Book of Revelation

=== Aesthetic and literary ===
[[File:Augsburger Wunderzeichenbuch — Folio 185 crop.jpg|thumb|This artwork from {{lang|de|[[Augsburg Book of Miracles|Augsburger Wunderzeichenbuch]]}} illustrates Revelation 11:5-8: "And if anyone would harm them, fire pours from their mouth and consumes their foes. If anyone would harm them, this is how he is doomed to be killed... And when they have finished their testimony, the beast that rises from the bottomless pit will make war on them and conquer them and kill them, and their dead bodies will lie in the street of the great city." ({{c.|1550}})]]

Literary writers and theorists have contributed to a wide range of theories about the origins and purpose of the Book of Revelation. Some of these writers have no connection with established Christian faiths but, nevertheless, found in Revelation a source of inspiration. Revelation has been approached from Hindu philosophy and Jewish [[Midrash]]. Others have pointed to aspects of composition which have been ignored such as the similarities of prophetic inspiration to modern poetic inspiration, or the parallels with [[Theatre of ancient Greece|Greek drama]]. In recent years, theories have arisen which concentrate upon how readers and texts interact to create meaning and which are less interested in what the original author intended.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Breu |first1=Clarissa |title=Biblical Exegesis without Authorial Intention?: Interdisciplinary Approaches to Authorship and Meaning |date=2019 |publisher=BRILL |location=Leiden |isbn=978-90-04-39581-7}}</ref>

[[Charles Cutler Torrey]] taught [[Semitic languages]] at [[Yale University]]. His lasting contribution has been to show how prophets, such as the scribe of Revelation, are much more meaningful when treated as poets first and foremost. He thought this was a point often lost sight of because most English bibles render everything in prose.<ref>Charles C. Torrey ''The Apocalypse of John'' New Haven: Yale University Press (1958). Christopher R. North in his ''The Second Isaiah'' London: OUP (1964) p. 23 says of Torrey's earlier Isaiah theory, "Few scholars of any standing have accepted his theory." This is the general view of Torrey's theories. However, Christopher North goes on to cite Torrey on 20 major occasions and many more minor ones in the course of his book. So, Torrey must have had some influence and poetry is the key.</ref> Poetry was also the reason John never directly quoted the older prophets. Had he done so, he would have had to use their (Hebrew) poetry whereas he wanted to write his own. Torrey insisted Revelation had originally been written in [[Aramaic]].<ref>''Apocalypse of John'' p. 7</ref>

According to Torrey, "The Fourth Gospel was brought to Ephesus by a Christian fugitive from Palestine soon after the middle of the first century. It was written in Aramaic." Later, the Ephesians claimed this fugitive had actually been the beloved disciple himself. Subsequently, this John was banished by Nero and died on Patmos after writing Revelation. Torrey argued that until AD 80, when Christians were expelled from the synagogues,<ref>''Apocalypse of John'' p. 37</ref> the Christian message was always first heard in the synagogue and, for cultural reasons, the evangelist would have spoken in Aramaic, else "he would have had no hearing."<ref>''Apocalypse of John'' p. 8</ref> Torrey showed how the three major songs in Revelation (the new song, the song of Moses and the Lamb and the chorus at 19: 6–8) each fall naturally into four regular metrical lines plus a coda.<ref>''Apocalypse of John'' p. 137</ref> Other dramatic moments in Revelation, such as 6:16 where the terrified people cry out to be hidden, behave in a similar way.<ref>''Apocalypse of John'' p. 140</ref> The surviving Greek translation was a literal translation that aimed to comply with the warning at Revelation 22:18 that the text must not be "corrupted" in any way.

