Basic Questions & Answers

Basic Questions & Answers • When you read Revelation, what questions are you asking? • What are your presuppositions? We usually get what we are looking for. • Take a moment and state your presuppositions. When you think of the Book of Revelation, What comes to mind? Be specific! • Literary works only answer the questions we ask. They usually do not volunteer information on their own.

Basic Questions & Answers • End of World? • When commentators ask the Apocalypse to describe the end of the world and tell us when it will happen; all kinds of answers arise; all wrong. • Who is anti-Christ? • Not even mentioned in Revelation. • What about rapture? • Sorry, not there either.

Basic Questions & Answers • Each generation of critics/readers bring their own questions: • One asks about the author and the events of the author’s day (Author-centered) • Another asks about the inner world of the text without interest in the author or his day (Text-centered) • Finally, some ask about what the text means to them (Reader-centered)

Basic Questions & Answers • Often these questions of interest are ignored by John the seer. • What is he interested in? What might be a good starting question for this book? • How can we hear the “story” John is telling. Let’s start with a simple observation. How can we read this narrative for its own sake?

Basic Questions & Answers • Many things mitigate against this (besides your presuppositions) • Its complexity • Its strange symbols • Its foreign (other worldly) view of the world • Its ambiguous setting in time and place

Basic Questions & Answers • What is necessary for us as modern readers to hear the “story” or “narrative” of the Apocalypse? • Sense of story’s content • Clues of it’s genre (worldview) • Background of its symbols/images • Identification of its characters • Insight into its overall structure • Understanding of its audience

Basic Questions & Answers • Sense of Content • Note the titular beginning: The Revelation (VApoka,luyij) of Jesus Christ, which God gave Him to show (dei,knumi) to His bond-servants, the things which must shortly take place; and He sent and communicated it by His angel to His bond-servant John, 2 who bore witness to the word of God and to the testimony of Jesus Christ, even to all that he saw. Rev 1:1-2 NASB

Basic Questions & Answers • Sense of Content • Note the titular beginning: The Revelation (VApoka,luyij) of Jesus Christ Is this an objective or subjective genitive? Subjective: Jesus is owner (Jesus’ revelation, His own story) Objective: Jesus is topic (John’s Revelation about Jesus)

Basic Questions & Answers • Sense of Content The Revelation (VApoka,luyij) of Jesus Christ The material itself says: 1:10 - Word (vision) from Jesus 1:19 - Word from Jesus 4:1 - Word from Jesus 22:16 - Word from Jesus (via angel) Subjective: Jesus is owner (Jesus’ revelation, His own story)

Basic Questions & Answers • Sense of Content The Revelation (VApoka,luyij) of Jesus Christ The Revelation which is owned by Jesus The Revelation which proceeds from Jesus Application: The story belongs to Jesus and he performs the central role in it: It is “His Story.”

Basic Questions & Answers • Sense of Content Application: (continued) The recognition that Revelation is primarily about Jesus (not about the future or about the end times or about the United States or identifying the anti-christ) the most crucial insight for understanding this Book. We must keep in mind as we read: • The struggle of Jesus with evil (powers) • His ultimate triumph • A vindication expressed by early believers as his resurrection from the dead to share in the throne of God Thus, the Apocalypse is in its basic sense a re-telling of the story of Jesus utilizing new images; gospel in a different form.

Basic Questions & Answers • Sense of Context • Note the titular beginning: The Revelation (VApoka,luyij) of Jesus Christ, which God gave Him to show (dei,knumi) to His bond-servants, the things which must shortly take place; and He sent and communicated (shmai,nw) it by His angel to His bond-servant John, 2 who bore witness to the word of God and to the testimony of Jesus Christ, even to all that he saw. Rev 1:1-2 NASB

Basic Questions & Answers • Sense of World View • In modern America, we all have access to power and knowledge. John’s view is quite hierarchical and power is brokered thru intermediaries: Patron-client • Audience stands a the end of a long chain of communication GodJesusAngelJohnAudience

Basic Questions & Answers • Sense of World View • World is not just hierarchical in orientation but is also dualistic: World above and world below This can be seen in the Beings/people who communicate the message but also in what is communicated (semeia/signs). This means the Revelation will be housed in signs or signals (cf. Gospel of John 2-11).

Basic Questions & Answers • Sense of World View • Semeia/Signs: We must never stop at the surface meaning of the text. What we see and hear will probably push us to a deeper level. • Signs are the most appropriate way to communicate because the world described here exists on two levels; heaven and earth: above and below. • These things are intimately linked. Something done on one level (earth) affects things on another (heaven) and visa-versa.

