“Revelation” is translated from the Greek term apokalypsis, which means “an uncovering, an unveiling, a stripping naked of what was formerly covered.” An apocalypse is thus a disclosure of things previously hidden, particularly unseen realities of the spirit world and future events. Apocalyptic writers typically describe visions or dreams in which they encounter supernatural beings ranging from hideous monsters to angels who communicate God’s future intentions. Sometimes, apocalyptists are carried out of their bodies to behold the Deity’s heavenly throne or other celestial regions normally invisible to human eyes.
The apocalyptic tradition to which Revelation belongs is commonly regarded as an outgrowth of the prophetic movement in ancient Israel. Israel’s great prophets had delivered Yahweh’s messages to the people during the period of the Davidic monarchy (c.1000-587 BC). Following the monarchy’s end and the Babylonian captivity (587-538 BC), however, prophecy declined rapidly. Eventually, many Jews came to believe that authentic prophecy had ceased after the time of Ezra (c. 400 BC). Priests took the place of prophets as Israel’s spiritual leaders.
During the last two centuries before the Christian epoch, and for at least a century after, numerous Jewish writers attempted to fill the vacuum left by the prophets’ disappearance. They composed innumerable books in the names of Israel’s leaders who had lived before the death of Ezra. These pseudonymous works were attributed to figures like Enoch, Moses, Isaiah, David, Solomon and Ezra. Many of them are apocalypses, containing visions of End time, such as Daniel (the only such work to become part of the Hebrew Bible), 1 and 2 Enoch, 2 Esdras, 2 Baruch, and the Essene War Scroll from Qumran.
During the early centuries AD, many Christian writers contributed to the apocalyptic genre. There are apocalyptic elements in the Gospels, especially Mark 13 and its parallels in Matthew 24 and Luke 21 as well as Paul’s eschatological concerns in his letters to the Thessalonians and the Corinthians. Besides these canonical works, other Christian authors composed apocalyptic books, typically attributing them to prominent apostles, including Peter, John, James, Thomas and Paul. The canonical Revelation is unique in being ascribed, not to a figure of the distant past, but to a contemporary member of the first-century church named John. The work is also unique in being the only surviving document by a Christian prophet, which was a common function in the early church.
Themes of Apocalyptic Literature
Universal vs. Local
In contrast to prophetic oracles, which focus almost exclusively on Israel and its immediate neighbors, apocalyptic visions are universal in scope. Although the writers’ religious communities (Israel or the church) stand at the center of their concern, their work encompasses the whole of human history and surveys events both in heaven and on earth. Apocalyptists view all spirit beings, as well as all nations and peoples, as swept together in a conflict of cosmic proportions.
Spiritual vs. Material
The apocalyptic worldview borrows much of its cosmology from Greek philosophical ideas about parallel worlds of matter and spirit. Postulating a dualistic two-dimensional universe composed of visible earth and invisible heaven, apocalyptists see human society profoundly influenced by unseen forces – angels and demons – operating in a celestial realm. Events on earth, such as persecution of the righteous, reflect the machinations of these heavenly beings.
Future Era vs. Current Era
Besides dividing the universe into two opposing domains of physical matter and intangible spirit, apocalyptists regard all history as separated into two mutually exclusive periods of time, a current wicked era and a future age of perfection. Seeing the present world situation as too thoroughly evil to reform, apocalyptists expect a sudden and violent change in which God or his Messiah imposes divine rule by force. In the apocalyptic vision, there is no normal historical progression from one age to the next and no real continuity between them. Thus, the Book of Daniel depicts God’s kingdom as abruptly interrupting the ordinary flow of time, shattering all worldly governments with the impact of a colossal meteorite.
The Faithful vs. the Wicked
In the apocalyptic view, there are only two kinds of human beings, just as there are only two epochs of world history and two levels of existence, material and spiritual. Apocalyptists see humanity as being divided into two opposing camps of intrinsically different ethical quality. The vast majority of people walk in spiritual darkness, and only a few faithful few receive salvation – the religious group to which the writers belong and direct their message.
Free-Will vs. Predestination
Whereas most biblical writers emphasize that historical events are the consequence of our moral choices, apocalyptists view history as running in a straight line toward a predetermined end. Just as the rise and fall of worldly empires occur according to God’s plan, so will the End take place at a time God has already set. Human efforts, no matter how well intended, cannot avert the coming disaster or influence God to change his mind.
The In-Crowd vs. the Out-Crowd
Many apocalypses, including Daniel and Revelation, were composed to encourage the faithful to maintain integrity and resist temptations to compromise with “worldly” values or customs. Apocalyptists typically equate religious fidelity with a total rejection of the ordinary goals, ambitions, social attachments, and other pursuits of unbelieving society. Regarding most people as condemned, apocalyptists commonly urge their audience to adopt a rigidly sectarian attitude, avoiding all association with unbelievers.
