Far from spinning a fantasy of what will never be, the book of Revelation depicts an alternate social world in order to shape the community and individual identity of an audience living under imperial rule. To highlight the Apocalypse’s meaning for its original audience, this volume focuses on two interrelated themes pulsing throughout Revelation: rhetoric and politics. It considers rhetorical strategies and tactics in Revelation and demonstrates how its rhetoric fits the situation in Roman Asia Minor and the struggle within the Apocalypse community. It also examines community and cultural conflicts, showing how myth, symbol, and liturgy function as means of resistance in an imperial setting. By offering a fresh window on the lively interplay between imagination and history, between words and worlds, this volume will be indispensable for anyone seeking to understand current scholarly analysis of the book of Revelation.
Samuel Adams engages the classic problem of the relation between faith and history from the perspective of apocalyptic theology in critical dialogue with the work of N. T. Wright. He argues that historical and theological scholars must take into consideration, at a methodological level, the reality of God that has invaded history in Jesus Christ.
THE INCREDIBLE DISCOVERY THAT THE BOOK OF REVELATION HAS BEEN A MONSTROUS DECEPTION WHICH HAS FOOLED CHRISTIANS FOR ALMOST 2000 YEARS The Apocalypse, also known as the Book of Revelation is the last book of the New Testament. It begins with these words: "The Revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave unto him, to show unto his servants things which must shortly come to pass; and he sent and signified it by his angel unto his servant John: Who bare record of the word of God, and of the testimony of Jesus Christ, and of all things that he saw." (Revelation. 1:1) Those words are not those of Jesus Christ, contrary to the claims of its author. Transmitted through an unnamed angel, they are part of a monstrous deception that has plagued Christianity ever since they were first penned. Furthermore, contrary to popular belief, the Apocalypse was not written by John the Apostle, the son of Zebedee nor is it. Who then wrote the Apocalypse? He is the same person that John the Elder confronted in the Roman Baths of Ephesus and called "the enemy of the Truth." If as I will show, that the Book of Revelation was written by this person, then clearly, he is an enemy of the Truth, the Apocalypse cannot be included the Christian Canon of the New Testament This book expands upon the scholarly work, "The Apocalypse" written by R.H. Charles in 1920, the famous scholar widely recognised as the greatest authority of his time in matters of Jewish eschatology and apocrypha. Now take heed of a prophecy that Jesus made about a future time after his crucifixion. "Watch out that you are not deceived. For many will come in my name, claiming, 'I am he, ' and, 'The time is near.' Do not follow them." (Luke 21:8) Do not follow anyone who says "the time is near" Jesus says. Do not be deceived he says. Yet this is exactly what the writer of the Apocalypse says. "Do not seal up the words of the prophecy of this scroll, because the time is near." (Revelation 22:10) As a Christian, as long as you adhere to the words of Jesus and the Apostles recorded in the Gospels and the other writings of the New Testament, then the council of John the Elder, the disciple that Jesus loved and the author of the Fourth Gospel, will serve you well. "So He said to the Jews who had believed Him, 'If you continue in My word, you are truly My disciples. Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.'" (John 8:32) May this book set you free, but this it will not do unless you are willing look past your prejudices, seek the truth and read it. You will not regret it if you do.
"She wanted an adventure. She never imagined it would go this far. It begins with a reality TV show. Twelve contestants are sent into the woods to face challenges that will test the limits of their endurance. While they are out there, something terrible happens--but how widespread is the destruction, and has it occurred naturally or is it man-made? Cut off from society, the contestants know nothing of it. When one of them--a young woman the show's producers call Zoo--stumbles across the devastation, she can imagine only that it is part of the game"--Provided by publisher.
