Before Thomas Witulski informs readers of the details of events in the time of the Roman emperor Hadrian and how they enable a contemporary interpretation of Revelation 13 he analyses the meanings of different parts of the chapter itself. I cannot possibly cover every detail of his exegesis (especially the grammar and usage of certain Greek words) but will try to cover the main highlights. Keep in mind that these highlights are only preparatory to a discussion of the historical events Witulski identifies as the real subject of the apocalypse.
Revelation 13 introduces two beasts that act as representatives of a dragon who, having failed to destroy the “woman who brought forth the manchild” in chapter 12, turns his wrath on Christians.
And I saw a beast rise up out of the sea, having seven heads and ten horns, and upon his horns ten crowns, and upon his heads the name of blasphemy.
2 And the beast which I saw was like unto a leopard, and his feet were as the feet of a bear, and his mouth as the mouth of a lion. And the dragon gave him his power, and his seat, and great authority.
3 And I saw that one of his heads was, as it were, wounded to death, and his deadly wound was healed. And all the world wondered after the beast.
4 And they worshiped the dragon which gave power unto the beast, and they worshiped the beast, saying, “Who is like unto the beast? Who is able to make war with him?”
The dragon gives incomparable power and rule to a beast. People show cultic-religious reverence to that beast because of its overwhelming power and possibly also because one of its heads (or the beast itself) was miraculously revived. Readers are probably meant to think of Nero since we know that long after Nero’s death we encounter evidence of hopes (especially in the eastern regions of the Roman empire) that Nero would eventually return and take back his imperial power. (Notice at the same time the antitheses that our author sets up between both beasts and the Christ as the slain but revived lamb.)
The word for “worship”, προσκύνησις, denoted the kissing of a hand along with other bodily gestures that were long reserved only for deities in the western part of the Mediterranean, but after Alexander’s conquests of the east, it came to be offered to human rulers in Greece and finally, Rome. It is also significant that the author describes this worship of the beast in the same context as he has described the heavenly worship of God.
The power of the beast is so great that we read not of its defeating enemies, but of no one even daring to go to war against it.
11 And I beheld another beast coming up out of the earth; and he had two horns like a lamb, and he spoke as a dragon. 12 And he exerciseth all the power of the first beast before him; and he causeth the earth and them that dwell therein to worship the first beast, whose deadly wound was healed.
The second beast appears alongside the first beast. It is the first beast that gives authority to the second so that the second beast acts with the permission of the first. Specifically, the second beast appears in public as a propagandist of the first beast and initiates the public worship of that first beast. Continue reading “The Two Beasts of Revelation 13; and the Image, Mark and Number of the First Beast”
A reader of the previous Revelation post commented,
But at first glance, Emperor worship seems a pretty minor issue compared to the other shit that was going down in that period.
Detail of cover of Rituals and Power by S.R.F. Price. Coin from Ephesus showing temple with statue of emperor inside.
Agreed — “at first glance”. Why would the Book of Revelation make such ado over a cult that had been part and parcel of everyday life throughout the empire since the days of Augustus? Surely Christians could just stay at home or hide themselves behind the latrines when the day came for the city officials to offer their cultic devotions to the emperor. But is there evidence that something about emperor worship changed in a major way at a relevant time?
From the discussion that I outlined earlier Thomas Witulski raises the following question:
When, specifically, in the Roman province of Asia and between 45/50 and 155/160 CE, can we find a massive intensification of cultic-religious emperor worship accompanied by the propagation of the emperor’s divine salvation role?
Emperor worship was introduced into the province of Asia during the principate of Augustus between 30 and 10 CE. Witulski takes the extent and practices of Augustan worship as the yardstick by which to measure subsequent forms of the cult. After Augustus the emperor cult remained fairly much the same for most of the period up to the early years of the second century. During the time of Vespasian (69-79 CE) and his son Titus (79-81 CE) there even appears to have been a waning of the frequency and magnitude of the cult practices associated with emperor worship. Domitian (81-96 CE) took some steps to revive it but he did so by instituting it as the cult of the ruling Flavian family, not that of a sole emperor. This Flavian cult, Witulski notes, did not give rise to any “new cultic-religious situation for the inhabitants of the province of Asia as a whole.” It was confined to Ephesus.
In view of Domitian’s reign, there can be no question of a significant intensification of the cultic-religious veneration of the reigning regent and of his accompanying inappropriate deification in the Roman province of Asia. (Witulski, p. 135, – translation)
Trajan (98-117 CE) established a provincial cult of Zeus Philios in the city of Pergamon with himself, the emperor, to be worshiped alongside Zeus. The intention was to establish a cult in the province of Asia that was peer to Rome’s cult of Dea Roma and Divi filius Augustus. An inscription informs us that Trajan was propagandizing himself as a “new Augustus”. There is no evidence that there was any wider magnification of the cult of emperor worship in the province.
So in the opening years of the second century we find Trajan presenting himself as an equal of Augustus but the emperor cult does not go beyond anything that Augustus himself had inaugurated over a century before.
In view of this and in view of the fact that the cultic-religious veneration of the Roman emperors belonged to the everyday life of the inhabitants in the province of Asia on the provincial, but especially also on the municipal and private level, it is difficult to claim that with the inauguration of the cult of Ζεύς Φίλιος and Trajan in Pergamon a fundamentally new cultic-religious situation arose for those inhabitants of Asia who did not live in Pergamon. (p. 136 – translation)
Therefore write the things which you have seen, and the things which are, and the things which will take place after these things. – Rev 1:19
My intent in this post is to give an overview of the key points argued by Thomas Witulski [TW] in Part 2 of The Revelation of John and Emperor Hadrian [translated from the German: Die Johannesoffenbarung und Kaiser Hadrian]. I include links to works that he critiques so you can follow up the other side in their own words.
Most interpreters of the above verse (Rev 1:19) consider it to be the key to understanding what Revelation is all about. But after that, opinions are divided. Does it mean that the first part of the book that introduces letters to seven churches is describing “the things that are” leaving the remaining chapters to cover future events?
In short, though TW takes four pages to say it, the answer is ‘no’. The messages to the seven churches contain prophecies of the future and the main body of the book includes flashbacks to events past. Furthermore, both parts of the book dwell heavily upon what is happening now.
So why did the author write it? TW engages with four main views.
Both Nero and Hadrian had a special devotion to enriching and reviving the culture of the Greek world
Nero pursued the cultic-religious worship of his own person, Hadrian that of Antinous (and more to be covered in upcoming posts)
The travel coins minted by Hadrian mirror the Corinthian local coinage reflecting Nero’s visit there.
The rule of Hadrian witnessed a flourishing of Jewish apocalyptic writings, including the identification of Hadrian with Nero redivivus.
Hadrian brought the Temple of Olympian Zeus to completion after it had languished for 600 years. He had four more-than-life-size statues of himself at its entrance and was worshipped along with Zeus. Hadrian also displayed here a giant serpent from India.
–o–
The Nero redivivus myth is a standard interpretative feature in most commentaries on Revelation. Virtually every major commentary on Revelation mentions the myth . . . Kreitzer (1988)
But there is little agreement on exactly how Revelation fits with the history of the Roman empire. Kreitzer lists four scenarios to demonstrate those difficulties:
Rev 11:8 The beast, which you saw, once was, now is not, and yet will come up out of the Abyss and go to its destruction. The inhabitants of the earth whose names have not been written in the book of life from the creation of the world will be astonished when they see the beast, because it once was, now is not, and yet will come.
9 “This calls for a mind with wisdom. The seven heads are seven hills on which the woman sits. 10 They are also seven kings. Five have fallen, one is, the other has not yet come; but when he does come, he must remain for only a little while. 11 The beast who once was, and now is not, is an eighth king. He belongs to the seven and is going to his destruction.
Scenario one:
The five fallen emperors are Nero, Galba, Otho, Vitellius, Vespasian
The “one who is” (at time of writing), Titus
Domitian is the one “to appear” (foreseen by the author) as Nero redivivus.
Scenario two (omitting those who reigned for very short times):
The five fallen emperors are Caligula, Claudius, Nero, Vespasian, Titus.
