Revelation: Theological Decisions And Contextual Decisions

Recap:

History of Interpretation (Millennial views, Rapture?)

Hermeneutics and Exegesis

Genre - Apocalypse and Prophecy sandwiched in an epistle

Theological Decisions

Who is Jesus (Christology)?

1) Messiah, yes. But, what kind of Messiah?

2) Jesus call’s himself the Son of Man.

3) Jesus is a suffering Son of Man

4) in reference to Messiah - from Dan. 7.13-14, and Jewish Apocalyptic literature

Daniel 7:13–14

Daniel 7:13–14 ESV

“I saw in the night visions, and behold, with the clouds of heaven there came one like a son of man, and he came to the Ancient of Days and was presented before him. And to him was given dominion and glory and a kingdom, that all peoples, nations, and languages should serve him; his dominion is an everlasting dominion, which shall not pass away, and his kingdom one that shall not be destroyed.

1 Enoch 46

1 And there I saw One who had a head of days,

And His head was white like wool,

And with Him was another being whose countenance had the appearance of a man,

And his face was full of graciousness, like one of the holy angels.

2 And I asked the angel who went with me and showed me all the hidden things, concerning that

3 Son of Man, who he was, and whence he was, (and) why he went with the Head of Days? And he answered and said unto me:

This is the son of Man who hath righteousness,

With whom dwelleth righteousness,

And who revealeth all the treasures of that which is hidden,

Because the Lord of Spirits hath chosen him,

And whose lot hath the pre-eminence before the Lord of Spirits in uprightness for ever.

4 And this Son of Man whom thou hast see

Shall raise up the kings and the mighty from their seats,

[And the strong from their thrones]

And shall loosen the reins of the strong,

And break the teeth of the sinners.

https://www.ccel.org/c/charles/otpseudepig/enoch/ENOCH_2.HTM

“For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many.” Mark 10.45 NASBThen He *came to the disciples and *said to them, “Are you still sleeping and resting? Behold, the hour is at hand and the Son of Man is being betrayed into the hands of sinners. Matthew 26.45 NASB

We Know the Story, Jesus Came to Suffer and Die for the Sins of the World. A Very Upside Down Messiah.

What is the Church (ecclesiology)?

1) The Church is the ongoing story of Jesus after his resurrection.

2) The picture of Gospels and Acts shows us this.

3) The church is a Kingdom Community.

4) Jesus inaugurated the Kingdom and it is coming into its fullest as we wait for Jesus’ return.

What is salvation (soteriology)?

1) It is the big question of how God conquers evil.

2) Its both present and future.

Present

John 20:31 NASB95but these have been written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing you may have life in His name.

Future

Mark 8:38 NASB95“For whoever is ashamed of Me and My words in this adulterous and sinful generation, the Son of Man will also be ashamed of him when He comes in the glory of His Father with the holy angels.”

Jewish Apocalyptic thought compared to Pauline (Christian) Apocalyptic thought

How we answer these questions will inform how we read Revelation and more broadly our eschatology.

Contextual Decisions

Why Does Context Matter?

“Cooking with Pooh”

“I’m Sorry” and “My Bad”

https://www.google.com/url?sa=i&url=https%3A%2F%2Fmemegenerator.net%2Finstance%2F63202905%2Fone-does-not-simply-one-does-not-simply-cite-the-bible-and-say-its-in-there-the-bible-isnt-a-jar-of-&psig=AOvVaw0lFVgTJsSMODwj1i4ahzKV&ust=1612992821165000&source=images&cd=vfe&ved=0CAMQjB1qGAoTCJC9xdPg3e4CFQAAAAAdAAAAABCDAQ

Dating Revelation:

Two Possible Date Ranges

AD 54-68 Under Nero

AD 81-96 Under Domitian

Persecution in the Background

Persecution is in the Context of Revelation

A believer named Antipas has been killed Rev. 2.13

Martyr imager in Rev. 6.10

Persecution points to two possible times Emperors - Nero and Domitian

Nero

Assumed Power at 16 after his step-dad/ great uncle died.

Legend says that Nero’s mother Agrippina had him poisoned.

In AD 64 Rome caught fire, lasting for 5 days.

Nero, known not to be the best guy, was blamed for the fire.

