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Loading...I am at the beginning of my thread on the book of Revelation, and am giving the background necessary to make sense of how I now make sense of the book, which is different from how I’ve made sense of it most of my life! But one thing I wholeheartedly agree with myself on from earlier days: you HAVE to understand the book in its own historical context or you will completely misconstrue its meaning — as almost everyone does, since they think it is a book written for the 21st century instead of the 1st. That’s a big mistake if you have any interest in what an author of the 1st century was saying to his audience of the 1st century. You have to understand the literary conventions and historical realities of their time. Seems obvious, but, well, I guess it’s not to most readers….
In my previous post I began to stress the importance of knowing what an “apocalypse” is before trying to interpret any one particular apocalypse. Today I pursue that a bit more, by talking about this genre which has numerous representatives in ancient Jewish and Christian writings. Here is how I begin to describe the genre more fully in my textbook on the New Testament:
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Despite their wide-ranging differences, our surviving apocalypses typically share specific literary features. The most common of these are the following:
- Pseudonymity. Almost all of our ancient apocalypses were written pseudonymously, in the name of a famous religious person from the past (the book of Revelation, interestingly enough, is a rare exception). Among our surviving Jewish apocalypses are some claiming to be written by Moses, Abraham, Enoch, and even Adam; we have Christian apocalypses reputedly from the pens of the prophet Isaiah and the apostles Peter, Paul, and Thomas.
Is there a particular reason for authors of apocalypses to hide their identity behind a pseudonym? We have already seen that
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Ah, you should watch the Third Eagle of the Apocalypse. He reveals that Revelation is *actually* a scrambled cipher text which explains all the inconsistencies and violent repetitions. He has managed to unscramble this and it makes perfect sense in terms of the future. For instance, the world ended in 2016 and Trump was re-elected triumphantly in 2020. And he converted to Catholicism in secret.
I see you live in an alternate reality…….
Might the writer of Revelation expected to be identified as the son of Zebedee? If claiming to be someone they are not, an author can be explicit or subtle about it. Being more subtle might even come across as more believable, for example when presuming to write to an audience that knows who he is. This is “possible” of course, just as it is possible it was written by someone named John. Do you have examples of more subtle deception with pseudoepigraphy, or is it always more explicit that the writer is claiming to be someone specific?
That would certainly be someone’s first guess. BUt since the author refers to the twelve apostles and their names (e.g., as the Foundations of the New Jerusalem), and clearly is not talking about himself, it’s usually thought to be unlikely. BUt yes, there are absolutely subtle claims of pseudonymity in the NT — e.g. the book of Acts, James, 1 John, etc.
Try this one.
Apply modern psychologic science like that kind which you find in Dr. Carl Jungs perseptions of his Soul knowledge (Psycho logi ). This branch of psychology deal with just such events, and much have been written about the natue of it, even the interpretation of different symbols
Apply ancient (at the time those apocolyptic visions were written) what most people on earth believed in (reincarnation, conciousness, evolvement of conciousness found in much earlier IN PARTICULAR Hinduism and Buddism).
,,,then you get another alternative, though within Christian context, but there are amazingly lots of similarities. The context is of course different with the traditional view, because you have to lean into a different spiritual appraoch, where much of what is described in the revelaton is forces within, and the revelation is an inner awakening and lifting up to a higher conciousness. I do not at all intend it to be a Hinduistic or Buddistic view, and nor did Carl Jung’s eager to understand the symbols and realms within Hinduism and Buddism either.
The examples are many, and it is my claim that you can apply this view on the Book of Revelation, and the similarities are there. And when the for example they made the Holywood movie “The little Buddha” and when Siddartha opened his spiritual 7 centers/7 seals got through a whole lot of bizarre visions and temtpations, and also them point that opening it before one may cause danger (Kundulini energy), just like warned about in Revelation chapter 5.
Well,,,it is just a thought. I just find this veiw , scholarly psychological view, combined with the realm of symbolism found in ancient, and (major world religions) more and more compelling every time I approach the Revelation.
Hey, we all know 666 stands for Donald Johann Strumpf! Whenever somebody says or posts something about Revelation applying to our time I point out that the beginning and end of the book say it is about things about to happen soon in their time, not our time, (Rev. 1:1, 22:10) but it seems to fall on deaf ears.
“Pseudonymity. Almost all of our ancient apocalypses were written pseudonymously, in the name of a famous religious person from the past (the book of Revelation, interestingly enough, is a rare exception).”
So you are not saying “The Revelation of John” is by THE John (the one who Jesus loved) but just that the writer is using a more current name time wise…right?
I”m saying that normally these books are written by people claiming to be a famous religious person, but that in this case the author appears simply to give his own name.
Ah, got it. Is there an estimated date for that document?
