Revelation: Themes

Offers readers an informed, accurate and pastoral background for listening to and reading the Book of Revelation.

Renowned scholar David Aune, author of a leading commentary on the book of Revelation, here offers twenty studies on apocalypticism, the book of Revelation, and related topics. Several essays on the Apocalypse of John explore contextual relationships of the Apocalypse to apocalyptic literature. Other essays center on aspects of the content and interpretation of the Apocalypse itself by investigating issues such as discipleship, narrative Christology, genre, and the problem of God and time. Essays on early Christian prophecy deal with charismatic exegesis in early Judaism and early Christianity, the relationship between Christian prophecy and the messianic status of Jesus, and the prophetic features found in "The Odes of Solomon." Originally published in hardcover by Mohr Siebeck, this collection is now available in paperback.

What is the book of Revelation? Does it describe in veiled language events of its writer's own day, or is it largely a prophecy of events still to come? Is it a chart of the whole of history from Christ's first coming to his second? Or does it deal chiefly with principles which are always valid in Christian experience?And what is a twentieth-century reader to do with creatures covered with eyes, locusts like horses, seven bowls of wrath, war in heaven, various beasts and a dragon?Michael Wilcock maintains tha when God's words, declarations, arguments and reasonings had all been spoken, God gave the church "a gorgeous picture book." Wilcok lifts the curtain on Revelation's drama in eight scenes, helping our imaginations as well as our minds grasp the key concepts of this fascinating and enigmatic New Testament book.

In this lively introduction, J. Nelson Kraybill shows how the book of Revelation was understood by its original readers and what it means for Christians today. Kraybill places Revelation in its first-century context, opening a window into the political, economic, and social realities of the early church. His fresh interpretation highlights Revelation's liturgical structure and directs readers' attentions to twenty-first-century issues of empire, worship, and allegiance, showing how John's apocalypse is relevant to the spiritual life of believers today. The book includes maps, timelines, photos, a glossary, discussion questions, and stories of modern Christians who live out John's vision of a New Jerusalem.

Understanding the Apocalypse reads, and is organized, like a textbook. But it is a remarkably good textbook; Father Harrington delves into the mysteries of St. John not so much to unravel the enigmas, but to explain, plausibly, the symbols, employed; but the final-result is the same. That is, under the author's tutelage, the Scripture, whether one calls it the: Apocalypse or the Book of Revelation, begins to make sense. The mysterious seals, the Lamb, the vision-of the Throne of God, the scrolls, the woes and the trumpets, all are explainable, and explained, by means of an investigation of the authorship, the literary form, the sources, the purpose and the plan of St. John's work.

"Like most people who are lovers of God's word, for a long time, I was very uncomfortable with the Book of Revelation.... But I found that there was a way out of the confusion, a way to hear what God was saying, a means of interpreting the book in the way that God intended..." --from the Introduction In this engaging and responsible volume, Scripture scholar Stephen Doyle uses a three-pronged approach to deciphering the complicated and often-misunderstood Book of Revelation--one that is accessible to a new Bible reader, yet useful to the serious student. Following the directives of the Second Vatican Council's Constitution on Divine Revelation, he helps the reader to: examine the text in light of its original language, understand what the human author meant to communicate, and determine the literary form used and its influence on the meaning of the text. Each chapter begins with a passage of the Book of Revelation, followed by an explanation that searches for the main theme in that passage, and concludes with a reflection that casts light on the meaning of the text for today. A thorough bibliography provides resources for further study.

A user friendly guide to reading and understanding the last and enigmatic book of the New Testament, ideally suited for parish adult bible study groups and college level inquiry.

The Book of Revelation is one of the most difficult of biblical books to understand, depicting the clash of cosmic powers, the interplay of bizarre images, and the specific problems of particular churches in the Roman province of Asia. Despite its opacity, Revelation has enjoyed great influence down through the ages, an influence felt in art, literature, and theology. The relative ease with which its images can be adapted to varied situations, however, has produced problematic interpretations that are far from what the author intended.Many misinterpretations of Revelation result from lack of appreciation of its original contexts: historical, social, literary, theological. To address this problem and to enable today's readers to understand how the book would have been read by early Christians, this commentary makes available the best in recent and classic biblical scholarship on Revelation and its setting. The result is that the reader will see Revelation in its original contexts and thereby fully comprehend it as one possible Christian response to specific conditions in the eastern Roman Empire in the first century."Murphy's commentary is insightful and a pleasure to read. It is an excellent introduction to a fascinating and complex biblical book. I recommend it highly for students, pastors, and lay people." -- Adela Yarbro Collins, University of ChicagoFrederick J. Murphy is professor of religious studies at the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, MA, and the author of The Religious World of Jesus and Pseudo-Philo: Rewriting the Bible.

