The Level-headed Truth
About the Book of Revelations

Revelations was written sometime between 90 and 95 AD, about sixty years after Jesus was crucified and about thirty years after Paul was executed.  Neither of them ever heard of the Book of Revelations. 

Revelations is the only book in the Bible that is entirely about the Apocalypse, the "End of the World", or, as it is discussed among Evangelicals, the "End Times." 

Thousands of years ago the first editors of the Bible debated fiercely about Revelations. Many thought that it it offered nothing of spiritual significance, and that it could be interpreted to mean anything. Those people thought that it should not be included in the Bible, but they were over-ruled by others who wanted to keep it because it was "traditional."

Centuries later, Martin Luther also rejected it as part of the Protestant Bible for the same reasons -- namely, that it could mean anything and had no spiritual significance. But he changed his mind and kept it it. Why? Again, because it was "traditional."

Because of this tradition, millions of people today believe that it contains information about the future. Usually, they have also read the Left Behind series, which tells about the end of the world as though it happened in the 1990s. Because of those stories, which have sold over 60 million copies since the series began in 1995, millions believe that the End Times have already begun. In the United States today over forty percent of the population is sympathetic to this point of view.  This includes, of course President Bush and his advisors.

There have always been people who believed the end of the world was coming. There were doomsday stories long before the Book of Revelations; there were many, many doomsday stories contemporary with the Book of Revelations, and there have been endless doomsday stories since then. However, since the editors decided to put the Book of Revelations into the Bible, most of the later doomsday stories try to show that prophecies in the Book of Revelations are coming true now. That's the premise of the Left Behind books, for example, and it will certainly be the premise of the next doomsday blockbuster as well.

There's an "End Times" movement in the US today that has gripped churches across the country, influencing they way they teach Christianity. This has happened before. In the 1840s a similar wave of doomsday prophecy swept across the United States -- major churches alive today trace their beginnings to this movement.

It is a powerful thing to believe that the end of the world is coming. It is a powerful thing to believe that the forces of Satan are attacking you, and that you must band together to make war in the name of Jesus. Many Christians have felt the power of a room full of people creating this consciousness together. There is no questioning the reality of that power if you have ever experienced it.

That power is not the power that Jesus taught. He did not teach people to hate and make war -- He taught exactly the opposite of that.

In the coming years, we are going to see Jesus' own teachings come back into power. The doomsday, Left Behind sort of spirituality is going to ebb away, and it will be replaced with a positive, community-building and future-oriented morality.

When people get together and use Jesus' own words to create magic and to change their consciousness, they build a whole different world than what we have seen the doomsday mind-set create.

"Prophecy" is not the place to begin your faith. Begin your faith with the words of Jesus Himself.

And when you need to help someone who is driven mad with fear because of the End Times, you can help them by explaining to them that the Book of Revelations has a history they were never taught:

Who Wrote Revelations and Why?

Revelations was written at the height of the Roman Empire's power, and in those days Apocalyptic literature was a very popular form of story telling.  Most people in the Roman Empire lived under brutal colonial rule – that is, their culture, trade, business, education, and politics were all controlled by a foreign power in Rome. 

Practically all of the apocalyptic literature of that period tells the same story: God comes down and crushes the oppressors to liberate the true believers.  The stories encouraged people to keep the faith, promising that God would someday restore justice.  

The stories were allegories.  Dragons attack newborn dieities in Heaven, and horsemen with supernatural powers rage across the land.  What does it mean?  Everywhere in the Roman Empire, to anyone who heard a story like this, all those fantastic events meant the same thing:  gruesome vengeance against the Emperor and his hated police and tax collectors.  The "End Times" they hoped for was the destruction of the Roman Empire.

The Book of Revelations is really protest literature.  It was written for the Reisistance, if you will, it was written to help people survive oppression and hope for a better future.

The Author in the Roman Empire

The author was living in exile on an island called Patmos, in the Aegean sea, about seventy miles southwest of Ephesus, which was the capital of the “province of Asia” in the Roman Empire – modern day Turkey.  If the Romans ever found out that he had written this story, they would have killed him.

Tradition holds that John the Apostle, son of Zebedee, wrote Revelations, and most Catholic Bibles call the book “The Apocalypse of St. John the Apostle”.  Scholars generally reject this idea, though, because the person who wrote the Gospel of John was much better educated, and a much better writer, than the person who wrote Revelations. 

The author of Revelations wants to create this confusion; he identifies himself as John, but he does not say he is John the Apostle.  Confusing readers about who wrote a tale about the end of the world was common in those days, because that way it was impossible to pin down when the book was written, and who wrote it.

