SOURCE: Boring, M. Eugene. Introduction to Revelation: Interpretation: A Bible Commentary for Teaching and Preaching, pp. 1-62. Louisville, Ky.: John Knox Press, 1989.

[In the following excerpt, Boring presents an overview of some textual, language, and interpretative issues concerning Revelation.]

AUTHORSHIP

Unlike other writers of apocalyptic books, John gives his own name and writes in his own person, rather than under the assumed name of some figure of the past (cf. discussion of apocalyptic literature below). Such an assumption of another name was not necessary, for John and his churches no longer believed that the prophetic gift of the Holy Spirit was only a remembered aspect of the revered past. It was a matter of their own experience that the Spirit spoke again to the churches through Christian prophets (see 1:10; 2:7, 11, 17, 29; 3:6, 13, 22; 4:2; 22:17). While John claims to be a prophet, he makes no claim to being an apostle, and in fact distinguishes himself from the apostles (21:14). He recounts no stories or sayings from the ministry of Jesus, though some would have been appropriate for the message he advocates (e.g., Mark 12:13-17), nor does he give any other indication that he had known Jesus during his earthly life. This John is therefore not the John numbered among the disciples in the Gospels. Nor is he the same as the author of the Gospel and Letters of John, as the differences in language, theology, and general point of view make clear. Although John writes in Greek to Greek-speaking churches, his Greek is peculiar and full of grammatical irregularities. The nature of his peculiar Greek suggests that his native language was Hebrew or Aramaic. Since John is also acquainted with Palestinian prophetic traditional material, it is likely that he was originally a Palestinian Christian prophet who had immigrated to Asia, probably as a refugee during or just after the war of 66-70 (cf. Satake).

The oldest manuscripts of Revelation have as the title simply “The Apocalypse of John.” A few later manuscripts add “the Evangelist,” and most of the later ones add “the Theologian,” both additional titles intended to identify John with the author of the Fourth Gospel, whom later Christian tradition assumed to be the Apostle John. John's own “title” for his composition is, of course, 1:1-3. All the titles are additions made by the church editors, mainly reflecting their theological interest in indicating that the book was apostolic, that it contained authoritative Christian interpretation. Their claim that the book is an authentic witness to the truth of the Christian faith is in no way compromised by the historical-critical conclusion, in agreement with Revelation's own claim, that it was written not by an apostle but by the prophet John.

This particular prophet communicated his message by means of a letter filled with apocalyptic language and ideas. Revelation is a letter in form, but apocalyptic in content. To grasp the message of Revelation, it is therefore important to consider the nature of apocalyptic thought.

IN APOCALYPTIC LANGUAGE AND IMAGERY

“Apocalypse” (Eng. trans., “revelation”) is the first word of 1:1. “Apocalypse,” then, is not only a technical word used by Bible scholars, but is John's own designation of his writing. What is an apocalypse? What is “apocalyptic” language and thought? Not all scholars use the terminology in the same way, but it has proven helpful to separate the answer to the question “What is apocalyptic” into three sub-categories: apocalyptic as a literary genre, apocalyptic as a social movement, and apocalyptic as a particular kind of thought.

Since understanding the message of Revelation is our primary concern, I will concentrate on apocalyptic as the kind of thought represented in Revelation. What I present here is something of an oversimplification, since there are apocalypses which do not contain the kind of eschatological thought found here. Yet, oversimplifications are sometimes useful in grasping the essence of the matter. We may thus first express an approach to understanding apocalyptic thought that has proven helpful in the study of Revelation: Apocalyptic is a particular kind of eschatology, which in turn is a particular understanding of the doctrine of providence. We will now “unpack” this concentrated sentence one element at a time and elaborate the meaning of “apocalyptic.”

PROVIDENCE, ESCHATOLOGY, AND APOCALYPTIC

Providence is the overarching biblical category within which eschatological and apocalyptic thought can best be understood. Our word “providence” comes to us from Greek by way of two Latin words, “pro,” which means “before,” and “video,” which means “see.” “Providence,” therefore, has to do with seeing what is before one, looking out ahead. To believe in the providence of God is to believe that not only our individual lives but history as a whole is under the sovereignty of One who is “looking out ahead,” that Someone is in the driver's seat of history. The faith expressed in the doctrine of providence might be summed up in the words “God is guiding history.”

“Eschatology” can be thought of as a particular kind of thought within the doctrine of providence. All eschatological thinking is providential, but not all providential thinking is eschatological. Eschaton is simply the Greek word for “end.” It can be used for the last in a series, temporal or otherwise. In a narrative it is the conclusion, not simply the end. A damaged book from which the last chapter is missing has a last page, but still has no conclusion. In a story, a person's life, or the history of the world, the eschaton is the last scene, the conclusion of the story.

In theological terms the eschaton can be thought of individually (the meaning of a person's death, what happens to the individual at death), nationally (e.g., the “golden age” of the nation that is its destiny to come), or historically and cosmically. Since biblical theology is concerned with God as the Creator of the universe and the Lord of history as a whole (not merely of individual souls or particular nations), most biblical eschatological thought is expressed within this cosmic framework.

Eschatological thought goes beyond the general affirmation of the doctrine of providence, “God is guiding history,” to a more specific statement: “God is guiding history to a final goal.” The doctrine of providence, as such, affirms that history has a Lord, but not that history has an end. Providential thinking has no necessary place for thought about the “end of the world.” It is concerned with the process, not the goal, of history. Eschatological thought, on the other hand, is the counterpart to the doctrine of creation: Just as the world and history have not always existed, but came into being by the act of the Creator, so this world and its history are not eternal, but will be brought to their goal by the God who declares not only that he is the Alpha but also the Omega of all that is (Rev. 1:8; these are the first and last letters of the Greek alphabet). Although “end of the world” thinking is often thought of as gloomy and pessimistic, we shall see that in the Bible generally and in Revelation in particular the doctrine of the end of this world is a joyous hope to be celebrated—and that not because of any negative view of this world and its values.

It may come as a surprise to learn that there is a considerable eschatological element in the Bible. Although there are exceptions in individual books, most biblical authors in both the Old and New Testaments operate with the presupposition that God has a plan for the world and history which he will carry to fulfillment. In a vast variety of imagery and forms of thought, many passages in the Old Testament indicate that the present state of the world is not God's final will for it. Rather he will bring the world into a fulfilled state which does represent his own will for his creation. The law and narrative books contain passages which express this eschatological hope (e.g., Gen. 12:1-3 [a foundational passage]; 49:9-12; Num. 24:17-19). Many of the psalms were written to be used in the worship of Israel which longed for or already celebrated in advance the coming age of salvation, especially as this was linked to the idea that the final age of fulfillment would be brought to realization through the new or coming king God would raise up for this purpose (e.g., Pss. 2; 21; 45; 72; 74; 104; 110). The prophets, especially the post-exilic ones, frequently portray the eschatological hopes of Israel in terms of both judgment and salvation (e.g., Amos 1-2; 5:4, 6, 14, 15, 18-20; 7:4; 8:1-2, 9-10; 9:11-15; Isa. 2:2-4, 6-20; 4:2-6; 7:1-25; 9:1-7; 11:1-9; 14:24-27; 19:16-25; 35; 40-66; Ezek. 32-37; 38-39; 40-48; Joel 2-3; Hos. 1:10-11; Jer. 31:31-33; Micah 5; Mal. 4:1-6; Zech. 9-14; Zeph. 1:1-18).