1. The Revelation of John exerts an almost irresistible attraction to those who are intrigued by its intricate and complex structure (JPR, p. vi). 2. Despite its name, appears to cancel as much as it reveals, disclosing its mysteries only to those patient enough to pore diligently over its every word, its every peculiar turn of phrase (JPR, p. vi) 3. The Book of Revelation is written now, in our own history and in our own city, in our own lives and in the lives of our children and our descendants in the pervasive emotional shadow of our failed responsibility and in the dependency of the evil acting on our behalf. The time for the Book of Revelation is "always"; the site for it is "everywhere"; the understanding of it is "impossible"; the feelings are overwhelming (Introduction). 4. A conflicted world of realities and an allegorical world of mental fantasies, like a popular TV reality show, are offering a kaleidoscopic framework of paradoxes: Chaos and order, helplessness and hope, destruction and justice, war and peace, insane devilish actions and healthy, spiritual goodness, unbalanced lives of people with mental and physical disabilities and their care providers, and the expression and context of the devil and the good- all these are the text and context of the Book of Revelation, the Apocalypse (Introduction) 5. The Book of Revelation, more than a strategy and form of communication, is a paradigm: It attends not only logical needs of comprehension but also structural human needs that are essential for interactions within a social and human context (p. 4). 6. The negative forces of the spirit fight against the positive forces within the same human individual in the struggle of eternal life. In fact, the earthly proximity of good and evil reverses the reality and frequently darkens the conscience and moral understanding. The essence of good is absurdly assaulted by the unscrupulous immoral acts of evil, an assault that leads our mind to the apocalyptical abysm of absolute failure and profound sickness, reflected in the confrontational experience of spiritual brightness versus material darkness, rational versus absurd behaviors, a natural saintly rapture of living versus a vulgarly immoral rupture of life, the functional beauty of sex versus the psychopathic abuse of lust. No religious institution and no sacred name is free of the human behaviors frequently possessed by the beast, such as within the Legionaries of Christ and the Holy See when both were profaned by the universal plague... pointing to... (the) spiritual massacre of many children through continual sexual abuse (p.14). 7. Evil reverses the world of reality, without reason and justice. Evil establishes an imaginary court with its own judgment and summary punishment in a realm of an obscure frame of racism and discrimination (p. 14) 8. The Apocalypse appears to be the framework of the paradoxical struggle between death and life, chaos and order, suffering and love, helplessness and hope. The transformative struggle is clearly illustrated in political history (15). 9. The consequences of this convoluted Johannine world... extends into the future (p.16). 10. The book is an attempt to connect in many trials humanity with God within a context of social, political, and cultural events in a history tinted with suffering and oppression. The scenes and motives complete the final step of the redemptive covenant and assure a human future that rewards the faithful worshippers of God with His heavenly presence (p.27).
During the first dozen years of the twenty-first century, apocalyptic anticipation in America has leapt from the cultish to the mainstream. Today, nearly 60 percent of Americans believe that the events foretold in the book of Revelation will come true. But many secular readers also seem hungry for catastrophe and have propelled books about peak oil, global warming, and the end of civilization into bestsellers. How did we come to live in a culture obsessed by the belief that the end is near? The Last Myth explains why apocalyptic beliefs are surging within the American mainstream today. Demonstrating that our expectation of the end of the world is a surprisingly recent development in human thought, the book reveals the profound influence of apocalyptic thinking on America’s past, present, and future.
AN NPR BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR • An absorbing, deeply felt book about our anxious present tense—and coming to grips with the future, by the author of the award-winning To Be a Machine. “Deeply funny and life-affirming, with a warm, generous outlook even on the most challenging of subjects.” —Esquire We’re alive in a time of worst-case scenarios: The weather has gone uncanny. A pandemic draws our global community to a halt. Everywhere you look there’s an omen, a joke whose punchline is the end of the world. How is a person supposed to live in the shadow of such a grim future? What might it be like to live through the worst? And what on earth is anybody doing about it? Dublin-based writer Mark O’Connell is consumed by these questions—and, as the father of two young children, he finds them increasingly urgent. In Notes from an Apocalypse, he crosses the globe in pursuit of answers. He tours survival bunkers in South Dakota. He ventures to New Zealand, a favored retreat of billionaires banking on civilization’s collapse. He engages with would-be Mars colonists, preppers, right-wing conspiracists. And he bears witness to places, like Chernobyl, that the future has already visited—real-life portraits of the end of the world as we know it. What emerges is an absorbing, funny, and deeply felt book about our anxious present tense—and coming to grips with what’s ahead.
The final book of the Bible, Revelation prophesies the ultimate judgement of mankind in a series of allegorical visions, grisly images and numerological predictions. According to these, empires will fall, the "Beast" will be destroyed and Christ will rule a new Jerusalem. With an introduction by Will Self.
This is the fifth of a six-volume series called Reading the Bible as Literature. In this volume, the author not only explores the intersection of the Bible and literature, but he also shows pastors, students, and teachers of the Bible how to appreciate the craftsmanship of visionary literature and prophetic oracles and how to interpret them correctly. Dr. Ryken goes one step further than merely explaining the genre by including exercises to help students master this rich literary treasure. Speaking of the entire series, Ryken says, "The niche that these volumes are designed to fill is the literary approach to the Bible. This has been my scholarly passion for nearly half a century. It is my belief that a literary approach to the Bible is the common reader's friend, in contract to the more specialized types of scholarship on the Bible."
