NTE rainbows - a possible explanation

[BernardoCairo]

I was trying to figure out why a rainbow always appears after an angel is defeated in NTE.
I suddenly remembered that, in the Bible, the rainbow represents the covenant between God and humanity.
In Evangelion, Instrumentality is only achievable after every angel is defeated.
In a way, humanity is getting closer and closer to God as it kills the angels. Also, the fourth angel floods Tokyo-3 with its blood. The first time a rainbow appeared in the Bible was right after the flood (As a sign that God would no longer punish humanity in this way).

I know that there's a lot of discussion as to whether Anno and his team actually used the Bible as a reference to Evangelion or not. Even so, some things are just common knowledge. I can totally see this piece of trivia being referenced in NTE.

[RussianRiz]

Well, in Revelation 10:1, we have the following:

And I saw another strong angel coming down out of heaven, clothed with a cloud; and an arch of colored light was round his head, and his face was like the sun, and his feet like pillars of fire.

From what I've read, the rainbow appears whenever God is present. But he does not present himself materially, but through actions... In this sense, and considering other angelic connections that exist in NTE, such as the Halos, I believe that the connection they wanted to pass on is that the Angels are sent to cleanse the sins of the Lilin (Lilith's sin before Adam(s)?), just as it happens in the Relevation Book, when God decides to clean the Earth. Of course, in Japanese angels are actually apostles, but the English translation of "angels" has always been sustained, and I imagine it's because of these visual links to Christianity.

[nerv bae]

There's some rainbow discussion in this old Reichu thread:

This ties into the annihilation of the Angels. The death of (almost) every Angel reduces its body to blood-red LCL, creating a miniature Flood. These are reminiscent of the global flood brought on by Second Impact, but even with the greatest Angels, like the 8th, the scale of catastrophe is nowhere close to Second Impact. As a general rule, every Angel’s death is also accompanied by a rainbow. As per Genesis 9, this can be taken as a divine sign of the covenant between God and Man being fulfilled. The significance of rainbows is that they are comprised of seven spectral colors, with “7” being a divine number.

[StrokeMeGoat]

Rainbows actually have relatively certain meaning as a symbol in Ancient Judaism and Old-Testament Christianity:

The flood has subsided and the doors of the ark have opened. God has commanded Noah to exit the ark and to release the animals back into the world. (Genesis 8:15-19) God next declares that such a wholesale disaster will never be caused by God again. A covenant is established and God seals it by placing a rainbow in the sky: “This is the sign that I set for the covenant between Me and you, and every living creature with you, for all ages to come. I have set My bow in the clouds, and it shall serve as a sign of the covenant between Me and the earth” (9:12 -13).

Something to note about NERV, and more particularly, SEELE in the NTE canon is the multiple mentions and references to the Covenant formed between SEELE and Lilith (and therefore between Lilith and the Lilin despite the suggestion this time around that SEELE predates humanity and provided the basis for the formation of civilization because SEELE presumed to assign themselves the representatives of the Lilin unilaterally upon contact being made with Lilith.

In any case, to spell it out plainly and directly, immediately following the destruction of each subsequent Angel results in a visual spectacle willed to occur by a divine being after establishing between them and a people a Covenant to uphold, as a visual symbol and reminder of the agreement and connection between the divine being and the people that show deference to the authority of said divine being and the terms to be upheld as the binding contract informing the Covenant. Essentially, when man/the Lilin makes good on the promise of services being rendered faithfully and more or less seemed to suffice for the Jews... as it's likely one of God's very few inclinations and feelings toward humanity and how humanity ought to be treated by Him that's fairly neutral, if not even terribly positive (referring here to the promise that the Jews will one day inherit Israel as Its Chosen People as it has so-called been Ordained by God to be at some as yet determined point in time in the future... possibly even vastly so)

Anyway, I digress. Either Lilith is doing some spooky-action-at-a-distance AT Field manipulation that for whatever reason was never outright stated to be occurring during NTE, or something about the nature of AT Fields, the wave-particle matter composing the Angels, the S2 Engine, or who even knows what resulting in often multiple Giant Crosses of Light/Energy, rainbows, and even wom4 weirdish kind pseudo-full visible spectrum lens flares crossed with like Sun Dogs/parhelion. Either way, the presence of a rainbow, whether it is a result of Lilith doing it directly or simply a consequences of the destruction of the particular Angels and individual attributes unique to them that determined how it would look upon subsequent annihilations.

[2Lacissal2]

I had posted in another thread a while ago that in the Japanese script one word '契約'- Keiyaku, is variously translated in English as contract/agreement/covenant to describe the pact with Lilith. Went and checked what the Japanese terminology for Biblical covenants is and it's 契約, (the Ark of the Covenant is 契約の箱 - Keiyaku no hako.) I'm not 100% certain if the same word is used consistently within (for the different Biblical covenants) and between Japanese bible translations or with Japanese Christians, but it seems likely the pact with Lilith should be translated/understood each time as 'Covenant with Lilith'

SPOILER: Show

Gendo doesn't say 'it's time to revise the Dead Sea Scrolls' but something along the lines of 'it's time to revise the Dead Sea Scrolls contract'

死海文書の契約改定の時が来ました

契約改定- Keiyaku kaitei- 'contract revision'

It's a small but important difference as the English translation (are you using the Theatrical or the Home release version?) drops the 'contract'- the other times we hear contract in Rebuild is from SEELE in 1.0:

ゼーレ06「使徒殲滅はリリスとの契約の極一部に過ぎん」
Seele 06 "The annihilation of the apostles is only a small part of the contract with Lilith."

I can't find a Japanese script so this is from a Japanese fan site. Can't find a transcription but listening to the last scene of 1.0 with Kaworu and Kiel I think Kiel says 'Keiyaku' for what's translated as 'Covenant' for 'the time of the covenant (contract) is close at hand.'

Gendo is talking about the pact with Lilith for carrying out the Dead Sea Scrolls, not the Scrolls themselves, as 'Keiyaku' seems to be used consistently to refer to the 'contract' of carrying out the DSS on behalf of Lilith.