It’s usually dated to 95 CE or so.
Hi Dr Ehrman!
So often people try to apply the Bible to their current life situation… like they’ll take a verse of maybe Jeremiah about God’s promise to his people and apply that to a difficult situation that they’re going through. Obviously that would be taking the verse out of context.
So my question is: even though it is done so often and people are even advised by pastors to look in the Bible for verses to apply to their lives…. can one actually ever do that since the context was so vastly different? I mean how should the Bible actually be regarded when reading it- simply as a history of the religion’s birth and initial implications?
I would say one *can* do it because it is humanly possible and often done; but in my view it does discredit to the author himself, and that should give one pause, especially when dealing with the Bible. (Making it “all about me” rather than seeing what an author was trying to communicate)
Professor Ehrman, I am 74 now and since reading most of your books, ‘Heaven and Hell’ provided me with the answer to where my breath will go upon my last exhale. I no longer live in doubt of that event, and am totally content living each day to the fullest.
I AM looking forward to ‘Revelation Revealed’ or whatever title you and your publisher may decide upon, and would like to be one of the first to pre-order the book … Is it to early for that ?
Your book on the last chapter could really be the book that ends some of our last chapters.
Thank you for the countless explanations for so many of us out here.
Best Regards …
Thank you Dr Ehrman. This is an impossible question but, as we know that forgery was resented in the ancient world (perhaps as much as it is today), were people more gullible then given the large number of pseudonymous works that were in circulation? I know conditions now are not comparable with the early Christian centuries but most forgeries today are almost immediately treated as suspect.
I suppose “gullible” assigns a kind of culpability to people who “should know better,” and I guess I’d say that most people in the ancient world simply didn’t have any means to know better. Detecting a forgery requires a high level of literary sophistication (and even data retrieval systems) that were unavailable to most people in antiquity, so forgery could be more commonly practiced with impunity.
I wonder, does 22:18-19 reflect an awareness on the part of John that, if not outright forgery, a lot of editing and interpolating was occurring in documents shared in the early Christ communities?
YEs, this was an ancient “copyright” curse, such as found in other places, based on the fact that scribes could change most anything they wanted!
The book of Revelation is the only book I haven’t read from the New Testament! I’ve always been repelled by its over the top extra extra symbolic and arcane content! The first time I got down to read the New Testament in its entirety was 11 years ago, when I still believed in God and considered myself a Christian. But even then I was thinking that this stuff is way too wacky to be God inspired! 🤣
Ah, but how do you know you are put off by its content if you haven’t read it?
Haha! You almost exposed me, professor! 🤣 I took some sneak peeks of it, Mr. Ehrman; nothing seemed to make sense! But, flash forward 10 years, and after discovering you, around a year ago, I started to read again the New Testament, and I think I won’t skip it this time when I reach there!
I’m reading the NT from a vastly different perspective now, so I think I won’t let the weirdness of it put me off this time.
(Btw, if you’re wondering why it has taken me almost a whole year of reading the NT without being done with it yet, consider that I’m reading your books along with some physics, and of course the obvious intellectual deficit).
It’s definitely worth reading. And if you listen to it being read, instead, make sure you get a version with sound effects…
🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
Any suggestions on the recording? I’m pretty sure that if Lucasfilms division of Disney had a version it would be considered more canonical than the rest of them.
Nope. I heard one in the 70s! But usually I just say that as a bit of humor. You don’t want sound effects, for example, with Paul’s letter to the Philippians….
Was the “bizarre symbolic” nature of prophecy intended to provide a kind of “cold-reading” effect? Like the images are so kooky and vague, you could make the prophecy fit anything that happened in the future. Like a horoscope.
Or was it more so that a lot these symbols would’ve provided fairly linear correspondances to most readers, just with a layer of “plausible deniability” added? Like how people might post Pepe the Frog memes, or “1312” graffiti on facebook, to announce their politics only to other people who are “in the know”.
It’s kind of strange to me that any of Daniel or Revelation could be interpreted as “predictions” written after the fact as you said, when it all seems so obscurantist and vague (in the 21st century). But maybe to its contemporaries, and to researchers today, some things actually seem kind of on the nose?
I’ll be dealing with that a bit. I’ll be arguing that he is not trying to predict precisely what will happen in the future, so he wasn’t doing so in a way to make sure that most anything that happened would be interpreted as a fulfillment. Many of the symbols, though, are not particularly opaque and would have made pretty good sense to early readers.