Basic Questions & Answers • Sense of World View GodJesusAngelJohn [John] testified/witnessed to the word of God and to the testimony of Jesus Christ, as much as/as far as he saw. Things above Blessed is he who reads and those who hear the words of the prophecy, and keeps/obeys the things which are written in it; for the time is near. Things below

Basic Questions & Answers The Political cartoon

Basic Questions & Answers • Symbols of sound and sight • Not only is the world multi-leveled, and multi-faceted (past, present, future), but its also multi-media (seen, heard). • John reports what he sees (1:2) and the book is in the form of one vision. But within the vision John reports both seeing and hearing. Often what is heard will help interpret what was seen, giving the inner reality of the outward appearance.

Symbols in RevelationRef. Symbol John’s interpretation1:8 Alpha and Omega The One who was, who is, and who is coming1:20 Seven stars and lamps Angels and churches8:3 Angel with censer Prayers of the saints10:1-11 Little open book Must prophesy again11:7 Great city, Sodom Where the Lord was crucified13:6 God’s tabernacle Those dwelling on earth13:18 Six-sixty-six Number of (a) human14:14-20 Winepress Wrath of God17:9-15 Seven heads Seven mountains and kings17:12 Ten horns Ten kings18:21 Angel with millstone Babylon cast down19:8 The fine linen of the bride The righteous deeds of the saints19:11-16 One on a white horse Word of God

Basic Questions & Answers • Symbols of sound and sight • Many of the symbols are ordinary and thus understandable: God, churches, prayers, death of Jesus, etc. • Thus, many of the images which are bizarre (dragons, beasts, whores, battles) may also be common elements of Christian tradition as well.

Basic Questions & Answers • Symbols of sound and sight • Many of the symbols of the story are better heard than seen (e.g., beast with 7 heads). How would you draw such a creature? But one can hear what is meant. • Just as the seven eyes of the Lamb are better heard as “perfect insight” and not pictured (5:6).

Basic Questions & Answers • Symbols of sound and sight • Another way to interpret symbols in Revelation is to look at John’s use of intertextuality (use of other literary references to make a point) • John never directly quotes another OT book (i.e., “it is written…”) and never uses the fulfillment paradigm (i.e., “This happened to fulfill the prophet…”). • Possibly as many as 635 OT allusions/echoes • But notice the extensive use of the OT in Rev. 1:1-18.

Intertextual Echoes in the Opening SceneRef. Other Literature Echo1:9 Dan 8:15; 1 Enoch 12:3; Prophet names self in vision scene 4 Ezra 3:11:10 Ezek 3:12, 2:2 Hears loud sound behind him while in in the Spirit1:12 Zech 4:2 Lampstand, seven lamps 1:13 Dan 7:13, 10:5 One like a human being Clothed, girded with gold belt1:14-16 Dan 7-10 Elements of the description: white hair, fiery eyes, brasslike feet1:15 Ezek 43:2 Voice like many waters1:16 Isa 11:4; 49:2 Sword (rod) of mouth1:17 Dan 10:7-9 Vision causes prophet to fall to the ground1:18 Dan 10:10-11 Seer touched by visionary visitor, comforted and addressed

Basic Questions & Answers • Symbols of sound and sight • Another way to interpret symbols in Revelation is to understand the use of numbers.

John’s Use of NumbersOne/first Primary, excellenceThree The spiritual order Four The created order Seven Perfection (contrast six) Ten Totality Twelve Israel (God’s People) Three & one-half The number of evil Multiples & repetitions Intensification

Basic Questions & Answers • Symbols of sound and sight • Examples of numbers. 144,000 (Rev 7:4)=12x12 10x10x10 12 and 10 = totality of Israel 3 ½ years (Rev 11:2; 13:5) 1260 days (Rev 11:3; 12:6) a time, times, and half a time (12:14) See also Daniel 7:25; 12:7 = broken 7 the time of evil = little time vs. 1,000 years Rev 20 = time is near (see 1:3, 2:10)

Basic Questions & Answers • Symbols of sound and sight • Examples of animals. Horse – conquest Lamb - sacrifice Eagle, lion, ox head of their respective domain air, wilderness, cultivated land Multiple heads – multiple rulers Multiple horns – measure of power

Basic Questions & Answers • Symbols of sound and sight • Examples of colors. White – divine world; victory (not purity) Black – suffering; disaster (not evil) Red – bloody power; strife/war Green/pale - death

Basic Questions & Answers • Symbols of sound and sight Application of symbols to the interpretation of the Apocalypse. • Much of Rev can be understood with minimal of decoding • Symbols are never one-for-one correspondence, like a code book. It does not mean something as much as it implies something. It demands an imaginative act • Symbols allow us to express what can not be said in words. Some of our most cherished traditions are in symbols. Cultures are defined by its symbols. • Symbols carry not just meaning but affect.

Basic Questions & Answers