The “one who is”, Domitian
The seventh and eighth are yet to come
Scenario three:
The five fallen emperors are the Julio-Claudians (Augustus, Tiberius, Caligula, Claudius, Nero)
The “one who is” is then Galba
The one to come and to reign but a short time is then Otho — to be followed by Nero’s return
Scenario four is proposed by the same person who actually proposed scenario three above:
(The author) was writing in the early second century, a refugee, from a later wave of persecutions, and using the events of 64 to 69 in Rome as a cloak for his views of his own times. … To the author of Revelation the cheap and nasty legend of the risen Nero would seem the perfect legend for the anti-Christ, ever opposed to the truly and gloriously Risen Lord of his own faith. (John Bishop, Nero: The Man and Legend, p. 174)
The Nero myth was itself a variable quantity. It is as Kreitzer observes
The fact that ancient Jewish and Christian authors were able to find new and creative means of applying the Nero redivivus mythology to their own situations is particularly interesting. (1988, 95)
Indeed. And as we shall see, the emperor Hadrian who crushed the second Jewish rebellion led by Bar Kochba was also identified as the “Nero returned”.
Before we take on the details, let’s get some context.
Origin and Development of the Nero Redivivus Myth
We might say that there are three conditions necessary for a belief in someone’s return:
1.) A widespread popular affection for the figure by people who regarded the deceased as their benefactor or defender
2.) A general feeling that the figure concerned died leaving his work incomplete
3.) Mysterious or suspicious circumstances surrounding the figure’s death.
(And we might thank M. P. Charlesworth for helping us out with that list.)
All three conditions apply to Nero. But as time went on and Nero didn’t return the hopes took a new twist: Nero was going to come back from the dead and return! As history and reality faded, myth took their place.
Non-Jews had hoped for Nero’s return. Jews, on the other hand, not so much. The idea of his return was good fodder for end-time prophecies such as those in the Sibylline Oracles, however. The Jewish oracles accordingly turned Nero into an end-time enemy of God.
How are these oracles dated? They refer to the destruction of the Jewish temple (70CE); they also refer to Hadrian in favourable terms so we presume that they were written before his war against Judea.
One set of these oracles (book 5) has been dated between 70 and 132 CE.
The oracles identify Nero by the following descriptions:
He initiated the war that led to the destruction of Jerusalem
He murdered his mother Agrippina
He claimed to be God
He loved the Greeks and those in the “east” (including Parthia) and they all loved him.
He cut through the isthmus of Corinth to create a canal joining two seas
Sibylline oracles identified Nero by means of known historical facts about him. And he was depicted there as an evil ruler. So where does Hadrian enter the story?
Hadrian as Nero redivivus
Curiously, Hadrian, though presented in a favourable light, is surrounded by descriptions of the unpleasant Nero. Not only is Hadrian nested within portrayals of Nero, but he also shares some of Nero’s historical identifiers. Given that the author here believes Hadrian is on the side of good and Nero on that of evil, we cannot imagine that Hadrian was understood to be Nero redivivus.
But the oracle was fearful. What of the future?
After all, Nero had brought savage punishment upon the Jews; so had the Flavians (Vespasian and Titus) who succeeded him. The oracle laments the existence of all these rulers. Then came the aged Nerva followed by Trajan. The oracle does not totally condemn those rulers: they had not caused trouble. And Hadrian, at least for now, seemed benign enough, but the past record of emperors still cast its shadow of traumatic memories. So the oracle wrote of Hadrian (5:46-50),
After him another will reign, a silver-headed man. He will have the name of a sea. He will also be a most excellent man and he will consider everything. And in your time, most excellent, outstanding, dark-haired one, and in the days of your descendants, all these days will come to pass.
Hadrian might be a fine man, but when he dies the end-of-time calamity will come — that was the message.
Still, why was Hadrian associated with Nero at all in these oracles?
Larry Kreitzer has an explanation:
It seems clear that Hadrian consciously adopted many of Nero’s benevolent policies toward the Eastern half of the Empire, deliberately modelling himself on his predecessor in this regard.
One of the important secondary sources of evidence for Hadrian’s preoccupation with the Emperor Nero is the numismatic evidence of the Imperial Roman mints. The fact that Hadrian borrowed some of Nero’s coin types for his official imperial mint issues, and used them as a means of popular propaganda, is indisputable. (1989, 69)
I’ll return to the numismatic evidence soon. For now, though, let’s look into K’s first point about Hadrian consciously adopting Nero’s policies: Continue reading “Hadrian as Nero Redivivus”
Many have dated the work to just prior to the fall of Jerusalem in 70 CE, others date it to the time of Domitian in the 90s: I set out the main reasons for each of those dates in recent posts (see links in side box). I think there are some strong arguments for dating the work to the 130s but before I go there let’s address the various factors that have been brought into play to date the work.
(By the way, some have suggested that Revelation grew piece by piece as a result of different authors over a period of time adding new sections. For my purposes here I am siding with those who have disagreed and see enough linguistic evidence to think of a single author even though that author drew upon a number of sources.)
The legend of Nero redux or Nero redivivus
Revelation speaks of a return of some sort of monstrous ruler after he had once been thought dead or simply out of the picture for some reason. We think of the many hopeful people in the eastern part of the Roman empire who long believed that their beloved Nero, after news of his suicide, was still alive and would return.
The links here take interested readers directly to the sources that testify to beliefs that Nero would return.
The Nero myth of return was still going strong in the eastern part of the empire into the second century. The historian Suetonius tells us that twenty years after Nero’s death there were many who enthusiastically believed the claims of one claiming to be Nero. Dio Chrysostom, writing between 90 and 110 CE, noted that most people in his region believed Nero was still alive. The satirist Lucian was able to remind readers of his own day, in the 140s CE, that those from their grandparents’ times had believed Nero would return. The Sibylline Oracles contain prophecies of Nero’s return: the relevant passages in book IV describe the eruption of Mount Vesuvius so are understood to have been written between 80 and 90 CE; those of book V as late as 130 CE since they refer to the Jewish uprisings throughout the Diaspora between 115-117 CE. (See also a discussion on the Reading Acts blog for the dating of these oracles.)
Emperor Worship in Asia Minor
The setting of Revelation is the Roman province of Asia (note the opening address to the seven churches). If Revelation is warning the faithful not to succumb to pressure to “worship the beast” (think of sacrifices to the Roman emperor) then it would be good to know what was happening, and when it was happening, with respect to emperor worship in that region. One scholar, Klaus Berger, has claimed that in the years leading up to 70 there was an “intensive blossoming of cultic emperor worship in Asia Minor”. On the other hand, Steven Friesen writes “The period of Nero seems to have been rather quiet with regard to imperial worship.” The evidence cited indicates that a revival of this cult had to await the consecration of a dedicated shrine in Ephesus in 89/90 CE.
666 – the number of the beast
Certainly, the number 666 is known to match the emperor Nero. However, Nero is not the only candidate whose name adds up to 666. Irenaeus himself wrote of different possible interpretations. (We will see in future posts that Revelation 13:18 can be understood to direct readers to two different persons and that one should be interpreted in the light of the other, that the man Nero returned as the beast in another emperor.)
The seven kings of Revelation 17
It appears that everyone has a method to identify these seven kings. That there are so many different interpretations (some starting with Julius Caesar, some with Augustus, some with Claudius; some omitting the three emperors of the year of the civil war, others including all or only one of them, and so forth) pretty well eliminates the possibility of using them as a guide to dating the work.
The destruction of Jerusalem
In Revelation 11 we see the two witnesses active in Jerusalem and the author is told to measure the temple there. Unfortunately, that scenario has not been enough to persuade everyone that it was written before 70 CE. As one commentator on the book wrote, “The 11th chapter [of the Apc] belongs to the darkest pieces of the Rev”.
In touch with early theology (e.g. Paul’s teachings)
Some have noted how close Revelation appears to be in relation to Pauline theology and the older (Q) tradition behind the gospels. It does not follow, though, that the work should be dated as early as those sources; the most we can say is that the author knew of Paul’s writings and the gospels.
The earthquake of Laodicea in 61 CE.
Revelation describes the church at Laodicea as being rich and comfortable. Since Laodicea was levelled in 61 by an earthquake could it have been rebuilt as early as 68/69? Some think so.
Church hierarchies
There is no obvious appearance of hierarchical structures in church governance in Revelation. That could suggest an early date. It could also suggest that hierarchies were taken for granted as they were at a later time.
