Revelation Explained

Revelation symbolism is not a code with a single key. Every image in the last book of the Bible comes from somewhere older. The readers John wrote for recognised the borrowing. These articles take the book piece by piece. Each vision meant something to a first-century church living under Rome, and something else to every century since.

Structure comes first. The seven seals open the drama. Over a world already breaking, the seven trumpets sound. The seven bowls of wrath finish it. Out of the first four seals ride the four horsemen. The letters to the seven churches name the congregations John wrote for.

Then the figures. The beast comes entirely out of Daniel. The variant reading 616 has as much manuscript weight behind it as the famous number. Babylon is a city with a real address. Readers have taken the woman clothed with the sun for Mary, for Israel and for the church itself.

The end of the book is not destruction but a city. The New Jerusalem comes down finished, with no temple in it. For the whole apocalypse read straight through, with commentary beside the text, see The Book of Revelation.