A surrealistic take on Revelation. Image credit: W. Ralph Walters.
“For there shall be yet another vision concerning the appointed time. It shall tell of the end and shall not lie.”
Habakkuk 2:3
“Interpreted, this means that the final age shall be prolonged, and shall exceed all that the Prophets have said; for the mysteries of God are astounding.”
The Habakkuk Pesher
Some time ago, I published an article titled The Revelation Pesher. It was an attempt at creatively presenting my research in a style that imitated the prophetic tradition found in the Bible and Dead Sea Scrolls. Since writing that post, I have continued to investigate Revelation scholarship and have dug deeper into the works of several important authors. As a result of this additional research, my positions on certain issues have evolved and the end result is a hypothesis that I believe better fits the overarching historical context. I therefore judged it worthwhile to revisit the New Testament’s final book in the present series. This time around, I am using a more traditional academic format. Over the next five posts, I aim to incorporate the revised ideas inspired by my recent studies and also hopefully provide further clarification on those concepts I previously suggested in a perhaps overly esoteric manner.
Revelation falls into the genre biblical historians call apocalyptic literature. Filled with vivid imagery and rich in symbolism, it is a tradition that became popular in Judaism during times of trial and persecution. John J. Collins, in his exhaustive discussion of the topic, cites Semeia 14 (1979), a product of the Society of Biblical Literature Genres Project, in providing one possible definition which will suffice for our discussion. In that publication, an apocalypse is said to be, “a genre of revelatory literature with a narrative framework, in which a revelation is mediated by an otherworldly being to a human recipient, disclosing a transcendent reality which is both temporal, insofar as it envisages eschatological salvation, and spatial insofar as it involves another, supernatural world.”[i] Other examples of this genre include parts of 1 and 2 Enoch, 4 Ezra, and most important for our present study, the book of Daniel.
Perhaps the most important fact to bear in mind while studying apocalyptic literature is that while these books’ authors portend to be foretelling future events, in actuality they are describing the authors’ current historical situation. As Pagels writes of the book of Revelation (otherwise known as The Apocalypse of John): “A close reader of the Hebrew Scriptures would see that John was invoking prophetic images to interpret the conflicts of his own time, just as the prophets Isaiah and Jeremiah had interpreted the Babylonian War around six hundred years earlier.”[ii] The use of coded language provides a veil of protection should these works fall into the wrong hands. Apocalypses also tend to be written pseudonymously, using the voice of a famous prophet from times long ago in order to lend weight to their contents.[iii] For instance, if we are lead to believe that the prophet Daniel wrote during the Babylonian exile, how much more amazing it is that his oracles should come to pass hundreds of years later in the second century BCE!
In reality, the book of Daniel, like all apocalyptic works, was written contemporaneously with the events that it describes.[iv] In Daniel, we are told of an arrogant ruler who proclaims himself a god and sets up an “Abomination of Desolation” in the Holy Place–that is the Jerusalem Temple.[v] We know from historical records that these passages can only refer to the Seleucid ruler, Antiochus IV Epiphanes, who temporarily abolished Jewish Temple sacrifice and installed the worship of Zeus in Judaism’s most sacred precinct. This act ultimately spurred what came to be known as the Maccabean revolt.[vi]
What does any of this have to do with Revelation? Strangely enough, the author of Revelation seemingly breaks the mold of apocalyptic traditions and uses his actual identity when writing. In the opening chapter of the book, we are told that he is one John of Patmos. Equally confounding is the fact that John makes no pretense of his prophecies originating from a time long ago. Collins observes that while neither of these literary devices is necessarily a defining characteristic of the apocalyptic genre, “Nevertheless, the absence of both these features in Revelation is noteworthy.”[vii]
While Collins explains Revelation’s peculiarities as a mark of Christianity’s uniqueness within the genre of Jewish apocalyptic literature, I believe that there is a better explanation for what we observe.[viii] On his blog, James D. Tabor describes his view that the textus receptus of Revelation (i.e., the book of Revelation in the form we have it now) is comprised of an earlier Jewish apocalyptic work. According to this theory, the proto-Revelation had nothing at all to do with Jesus until a later redactor grafted on sporadic references to him, effectively assimilating the text into his own Jewish-Christian worldview.[ix]
Tabor’s argument would help explain particular idiosyncrasies possessed by the book of Revelation as we currently read it. Scholars have long been puzzled by the fact that the vengeful Jesus of John’s Apocalypse bears little resemblance to the Christ of Paul and the Gospels, who taught, “Love your enemies.”[x] Beyond the difference in tone, there are passages in Revelation where the central figure of the Christian faith seems to almost be an afterthought. Tabor points out certain verses that would work just as well—or better—without reference to Jesus. Take for example, “Here is a call for the endurance of the saints, those who keep the commandments of God and hold fast to the faith of Jesus” (Revelation 14:12 NRSV; Emphasis added).
