Revelation before Advent 17+18: the fall of Babylon (and Rome)

This is the twelfth of a series of blog posts on the book of Revelation. There's an introduction to the series. Previous reading: ch 15+16, seven bowls, seven plagues. Where I quote from the Bible, it's generally the New Revised Standard Version unless I say otherwise. The numbering covers the chapters of the book, not the days of the reading. 

Two more chapters tonight, closely linked. Chapters 17 and 18 tell of the fall of Babylon, the great city, centre of economic and military power. Throughout these chapters, the great city is named as Babylon, and this refers back to the warning of the destruction of Babylon by one of the angels in ch 14, and the brief account of Babylon's fall in ch 16 at the culmination of the bowls of plagues. However, it is very clear that Babylon sits in for Rome throughout - there are plenty of hints that John is talking about Rome, and of course in John's day it was Rome that was the great centre of economic and military power. The historical Babylon (the site of great empires for centuries) was a shadow of its former self in John's time.

This symbolic Babylon appears, in the way that many cities and countries are portrayed, as a woman. But not in a flattering image - she is called a "great whore ... with whom the kings of the earth have committed fornication" and "mother of whores and of earth's abominations". Robed in purple and scarlet, she holds a "golden cup full of abominations and the impurities of her fornication", and she is drunk with the blood of the saints and martyrs. A horrible image.

Image: Hans Burkgmair, 1523, woodcut for Luther's Bible translation (via Wikipedia)

I wrote at some length in my post on chapter 14 about the double misogyny of that piece (with its virgin saints). Although this text shows an extremely unflattering and sexualised image of a woman (albeit as a metaphorical city), it feels a little less misogynist to me - the focus is on the city rather than a woman as such. Nonetheless, it's certainly unflattering, and ties into sexist stereotypes of woman's dangerous sexuality. And the phrase "scarlet woman" has been used for centuries to describe promiscuous women and prostitutes, often in a harsh and judgemental way - so even if the passage wasn't original misogynist, its effect has been.

Interestingly, the Protestant Reformers took the passage as a criticism of the papacy, and the Westminster Confession of the 1660s referred to the Pope as an antichrist, a link that continued to be made in the 1970s and 80s by the Northern Irish extremist preacher Ian Paisley to refer to Pope John Paul II (whom he called a "scarlet woman"), to great offence. I remember well the debates in the Church of Scotland in the 1980s as to whether those verses should be excised from the Westminster Confession, which caused surprising controversy (they eventually were).

Babylon-the-woman is seated upon a scarlet beast, the same beast as we've seen earlier (its seven heads and ten horns are mentioned), which is described as "was, and is not, and is about to ascend from the bottomless pit". There's a clear link back here both to the description of God at the start of the book as he who "was, and is, and is to come", and to the ascension and second coming of Jesus.

John is mystified so gets a little bit of instruction, mostly relating to the beast - the seven heads are seven kings, and the beast is "an eighth but it belongs to the seven". My friend the Oxford Bible Commentary reckons this as a reference to the emperor Nero, persecutor of Christians, of whom there was a strange legend that he hadn't died but had fled east and would return to rule Rome again at the right time. There's also some interpretation on the waters on which the whore is seated - the historical Babylon was at the confluence of great rivers, but Rome wasn't, so John needs to metaphorise these waters into being all peoples and nations.

So having met the woman and the beast, we hear from three angels about the fall of the great city. An entire chapter is given to poetry and song about its fall. Although the city is called she, and there are occasional references to her fornication, this is somewhat more realistic - it's about the city as such, not the symbolic. The city/woman has committed fornication with the kings of the earth, we're told. Given that it's described as a seat of power and wealth, this turns rapidly into a political and economic critique rather than a moral one.

The first angel tells us that Babylon is fallen, "a dwelling-place of demons, a haunt of every foul spirit" and that "the merchants of the earth have grown rich from the power of her luxury". This introduces the economic critique of the city.

