Why are there so many interpretations of Revelation?
I was initially planning to phone call this post 'Why is Revelation and then difficult to translate?' In that location are lots of reasons for that. The get-go is that information technology is intricately continued with its historical context in ways which fundamentally affect the way we interpret it.
Perhaps the best-known instance of this is the question of what it means to be 'lukewarm' in the message to theekklesia in Laodicea in Rev 3.15–16. It is unremarkably assumed that to be 'hot' is to be fervent (a good thing) and to be 'cold' is to be indifferent to faith (a bad thing). And then how could the risen Christ prefer united states to exist cold than to be 'lukewarm' (usually assumed to hateful being neither one nor the other—Anglican in fact!). But in its historical context, hot and cold are bothpracticed things to be. Across the valley in Hierapolis (modern day Pammukale), thehot springs bring healing. Further up the valley in Colossae thecold springs bring refreshment. Merely in Laodicea, the hot water has to travel some distance, then by the time it reaches the city it islukewarm, and with its dissolved calcium carbonate, if y'all drink information technology, it makes you lot desire to—spit information technology out! Hot and cold are bothgood for something, but lukewarm h2o is good for—nothing. Information technology is then that nosotros notice what the poesy actually says: not, 'I know yourreligion' simply 'I know yourworks—and you are being ineffective' (Rev iii.15).
A less obvious case is the depiction of worship in chapters iv and 5. There are elements here we might recognise from the Old Testament—the rainbow from Genesis nine, thunder and lightning from Moses' encounter with God on Sinai, living creatures from Ezekiel 1, and so on. Only in that location are enough of other elements (such as the elders in white casting downward their crowns) which nosotros don't recognise. Ironically, popular commentary ofttimes treats these elements equally a quasi-literal depiction of what is happening 'in heaven', but in fact these other elements represent with what nosotros know from the 'worship' of the Roman emperor. The primal passage in the volume, chapter 12, too offers similar challenges. We recognise thecharacters from the story (more or less), but the plot baffles us, unless nosotros are familiar with the myth of Leto, who gave birth to Artemis and Apollo. The smashing temple of Artemis was located in Ephesus, and the emperor was oft depicted equally a kind of Apollo figure. (For a fuller exploration, encounter the post 'Is our God greater?')
The 2d reason why we find Revelation hard is its constant allusion to the Quondam Testament. In its 405 verses there are something like 676 allusions (I know; I counted them!) so if we practise not know our OT very well, nosotros will exist baffled by simply about every verse in Revelation. The surprising thing here is that the books most alluded to are Isaiah and Psalms, which is probably non what we expected.
Simply there is something even more than key about the way Revelation uses language that not just makes it difficult to read—it also explains why there are so many different, apparently conflicting ways that it has been interpreted. Revelation'south language is thoroughly metaphorical, and that in itself gives us enough problems. But similar many other 'apocalyptic' texts, it deploys metaphor in a specially challenging manner.
According to Paul Ricoeur, metaphor has 3 elements to information technology: the subject (what the metaphor is referring to); the vehicle (the term which is used metaphorically); and the tenor (the sense the metaphor is communicating). Then if I say 'My friend is a pig', and so the subject is my (former) friend, the vehicle is 'pig' and the tenor is whatever 'pig-likeness' communicates, either greed or unkindness (though in fact pigs are neither greedy nor unkind…just that is another story). Metaphors are easiest to make sense of when we know all three. So when the associates at Ephesus is told that information technology is [similar] a lover who has grown jaded, or those in Sardis that they are [like] guards who take fallen comatose, and then we don't accept as well much problem making sense of this—which is why these chapters are the only ones always preached on!
But what happens when the subject disappears from view? These seven oracles are to be spoken to the 'affections' of each assembly. Is that a person, perhaps the leader? Or is at that place really an angel attached to each place—either as the 'spirit' of the associates or as some sort of guardian affections?
