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Banned
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Is this alternative interpretation of the Book of Revelation worthy of further consideration; why or why not ?
Would replacing the current predominant interpretation of
the Book of Revelation, and it's emphasis on a belief in imminent rapture of "saved" Christians, with this, have any
impact on the politics in the U.S. and the political ambitions of the Christian right?
Quote:
<a href="http://www.knoxseminary.org/Prospective/Faculty/FacultyForum/JohnRevelationProject/#f2">http://www.knoxseminary.org/Prospective/Faculty/FacultyForum/JohnRevelationProject/#f2</a>
It is instructive that Martin Luther questioned the canonicity of Revelation, lamenting that a "Revelation" should reveal; and John Calvin, who commented on every other book of the Bible, glaringly omitted commentary on the Apocalypse. The children of the Reformers have fared little better.1 And it is time to ask why?
The answer to this question, we believe, is suggested once we recognize the genre of Revelation as classically understood.2 The literary pattern of a trajectory leading from darkness to light, from a damsel's despair to a hero's victory celebrated at last by a royal wedding procession (komos), is comedy.3
Now, perhaps, we can understand the failure of the Reformed church to address Revelation in any adequate fashion. It is due to our history. Perhaps we must also confess it is due to our sin. For it was our Puritan forebears who closed down the Elizabethan theater, fearing the nature of the theatre to explore the comedic imagination, which was suspected (especially in Shakespeare!) of undermining good morals.4
Consequently, as a community, we Reformed folk have been skeptical of the poetic imagination. We have unknowingly but nonetheless actually shut down one of the most fundamental gestures of the soul in so doing. And we have lost the splendor of the mundus imaginalis, the wonderment and sheer joy of the soul that is our true entrée into the Apocalypse, John's glorious vision of the beauty of the Son of Man.
The following papers from the Faculty Forum represent the ongoing project of Knox Seminary to articulate an understanding of Revelation through a lectionary reading of the Apocalypse and the Fourth Gospel and by an awareness of the overwhelmingly typological character of Johannine literature. We invite the participation of our students and the Christian community at large as we undertake this exciting study!
<a href="http://www.knoxseminary.org/Prospective/Faculty/FacultyForum/JohnRevelationProject/Part2.html">http://www.knoxseminary.org/Prospective/Faculty/FacultyForum/JohnRevelationProject/Part2.html</a>
<b>On the Incompleteness of the Gospel of John: A Clue to John's Revelation?</b>
Thematic issues that appear to suggest the incompleteness of the Fourth Gospel are likewise often left unattended. One of the most evident themes of the Gospel of John is the presentation of an Adamic typology of Jesus. John opens his Gospel as a New Genesis, with an account of creation "in the beginning," stylized after Moses' account of the first Adam. God the Word creates the world, John writes. Light shines into darkness. Then the Word is made man (John 1:14): a new Adam. The implication of John's typology is that once the Word becomes authentic man, it is not good that He should be alone (cf. Gen 2:18). There must be a "bride" for Christ. The evangelist makes this explicit when he introduces John the Baptist as a "friend of the Bridegroom" (John 3:29).