The second angel (or voice from heaven) takes up the bulk of the chapter. First we hear a warning to God's people to come out of the city, due to her sins; we're told that just as she lived luxuriously, she will receive plagues of pestilence, mourning, famine and fire in a single day. This is more of a call to dissociation with the powers of the earth than to physically leaving a city - John's audience were in Asia not Rome, albeit under the authority of Rome.

After this warning, we're told of the mourning of various groups following the fall of Babylon. Each mourns its loss having happened in one hour. There are the kings of the earth, who had bent to the city's will, and cry for her loss (but ultimately for their own loss of power). Then there are the merchants of the earth, who weep for their economic loss - there are great lists of the cargo which nobody will buy any more, from gold and jewels to spices and oils and animals - and ultimately "slaves and human lives". Lastly we see shipmasters and sailors mourning, again for the loss of their wealth.

For once, I like this chapter! It seems to offer not just a moral or religious critique as other chapters of Revelation, but rather a political, military and economic critique. It's closer to the real heart of Old Testament prophecy than much of Revelation. The link is to the great city, whether Babylon or Rome, but through that to the systems of power which create oppression and inequality, enriching some but impoverishing many. The kings and merchants and shipowners mourn, but we need not. Nor is this is a critique of a single city - in our own day, we might choose to read New York or London or Tokyo or Dubai for Babylon, but it applies to all the places and people who consort and accommodate with the powerful in those places. Economic misery and inequality may begin in the great cities, but it is made possible because people in many other places allow it to happen and collude in it because they think they can have a part of it.

Pleasingly, the chapter ends with a genuine and heart-felt lament (after a reminder to the saints and prophets to rejoice). Another angel throws a big stone in the sea and tells us of all the things no longer to be found in Babylon - the sound of harpists and minstrels, the work of artisans, the light of a lamp, the voice of a bridegroom and bride. It's rather tender (and, music fans, it's one of the texts used by William Walton in describing the fall of Babylon, mostly otherwise from the book of Daniel, in his great work Belshazzar's Feast). But lest we feel too sorry for the city's loss, we're reminded at the end that the city's merchants were the magnates of the earth, and that the blood of all the prophets and saints can be attributed to the city.

That ended up as a long discussion of the fall of Babylon! If I had my way, chapter 18 with its political and economic critique would be better known than chapter 17 with its scarlet woman. But I suppose that hardly satisfies the elites of the past and present days...

Next reading: ch 19, Hallelujah, and a white horse

Revelation before Advent 15+16: seven bowls, seven plagues

This is the eleventh of a series of blog posts on the book of Revelation. There's an introduction to the series. Previous reading: ch 14, many more angels, warnings & harvests. Where I quote from the Bible, it's generally the New Revised Standard Version unless I say otherwise. The numbering covers the chapters of the book, not the days of the reading.

Tonight (chapters 15 and 16) we have another set of seven angels, with another set of woes for the earth. First comes the good news: that these are the last set of plagues, "for with them the wrath of God is ended". Phew!

Before we get to the angels, we have a happy vision of those who conquered the beast and its number - which I guess means those who resisted it, probably to their considerable suffering. They're happily standing in a big gathering (this time we don't get a number) beside a sea of glass mixed with fire, singing a song about how great & just are God's ways, with the little note that "who will not fear and glorify your name ... all nations will come and worship before you". (For once I can't put a tune to this song in great music, though parts of it have influenced a hymn or three.)

Well, all nations may do so in the times to come. But from the actions of the angels, it seems that they're still stuck in the worship of the beast. The contrast of those in heaven and on earth couldn't be greater. Because here's what follows the song: seven angels come out of the temple and are given "seven golden bowls full of the wrath of God" by one of the four living creatures, and nobody could enter the temple until the seven plagues were ended.

