Roadmap, myth, or history? An accessible review of The Book of Revelation for today’s audience.

Conversations with Scripture: Revelation is the first book in the Anglican Association of Biblical Scholar Study Series. Written in accessible language and sensitive to those who have little or no experience in reading the bible, each book in the series focuses on exploring the historical and critical background, as well as how the biblical texts written centuries ago can still speak to readers today.

Frederick W. Schmidt, also the series editor, explores the approaches that have dominated the interpretation of John's Apocalypse and offers the reader an accessible means of understanding and evaluating them. With this grounding in hand, Schmidt explores how Revelation can shape our understanding of God, and nurture our spiritual lives in unexpected ways. Leaving behind left-behind theology, Schmidt offers instead an approach that allows this obscure, almost opaque text to speak to us anew about God, faith, hope, and justice.

CONVERSATIONS WITH SCRIPTURE: REVELATION

Church Publishing Incorporated

Contents

Chapter One

In the wake of the events in New York and Washington, D.C., on September 11, 2001, the phone in my department of the seminary where I work began ringing. One of the first calls was from a reporter who asked the question that everyone wanted to ask: "Is what happened today a sign of the end?" That question provides a clue to the most popular way of reading the Book of Revelation; many people read it as a roadmap. Widely popular—even in circles where people avoid reading John's Apocalypse—it enjoys the presumption of being the right way to read this difficult book. People may or may not embrace it, but even those who don't often assume that if you are going to read the Book of Revelation, this is the way it must be read.

I refer to this approach as roadmap-reading because those who interpret Revelation and other parts of Scripture in this fashion use it like a roadmap to the future. In it they find a blow-by-blow description of earth's final days, the judgment of all humankind, and the transformation of heaven and earth. Matching images with events, the reader is able to determine which of the events described there have transpired. If some of them have, then the reader has a rough idea of what will happen next. If some have not, then the reader enjoys the reassurance that they will happen—and soon. They have a map. They know what lies ahead.

There are other labels that I could have used. Some use the word millennialist or chiliast, both of which refer to a thousand-year reign of peace on earth under Christ's leadership, found in Rev 20:4–6f. Others use the word dispensationalist, which refers to the notion that history, including the end-times, is divided into "eras" during which God acts in distinctive ways. Apart from their obscurity, the problem with these labels is that each of them draws on specific motifs in John's Apocalypse or refers to just one expression of roadmap-reading. So I hope that the label "roadmap" will provide a means of capturing the inspiration of this approach that is both memorable and descriptive.

Given the nature of roadmap-readings, it is easy to get lost in a conversation about what may or may not be a "sign" and about how those signs line up with the language of John's Apocalypse. Such conversations inevitably flounder on intractable debates about the significance of some of the more obscure images that the writer uses and questions about the way those images relate to events in the world around us. That said, most if not all of the interpretations that take this approach make many of the same assumptions about this extraordinary part of the Greek Testament.

Assumptions

One assumption is that John's visions describe events that await conclusion in the near—read, "our"—future. The opening line of the Apocalypse is taken literally and personally: "The revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave him to show his servants what must soon take place" (Rev 1:1; emphasis mine). For that reason, the history of this interpretive approach is marked by a tendency to invent and reinvent the connections between the book and each generation's historical experience.

At the turn of the first century, for example, widespread speculation connected the visions of Revelation with the collapse of the Roman Empire and the repeated invasions that ravaged Rome. Historians of the period recorded that people so feared the coming judgment that they cried "tears of repentance" until "the tears ran down their legs, even to their toes." While refusing to comment directly on the book, centuries later Martin Luther, the great Protestant reformer, included block prints in his translation of Scripture that portrayed the whore of Babylon (Rev 17:3f.) as a figure wearing a papal tiara. Since then Protestants have, from time to time, identified one pope or another with the Antichrist and in the early 1960s some American Protestants even ventured an identification of Catholic president John Fitzgerald Kennedy with the infamous 666.

Such identifications are not unique to Protestantism, however. Nor can they be isolated to a single culture. A similar roadmap-reading of Christian traditions prompted Russian poet and publicist Valerii Khatiushin to argue that the disintegration of the Soviet Union was the work of Satan and to predict that Russia would reemerge, Christlike, as the leader of the world in the year 2000.

This sense of a specific connection with each generation's experience is closely tied to a second characteristic of roadmap interpretations that sees the events described in the Book of Revelation and other passages of Scripture as part of a timetable. There is considerable difference of opinion among its proponents about the precise sequence of events. Some believe, for example, that Christ will return before the millennium, or a thousand years of peace (premillennialists). Others believe that the return of Christ will follow it (post-millennialists). And still others believe that the so-called reign of Christ will be a reign manifested in the hearts of those who are faithful (a- millennialists).

Roadmap-readings of Revelation also differ on the timing of the "rapture": a taking up of the faithful with Christ, while others are "left behind" to face the final judgment of God. Some believe that the rapture will happen before a time of tribulation or trial mentioned in Revelation (pre-tribulationists). Others believe it will happen after the tribulation (post-tribulationists), and still others believe it will happen in the midst of that experience (mid-tribulationists).

