Revelations: Visions, Prophecy, and Politics in the Book of Revelation Paperback – February 26, 2013

I have read Elaine Pagels' work before (Gnostic Gospels) and have admired her work. I am not an expert in this aspect of history, but her works read well and she shows much knowledge of the material. She also places the issues addressed in an historical context.Here, she explores the Book of Revelation, written, she says, by John of Patmos (an island off the coast of Turkey). She asks a number of questions in this book and strives to answer each (Page 3): "Who wrote this book? Why--and how--do so many people still read it today?" Pagels suggests that John began writing the book in 90 AD, probably after having fled his homeland in Judea.Pagels discusses revelatory works, showing how John's book fit into this tradition. She also notes that, from the documents from Nag Hammadi, John's was not the only work of revelation. Why did his become part of the Biblical canon and not some other? She discusses the history and politics of the time and how the emerging church hierarchy wanted a definitive "Bible." She outlines the logic that ended up locating John's Book of Revelation within the canon.This volume is well written, albeit a bit short. But it takes on a big subject and does not disappoint.

The time and place of the writing of the book of Revelation has long been under debate by the scholars. For many years, most have presumed that it was written after the fall of Jerusalem, may as late as 115-125 A.D. However, the scholarship of J. Massyngberde Ford suggests that the book of Revelation was in fact written much earlier, and that the author was not John of Patmos, but John the Baptist."Cumulative evidence indicates that the Baptist's prophetic calling was recognized, and feared. It would therefore be surprising if some disciple or disciples had not troubled to record and preserve his message. It is our contention that thi sis the origin of Revelation. Not only does the Baptist's teaching not conflict with the message of our apocalypse, but it has certain themes in common." (Ford, 1975. Revelation. New York: Doubleday, p. 30)The argument is compelling. The great majority of the Book of Revelation refers to a vision of the end of the world very similar to that found in Ezekiel and Daniel. References to the Messiah reflect Old Testament symbolism. There is no reference to any of Jesus' teachings, miracles, or to the manner of his death.Another scholar, Elaine Pagels, argues that John was writing in response to the Roman war against Judaism and their destruction of Jerusalem. "What John did in the Book of Revelation, among other things, was create anti-Roman propaganda that drew its imagery from Israel's prophetic traditions--among all, the writings of Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and Daniel." (Pagels, 2012, p. 16)Taken together, Ford and Pagels help us realize the range of interpretations of Revelation. Ford would have the bulk of the book written before 30 A.D., while Pagels places the writing 70 years later. Ford suggests that the author of Revelation demonizes the Roman Empire with a focus on Herod. Pagels agrees, but suggests the focus is on Nero.