Image: Brick Testament

So off go the angels, to pour out their bowls, to cause great suffering on earth. Let's just list them briefly, because it's the same kind of story as with the seven trumpets & seven seals. First bowl: painful sores on those who had the mark of the beast; second bowl: the sea turned to blood and everything in it died; third bowl: all the rivers turned to blood. (Two brief notes on the rivers: this isn't, thankfully, the source for Enoch Powell's disgusting 'rivers of blood' speech, which is a reference to Virgil's Aeneid; and the text here says it's due to the people of earth shedding the blood of the saints and prophets.)

Carrying on. Fourth bowl: the sun becomes super-hot and scorches people; fifth bowl: poured on to the throne of the beast, causing darkness and pain to those in his kingdom; sixth bowl: the river Euphrates is dried up, preparing the way for 'the kings from the east'. This is followed by foul spirits like frogs coming from the mouths of the two beasts and the dragon, to prepare the kings of the world for battle. They assemble at a place with a well known name: Harmagedon in the NRSV (that is, the mountain of Meggido), a crossing point in Israel where various battles had taken place, and known in later texts as Armageddon. The battle of the end of the world comes near.

Just to confuse matters about timing, John inserts in brackets the saying of Jesus about the one who comes like a thief, and warns people to stay awake and clothed (though curiously he has it in the first person, whereas Jesus' parable in both Matthew and Luke is in the third person). We must be ready at all times for that day of battle, it seems - presumably John is speaking to the people of his own time not to the time of the story.

And then one more angel, who simply pours his bowl into the air, with a voice from heaven saying "it is done". Plagues over? Well, not quite - first we have a massive earthquake ("such as had not occurred since people were upon the earth"), which splits Babylon into three parts, and is accompanied with hailstones weighing 100 pounds each. As the Oxford Bible Commentary observes, this isn't the first time we've seen the end of Babylon in this book - it's been warned upon, destroyed once already, and we get a big destruction scene in the next chapter.

What is there to be said about all this destruction? It feels like a revenge fantasy - God will destroy the bad folks of the earth in increasingly violent ways, because they've failed to follow him - and it's pretty unappealing. The Brick Testament page whose image I use above describes this scene as "God Tortures Remaining Humans at Length", which is about accurate. But surely no loving God would do such a thing to his people, to those made in his image, however they'd behaved?

These scenes seem to belong to the tribal God of Israel, who supported them in their wars, but which they moved on from - it's binary 'us and them' thinking. Given the importance of Revelation to Christian imaginations throughout history, this is quite a worrying set of images and scenes. Except, except: it's back to the reminder that this is apocalyptic literature, written by (and to) people in great distress and suffering. Their power to inflict that suffering on others was minimal, but they could dream about it. It's the power that the bullied child has, of imagining their bully coming to a terrible end. The trouble is when the people in distress get the power to inflict that suffering upon others.

If Revelation is read as a symbolic foreshadowing of God's future actions, that's one thing (and bad enough). It's catastrophic if it's read by those in powerful places as a justification for their actions. That's why the obsession of certain American evangelicals with the book is so worrying - because of the strength of American military might, and the very clear reality that the US is no sort of persecuted victim. God grant that this book never give strength to that view.

Next reading: ch 17+18, the fall of Babylon (and Rome)

Revelation before Advent 14: many more angels, warnings & harvests

This is the tenth of a series of blog posts on the book of Revelation. There's an introduction to the series. Previous reading: ch 12+13, the woman, the dragon and the beasts. Where I quote from the Bible, it's generally the New Revised Standard Version unless I say otherwise. The numbering covers the chapters of the book, not the days of the reading. 

Warnings and reapings this time, making chapter 14 one that's mostly ominous rather than violent (except at the end). First, we meet the Lamb again, standing on Mount Zion (Jerusalem). Accompanying him, though simultaneously standing before the throne, are a huge entourage - 144,000 in all, marked with the name of God and the Lamb. This is the same number as the faithful from all tribes of Israel, who were sealed and marked in chapter 7, though it's a little unclear whether these are the same group. These 144,000 have been "redeemed from humankind" and "are blameless". We see them later supported the Lamb in warfare.