The result is a complex series of variations. But the broad sequence of events remains largely the same:

* The moral decline of civilization

* The rise of the Antichrist

* A reign of terror or great tribulation

* The Battle of Armageddon in which the Antichrist is defeated

* The establishment of a thousand year's reign

* A final revolt by Satan that is easily countered

* The resurrection of the dead

* The final judgment

* The creation of a new heaven and a new earth

As such, another characteristic of most roadmap-readings is the interpreter's ability to locate himself or herself in relationship to those events. Those who read the Book of Revelation in this fashion vary in the way that they approach this task. For much of history, those roadmap-readings often located the interpreter somewhere in the midst of those events. Those who do are called "historicists." They can look back at events, decide which ones in the biblical timetable have occurred and, on that basis, project which ones are yet to happen.

But of late, interpreters have more often thought of themselves as living on the cusp of those events. Known as "futurists," these interpreters believe that the events described in the Book of Revelation have yet to occur. This does not mean, however, that the futurists lack an interest in current events. Believing themselves to be living on the "last days," they focus on signs that the end is near. In a widely publicized story, for example, President Ronald Reagan is said to have speculated that an imminent nuclear war with the Soviet Union might, in fact, be God's way of bringing Armageddon to the earth as described in Rev 16:16.

Predictions of this kind, of course, assume that the images used in John's Apocalypse are of a literal character and can be unpacked in a one-to-one correspondence with real people, places, and events. So, those who rely upon a roadmap-reading of Revelation are not just relying upon certain kinds of assumptions about the focus of John's vision, but about the nature of the literature itself. For this reason, the process of interpretation is far more akin to decoding the book than it is to interpretation. Attempting to pique his readers' interest, Hal Lindsey, one of the late-twentieth-century's leading roadmapreaders declared:

The Bible predicted certain signs which were to herald man's doomsday. Over the past 20 years, world developments have fulfilled prophecies set forth by seers in both the Old and New Testaments. These include: the rebirth of Israel, an increase in natural catastrophes, the threat of war with Egypt and the revival of interest in Satanism and witchcraft. All these happenings were foreseen by prophets from Moses to Jesus as being the key signals for the coming of an Antichrist. And a war which will bring man to the brink of destruction ...

Real people, real places, and real events—all contemporary with his readers—are at the front of Lindsey's approach.

If it seems strange to interpret a biblical text in this way, it may be because the still deeper assumptions that make this kind of approach possible are all but invisible and touch not just upon the Book of Revelation, but also upon the nature of God and the Bible itself. Set out in almost propositional form, those deeper assumptions are these:

* God can do what God wants to do.

* From God's mouth to our ear, Scripture describes what God plans to do.

* Those who take God's plan seriously take Scripture seriously.

* To take Scripture seriously means taking propositions one and two at face value.

In tandem with the assumptions the roadmap-reading makes about the nature of John's Apocalypse, the interpretation has a certain air of inevitability about it. But for those who interpret the book this way, it also carries with it a sense of moral responsibility. Interviewed about the last of his Left Behind novels, retired minister Tim LaHaye observed that most people "'don't take the Bible literally. They categorize and mythologize it and read into it their own preconceived ideas. They don't think a loving God will send people to hell.' He will."

Back to the Future

Roadmap-readings of the Church's life are older than the Book of Revelation itself. There is evidence, for example, in the Epistle to the Thessalonians that many in the early church expected the quick return of Christ and the end of all things. Reading between the lines, the Thessalonians believed that these events were so imminent that no one in the community of faith would die before Christ returned. When, in the natural course of things, members of the church did die, members who were distressed by these developments expressed their concern. In response, Paul wrote back, reassuring the Thessalonians that their part in the resurrection was so certain, that even those who were still alive would not precede the "dead in Christ" (1 Thess 4:16).

Similarly, after the destruction of the Temple in 70 CE, the members of Mark's church seem to have concluded that the end was near. Evidence of this expectation appears in chapter 13. There the evangelist uses scattered sayings of Jesus in a larger speech of his own that addresses this issue. Evidently concerned that his church was increasingly distracted by a fascination with those signs, the evangelist mentions a number of them, including the destruction of the Temple. But Mark's Jesus does not encourage the people to pay particular attention to those events. Instead, using the words of Jesus, he repeatedly tells them, "be alert," "keep alert," "keep awake" (Mark 13:23, 33, 37).

Although its popularity varied, roadmap-readings of the future continued to surface from time to time in the life of the church. Inspired both by John's Apocalypse and by the images and ideas that surface there, significant individuals and groups took this approach. In 156 CE, Montanus, who lived in Phrygia, assembled a group of followers. Declaring himself the "Spirit of Truth," he presented himself as a guide to the future. His followers, caught up in the emotions of the moment, claimed to see the New Jerusalem descending from heaven. With what they felt sure was the end of all things at hand, they lived lives marked by extreme abstinence. In spite of the rigorous demands of Montanism, Christians flocked to the fledgling movement in Rome, Asia Minor, Africa, and Gaul, as persecution dogged the church from 177 CE on.

