Book of RevelationApocalyptic

Book of RevelationWhat do we have?

Revelation or Revelations?

Visions and/or compositions

Reading perspectives

Genre

“A literary genre consists of a group of texts that exhibit a coherent and

recurring pattern of features constituted by the interrelated elements of form, content, and

function”(Aune, lxxi).

Revelation as Genre

Letter Formal framework Possibly functioned to be read in worship Mostly deemed of little interpretive importance

Prophecy Distinction from apocalyptic fuzzy

Call and vision report Threat and benevolence Conditional rather than deterministic

Revelation as Apocalyptic

Insights and definitions from class

Apocalypsedefinition

Apocalypse is a genre of revelatory literature with a narrative framework, in which a

revelation is mediated by an otherworldly being to a human recipient, disclosing a transcendent

reality which is both temporal, insofar as it envisages eschatological salvation, and spatial,

insofar as it involves another, supernatural world .

(Semeia 14 [1979] 9; Apocalypse, 4)

Apocalypse form

First person prose narrativeEpisodic structureRevelatory visions

Often mediated by supernatural revealer

Reached a literary climaxFramed by a narrative offering an

explanation of surrounding circumstances

Apocalypsecontent

Transcendent, eschatological perspective

Apocalypsefunction

Legitimate the authorization of message

Encourage the readers to pursue or modify their thinking and behavior in conformity with transcendent perspectives.

Literary Form of Vision Section

Seven Seals, Seven Trumpets, Seven Bowls ( 4-16)

Two Paired Angelic Revelations frame a middle section (17-22:9)

Structure

Seals 1-6

1. Sealing of 144,000

Seventh Seal

Trumpets 1-6

2. Angel with little Scroll

Structure

The Two Witnesses

The seventh Trumpet

The woman, child and dragon

The beasts from the sea and the land

Several visions

Structure