Mercy vs. Justice
Consistent with this strict division of history and people into divinely approved or disapproved units, apocalyptists usually show little sympathy for differing viewpoints or compassion for nonbelievers. All modes of life are either black or white, with no phycological or spiritual shades of grey in between. The Deity is almost invariably portrayed as an enthroned monarch, an omnipotent authority who brings history to a violent conclusion in order to demonstrate his sovereignty, confound his enemies, and preserve his few worshipers. The notion that God might regard all humans as his children or that he might establish his kingdom by less catastrophic means generally does not appeal to the apocalyptic temperament or satisfy the apocalyptic yearning.
Peace vs. Violence
Assuming that the Deity achieves control over heaven and earth through a cataclysmic battle with a formidable opponent (the Dragon of Chaos or, in the New Testament, Satan), apocalyptists imagine this transference of power by picturing God as a destroyer who exterminates much of his sentient creation. Using the Exodus story of the ten plagues Yahweh inflicted on Egypt as their model, apocalyptists typically show God angrily punishing disobedient humanity with a devastating series of natural disasters, famines, and loathsome diseases. And yet Revelation, also borrowing from the Exodus story, portrays the Lion of Judah come to judge the world as a slaughtered lamb who brings atonement and peace through his death and resurrection ultimately bringing all people groups into his kingdom.
The Afterlife vs. the Current Life
In addition to uncovering the mysteries of the invisible world, apocalyptists reveal the posthumous fate of people facing God’s judgment. Apocalyptists were the first biblical writers to discuss the nature of the afterlife, which they commonly portrayed as resurrection of the body rather than survival of an immortal soul. The apocalyptists did not limit themselves to the old Hebrew belief of eternal oblivion in Sheol as the Sadducees did. Pharisees, Essenes, and early Christians also embraced the concept of the resurrection of the body.
Symbolism vs. Literalism
Perhaps because they are the works of sages immersed in arcane learning, almost all apocalypses contain deliberately obscure language that veils as well as expressed the authors’ meaning. In addition, most were written during periods of crisis and persecution, which encouraged apocalyptists to use terms and images that their original audiences could understand but that will bewilder outsiders. In Enoch, Daniel, Revelation, and other apocalypses, the authors employ symbols from a wide variety of sources, both pagan and biblical. Both Daniel and Revelation depict Gentile nations as animals because, to the authors, they resemble wild beats in their savage, irrational behavior. Kings who demand worship are symbolized as idols, and paying homage to them is seen as idolatry. Using code words for a pagan opponent, such as “Babylon” or “the beast,” helps shield the apocalyptist’s seditious message.
Other Hellenistic-Jewish and Christian Apocalypses
With its images of a warring Dragon, celestial women, lake of fire, and bejeweled city descending from heaven, Revelation has such a strong impact on readers’ imaginations that many people think of the book as unique.
However, Revelation is only one of many similar apocalyptic works that Hellenistic-Jewish or early Christian writers produced between about 300 BC and 200 AD.
To place Revelation in historical perspective, it is helpful to review some other books representing the apocalyptic genre to which Revelation belongs.
To place Revelation in historical perspective, it is helpful to review some other books representing the apocalyptic genre to which Revelation belongs.
The Pseudepigrapha
Long before Christian writers ascribed letters and other documents to Paul, Peter, John, James, and other leaders associated with the early Jerusalem church, Hellenistic Jews had developed a widespread practice of pseudonymity.
A collection of pseudonymous Jewish writings that were included in neither the Hebrew Bible nor the Apocrypha, the Pseudepigrapha are Hellenistic works attributed to eminent figures of the biblical past, such as Enoch, Noah, Moses, Abraham, Isaiah, and Ezra.
The First Book of Enoch
A composite work including both cosmic and personal eschatology, 1 Enoch incorporates diverse material composed as early as the third century BC and as late as the first century AD.
Although the book, originally written in Hebrew and/or Aramaic, had fallen out of use centuries before the only complete copy was found in an Ethiopic translation in the eighteenth century, 1 Enoch was once widely read. Aramaic fragments of the book have been found among the Dead Sea Scrolls and at Masada, the Herodian fortress where the last survivors of the Jewish revolt against Rome perished about AD 73.
Apparently accepted in some Christian circles, 1 Enoch is quoted as Scripture in Jude. Many scholars believe that traditions embodied in 1 Enoch also influenced the eschatological thought of Paul and the synoptic authors.