Nr. 5 is a key point. I’m thinking not only of Revelation, but of later traditions like the Apocalypse of Pseudo-Methodius, a 7th century Syriac “revelation” purporting to be a vision of future events written by a fourth century bishop, but clearly aimed at urging contemporary Christians to resist apostatizing to Islam, which was quickly establishing itself as the dominant order following the Arab conquests a few decades earlier. The apocalypse genre is remarkably adaptable — it can apply to a current situation, but also the future simultaneously, particularly if the immediate predictions don’t pan out. Long after it became apparent that Islam was not going to be a passing fad or temporary divine chastisement in the Middle East, Pseudo-Methodius quickly became a forward-looking text, anticipating an eventual climatic conflagration between the “unbelievers” and a Roman emperor who would restore Christian rule in Jerusalem. You can imagine the hay Crusaders made of this…
It’s difficult to get my head around how an ancient believer would consciously pretend to be a prophet or somebody important to try to communicate their message.
Would it mostly be a kind of rationalising?
As in, they are lying for a good cause approved by God? They feel the ends justify the means?
They must have been somewhat “rogue” if forgery was looked down upon by so many other Christians.
It’s also difficult not to see them through modern eyes and assume they’re just unbelieving, cynical charlatans who get a kick out of manipulating the religiously docile.
I do understand that’s probably my modern mentality projecting my bias into the past, a temptation not easily resisted.
I suppose a lot of sincere believers today lie in order to achieve their ends. (A surprising numbre of religious leaders have been known to; one naturally thinks of some of the defamed televangelists). But you’re right, one has to put the phenomenon in its own ancient context. I wrestle with the issue a good bit in my books on forgery. ENd of the day: most early Chrsitians thought that lying was perfectly acceptable in some circumstances, and it if helped spread the Christian message, that could be one of them. THe idea that lying is ALWAYS wrong did not start until Augustine in the early fourth century (oddly enough). It is never condemned, per se, in the BIble, e.g., (“BEaring false witness” referred to making a misrepresentation in a legal situation)
Ah thanks for the explanation with Augustine. Something else I didn’t know.
That really helps me grasp the context and culture of the time.
Some of these attributes would fit the books of Ezekiel, also full of bizarre visions, also written to make sense of suffering and tragedy, and also written to assure a confused and oppressed people that God’s will always triumphs in the end. Ezekiel’s worldview is very different, but still… how much do apocalyptic writers owe to Ezekiel for their language and themes?
Yes, especially the visions were influential. But they’ve been transposed into an apocalyptic key.
Why do think that the author of Revelation use the name John instead of someone more prominent? Do you think that the author intended the readers to think that it was written by the apostle John son of Zebedee? If so, you would think that the author would be more clear about it.
I think that was his name, and he’s not writing pseudonymously. Otherwise he would have either picked a famous name or suggested he was *THAT* John
Dr. Ehrman,
Would you say that generally the apocalyptic writing style developed just during the Hellenistic Period (300BCE – 100CE) as a reaction to the Greek and then Roman cultural and religious domination of the eastern Mediterranean? I’ve read in addition to Hebrew and Christian apocalypses there were Egyptian and Persian apocalyptic style writings during this period as well. It seems that the local populations were all trying to understand how their god’s could be conquered and controlled by the Greek/Roman gods and were writing to their people that their god would win in the end. It seems all apocalyptic writings were trying to address that situation. And ironically many apocalyptic authors used Greek and Roman symbology in their books.
I wouldn’t say that there is a writing style called apocalyptic, but that there is a genre of writings that are. There are certainly apocalyptic themes in other cultures, but generically they do not have the characteristics of Jewish and CHristian apocalypses. It often is indeed thought that the genre arose out of a context of oppression and persecution, as a way to explain how the God of Israel was in charge even though reality strongly seems to indicate otherwise. THe apocalypse shows God’s ultimate sovereignty, either manifest in secret ways now or in powerful ways in days to come.
I can easily imagine a literate member of a congregation reading out of one of the gospels or one of Paul’s letters to the rest but given the hermetic nature of these apocalypses, and that interpretation would seem to require a knowledge of prior works and their interpretation, just who is the intended audience here do you think? Were these works written for the general edification or is it more likely they were composed by one esotericist for another?
thanks
They were almost certainly read aloud — most obvioulsy Revelation itself in the seven churches to which it is addressed. THey probably would have been able to make better sense of it than most readers today, since a lot of the images would have seemed more obvious. But I’d say that other writings would also have been highly confusing. I can’t imagine Paul’s readers in GAlatia really understanding what he says in most of chs. 2-4. Even serious interpreters studying them for years and years can’t agree on some of the verses….
“…they think it is a book written for the 21st century instead of the 1st. That’s a big mistake…”
I agree whole heartedly.
When two or three witnesses are agreed….
Thank you Bart.
Since, as you say, pseudonymity was a recognised standard convention in composing apocalypses; should I take it that considerations of fakery and fraud are inapplicable here? Thinking of your book on ‘Forgery and Counterforgery’.
If so: a letter written in the name of Paul, by someone who was not Paul is a ‘forgery’.
