Read Revelations: Visions, Prophecy, and Politics in the Book of Revelation Online
Authors: Elaine Pagels
Tags: #Biblical Studies, #General, #Religion
Revelations: Visions, Prophecy, and Politics in the Book of Revelation (22 page)
Finally, too, this worst of all nightmares ends not in terror but in a glorious new world, radiant with the light of God’s presence, flowing with the water of life, abounding in joy and delight. Whether one sees in John’s visions the destruction of the whole world or the dark tunnel that propels each of us toward our own death, his final vision suggests that even after the worst we can imagine has happened, we may find the astonishing gift of new life. Whether one shares that conviction, few readers miss seeing how these visions offer consolation and that most necessary of divine gifts—hope.
But we have seen that the story of this book moves beyond its own pages to include the church leaders who made it the final book in the New Testament canon, which they then declared
closed, and scriptural revelation complete. After Athanasius sought to censor all
other
“revelations” and to silence all whose views differed from the orthodox consensus, his successors worked hard to make sure that Christians could not read “any books except the common catholic books.”
7
Orthodox Christians acknowledge that some revelation may occur even now, but since most accept as genuine only what agrees with the traditional consensus, those who speak for minority—or original—views are often excluded.
Left out are the visions that lift their hearers beyond apocalyptic polarities to see the human race as a whole—and, for that matter, to see each one of us as a whole, having the capacity for both cruelty and compassion. Those who championed John’s Revelation finally succeeded in obliterating visions associated with Origen, the “father of the church” posthumously condemned as a heretic some three hundred years after his death, who envisioned animals, stars, and stones, as well as humans, demons, and angels, sharing a common origin and destiny. Writings not directly connected with Origen, like The Secret Revelation of John, the Gospel of Truth, and Thunder, Perfect Mind, also speak of the kinship of all beings with one another and with God. Living in an increasingly interconnected world, we need such universal visions more than ever. Recovering such lost and silenced voices, even when we don’t accept everything they say, reminds us that even our clearest insights are more like glimpses “seen through a glass darkly”
8
than maps of complete and indelible truth.
Many of these secret writings, as we’ve seen, picture “the living Jesus” inviting questions, inquiry, and discussions about meaning— unlike Tertullian when he complains that “questions make people
heretics” and demands that his hearers stop asking questions and simply accept the “rule of faith.”
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And unlike those who insist that they already have all the answers they’ll ever need, these sources invite us to recognize our own truths, to find our own voice, and to seek revelation not only past, but ongoing.
CHAPTER ONE:
John’s Revelation:
Challenging the Evil Empire, Rome
1
Ernest L. Tuveson,
Redeemer Nation: The Idea of America’s Millennial Role
(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1968). For a recent and challenging view, see Kathryn Gin,
Damned Nation: The Concept of Hell in American Life, 1775–1865
(New York: Oxford University Press, forthcoming, 2012). I am grateful to the Rev. Tony Campolo for pointing out, in his letter of March 21, 2011, that many Evangelical Christians today see in the Book of Revelation “a description of what is going on in America” and, especially in Revelation 18 and 19, an indictment of political and economic systems built on military power and consumerism.2
Note Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza’s perceptive discussion of several strategies often used for reading this book, in her
Revelation: Vision of a Just World,
ed. G. Krodel (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1991), “Reading Revelation in and from the Margins,” 6–20, as well as 117ff. See also
The Book of Revelation: Justice and Judgment,
2nd ed. (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1998), especially her article “
Apocalypsis
and
Propheteia:
Revelation in the Context of Early Christian Prophecy,” 133–158. See also Brian K. Blount, “The Witness of Active Resistance: The Ethics of Revelation in African American Perspective,” in David Rhoads,
From Every People and Nation: The Book of Revelation in Intercultural Perspective
(Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2005), 1–27, and also his recently published commentary,
Revelation
(Louisville: John Knox Press, 2009).3
Eusebius,
The History of the Church,
VII, 24.1–27; for discussion, see chapter
5
, pages 162–163.4
See the passage cited in note 3 for the fullest extant account of Dionysius’ views on the Book of Revelation.5
For an overview of the use of this book, including that by Luther and his critics, see, for example, Arthur W. Wainwright,