Just as eschatology is a certain kind of thinking about God's providence, so for our purposes in understanding Revelation, apocalyptic may be thought of as a certain kind of thinking about eschatology. Apocalyptic thought, as represented in Revelation, affirms that God is guiding history to a final goal which God himself will bring about in the near future, in a particular way that is already revealed.

The understanding of apocalyptic thought here proposed accords with the definition of apocalyptic developed by a team of scholars within the Society of Biblical Literature led by John J. Collins of the University of Notre Dame:

“Apocalypse” is a genre of revelatory literature with a narrative framework, in which a revelation is mediated by an otherworldly being to a human recipient, disclosing a transcendent reality which is both temporal, insofar as it envisages eschatological salvation, and spatial insofar as it involves another, supernatural world.

(J. J. Collins, ed., Apocalypse, p. 9)

The group based its definition on the analysis of a large number of Jewish, Christian, and Greco-Roman apocalypses. Revelation is not a unique literary or theological work but belongs within a broad stream of Jewish and Christian apocalyptic writings, with some elements closely related to Hellenistic writings resembling apocalyptic. The following documents, some of which are only partly apocalyptic, would be included on most lists as more or less representative of Jewish apocalyptic:

Daniel	165 b.c.e.
First Enoch or Ethiopic Enoch (a collection of apocalyptic books) from ca. 164	b.c.e. onward
Jubilees	ca. 150 b.c.e.
Sibylline Oracles, Book III	from ca. 150 b.c.e. onward
Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs	latter part of second century b.c.e.
Psalms of Solomon	48 b.c.e.
Assumption of Moses	6-30 c.e.
Life of Adam and Eve or Apocalypse of Moses	shortly before 70 c.e.
Testament of Abraham 9-32	ca. c.e. 70-100
Second Enoch or the Book of the Secrets of Enoch	first century c.e.
Sibylline Oracles, Book IV	ca. 80 c.e.
Second Esdras (IV Ezra) 3-14	ca. 90 c.e.
Second Baruch or Apocalypse of Baruch, or Syriac	after 90 c.e.
Third Baruch	second century c.e.
Sibylline Oracles, Book V	second century c.e.
From the Qumran literature (Dead Sea Scrolls):	second century b.c.e. to first part of first century c.e.
Commentaries on Isaiah, Hosea, Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, and Psalm 37
The War of the Sons of Light Against the Sons of Darkness
A Midrash on the Last Days
Description of the New Jerusalem
An Angelic Liturgy
The Prayer of Nabonidus and a Pseudo-Daniel Apocalypse
A Genesis Apocryphon

(Cf. Russell, pp. 36-69. The texts themselves may be read in Charlesworth; the dates given are Russell's.)

Not only were Jewish apocalypses circulating in the first century, the early Christians also produced other apocalyptic books which were not included in the canon, such as the Shepherd of Hermas, the Apocalypse of Peter, and the Book of Elchasai. (The texts themselves may be read in M. R. James or Hennecke and Schneemelcher.)

For many who attempt to interpret Revelation for our day, Revelation and Daniel may represent the only apocalyptic material they have seen. The point of having such a list here is to make clear that this was not the case for the first readers of Revelation. They had the advantage of recognizing that the communication from their prophet John was expressed in a language and thought with which they were already familiar. An excellent exercise for the modern interpreter is to read at least one of the above works; Second Esdras (also called IV Ezra) is readily available in editions of the Bible which include the Apocrypha or Deutero-Canonical books. Revelation will never look the same once one has seen even a small sample of the category of thought to which it belongs.

Some elements of this definition of apocalyptic thought may now be elaborated, in order to apply them more directly to our study of Revelation.

THE FINAL GOAL

As understood here, God's bringing the world and history to an end is a fundamental aspect of apocalyptic thought. Even the casual reader of Revelation must notice that the ending of this world and the beginning of the new world in which God's rule is a reality is a constituent part of John's message (e.g., 6:12-17; 21:1-4). It is important to understand that this is not a morbid or speculative interest of the apocalyptists in general or of John in particular. Their question was not the speculative “Will there be an end of the world?” but “Is God faithful?” Their concern for the ultimate goal of history, that is, whether this world in its present status is ultimate or not, is the theological concern of faith as it responds to a crisis of faith/theology. The apocalyptists lived in impossible situations, when mothers saw their babies killed because they had circumcised them in faithfulness to the Law (Daniel), or when children saw their parents imprisoned or killed because their faithfulness to their confession of Jesus as the only Lord made it impossible for them to yield to the imperial religion (Revelation). In an impossible situation, how can one still believe in the faithfulness of God? It was the honor and integrity of God as God that was at stake, not just human selfish longing for golden streets and pearly gates.

The problem was a problem for both faith and theology, which are inseparable in any case. The problem was not just a conceptual, intellectual crisis, though this element is not to be minimized for faith. Theology is thinking about faith, faith's expression of itself in thought. Theology and faith are not the same, but there can be no faith without theology. Thus the apocalyptists' efforts to make theological sense of their crisis situation was not only an intellectual struggle but a struggle of faith. The problem to which apocalyptic is the response may be generally stated as follows:

1. God has made promises to bless his people (e.g., Deut. 28:1-14) and through his people, the world (e.g., Gen. 12:1-3; Isa. 42:1-4).

2. The people had been unfaithful by not keeping the Law (often the case, especially in the pre-exilic situation); then, when disaster came, there was no conceptual problem; the prophets could declare that the disaster was God's judgment on the people because of their sins. (This, of course, is the burden of most of the prophets of the O.T.; cf. Amos; Isaiah 1-8; Jeremiah.)

3. When, however, the people experienced disaster and persecution because they were faithful (and it was precisely those who were most faithful to Yahweh and the Law who experienced terror and tragedy), what conceptual options were available? One could logically decide that God was unfaithful; he was able to avert tragedy, but he had broken his promise. This was not acceptable to the apocalyptists. Alternatively, one could decide that God was faithful, wanted to reward his people, but was incapable of doing so. For the apocalyptists, to believe in a God who was himself somehow victim of circumstances, who wanted to help his suffering people but was unable, was a denial of faith in God as the Creator and the Almighty; it was a denial that God was God. (Note how often the themes of God as the Creator and God as the Almighty occur in Revelation!)

The apocalyptists' answer represents faith's conceptual effort to hold on to the faithfulness of a God who is the Almighty, who is not himself the victim of the evil in the world. “Apocalyptic preserved the faith” (Napier, p. 332). For apocalyptic thinkers, eschatology was not a separate or optional subject of theology but an aspect of the doctrine of God. The conviction that despite the experienced evil of their situation God was both the almighty creator and was faithful to his covenant promises generated, from the materials available in the eastern Mediterranean, the major themes of apocalyptic thought.