Stephen Pattemore examines passages within Revelation 4:1–22:21 that depict the people of God as actors in the apocalyptic drama and infers what impact these passages would have had on the self-understanding and behaviour of the original audience of the work. He uses Relevance Theory, a development in the linguistic field of pragmatics, to help understand the text against the background of allusion to other texts. Three important images are traced. The picture of the souls under the altar (6:9–11) is found to govern much of the direction of the text with its call to faithful witness and willingness for martyrdom. Even the militant image of a messianic army (7:1–8, 14:1–5) urges the audience in precisely the same direction. Both images combine in the final image of the bride, the culmination of challenge and hope traced briefly in the New Jerusalem visions.

Contents: Introducing the Narrator and the Son of Man (1:1-1:20) -- Introducing the Audience: Letters to the Seven Churches (2:1-3:22) -- The Heavenly Stage: The Immediate Future in Heaven (4:1-5:14) -- Opening the Seals of Chaos and Suffering (6:1-7:17) -- Sounding the Trumpets (8:1-10:11) -- The Suffering Church (11:1-12:18) -- The Beasts and the Lamb (13:1-14:20) -- The Bowls of Wrath (15:1-16:21) -- Fall of Babylon and Her Godless Allies (17:1-19:21) -- The Longer Future, the Final Victory, and the New Creation (20:1-22:5) -- The Final Message and Our Response (22:6-22:21)

"The Book of Revelation is a work of great significance. Yet among the major works of early Christianity included in the New Testament, it has received the least attention from scholars." "Professor Bauckham looks closely at Revelation's own literary dynamics as a closely integrated literary whole. He investigates Revelation's intertextual relationship with the Hebrew Bible, illustrating how constant disciplined allusion to the Old Testament scriptures is a key element in the way Revelation conveys meaning. There is fresh study of the relationships between Revelation and other Jewish and Christian apocalypses. And there is extensive examination of Revelation's contemporary context." "Revelation emerges as a work of meticulous literary artistry, remarkable creative imagination, radical political critique and profound theology. Above all, its central message, portraying itself as the climax of the biblical prophetic tradition and claiming to reveal the secret of God's purpose for the final coming of God's kingdom, appears with fresh clarity." "This comprehensive investigation continually breaks new ground. Some of Revelation's distinctive literary techniques are identified and studied for the first time; and a wide range of new evidence from Revelation's literary and historical contexts is brought to the elucidation of the text."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved

As the only book of its kind in the New Testament, Revelation can be difficult to understand, and for readers without specialized training, the historical-critical approach used in many commentaries can provide more complication than illumination. Here James Resseguie applies the easily understandable tools introduced in his primer on narrative criticism to this challenging book. He shows how Revelation uses such features as rhetoric, setting, character, point of view, plot, symbolism, style, and repertoire to construct its meaning. This literary approach draws out the theological and homiletical message of the book and highlights its major unifying themes: the need to listen well, an overwhelmingly God-centered perspective, and the exodus to a new promised land. Here is a valuable aid for pastor and serious lay reader alike.

Contents: From Ezekiel to the Book of the Watchers -- Heavenly Ascent and Priestly Investiture -- Transformation and the Righteous Dead -- The Secrets of Nature, Primeval History, and the Order of the Cosmos -- The Apocalypses as Writing.

Contents: Writing, Travel and Letters Among the Early Christians -- Transmission of Letters in the First Century -- The Christian Letters and Their Transmission -- The Letters to the Seven Churches -- Relation of the Christian Books to Contemporary Thought and Literature -- The Symbolism of the Seven Letters -- Authority of the Writer of the Seven Letters -- The Education of St. John in Patmos -- The Flavian Persecution in the Province of Asia as Depicted in the Apocalypse -- The Province of Asia and the Imperial Religion -- The Cities of Asia as Meeting Places of the Greek and the Asiatic Spirit -- The Jews in the Asian Cities -- The Pagan Converts in the Early Church -- The Seven Churches of Asia -- Origin of the Seven Representative Cities -- Plan and Order of Topics in the Seven Letters -- Ephesus: The City of Change -- The Letter to the Church in Ephesus -- Smyrna: The City of Life -- The Letter to the Church in Smyrna -- Pergamum: The Royal City, the City of Authority -- The Letter to the Church in Pergamum -- Thyatira: Weakness Made Strong -- The Letter to the Church in Thyatira -- Sardis: The City of Death -- The Letter to the Church in Sardis -- Philadelphia: The Missionary City -- The Letter to the Church in Philadelphia -- Laodicea: The City of Compromise -- The Letter to the Church of Laodicea -- Epilogue

Participatory theories of revelation --
Artifact or Scripture? --
Revelation at Sinai, maximalist and minimalist approaches --
Command and law in the participatory theology of revelation --
Scripture as tradition, and tradition as Scripture --
Revelation event, process, and eternity --
A modern Jewish approach to Scripture --
Innovation, continuity, and covenant.