To most modern readers, the Apocalypse of John seems mystical and bizarre, quite unlike anything else that they have read or, well, want to read. In part, this explains some (other) peoples’ fascination with the book—it is so strange, so unearthly, that its descriptions cannot simply have been dreamt up. Its supernatural feel seems to vindicate its supernatural character. The historian who approaches the book, however, sees it in a somewhat different light, for this was not the only book of its kind to be written in the ancient world, even if it is the only one that most of us have ever read. As with all genres (novels, epic poems, short stories, limericks) apocalypses shared a number of literary conventions that made them different from other kinds of writing.  If you understand these conventions, you will be much better equipped to understand this particular book in light of them. In this post I’ll explain what those conventions were and in the next I’ll show how they help shape the book of Revelation.  [...]

In my previous posts I have given a sketch of what the book of Revelation (AKA the Apocalypse of John) is all about, and discussed who actually wrote it (some fellow named John, but not John the son of Zebedee). Now we can move into the question of when it was written and why.   I have taken this account from my textbook The Bible: A Historical and Literary Introduction 2nd ed. (Oxford University Press). ****************************** As with all the apocalypses of the ancient world, it is important to situate the Revelation of John in some kind of historical context to make sense of its bizarre symbolism. There are hints scattered throughout the book that portions of it were written in the time of the emperor Nero (in the early 60s C.E.), although the final product is usually dated to the end of the first century, around the year 95 C.E. or so, during the reign of the emperor Domitian. It is clear from the letters written to the seven churches in Revelation chapters [...]

Now that I have summarized the book of Revelation – it’s not that difficult to follow the basic structure of the narrative -- we get to the thorny questions of who wrote it, when, and why.  In this post we deal with the WHO. The author of Revelation certainly claims to be John (1:1), but there were numerous “Johns” in the early Christian community.  Which one was he? He does give some information about himself (1:9):  he is the “brother” of the Christians he is addressing and he shares their tribulation as he writes to them from the island of Patmos, off the west coast of Asia Minor.  Since his readers knew him, he had no need to explain any further who he was.  Later readers, however, have tried to figure out his identity. John was a common name in Jewish circles, and eventually became a name taken up by non-Jewish Christians It is important to recognize that this John does not claim to be any particular John.  He does not, for instance, [...]

We are fast approaching the end of this series on “The New Testament in a Nutshell,” in which I explain in summary fashion each book of the Christian (“new”) Scriptures.  As is natural, we end with the final book of the New Testament which, as is also natural, is a detailed account of how the world as we know it will end, the book of Revelation.  (Please note!  It is not "Revelations" but "Revelation.") The Revelation of John, also known as the Apocalypse of John or just the Apocalypse (“apocalypse” is the Greek word for the Latin term “revelation” – both mean an “unveiling,” a “disclosure,” a revealing”) is the most mystifying and at-first-glance bizarre book of the New Testament, one of the the least read (people generally find it too strange), and the most widely misunderstood (since those who *do* read it take it to mean something other than it does). If I were to summarize it in fifty words, I could probably do worse (and better, for that matter) than this: [...]