Mysterious Apocalypse: Interpreting the Book of Revelation
(New York: Wipf and Stock Publishers, 2001), 55ff; and Judith Kovacs and Christopher Rowland,
Revelation: The Apocalypse of Jesus Christ
(Madden, MA: Blackwell Publishing, 2004), 19–20, 44–45.6
The term as used here is not intended to indicate genre. For although the term “apocalypse” is used in the Nag Hammadi library more often than terms like “gospel” or “apocryphon,” various terms are used for writings that claim to offer “revelation,” as David Frankfurter notes in his article “The Legacy of Jewish Apocalypses in Early Christianity: Regional Trajectories,” in James VanderKam and William Adler, eds.,
The Jewish Heritage in Early Christianity
(Assen, Netherlands: Van Gorum & Comp, 1996), 135, 156. Noted scholar of early Christian apocalyptic literature Brian E. Daley, S.J., points out that while “the Nag Hammadi collection … contains a number of texts labeled ‘apocalypses’ … for the most part these revelation-discourses have little literary connection with the traditional apocalyptic form,” in “Faithful and True: Early Christian Apocalyptic and the Person of Christ,” in Robert J. Daly, S.J.,
Apocalyptic Thought in Early Christianity
(Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2009), 114. Many scholars would agree with him that these are “partial heirs of the apocalyptic tradition,
rather than its authentic representatives,” 115. Most of those found at Nag Hammadi do not focus primarily upon apocalyptic eschatology, nor do they conform to the attempt to define the genre set forth in John J. Collins’ influential work, exemplified in “The Genre Apocalypse in Hellenistic Judaism,” in
Apocalypticism in the Mediterranean World and the Near East: Proceedings of the International Colloquium in Apocalypticism, Uppsala,
ed. David Hellholm (Tübingen, Germany: Mohr Siebeck, 1983), 531–548.7
Revelation 1:10; for discussion of this phrase (and, indeed, of any throughout the entire book), see David Aune,
Revelation 1–5
,
Word Biblical Commentary,
vol. 52, A, B, C (Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson Publishers, 1997), vol. 52A, 82–83.8
Revelation 1:12–16.9
Revelation 4:1.10
Revelation 1:19, now about to be revealed through the opening of the sealed scroll of Revelation 5.11
Revelation 6:4. For John’s vision of all the horsemen, see 6:2–8.12
Revelation 6:10.13
Revelation 9:1–3.14
Revelation 9:7–11.15
Revelation 12:1–6. Since the earliest commentators, Christians often have interpreted her as Mary, since she is characterized as mother of the messiah or else as the church. Others, likely including John himself, inspired by the image that the prophet Isaiah offers in Isaiah 26:17–27:1, apparently thought of her as the nation of Israel as potentially pregnant with the messiah, have seen her as an image of Israel. The reader need not choose one of these interpretations to the exclusion of others. Note, for example, how John J. Collins, in his influential book
The Apocalyptic Imagination: An Introduction to the Jewish Matrix of Christianity
(New York: Crossroad Publishing, 1984), 11ff, characterizes
apocalyptic images as “multivalent,” that is, capable of suggesting more than one meaning—often a cluster of related meanings.16
For an excellent discussion, see Neil Forsyth,
The Old Enemy: Satan and the Combat Myth
(Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1987), 248–257, especially 252: “in chapter 12 … is the only explicit reference in the New Testament to a war in heaven.” For an extensive and influential discussion of the background of these traditions, see Adela Yarbro Collins,
The Combat Myth in the Book of Revelation
(Missoula, MT: Scholars Press, 1976).17
Revelation 12:17.18
For John’s description of the beasts, see Revelation 13:1–18. Regarding the number of the beast, some ancient manuscripts give the name of the beast as the number 616, as Irenaeus notes; e.g. P. Oxy. LXVI 4499. On this topic as a text-critical issue, see David C. Parker,
An Introduction to the New Testament Manuscripts and Their Texts
(Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2008), 242–244.19
Revelation 16:13. For John’s account of the seven angels who dispense God’s wrath, see 15:5–16:21.20
Revelation 1:2. Tina Pippin, among others, discusses John’s use of feminine images such as the “woman clothed with the sun,” Jerusalem, the virgin bride, and the whore of Babylon; see “The Heroine and the Whore: Fantasy and the Female in the Apocalypse of John,”
Semeia 60
:
Fantasy and the Bible
(1991), 67–82. See response by Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza,
The Book of Revelation: Justice and Judgment,
217–226. For a major critique of apocalyptic thinking, see Catherine Keller,
Apocalypse Now and Then: A Feminist Guide to the End of the World
(Boston: Beacon Press, 1996).21
Revelation 19:11–16.22
Revelation 19:17–18.23
Revelation 21:8.24
Scholars have long debated the precise dating of John’s writing, the most probable dates being either around 68
C.E.
or 90–96
C.E.