GOD HIMSELF WILL ACT

God is the Almighty and the sole ruler of the world. Otherwise he is unworthy of the name “God.” Yet the terrible evil which continued unabated in the apocalyptists' present meant to them that God could not be directly in control and could not be charged with direct responsibility for the world's evil. Rather, the apocalyptists inferred, on the basis of ideas already present in the biblical and Jewish traditions, that God had delegated aspects of the rulership of the world to angelic beings, who have misused their power, have become demonic, and who will themselves be punished in the great judgment to come (cf. e.g., I Cor. 6:3, where Paul makes use of this apocalyptic idea). Thus apocalyptic thought is “dualistic” in that it typically deals with God and angels on the one hand and Satan and demons on the other. Human beings live their lives at the intersection of these two worlds. Human experience of, and responsibility for, good and evil is seen in the context of the cosmic struggle between God and the powers of evil. For the apocalyptists, the evil of the world is too big to be merely of human doing, and too big to be overcome by human effort (see the “Reflection: Interpreting Revelation's Satan Language”). But the “dualism” is not ultimate, and the outcome of this struggle is not in doubt. The promises have not failed. God will still be faithful. If there is no way for God to fulfill his promises in this world, he will bring this world to an end—not as a gesture of cosmic frustration but as the means to the redemption of the whole creation. This is the reason for the emphasis on the future and the “otherworldliness” of apocalyptic thought. The present situation is so unjust, and the righteous so powerless to correct it, that humanity's only hope is in the intervention of God.

The apocalyptists are “pessimistic” about this world, but their “pessimism” is not ultimate. God's justice will prevail, even though there is no way in this world for it to prevail (except in relative and fragmentary ways that are not to be disdained). This is why apocalyptic thought emphasizes the resurrection and judgment in a transcendent world where the great balancing of books will take place, and why salvation is pictured as breaking into history from the transcendent world rather than arising from immanent good forces or our own efforts in this world. If there is to be redemption for the world, that is, if God is to be considered faithful, then it must come from God himself if it comes at all. The new Jerusalem is not built up from below but comes down out of heaven from God (Rev. 21:2). Those contemporary Christians who live in situations where they see manifestations of the good rule of God about them and have political and economic power which they can use to change some of the evil in this world can understand Revelation better if they remember that it, like apocalyptic in general, was written in and for a different situation. Apocalyptic is an expression of the faith of the politically powerless and oppressed in a situation where the empirical evidence of God's goodness is not to be seen. This is one reason why Revelation has continued to speak directly to the church in times and places where Christians with no political or economic power have experienced inhuman cruelty, such as the Nazi era in Europe or the church today in countries governed by oppressive dictatorships. Response to the message of Revelation is an expression of faith in the faithfulness of God in a situation which gives no indication of it in this world; it is faith's “nevertheless” when “therefore” makes no sense.

FOR APOCALYPTIC, THE END IS NEAR

There is one God who is ultimately in control and who will bring all evil powers, human and otherwise, to account in the great judgment to come. In the meantime, however, these evil powers who know that their time is limited continue to perpetrate evil in this world. For apocalyptic thought, the intensification of evil experienced in the present world is itself an indication that eschatological salvation is near. For the apocalyptists, the suffering of their own times was no random accident or blind fate but part of the plan of God. The persecutions they experienced were part of the necessary struggles of the endtime and revealed that the End was near. Apocalyptists typically did not make speculative predictions of the end of the world at some date centuries hence, which would have been of interest only to futurologists among their contemporaries, but addressed their own generation with the urgency of those who cry out for meaning in their own struggle and suffering. Their question was not “When will the End come?” but “What is the meaning of our suffering?” It was not speculative calculation but the tenacity of faith which came to expression in their conviction that the End must be near. (See the “Reflection: Interpreting the ‘Near End’ in Revelation.”)

EXTENT IN BIBLE

This kind of apocalyptic thought is not a marginal note in the theology of the Bible. Although influenced to some degree by the religious ideas of Israel's neighbors during the Persian period and afterward, apocalyptic was not a late borrowing of foreign ideas but was basically the child of prophecy (Hanson), “prophecy in a new idiom” (Rowley). Already in the later prophetic books of the Old Testament there were transitional elements within which prophecy was fading into apocalyptic (Isa. 56-66; Zech. 9-14; Isa. 24-27), and the latest book in the Old Testament, Daniel (165 b.c.e.) was already a full-blown apocalypse. The appearance of embryonic apocalyptic ideas outside Israel, in such places as the Sibylline Oracles, the Egyptian Demotic Chronicle and Potter's Oracle, the Persian Oracle of Hystapes, and the Roman Fourth Eclogue of Vergil, shows that the development of Jewish apocalyptic was not an isolated phenomenon in its world but that it crystallized, in a way appropriate to Israel's faith, an intellectual phenomenon that was “in the air” (see J. J. Collins, “Sibylline Oracles,” I, 322-23).

In the period “between the Testaments,” however, apocalyptic flowered, so that when the New Testament opens apocalyptic ideas, such as the resurrection of the dead, are already presupposed. Apocalyptic thought was one of the major expressions of Jewish faith in the time of Jesus and the early church, and it formed the framework within which the earliest Christian faith was developed. All the authors of the New Testament were influenced by it in one way or another. The theology of Paul, the first and most prolific of New Testament authors, is thoroughly apocalyptic from the earliest letter (I Thess., cf. e.g., 1:10; 4:13-18) to the latest (whether this be considered Phil., cf. e.g., 1:6, 10; 3:20-21; 4:5, or Rom., cf. e.g., 8:18-25; 13:11). The fundamentally apocalyptic character of Paul's thought comes to expression not only in specific passages such as those mentioned above; it forms the background and framework of his thought as a whole, and thus appears in his greetings and thanksgivings (e.g., I Cor. 1:7-8) and in his premarital counseling (I Cor. 7:25-31). Even I Corinthians 13, the familiar “love chapter,” presupposes the apocalyptic framework (cf. vv. 2, 8-10!). The Gospels and Acts were also written within the framework of apocalyptic thought and have many specific apocalyptic passages (e.g., Mark 13; Matt. 24; Luke 17:20-37; 21:5-36; John 5:25-29; Acts 17:30-31).

Early Christianity's adoption of apocalyptic categories of thought did not mean that Christian authors simply repeated traditional apocalyptic ideas. The fundamental difference was that Christians no longer simply looked forward to some saving event in the eschatological future. God was understood as the one who had already acted decisively in the Christ event. This means that Revelation cannot be reduced to an example of “millenarian piety” that can be adequately grasped by sociological categories used in the study of sectarian movements. Apocalyptic thought was commandeered and used by the early Christians as the vehicle for the expression of a radically new message: The Christ has come and made everything different.