There's a peculiarity about this group though, which has made lots of readers of this passage very uncomfortable: they are described (v4) as those "who have not defiled themselves with women, for they are virgins". Read literally, this implies that the 144,000 are all male, and all virgins. It also shows a pretty unpleasant attitude to women. What do we do with this double misogyny? On this occasion, unlike with most of this series, I've been reading around websites and commentaries. Some commentators try to explain it away - even the more literal readers of Revelation often metaphorise this verse. Others suggest that it can be read in terms of an army of God, under the model of Jewish (male) soldiers who were required to keep celibate prior to battle, as sex caused ritual impurity; others still suggest that it is a literary allusion to the Book of Enoch and the sexual relations between fallen (male) angels and human females. Daniel Olson wrote an excellent academic paper on these different interpretations (probably needs a university library login for access, sorry). Olson also contrasts various explicitly feminist views of the passage - some reject it completely as sexism, others have a more positive line. In particular, the brilliant Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza in her book on Revelation interprets the passage in terms of "cultic purity" and looks positively for its "visionary rhetoric" in the cause of social justice, which she says requires a reading above the detail of this particular verse.

Anyway, enough scholarship on this questionable verse. Let's leave the 144,000 and look to the angels who now coming flying into view. There are six this time. The first three are giving advice. Angel 1 is proclaiming a gospel to all nations, that they should fear God, give him glory, and worship him. Angel 2 declares that Babylon the great has fallen (presumably an allusion to all cities, though we get another bit of misogyny and sexual reference in saying that "she has made all nations drink of the wine of the wrath of her fornication").

Angel 3 has a longer speech against those who worship the beast and who receive its mark - they will "drink the wine of God's wrath, poured unmixed into the cup of his anger". Another wine reference, and more to come at the end of the chapter. John comments that this is a "call for the endurance of the saints" - an encouragement to the faithful of his day. Fair enough in terms of the context of the book - as I've said on previous days, encouraging endurance in the face of persecution is one of the main features of Revelation - but in terms of the story, pretty hard going. In the previous chapter, we were told that anyone refusing to worship the beast would be killed, and that anyone refusing his mark couldn't buy or sell goods. So damned if you do and damned if you don't - pretty literally. Tough stuff.

We get another interlude from John who hears a pair of voices from heaven, one identified as the Spirit, telling him that those who die 'in the Lord' are henceforth blessed, and will rest from their labours. Clearly part of the encouragement theme as well. Returning to the musical settings of this book, this verse is the basis of the final movement of Brahms' German Requiem, Selig sing die toten (blessed are the dead).

Image: The Brick Testament

After the encouragement, back to the action. Now we see the Son of Man seated on a cloud, except that instead of just looking majestic, he's holding a huge sickle in his hand. Angel 4 tells him to use the sickle to reap, "because the harvest of the earth is fully ripe". So his swings his sickle and the earth is reaped. Judgement & harvest have all sorts of links in the New Testament, but this particular version seems a bit brutal, and we're not told of its effects. (In passing: is this the only time we see the Son of Man being given a command by an angel? An interesting glimpse into heavenly governance structures.)

Angel 5 has his own sickle, comes out of heaven with it, and receives instructions from a different angel, "who has authority over fire" (not sure this is Angel 4 who commanded the Son of Man), to use the sickle to "gather the clusters of the vine of the earth, for its grapes are ripe". So the various wine imagery of this chapter come to full flavour - and presumably the vintage of the earth refers to the selection between the good and the bad, in a form of judgement.

Except we're not quite finished with wine. Because the grapes gone into the wine press of the wrath of God, which is trodden out of the city. And does fine wine flow from it? No. Blood flows from it, and a great deal of it. Now, wine and blood are thoroughly mixed in Christian symbolism of the Last Supper, but I don't think that's the point here - rather a gory form of judgement. Turn the face away to something more cheerful in the next chapter (fat chance) except for another musical link: "Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord; he is trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored". Yes, this passage is the source of the beginning of the Battle Hymn of the Republic, that rather wonderful song of the American Civil War. Sing it loud!