[[Christina Rossetti]] was a Victorian poet who believed the sensual excitement of the natural world found its meaningful purpose in death and in God.<ref>"Flowers preach to us if we will hear", begins her poem 'Consider the lilies of the field' ''Goblin Market'' London: Oxford University Press (1913) p. 87</ref> Her ''The Face of the Deep'' is a meditation upon the Apocalypse. In her view, what Revelation has to teach is patience.{{efn|Rossetti remarks that patience is a word which does not occur in the Bible until the New Testament, as if the usage first came from Christ's own lips.<ref>Christina Rossetti ''The Face of the Deep'' London: SPCK (1892) p. 115</ref>}} Patience is the closest to perfection the human condition allows.<ref>"Christians should resemble fire-flies, not glow-worms; their brightness drawing eyes upward, not downward." ''The Face of the Deep'' p. 26</ref> Her book, which is largely written in prose, frequently breaks into poetry or jubilation, much like Revelation itself. The relevance of John's visions{{efn|'Vision' lends the wrong emphasis as Rossetti sought to minimise the distinction between John's experience and that of others. She quoted 1 John 3:24, "He abideth in us, by the Spirit which he hath given us" to show that when John says, "I was in the Spirit" it is not exceptional.}} belongs to Christians of all times as a continuous present meditation. Such matters are eternal and outside of normal human reckoning. "That winter which will be the death of Time has no promise of termination. Winter that returns not to spring ... – who can bear it?"<ref>''The Face of the Deep'' p. 301</ref> She dealt deftly with the vengeful aspects of John's message. "A few are charged to do judgment; everyone without exception is charged to show mercy."<ref>''The Face of the Deep'' p. 292</ref> Her conclusion is that Christians should see John as "representative of all his brethren" so they should "hope as he hoped, love as he loved."<ref>''The Face of the Deep'' p. 495</ref>

Recently, aesthetic and literary modes of interpretation have developed, which focus on Revelation as a work of art and imagination, viewing the imagery as symbolic depictions of timeless truths and the victory of good over evil. [[Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza]] wrote ''Revelation: Vision of a Just World'' from the viewpoint of rhetoric.<ref>Elisabeth Schuessler Fiorenza ''Revelation: Vision of a Just World'' Edinburgh: T&T Clark (1993). The book seems to have started life as ''Invitation to the Book of Revelation'' Garden City: Doubleday (1981)</ref> Accordingly, Revelation's meaning is partially determined by the way John goes about saying things, partially by the context in which readers receive the message and partially by its appeal to something beyond logic.<ref name="Tina Pippin 1993 p. 105">Tina Pippin ''Death & Desire: The rhetoric of gender in the Apocalypse of John'' Louisville: Westminster-John Knox (1993) p. 105</ref>

Professor Schüssler Fiorenza believes that Revelation has particular relevance today as a liberating message to disadvantaged groups. John's book is a vision of a just world, not a vengeful threat of world-destruction. Her view that Revelation's message is not gender-based has caused dissent. She says humanity is to look behind the symbols rather than make a fetish out of them. In contrast, Tina Pippin states that John writes "[[Horror fiction|horror literature]]" and "the [[misogyny]] which underlies the narrative is extreme."<ref name="Tina Pippin 1993 p. 105"/>

[[D. H. Lawrence]] took an opposing, pessimistic view of Revelation in the final book he wrote, ''Apocalypse''.<ref>D H Lawrence ''Apocalypse'' London: Martin Secker (1932) published posthumously with an introduction (pp. v–xli) by Richard Aldington which is an integral part of the text.</ref> He saw the language which Revelation used as being bleak and destructive; a 'death-product'. Instead, he wanted to champion a public-spirited individualism (which he identified with the historical Jesus supplemented by an ill-defined cosmic consciousness) against its two natural enemies. One of these he called "the sovereignty of the intellect"<ref>''Apocalypse'' p. xxiii</ref> which he saw in a technology-based totalitarian society. The other enemy he styled "vulgarity"<ref>''Apocalypse'' p. 6</ref> and that was what he found in Revelation. "It is very nice if you are poor and not humble ... to bring your enemies down to utter destruction, while you yourself rise up to grandeur. And nowhere does this happen so splendiferously than in Revelation."<ref>''Apocalypse'' p. 11</ref> Lawrence did not consider how these two types of Christianity (good and bad in his view) might be related other than as opposites. He noted the difference meant that the John who wrote a gospel could not be the same John who wrote Revelation.

His specific aesthetic objections to Revelation were that its imagery was unnatural and that phrases like "the wrath of the Lamb" were "ridiculous." He saw Revelation as comprising two discordant halves. In the first, there was a scheme of cosmic renewal in "great Chaldean sky-spaces", which he quite liked. After that, Lawrence thought, the book became preoccupied with the birth of the baby messiah and "flamboyant hate and simple lust ... for the end of the world." Lawrence coined the term "Patmossers" to describe those Christians who could only be happy in paradise if they knew their enemies were suffering in hell.<ref name="Lawrence1995">{{cite book|author=D. H. Lawrence|title=Apocalypse and the Writings on Revelation|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=umOIicD8H9oC&pg=PA112|year=1995|publisher=Penguin Books|isbn=978-0-14-018781-6|page=112}}</ref>