Nero in turn blamed Christians and Christians were persecuted

Background of Early Christianity, 31-34; “Caesars, The,” Baker Encyclopedia of the Bible

Tacitus, a Roman Historian, in Annals 15.44

Such indeed were the precautions of human wisdom. The next thing was to seek means of propitiating the gods, and recourse was had to the Sibylline books, by the direction of which prayers were offered to Vulcanus, Ceres, and Proserpina. Juno, too, was entreated by the matrons, first, in the Capitol, then on the nearest part of the coast, whence water was procured to sprinkle the fane and image of the goddess. And there were sacred banquets and nightly vigils celebrated by married women. But all human efforts, all the lavish gifts of the emperor, and the propitiations of the gods, did not banish the sinister belief that the conflagration was the result of an order. Consequently, to get rid of the report, Nero fastened the guilt and inflicted the most exquisite tortures on a class hated for their abominations, called Christians by the populace. Christus, from whom the name had its origin, suffered the extreme penalty during the reign of Tiberius at the hands of one of our procurators, Pontius Pilatus, and a most mischievous superstition, thus checked for the moment, again broke out not only in Judæa, the first source of the evil, but even in Rome, where all things hideous and shameful from every part of the world find their

centre and become popular. Accordingly, an arrest was first made of all who pleaded guilty; then, upon their information, an immense multitude was convicted, not so much of the crime of firing the city, as of hatred against mankind. Mockery of every sort was added to their deaths. Covered with the skins of beasts, they were torn by dogs and perished, or were nailed to crosses, or were doomed to the flames and burnt, to serve as a nightly illumination, when daylight had expired.

Nero offered his gardens for the spectacle, and was exhibiting a show in the circus, while he mingled with the people in the dress of a charioteer or stood aloft on a car. Hence, even for criminals who deserved extreme and exemplary punishment, there arose a feeling of compassion; for it was not, as it seemed, for the public good, but to glut one man's cruelty, that they were being destroyed.

http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Tac.+Ann.+15.44&redirect=true

Domitian

Title of dominus et deus, Lord and God

Revived Christian Persecution

He exiled and executed his opponents including many senatorial families

Background of Early Christianity, 38; “Caesars, The,” Baker Encyclopedia of the Bible

Dating within Domitian’s Time

Many emperors where worshipped but Domitian took it to the next level; Revelation speaks against this kind of worship. Rev. 13.4; 12, 15-16 (TNTC)

Domitian had his wife Domitilla executed for atheism - denial of roman gods. This may suggest that she was interested in Christianity or a christian herself (TNTC)

Irenaeus (2nd Century), the Early Church father, believed that Revelation was “seen” in Domitian’s reign.

Ante-Nicene Fathers 1: The Apostolic Fathers with Justin Martyr and Irenaeus Chapter XXX

For that was seen no very long time since, but almost in our day, towards the end of Domitian’s reign.

Clement of Alexandria (2nd Century) also points to dating Revelation in Domitian’s time.

Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers 2.1: Eusebius: Church History, Life of Constantine the Great, and Oration in Praise of Constantine Chapter XX

1 “OF the family of the Lord there were still living the grandchildren of Jude, who is said to have been the Lord’s brother according to the flesh.

2 Information was given that they belonged to the family of David, and they were brought to the Emperor Domitian by the Evocatus. For Domitian feared the coming of Christ as Herod also had feared it. And he asked them if they were descendants of David, and they confessed that they were. Then he asked them how much property they had, or how much money they owned. And both of them answered that they had only nine thousand denarii,

4 half of which belonged to each of them; and this property did not consist of silver, but of a piece of land which contained only thirty-nine acres, and from which they raised their taxes and supported themselves by their own labor.”3

5 Then they showed their hands, exhibiting the hardness of their bodies and the callousness produced upon their hands by continuous toil as evidence of their own labor.

6 And when they were asked concerning Christ and his kingdom, of what sort it was and where and when it was to appear, they answered that it was not a temporal nor an earthly kingdom, but a heavenly and angelic one, which would appear at the end of the world, when he should come in glory to judge the quick and the dead, and to give unto every one according to his works.

7 Upon hearing this, Domitian did not pass judgment against them, but, despising them as of no account, he let them go, and by a decree put a stop to the persecution of the Church.

8 But when they were released they ruled the churches, because they were witnesses and were also relatives of the Lord.5 And peace being established, they lived until the time of Trajan. These things are related by Hegesippus.

9 Tertullian also has mentioned Domitian in the following words: “Domitian also, who possessed a share of Nero’s cruelty, attempted once to do the same thing that the latter did. But because he had, I suppose, some intelligence,7 he very soon ceased, and even recalled those whom he had banished.”