This kind of metaphor is surprisingly common in everyday voice communication; you tin hear it on football terraces, or in whatever context where the subject area of the metaphor is understood without the need to specify it. Its technical proper name is 'hypocatastasis', from the Greek for 'arranging' and 'under'. The only modern commentary on Revelation I have found it in in Greg Beale'south in the NIGTC, but the term was first popularised by a Victorian chaplain called E W Bullinger. Bullinger was an abet of hyper-dispensationalism who believed that the 'church era' only began at the stop of Acts 28, so nosotros should not accept whatsoever of the didactics of Acts, or the gospels for that affair, as now applying to us. (So Bullinger believed that reciting the Lord's Prayer as Jesus taught it belonged to a previous dispensation, and was non relevant for Christians…!) For his troubles, he was denounced past regular dispensationalists equally purveying an "absolutely Satanic perversion of the truth"! But along the way, in 1898 he wroteFigures of Speech equally Used in the Bible, which you lot tin still buy online and which continues to be influential (along with his other educational activity) among sure groups on the Continent. Here is what Bullinger says:
Equally a figure, information technology differs from Metaphor, because in a metaphor the 2 nouns are both named and given; while, in Hypocatastasis, only one is named and the other is unsaid, or every bit it were, is put down underneath out of sight. Hence Hypocatastasis is unsaid resemblance or representation: i.e., an implied Simile or Metaphor. If Metaphor is more than forcible than Simile, and then Hypocatastasis is more forcible than Metaphor, and expresses equally it were the acme degree of resemblance.
For example, one may say to another, "Yous are like a beast." This would be Simile, tamely stating a fact. If, however, he said, "Y'all are a beast" that would be Metaphor. Only, if he said simply, "Beast!" that would be Hypocatastasis, for the other part of the Simile or Metaphor ("yous"), would be implied and not stated.
This figure, therefore, is calculated to arouse the mind and attract and excite the attention to the greatest extent.
My favourite example of hypocatastasis comes from the penultimate scene in the film Pretty Woman. Richard Gere is returning a $250,000 necklace to the hotel director, Mr Thompson, afterward his relationship with Julia Roberts has obviously come to an end. Thompson asks permission to open the box, and afterward looking at the necklace, says to Gere:
Information technology must be very hard to permit become of something so cute.
This illustrates the power and problem of hypocatastasis perfectly. The field of study hither is non specified—and so we could simply take it equally a literal, non-metaphorical reference to the necklace. Merely precisely because the bailiwick is non specified, information technology is very easy for the reference to change. Thompson goes on:
Darren [the chauffeur] took Miss Vivian back to her flat terminal night.
Now the argument transfers to another subject and becomes metaphorical; it is Vivian who is the cute matter that is difficult to let go of. And Bullinger is quite correct about the power of hypocatastasis; this is the nigh powerful single moment in the film.
These 3 features—of possible literalism, of transferability, and of ability—are writ large on the history of the interpretation of Revelation. Some take read it thinking at that place really will exist beasts emerging from the body of water, that there are living creatures and rainbows in heaven, that our destiny is to sit on clouds playing harps (chapter 14), and that we will pass through pearly gates. Others have been able to identify people and institutions in their own earth quite happily with the beasts and dragons, the adult female clothed with the sun and the harlot riding the beast. And every generation has found this to be a text of extraordinary power—for practiced or otherwise. And it all comes downward to hypocatastasis.
You lot might by now exist thinking 'I wish John had made himself a lilliputian clearer, and used less powerful but less ambiguous language.' Perhaps and so, but information technology is besides worth pondering: if you knew that the church was well-nigh to enter 200 years of intense persecution, what would you write?
With ability comes responsibility. The smashing ability of Revelation, and its hypocatastatic metaphors, comes the need for slap-up responsibility in its estimation. Like a powerful chemical, which could do great things just besides cause dandy harm, nosotros demand to handle with intendance.
(And simply for fun, hither is the offset scene when the necklace makes an appearance. Gere'southward sitting of the box on Roberts' fingers was improvised, and you tin can run into Roberts expect around at the photographic camera crew before regaining her composure.)
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