Time of war and crisis
The author anticipates the fall of Roman power so the “civil wars” of 68/9 seem to fit such a time. However, keep in mind the setting of the Roman province of Asia: those battles had no effect in that region and would hardly have generated a sense of crisis there. The same applies to references to fears of a Parthian invasion. Those fears were extant throughout the period from 45/50 to 155/160 CE so cannot be used as a clear indicator for dating.
Persecutions – Nero and Domitian
Revelation does appear to speak of a time of organized state persecution of Christians. If we accept the accounts of the Neronian persecutions of Christians as historically credible we are still left with the fact that that was a one-off event. It was past history by the time Revelation was written. As for the persecutions of Christians in the time of Domitian, scholars have been obliged to conclude that the evidence there is very thin. There are some late reports of individual cases but nothing to suggest an organized program to suppress Christianity. Besides, we need to be careful about what Revelation actually depicts as historical on the one hand and what it anticipates in the future on the other.
Twelve apostles and Babylon
Revelation presents the twelve apostles as the foundation of the new Jerusalem and uses Babylon as a cipher for Rome.
Critics of a date prior to the destruction of the temple in the year 70 claim that the notion of “twelve apostles” being the foundation of the church is unlikely to have been extant so soon. Similarly, critics have said that Babylon would only have been used as code for Rome after it had destroyed Jerusalem.
A measure of wheat for a penny, and three measures of barley for a penny; and see thou hurt not the oil and the wine!
Thus says the voice at the appearance of the black horse.
Did Domitian issue an edict that sought to regulate the disproportion between wine and grain cultivation in the empire? Some think there is evidence that he did, but it is far from certain that any such edict was issued. If it had been then it appears to have been only a temporary measure. There is precious little evidence that such an event happened or that it had any appreciable impact in the province of Asia if it did.
Testimony of Irenaeus
Irenaeus is thought to tell us that John wrote Revelation in the time of Domitian. Given that Irenaeus wrote around 180 CE, that testimony can only have historical weight if it can be shown that behind the claim there is an oral or written tradition that dates back close to the time of the writing of Revelation.
The arguments set out on the one hand for the nature of sources used by Irenaeus are lengthy; so are the arguments that examine the grammatical structures used by Irenaeus, the differences between the Greek and Latin versions of the key passages, and discussions on what conclusions we can draw from all of that detail. Bypassing all of that material here, I will only note that it appears certain that Irenaeus had a habit of citing his sources wherever possible to add weight to his work, and that when he did not do so, we have reason to believe that his statements were conclusions he drew from his own reasoning and assumptions.
…o…
Next up, we’ll look at some preliminary reasons for thinking Revelation was a response to Hadrian in the 130s.
Witulski, Thomas. Die Johannesoffenbarung Und Kaiser Hadrian: Studien Zur Datierung Der Neutestamentlichen Apokalypse. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2007. http://www.librarything.com/work/5467644/book/208189148.
I have been posting preliminary information on dates that are widely assigned to the Book of Revelation but have decided to jump ahead and make it clear where these posts are headed.
Thomas Witulski has presented some interesting arguments for dating Revelation to the time of the lead up to and beginning of the Bar Kochba war in the time of Emperor Hadrian, between 132 and 135 CE.
So how does that setting fit with the “four horsemen of the apocalypse”?
The white horse is the conquering emperor Trajan. White horses in mythology and historical triumphs were associated with conquerors in their triumphs (and with Zeus himself).
The red horse represents the various messianic-led Jewish uprisings in the years leading up to the 130s throughout Cyrenaica, Egypt, Cyprus and Mesopotamia.
The black horse whose rider carries the scales represents a ruler responsible for justice (as commonly symbolized at that time by scales, emblem of the goddess Aequitas); prices are said to be extremely high but, contrary to a famine setting, land producing oil and wine was not to be touched and converted to grain production. This horse represents a governor of Asia who was forced to cope in condign ways with the results of the Jewish revolts that had reduced grain supplies from Egypt.
The pale horse represents the fate of the Jews following the suppression of their uprisings — death, executions, famine, wolves threatening survivors in areas reduced to chaos.
Okay, so what about the measuring of the temple?
The rebels’ programme of (re)building the Yahweh sanctuary in Jerusalem and reinstalling the priestly-dominated cult of the temple should also be understood in this context: (a) The measuring out described in Apk 11:1-2a for the purpose of rebuilding or reestablishing the temple, the θυσιαστήριονand the worshippers there presupposes that these buildings and conditions are not present or destroyed at the time of the writing of the Apk. This obviously corresponds exactly to the conditions in Jerusalem at the threshold of the Bar-Kokhba revolt, as Cassius Dio describes them2, (b) The depiction in Apk 11:1-2a. according to which the apocalyptic was commissioned to measure the temple, the θυσιαστήριον and the people worshipping there for the purpose of new construction or rebuilding, but did not (or could no longer) carry out this commission3, ties in with the corresponding programme described above. At the same time, however, it also reflects the apocalypticist’s assessment of the further course of the rebellion, which he had to arrive at after taking into account the various measures taken by the Romans to put down the uprising5: The rebels did indeed consider Jerusalem and the sanctuary of Yahweh. Jerusalem and the Yahweh sanctuary and to reinstall the temple cult; in the end, however, the ναός τοΰ θεού and the associated θυσιαστήριον – at least according to the apocalypticist’s assessment – will not be rebuilt, for those who want to worship there and practise the Jewish worship of God, there will not be such a possibility (anymore).
The historical reference of Apk 11:1-2a to the first phase of the Bar Kokhba revolt becomes even more conclusive if it is assumed that the decision to (re)found Jerusalem as the Roman colony of Aelia Capitolina and, in connection with this, the decision to erect a pagan sanctuary there can be dated to the time immediately before the military escalation, i.e. around 130 AD. Then the statements of Apk 11:1-2a could be referred to these decisions of Hadrian without any problems: The apocalypticist is supposed to measure the temple, the θυσιοοτήριον and the people worshipping there for the purpose of rebuilding or reconstruction.
(Die vier apokalyptischen Reiter, pp 305f; translated)
The two witnesses?
Bar Kochba and the priest Eleazar, the political and religious leaders of Israel who were dedicated to the liberation of Judea from the Romans. I know. Questions arise. I will address details in future posts.
The beast and his false prophet?
Hadrian and his advisor, propagandist and rhetor Antonius Polemon.
The author expected Hadrian to kill the Bar Kochba and the priest Eleazar and that the whole world would rejoice in the destruction of those it held responsible for war.
The posts won’t be completed this week, but hopefully they will be finished before year’s end.
.
Witulski, Thomas. Apk 11 und der Bar Kokhba-Aufstand : eine zeitgeschichtliche Interpretation. Tübingen : Mohr Siebeck, 2012, http://archive.org/details/apk11undderbarko0000witu.
—. Die Johannesoffenbarung Und Kaiser Hadrian: Studien Zur Datierung Der Neutestamentlichen Apokalypse. Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2007, http://www.librarything.com/work/5467644/book/208189148.
—. Die vier apokalyptischen Reiter Apk 6,1-8: Ein Versuch ihrer zeitgeschichtlichen (Neu-)Interpretation. Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2015.
So you think you can figure out the “seven kings” and work out the time-frame of Rome in the Book of Revelation. Here’s something to push you off-balance with all your ingenuity. It’s from one of those “Dutch Radicals” of a hundred years ago. It’s a slightly edited machine translation. All bolded highlighting is my own.
Symbolism in the Apocalypse of John.
by
Dr. G. A. van den Bergh van Eysinga, Santpoort.
The next occasion for my lecture topic (the lecture was given during the congress of the Dutch Oriental Society in Leyden, 21 April 1922) is probably the contribution by Carl Clemens on the pictoriality of the Revelation of John, published in the Festgabe für Julias Kaftan.1 The important studies by Gunkel, Bousset, Boll and others have primarily focused on the origin of the apocalyptic images – Clemens wanted to place more emphasis on what the author himself and his readers thought of his book, which then also includes an understanding of the literary forms he used.
