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Title:
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Description:
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Prof: The word
"apocalypse"
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is the Greek word
apocalypsis that is
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translated as
"revelation"
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because that's exactly what it
means, "an
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uncovering."
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You will often hear the
Revelation of John also referred
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to as The Apocalypse because
that's also its title.
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Now one point,
please don't call it "The
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Revelations."
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I don't know why people think
that "Revelations"
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is the name of the book.
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It's not, and it's the
"Revelation of John,"
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that's the title.
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The word just means "the
uncovering,"
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it refers nowadays in the
modern world to an entire genre
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of literature of the ancient
world,
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most of which is Jewish,
but there are some maybe Greek
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apocalypse,
things that people would call a
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Greek apocalypse or apocalyptic
type literature in some Latin
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texts or in Egyptian or in other
near eastern situations.
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Most of what we call
apocalypses comes from either an
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ancient Jewish or ancient
Christian milieu.
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This kind of literature has
several characteristics the
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scholars have pointed out,
and I'll go over this very
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briefly.
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They tend to be pseudonymous,
and they are set deep in the
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past like we saw in the book of
Daniel.
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In fact, Daniel is where we get
a lot of our generic notions of
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what an apocalypse is.
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The two apocalyptic,
most apocalyptic books in the
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Bible are Daniel and Revelation.
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There's kind of an apocalyptic
world view that I'll talk about
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also.
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When we talk about apocalypse
we're talking about first that
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genre of literature.
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They're usually pseudonymous,
they're ascribed to some
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ancient hero,
so we have apocalypses that are
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titled after Enoch,
said to be by Enoch,
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who lived way,
way, way back just after Adam.
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We have apocalypses attributed
to various other Old Testament
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characters,
so that the idea,
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as we saw with Daniel,
is it's written at one time but
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the author claims to be writing
centuries before.
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Like we saw in the case of
Daniel, they usually tell you
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what's going to happen in the
future.
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Of course it's actually in the
past for the writer,
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all up until a certain point,
and then the end of the current
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society or the end of the world
as we know it.
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It's not normally the end of
the world entirely.
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Usually it is a destruction and
then a resettling or recreation
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of a physical world.
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It's just called in the Kingdom
of God or something like that.
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They usually have a
chronological span of time.
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They have all kinds of images,
angels, demons,
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sometimes beasts,
sometimes monstrous kinds of
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beasts as you've seen also in
Revelation and in Daniel.
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They're usually constructed as
some kind of narrative.
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The author will say something
like,
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I was in a dream and I saw this
and then this angel grabbed me
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and took me to this part of
heaven and to took me to the
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third heaven,
or the fifth heaven,
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or the 12th heaven,
and then I went down to the
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deep and saw the dead.
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Think Dante's Inferno
and the way that Dante is led
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around into the different parts
of the cosmos.
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And they have a cosmology.
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They usually have a storied
structure to the universe with
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several different layers of
heavens and often several
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different layers of underneath,
the different hells or Hades.
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That's the genre of an
apocalypse.
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There's also the world view of
apocalypticism we'll call it.
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Why we use this term is because
Paul,
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as far as we know it,
never wrote an apocalypse,
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and yet his letters show strong
influence of apocalypticism,
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that is an apocalyptic world
view.
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You have, for example,
three different kinds of
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dualisms.
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You've already seen in the
Gospel of John and other texts
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how there's a dualism between
good and evil,
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there are the good guys and the
bad guys,
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there is God and there is
Satan, so there's an ethical
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kind of dualism.
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There's also a spatial dualism.
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There's a dualism of up there
and down here,
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and so you have things that go
on on the earth are simply
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shadows of what's going on
actually in the heavens.
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It's like every country,
according to Daniel,
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has its own prince,
by that he means some kind of
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angelic being.
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The Prince of Persia refers in
Daniel to some huge angelic
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super human being who actually
rules Persia.
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The Prince of Judah,
the angel of Judah tends to be
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Michael or some other angel that
you've probably heard of,
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like Raphael.
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Each of the nations has its own
angel so you can imagine sort of
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that Russia has its angel,
and so then America has its
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angel, and if Russia and America
were to go to war this would be
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actually simply an earthly
shadow type reflection of the
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true reality which would be
going on as the angel of Russia
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was battling the angel of
America in heaven.
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So everything that goes on in
our cosmos is simply a mirror
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image of these battles that are
going on the heavens.
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So that's another dualism of
space.
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Then there's of course a
dualism of time.
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We've talked a lot about how
for Daniel, remember there is a
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dualism of before time and the
after time.
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There's a time that Daniel's
writing,
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which is up to this,
and then what will happen is
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some big cataclysm will happen,
and then, according to Daniel,
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the Son of Man will come down,
battle against the bad evil
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forces,
overthrow Antiochus the IV
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Epiphanes,
and set up the Kingdom of God.
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You have the same kind of
structure of the time before and
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the time after in the New
Testament except it's squirrely,
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right?
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Because according,
say, to Paul,
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this is what's happened:
you have the now time which is
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still going on,
and then you have the future
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time which has already started
impinging on the present.
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The thing that marks the
beginning of the end time has
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been the cross and the
resurrection of Jesus.
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Jesus was raised--what do you
have when people are raised?
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The end of the world.
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The dead are supposed to be
raised according to Jewish
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mythology,
and this is something that
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doesn't happen all the time,
and mainly it happens at the
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end of time.
