QuakerInfo.com Forum

[cowgirl]

I have a few questions about this book of the bible.

I am finding in the area that I live in that there is a disinterest (I'm not sure if that is the right word) in this book. I know that quakers tend to revere the gospel of John and if they believe that the same John wrote Revelation why wouldn't Revelation be just as widely read and discussed amongst it's members? Do you think it is because Revelation is such a difficult book to understand. In general do quakers believe this book to be literal or symbolic? I would like to get a quaker viewpoint on the Rapture (pre tribulation, mid tribulation, post tribulation). Do quakers believe that this book is prophetic and the events are yet to happen? I have read other books about Revelation but I would like to read one written by a quaker author. Does anyone here know of such a book and can you give me the title. Thanks

[wsamuel]

I don't know of any Quaker books on Revelation. It was quoted fairly frequently by early Friends, who generally took it symbolically. Quakers got the concept of the Lamb's War, a war fought with spiritual not outward weapons, from Revelation.
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Bill Samuel, Webservant, QuakerInfo.com

[fastmail98]

An interesting book to read on the Bible in general that has a section on Revelation in particular is Marcus Borg's 'Reading the Bible Again for the First Time'. The Book of Revelation, whiole written in a symbolic style, was written for the contemprary Christian community of the writer's time...not for ours and not as a prophecy. If it is read as political and social criticism of the Roman Empire, it then makes sense. Certainly the writer could not come out and openly declare his work to be a diatribe against Rome, but there are enough symbolic pointers that, if seen in this light, give the reader the general idea. The war between the Kingdom of God and the Kingdom of Evil is actually a war between the Kingdom of God and the Roman Empire of the day.

[simon]

I'd recommend a look at Isaac Pennington's "Babylon the Great". My personal belief is that Revelation speaks to the internal and the external , not neccesarily just the Roman Empire (they weren't the first and are certainly not the last) but the whole notion of mans Empire building without God as the foundation and its consequences, spiritual and physical.

I take issue at the above statement that Revelation was not intended as prophecy as it is clearly stated as such in the first Chapter, verse 3.

[Pulpculture]

Most of what is in Revelation wasn't even discussed by Jesus when he was alive let alone written down. I also think it has been so twisted in the following few hundred years after Jesus's death that it probably doesn't bear any relation to anything anyway! What's important to me is Jesus's messages and the love he preached. Nothing else

For me it's about finding the real Jesus in the Bible. The Bible has been rehashed by manipulators for hundreds of years after Jesus's death. Jesus talked about a God of love and compassion. Revelation is anything but and thus (to me was either written by others in the name of someone else or simply twisted out of all proportion!) Revelation was twisted by Rome to instill fear into people – something Jesus never needed to do himself!
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I said don't forget Burma!

[fastmail98]

I think that Popculture has made a good point. Much of what we have in the New Testament was written many years after the death of Christ including The Revelation of John. Attributed to John of Patmos, an island in Asia Minor, it is thought to have been written in 95 CE. As the name of the book indicates, it is a 'revelation', a vision that has been written for the Christian community of his day. John writes of what he had seen and makes references to what he 'saw' throughout the book. I interpret the writing as more of a description of a vision and less that of a prophecy...more of 'this is what God has revealed to me' and less of 'this is what God is going to do'. From what I understand, this book has not always been a popular piece and not always included in certain Bible versions. It may be the final book in certain versions of the Bible, but it certainly wasn't the last written gospel. Because we are reading it outside of its historical context, outside of the time that it was written and for whom it was written, it is sometimes read and understood in a literal sense. This would move the book toward the understanding of it as being a prophesy. If it is read as being written for the far-flung Christian communities in the last years of the first century, some 60 years after the execution of Christ, and at a time when Roman repression and resistance to that repression was ever growing, then the book takes on a different import. Like all of the books in New Testament, I feel they were written specifically for the Christian communities of their day and need to be read with that in mind.

[simon]

A good place to start would be a definition of what we mean by spirit and spirituality.

**edit**
Ok thats a bit of a cop-out
I personally believe that spirit and spirituality pertains to the eternal aspect of our beings. It is our relationship with God
Prophecy extends from this eternal aspect of our beings. I understand that Revelation skips through time like a faulty DVD. I do believe it reveals workings beyond normal comprehension. The book of Revelation ends with the battle being won. As the battle is clearly not won, I believe it still has a lot to say.