Holy Wisdom Icon – Wikimedia
Reading this essay has inspired me to take up again a question I dealt with ten years ago during the international congress on the history of religion here and to examine more closely the solution proposed at that time.2 The starting point for me at that time was the interpretation of the famous number of the great beast,3 Apoc. 13:18, the triangular number (αριθμός τρίγωνος) 666, which can be traced back to the basic number 36 according to a custom that can often be proven in antiquity and is thus interchangeable. 36, however, is also a triangular number and as such can be replaced by 8.1 The eight was then easily associated with the eightness, the Ogdoas, which in the Gnostic systems is another name for wisdom, Sophia or Chokma. The Ogdoas appears as a place, namely the fixed starry sky above the seven planetary spheres (Clem. Alex. Strom. IV. 159, 2). According to Plutarch (Theseus 36), it has the peculiarity of the abiding and immovable; it is the transcendent world, the εστώς, the άπίάνητος Λιών (cf. Clem. Alex. V. 36, 3). After traversing the seven spheres, Tyche, for example, enters, according to Poimandres (XIII. 17 ff.), into the Ogdoas, the place for the songs of praise of those redeemed from the body (I. 26). As the heavenly Jerusalem, however, it is with the Valentinians the mother of all living creatures (Hippol. VI. 34, 3). In the Ogdoas, which is called the Day of the Lord, the spiritual beings come to rest and remain there with the mother until perfection (Clem. Alex. Excerpt from Theodotus 63, 1).2 But the mother-deity becomes in the Gnosis an abstract concept, namely Wisdom, Sophia, Chokma. 3 The one brought forth by the earthly mother is led into death and into the world, the one reborn by Christ is led over into life, into the Ogdoas (a. a. O. 80, 1). According to Bousset1 , the mother has a much greater significance than Jesus in the practice of the sacraments and often also in the basic mood of piety. The mother is the χύριος, the cult heroine of the gnostic, not Jesus. In Clemens Alexandrinus (Strom. VI. 140, 3] as in the Gnostic Markos (Hippol. VI. 47, 1) the Lord is called Επίσημος ΰγδόας. That the apocalyptic really means Sophia by his number comes out when he himself says in a veiled way: ωδε ή σοφία. When it is said of the beast 17:8 [sic. corr 17:11] that it is itself the ογδοος, this is almost literally true again of my supposition; when it is further said that it belongs to – better perhaps: it consists of – the seven, then consider that the Gnostic Ogdoas as mother belongs to the seven aeons, or as pleroma consists of the seven aeons. On the seven heads of the beast there is a name of lust: this name is probably distributed over the seven heads, a name of seven letters, therefore, consisting of the seven vowels, which denote the στοιχεια, the elemental powers. The a and ω, i.e. the sum of syllabic vowels,2 is, according to the Apocalypse, not the Pleroma of the Aeons, but God (1:8; 21:6) or Christ (22:18). The magic prayer of the Papyrus Anastasy contains these words: “the God who founded the earth, created men and spirits, . . who wears the diadem of the world, is ιαωουηα, the άπλάνητος ΑΙών.” So the god of the seven spheres, who is in contrast to the planets ο ίστώς and at the same time the Νους, the Syrian god of light and the Yahweh of the Jews; 3 in the papyri, however, the Sophia is expressly called the Aion.
2 Euseb- Praepar. ev. XI. 6: by joining the seven vowels together, the unspeakable name of the All-Holy One can be obtained. They express the glory of the divine name.
As I proved in my lecture of 19124, the apocalypticist did not have Rome in mind at all with his references to Babylon. For him, Babylon is the symbol of astrology and of the closely connected magic and conjuration.1 Babylon, the gate of God and the gate of truth, which, for example, is still regarded by the Manichaeans as the holy city and the centre of the world2 and where, according to the Babylonian-Persian view, the divine messenger descends, became, in the estimation of his enemies, the innermost part of hell.3 Opposite this seat of sin and demons, according to the Jewish view, stands Jerusalem, the city of the seven pillars or of life. For Herodotus I. 181 already knew of the house of life on the seven towers in Babylon; for the Jews, this was later the Hana of the false wisdom, the foreign wooer, situated high above the city.4 In the Apocalypse, Babylon refers precisely to the devilish worship of wisdom. Rightly did Irenaeus (v. 30, 1) behold in the great beast the image of apostasy, the church of Antichrist.5 The πόρνεια which is pronounced by her throughout is heathen idolatry with sorcery (16:2) and demon-beings (16:14). Babylon is a ποςνή because she has given herself up to demons. She sits on Sophia, the ethnicising gnosis, the astral religion that engages in sorcery practice and demon summoning; in God’s hand, this very Sophia causes her fall (17:3). The beast is covered with blasphemous names; these are probably magic names, which give the same power to the knower as the bearer of the name has.
The woman in the 12th chapter is the antitype of the beast; if in Irenaeus (I. 29, 1) the Barbelo or Gnostic Sophia is called “a never-aging aeon in a female spirit”, it is noticeable that the woman of 12:1 is also thought of as everlasting, when she appears clothed with the sun and has the moon under her feet, which according to Horapollon 1 is a sign of eternity.6
Important in this respect is the 11th chapter, where the two witnesses are probably Moses and Elijah, who are then again symbolic representatives of the law and the prophets as in the story of the transfiguration; they prophesy in robes of repentance and encourage repentance. They fall prey to the beast and then lie in the market place of the great city called ηνευματιχως Sodom and Egypt Which city is meant here? In the 5th book of the Sibyllines (v. 154, 226, 413) the πόλις is indeed Jerusalem, and one might think in connection with the mention of the temple (11:1 f.) that this is also the case here, but 18:2, 10, and 21 is evidently meant Babylon, and this agrees better with the epithets Sodom and Egypt, which typically stand for πόρνεια and μάγεία. To all appearance the witnesses perish; but they stand on their feet again after 3½ days, and ascend to heaven in a cloud, just as Mt. 17:5 is testified of Moses and Elijah: νεφελή φωτεινή επεσχίπσεν αύτούς. They are raptured. Thus the beast of the abyss is here again the Babylonian gnosis, which divides itself threateningly against the Messianic church, which kills law and prophets – in Babel, where libertinism and magic are at home; where also the Lord of Moses and Elijah was crucified; he fell, after all, victim to the same pagan powers, which are now worshipped by Christians in an almost unbelievable manner! The great question of the relationship between the old and the new is thus solved in the Apocalypse in a more conservative way than in the Gospel of Matthew. 16:19 Allo (p. 241) has understood the matter correctly; there, too, the great city that falls into three parts is not, as Weizsäcker, Joh. Weiß and most others think, Jerusalem, but Babylon, although there is as little reason for his equation Babylon = Rome here as anywhere else; one may well agree with Allo that Babylon serves as a type for the church of the Antichrist, which in my opinion is closer to the Babylonian-oriented astral religion and magical gnosis than to the Roman world empire with its imperial cult. The φαρμαχοί or sorcerers (18:23; 22:15), the angel-worshippers of 19 :10, the idolaters (βδίλυγμα) and heretics (ψευδος), 21:7, 27; 22: 15, are, besides the Nicolaitans, the blasphemers who call themselves Jews and are not, but a congregation of Satan, those who hold the doctrine of Balaam, the pseudo-apostles and pseudo-prophets,1 probably the Gnostics, who, it is true, are not to be fixed on any particular school, still less on any of the greater systems, but must be regarded as the far-reaching direction of the times, imbued with Babylonian wisdom.
It is a well-known fact that in mythological representations the figure closely associated with an animal is often to be thought of in even closer connection with it, indeed as identical with it. Thus Babylon appears on the great beast, the harlot who courts the kings of the earth, identical with the mother-goddess herself, and here comes to light the equally well-known fact that the queen of heaven, as an immoral woman, not only consorted alternately with various male mythical figures, but also entered into a love relationship with the earthly kings.2 According to the Gnostic Justin in Hippolytus (v. 26, 4), Babel is even a maternal angelic being alongside Achamoth and others, is identified with Persephone and causes fornication and divorce (20).
The extent to which vulgar gnosis and magic are connected is also emphasised by Bousset when he3 writes: “How easily the concept of gnosis can turn completely into that of magic is shown by Epiphanius 31, 7, 3; p. 397, 9 H ……. In the Zosimus text appended by Reitzenstein, Poimandres, p. 103, the πνευματικός Άνθρωπος, however, expressly rejects magic. But the rejection shows how much gnosis and magic are accustomed to combine.”
