Ac the book of revelation from a jewish perspective. My guest, elaine pagels, is the author of a new book about what she describes as the strangest book in the. The book of revelation is the final book of the new testament, and consequently is also the final book of the christian bible. Aleister crowley 18751947 claimed that he was the beast prophecized in the book of revelation and took the name. While the book of revelation is an apocalypse when it comes to its genre, it is not a pure apocalypse in that it is set in the context of a letter.
Obviously, the writer of these visionary letters to the seven churches of asia was in his own estimation a jew, while believing in jesus as the risen messiah. James tabors popular taborblog, a site that discusses and reports on all things biblical from the hebrew bible to early christianity in the roman world and. So, the divine author of revelation is jesus christ and the human author is the apostle john. The reason most commentaries fail to enlighten the book s contents is because they violate one or more of the three basic principles of sound biblical interpretation. The real meaning of the bibles book of revelation is a popular, ongoing debate. It cant be said that no one pays any attention to scholarly books about the bible. The book of revelation, a prophecy of warning and hope. Walter wessel, my new covenant professor of greek and revelation at bethel seminary west, who taught me the valuable use of greek while interpreting the scriptures. In the course of his search, he encountered certain people who proclaimed a new spiritual christianity, one which understood the old testament. Book of revelation for dummies cheat sheet dummies. In secondary usage, revelation refers to the resulting human knowledge about god, prophecy, and other divine things.
Can a prechristian version of the book of revelation be recovered. The book of revelation session one with rabbi brian bileci at destiny duration. The jewish people and their sacred scriptures in the christian bible. John, the writer of the book of revelation, sets out to tell his readers something vital about the paradox of the days and years ahead.
After all, works by robert alter and harold bloom are often. It was popular to see jesus and the earliest christians as a continuation of the old testament prophets and standing apart from the apocalyptic tradition see. Historicist interpretations of the book of revelation. Youll find four major interpretive approaches to the book of revelation that can help you read, understand, and figure out the apocalyptic letter of john. Throughout most of history since the predictions of the book of daniel, historicism has been widely used. For this is the way of wisdom to acquire ideas one after another until, in the end, there emerges one complete concept for which all of the prefaces were necessary. John was a christian leader of jewish origin who was in exile on the roman prison island of patmos. The book of revelation is johns record of that vision revelation 1. Elaine pagels and the jewish cult behind the book of. Key to understanding commentaries on revelations is knowing the position of the commentator. The book of revelation starts with this is a revelation from jesus christ, which god gave him to show his servants the events that must soon take place.
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