Next reading: ch 15+16, seven bowls, seven plagues 

Revelation before Advent 12+13: the woman, the dragon and the beasts

This is the ninth of a series of blog posts on the book of Revelation. There's an introduction to the series. Previous reading: ch 10+11, eating his words. Where I quote from the Bible, it's generally the New Revised Standard Version unless I say otherwise. The numbering covers the chapters of the book, not the days of the reading. 

Tonight, reading chapters 12+13, we have an interesting (which is to say, profoundly odd and disturbing) cast of characters. First there's a pair both described as portents, but hostile to each other. On the one hand, there's a woman who is 'clothed with the sun, with the moon beneath her feet' and is in the process of giving birth. On the other, a huge red dragon with seven heads and ten horns (as ever these grotesqueries are symbolic) who just by way of introduction destroys a third of the stars with his tail. Meanwhile the woman gives birth to a son who we're told is to rule all the nations, the dragon tries to eat the baby but it is snatched away by God; the woman in turn flees to be kept safe.

And then we have the 'war in heaven' - an evocative name that is given great detail in works such as Paradise Lost and more recently Philip Pullman's The Amber Spyglass; but here only gets three verses. The dragon & his angels fight against an army of the archangel Michael & his angels. Michael's side wins, the dragon & his angels are cast down to earth. The dragon is now referred to as the Devil or Satan. We get another song proclaiming God's victory, through the blood of the Lamb and the testimony of the faithful in the face of their accuser (Satan = accuser or adversary in Hebrew). The song ends with on a chilling note, that the devil has come down to earth with great wrath, and 'woe to the earth and the sea'. Oops.

Image: The Fall of the Rebel Angels by Pieter Bruegel the Elder,
Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium, via Google Art Project / Wikipedia

Back on earth, we see the dragon/Satan pursuing the woman who'd given birth. There's a dramatic scene where she flees from him on wings and gets sanctuary in the wilderness; the dragon tries to overcome her with water but the earth swallows up the water; and she's kept safe for the same three and a half years (described twice in this chapter in different ways) that we've seen earlier. The dragon is furious and goes off to wage war on humanity, described as the rest of the woman's children.

A word on the woman and the baby before moving on. It's hard to be sure of anything in this book, but there's something very Christ-like about this account: the baby is born to rule the nations, but is under threat from the devil and both he and his mother are rescued by God in different ways. It's like a symbolic poem of Jesus' life. How it fits with the earlier talk of the Son of Man and the victory of the sacrificed Lamb is hard to say, but then time works differently in this book - call it a flashback or interlude or something.

Back to the dragon. We see him next by the sea, from which a great beast is rising, complete with the same ten horns and seven heads as the dragon, a chimeric mixture of leopard, bear and lion. The dragon gives over its power and authority to the beast. The people of the earth like the beast, they follow it and worship the dragon (this is going to end badly for them). The beast spends its time 'uttering haughty and blasphemous words', and has authority for 42 months (still another description of our friend the three-and-a-half years). It has authority over everyone in the world, and the only people who don't worship are the faithful ones. This beast appears quite strongly to be some kind of symbol for a tyrant, an ugly and vicious ruler. We all know the sort from history, and plenty of countries have candidates for the next holder of the post. Presumably in John's day the reader would think of Roman emperors, now we might think of others who utter haughty and blasphemous words.

After the account of this beast John turns to camera and offers a direct moral message to the reader: endure in the face of hardship, accept being taken captive or even killed. Constantly we see hints at this message. The seven churches to whom John is writing are under huge pressures and persecutions. If there's a single message from the whole it's this: stand firm, have faith, you're on God's side, and eventually you will prevail.