Since the Gospels, Acts, and Paul offer other kinds of thought besides apocalyptic, in interpreting them it is possible for the preacher or teacher to ignore the apocalyptic element and read his or her presuppositions into the text—what Paul Minear aptly calls an “exercise in ventriloquism” (New Testament Apocalyptic, p. 96). Not so with Revelation. Here the interpreter has no place to hide, unless he or she is content to draw a few moralisms from the “seven letters.” One must learn to interpret apocalyptic, or ignore Revelation. But since Revelation and apocalyptic belong not to one of the side eddies of New Testament thought but to the main channel, what one learns from interpreting the apocalyptic message of Revelation opens doors to the New Testament as a whole. While this is simply part of the assignment of being a preacher or teacher of the Bible and is an extremely rewarding task, it is not an easy one.

DIFFICULT TO UNDERSTAND

Preachers and teachers should be hesitant to encourage people to read the Bible on the basis that it is “easy,” a view which pays less respect to the Bible than to other literature written in ancient times. The dimensions of the Bible which make it valuable also make it difficult to understand. It is historical literature, expressed in the languages and cultural assumptions of a particular age and part of the world, written from within a religious conceptuality often alien to us (e.g., animal sacrifice). Biblical truth is never general moralisms, or narratives that begin “once upon a time,” but always presupposes the historical realities and particularities of human existence—and not “human existence” in the abstract but the particular human experience of the people addressed in a certain time and place. This particularity of the biblical message corresponds to the particularity of the incarnation and is an indispensable aspect of biblical truth. It is also what makes the Bible difficult for readers in other times and places to understand, for it requires historical study.

Preachers and teachers who approach the Bible in this way often meet a sincere objection: “Does this mean that only those who have learned a lot of historical information and are equipped with historical method can understand the Bible? Can the sincere believer not find an authentic word of God just by reading the Bible? Is it really necessary to know about Roman emperors and the situation of churches in ancient Turkey to understand Revelation?” The objection contains an important truth, just as it fails to make an important distinction. Quite apart from historical study, the sincere reader of the Bible open to God's word can be addressed by the Word of God through Bible reading. We might well be grateful that God does not wait on our perfect understanding before addressing us with his Word. But this is different from understanding. We can be addressed, spoken to in a way that shapes our existence, even by that which we do not understand completely, as every traveler in a foreign country knows. But understanding, whether it be the language and customs of a foreign country or the message of a biblical text, is difficult and requires study. This is true of Revelation as it is true of biblical books as a whole.

There are, however, particular difficulties inherent in Revelation which make our efforts to understand it even more difficult than other parts of the Bible: Revelation is written in an apocalyptic conceptuality alien to us. It deals with angels, demons, dragons, and beasts in the heavens. It describes the end of the world. It presupposes a view of the cosmos that clashes with our ideas of the structure of the universe: heaven, for instance, is a place to which John can be “caught up” to receive his vision (4:1) and from which the new Jerusalem can “come down” at the end of history (21:2). It is written in a kind of symbolic (not code!) language unfamiliar to us. And another difficulty is presented to many modern western readers: It was written by deprived, oppressed people who had no political or economic power, and knew they were not “in control.”

The chief difficulty in understanding Revelation, however, may be neither historical nor conceptual but a matter of the heart. Biblical prophets offer a vision of reality which conflicts with the natural inclinations of the human will and its values (I Cor. 2:6-16). This is powerfully illustrated by John's vision of self-sacrificing love, the slaughtered Lamb, as representing the ultimate power of the universe (5:1-14), which not only goes against the grain of our cultural and conceptual understanding but also conflicts with our commonsense will to power. John's claim that this vision of reality is not our own achievement, the result of our own calculation, but is revealed, intensifies a claim latent in all the Bible, a claim to address us with a word from Beyond, a word we naturally resist. Revelation not only claims something about itself, it makes a claim on the reader, a claim we may not want to hear. This native resistance to the call to discipleship may be the ultimate barrier to understanding the message of Revelation. True understanding of Revelation requires belonging to the community in which the same Spirit that inspired John's message continues to be active. This is not an alternative to historical understanding, but it does go beyond it.

CAN BE UNDERSTOOD

John expected the ordinary men and women of the churches of Asia to understand the book, though they were not Bible scholars, historians, or theological experts. They did not find it necessary to have study groups to discuss its meaning. Nor did they seal up the book for later centuries, when it would be understood (22:10, and contrast Dan. 12:4, 9). The issue for them was not what the book meant, which was transparent in their situation, but whether or not they would respond to its call to the kind of faithfulness advocated by John, even to the point of dying for the faith (2:10!). In succeeding generations, as the original situation of the letter which made it understandable was forgotten, the church which continued to reverence Revelation as a part of its Bible developed other ways of interpreting it. It is instructive to read a thorough history of the interpretation of Revelation (e.g., Bousset, pp. 49-119, still the best through the nineteenth century; cf. also Beckwith, pp. 318-34).

TYPES OF INTERPRETATION

One of the many unhelpful myths that abound with regard to Revelation is that through the centuries everyone has arbitrarily interpreted the book in his or her own way, resulting in an endless variety of interpretations, a trackless jungle. The fact is, Revelation has been interpreted in basically four different ways and their combinations, depending on which historical period the individual interpreter supposed was represented by the visions.

1. The first view can be labeled non-historical. (It is also sometimes called “poetic,” “spiritual,” or “idealist.”) It interprets Revelation assuming that the author directs his message to no particular historical period and that the visions reflect no particular historical situation. Prophecy is understood as the visionary expression of “timeless truths.” There are two forms of this view, the allegorical and the idealist. After the memory of the historical situation of John's letter faded, the allegorical approach was applied to Revelation as it was to other books of the Bible. In allegory the details of biblical texts are not related to particular historical situations but refer to ideas or events that are universally human. Origen, for instance, interpreted the beast with seven heads of Revelation 13 as representing the awfulness of the power of evil and the seven deadly sins, whenever and wherever they appeared.

When the allegorical approach to biblical interpretation passed away, a few interpreters of Revelation continued to read it unhistorically in terms of the spiritual truths symbolized in its visions, the eternal struggle of the kingdom of God with the powers of evil and the ultimate triumph of God's kingdom (Minear, Ellul, Stringfellow). The value of this approach is that it allows Revelation to speak to people in every time and place in terms of universal human symbols. But it ignores or minimizes the specific historical references in Revelation to its first-century situation, robs it of anything specific to say to its first readers who were facing a particular crisis, reduces its message to generalities, and denies its character as a real letter.