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The early Christians were Jews
expecting an apocalyptic Kingdom
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of God to happen,
and Jesus probably taught this
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sort of thing himself as an
apocalyptic prophet.
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But when Jesus was killed then
the whole thing seemed to go
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awry because the Messiah is not
supposed to be killed.
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The followers of Jesus,
though, very quickly believed
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that they had seen him after he
died, so they believed they had
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seen the resurrected Jesus.
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We're not going to talk about
what they actually saw or what
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happened.
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From a historical point of view
all we can say is that they
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believed they saw him raised
from the dead.
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And that meant they thought,
oh the end time must have
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already started because he has
been raised.
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In other words,
remember how Paul talks about
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Jesus as the "first fruits
of those who sleep."
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That just means that Jesus is
just the first apple on the tree
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in his resurrection,
and all the rest will be raised
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when the final end comes.
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But for the early Christians
they believed the end had
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already to in some sense started
with the resurrection of Jesus,
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so that's this end.
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But then they also know the
full end hasn't come because we
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don't see the Kingdom of God
around us.
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Those damn Romans are still in
charge.
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The bad evil American
government is still running
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things in the world,
so this must not be the Kingdom
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of God.
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It may be the kingdom of Obama
but it's not yet the Kingdom of
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God.
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The Christians expected Jesus
to come back down,
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to come from heaven.
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This was called the
parousia.
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We've already seen it in
several texts.
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In I Thessalonians,
for example,
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Paul talks about Jesus will
come and then we'll fly up in
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the air and meet him.
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That's the parousia,
which is a Greek term that just
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means "presence"
or "coming,"
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and we'll refer to the time
when a king or the emperor would
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come to visit a city,
and all the people in the city,
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the important people would come
out of the city,
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out of the gates,
to meet the king and give him
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gifts and the king would give
them gifts,
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and they would all accompany
the king back into the city.
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That's called a parousia.
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It's a purely sort of political
civic kind of term.
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This is what early Christians
use to call the coming back of
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Jesus in his parousia.
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Christians lived,
according to Paul's theology,
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right in this middle time of an
overlap of the before and the
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after,
but that's still the before and
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after that you see of
apocalyticism.
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It's still there.
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All these different dualisms
are one of the characteristics,
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and you can see these sorts of
things even in texts that aren't
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themselves apocalypses,
but they show influences from
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this kind of world view and this
kind of narrative view of
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history and the cosmology.
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Often apocalypses seem to have
served as a form of cultural
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resistance.
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They make the most sense often
if you see them as being popular
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among people who either are
oppressed by some more powerful
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entity or at least believed that
they are oppressed.
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They fear themselves to be
oppressed.
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For example,
it's a perfectly natural world
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view--
you can understand how the
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world view is,
if you believe you're an
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oppressed minority and you can't
really fight against the more
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powerful entity.
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There's no way these early
little Christians groups or even
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the nation of Israel could rebel
against the Roman Empire and
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win.
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The idea is that,
well, we will resist them and
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eventually God will intervene in
history with his angels and his
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army and the divine armies will
come,
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and we will fight alongside
them to overthrow the Greeks.
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The earliest apocalypses,
Daniel was talking about the
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Greeks and Syrians,
the Greco-Syrian Empire.
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So the Greeks were the first
oppressive power that people
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thought they could overthrow
this way.
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Then of course the Romans
became the more oppressive power
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later,
so in Jesus' time and Paul's
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time it's the Romans who are the
enemy that will be overthrown.
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But that will all happen.
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It's not always true that the
people who believe in these
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kinds of apocalyptic ideas are
themselves in fact an oppressed
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minority.
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After all, Ronald Reagan was
the President of the United
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States, and he still believed
this stuff.
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He still believed that God was
going to come any day,
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he thought it was going to
happen right then,
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any day now,
and God was going to have a big
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battle.
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Israel would be involved in it
and all the different nations of
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the earth, and then God would
set up the Kingdom of God in
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Jerusalem.
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Reagan talked about this on the
phone with different Israeli
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politicians and leaders.
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How does this make sense for
Ronald Reagan,
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the most powerful man in the
world, to have this apocalyptic
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world view?
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Well Reagan spent a lot of his
life feeling like he was on the
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out and feeling like he was not
one of the liberal establishment
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of the east coast and this sort
of thing.
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It doesn't necessarily mean
that people who hold these views
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are themselves discriminated
against minorities or oppressed
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minorities,
but it usually means that they
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perceive themselves that way,
because, otherwise,
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if you really do have power you
just make the world like you
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want it to be.
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You overthrow somebody or you
wage a battle,
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and wage war,
and you fix the problem
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yourself.
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It's when you don't have the
power politically or militarily
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to fix the problem that this
kind of world view becomes very
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persuasive to you,
very believable, plausible.
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That's what the Book of
Revelation is.
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In fact, we use the title of
Revelation,
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the Apocalypse,
as the term for the whole genre
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and for the whole world,
and it comes basically from
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this book because it's the most
famous apocalypse of all,
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naturally.
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The weird thing about
Revelation, though,
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is that it's not pseudonymous.
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We don't--the book says it's
just written by a guy named
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John.
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It's not the same John who was
the brother of Zebedee,
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it's not the same John--if
there was a John who wrote the
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Gospel of John and the letters
of John,
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which we don't really know who
wrote them,
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but whoever wrote Revelation is
not the same person who wrote
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any of that literature.