How very uncertain one actually still is in the conventional conception of the apocalyptic beasts becomes clear when one hears the question in Bousset with regard to the pseudoprophet: the priesthood of the imperial cult? We involuntarily think of a figure like Simon Magus of Samaria, the pagan region influenced by the Euphrates, whose disciples do not care about the moral commandments. Their mystical priests lead a lustful life and indulge in sorcery, curses, incantations, love potions, lures, etc. (Iren. I. 23, 1). They have an image of Simon made after the model of Zeus, and one of Helena made after the model of Hera (I. 23, 4; cf. Hippel. VI 20, 1). Menander, a pupil of Simon, reached the height of sorcery, so that he could even overcome the wave-creating angels, and introduced others to his art (I. 23, 5). Of the Carpocratians Irenaeus reports the same (I. 25, 3), so that the Church Father can assert: they were brought forth by Satan just as well as the heathen, to the dishonour of the divine name of the Church.
The most remarkable thing about the whole affair is that the author of the Apocalypse moves entirely in the language and imagination of his opponents and fights them with their own weapons, so to speak. The star-gods have here become God-serving spirits. As Allo1 has rightly put it: John has consciously or unconsciously been inspired by a popular Hellenistic system whose ideas he has spiritualised. I would add that he uses these forms in order to make the foreign tributary to Christianity, but strives to avoid and suppress all pagan essence. The Judaeo-Christian element is therefore not narrow here, but has a broad horizon.2
2 After the conclusion of this essay, the work of Franz Dornseiffa (Das Alphabet in Mystik und Magie, 1922) comes into my hands, where 8. 106 ff. our explanation is rejected.The terminology ψηφισατω τον αριθμον τού θηρίου is m. Ε. intentionally borrowed from the thought circle of Gematria; ο νουν εχων but do not be misled by this; the riddle is just more difficult than the ordinary Gematria! I still regard ‘Αριθμος as belonging to a human number system, because D. has not taught me better; nor is his reference to the Book of Jeû able to change my exegesis of Apk. Joh. 13 :17.
Bergh van Eysinga, G. A. van den. “Symbolisches in der Apokalypse Johannis.” Acta orientalia 2 (1924): 32ff. http://archive.org/details/in.gov.ignca.26535
A few weeks ago I set out the reasons for dating the Revelation of John to the “year of the four emperors”, 69 CE. This time we set out the reasons others date the work to late in the reign of the emperor Domitian (81-96 CE). In future posts we will look at a case for dating it as late as the mid-second century. Following the lead of Thomas Witulski (Die Johanneoffenbarung und Kaiser Hadrian) I refer mostly to the arguments of Adela Yarbro Collins.
Witness of Irenaeus
The testimony of Irenaeus (writing 180 and 185 CE) is the main pillar of the Domitian date:
The earliest witness is Irenaeus, who says that the Apocalypse was seen at the end of the reign of Domitian.1
Since Irenaeus believed that the John of Revelation was also the apostle John, one of the original Twelve, a date in the 90s would make him very old indeed. Perhaps counterintuitively Collins turns that little difficulty as a point in favour the Domitian date:
The fact that Irenaeus dated the book as he did, in spite of the difficulty about the apostle’s age, suggests that he had independent and strong evidence for the date. (p. 56)
Such an argument only works if indeed it was the apostle John who wrote the book and people were talking about it, so it actually begs the question.
Babylon = Rome
Rome being named Babylon is another reason given for a Domitian date. If a Christian wanted to refer to Rome by a code name there were other options available: Egypt, Kittim, Edom are all found in Jewish writings as labels for Rome. Where Jewish writings do use Babylon for Rome (as they do in 2 Esdras, the Syriac Apocalypse of Baruch and the fifth book of the Sibylline Oracles) the reason is clear:
Rome is called Babylon because her forces, like those of Babylon at an earlier time, destroyed the temple and Jerusalem. It is probable that John leamed this symbolic name from his fellow Jews and that it quickly became traditional.
The majority of interpreters have overlooked the importance of this symbolic name for the date. They have seen it only as a symbol of great power, wealth, or decadence and have missed its allusion to the events of 70 C.E. The use of the name is a weighty internal indication of the date. It is highly unlikely that the name would have been used before the destruction of the temple by Titus. This internal evidence thus points decisively to a date after 70 C.E.
(p. 58)
Seven Kings
Part of Apocalypse Tapestry by Jean Bondol and Nicolas Bataille
It is easy to suspect that the belief in Nero redivivus lies behind chapters 13 and 17. (See Nero – Followup #2 for the details.)
John adapted the legend, so that Nero is depicted as an Antichrist. He fits that role exactly, although the name is not used. In Revelation, Nero is an opposing parody of the Lamb, a dying and rising destroyer, rather than savior.
In Rev. 13:3 it is said that one of the heads of the beast had a mortal wound. This is a reference to Nero and his violent death. It is clear, therefore, that one of the seven heads which are Kings in ch. 17 is the historical Nero. The beast who will return as the “eighth” is Nero returned from death to life, the Antichrist. It follows that Revelation must have been written after the death of Nero, after 68, because the parallel between him and Jesus requires such a conclusion.
(p. 59)
What do we make of the other “heads” or kings, then? Collins groups the various attempts at counting the kings into four types:
the 7 kings are all 7 Roman emperors up to the time of the author, who thus wrote under the sixth emperor and expected the seventh to come soon (some omit those emperors who ruled only a short time after Nero’s death, Galba, Otho and Vitellius);
as for #1 except that the author was actually writing later than the sixth emperor;
the 7 kings do not represent a sequence of successive emperors but a selection of seven names;
the 7 kings are not historical persons but are entirely symbolic.
Collins finds problems with all attempts to count successive emperors (with and without the three who ruled for a short time in “the year of the four emperors”) and concludes:
It is likely that a theory like those grouped above as the third basic position explains how John reinterpreted his source. Caligula would have been a natural starting point, given the close affinities between Revelation and contemporary Jewish anti-Roman literature and the probable Jewish origin of John. It is impossible to say with certainty what John had in mind. The most likely hypothesis is that he began counting with Caligula and included the following emperors in sequence, omitting Galba, Otho, and Vitellius as reigning too short a time to cause trouble for the saints. The analogy of the eagle vision in 4 Ezra makes it plausible that a selection could have been made of emperors who were especially feared and hated. The five would then be Caligula, Claudius, Nero, Vespasian, and Titus. Domitian would be the “one [who] is.” A seventh was expected, to fill out the traditional number seven. The prediction that the last emperor would have a short reign probably arose from the intense expectation of the end of the age in the near future. This logic is rather too cumbersome to explain the passage as John’s original composition. It does, however, explain how he would have reinterpreted a source.
The motif of the seven kings does not by any means point decisively to a date earlier than the reign of Domitian for the Apocalypse as a whole. The motif is probably traditional, but the context shows that it was meaningful for the author. This passage [=Rev 17:9-12] does not establish a Domitianic date, but is compatible with such a date.
(p. 62)
Why start with Caligula? One reason Collins offers is that Caligula was the first emperor to present himself in Rome as a god. He had temples and sacrifices dedicated to “divine self” and insisted on being approached in the Persian way of prostration.
To answer the question about how the seven kings in Revelation 17 can be understood in the context of the book of Revelation being written in the year 68/69 CE I post here an extract from Thomas B. Slater. I have inserted the quotes from Revelation.
. . . John believed that the prophecies would come true soon: “And he said to me, ‘Do not seal the words of the prophecy of this book, for the time is near’” (22,10; cf. 1,1-3). . . . [W]hen John says that the events will occur soon, he refers to his book as one of prophecy. John sincerely believes that his work provides a vision of coming events. For this reason, there is no extended ex eventu prophecy, but there is some and it is found in Rev 17,9-11.
This calls for a mind with wisdom. The seven heads are seven hills on which the woman sits. They are also seven kings. Five have fallen, one is, the other has not yet come; but when he does come, he must remain for only a little while.The beast who once was, and now is not, is an eighth king. He belongs to the seven and is going to his destruction.
The reference to Nero as the fifth emperor is ex eventu prophecy in that it speaks of Nero’s death after the fact and predicts that he will return, an appropriation of the Nero redivivus myth. It is a stretch to argue that the Nero redivivus myth preceded Nero’s death. Thus, the Apocalypse does indeed contain ex eventu prophecy. It is quite possible that John wrote during the reign of Galba, but it is also possible that he wrote during the reign of Otho who “must only rule briefly” (17,10). To this point, John’s prophecies are historically accurate. They are inaccurate with the next ruler, Vitellius, who in no way reminded people of Nero. According to the rules of ex eventu prophecies, the book should be dated at the point where the prophecies are not fulfilled. It is possible that John was writing in 69 late in Otho’s reign or early in Vitellius’ reign.
