Unleashing the Beast

16 / U NLEASHING THE B EAST

father who is called by some "the most important theologian in the pre-Constantinian era," quoted the prophecy Moses spoke over the tribe of Dan: "And of Dan he said, Dan is a lion's whelp: he shall leap from Bashan" (Deuteronomy 33:22). Hippolytus wrote in Treatise on Christ and Antichrist : Dan is a lion's whelp and, in naming the tribe of Dan, he declared clearly the name of the tribe from which the Antichrist is destined to spring. For as Christ sprang from the tribe of Judah, so the Antichrist is to spring from the tribe of Dan. The fact that Dan is missing from the tribal listing in Revelation 7:1-8 only adds to the speculation that the future Antichrist must be from that tribe. It must be noted that in early history, the tribe of Dan settled in the area of Bashan, which is the Golan Heights today. Later the tribe of Dan settled near the coast, in the area that is today Tel Aviv. The Tel-Aviv area has a strong population of secular, agnostic, and atheistic Jews. This may be why the region of Dan is omitted from Revelation 7. Others speculate that if the Antichrist were "opposite of Christ," he must be a Jew because Christ was of Jewish origin. He must arise from inside of Israel, they reason, since Christ was born in Israel (Luke 2:11). Further, he must be from a tribe since Christ was identified with a tribe—namely Judah (Micah 5:2). Some have gone so far as to say the Antichrist will claim he was born of a virgin, since Christ was born of the