Revelation: What Kind of Book Is This?
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What kind of book is Revelation? I suggest in Revelation’s Rhapsody that the book of Revelation blends three genres and that these three were quite familiar to John’s readers (see pp. 67ff.). Specifically, the book is a Christian apocalyptic-prophetic-circular letter. John’s audience would have known “how†to read or listen to these genres that had been brought together in the same book for the first time. What we need to do is use the same principles that the original recipients would have used in deciphering the message given to John.
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Bob,
Very clear, concise and significant. I have tried to scrap entirely the use of the word “literal” in describing the exegetical process. It is shorthand for all kinds of presuppositions about the truthfulness of the text, which generally don’t take the text into account. In a non-symbolic age, most people are too lazy to investigate the depth of nuance that symbol provided both to the ancient authors and the ancient audience. It is a shame that so many think that bland, literalistic “left-behind-ism” could ever offer anything more profound than the depth, color and spatial palate that John (and Jesus, and Paul) actually paint from,
Bob