Elaine Pagels is learned, interesting, and careful. Unfortunately, her work on the Book of Revelation has a number of flaws. First, it is not well-edited. Ms. Pagel repeats herself several times, including offering a nearly identical synopsis of the Book of the book in separate chapters. This is the sort of thing that careful editing should catch. And sometimes the footnootes do not have much to do with the tesxt they are supposed to annotate. For example, Pagels notes that Revelation barely made it into the New Testament canon, while the footnote offers nothing about its inclusion -- where, when, and by how many votes it happened to be incorporated into the canon? There were come church councils that voted on the Canon (Pagels mentions the Council of Carthage). What happened there? By what process was it decided to include Revelation in the cannon.Second, this book is only loosely about the Book of Revelation itself. While the first two chapters are devoted to that Book, the remaining chapters include only tangentially related subjects, such as the fights in the early church and the conflicts between its bishops. These are interesting digressions, but they do not have much to do with Revelation. It is almost as if Ms. Pagels wrote six separate essays and justified their inclusion in one book by the fact that Revelation gets a mention in each of them. If her primary subject was Revelation itself, she would have been better off devoting her time to intepreting the book and noting the contemporary context of its writing. If her subject was the historical reaction and interpretation of that book, she should not have stopped at the fourth century. If I were to have one overarching criticism of her book, it is that it is a bit unfocused.Moreover, the quality of her text varies considerably. Her chapter on other extant apocalyptic literature is really excellent. While the Book of Revelation has been called the happy hunting ground for cranks, a reading of Ms. Pagel's analysis of similar writings makes it clear that John the Divine himself was not one of them. He was just a Jewish-Christian writer penning a particularly vivid example of a rather common literary genre. I would note, however, that her excellent exposition of precursors and contemporaries casts doubt on one of her conclusions -- that Revelation is largely to be interpreted as a cryptic reference to then-current events. Apocalyptic literature, Pagels' examples demonstrate, did have a large prophetic component, and a considerable "end of days" component, and these are often neither closely related to, nor cryptic references about, purely contemporary events. Moreover. the claim that John was writing in "code" because of fear of the authorities is suspect. What Roman magistrate bothered read this sort of stuff? Even Celsus, much less Pliny, demonstrated minimal familiarity which what are now the New Testament books. And if John was writing about the failings of some of his Christian contemporaries, what was there for him to worry about if he called them out by name? John just liked to be cryptic, like a number of other apocalyptic writers, because that is the way they wrote. Nor should it be discounted that writing Revelations may have been fun. It probably gives a fair amount of pleasure to a partisan to see his enemies blown up and thrown into the outer darkness. And the sheer power and imaginativeness of the narrative suggests a certain playfulness. Revelation may not be the best book of the Bible, but it is almost surely the most fascinating.Some of Ms. Pagels' claims are rather tenuous. For example, she argues that John was a Jewish follower of Jesus who was was writing against the "gentilizers" in the early church, particularly Paul and his followers. Pagels even suggests that John was not Christian, at least he did not call himself by the name "Christian." But John regularly mentions the church, and he nowhere mentions Paul. Nor does he have any direct criticism (or any obvious cryptic criticism) of gentile church members; much less does he suggest that gentile converts are not welcome in the church. Indeed, some of the churches in Asia Minor that he writes to had large gentile congregations, and he surely knew this. And the dates proposed by Pagels for Revelation's writing are suspect. Pagels believes that the book was written circa 95 A.D., although she acknowledges that some scholars would place it 30 years earlier. But Tacitus wrote that Nero blamed "the Christians" for the great fire at Rome, so the name "Christian" was surely widely known and used at the time. For John not to use it in the 90's would seem strange. Perhaps Revelation is a composit, which might account for the difference in tone between its first few chapters and the rest of the book and between the portions which seem to relate to current events and portions which relate to pure prophesy.Finally, Pagels does not spend nearly enough time on the text of Revelation itself. Although she contends that it relates principally to contemporary events, and analyzes the passages about the beast and the number of the beast and the destruction of God's enemies in some detail, she performs next to no exigesis of those passages which are more purely prophetic, such as Armageddon, the four horsemen (the third horseman being problematically denominated as "inflation" rather than the underlying famine which caused that inflation, which is what it primarily refers to), the Star Wormwood, the angel standing in the sun, the last trumpet, etc. While she is good about Revelations' roots, she is less helpful as a guide to the branches. Revelation is a treasure-trove of haunting and powerful images, which is probably why it is a happy hunting ground for cranks. If one is going to demystify it, it is very important to examine what the author was trying to mean rather than what the naked image conveys whoever happens to be reading it. This requires a careful exposition of the text, and Pagels does not always provide it.It is hard to criticize Pagels too much. It is generally a well-written book and a useful corrective for those who do not know much about Revelation. But for those who came to the book expecting to learn something new and revelatory about it, it is a bit problematical. Where it is really good, it does not have much to do with Revelation. And where it has a lot to say about Revelation, it is not particularly good.

AMAZING.

