Mark Roberts (12) (1965–)

A short introduction to the book of Revelation which approaches the text in terms of its genre: apocalyptic literature.

The author does well at contextualizing Revelation in terms of apocalyptic literature and provides many parallels between the imagery, purpose, style, and function of Revelation with earlier Jewish apocalyptic literature, both within the Biblical canon (Daniel and Zechariah) as well as outside of the canon (1 Enoch, 4 Ezra, 2 Baruch, the War Scroll, Testament of Abraham, show more etc.). The author frequently contrasts such an approach with a standard dispensational millenarian expectation that everything in Revelation has some specific referent to various events in the modern age.

The author declares that much of the imagery used in Revelation need not have any specific referent, and I fear he pushes this a bit too far. He does well to recognize that one can easily get lost in trying to sort out details and in so doing miss the bigger picture, as well as entirely missing the point of the book on account of the attempt to explicitly identify how x image supposedly relates to y event, but nevertheless, the images come from somewhere and have their reasons for existence. It may be true that it is not wise to try to identify the beast in Revelation as equivalent to a beast in Daniel, but is it not a worthy question to ask why the image of the beast is used in the first place, its purpose in Daniel, and how that purpose may inform its use in Revelation as well? Much of the power of Revelation comes from the intentional re-application of frequently used apocalyptic and/or Biblical images to the first century situation of its first listeners, and in so doing can provide a means by which we can derive encouragement to our own day, not because we believe that x and y events are explicitly referred to in Revelation, but that since the same types of challenges beset the people of God today as then, the images remain compelling and able, at some level, to be considered in our own modern context. Just because it is misguided to say that modern government x is the beast of which John speaks does not automatically mean that it is misguided to see perhaps how modern governments still act a lot like these beasts (to use one example out of many). Therefore, the imagery does have meaning and power based on its use in the Bible, and we do well to consider that in terms of what Jesus is trying to say to the late first century Christians of Asia Minor.

Nevertheless, this remains an accessible and useful introduction to apocalyptic literature, and may many people come to a better understanding of why the Revelation is what it is because of it. show less