Back to the beast, and from the earth we get another beast arising, speaking like a dragon and with two horns like a lamb. This is another very famous character in popular imagination around Revelation. This beast derives its authority from the first beast, and through all sorts of images and wiles forces the people of the earth to worship the first beast. It also requires all people to receive a mark on their bodies to be allowed to buy or sell anything. Lastly we're told that the beast has a number, and "let anyone with understanding calculate the number of the beast, for it is the number of a person" - that number is 666.

Image: The number of the beast is 666 by William Blake,
Rosenbach Museum and Library, Philadelphia
(via William Blake Archive / Wikipedia)

To say that this beast, with its mark and famous number, has captured people's imaginations, is to put it mildly. Even outside of the extreme religious esoterica, the mark of the beast and the number 666 have fascinated people. What is its mark? What does the number mean? Various numerologies have been applied to the number; there's good evidence that it may originally have referred to the emperor Nero, but it has subsequently been applied to any number of religious or political leaders who the authors disliked, such as the pope at the time of the Reformation. John's heavy-handed hint to the reader does rather suggest a contemporary reading such as Nero or one of his successors, but the mystery has led to much speculation. Less said about the mark of the beast (linked to all sorts of identity systems by the paranoid), the better.

From this rather dizzying cast of characters I'm left with a strong feeling of the resonances John was seeking among his own people (persecuted Christians) in his own time (100 AD or so). To interpret it as a future prophecy seems rather ridiculous, but it sits well as a vivid and symbolic statement of his own time - and one with messages for our own times of danger.

Next reading: ch 14, many more angels, warnings & harvests 

Revelation before Advent 10+11: eating his words

This is the eighth of a series of blog posts on the book of Revelation. There's an introduction to the series. Previous reading: ch 8+9, angels, trumpets & disasters. Where I quote from the Bible, it's generally the New Revised Standard Version unless I say otherwise. The numbering covers the chapters of the book, not the days of the reading. 

Quite a lot of different elements in chapters 10+11. Chapter 10 and the first half of chapter 11 are described in the Oxford Bible Commentary as an interlude. The scene shifts from catastrophes on earth back to John and his prophetic role.

First, he sees another mighty angel, vividly described as wrapped in a cloud with a face like the sun and legs like pillars of fire, standing with one foot on the sea and one on the land, roaring with the sound of seven thunders; there is a message in these thunders but John is not permitted to reveal it. There's something rather primeval about this latest angel. However the angel has something else about it: it is holding a scroll, and a voice from heaven tells John to take the scroll.

Image: Latin Bible (1150-1200), Bibliothèque nationale de France,
Département des manuscrits, Latin 16744 (via The Peanut Gallery)

He's not to read it however: rather, he is to eat it, which he duly does. The scroll tastes like honey but leaves a bitter feeling in his stomach. It's not entirely clear (and a bit contested by scholars), but there's a good chance that the scroll is the same one that the Lamb held and opened the seven seals. And having received the message of the scroll, John is told to prophesy. This idea of eating the message, bodily taking it into yourself to gain knowledge, is one is also found in the experience of Ezekiel. It's not so very far from the way Adam and Even gained knowledge of good and evil in Genesis, or the way Christians still receive Christ into their bodies. Incarnation sometimes demands a physical experience of knowledge.

John was told to prophesy, and so he does. He recounts a tale of times to come which will be expanded upon in later chapters - of the witness of the church and of two prophets who in turn will come and give a testimony to the people of the earth for three and a half years (a time which recalls the complex three and a half years timing in Daniel), who cannot be harmed, and who will be given power to strike the earth with plagues. Again this motif of power used violently, even by those sent by God. But the prophets will be killed by a beast from the bottomless pit (we'll meet that beast again) and will lie on the street of the great city.

But after three and a half days the prophets will be brought back to life and will ascend to heaven on a cloud. This isn't equated with Christ, but the parallels are very close. The people are terrified. And then, in case we're not worried enough, just relaxing a bit, John slips in a happy note of "the second woe has passed, the third woe is coming soon".

