what is the synagogoue of satan
its a very old division fagging narrative that ignores hostory and scholarship the more you know…
It has traditionally been taken to refer to the Jewish communities in these two cities – especially when combined with John s tag line: those who say they are Jews .
Recently this identification has been challenged,[13] arguing instead that they are insiders ( brother in John s language; 1,9) who are betraying the community. These scholars point out that John actually says that though they claim to be Jews they are not and suggest that Gentile followers of Paul fit this description rather well[14]. They claim the Jewish heritage but with no real standing, either in ethnicity or practice
John is claiming the title Jew (or the True Jews) for himself, but rather sees his community as a blended community of Jew and Gentile[28]. Thus the image of the synagogue of Satan has no polemical thrust against the Jewish community. John Marshall goes even further, arguing that the image is best read as a gathering of the adversary [29]. John has no concern for Jew and Christian, or for Jew and Gentile for that matter; his concern is for separation from the pollutions of Greco-Roman culture; Marshall concludes:
[T]he group he opposes consists of a mixture of Pagan Godfearers and comfortably Hellenizing Jews who welcome the Godfearers without requiring a substantial (in John s eyes) separation from Greco-Roman culture[30].
There is no reason to read this image as directed at Jews in general (let alone at a supposed Judaism). We cannot use this image to talk about the split between Judaism and Christianity. There is no reason to think John is claiming exclusive use of the title Jew for himself; there is simply no concept of True Israel in the Apocalypse. There is no reason to think that the evident animosity of this image stems from different beliefs about Jesus; neither of these images occurs in a context of messianic debate. If anything, both groups expect Jesus to be (only) on their side. There is no reason to suppose that the charge stems from any persecution from the Other. The Other here, as in the case of εἰδολόθυτα, are simply those who are too liberal for John s conviction, too Hellenized, too assimilated, too willing to compromise with polytheism.