10 But after Domitian had reigned fifteen years, and Nerva had succeeded to the empire, the Roman Senate, according to the writers that record the history of those days,9 voted that Domitian’s honors should be cancelled, and that those who had been unjustly banished should return to their homes and have their property restored to them.

11 It was at this time that the apostle John returned from his banishment in the island and took up his abode at Ephesus, according to an ancient Christian tradition.

It seems that Domitian initiated a Nero-esque persecution for a short but intense time.

Scholars debate the details of Domitian’s Persecution of Christians.

Regardless to whether persecution was real or perceived, the early church father cited point to Domitian as the emperor during Revelation’s composition.

One more thing on persecution: “any persecution is real if you’re the one in it” (Dr. Warren, NOBTS)

No matter the intensity of persecution, it is real for the audience.

Authorship

The text mentions John as the Author:

Revelation 1:1 NASB95

The Revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave Him to show to His bond-servants, the things which must soon take place; and He sent and communicated it by His angel to His bond-servant John,

Revelation 1:4 NASB95

John to the seven churches that are in Asia: Grace to you and peace, from Him who is and who was and who is to come, and from the seven Spirits who are before His throne,

Revelation 1:9 NASB95

I, John, your brother and fellow partaker in the tribulation and kingdom and perseverance which are in Jesus, was on the island called Patmos because of the word of God and the testimony of Jesus.

Revelation 22:8 NASB95

I, John, am the one who heard and saw these things. And when I heard and saw, I fell down to worship at the feet of the angel who showed me these things.

John is the author but John Who?

John the Apostle as the Author

Most of the Western Church Fathers thought John the Apostle was the author.

“And further, there was a certain man with us, whose name was John one of the apostles of Christ, who prophesied, by a revelation that was made to him...” Dialogue With Trypho 81.4

Dionysius of Alexandria (3rd Century), however disagreed.

Dionysius was the biship of Alexandra and very skilled in Greek.

He analyzed John’s Greek in the Gospel and the Epistles against Revelation.

Dionysius of Alexandria Observations on the Johns Greek (Stevens, 204-5)

The lack of explicit self-reference to the author’s own name in any of the other literature ascribed to the apostle John

The absence of known patterns of self-reference by the apostle as the beloved disciple, as in the Gospel, or as an eyewitness, as in 1 John

That the name John was extremely common in later Christian generations in honor of the legacy of the apostle, so could be anyone

That the ideas, vocabulary, and even arrangement of words in Revelation are totally alien to the apostle, with entire categories of common words and phrases that are well known to be theologically crucial to the apostle missing entirely in Revelation

The extraordinary contrasting symbolic thought world of Revelation versus either that of the Gospel or of the epistles, which never even allude to having visions or dream states by the author

The Greek of the apostle shows hardly any example of the constant barbarism, solecism, and vulgarism of the Greek of Revelation

6. After this he examines the entire Book of Revelation, and having proved that it is impossible to understand it according to the literal sense, proceeds as follows:

“Having finished all the prophecy, so to speak, the prophet pronounces those blessed who shall observe it, and also himself. For he says, ‘Blessed is he that keepeth the words of the prophecy of this book, and I, John, who saw and heard these things.’

7. Therefore that he was called John, and that this book is the work of one John, I do not deny. And I agree also that it is the work of a holy and inspired man. But I cannot readily admit that he was the apostle, the son of Zebedee, the brother of James, by whom the Gospel of John and the Catholic Epistle were written.

Church History 7.25.6-7 https://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/npnf201.iii.xii.xxvi.html#fnf_iii.xii.xxvi-p1.2

In Other Words: John and 1-3 John are very different than Revelation

“If Revelation had come to us anonymously, never in a million years would the thought have occured to anyone to suggest, ‘Hey, you know, I think the author of the Apocalypse and the author of the Gospel of John are the same person’” (Stevens, 205).

There seems to be evidence that John the Apostle and the John of Revelation are two different people.

Patmos: Where John received the Revelation

Patmos - off the western coast of Asia Minor in the Aegean Sea; part of the Dodecanese complex of islands.

John is probably not there by his own choice

John states that he is a “ partner in the tribulation and the kingdom” and that he is there “on account of the word of God” (Rev. 1.9 ESV)

The grammar in Greek points to his residency on Patmos as a result (dia) the word of God.

Perhaps John was Exiled by Domitian? Patmos was a place of exile for Roman citizens of repute (Stevens, 207-08).

John may not have been on Patmos when it was written. “was on the island called Patmos… (Rev. 1.9 ESV).