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The style is too different,
the theology is too different.
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It's just clearly not the same
person.
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He doesn't claim to be any
famous John, he just claims to
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be John, and so we call him
often John the Seer or John the
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prophet or something like that.
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He doesn't seem to hide who he
is, and, interestingly enough,
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he doesn't place the
composition of his book
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centuries in the past.
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He actually places it in his
own time.
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This is also tells you where he
thought he was.
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He really believed that he was
right there and that the end had
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already begun in a sense with
Jesus.
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He doesn't feel the need to
pass back into the past and
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prophesy again.
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He sees himself as a prophetic
figure like Daniel,
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but a prophetic figure not for
the future, he doesn't believe
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there's going to be any more
future.
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He believes that Jesus is
coming back right now,
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so he just places himself right
at the beginning.
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It's also a little bit unlike
some apocalypses because you
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have these seven letters in the
beginning of the book that are
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addressed to seven different
churches in Asia Minor.
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One of the interesting things
about all of Revelation is its
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structure.
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I talked about Hebrews last
week and I gave you an outline
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to the letter to the Hebrews to
show you that it was a very
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elaborately structured sermon.
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Hebrews was very well written.
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It's some of the best Greek in
the New Testament.
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Revelation is interestingly
structured, and I'll show you
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why I say that,
but actually it's not very well
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written.
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The Greek is almost illiterate,
and scholars have wondered
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about this, is it just because
the writer of this didn't have a
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very good education?
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Or some people have even
suggested maybe he's
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intentionally writing in kind of
a weird way as sort of almost a
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form of protest against people
in power.
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There are different theories
about this, but it's not very
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good Greek, and it's not very
well written.
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But it does have a fairly
intricate and interesting
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structure, and I call this a
structure of cycles,
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the spiral.
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I've titled your outline
"a spiral outline of
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Revelation"
because the story--
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a lot of people have read
Revelation--
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well, let me also back up and
explain what's different this
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week from what we did last week.
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Last week, if you recall,
I spent a lot of time talking
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about Hebrews and medieval
interpretation because I was
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trying to illustrate how the
historical,
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critical interpretation of
these texts that I'm teaching
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you in the semester is not the
only way to do it.
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There are other kinds of
allegorical, theological,
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literary ways to read these
texts, and those are perfectly
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fine.
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Now, though,
I'm completely reverting back
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to the historical critical way
of reading this text.
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Partly because the way that so
many people in popular culture
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read Revelation,
especially very conservative
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Christians, is to read it about
our time.
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It's been read over and over
again to be about English wars
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or World War I or World War II,
or most recently in The Late
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Great Planet Earth and these
kinds of things,
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it's about the Soviet Union
versus the United States of
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America,
and everything that it talks
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about is referring to what's
going to happen in our
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lifetimes.
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So the weird animals,
the locust type things that
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have the heads of men and fly
through the air,
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there are all kinds of modern
Christians that say,
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oh those are helicopters.
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The author didn't know what a
helicopter looked like in the
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ancient world so he just
described kind of what he saw,
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but we know now those are
helicopters,
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so he's actually describing a
big war that's going to break
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out around Israel and in Israel
when the whole world's going to
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come to this big cataclysmic
nuclear war,
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and it's all talked about right
here in Revelation.
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Well, obviously I'm not going
to do that.
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What I'm going to show you is
how historians read this text
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precisely by putting it back in
its ancient context.
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One of the things is,
if you notice,
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the Book Revelation doesn't
give one strict timeline.
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In fact it seems to have cycles
of setting up some kind of weird
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crisis,
having all these terrible
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things happen,
and then have something that
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looks like a quasi resolution
and then starting the cycle
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again.
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It ends up being a big
cataclysmic crash at the end of
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the book,
so this is why I call this a
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spiral of cycles that are going
on in the Book of Revelation.
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First though look at just
chapters 6-8,
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and I'm going to walk you
through this very rapidly
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because you can see something of
the structure of this book right
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here.
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Now this is after you've had
the letters in the beginning of
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Revelation,
then you've had the throne room
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scene with God,
which we're going to talk about
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in a minute,
and all the songs that
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everybody's saying.
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Let's just walk through first
structure here.
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Then I saw the Lamb open one of
the seven seals,
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and I heard one of the four
living creatures call out with a
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voice of thunder,
"Come!"
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I looked and there was a white
horse.
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Its rider had a bow,
a crown was given to him,
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and he came out conquering and
to conquer.
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This is conquering,
and warfare is this first
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horse.
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"When he opened the second
seal," --where is he going
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with the seals?
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-- Picture this now:
we've talked about how books
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were composed in the ancient
world, and we talked about
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scrolls.
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Things were in scrolls not in
books like this with all the
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different pages all sewn
together.
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What he's imagining seeing is
there's this huge scroll in the
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sky that this angel is holding
and doing different things.
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When you want to finish a
letter or a book you roll up the
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scroll, and then you put a wax
seal at the end of the roll and
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that seals the book.
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So anybody who wants to read
that letter or that book the
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first time has to break that wax
seal.
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The seals that he's talking
about are the wax seals on the
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scroll.
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You imagine that you've got
this scroll that has one seal
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and you can break that seal and
you can unroll the scroll a
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little bit,
but then you get another seal,
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so you undo that seal and you
can unroll it a little bit more,
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so he's gradually unrolling
this scroll that's going to have
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all these things pop out of it.
