5 - The temporal dimension of the Book of Revelation

Summary

Introduction

In this chapter I attempt to illustrate that the text offers a view of reality which is irreducibly temporal, without giving a chronological account of history. My aim is to show how John seeks to set the present experience of his readers within ultimate temporal horizons in order to provide a deeper understanding of reality, while at the same time focusing on the present situation of the communities to which he writes.

In chapter 4 I used a heavily modified version of a method adopted by Elizabeth Struthers Malbon in her analysis of the Gospel of Mark. By categorizing the spatial references in the text into groupings relating to ancient conceptions of the arrangement of the cosmos, I sought to map out the development of the spatial dimension of the text. I discussed at length how the text uses spatial categories to establish in 2:1–4:11 a dissonance between the way things appear to be on earth and the way things really are in the cosmos created by God. In 5:1ff., with the appearance of the Lamb, a long process begins in which this dissonance is intensified and finally resolved, in 21:1ff., in the vision of the New Jerusalem, where spatial distinctions between heaven and earth are removed, transforming the cosmos. I also commented that the New Jerusalem operates not only as a point of resolution but also as a starting point, from which the readers of the text must work as they face once again the present reality portrayed in the earlier visions.