I am, therefore, in general agreement with a date between 68-70 CE and would add one more additional bit of internal evidence. There are two examples, found in Rev 2,9 and 3,9, which have been overlooked.
I know your afflictions and your poverty—yet you are rich! I know about the slander of those who say they are Jews and are not, but are a synagogue of Satan.
I will make those who are of the synagogue of Satan, who claim to be Jews though they are not, but are liars—I will make them come and fall down at your feet and acknowledge that I have loved you.
In both passages, “Jew” is an honorific term, the religious ideal. This means that John sees himself first and foremost as a faithful Jew and that he sees the Christian community as the true Israel. His opponents are not criticized because they are Jews but because they are not faithful, righteous Jews. Such a self-identification by a Christian is more understandable in the 60’s than in the 90’s when Christians and Jews were beginning to see themselves more as separate groups. I am aware that the separation of Christianity from Judaism was a gradual, regional event that occurred at different times and different places throughout the Roman Empire; however, it is more likely that one in the Christian movement would see himself as a Jew during Nero’s reign than during Domitian’s.
An earlier date would also help to explain why the book is so Jewish and also why some exegetes have postulated that chapters 1, 2, 21 and 22 constitute a Jewish apocalypse; chapters 3-20, a Christian one. It is both Christian and Jewish at a point in time when this fact would have been a given for the original readers. Such a self-designation and self-understanding is much more intelligible in the 60’s, when Christianity was still very much within the Jewish religious community, than the 90’s, when Christianity saw itself more and more as separate and distinct from Judaism.
(Slater, 2003, pp 257-58. Bolded highlighting is mine)
— Slater, Thomas B. “Dating the Apocalypse to John.” Biblica 84, no. 2 (2003): 252–58.
Fifteen years later Slater “revisited” the above article with…
— Slater, Thomas B. “Dating the Apocalypse to John, Revisited.” Review & Expositor 114, no. 2 (May 2017): 247–53.
Quoting from that later article…
Wilsonalso emphasizes internal evidence and includes Galba, Otho, and Vitellius in reckoning the list of emperors. He concurs with Bell and Rowland that it is most important that Nero is clearly the fifth emperor. Wilson identifies 666 as a gematria for NERON KAISAR. “When the name is put into Hebrew and the numerical equivalents of the Hebrew letters are added together, the sum is 666.” In addition, he provides the most credible explanation for the “616” variant reading in some manuscripts. “The 616 (variant) would take the final nun off the name Neron in order to render it Nero, the acceptable way of saying the name in Greek.” Because Nero is the fifth emperor, Galba is the sixth, “the one who is,” and Otho is yet to come. For Wilson, as for Bell and Rowland, the Apocalypse dates to the reign of Galba. Although I agree in general, elsewhere I have argued that John wrote Revelation during the reign of Vitellius, but I would not lose sleep if it were proven to have been written during Galba’s reign.
I am, therefore, in general agreement with a date between 68–70 CE, and would offer additional evidence. First are two examples, found in Rev 2:9 (“those who say they are Jews [though they are not but are really Satan’s synagogue]” and similarly in 3:9), which have been overlooked. In both passages, being Jewish is the religious ideal. John did not castigate his opponents because they were Jews but because they were not faithful Jews. Such a self-understanding is more conceivable in the 60s than the 90s.
Another factor overlooked in dating the book is John’s position on eating meat offered to idols in Rev 2:14 and 2:20, a position diametrically opposed to Paul’s more moderate position in 1 Corinthians 8. John sees Paul’s position as an unfaithful accommodation, if not capitulation, to social norms and expectations. It is highly unlikely that a Christian leader would consciously and openly oppose Paul during the 90s in the same area in which Paul had an extensive presence and where Christians from all theological perspectives would have collected Paul’s letters, regularly quoting them as authoritative. Indeed, everyone wants to be the acknowledged successor to Paul the Apostle in the 90s. We know, however, from Paul’s own letters of his ardent opponents in the 50s and 60s (e.g., Gal 1:10–2:10; 2 Cor 11:1–33).
Another internal factor is the accusation of false apostles in Rev 2:2: “You have tested those who say they are apostles but are not, and you have found them to be liars.” By the 90s there was no longer any debate who the apostles were. Again, the argument was who faithfully followed the teachings and practices of the apostles. Such an assertion about false apostles would be more likely and necessary during the 60s than the 90s.20 Moreover, above I noted that John intentionally opposed Paul in the same region.
(Slater, 2017, 251-252)
Note that this post is part of a larger series in which I will present a case for dating Revelation to the second century.
I will be posting in coming months a case for the Book of Revelation being a response to events at the time of the emperor Hadrian, in particular to the catastrophic results of the Bar Kochba war (130-135 CE). But first let’s look at the arguments for dating the book to just prior to the destruction of the Temple in 70 CE. We will soon examine the more widely accepted grounds for dating the work to the time of Domitian (81-96 CE).
The following points are derived from pages 570 and 571 of Klaus Berger’s Theologiegeschichte des Urchristentums.
1. Large scale persecutions of Christians were unknown
We begin with Revelation 2:13, a message to one of the seven churches:
I know where you live—where Satan has his throne. Yet you remain true to my name. You did not renounce your faith in me, not even in the days of Antipas, my faithful witness, who was put to death in your city—where Satan lives.
The author, Berger concludes, knows of only one martyrdom in Asia Minor. Compare the account of Eusebius who informs us that it was at a later time, in the time of Domitian, that more serious persecution was undertaken:
Domitian, having shown great cruelty toward many, and having unjustly put to death no small number of well-born and notable men at Rome, and having without cause exiled and confiscated the property of a great many other illustrious men, finally became a successor of Nero in his hatred and enmity toward God. He was in fact the second that stirred up a persecution against us, although his father Vespasian had undertaken nothing prejudicial to us.
(Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History 3.17)
But the evidence even for Domitian’s persecution is sparse. The author of Revelation knows of Christian martyrs in the city of Rome (presumably from the time of Nero) only by hearsay. Revelation 17 refers to a city on seven hills “drunk with the blood” of the saints.
The Beast of Revelation is a reverse image of the slain and resurrected Christ (compare Rev. 5:6 with Rev 13:3, 12), an image that is surely inspired by the rumours of Nero having returned after his reported death. These rumours first emerged in the eastern part of the empire in the year 69 CE, the famous “year of the four emperors” following Nero’s suicide:
About this time Achaia and Asia were terrified by a false rumour of Nero’s arrival. The reports with regard to his death had been varied, and therefore many people imagined and believed that he was alive. The forces and attempts of other pretenders we shall tell as we proceed; but at this time, a slave from Pontus or, as others have reported, a freedman from Italy, who was skilled in playing on the cithara and in singing, gained the readier belief in his deceit through these accomplishments and his resemblance to Nero. . . . Many came eagerly forward at the famous name, prompted by their desire for a change and their hatred of the present situation. The fame of the pretender was increasing from day to day when a chance shattered it.
Tacitus, Histories 2.8)
There was another “false Nero”, possibly two more, some years later, but the earliest enthusiasm for a viable return of the emperor was not long before Vespasian became emperor.
3. Lord and God — emperor worship
One of the reasons many commentators have assigned the Book of Revelation to the reign of Domitian is that Domitian assigned himself the title Dominus et Deus (=Lord and God). Berger, though, notes that the same title for the Roman emperor is documented earlier. Especially noteworthy, is that three cities of Asia Minor, Ephesus, Pergamon and Smyrna, were granted the imperial privilege of hosting the cult of emperor worship.
4. The number of the beast
Though various interpretations have been proposed, the number 666 in Rev 13:18 may be thought best to apply to KAISER NERON. Transliterated into Hebrew: nrwn qsr =50 + 200 + 6 + 50 + 100 + 60 + 200.
And their dead bodies shall lie in the street of the great city, which spiritually is called Sodom and Egypt, where also our Lord was crucified.
Rev 11:1-2
And there was given me a reed like unto a rod: and the angel stood, saying, Rise, and measure the temple of God, and the altar, and them that worship therein. But the court which is without the temple leave out, and measure it not; for it is given unto the Gentiles: and the holy city shall they tread under foot forty and two months.