First Enoch is the oldest of the three extant books ascribed to the biblical Enoch, listed in Genesis as one of the patriarchs who lived before Noah’s flood. A person of exemplary righteousness, Enoch did not experience ordinary human death because “God took him,” presumably transporting him alive to heaven. The tradition of Enoch’s mysterious ascension into the divine presence inspired a host of legends about his unparalleled knowledge of celestial secrets, which are supposedly revealed in the books bearing his name.
A volume called 2 Enoch, describing Enoch’s mystical journey through the ten levels of heaven, was composed in the first century AD. 3 Enoch dates from a much later period.
Incorporating some of the oldest examples of Jewish apocalyptic literature, the earliest parts of 1 Enoch anticipate visions of the spirit world and predictions of the End time that later appear in Daniel and Revelation.
Like the author of Daniel, the writer of 1 Enoch refers to angels as “the Watchers” and describes sessions of God’s heavenly court.
Written about 170 BC, the section known as the Ten Weeks Apocalypse divided human history into epochs symbolically represented by successive “weeks,” or years, culminating in eschatological separation of the righteous from the wicked. The book’s latest segment, which many scholars think was added during the first century AD or slightly earlier, is the Book of Similitudes (Parables), which describes a heavenly figure called the “Son of Man,” the designation that Mark applies to Jesus in his Gospel. In 1 Enoch, however, the “Son of Man” is identified as Enoch himself, the one whom God transported to heaven and who is allowed to reveal its sacred mysteries.
An ancient compiler, or editor, arranged 1 Enoch into five parts, perhaps to emulate the five-fold division of the Pentateuch and Book of Psalms.
The first section, the Watchers (chs. 1-36), expands on the Genesis account of “sons of God” who mated with mortal human women, producing a hybrid race of giants and heroes (see Genesis 6:1-4). Describing the fall of these rebellious divine “sons,” Enoch is represented as making a tour of heaven and Sheol (the biblical Underworld), where he views a flaming abyss in which the fallen angels are punished. Enoch’s portrayal of the angels’ incandescent dungeon resembles the older Greek myth concerning the imprisonment of the Titans, divine giants whom Zeus overthrew and confined in Tartarus, the pit below Hades’ realm.
The first section, the Watchers (chs. 1-36), expands on the Genesis account of “sons of God” who mated with mortal human women, producing a hybrid race of giants and heroes (see Genesis 6:1-4). Describing the fall of these rebellious divine “sons,” Enoch is represented as making a tour of heaven and Sheol (the biblical Underworld), where he views a flaming abyss in which the fallen angels are punished. Enoch’s portrayal of the angels’ incandescent dungeon resembles the older Greek myth concerning the imprisonment of the Titans, divine giants whom Zeus overthrew and confined in Tartarus, the pit below Hades’ realm.
Enoch’s second section (chs. 37-71) contains a series of “similitudes,” parables on a variety of topics, including the Messiah, the rewards of the virtuous, the coming judgment by the Son of Man, and other eschatological concerns.
The third part, the Astronomical Writings (chs. 72-82), is a miscellaneous compilation of Hellenistic scientific ideas, including accounts of planetary and lunar movements that presuppose earth as center of the solar system.
In the fourth section, the Dream Visions (chs. 83-90), the author indulges in a typically apocalyptic device, surveying past events as if they were prophecies of the future, predicting the (then-imminent) global deluge. Having confirmed his prophetic authority, Enoch then offers an allegorical narrative of world history that portrays the covenant people as tame (and gentle) animals and the Gentile nations as wild beasts, symbolism also used in Daniel and Revelation. His account begins with Adam, signified by a white bull, and ends with the appearance of the Messiah as a “lamb” who becomes a “great animal” with black horns.
The final section, the Epistle of Enoch (chs. 91-107), incorporates some of the book’s oldest material, including fragments from a Book of Noah or Book of Lamech that describe miracles attending the patriarch’s birth. It also includes an eschatological vision of a new world order anticipating that in Revelation and 2 Peter:
“And the first heavens shall depart and pass away,
And a new heaven shall appear….
And all shall be in goodness and righteousness,
And sin shall no more be mentioned forever”
(1 Enoch 91:16, 17; cf. Rev. 21:1-3; 2 Pet. 3:13)
And a new heaven shall appear….
And all shall be in goodness and righteousness,
And sin shall no more be mentioned forever”
(1 Enoch 91:16, 17; cf. Rev. 21:1-3; 2 Pet. 3:13)
The book concludes with Enoch’s last words of encouragement for the pious who await their God’s day of reckoning, a passage that foreshadows Revelation’s invocation of Jesus’ return.
