Revelations : Visions, Prophecy, and Politics in the Book of Revelation

by Elaine Pagels Narrated by Lorna Raver

Overview

Elaine Pagels explores the surprising history of the most controversial book of the Bible.

In the waning days of the Roman Empire, militant Jews in Jerusalem had waged an all-out war against Rome¿s occupation of Judea, and their defeat resulted in the desecration of the Great Temple in Jerusalem. In the aftermath of that war, John of Patmos, a Jewish prophet and follower of Jesus, wrote the Book of Revelation, prophesying God¿s judgment on the pagan empire that devastated and dominated his people. Soon after, Christians fearing arrest and execution championed John¿s prophecies as offering hope for deliverance from evil. Others seized on the Book of Revelation as a weapon against heretics and infidels of all kinds.

Even after John¿s prophecies seemed disproven¿instead of being destroyed, Rome became a Christian empire¿those who loved John¿s visions refused to discard them and instead reinterpreted them¿as Christians have done for two thousand years. Brilliantly weaving scholarship with a deep understanding of the human needs to which religion speaks, Pagels has written what may be the masterwork in her unique career.

Editorial Reviews

Publishers Weekly

Many Christians today believe that the Book of Revelation (which some mistakenly call “Revelations”) was written by the same “John” who wrote the Gospel of John, speaks to an audience of persecuted Christians, and stands in harmony with the rest of the New Testament. In this fascinating study, Pagels challenges all of those assumptions, arguing instead that the visions recorded by John of Patmos function as antiassimilationist harangue that explicitly countered Paul’s teachings that keeping Jewish law was no longer necessary. Pagels situates John of Patmos within a competitive marketplace of New Testament prophets, some of whom had similar prophetic visions that were omitted from the canon but rediscovered in the 20th century. Why did Revelation survive while other revelations were passed over or even suppressed? The answer, she says, lies in the way the prophecy was reinterpreted after Constantine’s unexpected conversion in the early fourth century; Revelation proved surprisingly adaptable even after the Roman Empire turned out not to be the whore of Babylon after all. Pagels offers a sharp, accessible, and perceptive interpretation of one of the Bible’s most divisive books. (Mar. 6)

Library Journal

Pagels, who changed forever how we look at Christianity with books like The Gnostic Gospels, here rethinks the Book of Revelation, which has always been regarded as a near-fantastic vision of the world's end. Pagel instead sees it as an attack on Roman decadence at a time when Jews were rebelling against the Roman occupation of Jerusalem. Only later was it repurposed by the emerging Christian sect as a sword thrust to anyone challenging its primacy. Of tremendous interest to educated readers.

Kirkus Reviews

Multidimensional reading of "the strangest book in the Bible--and the most controversial." The Book of Revelation, a dark and enigmatic account of an apocalyptic end-times vision populated by warring demons and many-headed beasts, has given rise to more competing interpretations than most of the rest of the Bible combined. Even its authorship is disputed, with specialists unsure of whether the John referenced in the text is the Apostle John or a separate individual. Pagels (Religion/Princeton Univ., Reading Judas: The Gospel of Judas and the Shaping of Christianity, 2007, etc.) explores Revelation's outsized role in the development of Christian thought and places it in the context of its creation. Arguing that its language depicting battles in heaven and destruction on earth is a thinly veiled political screed against the pagan Roman Empire, Pagels identifies John as a Jewish refugee from Jerusalem following the destruction of the Temple. Viewing the Book through the prism of the Gnostic Gospels and the other accounts of prophetic visions that proliferated at the time, she advances the modern theory that Revelation is a Jewish Christian document fighting back against Paul's mission to abrogate Jewish law and bring Christ's message to the Gentiles. Pagels' compelling, carefully researched analysis brings to life the multitude of factions that quickly arose in the nascent Christian community after the death of Jesus. The struggle to canonize Revelation was intensely controversial; to this day, believers fight over how to interpret the vision of John of Patmos, "reading their own social, political, and religious conflict into the cosmic war he so powerfully evokes." Scholarly but widely accessible, the book provides a solid introduction to the one book of the New Testament that claims to be divinely inspired.

Product Details

BN ID:	2940172018749
Publisher:	Penguin Random House
Publication date:	11/15/2019
Edition description:	Unabridged

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