This is the first installment of a three-part series.
We've survived Harold Camping. We survived Y2K, albeit with less distress than our ancestors survived Y1K. The world has survived end-time predictors as diverse as Billy Graham, William Miller and Jonathan Edwards. Now we face the purported final year of the Mayan Calendar.
Nevertheless, most Christian bookstores devote entire sections to the sort of "Bible Prophecy" literature that uses the Book of Revelation, among other biblical literature, to tell us that we are currently living in the last days.
Here's the truth: no academic interpreter of Revelation understands the book as a roadmap for the future, much less as telling contemporary Christians that these are the last days. Instead, scholars understand that Revelation originally spoke to the conditions of its own time and place. It offered a specific group of first century Christians not only hope for the future but also an interpretation -- a "revelation" -- of the world they inhabited. In other words, the best way to understand Revelation does not require an official Dick Tracy Apocalyptic Decoder Ring. We best understand Revelation when we read it like any other ancient text, in its own historical and cultural context.
What makes biblical scholars so certain that Revelation does not provide a roadmap for the future? Two basic considerations lead us to this conclusion.
First, the book itself insists that it's addressed to a specific group of churches to speak to their own circumstances. Let's begin with Revelation's introductory words (my translation, with notes):
A revelation (Greek: apokalypsis) of [or from] Jesus Christ, which God gave by means of him to show his [God's? Christ's?] slaves the things that must happen soon, and he [God? Christ?] made it known by sending his angel to his slave John, who testified to the word of God and the testimony of Jesus, everything he saw. Blessed is the one who reads aloud and blessed are those who hear the words of the prophecy and keep the things that are written in it, for the time is near. John, to the seven churches that are in Asia...
Working back, we observe several things. First, Revelation is addressed to seven churches in the Roman province of Asia. We'd locate them in western Turkey today. Identified in chapters two and three, these churches inhabited some of the major cities in the Roman Empire, including Ephesus, a top five city of the day. Second, Revelation's author John describes the vision as speaking to things that must happen "soon" for "the time is near." This is no minor point, nor is it to be spiritualized to mean something other than what it says. At several points Revelation reminds those ancient Christians to expect their redemption to come "soon" (1:1, 3, 19; 3:11; 22:7, 12, 20). Revelation was written not to tell us what to expect in our future but to give ancient Christians hope for dealing with their own. While modern interpreters disagree on many points, almost all agree on the basic historical circumstances addressed by Revelation.
(We'll address Revelation's message to those ancient believers in our next post.)
Second, we know a lot about the kind of literature Revelation represents. Revelation is an apocalypse, a form of literature with which biblical scholars have grown quite familiar. Indeed, Revelation constitutes the first book that calls itself an apocalypse. (The Greek word apokalypsis stands as the book's very first word.)
Between the third century B.C.E. and the second century C.E., Judaism and Christianity produced several great literary apocalypses, along with a host of related literature. See my book "Ultimate Things" for an introduction to this literature or my entry, "Apocalypses," in the new "Oxford Encyclopedia of the Books of the Bible.") All of these books share some distinctive features. They all relate a vision experienced by a single visionary. The visionary receives instruction and guidance from a heavenly being, usually an angel. And the vision reveals either otherworldly affairs or the resolution of history. Readers encounter what's going on in heaven, the arrival of the messiah, and the final judgment, among other topics. Striking images that require imaginative interpretation are common to all these works. Revelation provides a classic example of an apocalypse, as it includes every one of these features.
The Protestant Bible includes only two apocalypses, Daniel and Revelation. However, the Ethiopian Orthodox canon includes 1 Enoch, perhaps the greatest of the literary apocalypses. The New Testament epistle of Jude alludes to 1 Enoch on two occasions, and at least 11 copies or fragments of 1 Enoch were found among the Dead Sea Scrolls. Several important Jewish apocalypses date from about the time of Revelation's composition, including 4 Ezra, 2 Baruch, 3 Baruch and the Apocalypse of Abraham. Within decades of Revelation's composition several other Christian appeared, including the Shepherd of Hermas, the Ascension of Isaiah and the Apocalypse of Peter.
Sharing many common traits, these literary apocalypses show us that the apocalypses represent a developing literary tradition, a form of ancient theology expressed in poetic symbols and sequences. If someone were to stand up in church and read a passage from 4 Ezra or Hermas, nearly everyone would assume the text was from Revelation.
On the second night I had a dream: I saw rising from the sea an eagle that had twelve feathered wings and three heads (2 Esdras 11:1, New Revised Standard Version).