He is writing around 92-96 AD, and at that time the Emperor of the Roman Empire was named Domitian.  Before him came Emperor Nero, who was insanely cruel, executing even his own mother, and who eventually committed suicide.  Domitian's rule continued in that same vein of insane cruelty, and actually expanded it farther and farther out from Rome.  Christians were a favorite target of both Nero and Domitian.

This was because Roman Emperors in that time required that their subjects worship them as if they were living gods.  In all the colonized areas, including “the province of Asia”, you were required to go to the town festival, and when you were there, you had to make offerings to the emperor as if he was a god.  Those who did this lived in peace.  Those who refused to do it – like the early Christians – were persecuted.

The Beginning of Revelations:  Letters to Seven Churches

This is where Revelations begins – the author writes letters to seven churches on this topic, encouraging them to hold steady and to refuse to participate in the festivals, even though this meant certain persecution.

From the beginning of the book, the author tries to tie his apocalypse to the Book of Daniel, which even then was a widely known and highly respected apocalypse story. 

Daniel is about people who are in the same situation that the Christians were in.  Daniel is about how the Jews were persecuted by the Seleucid Empire (311 BC – 65 BC).  General Seleucid of the army of Alexander the Great created that empire, and he ruled over much of what we call the Middle East.  He persecuted the Jews without mercy, driving many of them out of the region.  The early Christians could completely relate to their situation.

In the letters, the author reveals the sort of person he is and his mode of thought:  In one, he criticizes the church in Ephesus because it has “left its first love”, but he praises it because they “hate the deeds of the Nicolaitanes, which I also hate.” (Revelations 2:6) No one knows who the Nicolaitanes were, but it is clear that conformity is extremely important to the author, and that he is full of hatred towards those who do not conform. 

He also takes a strong position on women priests, and on chastity for priests, which was a big issue in the early Church.  Writing to the church in Thyatira, he says, “I have this against you: you tolerate that Jezebel, the woman who claims to be a prophetess, who by her teaching lures my servants into fornication and into eating food sacrificed to idols.  I have given her time to repent, but she refuses to repent of her fornication, so I will throw her on to a bed of pain and plunge her lovers into terrible suffering...” (Revelation 2:20)

Hatred towards enemies pervades the entire Book of Revelation.  When criticizing the church in Sardis, to take another example, the author says that there are a few people there who are worthy, but for those who are not worthy, “I will blot out his name from the book of life.”  (Revelation 3:5)  This means they will be thrown into Hell for eternity, as we shall see...

The Seven Seals

After he is done with his letters, he dives directly into his mystical visions.  He is with an angel, who reveals all the visions to him and gives divine authority to what he sees: “I looked, and there before my eyes was a door opened in heaven; and the voice that I had first heard speaking to me like a trumpet said, 'come up here, and I will show you what must happen hereafter.'  At once, I was caught up by the Spirit.” (Revelation 4:1)

There are seven seals, and the first four are broken.  These are the “four horsemen of the apocalypse” - commonly understood to be War, Revolution, Famine, and Pestilence, in that order – who  deliver death in the name of justice. 

From the author's point of view, this is what he hoped would happen to Rome, but in the centuries since people have seen signs of the Four Horsemen in every decade and in every society.  The Book of Revelations is entirely symbolic, and so it can be interpreted to represent events at any point in history. 

After the Four Horsemen have done their damage, the fifth seal is broken, and the souls of the worthy are seen waiting for judgment.  The sixth seal is broken, and the physical universe starts to disintegrate. 

But the seventh seal is not broken right away.  First, four angels appear, and they put a mark on 144,000 Jews who are to be saved.  144,000 is not an arbitrary number; 144 = 12 x 12; there are twelve months in a year; there are twelve tribes of Israel; astrologers of the day divided the sky into twelve zodiac signs.  144 represented a mathematical completeness.  1,000 was the biggest number in Greek that had a specific symbol in those days, so 144,000 was the largest perfectly complete number that the author could conveniently write down.  (The word “million” didn't exist until Medieval Italy.)

The Seven Trumpets

After that, the seventh seal is broken, but this is not the climax.  Instead, we have a series of seven trumpets, and each of them calls another disaster into the world. 

The fifth trumpet opens hell itself, and out of hell crawl locusts “like horses prepared for battle...and their faces were as the faces of men...and they had tails like scorpions, and there were stings in their tails.”  The sixth angel releases another army from the river Euphrates, and then, again, the climax is held off. 

