Overview
Book of Revelation
Quick Reference
The last Book of the NT and the only one that is an Apocalypse. Apart from the letters to the Seven Churches of Asia Minor, the Book consists of a series of visions.
The author is identified as ‘John’ in the title and at 1: 9, and called ‘the theologian’ (‘the divine’) in later MSS of the title. In the W. he was from an early date held to be St John the Apostle, but it is unlikely that he is this John. There are a few verbal points of contact with St John's Gospel and the Johannine Epistles; such features could suggest a common theological background for the authors of Rev. and Jn., but common authorship is precluded by wide differences in eschatology, tone, and language.
Its hostile attitude to Rome indicates that the Book cannot be earlier than the persecution under Nero in 64. It more probably dates from a later persecution, perhaps that of Domitian (81–96). Many of the pictures and images doubtless have a historical reference, but the aim of the Book is to give assurance about God's power and purpose, rather than information about events to come. Its political passion on behalf of the oppressed has attracted some modern readers, but its importance and potentially dangerous impact stem from its futuristic eschatology and the use made of it by millenarians of all periods, and especially by fundamentalist Protestants today.
