• @GenderNeutralBro
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    English
    87 months ago

    I was confused at first, but it turns out these are actually the traditional representations. From Wikipedia:

    In John’s revelation the first horseman rides a white horse, carries a bow, and is given a crown as a figure of conquest,[2][3] perhaps invoking pestilence, or the Antichrist. The second carries a sword and rides a red horse as the creator of (civil) war, conflict, and strife.[4] The third, a food merchant, rides a black horse symbolizing famine and carries the scales.[5] The fourth and final horse is pale, upon it rides Death, accompanied by Hades.[6] “They were given authority over a quarter of the Earth, to kill with sword, famine and plague, and by means of the beasts of the Earth.”[7]

    I’d only ever heard Pestilence before, not Conquest. Conquest and War seem awfully similar to me as concepts.

    • Skua
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      fedilink
      57 months ago

      Apparently some interpretations paint war as specifically being civil war. So if you’re an early Christian, war is when you’re fighting your neighbours and conquest is when Rome arrived. That was about 150 years before Revelation is thought to have been written, so I’d expect plenty of stories of it had survived

    • zout
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      fedilink
      37 months ago

      Thanks, I guess I only knew them from the Metallica song and from “good omens”.