2. The church-historical interpretation is also called the continuous-historical or the world-historical view. Prophecy is understood as prediction of the long-range future. To be sure, the messages to the seven churches of chapters 2-3 are regarded as addressed to churches of John's own time, but the visions of 4-22 are interpreted as predictions of all of history from John's time through many centuries to the end of the world. In practice this meant that each interpreter saw John as predicting the course of history down to his or her own time. Practitioners of this approach typically see themselves as living in the last period predicted by Revelation. The author of the oldest extant commentary on Revelation, Victorinus of Pettau (ca. 300), understood himself to be living in the time of the sixth seal, just before the End (Bousset, p. 53). A certain parochialism is inherent in this view: Since it flourished in Europe, John was seen as predicting the course of European history, primarily church history, from the first century to the interpreter's own time. Various seals and trumpets are supposed to represent various events and rulers in European history, and the disasters they brought about. Following Luther, Protestant exegetes often saw the Papacy symbolized by the beast. Roman Catholics, in turn, found ways to make the name “Martin Luther” equal 666 (cf. 13:18). Because there is no agreement among the exponents of this view, which has generated a bewildering variety of interpretations, Revelation has the reputation of being interpreted in many different ways. However, all these are variations of one interpretation.

The value of the church-historical view was that it allowed the reader to see Revelation as relevant to his or her own time, which it supposedly predicted, and it affirmed that all of history was under the sovereignty of God. The major problems, of course, are apparent: (a) The book would have meant nothing to its first readers, who would have to wait centuries before it could be properly understood; (b) it misunderstands prophecy by reducing it to prediction; (c) the variety of interpretations cancel each other out and invalidate the method. Although widely held by Protestant interpreters after the Reformation and into the twentieth century, no critical New Testament scholar today advocates this view.

3. The end-historical, also called the “futurist,” “dispensationalist,” and “pre-millennialist” interpretation, likewise considers the prophecy of Revelation to be prediction, but it differs from the preceding view in two important ways: (a) The seven churches of chapters two and three are no longer seven real churches in first-century Asia but represent seven periods of church history from the apostolic church (Ephesus) to the dead church of the last days (Laodicea)—typically understood as the apostate church in the interpreter's own time. This interpretation has always flourished outside the “mainline” churches, which are considered to be degenerate. (b) The remainder of the book (chaps. 4-22) predicts only the events that are to happen in the last few years of world history and the eschatological events themselves. This means that most of the book predicts events still in the future of the advocates of this interpretation, who unanimously see themselves as living in the time just before the final countdown. The beast of chapter 13, for instance, is a monstrous ruling power yet to appear, “the last form of Gentile world power,” a confederation of ten nations which will be the revival of the old Roman Empire (Scofield Reference Bible note on Rev. 13:1). This interpretation is correct to the extent that it recognizes that Revelation deals with eschatology and foresees only a short time before the End. Among its major problems is that it locates this brief interval in the interpreter's lifetime, thus making the whole book meaningless to its first readers. It too misconstrues the nature of prophecy and the kind of language used in Revelation and usually supports a sectarian understanding of Christianity.

It is this interpretation that has become so pervasive among media “evangelists” and the purveyors of pop-eschatological literature. It is an insidiously dangerous interpretation of Revelation, since it often advocates the necessity of a nuclear war as part of God's plan for the eschaton “predicted” in Revelation. The preacher or teacher might well be aware of the historical roots and rationale for this interpretation. This is the most recent of the four types of interpretation, its basic lineaments having been devised by a group of British and American fundamentalist ministers during the late nineteenth century's concern for the “apostasy” of the church. It was congealed into a doctrinal system by John Nelson Darby within the group of Plymouth Brethren in England, then popularized in America by Charles Ingersoll Scofield. Scofield was a St. Louis lawyer-turned-preacher without theological education who published an edition of the Bible, the Scofield Reference Bible, with his interpretative scheme embodied in the footnotes and incorporated into the outline headings of the biblical text itself. Scofield founded the Correspondence Bible School in Dallas, Texas, as his own personal enterprise, not representing any church. The Correspondence Bible School continued after Scofield's death as Dallas Theological Seminary and has been the major center for the dissemination of this dispensational view. (Further details of dispensationalism are found in Ahlstrom, pp. 808-12. On recent militarist use of Revelation to advocate nuclear war, see Halsell.)

4. In the contemporary-historical interpretation, “contemporary” refers to John and his contemporaries, not to the period contemporary with the reader. This view is also called “preterist” (a grammatical term equivalent to “past tense”), historical, and historical-critical. Except for the potential confusion with the “church-historical” view above, we could simply designate this view as the “historical” interpretation. That is, it is simply the application of historical method to the study of Revelation, attempting to determine the meaning of a text in its original historical context, to its original readers, before attempting to determine its meaning to us. This interpreation understands Revelation to be directed to a particular situation in the first century, just as were the other New Testament letters. This is the view detailed above and represented in this commentary, as it is the method followed by practically all critical Bible scholars of all theological persuasions today. Contrary to popular supposition, there is a broad consensus of agreement among such scholars on the interpretation of Revelation, more than for most New Testament books. This view assumes that John had a message to the churches to which he was writing which concerned their own situation, that they understood the message, and that the modern interpreter cannot accept any interpretation of the book which its first readers would not have understood. Exactly as in the case of interpreting Paul's letter to Rome, the interpreter assumes that legitimate interpretation must be responsible to and derived from the meaning the text had for its original readers, even if it does not simply repeat it.

INTERPRETING SYMBOLIC, MYTHOLOGICAL LANGUAGE

In interpreting Revelation two types of language need to be distinguished and contrasted. These are not simply “figurative” and “literal,” for “figurative” language can be interpreted with a kind of pedestrian literal-mindedness (see Funk, pp. 111-38). The issue is not just “literal” or “figurative” but “propositional” or “pictorial.” John of course uses both types of language, not only pictorial. Human life cannot function without the everyday use of propositional language. But the message of John's visions is expressed primarily in pictorial language, which can best be characterized in comparison and contrast to propositional language:

PROPOSITIONAL LANGUAGE IS OBJECTIFYING LANGUAGE.

It supposes it is talking about objects, realities that can be grasped by our minds and described by our language. This style of discourse tends to suppose that all true language refers to something “out there” in the “real” world and that language is serving its proper truth function when it accurately describes this reality. It supposes that the only alternative to this kind of language is “subjective,” to which the condescending adjective “merely” is often prefixed. Subjectivity is disdained; truth is best described “objectively,” from the spectator, non-involved standpoint.

PROPOSITIONAL LANGUAGE MAY USE “SYMBOLS,” BUT ONLY IN A LITERALIZING MANNER, AS “SIGNS” OR “STENO SYMBOLS.”

It understands “symbols” as codes for literal, objectifying meanings. The Greek letter “Pi” is a symbol in this sense for the relationship between the circumference and the radius of a circle, as are mathematical symbols in general. This type of symbol can readily be translated into propositional language, for which it is only a convenient shorthand designation.

PROPOSITIONAL LANGUAGE IS LOGICAL.

It operates within the canons of logic and inference, and thus makes consistency a criterion of truth.

PROPOSITIONAL LANGUAGE IS DIACHRONIC.

It deals with things one at a time, in a straightforward and chronological manner, prizes this kind of clarity as an indication of truth, and considers the attempt to deal with “everything at once” to be a mark not of profundity but of confusion.

PROPOSITIONAL LANGUAGE CONTRASTS “MYTH” WITH “TRUTH.”