This is not the first time that it has been suggested that John’s Apocalypse has been tampered with, however. Tabor’s theory was largely influenced by the work of another scholar, Josephine Massyngberde Ford, who wrote a full commentary on Revelation in 1975.[xi] In this comprehensive volume, Ford makes the case that the core text of Revelation was the product of John the Baptist’s disciples, whose ideology she likens to that of the Qumran sectarians.[xii] In her judgment, practically all of Revelation’s first three chapters—the appearance of one like the Son of Man and the letters to the seven churches—are later Christian interpolations.[xiii] We might add to this the scattered references to the “faith of Jesus” found in other chapters, as suggested by Tabor.[xiv]
Ford’s thesis has been subsequently criticized by other Biblical scholars.[xv] Similar to Barbara Thiering, who I’ve also covered on this site, Ford’s work has been largely marginalized by her peers. I contend that this wholesale dismissal is premature and a grievous error. While I might not agree with every detail put forth by Ford or Thiering, I firmly believe history will show that these two scholars were right all along when it comes to their most important assertions.
Revelation shares abundant similarities with the concepts and beliefs present in the Dead Sea Scrolls: the theme of light vs. darkness, the idea of a New Jerusalem, and even the presence of such specific demonic entities as Abaddon, the angel of the bottomless pit.[xvi] Mainstream scholars, while admitting many of these commonalities, have been reluctant to draw a firm connection between the Qumran sectarians and the author of the apocalypse. Much of this is likely due to the misdating of the Scrolls (even though the archaeological evidence points to the community at Qumran being active until 68 CE).[xvii] But much of it is also likely due to the clever absorption of the core text into the revised Christianized version we are familiar with now. Passages that originally referenced people and events in the context of the First Jewish War against Rome were cloaked, making them appear to describe subjects completely different than originally intended. Merely a few words here and there can change the entire meaning of a passage, as I will demonstrate in subsequent installments.
The scholarly consensus dates Revelation to the reign of Emperor Domitian in the 90s CE.[xviii] For many years, academics believed that Domitian instituted a major persecution of Christians, of which John of Patmos was but one victim. Today, it is widely admitted that no such systematic persecution of Christians under Domitian took place, yet the majority of scholars still hold to this period as context for Revelation’s composition.[xix] A plausible explanation is given by Adela Yarbro Collins to the effect that, while a major crisis did not exist in the form of widespread imperial persecution, the social situation of Asia Minor in the 90s CE triggered for the author of Revelation a “perceived crisis.”[xx] Certainly, modern examples can be cited which might be analogous to this imaginary feeling of persecution, but without a solid historical event at its foundation, much of the oomph is taken out of this argument’s explanatory power.
I propose that the Jewish core of Revelation was written shortly after 70 CE in the aftermath of the First Jewish Revolt against Rome by a refugee follower of John the Baptist aka the Teacher of Righteousness. In this deconstruction, the author pseudonymously assumes the identity of not John of Patmos, but John the Baptist himself. The setting would perhaps have been the fortress of Machaerus, where The Baptizer was imprisoned some thirty to forty years before the events symbolically described in the apocalypse took place. While speculative, this proposal falls much more neatly in line with the tradition of Jewish apocalyptic literature than the final Christianized product does.
