Revelations: Visions, Prophecy, and Politics in the Book of Revelation by Elaine Pagels Read Free Book Online

Regional Trajectories,” in James VanderKam and William Adler, eds.,
The Jewish Heritage in Early Christianity
(Assen, Netherlands: Van Gorum & Comp, 1996), 135, 156. Noted scholar of early Christian apocalyptic literature Brian E. Daley, S.J., points out that while “the Nag Hammadi collection … contains a number of texts labeled ‘apocalypses’ … for the most part these revelation-discourses have little literary connection with the traditional apocalyptic form,” in “Faithful and True: Early Christian Apocalyptic and the Person of Christ,” in Robert J. Daly, S.J.,
Apocalyptic Thought in Early Christianity
(Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2009), 114. Many scholars would agree with him that these are “partial heirs of the apocalyptic tradition,rather than its authentic representatives,” 115. Most of those found at Nag Hammadi do not focus primarily upon apocalyptic eschatology, nor do they conform to the attempt to define the genre set forth in John J. Collins’ influential work, exemplified in “The Genre Apocalypse in Hellenistic Judaism,” in
Apocalypticism in the Mediterranean World and the Near East: Proceedings of the International Colloquium in Apocalypticism, Uppsala,
ed. David Hellholm (Tübingen, Germany: Mohr Siebeck, 1983), 531–548.
7 Revelation 1:10; for discussion of this phrase (and, indeed, of any throughout the entire book), see David Aune,
Revelation 1–5
,
Word Biblical Commentary,
vol. 52, A, B, C (Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson Publishers, 1997), vol. 52A, 82–83.
8 Revelation 1:12–16.
9 Revelation 4:1.
10 Revelation 1:19, now about to be revealed through the opening of the sealed scroll of Revelation 5.
11 Revelation 6:4. For John’s vision of all the horsemen, see 6:2–8.
12 Revelation 6:10.
13 Revelation 9:1–3.
14 Revelation 9:7–11.
15 Revelation 12:1–6. Since the earliest commentators, Christians often have interpreted her as Mary, since she is characterized as mother of the messiah or else as the church. Others, likely including John himself, inspired by the image that the prophet Isaiah offers in Isaiah 26:17–27:1, apparently thought of her as the nation of Israel as potentially pregnant with the messiah, have seen her as an image of Israel. The reader need not choose one of these interpretations to the exclusion of others. Note, for example, how John J. Collins, in his influential book
The Apocalyptic Imagination: An Introduction to the Jewish Matrix of Christianity
(New York: Crossroad Publishing, 1984), 11ff, characterizesapocalyptic images as “multivalent,” that is, capable of suggesting more than one meaning—often a cluster of related meanings.
16 For an excellent discussion, see Neil Forsyth,
The Old Enemy: Satan and the Combat Myth
(Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1987), 248–257, especially 252: “in chapter 12 … is the only explicit reference in the New Testament to a war in heaven.” For an extensive and influential discussion of the background of these traditions, see Adela Yarbro Collins,
The Combat Myth in the Book of Revelation
(Missoula, MT: Scholars Press, 1976).
17 Revelation 12:17.
18 For John’s description of the beasts, see Revelation 13:1–18. Regarding the number of the beast, some ancient manuscripts give the name of the beast as the number 616, as Irenaeus notes; e.g. P. Oxy. LXVI 4499. On this topic as a text-critical issue, see David C. Parker,
An Introduction to the New Testament Manuscripts and Their Texts
(Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2008), 242–244.
19 Revelation 16:13. For John’s account of the seven angels who dispense God’s wrath, see 15:5–16:21.
20 Revelation 1:2. Tina Pippin, among others, discusses John’s use of feminine images such as the “woman clothed with the sun,” Jerusalem, the virgin bride, and the whore of Babylon; see “The Heroine and the Whore: Fantasy and the Female in the Apocalypse of John,”
Semeia 60
:
Fantasy and the Bible
(1991), 67–82. See response by