Second Esdras
Unlike 1 Enoch, the Book of 2 Esdras is included in some modern additions of the Bible, such as the New Revised Standard Version and the Revised English Bible, where it is placed among the Apocrypha. Written about AD 100, too late to be included in the Septuagint, it appeared in Catholic versions of the Old Testament until the Council of Trent in the sixteenth century, when it was dropped from the canon.
Because it was composed within a few years of Revelation an deals with similar apocalyptic themes and symbol, 2 Esdras provides valuable insight into the worldview that John of Patmos also expressed, particularly the tensions among Jews, Christians, and their Roman oppressors.
The present Book of 2 Esdras is a composite work; the central core (chs 3-14) was written by a Jewish apocalyptist in either Hebrew or Aramaic about thirty years after the Romans had destroyed Jerusalem in AD 70. After the book was translated into Greek, an anonymous Christian editor added the first two chapters (c. AD 150). Approximately a century later, another Christian redactor appended chapters 15 and 16, providing a Christian framework to this first-century Jewish apocalypse.
Ezra’s Theodicy
Attributed to Ezra (Greek, Esdras), the priestly scribe accredited with assembling the Mosaic Torah while exiled in Babylon (c. 557 BC), the central section was actually composed by an unknown Jewish author who lived more than six centuries after Ezra’s time. Like his ancestors during the Babylonian exile, the author of 2 Esdras 3-14 had witnessed the humiliating overthrow of Judaism’s holy city and Temple, a catastrophic triumph of Gentile power over the covenant people that called God’s justice into question. The pseudonymous writer, who finds himself in a position analogous to that of the historical Ezra, draws on the resources of apocalyptic discourse to find some meaning or purpose in the national disaster. Chapters 3-14 present a series of seven eschatological visions, of which the first three are cast in the form of philosophical dialogues between Ezra and various angels who defend God’s handling of historical events. These angelic messengers counter Ezra’s repeated questioning of divine ethics with attempts to justify the Deity’s ways to humans. Most readers find Ezra’s questions more penetrating than the conventional answers he receives.
If Babylon (Rome) is God’s chosen instrument to punish people, Ezra asks, why are Babylonians (Romans) so much worse behaved than the Jews whom they oppress? Why has God allowed an enemy nation that mocks him to annihilate those who at least try to worship him? Is it not better to remain unborn than to live and suffer without knowing why? The angels’ replies express the apocalyptic stereotype: God will dispense justice in good time. The flourishing if wickedness is only temporary; it will be terminated according to a foreordained timetable, and the divine schedule it not humanity’s concern. As Ezra observes, however, he does not presume to inquire into celestial mysteries, only to learn that which human intelligence is able to comprehend. The wrenching disparity between the divine promises to Israel and the miserable historical reality constitutes a paradox that God does not explain.
The Afterlife
Ezra is concerned not only about the earthly plight of his people but also the condition of their souls after death. Reluctantly agreeing that many act wrongly while only a few are righteous, he nonetheless disputes the justice of condemning sinners to unending torment without any further chance of repentance. Chapter 7, vividly detailing the blessings of salvation and the agonies of the damned, offers the most complete description of eschatological judgment and the afterlife in the Old Testament Apocrypha.
In addition, 2 Esdras gives us perhaps the oldest biblical statement about original sin – the doctrine that all humanity inherits Adam’s sinful nature and is therefore born deserving death, concepts that have been used to interpret Paul’s views on the consequences of Adam’s disobedience. This belief in humankind’s innate propensity toward vice has since become dogma in many Christian denominations.
Eschatological Future
In chapter 9, the book changes from a Job-like theodicy to a more purely apocalyptic preview of the “last days.” Ezra’s fourth vision depicts a woman who, mourning her dead son, is suddenly transformed into a thriving city. Uriel, one of the book’s angelic mediators, explains that the woman is Jerusalem, her lost son the destroyed Temple, and the splendid city a future glorified Zion. Chapters 11 and 12, with their portrait of a mighty eagle, evoke John’s avian imagery in Revelation. This proud eagle (Rome) that now dominates the earth is destined to disappear when a lion (the Messiah) appears to judge it for its persecution of the righteous, an eventuality that John also prophesies. The sixth vision emphasizes the certainty of the Messiah’s expected appearance and his just overthrow of unbelievers who oppress Jerusalem.
The two final chapters, a Christian appendix from the third century AD, dramatize the Deity’s coming vengeance on the wicked. Predicting a swarm of terrors and calamities, the book assures readers that the ungodly nation (Rome), as well as all other empires that persecute the faithful, will fall and that the guilty will be consumed by fire.
