Book of Revelation Reading Revelation:

¶ … Book of Revelation

Reading Revelation: A Revelation in and of Itself

Revelation from the New Testament has always been read, perceived, discussed, and written about in impressionistic, imaginative, and sometimes deeply personal ways. The text, with its plentiful, evocative imagery and metaphorical symbolism, seems to lend itself to nothing less. Perhaps that is partly because, unlike earlier books of the New Testament, Revelation focuses not on what has happened historically (although some readers interpret the text historically) but instead on what will happen in the future, although symbolically and metaphorically. Revelation's content encourages, and often seems even to insist upon, impressionistic, interpretative reading, especially, I believe, Chapters 12-13 of Revelation in particular. Those chapters' symbolism, imagery, metaphor, and content - have always captured my imagination. My own interpretative reading of Revelation 13 tells me something important about the struggle between good and evil, within myself even, and perhaps within all of humanity. That struggle, Revelation 12-13 in particular tells me, is integral to being human; it has existed since the beginning of time, and it will continue to exist until the Second Coming.

Revelation as a whole is considered to be one of the most controversial, if not the most controversial, books of the entire New Testament. Its author is believed to have been John the Apostle (the John of Gospels 1, 2, and 3, Wikipedia). However, even that authorship remains unclear, and is more of an educated guess (Wikipedia). Personally, I have always been drawn to the animal imagery and symbolism within Revelation. Perhaps this is because, as Bratcher suggests, Revelation is, after all, a work of:

carefully crafted literature. It was not spoken (like prophetic sermons), but was composed. That means it exhibits certain features of normal writing, such as structure, form, flow of thought, creative use of language, etc. [emphasis original]."

Most striking to me are the dragon, seabest, and lamb's horn (earth beast) symbolic images within Revelation 12-13. This imagery is at once fanciful and real; symbolic and concrete. The imagery and symbolism contained within Revelation 13:2-4 has always felt especially powerful to me, particularly the description of the first appearance of the sea beast, and the aftermath of its appearance:

And I saw a beast coming out of the sea. He had ten horns and seven heads, with ten crowns on his horns, and on each head a blasphemous name. 2 The beast I saw resembled a leopard, but had feet like those of a bear and a mouth like that of a lion. The dragon gave the beast his power and his throne and great authority. 3 One of the heads of the beast seemed to have had a fatal wound, but the fatal wound had been healed. The whole world was astonished and followed the beast. 4 Men worshiped the dragon because he had given authority to the beast, and they also worshiped the beast and asked, "Who is like the beast? Who can make war against him?" (Revelation

Mention of the leopard and the lion within this passage reminds me, also, of the opening of Dante's Inferno (Cantos 1-3), in which Dante, the spiritually lost poet and traveler, and Virgil, the pre-Christian Roman author of the Aeneid and Dante's spiritual guide through Hell and Purgatory, overcome, physically and spiritually, the looming, threatening, and frightening presence of the leopard (fraud) and the lion (violence), as well as of a third beast lurking in the dark forest of Dante's Cantos 1-3 of the Inferno: the she-wolf (immoderation). In Revelation, the "feet like those of a bear" (Revelation 13:2) that the sea beast is described as possessing might be symbolically equivalent to the she-wolf of Dante's Inferno: Bears have rapacious appetites, just as Dante's she-wolf symbolizes immoderation.

Revelation 13:5 also states: "And there was given unto him a mouth speaking great things and blasphemies." Like Dante the spiritual traveler, the seabeast of Revelation 13 may either overcome, through "speaking great things," the temptations of fraud; violence, and immoderation, or it may succumb to them through "blasphemies." The sea beast-equivalent in each of us gives us capacities for both greatness and sin. We alone must choose which path to follow: the righteous path toward virtue of the sinful path leading to vice.

This choice has to do with the free will God gave all humankind at the beginning, as written in Genesis 1-4: since the days of Adam and Eve. Inherently, we may wish to do good with our free will, just as Eve wished not to eat from the Tree of Life. But like Eve and Adam, we must struggle within ourselves against doing evil instead. Adam and Eve's expulsion from paradise within Genesis underscores (and foreshadows) humankind's vulnerability to temptation and sin and our need to remain vigilant and fight hard against it, a key motif of Revelation, and Revelation 12-13 in particular.

The appearance of the two beasts of Revelation 13, the seabeast and the beast of the earth, is preceded, within Revelation 12, by the appearance of the dragon, representing Satan fallen to earth. Michael and his angels have fought hard against it in Heaven, but have not succeeded in vanquishing the dragon - only in displacing it. On earth, the dragon continues evil and destructive quest to vanquish goodness, faith, and virtue. But God gives "the woman who had given birth to the male child" (Revelation 12:13), whom the dragon now energetically pursues, wings to escape the rapacious dragon:

13 When the dragon saw that he had been hurled to the earth, he pursued the woman who had given birth to the male child. 14 The woman was given the two wings of a great eagle, so that she might fly to the place prepared for her in the desert... 15 Then from his mouth the serpent spewed water like a river, to overtake the woman and sweep her away with the torrent. 16 But the earth helped the woman by opening its mouth and swallowing the river

Then the dragon was enraged at the woman and went off to make war against the rest of her offspring -- those who obey God's commandments and hold to the testimony of Jesus. (Revelation 12: 13-17)