Propositional language tends to use “mythical” as a synonym for “false,” and to contrast it with “fact,” which is equated with “truth.” At most, “myth,” like “symbol,” may be used in a decorative or illustrative manner for something which supposedly can be said more clearly in straightforward propositional language.

To a degree greater than other apocalyptic texts, the language of Revelation is visionary language that deals in pictures rather than propositions. Pictures themselves are important to John as the vehicle of his message. They are not mere illustrations of something that can be said more directly. A picture makes its own statement, is its own text. It does not communicate what it has to say by being reduced to discursive, propositional language. Just as is the case in visiting an art gallery, while commentary and explanation may help one to “get the picture,” language about the picture can never replace the message communicated in and through the picture itself.

In preaching and teaching it may be helpful to point out that John gives us images by which to imagine the ultimate End of all things, just as Genesis gives us images by which to imagine ultimate beginnings. It is not only a matter of religious faith, but is the accepted scientific view, that there will be an end to our present cosmos, just as there was a beginning. How should we think of it? Ultimates can best be expressed in pictures, especially word pictures, by artists, rather than in logical, propositional statements. Most of those who struggle to interpret Revelation will already have worked out a way to interpret the pictures of Genesis 1-3 that does not take them literally but still takes them seriously as the vehicle of God's word and on this basis can appreciate that picture language is the best medium for dealing with ultimates. Just as the pictures in Genesis need not conflict with the pictures of the origins of the universe and human life given by scientific research but communicate the meaning of the origin of the universe as God's creation and the origins of humanity as God's creatures, so the pictures of Revelation communicate the meaning of the end and goal of history without claiming to give scientific descriptions of it. The honest question naturally arises, “Why should one take these images more seriously than others” (bang, whimper)? The response of biblical faith: “The pictures of ultimate beginnings in Genesis and the ultimate ending in Revelation are not arbitrarily devised pictures, but they represent the collection of canonical images filtered through generations of Israel's and the church's faith, a process in which the Spirit of God was active.”

We may now characterize Revelation's pictorial language in contrast to the propositional language described above:

REVELATION'S PICTORIAL LANGUAGE IS NON-OBJECTIFYING.

Revelation does not “teach” a “doctrine” of the “second coming,” the “millennium,” and such, but holds vivid pictures before us, pictures which point beyond themselves to ultimate reality. The non-objectifying pictorial language of Revelation acknowledges that our language and concepts cannot grasp ultimate reality as it is; it can only point toward ultimate reality. This does not mean that pictorial language gives up its claim to talk about it. The language of Revelation is not only expressive poetry, it is also referential language. It is glad to abandon any claim to describe this reality in an objectifying manner, for the reality to which it points transcends anything that can be objectively described by finite minds and language. But the content of Revelation is not just the subjective poetic outpourings of John's own religious experience. What John has to say does indeed refer to something: God's transcendent world and the ultimate goal of the creation. It points to these transcendent realities in a language which knows the limitation of language itself to express them (cf. 10:4 and the commentary ad loc.). It cannot fully describe or communicate them. It points—but it points to something.

The language of Revelation is not descriptive spectator language. In interpreting Revelation it must never be forgotten that the letter was written to be read in worship. Its language is the participatory, confessional language of the involved worshiper, not the cool abstractions of the observer. Its statements are not to be taken as premises on which a chain of logical inferences can be built in order to construct doctrine; its statements are confessions of prayer and praise. Profoundly theological as it is, its language is more akin to the Psalter than to a volume of systematic theology. Although the surface form of John's language is often that of a reporter describing what he has seen in the heavenly world, it does not actually function that way, and it is misunderstood if taken as descriptive spectator language. Many of the scenes John describes simply cannot be imaged. Not only can they not be placed on a canvas or movie screen, they cannot be placed on the screen of the mind. The vision of the exalted Christ in 1:12-16, for example, simply becomes grotesque if one attempts to understand it as a reporter's account of what John actually saw in the objective world. If one understands it as a description in objectifying language, one must then ask such questions as how the risen Christ spoke at all, with a sharp two-edged sword coming from his mouth, and what happened to the sword when he closed his mouth? The picture does become meaningful when understood as John's literary composition, however, in which the sword had traditionally symbolized the sharpness and power of God's word (cf. Isa. 49:2; Heb. 4:12; Eph. 6:17). John's language is not discursive, propositional logic, but neither is it description of scenes that can be imaged. His language stands on the border between word and picture: carefully crafted literary words that function to evoke “images” in the imagination that cannot really be imaged—one “feels the impact” (J. J. Collins, “Introduction,” p. 79), though one cannot quite portray, even to oneself, what the “images” convey.

REVELATION'S SYMBOLS ARE TENSIVE, EVOCATIVE, AND POLYVALENT.

Revelation's pictorial language is not to be understood as steno symbols, code or allegory (which can also be used in their literal sense by propositional language). All these are only alternate forms of propositional language.

Revelation is not code-language, which communicates what it has to say by being translated into propositional language. For code-language, all one needs is the key. Code-language intentionally does not say what it means, in order to conceal the meaning from those who do not know the code. Code-language represents one letter, word, concept by another in such a manner that the encoded language can be decoded into another language. Code is thus a kind of literal language. This is different from John's symbolic language, which is polyvalent. It has sometimes been suggested that in view of the political situation under which Revelation was written John wrote his message in code so the Christians but not the Roman authorities could understand it. This view is false on several counts: (a) Only a fraction of the visionary material deals with Rome, yet all the visions are expressed in symbolic language; (b) the references to Rome are transparent (e.g., 17:9, 18), so that only a very dull Roman would be fooled; (c) there are many undisguised statements that could be taken as subversive by the Romans—the many references to God or Christ as a king (11:15), even the ruler of earthly kings and King of kings (1:5; 17:14; 19:16), titles claimed by the Roman emperors, as well as the references to Christians having a kingdom (1:6); (d) unlike a code, John's symbols are not arbitrarily devised but are traditional and widespread (The combat myth at the basis of the imagery in chapters 12 and 13, for instance, was shared in one version or another by every people in the Greco-Roman world); (e) John used symbols in order to communicate that which cannot be expressed in any other way, not to conceal something that could be said more straightforwardly. The question was not who was meant by the imagery—that it was the Roman power was transparent to all. The question was rather what the Roman power represented. With reference to the Roman government, John does not veil whom he really means; he writes to reveal the essential nature of the Roman power, which was not at all obvious to many members of John's churches (apocalypse means literally “removing the veil”).

The open-ended, polyvalent nature of John's symbolism means that, although the particular referent of John's imagery in his situation can often be identified with some probability, the significance of his language is not exhausted when, for example, the beast is identified with Rome, Nero, or Domitian. It is this evocative, polyvalent potential that allows his imagery to speak powerfully in more than one set of historical circumstances. “Babylon” (17:1-14), for instance, is not a univocal code-word simply identical with “Rome”—though that was the meaning in John's situation. Later generations of Christians have rightly used John's imagery to expose the true nature of arrogant human empire. This is different, of course, from claiming that John “predicted” these later situations. Thus the purpose of this commentary is not to offer a “decoded” version of Revelation. The modern reader misses the richness and power of Revelation's “visionary rhetoric” (Fiorenza, Book of Revelation, p. 187) if he or she supposes that what John was “really” talking about is achieved merely by scratching “Babylon” and inserting “Rome.” Such reductionistic interpretation, valid as it sometimes is at one level, may actually serve as a way of insulating the modern reader from what Revelation may speak to us. “Explanation” is still not understanding; treating John's symbols as code is still not interpretation.