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There's this big huge scroll
that has horses and riders
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jumping out of it and flying
through the air.
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He opened the second seal.
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I heard the second living
creature call out,
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"Come!"
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And out came another horse
bright red.
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Its writer was permitted to
take peace from the earth so
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that the people would slaughter
one another and he was given a
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great sword.
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So the first seal releases this
horse that looks like Empire,
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the conquering of the
conqueror;
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the second is just general
warfare.
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When he opened the third seal,
I heard the third living
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creature call out,
"Come!"
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I looked and there was a black
horse.
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Its rider had a pair of scales
in his hand,
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and I heard what seemed to be a
voice in the midst of the four
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living creatures saying,
"A quart of wheat for a
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day's pay and three quarts of
barley for a day's pay,
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but do not damage the olive oil
and the wine."
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The third seal is what?
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Famine and poverty.
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When he opened the fourth seal
I heard the voice of the fourth
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living creature call out,
"Come!"
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And I looked and there was a
pale green horse.
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Its rider's name was Death,
and Hades followed with him.
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They were given authority over
a fourth of the earth to kill
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with the sword,
famine, and pestilence,
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and by the wild animals of the
earth.
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So death is the fourth seal.
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"When I opened the fifth
seal I saw under the
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altar"--notice we're not
talking about horsemen anymore.
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You had four horsemen
representing four different
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things.
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The fifth seal has something
like a digression,
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the fifth seal is not another
horse like you expect.
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In other words,
you're given to expect that
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you're going to see another
horse that's going to be some
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other catastrophe,
but you don't get that,
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you have a digression.
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Under the altar,
the souls of those who had been
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slaughtered for the word of God
and for the testimony they had
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given,
they cried out with a loud
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voice, "Sovereign Lord,
holy and true,
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how long will it be before you
judge and avenge our blood on
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the inhabitants of the
earth?"
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They were each given a white
robe and told to rest a little
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longer until the number would be
complete,
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both of their fellow slaves [it
says "slaves"
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actually in the Greek,
not "servants"]
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and of their brothers.
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It doesn't say sisters.
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There's almost no women in this
text at all.
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It's all men,
virgin men who have never been
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polluted by touching women.
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It's not exactly a pro-woman
book.
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You might not get that idea if
you have an English translation
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that keeps putting sisters in
here, but there are no sisters
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in this book.
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There's the whore of Babylon,
there's the mother bride,
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and then there are
men."...
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your slaves,
you fellow brothers,
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who are soon to be killed as
they themselves have been
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killed."
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What's the fifth seal?
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Well it gives him a vision of
the altar of God,
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in the temple of God in heaven,
and there's this big altar.
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And under the altar are the
souls of all the followers of
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Jesus who have been martyred up
to this time,
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and the souls of those people
who will be martyred.
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They're not punished,
they're saying how long,
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how long, and he says,
oh keep your pants on,
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here's a white robe,
just sit there and be nice
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under the altar,
we're going to take care of it
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all very,
very soon.
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The fifth seal is actually a
digression that tells you,
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the audience,
that if you suffer in this
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present time it will be taken
care of by God.
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You have these four building up
of terrible things,
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and the fifth is a digression
that gives you comfort.
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But now we're going to get back.
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He opened the sixth seal,
I looked and I heard a great
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earthquake,
the sun became black as
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sackcloth, the full moon became
like blood,
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the stars of the sky fell to
the earth as a fig tree drops
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its winter fruit when shaken by
a gale.
-
The sky vanished like a scroll
rolling itself up.
-
Remember I talked about how the
sky in ancient cosmology isn't
-
just air,
it's actually a firm thing,
-
it's like a big piece of
leather or something like that
-
sits up there,
and there's water on the other
-
side of it in most ancient
cosmologies,
-
or something on the other side
of it.
-
When he talks about seeing the
sky rolled up like a scroll he
-
means that quite literally.
-
The sky goes jrrrjrrjrrrrjrrr
and rolls up,
-
and you can see heaven above
it.
-
So the sky vanishes like a
scroll.
-
Every mountain and island moved
from its place.
-
Then the kings of the earth,
and the magnates and the
-
generals,
and the rich and the powerful,
-
and everyone,
slave and free,
-
hid in the caves,
and among the rocks of the
-
mountains,
calling to the mountains and
-
rocks,
"Fall on us and hide us
-
from the face of the one seated
on the throne,
-
and from the wrath of the Lamb!
-
For the great day of their
wrath has come,
-
and who is able to stand?"
-
The sixth seal is all hell
breaks loose.
-
The cosmos is coming down on
top of itself.
-
He's created an increasing
level of anxiety and catastrophe
-
with this, but that fifth seal
there's kind of a digression.
-
"After this I saw four
angels..."
-
Now you think,
oh man, if the sixth seal is
-
like that you know one more seal
is coming up.
-
What's the seventh seal going
to be?
-
Man, I'm eager to hear this!
-
Remember all this was read out
loud in the ancient world so
-
you're hearing all this.
-
"I saw four angles
standing at the four corners of
-
the earth, hurrying back the
four winds of the earth."
-
Now you get a bunch of other
stuff, "I saw another angel
-
ascend, and I heard the number
of those were sealed."
-
Now you have all the followers
of Jesus are numbered into
-
different tribes of 12,000 a
piece, and each of those tribes
-
is sealed themselves.
