Part II, Week 12 - Chapter 24 - The Revelation of John & Farewell

The time has come, the Walrus said,

To talk of many things:

Of shoes -- and ships -- and sealing-wax --

Of cabbages -- and kings --

        - Lewis Carroll

        "The Walrus and the Carpenter"

 

I thought of those nonsense verses of Carroll's because they seemed to fit with the idea of summing up in a final blog posting. But it seems to me that there is a further connection between Lewis Carroll's writing and "The Revelation of John": they both use vivid and concrete images to create an almost hallucinatory effect.

 

There is so much almost hysterical "end-times" talk in the popular media, it's great to read de Silva's calm, rational analysis of Revelation. I have always found it the most difficult book of the NT, and de Silva's deconstruction makes it a lot more comprehensible as a "wake-up call" to the seven churches in Asia to whom his letter is addressed. Thus it serves the same purposes as most of the other letters of the NT, also using the epistolary form but a vastly different symbolism and imagery. John's aim was the fostering of Christian unity and solidarity in the face of scorn and persecution by the dominant social-political factions, the Romans and their supporters in the local communities and the non-Christian Jews. De Silva makes it especially clear in this chapter how devastating it was that the Christians were unable to make even pro forma bows to the pagan gods, because of course anything that smacked of idolatry was contrary to their belief in the One God which was a heritage from Judaism. The Jews had historically enjoyed immunity from these obligations - but once the Christians were barred from the synagogues, they lost the protection they had enjoyed as a Jewish sect. It would seem that the pressures on the Christians were growing exponentially even as their movement spread throughout the Roman Empire. It is in this atmosphere of growing hostility on all sides in the latter part of the First Century A.D. that Revelation was written.

 

De Silva indicates that the name of the author doesn't seem to be a pseudonym, as "John" doesn't make any of the claims one would expect if a later writer was claiming to be writing as the apostle John. On the other hand, de Silva concludes that the author is not the same as the author of the Gospel of John and thus is probably not the apostle who was the brother of James and the son of Zebedee. De Silva adopts Aune's analysis that Revelation was written in several stages, starting at about the time of the First Jewish War and then being completed toward the end of the First Century A.D. by a man who originally lived in Palestine and then relocated, perhaps to the region of the Seven Churches in Asia and later to the island of Patmos.

 

De Silva rejects the interpreters who hold that Revelation`s prophecies apply to our own day, or even further in the future. De Silva notes that, as an example of the ``apocalyptic`` genre, the prophecies would have been intended to apply to the author`s time or just slightly in the future of him and his audience. Thus, ``Babylon`` is a reference to the Rome of John`s day, the ``Beast`` is a reference to the Emperor Nero, whose name and title ``Nero Caesar`` add up to 666 in Greek, or 616, which appears in some texts where the Latin version of the name is used.

Besides the history of composition and the socio-political background, de Silva also analyses the rhetorical strategies of John and illustrates the ways in which John shows the honour due to God and the Lamb and the doom which will be visited on unjust and the faithless on the "day of the wrath" of God. I found it particularly insightful that de Silva noted that, whereas Paul, for example, wrote on his own authority, by using the form of an "apocalypse," John's work gained in authoritativeness as a divine revelation. This authoritativeness was enhanced by John's techniques of dramatic repetition of certain words and phrases, and evocative use of phrases from the Hebrew Scriptures.

 

I found my thinking about Revelation - which I have had a rather negative impression of for most of my lifetime (I don't go for "fire and brimstone" preaching) - has become much more sympathetic by viewing it as a passionate message to churches of John's day, who, like the Galatians and the Corinthians of Paul's day, were faced with daunting challenges to their faith. I wonder how John would have reacted had he known that within 200 years the leader of the Roman Empire, Constantine would adopt Christianity as the official religion of the Empire.

 

With this chapter on Revelation we have come to the end of de Silva's wonderful text and the end of our course on the New Testament. I have been exposed to many textbooks over my lifetime in diverse subject areas, and de Silva's is one of the very best. Readable and detailed, his title says it all: An Introduction to the New Testament: Contexts, Methods, and Ministry Formation. He discusses all the major schools of thought with many sources cited for further reading. Even though I had classes on the history and art of Greece and Rome in college, I feel I have learned more about the Hellenistic world of the era in this course, so essential for learning about the life and the teachings of Jesus and his early followers. I expect to keep this book handy and refer to it often.

