Why is the Book of Revelation claimed by every age?
One of the (many) slap-up paradoxes of the Book of Revelation is that, at one and the same time, information technology is experienced as both very difficult to interpret, yet also very easy. This explains the very different reactions to it equally a biblical text; those who instinctively sense that it is difficult to interpret find information technology quote opaque, and and then tend to avoid it. Merely in that location are others who seem very confident that it is very easy to empathise, and more specifically very easy to see how it is predicting the events of our ain day. As I explored recently, it turns out that Christian readers in almost every age have felt the aforementioned—that the text is specifically and uniquely about the events of their own day!
How tin can a text offering both possibilities to different readers? There are lots of reasons for this, connected with both the context in which the book is written, and the way John makes apply of linguistic communication in it. The first is that it is intricately connected with its historical context in ways which fundamentally bear on the way we interpret information technology.
Mayhap the all-time-known example of this is the question of what it means to be 'lukewarm' in the message to theekklesia in Laodicea in Rev 3.15–16. It is usually causeless that to be 'hot' is to be fervent (a expert affair) and to be 'cold' is to be indifferent to faith (a bad thing). So how could the risen Christ prefer us to exist common cold than to be 'lukewarm' (commonly assumed to mean being neither one nor the other—Anglican in fact!). But in its historical context, hot and cold are bothgood things to be. Across the valley in Hierapolis (modern 24-hour interval Pammukale), thehot springs bring healing. Further up the valley in Colossae thecold springs bring refreshment. But in Laodicea, the hot water has to travel some distance, and so by the fourth dimension it reaches the metropolis it islukewarm, and with its dissolved calcium carbonate, if you drink information technology, it makes yous desire to—spit it out! Hot and cold are bothadept for something, but lukewarm water is good for—nothing. It is and then that nosotros notice what the verse actually says: not, 'I know yourfaith' but 'I know yourworks—and you lot are existence ineffective' (Rev 3.15).
A less obvious example is the depiction of worship in chapters 4 and 5. At that place are elements here nosotros might recognise from the Former Testament—the rainbow from Genesis nine, thunder and lightning from Moses' encounter with God on Sinai, living creatures from Ezekiel 1, and so on. Merely there are plenty of other elements (such equally the elders in white casting down their crowns) which nosotros don't recognise. Ironically, popular commentary often treats these elements as a quasi-literal depiction of what is happening 'in heaven', but in fact these other elements stand for with what we know from the 'worship' of the Roman emperor. The cardinal passage in the book, affiliate 12, also offers like challenges. We recognise thecharacters from the story (more or less), but the plot baffles us, unless we are familiar with the myth of Leto, who gave birth to Artemis and Apollo. The great temple of Artemis was located in Ephesus, and the emperor was often depicted as a kind of Apollo figure. (For a fuller exploration, come across the mail service 'Is our God greater?')
The second reason why we find Revelation hard is its abiding allusion to the Old Testament. In its 405 verses there are something like 676 allusions (I know; I counted them!) and so if we do not know our OT very well, we will be baffled past just virtually every verse in Revelation. The surprising thing here is that the books well-nigh alluded to are Isaiah and Psalms, which is probably not what we expected.
But there is something even more fundamental nigh the way Revelation uses language that not merely makes it hard to read—it also explains why there are so many different, apparently conflicting means that it has been interpreted. Revelation's language is thoroughly metaphorical, and that in itself gives us enough issues. But like many other 'apocalyptic' texts, it deploys metaphor in a particularly challenging style.
According to Paul Ricoeur, metaphor has three elements to it: the subject (what the metaphor is referring to); the vehicle (the term which is used metaphorically); and the tenor (the sense the metaphor is communicating). So if I say 'My friend is a pig', and then the subject is my (erstwhile) friend, the vehicle is 'pig' and the tenor is any 'hog-likeness' communicates, either greed or unkindness (though in fact pigs are neither greedy nor unkind…but that is another story). Metaphors are easiest to make sense of when nosotros know all three. Then when the assembly at Ephesus is told that it is [similar] a lover who has grown jaded, or those in Sardis that they are [like] guards who have fallen comatose, then we don't have too much trouble making sense of this—which is why these chapters are the but ones ever preached on!
But what happens when the field of study disappears from view? These seven oracles are to exist spoken to the 'angel' of each assembly. Is that a person, perhaps the leader? Or is there really an angel attached to each place—either as the 'spirit' of the assembly or as some sort of guardian angel?