Personally.

Peace

[Pulpculture]

[simon]

In all honestly, and call me dumb, ignorant...call me what you will. What entirely did you mean when you wrote "put this piece in its rightful place"?

I acknowledge I may well be missing your point.

[CelticNorth]

I have to go with the argument of it being relevant to the Roman Period. Christians were being persecuted at that time by Rome because their religious claims were in conflict with the divine claims of the Roman Emporer, Christians also being understood to be a mere Jewish version of the worshipers of Attica, and Mithras- the favoite of the Roman Legions. It indicates certain communities within Judism were becoming Hellenized, and were no longer dependent on the religious model of ancient Isreal- a very profound dynamic. Rome, by eliminating a geo-political Israel, folding the territory into the Roman Empire and dispersing Jewish communities, essentially made the conditions nessessary for Christianity to happen. Christianity did not spring out of Israel- it sprang out of dispersed Hellenized Jewish communities searching for a new freedom and expression distinct from the past.

[Laurence17]

A tremendously interesting quaker book which exemplifies the 'Quaker method' of sharing and reflection between different approaches / Quaker traditions is :-

The Second Coming a Quaker reflection :--

By Douglas Gwy, Ben Pink Dandelion and another (whose name excpaes me at the mo'--and I can 't put my hdand on the tome ! But he is that Woddbrooke tutor who is / was an RC priest. )

I found it revelatory--- in more ways than one. Coming from a Plymouth Brethren childhood and teens background, via Anglo-Catholicism, I was very surprised to find a Quaker work devoted to the second coming.
BTW The fourth gospel has always felt strangely compelling to me, and still does even with its advanced christology. I have tended to read the Revelation however, when confined to bed with the 'flu. The reading of it benefits from high tempratures, de;irium and feeling rather spaces-out (I found ) !
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Abwoon : divine progenitor, breathing mindfulness through poor in spirit and the resonating realm of ruach

[Cel]

I usually have a complete opposite view from the people I discuss this book of the bible with. I for one believe it. People speak of Jesus explaining a loving God. One of compassion. That is true. HOWEVER, the things leveled against the world in Revelation are not towards good people. But those who are left behind after Jesus raptures his church.
True some of them will probably become believers during the time. But then how long did they have? It was all placed there for them to know and they refused it. So to me they deserve it. It is like telling someone if you drink this it will kill you. And then telling them but if you drink this you won't die. And them choosing to drink the one that will kill them. Out of their own stupidity and defiance they chose the one that would kill them. Just as in the book of Revelation it is about those who were given the words of God and the Truth yet ignored it and CHOSE to go against him.
The way I see it is thus. At the end of the world God will have given humanity countless years to come to him. Given them signs, miracles, even his only Son. Yet some of them will still ignore him. Those people will then be done with as God pleases.

[LloydLee]

fastmail98: "It may be the final book in certain versions of the Bible, but it certainly wasn't the last written gospel."

Important to realize, in the context of this discussion, that it is not a gospel at all, but apocalypse - a very different genre. Apocalyptic literature, including the Apocalypse of John (often called the Revelation of [Jesus to] John), along with Daniel and parts of Mark, are apocalyptic: written to encourage persons persecuted for their religious beliefs to stand fast and have hope in the future. It is not really prophecy (yet another genre), but encouragement in the form of veiled social and political critique, as has already been suggested by earlier posters.

It is not at all clear that the John of the Apocalypse is the Fourth Evangelist or the author of the Johaninne epistles: see http://www.dabar.org/RHCharles/Revelation/intro-II.htm for a literary comparison leading to the conclusion that they were different people, though perhaps in the same "school". Also, the Fourth Gospel is generally non-apocalyptic (eternal life is available right now, in the present moment), while the Apocalypse focuses on future rewards.

--llw

[CelticNorth]

The Apocalypse as genre is one of the topics included in one of the courses offered by The Teaching Compnay (www.Teach12.Com), entitled "Lost Christianities: Christian Schriptures and the Battles over Authentication" by Bart Ehrman from Chapel Hill. Revelation and Prophecy are two threads of a literary style that are to often misunderstood by modern fundamentalists. That last post was informative.