Reading the Bible again for the First Time

by Marcus J. Borg

  Paul’s metaphorical dying with Christ was to become actual. And his death, like his message and mission, brought together the spiritual and the political. The New Testament does not tell us about Paul’s death, but according to early and reliable church tradition, he was executed in Rome in the 60s during the reign of the emperor Nero. The empire of which he was a citizen, and to which he had carried his message of a crucified messiah now exalted as Lord, put him to death. As a citizen, he was exempt from crucifixion, and so, perhaps observing the fine points of Roman law, imperial Rome beheaded him.

  Thus Paul, in his death, embodied the path of dying that he had taught. The metaphor of “dying with Christ” became flesh. Like Jesus before and martyrs since, he became an incarnation of “the way” that lies at the center of the Christian life.

  Paul’s execution by Rome merits pondering. Was Rome simply mistaken in killing him? Was the execution based on a misunderstanding? Was it due to the decree of a crazed and callous emperor? Were Paul and his message actually harmless to the empire that killed him? Was it all about words—about calling Jesus “Lord” and refusing to give Caesar the same honor? Or was it about something much deeper and much more important?

  Certainly Paul and his small communities scattered through Greece and Asia Minor posed no immediate political threat to Rome. But did Paul’s proclamation of a rival Lord and a rival social vision genuinely and ultimately threaten the imperial vision of life?

  We who live after centuries of Christian accommodation with imperial systems are inclined to think that Rome simply made a mistake—that Rome failed to recognize that Christianity is harmless to empire (and maybe even helpful). But what happened to Jesus and Paul should give us pause. Christianity is the only major religion whose two most formative figures were executed by established authority. Accident? Plan of God? Or is there in Jesus and Paul a vision and a program, a message and a mission, that should cause systems of domination, ancient and modern, to tremble?

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  10

  Reading Revelation Again

  “Revelation is widely popular for the wrong reasons,” says biblical scholar Raymond Brown, “for a great number of people read it as a guide to how the world will end, assuming that the author was given by Christ detailed knowledge of the future that he communicated in coded symbols.”1 Indeed, a substantial percentage of fundamentalist and conservative-evangelical Christians read Revelation as forecasting the imminent “end of the world” and second coming of Christ.

  The conviction that Jesus is coming soon, or at least that he may be, is widespread. According to one national public-opinion poll, sixty-two percent of Americans (not just American Christians, mind you) have “no doubts” that Jesus will come again.2 Another poll reports that one-third believe the world will end soon.3

  I call a reading of Revelation that emphasizes the imminent second coming of Christ a “millennialist” interpretation. That view has flourished in the last half-century. During the last thirty years, books by Hal Lindsey, beginning with The Late Great Planet Earth, have sold over forty million copies. During the decade of the 1970s, Lindsey was the best-selling nonfiction(?) author in the English-speaking world. In the last several years, a series of novels on “the rapture” by Tim LaHaye and Jerry B. Jenkins have been on the best-seller lists. A millennialist reading of Revelation is a frequent theme of television and radio evangelists and “prophecy conferences” throughout the world. Recently, as I surfed through my viewing options on TV, I saw one of the best-known television evangelists standing in front of a chalkboard displaying biblical “signs of the end” and suggesting that 2007 may be the year of the second coming. Speaking in the context of a fund-raising drive, he sent this message: “You don’t want to be burdened when Jesus comes again.”

  The millennialist interpretation is not universally accepted, however. In fact, the interpretation of Revelation divides the contemporary church. But those Christians who reject the millennialist view often lack an alternate interpretation, choosing instead to ignore Revelation. The majority of mainline Christians have little familiarity with this troubling text; they avoid it in personal devotions and seldom hear it preached about (for there are few texts from Revelation in the lectionary, which sets out the portions of the Bible assigned for reading in public worship). Readers are puzzled by Revelation’s difficult and bizarre imagery, perplexed by its scenes of destruction and divine violence, and put off by the message, “Jesus is coming soon and you’d better be ready, or you’ll be in big trouble.” To them, the God of Revelation and the message of Revelation seem to have little to do with the gospel of Jesus. They are willing (even if not happy) to leave Revelation to others.