Whereas an apocalypse in the name of Isaiah, by someone who was not Isaiah is not a ‘forgery’?
Whereas as I read Athanasius’s festal letter 39, he does appear to categorise such works as ‘1 Enoch’ and ‘The Ascension of Isaiah’ as forgeries?
“Who has made the simple folk believe that those books belong to Enoch even though no Scripture existed before Moses? On what basis will they say that there is an apocryphal book of Isaiah? He preaches openly on the high mountain and says, “I did not speak in secret or in a dark land.” How could Moses have an apocryphal book? He is the one who published Deuteronomy with heaven and earth as witnesses.”
Some people have argued that. I make the other argument in my book Forgery and Counterforgery, that even though this is typically what happened in apocalypses, it was still considered a form of deceit. It’s striking that someone like TErtullian, e.g., has to explain *how* Enoch’s words survived to the present, since they would have been destroyed in flood (he was Noah’s ancestor). I.e., he believed it really was written by Enoch. If he had been told otherwise, he would have had a completely different opinion of it. And when ancients do have opinions about such things — books claiming to be written by those who did not write them — they condemn them. (As your quotation indicates; but there are lots and lots of ancient discussions.)
When I was a Christian I was pacifist-leaning and found the book of Revelation singularly unchristian when it came to conflict resolution. Dr. E, doesn’t psychology play a bigger role in hermeneutics than grammar? Love your work.
I suppose it depends on what you mean by hermeneutics and whether you are referring to an author or a reader. But yes, I could not turn to Revelation as a model of conflict resolution! (DESTROY THEM ALL!)
There is a more rational explanation based on historical facts for these wild visions and apocalyptic stories:
1) The Eluesain Mysteries;
2) Barley and Ergot (a fungus that grows on barley);
3) The Greeks;
4) Greek was the primary language of the New Testament.
Connect the dots and do the math, metaphorically speaking.
“The Immortality Key: The Secret History of the Religion With No Name”, by Brian Muraresku lends credence to those explanations regarding ancient religious visions and mystical events in The Bible. As does Dead Sea Scrolls archeologist, John M. Allegro’s, work on the presence of entheogenic mushroom images in Christian art and on church frescos is fascinating.
Sad to think that Biblical scholars and Christian leaders tried to discredit and dismiss Allegro’s research on ingesting what one person called “the fruit of the gods”.
Unless you have taken a hallucinogenic, it’s hard to comprehend the transformation it imparts on one’s vision of the world, life, and spirituality. For some, the concepts of Heaven and Hell both become self-evident.
Considering what travel was like back then and that documents were all hand-written copies, how did someone get their work to go ‘viral’ enough to become widespread? Did they make numerous copies and send them to the influencers of the day? I would think at first, anyone reading some document claiming to be written by X would be likely to know enough to doubt such claims. It seems like a huge hurdle, there likely were a LOT more of these things, like other gospels as well, than have survived.
It depends. FAmous authors would have multiple copies made. Others would hope for the best — that readers would want copies and make them or have them made. THat’s what happend with the early Xn writers. Most of the time their writings were not copied at all; sometimes rarely, and in 27 cases, MASSIVELY (over the centuries)
It is possible, in some states of consciousness, to have visions of the whole sweep of human history, including future events (I’ve had a couple myself). I tend to assume that the writers of apocalypses might have had similar experiences.
Of course, in my own case, I’ve been at some pains to disambiguate past events which I know from future ones which I don’t – but there’s nothing in the visions themselves to assist with that.
Dr. L.M. White (UT Austin) told me that scholars will continue to cite the Commentary on Revelation by Dr. Josephine M. Ford (Yale, 1975). When speaking of the authorship of John, most scholars say that there was one author in one time-space location. Dr. Ford says there were two authors in two locations.
The core of Revelation consists of chapters 4-11, and it’s amazing because it’s the only text in the NT that fails to mention “Jesus Christ” or “Jesus” or “Christ” in all its 16 pages. Nowhere in the NT can we find two consecutive pages that fail to mention those names.
This led Dr. Ford to follow the path less chosen — chapter 4-11 are pre-Christian, and can be dated to 30 BC, from the school of John the Baptist. The “John” in “Revelation of John” is John the Baptist, written by his followers, probably. The language of those chapters is remarkably like the speeches of John the Baptist in the Gospels.
Her thesis is radical, but her book is compelling. The many facts align with her thesis. Please comment on her innovative approach, Dr. Ehrman.
See today’s post by James Tabor. I do not agree with the view and had not heard of anyone else (among scholars) who did, until James submitted his post! (There are, of course, plenty of NT books that you can find chapters for which JC is not mentioned by name; the book of James, e.g., in five chapters, gives the name in only 2 verses)