The sun began to shine a bit and suddenly I saw an enormous wild beast, something like a sea monster, with fiery locusts spewing from its mouth (Hermas 23:6, trans. Bart Ehrman).
The apocalypses teach us that Revelation describes a moment of acute crisis for its own religious community, those seven churches in Asia. Like the other apocalypses, it critiques current events, even major political and cultural developments, from a divine perspective. And like the other apocalypses, it calls its ancient audience to rigorous, even dangerous, levels of faithfulness under challenging circumstances.
Revelation does not predict events in 2012 or some other future date; it spoke to our ancient ancestors in the faith, who had enough challenges of their own.
In future posts we will explore both the circumstances of Revelation's composition and the lifestyle to which it called its audience.
Follow Greg Carey on Twitter: www.twitter.com/GregC666
This guy Greg Carey, is a fool. I may not know everything about Revelations, but I do know a lot about it. Of all the material I comes across about Revelations, I don't ever recall anybody claiming the things Greg Carey claims in this post. This guy stands alone.
The first three chapters does address seven churches of that time as a state the church would go through, ending with mega-churches, before the remaining 19 chapters transpires. The first verse of chapter four clearly say the things seen would happen after the stages the churches represent are manifested. Verse seven then describes symbolically the four primary ethnics of the latter day's man as kingly {lion} Europeans, their prey {calf} Africans, an inferior man {man} Asians & a fleeing man {flying eagle} Natives of the Americas.
Chapter five talks about the second "son of man" revealing the meaning of the sealed Bible(v 5) who discarnates and resurrects (v 12) while chapter 6 begins by telling of the Europeans attempt at conquering the world by sending missionaries {crown} and military to enforce their acceptance {sword} of their religion {Christianity}.
Most of the rest of the book reveals how this civilization terminates, short transition and then gives a glimpse of the new civilization. That's the over view minus the details, but most of it is talking about the most exalted nation of our times, the United States of America. .
1. Is about the Kingdom of God and what this kingdom will do. It will replace all worldly kingdoms, no more worldly politicians, or ineffective man-made governments. Christ Jesus is king. (Daniel 2:44; Rev. 11:15)
2. The wild beasts represent governments. The numbers 7 and 10 (as in 7 heads and 10 horns) represent completeness or fullness. So this wild beast represents all of man-kinds governments and the fact that God will allow them to come to the fullness of their limit. (Revelation 13:1,2). They get their ferocious power from Satan, symbolized by the "dragon" (Rev. 12:9).
3. Babylon the Great- representing all of false religion, will be destroyed. Ancient Babylon was the starting place of much of false religion, its doctrines and symbolism. B. the Great is a harlot, who commits fornication with the "kings of the earth' - this depicts false religion meddling in politics. She sits on many "waters" - representing people of many different nations, exerting control and influence over them. (Rev. 17:15; Rev. 17: 1-14). She lives in shameless luxury while she is drunk with the blood of holy ones- the Crusades, Inquistion, blessing those in war, terrorism etc. (Rev. 19:1,2). The wild beast will turn on Babylon the Great and destroy her. (Rev. 18).
4. Armageddon- (Rev. 16:14)- the great war of God the Almighty against the governments (the wild beast and the false prophet).
is it ? after all the complex imagery. sophisticated language, Theological profundity and Spiritual culmination of slavation history: The Omega of Scripture! That's a minimalist to the core.
It does tell us about the future as any apocalyptic literature but not on our terms but on divine terms. Its not a book for speculation but a written testimony of human history even before it unfolds to confound the proud who think that they are the top guns - omniscient, omnitpotent. In fact it demonstrates the Supreme Being's insight into history till its end. Through it we get an insght into our own finiteness and truth: We are finally dust and ashes, He alone is Almighty.
Its also a testimony to the lowly who acknowledge the Alpha and the Omega.
Its key Protagonist is the Divine Being in all its splendor. All other themes are secondary ( like giving 'ancient christians' some vague hope) is a diversion and not to be raised as the key focus of the book.
so......... all the end-timers, in and out of government, are wromg
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That statement has no meaning at all.
Verse 3. And another sign was seen in heaven, signifies revelation from the Lord concerning those who are against the New Church and its doctrine. By "a sign" is signified revelation from the Lord, as in. It is called "another sign" because it is a revelation concerning those who will be against the New Church. The New Church and its doctrine is meant by the woman and her male child.
And behold, a great red dragon, signifies all Protestant Churches that make God three divine persons, and the Lord two, and separate charity and good works from faith, and who make faith saving but not charity and good works together with faith.
ABSOLUTELY NOTHING.
http://arkofthecovenant2.blogspot.com/
And really really sad.