The above passages suggest that the city is still intact and that its temple is still standing.
6. Early stage of church development
There is nothing in the Book of Revelation to indicate a hierarchical (i.e. ruling bishops) organization and control of church congregations. The prophet John appears to be able to speak as a peer directly to the church members.
7. Gospels not yet written
According to Berger, Revelation “shows such great affinities to the old synoptic tradition (especially Q), to Pauline and co-Pauline theology, that a gap of 30 to 40 years seems completely unrealistic. The relationship of the Apocalypse of John to the synoptic tradition is such that the Gospels are not yet presupposed.” Some elements in the gospels do have their allusions in Revelation but not as part of a pre-gospel “Jesus tradition”.
.
From the above considerations, Klaus Berger concludes that the most likely time the book was written was just prior to the destruction of the Jerusalem Temple, that is, during the “year of the four emperors”, 68/69 CE. This date, he suggests, is fixed by Revelation 17:10
And there are seven kings: five are fallen, and one is, and the other is not yet come; and when he cometh, he must continue a short space.
Berger, Klaus. “Zur Frühdatierung der Johannesapokalypse [=On the Early Dating of the Apocalypse of John].” In Theologiegeschichte des Urchristentums: Theologie des Neuen Testaments, 2., Überarb. und erw. Aufl. 568–71. Tübingen: Francke, 1995.
Detail from the Santa Maria sarcophagus (late second century?). Was Jesus depicted as a child because the myth declared him to be a child at this point or is he depicted as a child to merely symbolize the beginning of a new life beside the aged John the Baptist representing the old?
We begin with the “gnostic myth” of the advent of an illuminator or saviour figure that was announced by the second kingdom:
1. A prophet is said to be the beginning of the saviour figure who is presented as a child.
2. A bird takes the saviour to a mountain, presumably a wilderness setting
3. The bird nourishes the child saviour in the mountain
4. Presumably after the child has become an adult an angel appears to declare the saviour figure now has power and glory
5. The figure comes to the water.
The image below attempts to illustrate that particular structure. (For the understanding of coming “upon” water as an expression relating to power and submission see the previous post.)
Next, look at a similar myth in the Book of Revelation, though we will simplify it for starters. This structure is illustrated in the middle column.
1. The prophet John is writing, or announcing, the advent of the child saviour figure from the time he is born.
2. An angelic voice declares that great power and glory has now come into being, presumably a proleptic announcement concerning the child. (The mother and child are separated; the mother will be a proxy for those who follow the saviour-child).
3. A bird (eagle) carries the mother of the child to the wilderness
4. The woman is nourished and cared for in the wilderness (by….?)
5. The water of chaos, a flood, attempts to destroy the woman but she is protected by the wilderness earth.
The larger structure is essentially the same as the gnostic myth but the middle two steps are reversed. This reversal appears to be a function of the splitting of the child from its mother (and rest of her seed).
The structure the previous two myths is completely inverted with the Gospel of Mark. Coming to the water or facing the water is now moved to the beginning, along with the prophet, and is no longer the culmination of the story. In this gospel the water has become a symbol of baptism which is a figure of the death of the old man (as per Paul). In the Gospel of Mark we have the narrative bookended by narratives of death and emergence from death, first symbolically in the water, then finally through the cross.
1. The prophet announces the advent of the man saviour.
2. The saviour figure comes to the water and as he emerges from it.
3. The saviour figure is addressed as a sacrificial victim — the inverse of the power and glory we saw in the other two myths. For “my beloved son” as a signal of a son to be sacrificed see Jon Levenson’s studies on the Death and Resurrection of the Beloved Son. But the power and glory is still latent because the saviour figure is still the son of God.
4. The spirit (identified as a bird, in this case the dove) drives or propels the saviour figure into the wilderness.
5. The saviour figure is nourished by angels in the wilderness. (Matthew and Luke add the mountain.)
The angels and the bird take on inverted meanings. The angels feed and nourish the saviour in the wilderness, thus doing enough merely to keep him alive after his long fast and encounter with Satan. There is no roaring declaration of the saviour being imbued with power and glory.
The bird has changed from an eagle to a dove. The eagle had the power to rescue and carry a person in flight. The dove drives the saviour figure into the wilderness but has already come to him at the moment he is declared to be the beloved son (for sacrifice).
The Gospel of Mark may be thought of as inverting the rival myths of a messiah or saviour coming with great power. The water has become a means of symbolic death and birth as a “beloved son” destined to be sacrificed.
The earlier myth of power is not completely displaced, however. We see the saviour figure in the wilderness nourishing his followers by the thousands; he then ascendes a mountain before returning to walk upon the water to his disciples. Several details of this narrative indicate it is to be understood as a theophany, or perhaps even originally a post-resurrection appearance. The myth of power is not completely replaced but it is supplemented by an inverted form of the myth to take place first.
An important consequence follows. If a myth is made up of all its variants, structural analysis should take all of them into account. — Claude Lévi-Strauss (435)
The structural analysis developed by Claude Lévi-Strauss invites one to compare the variants of a myth so as to define the rules that led to their transformation. . . . [A] myth is comprised of all of its variants — meaning that one version alone of a myth is not held to be unique and authentic . . . . However, Lévi-Strauss shows that the nature of any myth is to reinvent itself through each new speaker who appropriates it. — Philippe Wajdenbaum (1)
Our canonical gospels all begin the career of Jesus with John the Baptist. The synoptic gospels (Matthew, Mark and Luke) all follow the baptism of Jesus with a wilderness testing of Jesus. Why don’t we see more variation in starting points and details if each author had his own set of historical or biographical traditions to draw upon?
I am aware that the terms “gnostic” and “gnosticism” have become problematic among a number of scholars in more recent years but I use the terms here as they were used by Robinson in his 1970 essay. For the sake of convenience I also use Mark to refer to the author of the Gospel of Mark.
One more point: Certainly the baptism and wilderness episodes in the gospels derive largely from the Exodus account of Israel leaving through the Red Sea and spending 40 years in the wilderness. I do not deny that association. But it also appears that there are other accounts that may derive from reinterpretations of the Exodus event, or that the Exodus narrative was in some way remoulded several times to produce the different narratives discussed here: Apocalypse of Adam, Revelation, Gospel of Hebrews, synoptic gospels.
The reading that led me to produce this post was prompted by James M. RobinsonOn the Gattung of Mark (and John) (1970). Robinson suggests a common source lies behind the Gospel of Mark’s beginning with the baptism and wilderness experience of Jesus, our canonical Book of Revelation’s reference to the birth of a child and the fleeing of its mother to the wilderness, a section of the “gnostic” “Apocalypse (or Revelation) of Adam and a passage in the now mostly lost Gospel of Hebrews.
Robinson does not think that our Gospel of Mark was an attempt to historicize spiritual gnostic teachings but that Mark adapted genuinely historical traditions to conform to a pattern of gnostic thought. We may wonder if it is necessary to bring any assumption of historical traditions to the question but that’s for each of us to decide.
The section of the Apocalypse of Adam is a list of proclamations from thirteen kingdoms. This part of the apocalypse is generally understood to have originated separately from the rest of the text because of various inconsistencies in the way it fits into the surrounding narrative. As for dating it, I have seen arguments for it being dated to very late second or third century (a reference to Solomon matches a late trajectory of evolving myths related to Solomon’s power over demons) and other arguments for it being dated as early as the first century CE or even BCE (it lacks the sophisticated philosophical elements of later gnostic myths with their various emanations from a single remote deity and eclectic inclusions of other gospel references).
Here is the thirteen kingdoms passage taken from Barnstone’s The Other Bible:
“Now the first kingdom says of him. …
He was nourished in the heavens.
He received the glory of that one and the power.
He came to the bosom of his mother.
And thus he came to the water.
“And the second kingdom says about him that he came from a great prophet. And a bird came, took the child who was born and brought him onto a high mountain. And he was nourished by the bird of Heaven. An angel came forth there. He said to him, ‘Arise! God has given glory to you.’ He received glory and strength. And thus he came to the water.
“The third kingdom says of him that he came from a virgin womb.
He was cast out of his city, he and his mother; he was brought to a desert place.
He was nourished there.
He came and received glory and power.
And thus he came to the water.
“The fourth kingdom says of him that he came from a virgin. .. .