-
Isn't that interesting,
you have another use of the
-
term seal but now this is a seal
that's put on the faces of all
-
the people who are the true
followers,
-
who are the true Israel,
twelve tribes like the twelve
-
tribe--
the lost ten tribes and the
-
other two tribes of Israel.
-
There's the reconstituting of
Israel now, and they're sealed,
-
and the seal is a good thing.
-
It means you won't be harmed if
you have this on you.
-
That goes on all of chapter 7.
-
You're thinking where is the
seventh seal?
-
We had six, I know there's
another one coming,
-
where is it?
-
You have to wait all the way
through chapter 7 wanting the
-
seventh seal but you're not
getting it yet.
-
In other words,
he's just stringing you along.
-
But he's stringing you along in
a way that's kind of good
-
because he's reassuring you.
-
You know the seventh seal is
coming,
-
and you're just--you're pretty
sure it's going to be really,
-
really, really,
really bad because the sixth
-
seal was.
-
But before you get to the
seventh seal you have this
-
sealing of you,
if you're a faithful follower
-
of Jesus, with the reassurance
of a seal.
-
And then you have some songs,
we're going to talk about some
-
songs, but everybody comes in
and it's like a Broadway play.
-
You have something happen,
and then the chorus all runs on
-
stage and they do a little song,
blessed be the lamb,
-
and the blah,
blah,
-
blah, halleluiah,
halleluiah, and then they run
-
off and you have more action.
-
That's the way the story is
structured, for interesting
-
reasons.
-
We get to the end of chapter 7,
we're finally to this chapter,
-
so you get to Chapter 8--of
course they're not numbered in
-
the ancient world.
-
But "When the Lamb opened
the seventh seal,"
-
you ready for this?
-
"there was silence in
heaven for a half an hour."
-
That's the seventh seal.
-
What's going on?
-
The text builds up tension,
and you hear this read out
-
loud,
and it keeps building up this
-
tension,
but then the seventh seal is
-
such a anticlimax:
silence in heaven for a half an
-
hour.
-
Then it doesn't explain
anything about that,
-
it just starts over.
-
And then you have another cycle
a little bit later.
-
"Another angel of the
golden censor came and stood by
-
the altar."
-
In other words,
what's you've got is something
-
like this.
-
You have these four
scrolls--the four seals which
-
are terrible,
terrible, terrible awful
-
things, and then you have the
fifth which is a digression,
-
and it's actually a good thing,
it's the telling of the souls
-
who have been martyred,
don't worry,
-
you'll be saved,
here's a white robe,
-
relax.
-
Then you have the sixth seal
which is another worse thing
-
than all of these,
it's really,
-
really bad and its goes on
longer,
-
and then you have this long
digression again,
-
this is like the fifth seal,
it's a sealing of the followers
-
of Jesus with salvation.
-
Then after that digression then
you have this seventh seal which
-
is really kind of anticlimactic.
-
But it's not bad because,
you know, silence in heaven for
-
a half an hour.
-
Look at your spiral outline now
because this kind of structure
-
of having a cycle of
catastrophes that are
-
interrupted every once in a
while by some kind of digression
-
that then ends with something
good,
-
that's the way the whole book
is structured in three different
-
cycles.
-
For example,
I said in the fourth chapter of
-
Revelation you have the big
heavenly throne room scene.
-
Revelation 5,
you have the introduction of
-
the scroll with seven seals and
the lamb,
-
and then you have the first
cycle of seven,
-
and that's what I just walked
you through just now.
-
Then right after 8:1,
the silence in heaven,
-
it starts again with a second
cycle,
-
and you have in 8:2
introduction of seven angels
-
with seven trumpets,
and then again you have the
-
first, second,
third, and fourth trumpet which
-
announce these kind of
catastrophes.
-
And then you have an interlude
where this eagle comes through
-
and announces woes on everybody.
-
And then you have the fifth
trumpet in 9:1-12,
-
and the sixth trumpet in 9:13,
and then you have chapter 10
-
which has another interlude
which is about the scroll of
-
prophecy.
-
Chapter 11, you have the talk
about the temple,
-
and he has to measure the
temple.
-
And then in 11:14 you have the
end of the second woe.
-
And finally in 11:15 you have
the seventh trumpet.
-
And what does the seventh
trumpet introduce?
-
Praise in heaven,
sort of like that half hour of
-
silence.
-
Then you have a long interlude,
which is chapters 12,
-
13, and 14 which is about
battles between the woman who's
-
the mother of church or the
mother of the Savior,
-
and the dragon.
-
Chapter 13 is about the dragon
and the beast.
-
Chapter 14 is about the lamb,
the horned lamb which
-
represents Jesus who's a horned
lamb who is wounded.
-
And then you have starting in
15:1, you have a third cycle of
-
seven angels and seven plagues
or bowls.
-
Then you have the great
conclusion, which is the very
-
end, the destruction of Rome in
chapters 17-19.
-
The final battle which is
19:11-21,
-
the imprisonment and eventual
destruction of enemies which is
-
Chapter 20 and the establishment
of the new Jerusalem in chapters
-
21 and 22.
-
What does this structure tell
us?
-
Because the structures in these
different cycles,
-
it builds up crisis and then it
gives you something,
-
a relief at the end.
-
There's a famous New Testament
scholar who teaches at the
-
Divinity School,
this time it's not me,
-
who teaches in the Divinity
School,
-
Adela Yarbro Collins.