Following this train of thought, the figure of “the Lamb” represents not Jesus, but John, slain under orders of Herod Antipas around the year 36 CE.[xxi] To the Qumran Community (the followers of John), their Righteous Teacher was chosen to stand before Yahweh in his heavenly throne room.[xxii] At the same time, a careful distinction is made between humans, however important they might be, and God. The author of Revelation is admonished several times by his heavenly guide when he falls on his knees to worship the angel: “You must not do that! I am a fellow slave with you and your brothers the prophets, and with those who keep the words of this book. Worship God!” (Rev. 22:9 NRSV)
This strict monotheism sharply contrasts with “the inhabitants of the earth” who explicitly direct their worship towards the Sea-Beast (Rev 13:8 NRSV). The accusation of idolatry levied against those who are deceived by the Sea-Beast is strikingly similar to that which the DSS sectarians employed against the “traitors” (elsewhere called the “Flattery Seekers”): those who left the Community to follow the Liar/Scoffer.[xxiii] In the Hosea Pesher, we read that these men “listened to those who lead them astray. They revered them, and in their blindness they feared them as though they were gods.”[xxiv]
In the original core of Revelation, El Shaddai would not have shared his throne with the Lamb. As is plain in even the English translation, mention of the latter is obviously tacked on: “But the throne of God and of the Lamb will be in it, and his servants will worship him; they will see his face and his name will be on their foreheads.” (Rev. 22:3-4 NRSV) The object of worship here is not plural—the servants worship him; they will see his face; his name is on their foreheads. The addition of the Lamb in this passage is the clumsy work of the Christian redactor who had already accepted Jesus as divine, perhaps even as one with the Father, as John’s Gospel asserts. Under Jewish beliefs, one may stand before the throne of God, perhaps even stand beside it, but a mere human may never be seated in the presence of the Almighty. That honor is reserved for Yahweh alone.[xxv]
Over the next few weeks, I will continue to build upon the foundation laid by scholars like Josephine Massyngberde Ford and Barbara Thiering, as well as that of modern visionaries such as James D. Tabor. By reading the signposts they have set in place, an image of Revelation’s ur-text emerges–one that aligns with the overall hypothesis I have suggested previously…and one that is decidedly anti-Christian. For those interested in some background, I humbly recommend reading my past articles, The Jesus Theory of Everything Part 1 and Part 2, where I outline the basic pillars of my research. At the end of this series, I will present my personal take on the original text of Revelation without the Christian interpolations. But before this, I will detail my reasoning for how I identify some of the key figures and themes of John’s Apocalypse.
NOTES
[i] John J. Collins, The Apocalyptic Imagination: An Introduction to Jewish Apocalyptic Literature, Third Edition (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2016), 16.
[ii] Elaine Pagels, Revelations: Visions, Prophecy, and Politics in the Book of Revelation, read by Lorna Raver (New York, NY: Penguin Random House Audio, 2012), Audible audio ed., 6 hr., 27 min.
[iii] Collins, The Apocalyptic Imagination, 413. Collins notes how pseudonymous authorship was a “constant feature” of apocalyptic Judaism and recognizes that Revelation would buck this trend if indeed John is to be taken as the author’s actual name. He warns, however, that the importance of pseudonymity in classifying a work as apocalyptic depends upon how one chooses to define the genre.
[iv] Ibid., 141. The second-century dating for Daniel’s visions is described as being “beyond reasonable doubt” in scholarly circles.
[v] See Daniel 7:8, 9:27
[vi] For explicit descriptions of Antiochus as the arrogant ruler who set up the Abomination of Desolation, see 1 Macc 1:41-61, 2 Macc 5:21, and 2 Macc 6:1-6. See also Flavius Josephus, War of the Jews, Book 1, trans. by William Whiston (London: W. Bowyer, 1737): Ch. 1 and Flavius Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews, Book 12, trans. by William Whiston (London: W. Bowyer, 1737) Ch. 5. All subsequent references from Josephus are taken from William Whiston’s translation available for free online at https://www.ccel.org/ccel/josephus/works/files/works.html. We will use the abbreviations B.J. for War of the Jews and A.J. for Antiquities of the Jews. All citations will use a Book:Chapter:Paragraph format in reference to the ccel.org presentation.
[vii] Collins, The Apocalyptic Imagination, 414.
[viii] Ibid. According to Collins, the death and resurrection of Jesus provide the crucial act of deliverance rendering both pseudonymity and ex eventu prophecy (the historical review) unnecessary. Nevertheless, Collins goes on to admit that this was not true of all Christian apocalyptic literature. In fact, the only other apocalyptic text in early Christianity that did not employ pseudonymity is the Shepherd of Hermas.
[ix] James D. Tabor, “Can a Pre-Christian Version of the Book of Revelation Be Recovered?” Taborblog: Religion Matters from the Bible to the Modern World, February 22, 2017, https://jamestabor.com/can-a-pre-christian-version-of-the-book-of-revelation-be-recovered/.
[x] G. R. Beasley-Murray, “How Christian is the Book of Revelation?” in Reconciliation and Hope. New Testament Essays on Atonement and Eschatology Presented to L.L. Morris on his 60th Birthday, ed. Robert Banks (Carlisle: The Paternoster Press, 1974), 275-284.
[xi] J. Massyngberde Ford, Revelation (Garden City: Doubleday and Company, Inc., 1975).
[xii] Ford, Revelation, 3.
[xiii] Ford, Revelation, 50-56. Ford summarizes her argument and breaks the composition of Revelation into three stages. Chapters 4-11 comprise the initial material written around the time the Baptist was still alive and before he came to view Jesus as the Christ. Chapters 12-22 were written by disciples of John shortly before the fall of Jerusalem in 70 CE. At a still later date, the Christian editor added Chs. 1-3 and Ch. 22 vs. 16a, 20b, and 21. I do not necessarily agree with Ford that we need separate Chs 4-11 with 12-22, although that may be the case, as the references to the events surrounding the First Jewish Revolt only become explicit in the latter half of the book. The only solid stance I take at the present is that the Baptist/Essene Jewish core, Chs 4-22, was finalized without the Christian additions shortly after the destruction of the Jerusalem Temple in 70 CE. In my view, the Christian redactor then added Chs 1-3, parts of Ch. 22, and the other scant references to Jesus in the 90s CE, when the majority of scholars typically place the book’s composition today.