Although we cannot be certain of the date, I find the latter more plausible. For a short discussion of the factors to consider, see Adela Yarbro Collins,
Crisis and Catharsis: The Power of the Apocalypse
(Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1984), 54–83. For another carefully considered view of composite composition, see Aune,
Revelation 1–5, vol.
52A, lvi–lxx.25
For the classic account of this war, see Josephus,
The Jewish War
, available in an English translation by G. A. Williamson (St. Ives Place, UK: Penguin, 1981).26
Revelation 1:2. While John’s account has often suggested to his readers that he was forcibly exiled, perhaps as a prisoner, recent commentators have challenged that claim; see, for example, the discussion by Yarbro Collins in
Crisis and Catharsis,
especially 25–53; Aune,
Revelation 1–5
, vol. 52A, xlvii–xc; the important contribution by Leonard L. Thompson,
The Book of Revelation: Apocalypse and Empire
(New York: Oxford University Press, 1991); and Paul Duff’s careful account “Was There a Crisis Behind Revelation? An Introduction to the Problem,” in
Who Rides the Beast? Prophecy and the Rhetoric of Crisis in the Churches of the Apocalypse
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001), 3–16, 17–82.27
See Bruce Malina,
On the Genre and Message of Revelation: Star Visions and Sky Journeys
(Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1995), an interesting book (although one that, as a colleague notes, might “overplay the evidence”) about what John might have seen of constellations.28
See Mark 6:27–30 (and parallels), which suggests that Jesus allowed his disciples to infer this designation and tacitly accepted it.29
Revelation 19:16.30
Mark 13:1–2.31
Did Jesus actually predict the destruction of the temple? Many scholars maintain that these prophecies were retrojected into his teaching by his followers after that shocking event in 70
C.E.
, apparently on the assumption that “Jesus could not have known that this would happen.” In a forthcoming article, I show why I find this view unpersuasive. Here’s a quick summary: First, because other prophets had made similar predictions before its destruction, as did Jesus ben Ananias, in the early 60s; second, because Mark’s account is contradictory, claiming that Jesus was accused of having threatened to destroy the temple—an accusation Mark insists is entirely false (Mark 14:56–58); third, when Mark admits that Jesus did prophesy the temple’s destruction (Mark 13:1–2), the account of his words does not accord with what actually happened, as one would tend to expect with retrojected prophecy (there are stones standing upon others—quite a few of them, to this day).32
Mark 9:1, 13:30.33
See Mark 13:7–19; see also 13:1–30; see also parallels in Luke 21:5–28 and Matthew 24:1–31.34
Mark 13:29–30. See Brian Daley’s book
The Hope of the Early Church: A Handbook of Patristic Eschatology
(New York: Cambridge University Press, 1991), for an overview of the evidence for the view that early Christian preaching was primarily apocalyptic, with which many scholars, including myself, agree.35
For discussion, see the important book by Simon R. F. Price,
Rituals and Power: The Roman Imperial Cult in Asia Minor
(Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1984), especially “Part II: The Evocations of Imperial Rituals,” 133–274.36
The following discussion is owed especially to the outstanding study by Steven J. Friesen,
Imperial Cults and the Apocalypse of
John: Reading Revelation in the Ruins
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001).37
See the discussion by Friesen,
Imperial Cults,
90–95.38
Price,
Rituals and Power,
especially 1–77.39
See Gaius Suetonius, “Divus Julius” and “Divus Augustus,”
The Twelve Caesars,
trans. Robert Graves, rev. ed. (London: Penguin, 2007), 1–103; Plutarch,
Lives
, trans. Arthur H. Clough (New York: Modern Library, 2001), vol. II: “Anthony,” 481–534.40
Psalm 96:5 (95:5 in the Septuagint), translated from the original Hebrew into Greek, could suggest this reading.41
In his fine study of visions in Jewish medieval sources, Elliot Wolfson comments that “one may presume” that these “were induced by specific visionary practices, though the records of these visions were often expressed in conventional imagery drawn from the theophanic traditions in Hebrew Scriptures,” in
Through a Speculum That Shines: Vision and Imagination in Medieval Jewish Mysticism
(Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1994), 28. For a discussion of such practices, see Dan Merkur, “The Visionary Practices of Jewish Apocalypticists,” in
Psychoanalytic Study of Society
14 (1989): 119–148.