Solomon sought her, he and Phersalo and Sauel and his armies, which had been sent out.
Solomon himself sent his army of demons to seek out the virgin.
And they did not find the one whom they sought, but the virgin who was given to them.
It was she whom they fetched. Solomon took her.
The virgin became pregnant and gave birth to the child there.
She nourished him on a border of the desert.
When he had been nourished, he received glory and power from the seed from which he had been begotten.
And thus he came to the water.
“And the fifth kingdom says of him that he came from a drop from Heaven.
He was thrown into the sea.
The abyss received him, gave birth to him, and brought him to Heaven.
He received glory and power.
And thus he came to the water.
“And the sixth kingdom says that a [ . . . ] down to the Aeon which is below, in order, to gather flowers.
She became pregnant from the desire of the flowers.
She gave birth to him in that place.
The angels of the flower garden nourished him.
He received glory there and power.
And thus he came to the water.
“And the seventh kingdom says of him that he is a drop.
It came from Heaven to earth.
Dragons brought him down to caves.
He became a child.
A spirit came upon him and brought him on high to the place where the drop had come forth.
He received glory and power there.
And thus he came to the water.
“And the eighth kingdom says of him that a cloud came upon the earth and enveloped a rock.
He came from it.
The angels who were above the cloud nourished him.
He received glory and power there.
And thus he came to the water.
“And the ninth kingdom says of him that from the nine Muses one separated away.
She came to a high mountain and spent some time seated there, so that she desired herself alone in order to become androgynous.
She fulfilled her desire and became pregnant from her desire.
He was born.
The angels who were over the desire nourished him.
And he received glory there and power.
And thus he came to the water.
“The tenth kingdom says of him that his god loved a cloud of desire.
He begot him in his hand and cast upon the cloud above him some of the drop, and he was born.
He received glory and power there.
And thus he came to the water.
“And the eleventh kingdom says of him that the father desired his own daughter.
She herself became pregnant from her father.
She cast [ . . . ] tomb out in the desert.
The angel nourished him there.
And thus he came to the water.
“The twelfth kingdom says of him that he came from two illuminators.
He was nourished there.
He received glory and power.
And thus he came to the water.
“And the thirteenth kingdom says of him that every birth of their ruler is a word.
And this word received a mandate there.
He received glory and power.
And thus he came to the water, in order that the desire of those powers might be satisfied.
This post is based on the theme of a chapter in St. Paul versus St. Peter: A Tale of Two Missionsby Michael Goulder. I depart from Goulder’s own presentation in one significant respect: Goulder wrote as if 2 Thessalonians were a genuine letter by Paul (in which Paul writes about the future in a way he was never to repeat); I treat the letter as spurious (following many scholars in this view). At the end of the post I introduce an alternative scenario that might apply if more critical scholars are correct and the letter should be dated to the second century.
Goulder conventionally dates 2 Thessalonians to around the year 51. At the end of this post I quote a discussion by John A. T. Robinson in Redating the New Testament that supports Goulder’s date. I also post J. V. M. Sturdy’s response to Robinson’s work arguing for a second century date.
2 Thessalonians appears to be a letter written by Paul. It disarmingly warns readers to be on guard against letters that appear penned by “himself” yet are in fact forgeries. The letter proceeds to warn readers not to be misled by preaching that the Kingdom of God was “at hand” but that a sequence of events had to happen first. One must expect a delay in the coming of the end.
Now we request you, brethren, with regard to the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our gathering together to Him,that you not be quickly shaken from your composure or be disturbed either by a spirit or a message [word] or a letter as if from us, to the effect that the day of the Lord has come.
Antichrist, Luca Signorelli
Do you not remember that while I was still with you, I was telling you these things?
And you know what restrains him now, so that in his time he will be revealed.For the mystery of lawlessness is already at work; only he who now restrains will do so until he is taken out of the way.
Then that lawless one will be revealed whom the Lord will slay with the breath of His mouth and bring to an end by the appearance of His coming(2 Thess. 2:1-8 NASB)
How could anyone have believed that “the day of the Lord” had already come? Goulder’s explanation:
The idea has gained force in three ways:
Christians cry it out during services in moments of ecstasy (by spirit);
they appeal to the Bible (by word), perhaps especially Malachi 4.5, ‘Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the great and terrible day of the Lord comes’;
and a letter has been received claiming to be from Paul.
(p. 85. My formatting. Goulder discounts the likelihood of forgeries on the assumption that the letter was written at a time when churches were very small and carried and authenticated by well-known persons.)
So let’s see how the author of this letter, the one writing in the name of Paul, introduces and sets out his view of prophecy to the churches.
Curiously only one of the five books in the New Testament attributed to John bears the name of John. Many believers and conservative scholars maintain that the Gospel of John, the first, second and third letters of John, were authored by the apostle John despite the author’s name nowhere appearing in those texts.
It is of course the nature of religious history that people will believe it without necessarily having the kind of source-based authentication that generally historians are looking for. And so there is always a tension between what a religious tradition may say about the past and what the historian may say about the past. (Tom Holland, in John Cleary in conversation with Tom Holland, about 26 mins)
And so it goes. Tradition has assigned the name of John to the Gospel and three letters of the New Testament. Perversely, it may seem, the book that does claim to be written by John is one that critical scholars doubt came from the same pen as anything else attributed to John.
A study of the authorship of the Book of Revelation opens up a number of interesting methodological curiosities of New Testament scholarship. But for most part here I will set out the reasons why critical scholars widely believe the book of Revelation is not from the same author, or even “theological school”, responsible for the Gospel of John.
Saint John on Patmos (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
The Book of Revelation makes unambiguous claims about the identity of its author. It came from God via Jesus Christ who commanded John to write it all down:
The Revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave unto him, to shew unto his servants things which must shortly come to pass; and he sent and signified it by his angel unto his servant John . . . .
I John, who also am your brother, and companion in tribulation, and in the kingdom and patience of Jesus Christ, was in the isle that is called Patmos, for the word of God, and for the testimony of Jesus Christ.
I was in the Spirit on the Lord’s day, and heard behind me a great voice, as of a trumpet,
Saying, I am Alpha and Omega, the first and the last: and, What thou seest, write in a book, and send it unto the seven churches which are in Asia; unto Ephesus, and unto Smyrna, and unto Pergamos, and unto Thyatira, and unto Sardis, and unto Philadelphia, and unto Laodicea.
And I turned to see the voice that spake with me. And being turned, I saw seven golden candlesticks;
And in the midst of the seven candlesticks one like unto the Son of man, clothed with a garment down to the foot, and girt about the paps with a golden girdle.
His head and his hairs were white like wool, as white as snow; and his eyes were as a flame of fire;
And his feet like unto fine brass, as if they burned in a furnace; and his voice as the sound of many waters.
And he had in his right hand seven stars: and out of his mouth went a sharp two edged sword: and his countenance was as the sun shineth in his strength.
And when I saw him, I fell at his feet as dead. And he laid his right hand upon me, saying unto me, Fear not; I am the first and the last:
I am he that liveth, and was dead; and, behold, I am alive for evermore, Amen; and have the keys of hell and of death.
Write the things which thou hast seen, and the things which are, and the things which shall be hereafter . . . .
The setting on the isle of Patmos and the identity of an author (or scribe) as a persecuted exile appropriately sets an atmosphere of fear and dread, relieved by a moment of seclusion to be with God alone and to receive his messages uninterrupted. He identifies himself as one of the saints who is being trodden under foot — another motif common to this genre of literature. This is all part of the literary conceit of another Daniel (or any persecuted visionary prophet) being pulled aside by God and struck down to humbly soak up the glories and mysteries of the heavenly realms that would leave lesser mortals dead. The setting is as much atmospherics as are the eyes like fire and the seven headed beast. Yet New Testament scholars will so often be found referring to the author being a persecuted exile on Patmos as if this were a veritable fact of history.
Before Thomas Witulski informs readers of the details of events in the time of the Roman emperor Hadrian and how they enable a contemporary interpretation of Revelation 13 he analyses the meanings of different parts of the chapter itself. I cannot possibly cover every detail of his exegesis (especially the grammar and usage of certain Greek words) but will try to cover the main highlights. Keep in mind that these highlights are only preparatory to a discussion of the historical events Witulski identifies as the real subject of the apocalypse.
