So much for one post per chapter.
First, a little background. There is a general consensus among scholars that Revelation was written in about 95CE, which puts it during the reign of Domitian, a persecutor of Christians. The book is a strong polemic against Rome, as we’ll see. It addresses the discrepancy between God’s power and the church’s weakness. The author is named John and while this is traditionally believed to be the same person who wrote the Gospel of John, this is not something that we can prove either way. As is always the case, the title of the book is not part of the original text but a latter addition. (Many scholars believe Rev 1:1 was the original title.) There is no scholarly consensus regarding an overall structure of the book, but there is a clear structure to certain sections, which we’ll see as we go.
As one scholar said, “the revelation is not abstract, but pictorial” (Beale, NICGNT). In other words, Revelation is painting a picture for John (and for the reader) of reality. But that doesn’t imply that the picture painted is reality, but rather that it represents reality. Here’s an example one of my professors used once: imagine a painting of man sitting in his library. The flames of the fireplace form haunted faces. The man is cast in shadows. The dog at his feet is snarling. Other shadows in the room appear to be ghosts. Is this an accurate representation of reality? If accurate means “historical,” then, no, probably not. But if the subject of the painting is Adolf Hitler and the goal of the artist was to portray his nature, then the painting is accurate even if it is not historical. Similarly, the moon does not need to turn to hemoglobin to mean that the Book of Revelation is accurate. Like parables, the use of symbols signifies judgment on the majority of the audience (but not you, Ardis) that doesn’t “get” them. Note that the immediate audience of the book is described in chapters 2-3 (so more on them later).
Revelation has more Old Testament references than any other NT book. Here is a partial list of Old Testament references in just the first chapter:
Dan 2:28-30, 45
Zech 4:2, 6, 10
Isa 11:4, 49:2
Isa 4:14, 44:6, 48:12
An excellent exercise would be to look up each one and to see how John uses it in Revelation. Note that almost all of the references are from other apocalyptic, visionary works.
Old Testament references are the key to understanding the symbolism. I generally don’t think it kosher to pull random associations out of a hat when reading Revelation; the symbolic association should come from the Old Testament. (There are also some references to things that would have been part of the cultural currency of the first audience.)
1 The Revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave unto him, to shew unto his servants things which must shortly come to pass; and he sent and signified it by his angel unto his servant John:
The word translation as “Revelation” is the Greek apokalupsis, from which we get ‘apocalypse’ and which carries the sense of disclosing something. While I don’t think the author understood it as a genre, we certainly now see the Book of Revelation as part of the genre known as apocalyptic. If I could get LDS scripture readers to do just one thing, it would be to pay more attention to genre when they read; you shouldn’t read scriptural poetry the same way that you read a letter or a historical narrative, etc. What does the genre of apocalyptic ask of the reader? Well, probably the biggest mistake a modern reader makes is to treat it as if it were a history textbook written before the events happened. That isn’t how apocalypse works. Rather, apocalyptic writings present material symbolically. (Often, this is done for the pragmatic reason of avoiding persecution.) As one scholar put it:
The Bible includes a variety of different genres. When we read . . . Jesus’ story about the good Samaritan . . . we are not inclined to check the story against the police blotter for the Jerusalem-Jericho highway patrol. We recognize that Jesus is telling a story to illustrate a moral point, and that such stories often don’t claim to correspond to actual events. . . . Texts often provide clues as to their genre. When a story begins, “Once upon a time…” we expect a fairy tale. When we flip on the television and see someone saying. “A guy walked up to a man in a bar…” we know we’re watching a comedy club, not the evening news. But sometimes, particularly when encountering a text from a different culture, it’s hard to recognize the genre. For example, Data, the android on Star Trek, can’t recognize jokes. He takes them literally, and often finds himself puzzled. Similarly, when we read an apocalyptic text like Daniel or Revelation, we often
find ourselves puzzled, not knowing how we are supposed to understand these particular texts. We’re not taking their truth more seriously if we take them as literal predictions about the future, any more than Data is interpreting more accurately when he misses the joke. To misunderstand the genre is to misinterpret the text.
More on this as we go; I’d rather derive evidence of this from the text than impose it from the outside.
The “of” is interesting (no, really!) because it could mean that the Revelation comes by, from, or about Jesus Christ–each would have a slightly different nuance of meaning.
“Gave” means made known and is the same word as Dan 2:28-30, 45. While this verse is patterned after Dan 2, Daniel has â€œin the latter daysâ€ and Rev. has shortly. “Shortly” seems somewhat ironic for something written 2000 years ago. One thought is that the events might have begun shortly after the text was written and continue to and through today. (Again, I’ll make this argument more as the text suggests it.)
“Servant,” any time you see it in the NT, could be translated as slave. Maybe a little jarring for modern readers, but I think servant may be too easy to gloss over. What would we think of visualizing ourselves as slaves of Christ?
I explained the significance of “signified” here and in the subsequent comments. The general sentiment among scholars of the Book of Revelation is that the word carries the connotation of figurative (and not literal) representation. I believe this word served as a heads up to the audience, signaling to them what kind of information was to follow.
2 Who bare record of the word of God, and of the testimony of Jesus Christ, and of all things that he saw.
“Testimony” can also be translated as “witness.”
Again note the emphasis on things that are seen. This will be a very visual vision and must be interpreted that way.
3 Blessed is he that readeth, and they that hear the words of this prophecy, and keep those things which are written therein: for the time is at hand.
This is a prophecy: it does tell of events that will happen in the future (it just doesn’t tell of them literally).
Note the chain that v1-3 sets up: God->Jesus->angels->John->reader->hearer. (For the first audiences, they would have been lucky to have had one person in the congregation who could read and the rest would be hearers.)
Of course, they have to “keep those things,” too. An overarching question while reading Revelation should be: “What does it mean to “keep” it in a text where commandments are few and far between?”
V3 is one of seven beatitudes in Revelation. (That probably isn’t an accident; the number seven is a symbol for completeness and the list of things that there are seven of in Revelation is truly staggering. If the Book of Revelation were made into an episode of Sesame Street, it would definitely be brought to you by the number seven.)
This ends what can be seen as kind of a prologue–an introductory (or title) verse (verse 1) and then including information about author and audience and a blessing on the audience. I bet most of us are feeling like we need a blessing to get through the Book of Revelation. The next verse begins in the more-or-less normal format for an epistle.
(This post comes off–even to me–as a little frustrating with all of the “as we shall see”s and “more on this later”s. I felt the need to do that to give you a heads-up to major themes, but I need to let the text make its own case when we get to it. So please bear with me.)
Summary thoughts: You can’t hang out with Mormons very long without seeing one of those charts that shows the lineage of someone’s priesthood authority. These first three verses serve that same function by linking God to the audience through the angel, John, and the visionary experience. This is big stuff; a text with only a few degrees of separation from God! With that in mind, the promise in verse 3–that you’ll be blessed for reading–is even more powerful. Don’t you want to read more?