what's called the Temple area, where the
mosques are today, to see whether 144,000 people could actually fit up there.
And this number comes from the Book of Revelation, chapter 7, where the prophet
who wrote John says that he saw 144,000 standing on Mt. Zion. ...
When David
arrived in Jerusalem and went up to the Temple area, the Temple Mount and looked at what he understood to be Mt. Zion, he faced a
kind of a crisis, because by his estimation, looking at the size of it, the
length, the breadth (as the text says), he concluded that 144,000 people could
not stand on Mt. Zion. And he wondered then: Well, can the interpretations of
the Bible be taken literally after all? And he went to the text, Zechariah
chapter 2 ... and he found, as he continued to read the chapter, his answer:
that at this time when Jerusalem is measured in the final days, that it will be
"a city without walls; that it will be exalted and lifted up." It was like a
light going on for him. He thought: Ah! It is literal. It is exact. And yet it will be transformed. And it's that flexibility between the
text and the actual situation on the ground, I think, that helped create the
dynamics of interpretation for him. He could always find in the text something
that would fit. And in turn, things that he was seeing could be altered if
needed. ...
David lived in Jerusalem for about six months. And one of the things that he
did was to visit the yeshivas, the Jewish Orthodox schools of rabbinic learning
in the Old City of Jerusalem, in the Jewish quarter. And I've interviewed some
of the rabbis there that remember him. And they talk about him coming. I
think he pictured himself as somewhat like the young Jesus, who would go up to
the doctors of the law in the Temple (although there's no temple, it's the same
area, anciently) and impress them with his knowledge and wisdom of the
scriptures. And they do indeed report that he had a phenomenal memory of the
texts. ...
Do we know what he planned to do?
We don't know how long he planned to stay. He ended up staying about six
months. But while there, he had this extraordinary experience. We don't even
know exactly when it happened. But some time during his time in Jerusalem, he
had the experience that changed his whole life. He was known then as
Vernon Howell. But he reports the experience of ecstatically being caught up
into heaven, like the author of the Book of Revelation, seeing heaven open.
And he says that he was given a scroll or a book, and he was told to eat the
book. This is in Book of Revelation chapter 10. So he identified himself with
this figure in Revelation 10, who's called the seventh messenger, who eats this
scroll. And eating the scroll symbolizes that you completely take in the
entire message of scripture. And David reported the rest of his life, even to
the FBI at the siege at Waco, "From that moment on," he says, "I
instantaneously and suddenly in a moment understood completely all the
mysteries of the Bible." ...
We have a few examples of David talking about revelatory experience that he had
in Jerusalem in 1985. One of the more interesting ones is when he's actually
talking to FBI agents late on the telephone during this 51-day standoff
at Waco. And I remember he says to one of the negotiators, "Don't you
remember back in 1985 hearing about the cosmonauts, the Russian cosmonauts and
the Sputnik reporting that they had seen seven angels or stars appearing in the
sky?" And the negotiator kind of shakes his head and says, "No, I don't
remember that." And David says, "Well, it was in Life magazine. Check
it out." This is actually what happened. He said, "Those were the seven
angels that brought to me my revelation." And so he had this strange way of
mixing certain phenomena that he'd read about in the news, cosmic phenomena, a
constellation or these Russian astronauts reporting that they had seen
something out the window of the satellite that they were in, or the Sputnik,
and his own experiences in 1985.
How was he changed afterward?
When David returned to the United States after his experiences in 1985 in
Israel and in Jerusalem, he went back to Texas, and he rejoined his Branch
Davidian community outside of Waco. And all the Davidians report, even to this
day, that he was absolutely a different man; that before, he had been very
plodding and very sincere and earnest, but even somewhat boring in his ability
to teach the scriptures, nothing particularly impressive; and that now he had
this completely transformed knowledge of scriptures, that he simply was able to
put together everything from Isaiah and Jeremiah and Zechariah and Haggai and
the Book of Revelation and Daniel into this grand synthesis. And it was this
ability to weave a complicated interpretation that impressed them. ...
Who did Koresh think he was?