Left-behind theology was not the province of fringe groups alone, however. Names that still figure prominently in church history embraced a similar approach. Tertullian, one of the best known theologians in the history of the Western church, had a vision of a city descending over Judea every day for forty days and claimed, as a result, that the heavenly Jerusalem would soon descend. Justin Martyr argued that Christians would live for a thousand years in an earthbound, but transformed Jerusalem. Papias, believed to have been an acquaintance of John the Apostle, envisioned bunches of grapes vying for the attention of Jesus on the judgment day. And Irenaeus, famed Bishop of Lyons, borrowed freely on the same kind of images from both the Hebrew and the Greek Testaments. The trend continued throughout the Middle Ages and beyond. Drawing on both the Book of Revelation and other books both inside and outside of the biblical canon, the church continued to speculate about the shape of the future that lay ahead.

Inevitably, the interpretations varied with the circumstances faced by the visionaries. In France, apocalyptic speculations were tinged with dark expectations that reflected the bloodshed of the French Revolution. Convinced that no good could dominate without divine intervention, writers in the French church foresaw a future that could only be secured by the second coming of Christ. By contrast, in the fledgling American colonies that would become the United States, the expectations were initially optimistic. Buoyed by the conversions that took place in the Great Awakening, writers there anticipated a thousand-year reign ushered in by the colonists themselves.

Disappointments Great and Small

Nonetheless, left-behind theology remained a minority opinion in the life of the church and declined in popularity around the world. Even in the United States, where roadmap-readings had found a following in a culture marked by religious exploration, the speculative visions of apocalyptic writers floundered on the failed predictions of key religious leaders. The most notable of those failures was a prediction made by William Miller, a Baptist preacher from Vermont. Pressed for specifics by the members of his church, Miller had predicted that the second coming of Christ and the end of the world would come at last on October 22, 1844. The promised date passed and, dejected, Miller's followers abandoned their spiritual leader. This "Great Disappointment," as it was described, all but strangled the age-old roadmap approach to apocalyptic literature.

But then two changes breathed new life into the movement, one from within the movement, the other from without, and each was ideally suited to the other. First, the times changed. The optimism that had marked life in the United States gave way to the grim dislocation of civil war and the hope of heaven on earth evaporated. Alone, that change might have been fatal to the movement.

At the same time, however, left-behind theology changed as well and an approach called dispensationalism took the stage. In England, this new theology had been articulated by John Nelson Darby, who gave the new theology its name and basic character. Declaring biblical history and human history to consist, broadly speaking, of two dispensations or eras, Darby argued that the Bible described two attempts by God to redeem the human race, first through the Law and then through grace in Jesus Christ. On this basis, he further subdivided history into a series of smaller dispensations, including (at last) the events associated with the Book of Revelation and the end of all things.

More significantly, he set aside the historicist approach of his predecessors that had treated the events in Revelation as partially completed. This strategy had drawn the roadmap approach into question over and over again as each prediction of the end failed to materialize. By adopting a futurist perspective that treated the events described in Revelation as lying all but completely in the future, dispensationalism escaped the onus of failed predictions. Although a fine distinction, contemporary events appeared to weigh less immediately against the whole approach and created the impression that, if anything was amiss, it was probably the interpreter's reading of immediate future.

In the United States, this theology quickly took root with the aid of C. I. Scofield, who developed a study Bible that included notes describing Darby's approach alongside the text of Scripture. In this way dispensationalism was introduced as Scripture was read, rather than as a means of understanding it or ordering its content. Among its growing readership, the Scofield Study Bible gained the status of trusted guide and in some circles Scofield's notes were treated as if they enjoyed something of the same inspiration attributed to Scripture.

The new roadmap-reading of John's Apocalypse gained in popularity. Fueled by the vagaries of first the Civil War and then the dislocation of postwar reconstruction, Americans were drawn to the new approach as they reacted to the bruised and battered nation's ragged progress. The early decades of the twentieth century suggested further interpretive connections with the darker visions of the Apocalypse. The social dislocation brought on by growing urbanization and the Industrial Revolution produced economic dislocation, crime, and poverty that further erased any trace of the earlier hope that Americans would serve as God's servants in ushering in a new world order. Instead, the return of Christ became increasingly essential to any hope of change. Those convictions acquired specifically religious overtones with the early debates between modernists and fundamentalists over evolution, and the inspiration of Scripture began to draw attention. An everlarger number of Bible readers concluded that they had good reason to believe that what was at stake was the eternal destiny of the world.

(Continues...)

Excerpted from CONVERSATIONS WITH SCRIPTURE: REVELATIONby FREDERICK W. SCHMIDT Copyright © 2005 by Frederick W. Schmidt. Excerpted by permission of Church Publishing Incorporated. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.