The Apocalypse of Peter
Although it was ultimately excluded from the New Testament, the pseudonymous Apocalypse of Peter once stood on the margins of accepted Christian Scripture. The Muratorian Canon (late second to early fourth century AD), a list of books that the author regarded as canonical, does not mention such works as Hebrews, James, 1 and 2 Peter, and 3 John. But it does include the apocalypse ascribed to Peter, an originally Greek work that survives complete only in an Ethiopic translation discovered in the late nineteenth century. Despite the popularity this work formerly enjoyed – and its usefulness in converting people who hoped to escape the terrors of eternal punishment it describes – the church, probably because of its pseudonymity, rejected it, along with numerous other writings, such as the Gospel of Peter, also incorrectly assigned to Jesus’ leading disciple. The present New Testament, however, does contain to Petrine documents that most scholars believe are also pseudonymous.
The Apocalypse of Peter opens with a familiar Gospel scene: On the Mount of Olives, Jesus’ disciples ask about the “signs” of his Parousia and “the end of the world”. After first reiterating Jesus’ warnings about false messiahs and future persecutions, the author soon switches to his main interest: the eschatological consequences of Jesus’ return and the judgment of individual souls. The writer’s point of departure is a phrase from Matthew’s parable in which the Son of Man returns to divide all humanity into two classes, “sheep” and “goats.” Judged adversely, the goats are dispatched to “the eternal fire that is ready for the devil and his angels”. In the Synoptic Gospels, Jesus makes several references to Gehenna and “eternal punishment”, but the Evangelists do not explore the implications of these allusions to posthumous suffering – an oversight that the author of the Apocalypse enthusiastically addresses.
Quickly moving from the Parousia to visions of the next world, the writer devotes the main part of his work to surveying the tortures endured by various kinds of sinners, in general following a principle of retributive justice in which the punishment supposedly fits the crime. It is difficult to be certain whether Jesus actually takes Peter on a tour of hell, as the spirit of the poet Virgil later guides Dante through the inferno, or whether Christ simply describes the different sinners’ torments so graphically that Peter can virtually “see” them. In any case, the fate of those who have displeased God is to feel maximum pain with no hope of release, to suffer the highest pitch of agony imaginable for all eternity.
As many commentators have recognized, the Apocalypse of Peter focuses largely on sexual sins, punishing erotic behaviors with “cataracts of fire.” Women who beautified themselves with cosmetics to seduce men hang by their hair (regarded as the chief feminine attraction) in a dark fiery pit. Expectant mothers who aborted their babies are submerged in pools of flaming excrement, while the spirits of their dead children stand nearby, piercing their mothers’ eyes with lightning bolts. Men who enjoyed sex outside of marriage are strung up by their genitals over glowing coals. Souls who “doubted” God’s “righteousness” are tortured with “red hot irons” that bore into their eyes, while other sinners, their bodies aflame, are devoured by immortal worms. Slaved who dared to disobey their masters gnaw on their own tongues (the organ of impudence) while immersed in fire. When souls try to repent of their misdeeds and cry to God for mercy, the angel Tatirokos suddenly appears to increase their suffering, angrily declaring that the “time for repentance” has passed – the Deity has made no provision to redeem souls in hell.
Endeavoring to account for the vindictive, sadistic tone of the Apocalypse of Peter, some interpreters have suggested that it reflects some Christians’ negative response to Roman persecutions of their faith during the second century AD. Widespread persecutions of Christians in Gaul (France) during the late second century AD involved brutal interrogations, mutilations, and other tortures. To some Christians, the Roman practice of burning martyrs alive invited divine retaliation, in which the persecutors would suffer the same kinds of torture, with the difference that their pain would not end at death. Tertullian, a Christian theologian of the late seconds and early third centuries AD, looked forward to an eschatological reversal in which familiar figures from Roman society would soon be writhing in hellish agony, providing an entertaining spectacle for the souls of their former victims. Anticipating the day of judgment, Tertullian states that he will not know whether to “laugh” or “applaud” at the sight of Roman administrators who had ordered Christians burnt at the stake now “melting in flames fiercer than those had kindled for brave Christians.” He delights at the prospect of “philosophers and their students” (promoters of rival beliefs) burning together, while tragic actors who had enraptured audiences in Roman theaters will bellow their lines in genuine anguish. Offering better entertainment than any of Rome’s circuses or athletic events, Tertullian’s fantasy makes beholding the suffering of the damned one of the major rewards of the faithful. It should also be remembered that in the only Gospel parable about the afterlife Lazarus’s paradise is in full view of the rich man’s fiery torments. 2 Esdras portrays a similar juxtaposition of joy and suffering.