-
Many years ago when I was still
a student I read this book she
-
had wrote called,
Crisis and Catharsis.
-
It's a wonderful book about
Revelation.
-
And her thesis was,
the very purpose of the Book of
-
Revelation is to build up a
sense of crisis in early
-
followers of Jesus.
-
If you're too comfortable with
your world, you don't know that
-
things are really a lot worse
than what you think they are.
-
If it's addressed to Christians
who are, if they're comfortable,
-
it wants to make them
uncomfortable with Roman
-
rule.
-
If they're uncomfortable with
Roman rule, and feel depressed
-
and oppressed,
then eventually the book will
-
lead them to feeling comfort.
-
So crisis is created by the
book in order to let you
-
experience a catharsis of the
salvation.
-
The looping structure of the
book tries to work that out
-
psychologically in its hearers.
-
You can see how it's going to
do this.
-
And, remember,
it's meant to be performed.
-
You're hearing it read out loud.
-
It's a long book,
but you sit there,
-
and you imagine a bunch of
Christians in Asia Minor in some
-
church,
say, in Ephesus,
-
and they're meeting is dark,
they're meeting in some house
-
somewhere,
in somebody's dining room,
-
and somebody has sent around
this document and asked it to be
-
read.
-
You're all sitting around with
just some candles going and
-
somebody's reading this book,
and it's got all these strange
-
things going on,
strange creatures,
-
and a lot of these songs and
things that people are singing,
-
and angels are singing,
and beasts are singing,
-
and elders are singing.
-
It's sort of like in the fourth
chapter, look at the fourth
-
chapter of Revelation.
-
This is where we're in the
throne room of God.
-
-
After this I looked,
and there in heaven,
-
a door stood open and the first
voice,
-
which I had heard speaking to
me like a trumpet said,
-
"Come up here and I will
show you what must take place
-
after this."
-
At once I was in the spirit,
and there in heaven stood a
-
throne with one seated on the
throne.
-
And the one seated there looks
like jasper and carnelian,
-
and around the throne is a
rainbow that looks like an
-
emerald.
-
And around the throne are
twenty-four thrones,
-
and seated on the thrones are
twenty-four elders dressed in
-
white robes with golden crowns
on their heads.
-
Coming from the throne were
flashes of lightning,
-
rumblings, and peals of
thunder, and in front of the
-
throne were seven flaming
torches with the seven spirits
-
of God.
-
You have all this going on and
then the four living creatures,
-
these monstrous combination
kind of monster creatures are
-
standing around the throne and
they starting singing
-
"holy,
holy, holy is the Lord God
-
Almighty,
who was, and who is,
-
and who is to come."
-
Then you see the twenty-four
elders, and they're singing
-
another song.
-
The whole thing is meant to be
seen in your mind,
-
not just read silently.
-
We're going to do a little
experiment here to show how that
-
might happen.
-
We're going to break up into
thirds.
-
You get to be the four living
creatures.
-
Then we're going to split the
rest of the class right here,
-
you all get to be--I think it's
the elders I can't remember,
-
and then you'll be another
group.
-
These are the quotations.
-
I want you to say this with me
very soft at first,
-
all right?
-
Don't rush, don't get faster.
-
I'm a musician you know,
I'm going to make you stick
-
with the tempo I set.
-
"Holy, holy,
holy is the Lord God Almighty,
-
who was, and who is,
and who is to come."
-
Say it!
-
"Worthy is the lamb that
was slain."
-
Don't rush.
-
"Worthy is the lamb that
was slain."
-
"Glory,
honor, power to thee,
-
oh Lord, most high.
-
Glory, honor,
power to thee oh Lord most
-
high."
-
Now get a little bit louder.
-
There's smoke in the throne
room.
-
There are beasts flapping their
wings.
-
Now close your eyes and get
louder.
-
Shout it!
-
Stop!
-
You feel something?
-
You're supposed to feel
something.
-
You're supposed to kind of feel
weird.
-
You're supposed to feel
uncomfortable just a little bit,
-
you're supposed to feel a
little tingle,
-
because reading Revelation as
if it's a blueprint for Jesus
-
coming back and what's going to
happen with the Republicans and
-
the Democrats kind of misses the
point.
-
Because what it really is
doing, it's trying to pull you
-
into a world,
a very performative world.
-
That's the thing--it really is
like a stage show except the
-
stage is the whole cosmos and
all kind of weird things that
-
are happening all around.
-
Part of what's going on here,
to use Professor Collins's
-
phrase, is it introduces this
sense of a crisis in the cosmos.
-
It doesn't do that because it
wants you to,
-
in the end, simply live in that
crisis.
-
It's because the author
believes God's going to take
-
care of the crisis eventually
but not necessarily today.
-
The book, having this book
performed in your church for
-
you,
read out loud in the middle of
-
the night,
deals with your sense of
-
persecution if you have one.
-
But what if you don't have a
sense of persecution?
-
What if you're actually fairly
comfortable with Rome?
-
What if you're fairly well off?
-
You've got a good business,
the Pax Romana,
-
the Roman peace,
actually allows you to travel.
-
You can get on a ship and not
have to worry about pirates,
-
unlike today [student
laughter], or unlike it was a
-
hundred years before this.
-
Pompey was the general who
cleaned the pirates out of the
-
Mediterranean in the first
century BCE.