Part II , Week 11 - Chapter 23 - Jude and 2 Peter -

These are fairly obscure texts which, as de Silva notes, have found a home near the end of the NT, where they can be honoured more in the breach than in the observance. Jude is of particular interest to me, however, since it purports to have been written by one of the younger brothers of Jesus. Regardless of its relative obscurity, de Silva indicates that Jude addresses the issue of determination of legitimate authority within the church, a matter still highly relevant today.

As expected, questions of authenticity arise, as in James and 1 Peter, firstly because of the author's mastery of the Greek language, which some deem unlikely for a 1st. century A.D. son of an artisanal family. De Silva suggests that a tradesman in Palestine of the era would likely have had some knowledge of Greek, and over a period of decades as a church leader Jude's facility in Greek might well have increased. De Silva also notes that Jude is steeped in Jewish traditions, particularly apocalypticism, and the author seems to have relied on the Masoretic text (in Hebrew) of the Old Testament, rather than the Septuagint, an indication of Palestinian provenance. Some critics have suggested that the letter cannot be authentic, because it reflects "early Catholic" (i.e. second century) developments which would make it too late to have been authored by the Lord's brother. De Silva cites the apocalypticism I have referred to and the lack of reference to an elaborate church hierarchy in support of an early date prior to 80 A.D. In addition, he notes that Jude's use of the word "faith," in the sense of a belief system, rather than "faithfulness," which was in most cases Paul's usage, was actually used by Paul in the sense of meaning a belief system in at least two instances. It appears on balance that, as in most of the earlier letters which are included in the NT canon, de Silva, without being dogmatic, comes down on the side of the letter likely being the authentic work of Jude, the brother of Jesus and James.

Although this is classed as a "general epistle," de Silva notes that Jude is writing for a specific community facing a definite problem. Following a pattern which we have seen on many occasions, Jude is writing his letter to counter a threat from "false teachers." Since it appears that he is writing from a Jewish Christian perspective and challenging the false teachers' willingness to profit materially from their preaching while indulging grossly in sexual license and gluttony and encouraging such practices among their audience, it almost appears that these could have been some of the same false teachers that Paul was confronted with, in particular those who challenged him in Corinth. Although as de Silva notes, some of these charges were also levelled against Paul, I don't see evidence of Paul being personally corrupt, certainly not where sexual profligacy is concerned, and I suspect that if his preaching was misconstrued, he took pains to rectify such matters as soon as they were brought to his attention. For example, instances of sexual license, drunkenness, and so on may have been an unintended consequence of preaching that the Gentile converts were not bound by the Jewish Law. However, in some of his letters, Paul preached the "Law of Christ," and I believe he used other similar terms, to indicate the new system of beliefs binding the believers. So, though no longer bound by Torah, that did not mean that the believers were in fact freed of all restraint.

The Second Epistle of Peter is the exception to the previous rule of de Silva's generally favouring authenticity. He notes that, while appearing to be a straightforward letter written by Peter near the end of his life in 64 A.D., there is a greater likelihood that this is a pseudonymous work than any of the other letters of the NT canon. De Silva points out that "testaments" were an accepted genre of the period, usually being ostensibly authored by patriarchs, kings and prophets from the distant past. He obviously recognizes that 2 Peter may be an example of such a pseudonymous work but notes that, unlike the later "secret teachings" of the apostles which contained heretical teachings from the 2nd. or 3rd. centuries, he notes that this is a more "respectful" type, more consistent with the OT traditions. He seems to acknowledge the likelihood of 2 Peter being pseudonymous when he notes that "Peter's" prophecies are written in the future tense, while the coming to fruition of those prophecies is couched in the present tense - thus seeming to be a pretty clear indication of the work of a post-Petrine author.

According to de Silva, the author of 2 Peter counters a more rationalistic sect of teachers, perhaps seeking to purge the early church of some of its Jewish traditions, perhaps disillusioned by the failure of the promise of the parousia as the apostolic generation passed from the scene. De Silva indicates that the author of 2 Peter makes a strong defence of apocalypticism and the traditions and authority inherited from OT traditions and the apostles.

I am currently reading a bestselling book by Elaine Pagels, The Gnostic Gospels, N.Y.: Random House, 1979. Without going into a lot of detail here, I would just like to point out that according to Ms. Pagels, the beliefs (which were quite diverse) that were classed under the rubric of heretical Gnostic beliefs by the 2nd. Century were those which did not support the institutionalized orthodox church. The beliefs that became "orthodox," even though they may have been rather extraordinary, such as the resurrection of the body, were those that implicitly supported the growth of the institutional church. I am not endorsing this - but at the least, these hypotheses are thought-provoking and merit further investigation.