"Pagels then shows that Revelation, far from being meant as a hallucinatory prophecy, is actually a coded account of events that were happening at the time John was writing. It’s essentially a political cartoon about the crisis in the Jesus movement in the late first century, with Jerusalem fallen and the Temple destroyed and the Saviour, despite his promises, still not back." - Eivind from Bookmarklet

"What’s more original to Pagels’s book is the view that Revelation is essentially an anti-Christian polemic. That is, it was written by an expatriate follower of Jesus who wanted the movement to remain within an entirely Jewish context, as opposed to the “Christianity” just then being invented by St. Paul, who welcomed uncircumcised and trayf-eating Gentiles into the sect. At a time when no one quite called himself “Christian,” in the modern sense, John is prophesying what would happen if people did." - Eivind

"Pagels shows persuasively that the Jew/non-Jew argument over the future of the Jesus movement, the real subject of Revelation, was much fiercer than later Christianity wanted to admit. The first-century Jesus movement was torn apart between Paul’s mission to the Gentiles—who were allowed to follow Jesus without being circumcised or eating kosher—and the more strictly Jewish movement tended by Jesus’ brothers in Jerusalem." - Eivind

"Pagels’s essential point is convincing and instructive: there were revelations all over Asia Minor and the Holy Land; John’s was just one of many, and we should read it as such. How is it, then, that this strange one became canonic, while those other, to us more appealing ones had to be buried in the desert for safekeeping, lest they be destroyed as heretical? Revelation very nearly did not make the cut. In the early second century, a majority of bishops in Asia Minor voted to condemn the text as blasphemous. It was only in the three-sixties that the church council, under the control of the fiery Athanasius, inserted Revelation as the climax of the entire New Testament. As a belligerent controversialist himself, Pagels suggests, Athanasius liked its belligerently controversial qualities. “Athanasius reinterpreted John’s vision of cosmic war to apply to the battle that he himself fought for more than forty-five years—the battle to establish what he regarded as ‘orthodox Christianity’ against heresy,” she writes. John’s synagogue of Satan came to stand for all the Arians and other heretics who disagreed with Athanasius, and John’s take-no-prisoners tone was congenial to a bishop who intended to take no prisoners." - Eivind

"You can’t help feeling, along with Pagels, a pang that the Gnostic poems, so much more affecting in their mystical, pantheistic rapture, got interred while Revelation lives on. But you also have to wonder if there ever was a likely alternative. Don’t squishy doctrines of transformation through personal illumination always get marginalized in mass movements? As Stephen Batchelor has recently shown, the open-minded, non-authoritarian side of Buddhism, too, quickly succumbed to its theocratic side, gasping under the weight of those heavy statues. The histories of faiths are all essentially the same: a vague and ambiguous millennial doctrine preached by a charismatic founder, Marx or Jesus; mystical variants held by the first generations of followers; and a militant consensus put firmly in place by the power-achieving generation. Bakunin, like the Essenes, never really had a chance. The truth is that punitive, hysterical religions thrive, while soft, mystical ones must hide their scriptures somewhere in the hot sand." - Eivind

Interesting take on Revelations, much of which I agree with. The Jewish-Gentile divide was certainly central to the early Christian movement. One has to wonder if it would have ever gotten very far, however, if the first thing one had to do was to have your foreskin chopped off. Personally, I don't think so, - Friar Will

I tend to ignore Revelation altogether. And I don't argue with people who take it to heart. It reads like a fever dream. - MoTO #TeamMonique

I think the coded social commentary hypothesis is fascinating. As a history nerd I've always enjoyed that take on it and found it interesting to try to tie the different elements of the 'fever dream' to contemporary events :) - Eivind

It's also a bit of poetry. Interpreting poetry makes Barry's head go 'splodey. Interpreting it as straight prophecy (as if "prophecy" can ever be interpreted directly, anyway) is, IMHO, a colossal waste of time. I've never seen any use for this piece of scripture, other than for scaring people. - MoTO #TeamMonique