Before the seventh trumpet is sounded, a temporary triumph of evil is described.  The author mimics the language of Daniel throughout.  Daniel lamented the persecution of the Jews by the Seleucids; in Revelations, it is the Christians persecuted by the Romans.  However, even in the hopelessness of defeat, God is still present, because he gives “power unto my two witnesses”, who will preach the word of God throughout the darkest times of Evil (Revelation 11:13). 

After these two have finished preaching, the Beast emerges from hell and kills them both, leaving them on the streets of Jerusalem, or perhaps Rome – the city is not named in the text.

The Messiah vs. the Dragon

Finally the seventh trumpet blasts forth – but again, this fails to end the tribulations.  Two mighty visions are seen in the heavens.  “And there appeared a...woman clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet, and upon her head a crown of twelve stars...” (Revelation 12:1).  This is an image of the Babylonian sun goddess, and the author probably expects us to think that the twelve stars represent the twelve tribes of Israel.  This woman gives birth to the Messiah, “who was to rule all nations with a rod of iron.”

However, the Messiah has a challenger:  “...there appeared...a great red dragon, having seven heads and ten horns, and seven crowns upon his heads” (Revelation 12:3).  The dragon has ten horns because in Daniel there was a similar beast that had ten horns, probably representing the ten Seleucid kings who oppressed the Jews. 

The dragon tries to eat the Messiah the moment he is born, but the angels in heaven rescue him  The angels fight the Dragon, and finally prevail over him – by throwing him out of Heaven and down to Earth. 

On Earth, the dragon “was furious with the woman, and went off to wage war on the rest of her offspring , that is, on those who keep God's commandments and maintain their testimony to Jesus” (Revelation 12:17).  From the author's point of view, this was a mystical explanation for  why the Christians were suffering under Roman rule.

One World Government and 666

The red dragon now passes his powers to another dragon who rises up out of the sea. This dragon also has seven heads and ten horns, and “on each head a blasphemous name” (Revelation 13:2)  The “blasphemous name” is probably a reference to worshiping the Emperor as if he was a god – the issue that prompted the author to write this story in the first place.

This dragon is the beast that “caused everyone, great and small, rich and poor, slave and free, to be branded with a mark on his right hand or forehead, and no one was allowed to buy or sell unless he bore this beast's mark, either name or number.”  (Revelation 13:16-17)  This is a complaint about the Roman colonial government, which controlled all trade and which minted all money.  The Romans did not brand people literally, but only those who conformed were allowed to engage in business.  How did they know if you conformed?  You showed up at the festivals and worshiped the Emperor.

Contemporary Fundamentalists think this passage means that Satan will create a One World Government as the first step in his take over of the Earth.  These Fundamentalists commonly suspect the United Nations is a Satanic organization, because it is has authority over all the Earth.  In the famous Left Behind Series, Satan's first move is to become the Secretary General of the United Nations. 

This seven headed beast is also the one labled with the number “666”.  In Roman times, every letter in the Hebrew, Latin and Greek alphabet had a numerical value associated with it.  Jewish scholars thought that the numerical values of the words in their scriptures had hidden meanings, and they spent a lot of time thinking about words as numbers.  Looking at the methods the ancients used, there are many, many ways to interpret the numerical values of words. 

In Greek, “Emperor Nero” is written “Neron Caesar”, and if you add up the Greek letters, you get 666.  That's the simplest interpretation of this number.  But you can use the number 666 to identify practically anyone.  President Reagan, for example, was suspected of being the Anti-Christ because each word in his full name, Ronald Wilson Reagan, has six letters.

Seven Bowls and Armageddon

The author of Revelations couldn't write “Neron Caesar” in his story, of course, because if he did he would have been executed. 

Even though, at this point in the story, Satan is in control of the the world, the author extends hope to those who are still alive. If they worship Christ, they will still be saved, even if they die in the plagues that are to come. 

Following that assurance, another series of seven disasters arrive. This time, the first six angels pour out six bowls upon the Earth, each one releasing another vile scourge – the author is gleefully graphic in his description of the gross sufferings the people will endure. 

Keep in mind that these vile scourges are created by angels of Heaven to punish people who don't worship Jesus correctly.  It is God who is responsible for all this suffering -- that's one of the reasons the ancient scholars wanted to take Revelations out of the New Testament.  This God doesn't seem at all like the one Jesus taught about.

In the midst of all of this, John goes on, “I saw coming from the mouth of the dragon...three foul spirits like frogs.  These spirits were devils, with the power to work miracles.  They were sent to muster all the kings of the world for the great day of battle...they assembled the kings at the place called in Hebrew Armageddon.” 