  Introduction

  Revelation stands at the end of the New Testament and thus at the end of the Christian Bible. However, it was not the last document of the New Testament to be written, nor did its author know that it would someday conclude the Christian Bible. Its placement at the end of the New Testament canon is due to its subject matter: “the end”—judgment upon the world, the second coming of Christ, the destruction of Satan, and the advent of the New Jerusalem, described in language that echoes the portrait of Eden at the beginning of Genesis. With Revelation at its end, the Bible moves from “paradise lost” to “paradise restored.”

  Revelation has been controversial from Christian antiquity to the present. In fact, it almost failed to make it into the Bible. Though generally accepted in the Latin-speaking church of the West from the second century onward, Revelation took much longer to be accepted as scripture in the Greek-speaking Eastern church. In the fourth century, the Christian historian Eusebius listed it as one of the disputed books. At about the same time, the early church father Cyril of Jerusalem not only omitted it from his list of canonical books, but forbade its public or private use.4 Though gradually accepted in the East, as late as 810 CE a Byzantine (Eastern) list of canonical writings did not include it. In the tenth and eleventh centuries, it began to be routinely included in Greek manuscripts of the New Testament.5

  Much later, leaders of the Protestant Reformation of the sixteenth century had doubts about Revelation. Martin Luther included it in the New Testament only reluctantly and gave it secondary stature (even as he wished it would be thrown into the Elbe River); Ulrich Zwingli denied it scriptural status; and John Calvin largely ignored it (writing commentaries on the other twenty-six books of the New Testament but not on Revelation).

  Thus what to do with Revelation has been an issue for Christians for a very long time. In this chapter I will describe two very different ways of reading the book and look at the larger issues it raises. First, though, I will introduce it and provide a compact summary of its content.

  A Christian Apocalypse

  The book of Revelation is an apocalypse. Indeed, the two words—“Revelation” and “apocalypse”—are synonyms, for both translate the same Greek word, apokalypsis. Thus Revelation in some Christian circles is called “The Apocalypse.” Because Revelation was written by a person named John, the book is often known more fully as “The Revelation of John” or “The Apocalypse of John.” (Note that the singular is used, not the plural; the name of the book is not “Revelations.”)

  The word “apocalypse” means an “unveiling” or a “disclosure” or a “revelation.” It also names a type of literature. As a literary genre, an apocalypse is defined by both content and style. Its subject matter is one or more visions disclosing or unveiling either the future or the heavenly world or both. Commonly, the present age is seen to be under the rule of evil powers who will soon be overthrown and destroyed by God, ushering in an age of blessedness for the faithful. The coming of the new age is typically marked by intense suffering and cosmic catastrophes. The stylistic features of apocalyptic literature include luxuriant imagery, fabulous beasts, and symbolic numbers.6 Apocalyptic writings flourished in Judaism from about 200 BCE to 100 CE. In the Hebrew Bible, the second half of the book of Dan
iel, written around 165 BCE, is the most sustained example.7

  Revelation was written late in the first century by a man named John living on the island of Patmos off the coast of Asia Minor. Some have thought that John of Patmos was the disciple John, who also wrote the Fourth Gospel and the three letters of John, though virtually all modern scholars reject this identification.8 A few scholars have argued that Revelation was written in the time of the Roman emperor Nero in the 60s of the first century, though most affirm a date around the year 95, near the end of the rule of the emperor Domitian.