But there are some beautiful sections to it. Like this: REVELATION 21: 1 and following Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. And I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying: See, the home of God is among humankind, God will dwell among them as their God; and they will be God's people, and God will be with them, wiping every tear from their eyes. Death will be no more; mourning and crying and pain will be no more, for the former things have passed away. And the one who was seated on the throne said, "See, I am making all things new." And he also said, "Write down these words, for they are trustworthy and true." And then he said, "It is done! I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. To the thirsty I will give water from the spring of life as a gift. - Friar Will

The letters to the churches in chapters 2 and 3 are also useful - Friar Will

It's funny how the people who use it to scare people now are the people it was intended to scare. - Eivind

True - Friar Will

Coded social commentary was how the Jesuits explained the Book of Revelation to us in high school. With the same function as the modern day genre of science fiction/fantasy. A priest once told me Philip K Dick was the late 20th century's version of John of Patmos. - Victor Ganata

The priests at my high school, however, emphasized the anti-Roman sentiment more than the different paradigms of early Christianity. - Victor Ganata

That's not surprising, Victor. I think most of the churches are a bit uncomfortable with that early chaos. - Eivind

I have always liked what Mark Twain once said . . . something like . . ."It's not the parts of the Bible that I don't understand that trouble me. What troubles me are the parts of the Bible I do understand." - Friar Will

Ah, here it is in his own words: “It ain't those parts of the Bible that I can't understand that bother me, it is the parts that I do understand.” - Friar Will

I wouldn't be surprised that most sects end up talking more about the route that lead to their own idiosyncratic history. Orthodox Christians probably have a very different take on St. Paul and on John of Patmos compared to Roman Catholics and Protestants. - Victor Ganata

I always liked that one myself, Will :) - Eivind

Hocus Pocus Filiokus, Victor :) - Eivind

John of Patmos can be summarized as a dude who pissed off Roman authorities and got exiled to a desert isle, where he wrote a vituperative allegorical diatribe against the Roman establishment that was replete with Gnostic Christian imagery. Besides Philip K Dick, he also reminds me of Dante Alighieri. - Victor Ganata

I agree that Pagel's hypothesis about Revelation sounds interesting and convincing ; still I can't follow her in that she subsumes political movements under the label "faith". To do that is intellectually dishonest. - Maitani

Why? :) Back then the line between faith and politics was pretty thin, if not non-existent. Faith was one way of managing and manifesting what we label as politics, after all. - Pete #TeamMonique

Pete, doubtless movements such as Stalinism have acquired religious features, just because the methods of religious organisations are quite efficient in helping make the masses obey and keep them calm. But the starting point of such movements, and particularly political theories, don't satisfy the essential criteria of the concept "faith". - Maitani

I dunno, my whole undergraduate thesis was predicated on the opposite argument ;) I think if we conflate politics with 'reason' or such, we miss on some important points; one being that in Roman times (say) faith and politics walked together- faith animated people's political concerns and how they were expressed. John may have hated the Roman system, but a large part of that was down to his religious perspective ( I would say)- not some analysis of the socio-economics of the Augustan state :) - Pete #TeamMonique

I'm not saying political theories are "reasonable" per se. And faith and politics have always walked together, more or less in harmony, and you can express the one through the perspective of the other, all that is granted. But all this also says the two spheres are not identical, they are merely overlapping. - Maitani

I would not say 'merely' here. I would not want to see religion and politics conflated :) But, they often are. I don't think that recognising that is intellectual dishonesty, so much recognising that it is the way people actually behave. Politics as an activity and religion as an activity are two distinct things, yes, but at times and places have not been so distinct as perhaps we would like. When religion and politics meet you just get one instance of ideology. - Pete #TeamMonique

e.g. the Middle Ages. - Maitani

Crusading, for instance. - Pete #TeamMonique

The boundaries of politics and religion are very porous. I don't think the U.S. would have had to codify separation of church and state if they didn't naturally intersect. - Victor Ganata

Yes, it is, Glen. - Friar Will

They are, doubtless, Victor. - Maitani