[xiv] See Note 9 above.
[xv] See Adela Yarbro Collins, Crisis and Catharsis: The Power of the Apocalypse (Philadelphia, PA: The Westminster Press, 1984), 31. Collins brushes aside the entirety of Ford’s commentary in a single paragraph. Citing Bousset and R.H. Charles, Collins accepts Revelation as a unified composition with a distinctively Christian character. As she writes: “Only by arbitrarily eliminating references to the Lamb, its death, and its redeeming blood, or by interpreting them in a strained way, can the Christian character of even Chs. 4-11 be denied.” I aim to show that the elimination of the references to “Jesus” specifically is far from arbitrary, and the interpretation of the Lamb as John the Baptist is a short leap. One must wonder what we would have thought of the Gospels of Matthew or Luke if we did not have the Gospel of Mark as an obvious basis for those texts. It can scarcely be argued that Luke and Matthew do not each present unified narratives and the interweaving/redacting of sources by the gospel authors is done far more elegantly than what we find in Revelation.
[xvi] For the theme of good vs. evil/light against darkness, see Ford, Revelation, 195. For references to the New Jerusalem, see Dead Sea Scrolls 4Q554-5, 5Q15, 1Q32, 2Q24, 4Q232, and 11Q18. For the demon, Abaddon, see 1QH, Hymns 9 (formerly 4) and 10 (formerly 5). All Dead Sea Scrolls references, unless otherwise noted, are taken from Geza Vermes, The Complete Dead Sea Scrolls in English: Revised Edition (London: Penguin Books, 2011). There are many more similarities to be found between Revelation and the Qumran literature, and indeed, between Qumran and Christianity in general, but these examples must suffice to make our point for the present moment.
[xvii] Kenneth Atkinson and Jodi Magness, “Josephus’s Essenes and the Qumran Community,” Journal of Biblical Literature 129, no. 2 (2010): 317–42, https://doi.org/10.2307/27821022. The authors of this article, in line with the scholarly consensus, assert that the community, so prolific in its output in the previous decades, did not produce any new writing after the mid-first century BCE—i.e., the most pivotal years in Second Temple Judaism.
[xviii] See Collins, Crisis and Catharsis, 54-83. Collins cites the commentary of Irenaeus, who claimed that Revelation was seen at the end of Domitian’s reign. After a thorough analysis, Collins concludes that there is no reason to doubt this traditional dating.
[xix] Ibid., 69. Collins summarizes, “The evidence for persecution of Christians under Domitian is rather slight. Doubt is cast on the early Christian tradition about Domitian as the second persecutor by its probably apologetic function.”
[xx] Ibid., 84-110.
[xxi] For a discussion on the date of John’s demise, see Tamás Visi, “The Chronology of John the Baptist and the Crucifixion of Jesus of Nazareth,” Journal for the Study of the Historical Jesus 18.1 (2020): 3-34, https://doi.org/10.1163/17455197-2019003 Web.
[xxii] Dead Sea Scrolls Habakkuk Pesher (1QpHab) 3.15.
[xxiii] Dead Sea Scrolls Damascus Document (CD A), Column 1; Dead Sea Scrolls Nahum Pesher (4Q169) Frags 3-4. The translation of “Flattery Seekers” is taken from Michael O. Wise, Martin J. Abegg Jr., and Edward M. Cook, The Dead Sea Scrolls: A New Translation (New York: HarperOne, 2005).
[xxiv] Dead Sea Scrolls Hosea Pesher (4q166) 2.5.
[xxv] See Dead Sea Scrolls Psalm Pesher (4Q171), where it is said that God chose the Teacher of Righteousness to stand before him. For the flip side of the coin, cf. the “Humbling of Metatron” narrative, where Metatron is punished for his allowing Rabbi Elisha ben Avuya to witness him seated on the divine throne. Henceforth, Metatron was forced to stand like all the other angels. See Hagigah 15a and 3rd Enoch Ch. 16. For an excellent video breakdown, see Justin Sledge, “The Mysterious Origins of the Angel Metatron from the 3rd Book of Enoch – Sefer Hekhalot Mysticism,” Esoterica, June 24, 2022, video, 19:14, https://youtu.be/1-VGkaqDxbY.