Came punctually. Quality as promised. Super

I loved this book even though it was less about Revelations as understanding the times when they were written (by John of Patmos). I loved learning about the early beginnings of Christianity and the different sects and beliefs. She even goes into how Constantine fell in love with Christianity tried to gather different sect leaders together to create a cohesive "religious" structure and how at the same time a monastic tradition started based more on community, secluding themselves from the ways of the world, studying the more secret doctrines, and living more purely.The only difficulty I had was that while I loved the book, her perspective is limited to seeing the "revelation" as only pertaining to what was going on during John of Patmos' time and that John made it up, kind of, to try to resolve conflicts that were going on during his time, including persecution of Christians by Pagan Rome. While not sure what is the truth, if John's vision is of his time or beyond, as someone who has studied prophecies of Natives, Buddhist and others, there are similar themes in all, which many prophecies mention technology, greed and materialism. She doesn't explain symbolism that has been attached to our more current time and explain how they would fit his time frame and attempt to refute it. For example, since she believes Revelation was written to be about Rome, I would like to have had her explain what was meant when John implied that punishment was to be reserved for those who "destroy the earth" and about how the beast "performs great signs, even making fire come down out of the sky to the earth in the sight of people" (which has been attributed to bombs) etc. Also, how were people working day and night to worship the beast with the smoke of their torment rising forever and ever (to me this could be an ancients way of never having seen technology before seeing our workaholic ways and the pollution caused by manufacturing).But, despite this, it was still a great book that deserves 5 stars, and I will purchase other of her books cause I did enjoy it a lot. She writes in a way that isn't dry and is easy to understand.I'm surprised she brought up the Essenes but didn't note in Revelations how these could be the people of the "white robes." Josephus (a writer during Roman times), connected the Essenes to wearing "white robes." In the book of Revelation they are also connected to palm branches (which the Essenes were connected to having "only palm trees for company"). Which we are seeing a resurgence of interest in the Essenes and the dead see scrolls and their communal way of life, which helped them to live separate from the Roman infrastructure (the beast as she put it). Their way of life helped them live in ways without compromising to the beast but instead (and according to a writer of that time Josephus) living purely, as vegetarians, baptizers, peaceful, communal people, who supported one another as a community and had no purpose for greed and were a sect that was put forth prophecies etc.

Über das hier zu besprechende Buch hat Adam Gopnik in der amerikanischen Wochenzeitung The New Yorker eine überzeugende Rezension geschrieben. Eine deutsche Übersetzung derselben kann bei mir angefordert werden (möchte amazon.de dieselbe?). Die Religionswissenschaftlerin Elaine Pagels, die sich seit Jahrzehnten mit der komplizierten Geschichte der Frühzeit unseres Christentums befasst, legt hier ein geradezu krönendes Werk vor, das sich spannender liest als ein Krimi. Als Leser folgt man der Beweisführung der Autorin, daß es sich bei dem letzten Buch des Neuen Testaments um eine zeitbedingte Streitschrift und nicht etwa um ein prophetisches Buch gehandelt habe. Schließt man sich dieser Argumentation an, so erledigen sich bislang gehegte Meinungen gleich haufenweise. Als Kennerin der sogenannten gnostischen Texte aus dem Schriftfund von Nag Hamadi versteht es Elaine Pagels, beim Leser Verständnis für jene "nichtamtliche" Lesart der christlichen Frohbotschaft zu wecken. Eine kompetente deutsche Übersetzung ist ein dringendes Desiderat! Das "Lamm Gottes" ist zu einem oft in der christlichen Kunst dargestellten Topos geworden. Wüßte man, daß "Lamm Gottes" und "Wort Gottes" dank eines aramäisch-hebräischen Wortspiels gleiches bedeuten sollen, dann wäre man noch sogar noch einen Schritt weiter als Pagels. [Für den, der es jetzt schon wissen möchte: der einschlägige Hinweis findet sich bei John M. Allegro, The Dead Sea Scrolls and the Christian Myth (1979), Seite 174] Edzard Klapp

Excellent. Product as advertised. Thanks