  Though Revelation is an apocalypse, it is also a letter addressed to seven Christian communities in seven cities in Asia Minor. John of Patmos was apparently known in these communities and may have been an itinerant Christian prophet and charismatic authority figure. He knew the Hebrew Bible very well. Though he never formally quotes a single verse, as many as sixty-five percent of the verses in Revelation echo or allude to passages from the Hebrew Bible.9 John’s frequent use of the Hebrew Bible led one scholar to speak of the book as “a rebirth of images.”10

  Like the letters of Paul, Revelation would have been read aloud to its recipients at a community gathering, most likely in the context of worship. It was thus heard by its original audience (not read silently by individuals), and the listeners would have heard it all at once at a single sitting.11 This in itself has implications for interpretation: hearing Revelation all at once would convey the cumulative effect of John’s visions in a way that the private reading of individual texts in isolation from the broad sweep of the book does not.

  Summary of Content

  After a brief introduction, John of Patmos speaks of the visionary experience in which he is commanded to write the book. Because the vision illustrates a number of characteristics of Revelation, I quote it at length:

  I was in the spirit on the Lord’s day, and I heard behind me a loud voice like a trumpet saying, “Write in a book what you see and send it to the seven churches, to Ephesus, to Smyrna, to Pergamum, to Thyatira, to Sardis, to Philadelphia, and to Laodicea.

  John then turns to see who is speaking to him. In his visionary state, he sees the risen Christ:

  Then I turned to see whose voice it was that spoke to me, and on turning I saw seven golden lampstands, and in the midst of the lampstands I saw one like the Son of Man, clothed with a long robe and with a golden sash across his chest. His head and his hair were white as white wool, white as snow; his eyes were like a flame of fire, his feet were like burnished bronze, refined as in a furnace, and his voice was like the sound of many waters. In his right hand he held seven stars, and from his mouth came a sharp two-edged sword, and his face was like the sun shining with full force.

  John then “fell at his feet as though dead.” But the figure “placed his right hand on me, saying ‘Do not be afraid,’ ” and then identified himself: “I am the first and the last, and the living one. I was dead, and see, I am alive for ever and ever; and I have the keys of Death and of Hades.” The vision then concludes with the command of the risen Christ:

  Now write what you have seen, what is, and what is to take place after this. As for the mystery of the seven stars that you saw in my right hand, and the seven golden lampstands: the seven stars are the angels of the seven churches, and the seven lampstands are the seven churches.12

  John’s inaugural vision illustrates several features of Revelation: emphasis upon visions and “seeing,” use of luxuriant imagery, allusion to the Hebrew Bible, and frequent use of symbolic numbers. Most of the book is narrated as a series of visions; in the book as a whole, “I saw” is used about fifty-five times. The luxuriant imagery in John’s initial vision speaks for itself, much of it drawn from the Hebrew Bible; there are no fewer than twelve allusions to that older document in this passage. The number seven recurs frequently throughout the book. Here, there are seven stars, seven lampstands, and seven churches; in subsequent chapters, there will be seven letters, seven seals, seven trumpets, and seven bowls. Even when the number seven is not explicitly used, there are series of sevens: seven beatitudes, seven hymns of praise, seven categories of people, seven references to the altar, and seven prophetic affirmations of the second coming of Jesus.13

  Chapters two and three contain the letters to the seven churches. They include an evaluation of each community, threats and/or encouragement, and a promise. Nothing bad is said about Smyrna and Philadelphia; nothing good is said about Sardis and Laodicea; Ephesus, Pergamum, and Thyatira receive mixed verdicts.14 The issues facing the communities are persecution, false teaching, and accommodation to the larger culture.

  Chapters four through twenty-two contain the long series of visions that fills virtually the rest of the book.15 As chapter four begins, John exclaims, “I looked, and behold, in heaven, an open door!” He then looks through that door into another level of reality. There is no substitute for reading these chapters themselves, preferably at a single sitting. Nevertheless, I provide a summary.

  The section begins with a vision of God enthroned in heaven, surrounded by twenty-four elders clothed in white with crowns of gold on their heads. Four beasts are around the throne, each with six wings and eyes in the wings—strange creatures from another world. From the throne itself come lightning and thunder and voices.