And then finally the seventh angel blows his trumpet. And we get... singing and praising. Familiar words, that "The kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Messiah and he will reign for ever and ever" - the basis of the most famous part of Handel's Messiah, the Hallelujah Chorus. It's a good reminder, that in the midst of all this torment and violence and prophesying, we get praise to God. 

But of course it doesn't last. No moment of tranquility ever does in this tumultuous book. Because in the very last verse of chapter 11, God's temple is opened in heaven, the ark of the covenant (the great place of God's presence) is seen in the temple, and there are all sorts of portents. Much more destruction to come in the forthcoming chapters. The end of the world is nigh ... possibly.

Next reading: ch 12+13, the woman, the dragon and the beasts

Revelation before Advent 8+9: angels, trumpets & disasters

This is the seventh of a series of blog posts on the book of Revelation. There's an introduction to the series. Previous reading: ch 7, marking the righteous souls. Where I quote from the Bible, it's generally the New Revised Standard Version unless I say otherwise. The numbering covers the chapters of the book, not the days of the reading. 

 I was out yesterday evening & wrote most of this last night, but didn't get around to posting it. Two chapters, 8 and 9, to consider, but they sit very well together.

Yesterday I sang Mozart's Requiem with the Open University Choir. Much beauty, and the 'lux perpertua' of the ending stays with me. But these two chapters fit better with the Dies Irae - 'day of wrath, that day will dissolve the earth in ashes'. And that's pretty much the story of chapters 8 & 9.

In chapter 6, we saw six of the seals on the great scroll opened. Now the Lamb opens the seventh seal, and all hell breaks loose - quite literally. First there's a nice part about the prayers of the faithful being burnt on the altar like incense. Then seven angels are given seven trumpets, six blow them in turn, and dreadful things happen on the earth.

The key number this time, is one-third. Each time one-third of the earth is harmed following the angel's trumpet.

There is hail and fire which burns a third of the earth; there is a mountain of fire in the sea, which turns it to blood and kills a third of sea-creatures and ships; there is a star falling from heaven which turns the waters bitter and kill people; the sun and moon and stars are struck and lose a third of their light. That makes four angels+trumpets, and only then an eagle cries "woe, woe, woe".

Next trumpet has a falling star which opens up a bottomless pit out of which locust-like creatures (described in loving and rather horrid detail) appear, ruled by one called Abaddon (destruction) and which torture the inhabitants of the earth for five months. And the sixth trumpet releases four more angels with 200 million soliders and horses whose firey & sulphurous breath kills a third of humanity.

Lovely stuff. As a coda we're told that the remainder of the human race doesn't take a blind bit of notice, but carries on as before with idolatry & immorality.

I can think of little positive to say out of this torrent of woes & destruction. Except to repeat my mantra for these readings: apocalyptic literature is a cry from the oppressed. Sometimes that cry comes out as a shout for justice, sometimes as a violent roar. Psalm 137 infamously ends with the line, addressed to the people of Babylon who took the Israelites into captivity and exile: "Happy shall be those who take your little ones and dash them against the rock". I cannot accept such attitudes as the voice or the will of God. Nor can I justify them as human actions. But I can understand why human beings in awful situations form such attitudes and want to call God on their side for the only kind of revenge they can see possible.

Next reading: ch 10+11, eating his words

Revelation before Advent 7: marking the righteous souls

This is the sixth of a series of blog posts on the book of Revelation. There's an introduction to the series. Previous reading: ch 6, six seals and four horsemen. Where I quote from the Bible, it's generally the New Revised Standard Version unless I say otherwise. The numbering covers the chapters of the book, not the days of the reading. 

First tonight, two addenda to previous readings. (I could modify those entries but I'm writing this on a daily basis in a semi-journal way, and I see from the stats that at least some people are reading it, so I'd rather leave the entries as they are.)