During the 51-day siege at Waco, the only public word that the government
continually gave out was that David Koresh claimed to be Christ. And this was
understood, I think, generally by the public to mean that he thought he was
Jesus, that somehow he was an incarnation of Jesus. And actually, we know now
that this is incorrect, from all the materials that have survived--the tapes,
the letters, the sermons. What David believed was that in 1985 he became the
seventh and final messenger. He was a Christ, in the sense that
"Christ" really and literally means an anointed one, a chosen one. But he
didn't believe that he was Jesus Christ .. . He believed that Jesus Christ was,
in fact, the Messiah, but he did believe that he, himself, was the final
Messiah. And this final messiah is also called in the Book of Revelation one
of the two witnesses. This is chapter 11 of the Book of Revelation. And these
figures that are to appear at the end, and witness it, are in fact Messiahs as
well. And he believed he was one of those, and that he was going to bring the
final revelation.
How did the events at Waco actually surprise David Koresh? What did he
expect?
Well, David Koresh had worked out a very elaborate scenario as to how the Book
of Revelation and all the prophets of the Bible would unfold. And it certainly
did not include anything happening in Texas or United States. But he
envisioned his group actually ending up in Jerusalem, and he being the final
prophetic figure on the streets of Jerusalem, actually confronting the
Antichrist figure and dealing with all the great events and dramas that are in
the Book of Revelation. And so Waco in '93, for him, was clearly a surprise.
The BATF (Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms) raid on that Sunday
morning caught him completely off guard, and he really didn't know what to
think of it. It didn't seem to fit any prophecies of the Bible that he had
expounded. ...
If we could go back and interview David Koresh a month before the ill-fated
raid on the Branch Davidian community, he would not have known the future. He
would have said, "Some day, my group will end up in Jerusalem, and I will be
known around the world, and I indeed have received this revelation. I am the
final prophet, the final messianic figure that's to come before the end." But
he wouldn't know how it's all going to work out. He would just believe that
that's the case. After the raid, when he suddenly is given this worldwide
attention with this media circus, being mentioned hourly on CNN, appearing on
the covers of all the major news magazines, David began to think, "Well, maybe
this is what God has in mind. I know I'm the prophet. I know I am this
figure. Through this notoriety, I will be able to reach the 144,000 who are
the final group that are supposed to respond to this message, and we'll all end
up over in Jerusalem." But he didn't know exactly how it would out. But in
that strange way, the events at Waco, as tragic as they were, in the early days
he was trying to process, and began to think, "Well, maybe there was a purpose
in this."
What did he think events in Jerusalem would have been?
David had a fairly standard, literal way of reading the Book of Revelation,
similar to what many interpreters of the more fundamentalist variety would
have. And that is that Jerusalem would be surrounded by hostile powers. He
speculated that maybe it would be the United Nations, with some sort of decree
to give land back to the Palestinians. He would be in Jerusalem with his
followers, and in solidarity with the Jewish people, would stand up and oppose
these outside powers of Europe and perhaps even the United States (if it
happened to be the UN). He would eventually be killed. This is all the
scenario of chapter 11 of the Book of Revelation. It's an absolutely key
chapter for all of these interpreters. His body would lie in the streets of
Jerusalem for three days. And then at the end of that period, he would be
taken up to heaven. And according to the Book of Revelation, that's when the
end comes. That's when the final judgment comes. ...
How did the government's actions at Waco reinforce the apocalyptic
idea?
The way to understand David Koresh is to understand that he is one of a string
of Bible interpreters that reads these texts, particularly the Book of
Revelation, in the most literal fashion. So he knew very well that Waco,
Texas, 1993, with a siege and a standoff, was not mentioned in the Book of
Revelation. That's not Jerusalem. It's not the end of time. The government,
however, in dealing with the situation as what they called a hostage barricade
situation, with the tanks, with the tactical people, the psychological warfare
... with the tanks and the noise and the lights at night, pressing the group,
he had to go back to his texts and wonder: "Well, maybe this is the end.
Maybe there's something I've missed." You see? And so by handling the
situation in the way that it was handled, the government really delivered to
David,I guess we could call it an early apocalypse, instead of backing off
and making the situation more normal, which would have, I think, been the way
to go.
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