If someone asks you what is the most widely read book in the world, it is probably a safe bet to suggest the Bible as your answer. Though almost everyone is somewhat familiar with Scripture, most have not read it all the way through. The Bible is really a library of different books that is combined into our sacred Scriptures. There are hymns, plays, histories, collections of short stories, love poetry, wise sayings, letters, laws and procedures for ritual worship. It is not really designed to sit down and read all the way through, as one might read a good novel.
People will often have a favorite book within the Bible. It is usually one of the Gospels or the Acts of the Apostles among Christians. The books of Exodus and Genesis are perennial favorites. While one of the more popular books of the Bible and a tremendous influence on Western Civilization, the Book of Revelation is probably the least understood. Over the next few installments of Along the Way, I’d like to take a look at the Book of Revelation and help us to come to a more informed understanding of this book of the Bible. While I’ve studied Scripture, I make no claim to be an expert on the Book of Revelation and draw much of what I share with you from the Scripture scholar, Craig R. Koester, who writes and teaches extensively on the Book of Revelation.
If the interviewer continued to quiz you about the Book of Revelation, a likely question would be what the Book of Revelation is about. You would most likely say something to the effect that it tells us about the future, what will happen at the end of the age when God establishes the Kingdom on Earth. While that is the answer that most of us might expect, we would be wrong, for the most part. The Book of Revelation is not about the end of the world but about the nature of evil and of hope. In this work we are faced with the raw terror of evil and offered hope that isn’t a short term bandage that a politician might apply but hope that endures.
The Book of Revelation is also known as the Apocalypse. This is a literary tradition within Hebrew writings in which the forces of good and evil are in conflict. The goal of this form of literature is to disclose (that is, reveal) the nature of this conflict, so that the reader has hope that the just and righteous purposes of God will eventually win. This form of literature is most associated with times of struggle and persecution and places these painful and frightening events in the larger context of a cosmic struggle between good and evil. We find examples of apocalyptic in the Book of Daniel, in the Dead Sea Scrolls, in the letters of Paul and the Book of Revelation. So, the first thing to remember is that we must read the Apocalypse as part of a particularly literary tradition with its own conventions and rules. Just as you don’t watch an episode of the Game of Thrones in the same way you would watch a CNN news report, you don’t read the Apocalypse the same way you would read an article in the Marianas Variety or Time magazine.
One of the conventions of Apocalyptic literature is the use of word pictures. Rather than a reasoned discussion of theology and politics, apocalyptic literature uses powerful images to convey their messages to the reader. In the context of the time and place where the work is written the reader will immediately know from the word picture created what the author is trying to say. The symbolism will be obvious. After all, the goal is disclosure; that is, revelation. Word pictures are a powerful way to reveal an insight at many levels; engaging emotions, symbolism, links to other works of literature and art within the culture, and one’s own religious tradition. They are easily remembered, as well, and can be used to shock the reader when that is necessary.
The author of the Book of Revelation is known as John, as that is the name he gives at the beginning of the book. Tradition suggests that this is the apostle John, who is also associated with the Gospel of John. Most Bible scholars agree that the author’s name is John but that is as far as they will go. They believe that the author is a Jewish Christian. His use of Greek is quite strange, either because he is trying to be countercultural in his writing style or because it is not his first language and his usage is clumsy.
John was living on Patmos as an exile. It is likely that John’s ideas were suspect and he may have been caught up in an early period of Christian persecution. However, Patmos was not a prison but a rather ordinary island in the Aegean Sea. It is likely that he had a normal life there of work, leisure time, socializing and was under very limited supervision. He just needed to support himself and stay out of trouble.
In the early Christian community one of the common roles was that of the prophet. We learn this from the letters of Paul, especially Corinthians. The role of the prophet in this communities was like that of the prophet in Judaism. They consciously stood in the presence of God, resonated with overwhelming majesty and called the people to judgement. John’s Apocalypse is written in the mode of prophet, beginning with his powerful vision of Christ in the opening chapters and eventually moving on to a call to judgement in the later chapters of the book. John is calling his readers to an apocalypse, a new way of seeing, to a disclosure of Christ presence and work among humanity.
John wrote the Book of Revelation for the Christian communities of the seven major cities of the province of Asia Minor, in what is now Turkey. These were Greek speaking communities and part of the Roman Empire. This was a time of persecution under the emperor Domitian. This was a mixed experience for many Roman Christians. Most of the Christian persecution was an on and off affair with relatively little loss of life. If you didn’t end up on the government’s radar for anything, you could probably go through a period of persecution unscathed. Indeed, if you played your cards right, had the right connections and were living away from an area with active persecution, you might even prosper. You must remember that most of the persecutions of Christian were local affairs arising from local conditions and not empire-wide witch hunts.