This kind of metaphor is surprisingly common in everyday speech; yous can hear it on football terraces, or in any context where the subject of the metaphor is understood without the need to specify it. Its technical proper name is 'hypocatastasis', from the Greek for 'arranging' and 'under'. The only modern commentary on Revelation I have institute it in in Greg Beale's in the NIGTC, but the term was outset popularised by a Victorian clergyman called Eastward West Bullinger. Bullinger was an advocate of hyper-dispensationalism who believed that the 'church era' merely began at the finish of Acts 28, so we should not take any of the pedagogy of Acts, or the gospels for that matter, every bit now applying to united states. (And so Bullinger believed that reciting the Lord'southward Prayer equally Jesus taught it belonged to a previous impunity, and was not relevant for Christians…!) For his troubles, he was denounced by regular dispensationalists as purveying an "absolutely Satanic perversion of the truth"! Simply along the way, in 1898 he wroteFigures of Speech as Used in the Bible, which yous tin can still buy online and which continues to be influential (along with his other pedagogy) among sure groups on the Continent. Here is what Bullinger says:
Every bit a figure, information technology differs from Metaphor, because in a metaphor the two nouns are both named and given; while, in Hypocatastasis, only one is named and the other is implied, or every bit information technology were, is put downward underneath out of sight. Hence Hypocatastasis is implied resemblance or representation: i.e., an implied Simile or Metaphor. If Metaphor is more forcible than Simile, and so Hypocatastasis is more than forcible than Metaphor, and expresses equally it were the superlative caste of resemblance.
For instance, one may say to another, "You are like a animate being." This would be Simile, tamely stating a fact. If, however, he said, "You are a beast" that would exist Metaphor. But, if he said just, "Fauna!" that would be Hypocatastasis, for the other function of the Simile or Metaphor ("you"), would be implied and non stated.
This figure, therefore, is calculated to arouse the mind and attract and excite the attention to the greatest extent.
My favourite case of hypocatastasis comes from the penultimate scene in the motion-picture show Pretty Woman. Richard Gere is returning a $250,000 necklace to the hotel director, Mr Thompson, after his relationship with Julia Roberts has apparently come up to an cease. Thompson asks permission to open up the box, and later on looking at the necklace, says to Gere:
It must be very difficult to let get of something then beautiful.
This illustrates the power and problem of hypocatastasis perfectly. The subject here is not specified—and so we could merely take it as a literal, non-metaphorical reference to the necklace. But precisely considering the subject is not specified, it is very piece of cake for the reference to change. Thompson goes on:
Darren [the chauffeur] took Miss Vivian back to her apartment last dark.
At present the statement transfers to another subject and becomes metaphorical; it is Vivian who is the cute thing that is hard to allow become of. And Bullinger is quite right well-nigh the power of hypocatastasis; this is the most powerful single moment in the film.
These three features—of possible literalism, of transferability, and of ability—are writ large on the history of the interpretation of Revelation. Some take read it thinking there actually will be beasts emerging from the body of water, that there are living creatures and rainbows in sky, that our destiny is to sit on clouds playing harps (chapter 14), and that nosotros volition pass through pearly gates. Others have been able to identify people and institutions in their own world quite happily with the beasts and dragons, the woman clothed with the sun and the harlot riding the fauna. And every generation has found this to be a text of extraordinary power—for skillful or otherwise. And information technology all comes down to hypocatastasis.
You lot might past now be thinking 'I wish John had made himself a little clearer, and used less powerful but less ambiguous language.' Perhaps so, but information technology is also worth pondering: if y'all knew that the church was nigh to enter 200 years of intense testing, what would you write?
With power comes responsibility. The great power of Revelation, and its hypocatastatic metaphors, comes the need for great responsibility in its interpretation. Like a powerful chemical, which could practice bang-up things just also crusade great damage, we demand to handle with care.
(And just for fun, here is the first scene when the necklace makes an appearance. Gere'southward snapping of the box on Roberts' fingers was improvised, and you lot tin can run into Roberts look around at the camera crew earlier regaining her composure.)
(Previously published in 2022 and 2018)
Come up and bring together me for a Zoom instruction afternoononThursday 3rd February to explore all the issues around the 'terminate times' and end of the world.
We will wait at: t he groundwork to this language in Jewish thinking; Jesus' teaching in Matthew 24 and Mark 13; t he Rapture—what is it, and does the Bible really teach information technology; west chapeau the New Testament says about 'tribulation'; t he fauna, the antichrist, and the Millennium in Rev twenty; the significance of the country of Israel.
The cost is £10 per person, and you can book your tickets at the Eventbrite link here.
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