Revelation was not written primarily in allegorical language, although the document does contain a few allegorical touches. In allegory each feature of the vision or narrative represents some other reality. An example of allegorical interpretation can be found in Matthew 13:36-43, which interprets the parable of 13:24-30. When Revelation's visions are interpreted allegorically, each feature in the vision represents some mundane reality. An allegorical interpretation of the dragon in 12:3-4, for instance, would attempt to determine the meaning of the seven heads, the ten horns, the color red, the tail, and the third of the stars. While John himself occasionally interprets such details in a somewhat allegorical fashion (e.g., 1:20; 5:8; 17:9-10; 19:8), in the main his visions convey their message by means of the evocative impression they make as a whole. The vivid details serve as stage-setting, round out the picture, and enliven the total vision, but each detail is not allegorically important in itself.

Revelation is not signs but symbolic vision. John's language is not the language of signs that may be translated unambiguously into propositional language. Paul Tillich's distinction between “sign” and “symbol” is helpful here (Dynamics, pp. 41-42). “Sign” language is represented, for example, by traffic signs, which may be translated unambiguously into another medium, while the Eucharist is a symbol that cannot be reduced to something else. A national flag may be perceived either as sign or symbol. When the American flag is “explained” on the level that the thirteen stripes represent the thirteen original states, while the fifty stars represent the fifty current states, it is being interpreted as a sign. But when it is proudly carried in a patriotic parade or burned in a protest, its symbolic nature is clear. Both levels can be present at once, as the flag illustration indicates, so that the same vision in Revelation can be read at more than one level at the same time.

Neither is John's symbolic language the language of steno symbols that, like signs, can be reduced to discursive, objectifying language. The distinction between steno symbols and tensive symbols, made popular by Philip Wheelwright, is helpful in obtaining an adequate interpretation of John's symbols. Wheelwright's “steno symbols” are like Tillich's “signs,” in that they do not produce any tension in the mind and would defeat their purpose if they did. Again, traffic signs may serve as the illustration: In traffic lights “red” means “stop,” period. The traffic sign or signal is straightforward and unambiguous and would make havoc of the intersection if it were otherwise. A tensive symbol, on the other hand, sets up a tension in the mind, evokes images and overtones of meaning, and by involving the hearer-reader in the act of communication conveys a surplus of meaning that cannot be reduced to propositional language, or even to one level of meaning. A Lamb that shepherds (7:17) is a tensive symbol, as is the Lion that is a Lamb (5:5-6). A tensive symbol does not convey a clear “concept” that may be stated in objective discursive language. Tensive symbols are not informational; John's symbolic language does not function to convey objective information about the heavenly world.

REVELATION'S PICTORIAL LANGUAGE IS NON-LOGICAL AND NON-INFERENTIAL.

The language of Revelation is not logically consistent language. Since John's language attempts to communicate the reality of God's transcendent world, it cannot and does not adhere to the laws of logical propositional language. This does not mean that John is irrational but that the ultimate realities he attempts to communicate shatter such language. Interpreters of Revelation should not attempt to fit John's surrealistic pictures into the logical and chronological confines of a space-time world.

Pictorial language can communicate the message expressed by a certain picture, vision, or symbol without affirming all the implications of the message if it were reduced to propositional language. Such pictorial language says what it says, not what it implies; it does not function as part of a larger logical inferential system. The Genesis narrative gives the reader a picture of Cain marrying and begetting children (Gen. 4:17). If one reduces this picture to linear logic, Cain's wife can only have been his sister (cf. Gen. 1-3). Yet the picture of Cain's wife does not even raise the question of who she was or where she came from, let alone “answer” it. Such questions miscontrue the kind of pictorial language as objectifying propositional language from which inferences can legitimately be made. Likewise, the pictorial language of Revelation presents us with images, each of which conveys its message evocatively and impressionistically, not in an objectifying manner from which inferences can be made. To ask how the sea can give up the dead in 20:13 when it has already passed away with “earth and heaven” (the universe of Gen. 1:1; cf. NEB, TEV) in 20:11 is to misconstrue John's language, the same kind of question as “Where did Cain get his wife?” The truth of each picture is what it says, not the points that can be inferred from it. If John's language is misconstrued as inferential language from which additional “points” can be inferred, the result is a conglomeration of conflicting points—indication enough that his pictures do not function in terms of linear logic.

REVELATION'S PICTORIAL LANGUAGE IS NOT DIACHRONIC BUT SYNCHRONIC.

It functions not in terms of linear logic but as a gestalt of simultaneous images. The coherence of the Apocalypse is not the unity of linear logic of the type that could be represented in a two-dimensional chart or list of propositional statements but “a web interlaced in different ways” (Thompson, p. 16). We thus find numerous instances where John has more than one picture of the same ultimate reality, pictures which if reduced to propositional language clash with each other logically (e.g., the two books in 20:12; cf. commentary). While picture language is a better vehicle for dealing with ultimates than discursive propositional language, no one picture can capture or convey the reality of its subject matter. Thus a plurality of pictures of the same reality are found in Revelation, pictures that cannot be logically harmonized if reduced to statements, and yet pictures that cannot be reduced to one picture. No one picture can comprehend the ultimate, nor can all the pictures be fitted together into one super-picture. More than one picture is necessary when attempting to communicate transcendent truth. Conflicting pictures should not be “harmonized” with a pseudoconciliatory “both/and” or “partly/partly.” Each should carry its full message even when it cannot be logically harmonized with other pictures. For example, Revelation sometimes pictures Christ as in heaven, enthroned above the turmoil of earth. The “point”: Christ has already suffered, died, and triumphed, and stands behind this as a model for suffering Christians. Yet Christ is also pictured as present with his community, sharing their suffering. As propositional, objectifying language, these statements can only compete with each other; as pictures, both communicate christological reality, and neither picture should be sacrificed to the other. This logical and chronological oddity of John's symbolic language is not a defect but of the essence of symbolic language that deals with the ultimate.

REVELATION'S PICTORIAL LANGUAGE USES MYTH AS THE VEHICLE OF TRUTH.

John regards the conflict that rages between the values of the Roman religion and culture and those of the Christian faith to be a clash of transcendent realities: God versus Satan, which can be adequately expressed only in mythological language. The word “myth” is used in many senses. Here it is used to designate that kind of metaphorical narrative language that expresses the reality of the transcendent world in this-worldly imagery (the only imagery we have or could understand). Mythical language is the vehicle for expressing what one wants to say about the transcendent world, the world of divine reality not subject to empirical, scientific language.