This is a real place in Israel, and tens of thousands of tourists visit there every year.  The demon frogs gather the kings in this spot to organize the One World Government for the final battle with God. 

The seventh angel does not release another plague with his bowl.  He is the one who launches the battle against the demon frogs and the kings.  “...the cities of the world fell in ruin; and God did not forget Babylon the great, but made her drink the cup which was filled with the fierce wine of his vengeance.”  To the author, Babylon was almost certainly Rome, and the vengeance of God breaks apart the Roman Empire, bringing justice to the Christians who had remained faithful. 

Throughout Western history, Babylon has been identified with a great many different cities, depending on the political situation and what the "doomsdayers" hoped to see happen to their enemies at the time.  In the Left Behind Series, Babylon is literally Babylon – modern day Baghdad, and in those novels Satan moves the United Nations to Baghdad to set up his One World Government.

Many Fundamentalists believe that Bush's war against Iraq has Biblical meaning.  They think that today's battles for Baghdad are foretold in Revelation.  They believe the Islamic people living there are the armies of Satan, and the United States has fielded  the Christian armies that are now battling to prevent Satan from coming to power.

Even though the prophecies in Revelation foretell the defeat of these armies and the temporary reign of Satan, the Fundatmentalists believe it is their Christian duty to fight. 

Of course, there is no reason for a Christian to believe that Revelations has anything to do with modern events, since Jesus told us to ignore the false prophets that would come after him.  But really the saddest consequence of these apocalyptic beliefs is that starting wars -- "preemptive" wars, especially -- absolutely contradicts the teachings of Christ. 

Why would Fundamentalists ignore the teachings of Christ and hang the future of our nation on their interpretation of a strange ancient story? And why would they consider this story the "word of God "even when Jesus himself warned them not to believe the false prophets who would come after him?  We should wonder about this carefully...

The Thousand Year Reign of Christ

The fate of the demon frogs is not described, but an angel comes down from heaven who “seized the dragon, that serpent of old, the Devil or Satan, and chained him up for a thousand years; he threw him into the abyss, shutting and sealing it over him, so that he might seduce the nations no more till the thousand years were over.  After that he must be let loose for a short while.”

This is the Millennium of Christ that Fundamentalists hope for; the reason they want the world to end is so that this Millennium will begin, when Christ will “rule all nations with a rod of iron.”

The New Earth

At the end of this thousand year period, Satan is released from the abyss and seduces the nations of the Earth yet again.  But God makes quick work of him and his followers this time.  He “judged each man on the record of his deeds”; those who didn't measure up were thrown with Satan into a fiery pit for all eternity, and those who did measure up were allowed to live with God.

The author describes what happens after this time of judgment.  “I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had vanished, and there was no longer any sea.  I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, made ready like a bride adorned for her husband.” (Revelation 21:1-2)  This city is described in detail – it has a foundation of jewels; the river of life flows through it; the throne “of God and of the Lamb” is there; and “there shall be no more night.” 

But most importantly God “will dwell among them and they shall be with his people, and God himself will be with them.” (Revelation 21:3)

A Promise This Will All Happen Soon

Finally, the author ends his tale by assuring his readers that the end of the Roman Empire is coming soon. 

The angel who gave him these visions tells him, “Do not seal up the words of prophecy in this book, for the hour of the fulfillment is near.  Meanwhile, let the evil-doer go on doing evil and let the filthy-minded wallow in their filth, but let the good man persevere in his goodness and the dedicated man be true to his dedication.” 

John then has Jesus say, “Yes, I am coming soon, and bringing my recompense with me, to requite everyone according to his deeds! I am the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end....I, Jesus, have sent my angel to you with this testimony for the churches.  I am the scion and offspring of David, the bright star of dawn.”  (Revelation 22:10-13, 16)

This is how John helps the young Churches survive under Roman Rule.  They are not to fear, because soon Jesus will come back and destroy the Romans. 

What Actually Happened

Interestingly, what actually happened is that the Romans created the Catholic Church.  In 313 the Emperor Constantine I delivered the Edict of Milan, that famous declaration saying that Christianity was now the Roman Empire's favorite religion.

This not only ends the persecution of Christians, it gives Christians enormous power.  The first thing they did, in the Council of Nicaea in 325, is decide what books they were going include in their Bible.  At the time there were many, many scriptures about Jesus. Many of them were written by women, many of them had an almost Buddhist philosophy, and all of them preserved Jesus' deeply spiritual message. 

Unfortunately, the editors at Nicea threw out all of those scriptures, and they kept the Book of Revelations.  We've been living in the "End Times" ever since.

[The End]