Angel Veneration and Christology: A Study in Early Judaism and in the Christology of the Apocalypse of John

 

Loren T. Stückenbruck

Mohr Siebeck, 1995-06-10 - 348 pages

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Reformation Readings of the Apocalypse: Geneva, Zurich, and Wittenber

 

Irena Dorota Backus

Oxford University Press, 2000-12-07 - 182 pages

In this study, Irene Backus examines the fate of the Apocalypse at the hands of early Protestants in three centers of the Reformation: Geneva, Zurich, and Wittenberg. To do so, Backus systematically investigates sources and methods of the most important reformed and Lutheran commentaries of the Apocalypse from 1528-1584.

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The Climax of Prophecy: Studies on the Book of Revelation

Richard Bauckham

Continuum International Publishing Group, 1998-03-01 - 550 pages

The Book of Revelation is a work of great significance. Yet among the major works of early Christianity included in the New Testament, it has received the least attention from scholars. Professor Bauckham looks closely at Revelation's own literary dynamics as a closely integrated literary whole. He investigates Revelation's intertextual relationship with the Hebrew Bible, illustrating how constant disciplined allusion to the Old Testament scriptures is a key element in the way Revelation conveys meaning. There is fresh study of the relationships between Revelation and other Jewish and Christian apocalypses. And there is extensive examination of Revelation's contemporary context. Revelation emerges as a work of meticulous literary artistry, remarkable creative imagination, radical political critique and profound theology. Above all, its central message, portraying itself as the climax of the biblical prophetic tradition and claiming to reveal the secret of God's purpose for the final coming of God's kingdom, appears with fresh clarity. This comprehensive investigation continually breaks new ground. Some of Revelation's distinctive literary techniques are identified and studied for the first time; and a wide range of new evidence from Revelation's literary and historical contexts is brought to the elucidation of the text.

 

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The Book of Revelation: Apocalypse and Empire

 

Leonard L. Thompson

Oxford University Press, 1997-02-13 - 288 pages

About seventy years after the death of Jesus, John of Patmos sent visionary messages to Christians in seven cities of western Asia Minor. These messages would eventually become part of the New Testament canon, as The Book of Revelation. What was John's message? What was its literary form? Did he write to a persecuted minority or to Christians enjoying the social and material benefits of the Roman Empire? In search of answers to these penetrating questions, Thompson critically examines the language, literature, history, and social setting of the Book of the Apocalypse. Following a discussion of the importance of the genre apocalypse, he closely analyzes the form and structure of the Revelation, its narrative and metaphoric unity, the world created through John's visions, and the social conditions of the empire in which John wrote. He offers an unprecedented interpretation of the role of boundaries in Revelation, a reassessment of the reign of the Emperor Domitian, and a view of tribulation that integrates the literary vision of Revelation with the reality of the lives of ordinary people in a Roman province. Throughout his study, Thompson argues that the language of Revelation joins the ordinary to the extra-ordinary, earth to heaven, and local conditions to supra-human processes.

 

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Revelation: The Apocalypse of Jesus Christ

 

Judith L. Kovacs, Christopher Rowland, Rebekah Callow

John Wiley & Sons, 2004-01-05 - 315 pages

This ground-breaking commentary reveals the far-reaching influence of the Apocalypse on society and culture, and the impact it has had on the Christian Church through the ages.Approaching the Apocalypse chapter by chapter, the authors consider its effects, not only on theologians from Origen and Augustine to late twentieth-century theologians of liberation, but also on writers, artists, musicians, political figures, visionaries and others, including Dante, Hildegard of Bingen, Milton, Newton, the English Civil War radicals, Dürer, Turner, Blake, Handel and Franz Schmidt. They show that, despite the enormous range of interpretations, those who use the Apocalypse tend either to see it as a kind of sophisticated code to interpret history, or as a parable about the appropriate response to God in political, ecclesiastical, or personal life. This ground-breaking commentary reveals the far-reaching influence of the Apocalypse on society and culture, and the impact it has had on the Christian Church through the ages.Approaching the Apocalypse chapter by chapter, the authors consider its effects, not only on theologians from Origen and Augustine to late twentieth-century theologians of liberation, but also on writers, artists, musicians, political figures, visionaries and others, including Dante, Hildegard of Bingen, Milton, Newton, the English Civil War radicals, Dürer, Turner, Blake, Handel and Franz Schmidt. They show that, despite the enormous range of interpretations, those who use the Apocalypse tend either to see it as a kind of sophisticated code to interpret history, or as a parable about the appropriate response to God in political, ecclesiastical, or personal life.

 

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Imperial Cults and the Apocalypse of John: Reading Revelation in the Ruins

Steven J. Friesen

Oxford University Press, 2001-10-25 - 285 pages

After more than a century of debate about the significance of imperial cults for the interpretation of Revelation, this is the first study to examine both the archaeological evidence and the Biblical text in depth. Friesen argues that a detailed analysis of imperial cults as they were practiced in the first century CE in the region where John was active allows us to understand John's criticism of his society's dominant values. He demonstrates the importance of imperial cults for society at the time when Revelation was written, and shows the ways in which John refuted imperial cosmology through his use of vision, myth, and eschatological expectation.

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The People of God in the Apocalypse: Discourse, Structure, and Exegesis

Stephen Pattemore

Cambridge University Press, 2004 256 pages

Stephen Pattemore examines passages within Revelation 4:1-22:21 that depict the people of God as actors in the apocalyptic drama and infers what impact these passages would have had on the self-understanding and behaviour of the original audience of the work. He uses Relevance Theory, a development in the linguistic field of pragmatics, to help understand the text against the background of allusion to other texts. Three important images are traced. The picture of the souls under the altar (6:9-11) is found to govern much of the direction of the text with its call to faithful witness and willingness for martyrdom. Even the militant image of a messianic army (7:1-8, 14:1-5) urges the audience in precisely the same direction. Both images combine in the final image of the bride, the culmination of challenge and hope traced briefly in the New Jerusalem visions

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The Reality of Apocalypse: Rhetoric and Politics in the Book of Revelation

David L. Barr

Society of Biblical Lit, 2006-08-18 -  306 pages

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Reading the Book of Revelation: A Resource for Students

David L. Barr

BRILL, 2004-03-01 199 pages

This wide-ranging introduction to the interpretation of the Apocalypse comes from scholars who have worked together for over a decade as members of the Society of Biblical Literature Seminar on Reading the Apocalypse: The Intersection of Literary and Social Methods. Each chapter provides an overall reading of Revelation that grows out of a particular methodological approach. The primary approaches include historical, literary, and social analysis, which are then used in combination with other reading strategies including social conflict theory, philosophy, women's studies, ethics, History of Religions, Postcolonial Studies, and popular culture. Each of the essays focuses on a specific text from Revelation and shows how the method used helps interpret that text, and how diverse methods produce divergent readings of a text. Contributors include David L. Barr, Paul B. Duff, Ronald L. Farmer, Steven J. Friesen, Edith M. Humphrey, Jon Paulien, Jean-Pierre Ruiz, and Leonard L. Thompson. Developed as a resource book for undergraduates, this work will also prove useful to more advanced students, clergy, and others who wish to explore how methods shape our understandings of texts. All will benefit from up-to-date discussions by some of the leading scholars studying Revelation today.

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