So Jesus must have a bride. The evangelist identifies Jesus as the Bridegroom, but where in his Gospel does he describe the bride of the One the Baptist called the "Lamb of God"? Where does he tell us of the wedding of the Son of Man? Christian, and especially Pauline, theology makes the identity of the bride of the Lord quite clear, but reading John's Gospel within the four corners of the text does not. Is the Fourth Gospel gesturing toward something else? something external, perhaps, to itself? 4
The only wedding described in the Fourth Gospel is not the wedding of the Lamb; rather, it is the wedding at Cana to which Jesus is only an invited guest. In the context of the shortage of wine at the wedding of a friend, Jesus' mother appears to ask Him to supply the wine. But the wine service is the responsibility of the bridegroom, according to the wedding steward (John 2:10). It is not His hour, Jesus says (John 2:2-4). Nonetheless Jesus supplies the wine for His friend, and the steward complains to the bridegroom that he has violated the protocol of serving the better wine first and the worse wine afterwards, after the guests have drunk (John 2:9-10). Why does John report the consternation of the wedding steward? Is the point of the evangelist simply that Jesus made the better wine? Is the significance of the steward's comment exhausted in the suggestion that the wine of Jesus' table will be sweet? Or is the account of the wedding at Cana gesturing toward some other wedding. Is there an anticipation of a wedding where Jesus will be the Bridegroom? But when is this wedding? And when the hour of His wedding does come, will Jesus respect the customary protocol, serving the better wine first and afterward the worse wine, after His guests have drunk? 5
In short, John's Gospel opens with a reflection upon "the beginning" of all creation. But where is the ending that makes the Gospel whole? The ending of the Gospel attempts to answer a rumor that went out in the early Christian community about the time and circumstance of John's death (John 21:18-25). Is this false report the conclusion John intended for his evangelistic enterprise, an ending deemed worthy to be juxtaposed to the "in the beginning" of John 1:1?6
<a href="http://www.knoxseminary.org/Prospective/Faculty/FacultyForum/JohnRevelationProject/Part4.html">http://www.knoxseminary.org/Prospective/Faculty/FacultyForum/JohnRevelationProject/Part4.html</a>
The Great Reversal:
The Son is lifted up (John 12:28-31)
Satan is cast down (Revelation 12:9-10)
The first crosspiece combines the opening chapters of the Gospel and the closing chapters of the Revelation to tell the story of the Son of Man as a Heavenly Bridegroom who leaves His Father's house to dwell among men in search of a bride. He finds her in a wilderness and woos her to Himself, at last taking her to a pleasant garden in the city of God. The Gospel presents the Bridegroom; the Revelation introduces the bride.
This crosspiece is rich with wedding imagery. At the opening of the Gospel, Jesus and His disciples are invited to a wedding in Cana. At the close of Revelation, blessing is pronounced on all who are invited to the wedding of the Lamb. At the opening of the Gospel, John the Baptist rejoices to hear the voice of the Bridegroom (Jesus) who has the bride (the church). At the close of Revelation, Babylon is judged when the voice of the Bridegroom and bride is no longer heard. Jesus makes wine in both settings. First, He serves the good wine of the Gospel at Cana. Then in Revelation, when the harlot and her people are drunk, He serves the wine of the wrath of God (cf. John 2:10). The good wine of the Gospel is served before the wine of fierce wrath in the Revelation.
The second crosspiece joins the opening of Revelation with the close of John. It tells of the heroic Son of God, who comes from heaven as a Warrior King to lay hold of His Kingdom by vanquishing the Dragon. He rides forth upon a white horse to conquer His enemies with the sword of His mouth. Those who follow Him need not fear the warfare, for their King is the Lord of Life. Even if they should lose their lives in martyrdom, they will be raised to new life just like their conquering King, and will dwell forever with Him in the New Jerusalem, where there will be no more pain, sorrow, or tears.
The pivot of both the consecutive and the chiastic structure (John 12; Rev 12), which is the thematic center of the story told by the two books, tells of the great reversal that takes place as the Son is lifted up and Satan is cast down. John 12:28-31 and Revelation 12:9-10 are anchored by word combinations that occur nowhere else in either book. These passages constitute the literary axis of the two Johannine books. (See the consecutive chart.) Both passages concern the announcement of Christ's kingdom. In John 12, Jesus rides into Jerusalem upon a donkey. The crowds proclaim Him "King of Israel" and the Pharisees worry that "the world has gone after Him" (John 12:13,15,19). The Revelation passage that corresponds to the Triumphal Entry of the Gospel opens with the announcement that "the kingdoms of the world have become the kingdoms of our Lord, and of His Christ; and He shall reign forever and ever" (Rev 11:15; cf. Rev 12:10). In John 12:32, the Son is lifted up. The matching declaration of Revelation 12:9 is that the Dragon is cast down to earth. As noted on the chart, both John and Revelation speak of Satan being cast out of heaven.
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