-
So if you're a businessman,
and you're fairly well off,
-
you might think that the Roman
peace is a pretty good thing.
-
Sure a few people's heads got
to get cracked every once in a
-
while, to keep the peace,
that's just the way it is.
-
The Book of Revelation seems to
have a dual purpose.
-
It's like that old saying about
what good preaching is,
-
good preaching is supposed to
comfort the afflicted and
-
afflict the comfortable.
-
That's kind of what the Book of
Revelation seems to try to do.
-
Because notice,
what is the view of Rome that
-
you get here?
-
Look in Revelation 18 and 19.
-
-
If all you had was the letters
of Paul,
-
what might you think about
Rome, what might you think about
-
the government,
what might you think about the
-
emperor?
-
If you all you had were certain
other books such as the Pastoral
-
Epistles what would you think
the--about their politics?
-
There's no way you could find
this author saying something
-
like "honor the
emperor,"
-
which is precisely what you get
in some other early Christian
-
letters.
-
After this I saw another angel
coming down from heaven having
-
great authority and the earth
was made bright with his
-
splendor.
-
He called out with a might
voice, "Fallen,
-
fallen is Babylon the Great!
-
It has become a dwelling place
of demons, a haunt of every foul
-
spirit, a haunt of every foul
bird, a haunt of every foul and
-
hateful beast.
-
For all the nations have drunk
of the wine of the wrath of her
-
fornication,
and the kings of the earth have
-
committed fornication with her,
and the merchants,
-
and the earth have grown rich
from the power of her
-
luxury."
-
This is clearly Rome.
-
Babylon is the code name for
Rome here.
-
We know it is because in
17:9,18 he talks about this city
-
being on seven hills,
referring to the famous Seven
-
Hills of Rome.
-
Of course in 13:18 ...
-
so that no one can buy or sell
who does not have the mark of
-
the beast, the name of the beast
or the number of its name.
-
This calls for wisdom,
let anyone with understanding
-
calculate the number of the
beast, for it is the number of a
-
person.
-
Its number is 666.
-
What is 666?
-
Well, back in the 1980s some of
us leftists said Ronald Wilson
-
Reagan, or you can come up with
all kinds of other things.
-
Scholars think that if you take
the word "Nero,"
-
the name of the Emperor and you
spell it "Neron,"
-
with a final N like you would,
in the Hebrew letters,
-
it comes out to be 666,
adding up those three letters.
-
Now you'll notice there's also
a footnote that says other
-
ancient authorities say 616,
so some scribe comes along and
-
sees 666 and said,
oh no that can't be right,
-
it must be 616.
-
It's actually--that makes a lot
sense if this is supposed to
-
refer to Nero because if you
spelled Nero's name slightly
-
differently,
in a way that was still
-
possible to spell it for the
ancient world,
-
it comes out to be 616 rather
than 666,
-
which leads a lot of us
scholars just to think the
-
writer is probably referring to
Nero in some way.
-
Nero is a beast,
and Nero is the whore,
-
Rome is the whore that's had
sex with every rich man and
-
every king throughout the whole
world.
-
This is not a very positive
view of Rome,
-
and Rome of course is
completely destroyed at the end.
-
The part of Nero is when we
don't when this text was
-
written.
-
Some people actually believe
that Revelation was written in
-
the 60s when Nero was himself
the emperor.
-
More tend to believe that it's
written toward the end of the
-
century, when Nero had already
been dead.
-
This refers to a great myth
from the ancient world called
-
Nero redivivus.
-
-
The myth was that Nero was such
a terrible,
-
terrible, terrible bad man that
even though he had been
-
assassinated he was going to
rise from the dead someday.
-
Or some people believed he
wasn't ever dead,
-
he escaped and he was off
living with Parthians,
-
who were these people who lived
on the very eastern corner of
-
the Roman Empire.
-
The idea was Nero was still
alive somewhere and he was going
-
to raise an army of Parthians,
and he was going to come back
-
and he was going to wage war and
take over the Roman Empire
-
again.
-
Or he was going to rise from
the dead and raise an army and
-
take over the empire again.
-
This was especially chilling
for followers of Jesus because
-
Nero was well known,
at the end of the century,
-
for being the first emperor to
have persecuted the followers of
-
Jesus in Rome.
-
The famous story is that
Nero--there was a big fire in
-
Rome,
and Nero was blamed for the
-
fire because he was clearing a
bunch of apartment buildings of
-
lower income people out of a
certain area of Rome,
-
it's right by the Coliseum,
to build his huge big palace.
-
In fact now,
if you go to Rome,
-
they've opened up the Golden
House, they call it,
-
and this was the palace that
Nero built.
-
It's beautiful,
you have to go under the ground
-
to get into it and see it and
everything because it's all
-
covered by the ground.
-
If you go to Rome,
get tickets and go to Nero's
-
palace because it's only in the
last several years that it's
-
been reopened for the public.
-
The idea was,
Nero had actually burned a
-
bunch of tenements in order to
make room for his palace,
-
but because this was so
unpopular he blamed it on the
-
Christians.
-
He said, the Christians set the
fire,
-
the Christians are those really
bad people,
-
and the story goes that he had
big barbeques in his palace
-
grounds and he put the bodies of
Christians covered with tar on
-
stakes and crucified them,
and put them on stakes,
-
and lit them and their burning
bodies provided the torchlight
-
for his party.