When writing about chapter 5, I said that I knew no musical setting of the final song, by all the peoples of the earth and heavens. Well I still don't (though some must exist), but I did come across another setting of "worthy is the Lamb" text that is the culmination of Messiah - in German, it's also used as a text at the end of movement 6 of Brahms' Deutsches Requieum: "Herr, du bist würdig" (Lord, you are worthy).

And after I wrote last night about the blotting out of the sun and moon in chapter 6, I read today the end of a novel about the fall of Constantinople in 1453 (Master of Shadows by Neil Oliver). One of the final events before the culmination of the seige by the Ottoman Turks was the disappearance of the moon, as a result of a volcanic eruption at Kuwae in Vanuatu (in the Pacific Ocean) in 1452 or 1453, which had big consequences throughout the world. The moon was a symbol of Constantinople, so its disappearance was taken by the people of the city as an omen. Not so different from the account in Revelation.

On to chapter 7. Here we see the righteous souls being marked out so that they will not be harmed by the coming terrors. The angels who had been given power to damage the earth are told to wait. Then a rather specific number of people are 'sealed' with a mark of protection on their foreheads - 144,000 made up of 12,000 from each of the twelve tribes of Israel. Each tribe is named in turn with their 12,000 sealed people, in a style reminiscent of the endless lists in the early books of the Old Testament. The number is symbolic of course - twelve tribes, twelve thousand people, a square of twelves; but that hasn't stopped countless numbers of commentators agonising over who is included. There are entire sects devoted to counting themselves into this number.

And this despite the following verse which lists a 'great multitude' who are also apparently to be made safe from the coming troubles, who we are later told are those who suffered in the great ordeal (the various persecutions inflicted upon believers). A brief glance at the NIV study bible notes that I have on my phone Bible app tells me that there are no fewer than three schools of thought as to when Christians will be affected by this 'tribulation' and whether they'll be safe in heaven before it happens or not.

I'm quite impatient with this kind of literal reading of Revelation. We must all read scripture in ways that are appropriate for us, under the guidance of the Spirit, but it seems pretty clear to me that to read it as a direct foretelling of the future is pretty inadequate. The book has always preoccupied Christians, because of its scale and implications both for individuals and for humanity as a whole; but American evangelicals have created some really bizarre ideas from the book, such as the idea of the rapture and a prediction movement to figure out when the end times are coming. This could be harmless, except that it has a big hold on the imagination of some Christians, and is said in some cases even to influence their actions to bring about the end-times. Given that the incoming American government is likely to have some of this kind of rightwing evangelical in their number (though Trump is not especially religious himself), that seems rather worrying...

It also raises the question: what of those who are not marked out for protection? Are they not worth considering? How does this fit with a God of love? Because bad things are coming to the unprotected.

All that said: the poetry and imagery in the book is stunning in places. The latter half of this chapter was the daily lectionary reading for All Saints Days (1st Nov) this year. I heard it on the daily Pray-as-you-go podcast, and subsequently used it as opening devotions at a church meeting two days later. It talks of the souls of those who have died, their worship of God, and that they hunger or thirst no more. I think it provides a huge degree of comfort to people in grief or remembering back on loved ones who have died. The question of the literalism is irrelevant to this comfort.

Image: Caitlin Trussel

One more phrase to mention: the people robed in white are said to have 'washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb'. I've heard the phrase 'washed in the blood of the Lamb' on and off through evangelical sources. It's always seemed to me rather distasteful, a bit ghoulish. It's become attached to the theology of substitutionary atonement which I find brutal and unpleasant and quite out of keeping with a God of love, but it's good to see its scriptural basis - here in Revelation it could mean many things, and many theologies.

There were two more songs in this chapter, but the first similar to the phrase songs we've heard. The second, of comfort and calm for those in white, is repeated again in chapter 21, and I might look at it then.

So let us leave the righteous souls in their place of safety and comfort. For there is worse to come for the rest of the world in the next chapter.

Next reading: ch 8+9, angels, trumpets & disasters