  It continues with a vision of the Lamb that was slain but that now lives and is worthy to open the seven seals of the scroll of judgment. As the seven seals are opened, we see the four horsemen of the apocalypse riding forth upon the earth, bringing war, famine, pestilence, and death. Then there is a great earthquake, the sky blackens, the stars fall from the heavens, and the sky rolls up like a scroll. The seventh seal is opened, and it introduces another series of seven judgments: seven angels begin to blow seven trumpets in succession. The blowing of the trumpets unleashes another series of plagues and catastrophes on the earth, including giant locusts that look like horses equipped for battle (bearing tails like scorpions and making a noise like many chariots) and an immense army of two hundred million invading from the east.

  At the start of chapter twelve, we see a vision of a woman clothed with the sun, a crown of twelve stars on her head and the moon under her feet. She is giving birth to a child whom a great red dragon immediately tries to devour. At the same time, war breaks out in heaven: the archangel Michael and his angels battle against the great dragon, who loses and is cast down to earth. In chapter thirteen, a beast with seven heads and ten horns to whom the dragon has given authority rises out of the sea and takes control of the earth. The number of the beast, we are told, is 666.

  Then seven angels pour out upon the earth the seven bowls of the wrath of God, and we are shown the judgment and destruction of the “great harlot” or “great whore” who rides upon the beast and whose name is “Babylon the Great.” This is soon followed by the battle of Armageddon and the second coming of Christ on a white horse. Christ leads an army clad in white robes against the armies of the beast and destroys them, their bodies becoming food for carrion birds that gorge themselves with their flesh. The dragon, now named “the devil” and “Satan,” is cast into a bottomless pit for a thousand years, during which Christ and the saints rule. After a thousand years, Satan is released, and with Gog and Magog he fights a final battle and is again defeated. Then the last judgment occurs: all the dead, great and small, are raised, the book of life is opened, and all whose names are not in it are cast into the lake of fire, along with the devil, the beast, death, and Hades.

  After all of this, at the beginning of chapter twenty-one, comes the magnificent concluding vision. The New Jerusalem, adorned as a bride for her husband, descends from the sky—a city in which there will be no more tears, no pain, no death. The city has no need of a temple, for its temple is the Lord God The Almighty and the Lamb. Nor does the city have need of sun or moon, for the glory of God will be its light, and its lamp the Lamb of God. Through it flows the river of the water of life, and in it grows the tree of life whose leaves are for
the healing of the nations. There, the servants of God will worship God and the Lamb:

  They will see God’s face, and God’s name will be on their foreheads. And there will be no more night; they need no light of lamp or sun, for the Lord God will be their light, and they will reign forever and ever.16

  Two Ways of Reading Revelation

  How are we to read all this? How are we to interpret the visions and images of this strange, violent, unsettling, and yet magnificent book? In this section, I will describe two very different ways of reading the Apocalypse of John in our time.

  The Futurist Interpretation

  The central claim of a futurist reading is simple: Revelation tells us about what will happen some time in the future. It has three premises:

  What Revelation describes has not yet happened.

  As the inspired Word of God, the Bible cannot be wrong.

  Therefore, what Revelation describes must still be future.

  These premises are the foundation of the millennialist reading of Revelation mentioned in the introduction to this chapter. This way of reading the book sees it as a cryptogram, a message encoded in symbols about the signs of the end that will precede the second coming of Christ.

  To illustrate this way of reading Revelation, I will use the work of the popular millennialist author Hal Lindsey. In his book The Late Great Planet Earth, Lindsey argues that the events foretold by Revelation are unfolding in our time. For him (as well as for other contemporary millennialists), the establishment of the modern state of Israel in 1948 is a key sign that the end may be near. The reason is that some biblical passages speak of Israel as a nation living in her own land in the time of the end. Only since 1948 has this been true.