-
This is the story that was
circulated about Nero by later
-
Christians and by other people
too.
-
For followers of Jesus,
Nero was this terrible figure,
-
who they thought he might even
rise again from the dead and do
-
battle against us.
-
What does all this make sense
of?
-
The writer is giving this big
myth,
-
obviously the whore is killed,
Babylon is killed,
-
Rome is destroyed,
all the wealthy people are
-
destroyed,
all the kings of the earth are
-
destroyed by the angels and by
Jesus coming down.
-
And then the setting up of the
new Jerusalem that's gold and
-
beautiful,
and there's no night or day
-
there because God is its light
and everybody lives happily ever
-
after.
-
What is the kind of situation
that this speaks too?
-
We're going to go back to the
beginning of Revelation now.
-
Look at chapter 2.
-
-
These are in the letters.
-
We know it was written by a guy
named John.
-
He says he was imprisoned on
the isle of Patmos in the
-
Mediterranean when he wrote
this, and then he circulates it
-
around.
-
He starts off with these seven
letters to seven churches.
-
"To the angel of the
church in Ephesus."
-
Ephesus, we've seen Ephesus
haven't we?
-
One of pseudo-Paul's letters
may have been addressed to
-
Ephesus.
-
Paul apparently did found a
church in Ephesus,
-
and it was one of his bigger
churches it seems like.
-
He spent years there.
-
These are the words of him who
holds the seven stars in his
-
right hand, who walks among the
seven golden lamp stands.
-
I know your works,
your toil, and your patient
-
endurance.
-
I know that you cannot tolerate
evil doers, you have tested
-
those who claim to be apostles
but are not, and have found them
-
to be false.
-
[There are false apostles
running around.],
-
I also know that you are
enduring patiently and bearing
-
up for the sake of my name,
and that you have not grown
-
weary.
-
But I have this against you ....
-
See some of the letters are
mainly letters of praise to the
-
churches and some of them are
scolding letters,
-
so it's interesting to see what
does he scold people for,
-
and what does he praise them
for?
-
Remember, then,
from what you have fallen,
-
repent.
-
[This is a backslid church he
thinks.]
-
Do the works you did at first.
-
If not, I will come to you and
remove your lamp stand from its
-
place unless you repent.
-
Yet this is to your credit,
you hate the works of the
-
Nicolaitans, which I also hate.
-
[Well, we don't really know
anything about the Nicolaitans,
-
so that doesn't tell us much.]
Let anyone who has an ear,
-
listen to what the spirit is
saying to the churches.
-
To everyone who conquers I will
give permission to eat from the
-
tree of life that is in the
paradise of God.
-
Then he goes onto another
church.
-
So there are false apostles,
but then look at 2:9:
-
I know your affliction and your
poverty, even though you are
-
rich.
-
I know the slander on the part
of those who say that they are
-
Jews but are not,
but are a synagogue of Satan.
-
There is this poverty,
he's praising poverty.
-
He talks about people who -say
they're Jews but they're not.
-
2:13: "I know where you
are living."
-
This is to Pergamum which
happened to be a huge site of
-
the imperial cult,
the cult to the emperor.
-
In fact you can go there now,
I'm going to be there in June,
-
aren't you jealous?
-
You can go to the top of this
mountain,
-
the Acropolis in Pergamum,
and the Austrian archeologists
-
are rebuilding all these temples
to Trajan and Hadrian on the top
-
of this hill.
-
Of course Trajan and Hadrian
are after he wrote this,
-
but there was still a big
emperor cult there.
-
I know where you are living,
where Satan's throne is.
-
[well maybe that's a reference
to the emperor cult itself.]
-
You are holding fast to my
name,
-
you did not deny your faith in
me even in the days of Antipas
-
my witness,
I have some things against you,
-
you have some ....
-
Well, I'm running out of time
but let me tell you what
-
basically he really doesn't
like.
-
He doesn't like a woman named,
he calls Jezebel,
-
who is one of the prophets in
one the churches.
-
He doesn't like rich people.
-
He says stuff about idolatry
which makes it sound like he
-
doesn't like people who are
eating meat sacrificed to idols.
-
We don't think there were any
of these churches that were
-
actually practicing pagan
idolatry.
-
What's probably going on is,
he knows that there are some
-
Christians who eat meat
sacrificed to idols,
-
and he calls that idolatry.
-
Now let's think about it,
which churches are in this area
-
of western Asia Minor that have
women as leaders in them,
-
they've been told by their
apostle that it's okay to eat
-
meat sacrificed to idols,
and some of them are not that
-
poor,
like there seem to be people in
-
Corinth who seem to be fairly
well off.
-
Maybe this guy,
and this is just a theory,
-
but I think it's fun to think
about,
-
maybe he's actually writing to
Paul's churches precisely
-
because he thinks they're too
comfortable with Roman rule,
-
and he wants to make them
uncomfortable with Roman rule in
-
order to turn them against Rome
and to convert him to his own
-
vision about this anti-Roman
version of the Gospel.
-
And that's why he constructs
the letter to say,
-
as I said, if you're troubled,
if you feel like you're
-
oppressed you're supposed to be
comforted by this text.
-
But if you're too comfortable
with the Pax Romana
-
you're supposed to be mad
uncomfortable by the text and
-
get on the right side.
-
On Wednesday we'll talk about
some texts that may have been
-
more comfortable with Roman
rule.
-