The preacher and teacher will need to be clear about the nature and value of mythological language. Those whom he or she is attempting to help understand Revelation will have different assessments of “myth.” Some will have a “scientific” view of the world that is suspicious of all mythical language, has difficulty in taking it seriously, and/or is offended by it. Others may identify “believing the Bible” with understanding mythical pictorial language as objectifying language, even if they concede that it is “symbolic” in the sense that propositional language uses “symbols,” which is still a kind of literalism (“literal non-literal,” cf. Funk).

WORTH THE EFFORT TO UNDERSTAND

A realistic appraisal indicates that it will take considerable effort to understand Revelation. Why should anyone make the effort? There are at least five reasons: canonical, apologetic/defensive, political, cosmic/environmental, fitness.

1. CANONICAL.

Revelation is a part of our Bible. We are concerned with knowing and understanding Revelation for the same reason we are concerned to hear and understand the Bible as such: to measure the message we set forth as the Christian faith by its normative documents, to avoid having this message become merely the echo of the religiosity of our culture or of our own psyches.

2. APOLOGETIC/DEFENSIVE.

Revelation will not lie dormant; it will always be interpreted by someone for the church and for the population at large. If responsible interpreters within the mainstream of church tradition do not make the effort to set forth the message of Revelation in terms that are faithful both to the Scripture and to our own times, this task goes by default to others. Christian preachers and teachers have a responsibility inherent in the task of ministry to offer a viable alternative to irresponsible and sensationalist interpreters.

3. POLITICAL.

We are political beings who live our lives in social, political structures. Revelation is a political book. It was not written for the individualist oriented to the other world who is concerned only with getting his or her own soul to heaven. Revelation was written to people in Christian communities who had to come to terms with hard political and social decisions. A clash of loyalties occupies the book, which has among its primary images “throne,” “kingdom,” “power”; it concludes with the vision of a redeemed city, not a picture of isolated individuals on solitary clouds.

4. COSMIC/ENVIRONMENTAL.

Revelation is concerned with the fate of the earth and the cosmos. In our generation talk of “the end of the world” is heard not only among Bible scholars, theologians, and church people but also among physicists, geologists, astronomers, politicians. Cosmos (Sagan) and The Fate of the Earth (Schell), two widely read serious and thoughtful books, are concerned with human responsibility for the earth in a context where the “end of the world” is a real possibility. Study of Revelation lets such discussions be heard in an illuminating Christian theological context.

5. FITNESS.

“Fitness” means “appropriateness.” Revelation is appropriate for our time because, despite the fact that in many ways its times were unlike our own, there are fundamental ways in which John's time and ours are much alike. John lived in a pre-Christendom situation, before there was a Christian culture with momentum to transmit Christian perspectives and values as part of the cultural heritage. The Christian communities to which he wrote were minorities, in a pluralistic world, without legality, respectability, impressive size, or institutions, who could not depend on the culture to present the Christian option. They were not a reflection of the religiosity of the culture, but within the culture offered a different option for the meaning of life and its values. To be a Christian meant to be a witness to this Christian message. This is why the language of witness and testimony plays such a large role in Revelation. We too live in a situation without Christendom, in which the church is once again a minority in a pluralistic world. Even in western countries, where the remnants of Christendom persist, the church is but one voice in a competing pluralistic society. Revelation has an appropriate message for such a church. “Fitness” also means disciplined, “being in shape.” Study of Revelation can help to equip Christians to be disciples of Christ in a pluralistic world.

ITS INFLUENCE IN RELIGION, HISTORY, AND CULTURE

We may be grateful that Revelation has provided more than a morbid fascination for the religious quacks and cranks of history—it has attracted and inspired the great minds who have shaped the images that have influenced our culture and history. In the history of art one thinks, for example, of Albrecht Dürer's series of woodcuts (e.g., the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, Saint Michael Fighting the Dragon), and The Prophet John and Christ, of Michelangelo's Last Judgment in the Sistine Chapel, of Hubert and Jan van Eyck's Adoration of the Lamb in the Ghent altarpiece. Recent studies have shown that the form of the medieval cathedral, down to the smallest details, was influenced by the pattern of the heavenly city of Revelation 21:1-22:6. In accord with Augustine's exposition of Revelation, which interpreted the church as the city of God in a perpetual state of “descending to earth” (City of God 20.17), artists and architects were much influenced by John's vision of the beauty of the new Jerusalem, which they attempted to reflect in their majestic creations of stone and glass, light and color (cf. Rissi, The Future of the World, p. 39). In music oratorios such as Handel's Messiah come to mind and popular hymns such as Matthew Bridges' “Crown Him with Many Crowns” and language and imagery from many other hymns (“Holy, holy, holy! … casting down their golden crowns around the glassy sea …”). Scholars such as Joseph Priestly (The Present State of Europe, Compared with Ancient Prophecies) and Sir Isaac Newton (Observations on the Prophecies of Daniel and the Apocalypse of John) have been students of Revelation. In literature one could mention George Eliot's Romola, Edmund Spenser's Faerie Queene, D. H. Lawrence's Apocalypse, Dante's Divine Comedy, Thomas Hobbes' Leviathan, and John Milton's Paradise Lost. Revelation's vision of a redeemed social order has provided the stimulus for resistance to injustice and oppression in many settings, influencing, for example, Daniel Berrigan (Beside the Sea of Glass) and Martin Luther King, Jr. (“We Shall Overcome” was inspired by the vision of those who “conquer” by passive resistance in Revelation; “overcome” was the rendering of “conquer” in KJV).

ITS MESSAGE FOR THE CONTEMPORARY CHURCH

The preceding discussion has been written in the conviction that while Revelation does not speak about our time, it does speak to it. As important as Revelation has been for its inspiration for art, music, and literature, its significance for the church is not that of an aesthetic object to be enjoyed but the vehicle of a message to be heard and obeyed. It would be a violation of Revelation's mode of communication to attempt to summarize its message in a manner that would make the text itself unnecessary. The following commentary is not intended as a statement of the meaning of Revelation. It is intended as an aid to facilitate an encounter with the text in which Revelation will communicate its own message in the mind and imagination of the reader.

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NAPIER, B. D. Song of the Vineyard (New York: Harper & Row, 1962).

RISSI, MATHIAS. See 1.c.

ROWLEY, H. H. The Relevance of Apocalyptic (New York: Association Press, 1963).

RUSSELL, D. S. See 1.b

SAGAN, CARL. Cosmos (New York: Random House, 1980).

SCHELL, JONATHAN. The Fate of the Earth (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1982).

STRINGFELLOW, WILLIAM. An Ethic for Christians and Other Aliens in a Strange Land (Waco, Tex.: Word Books, 1973).

THOMPSON, LEONARD J. “The Mythic Unity of the Apocalypse,” in Kent H. Richards, editor, Society of Biblical Literature 1985 Seminar Papers (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1985).

TILLICH, PAUL. Dynamics of Faith (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1957).

WHEELWRIGHT, PHILIP. The Burning Fountain (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1968).