The Book of Revelation : a biography

The Book of Revelation A biography

Timothy K. Beal, 1963-

Book - 2018

Few biblical books have been as revered and reviled as Revelation. Many hail it as the pinnacle of prophetic vision, the cornerstone of the biblical canon, and, for those with eyes to see, the key to understanding the past, present, and future. Others denounce it as the work of a disturbed individual whose horrific dreams of inhumane violence should never have been allowed into the Bible. Timothy Beal provides a concise cultural history of Revelation and the apocalyptic imaginations it has fueled. Taking readers from the book's composition amid the Christian persecutions of first-century Rome to its enduring influence today in popular culture, media, and visual art, Beal explores the often wildly contradictory lives of this sometimes h...orrifying, sometimes inspiring biblical vision. He shows how such figures as Augustine and Hildegard of Bingen made Revelation central to their own mystical worldviews, and how, thanks to the vivid works of art it inspired, the book remained popular even as it was denounced by later church leaders such as Martin Luther. Attributed to a mysterious prophet identified only as John, Revelation speaks with a voice unlike any other in the Bible. Beal demonstrates how the book is a multimedia constellation of stories and images that mutate and evolve as they take hold in new contexts, and how Revelation is reinvented in the hearts and minds of each new generation. This succinct book traces how Revelation continues to inspire new diagrams of history, new fantasies of rapture, and new nightmares of being left behind.

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Subjects
Bible. > Revelation > Criticism, interpretation, etc.
Published
Princeton, N.J. : Princeton University Press [2018]
Language
English
Main Author
Timothy K. Beal, 1963- (author)
Physical Description
xv, 265 pages : illustrations ; 20 cm
Bibliography
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN
9780691145839
  • Preface
  • Chapter 1. Introduction
  • Chapter 2. Pale Rider: Obscure Origins
  • Chapter 3. Apocalypse Not Now: Augustine's Tale of Two Cities
  • Chapter 4. Cry Out and Write: Hildegard's Apocalypse
  • Chapter 5. Mind's Eye: Joachim in the Forests of History
  • Chapter 6. September's Testament: Luther's Bible vs. Cranach's Revelation
  • Chapter 7. New World of Gods and Monsters: Othering Other Religions
  • Chapter 8. Heaven in a Garage: James Hampton's Throne Room
  • Chapter 9. Left Behind, Again: The Rise and Fall of Evangelical Rapture Horror Culture
  • Chapter 10. Post Script: Revelation Becomes Us
  • Further Reading
  • Acknowledgments
  • Notes
  • Index
Review by Choice Review

The Book of Revelation is a breathtaking book. Beal (Case Western Reserve Univ.) offers a fresh, creative approach to this strange final book of the New Testament. Writing as a biblical scholar, but from a cultural historical perspective, Beal argues that Revelation is not a book so much as a "multimedia constellation of images, stories and story-shaped images," as he writes in the introduction. These images and stories were used again and again in different cultural contexts to interpret the events of a particular time. The author chases the manifold manifestations of "Revelation thinking" through Christian history. He looks at familiar figures such as Augustine, Joachim of Fiore, Luther, and Cranach and continues on to contemporary times. The book includes a rich discussion of commentaries of critical studies of the Book of Revelation. The notes to references are equally rewarding, and they enable readers to pursue avenues of research as Beal did. In addition, the book is appealing in itself; it has the feel of an older, classic text that is an important possession. All in all, thus lucid book is full of rewards. Summing Up: Essential. Lower-division undergraduates through faculty and professionals; general readers. --Alan L. Kolp, Baldwin Wallace University

Copyright American Library Association, used with permission.
Review by Booklist Review

Though very dubious about Revelation, Luther ultimately included it in the first German Bible. Furthermore, he allowed Lucas Cranach to illustrate it with 21 plates that made the translation an even bigger hit, as finger smudges in extant copies attest. The visionary text's lurid imagery has always drawn inordinate attention to it at the same time that, because it's a tissue of symbols without referents, it has vexed scholars and theologians. In Beal's enlightening, engrossing, and entertaining history of the New Testament's finale, the chapters expand upon milestones. Besides Cranach's creepy pictures, those include the book's hazy origins and its influences on Augustine's thinking about resurrection in The City of God; the apocalyptic visions of Hildegard of Bingen; the depictions of non-Christian religions and religious rituals. There is also discussion of Revelation as a grand masterpiece of American folk art, and modern-day movies, TV shows, novels, and songs that are rooted in rapture theology. Before and after those chapters, Beal compellingly likens Revelation to Frankenstein as a font of monsters and horror that just won't run dry.--Ray Olson Copyright 2018 Booklist

From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Library Journal Review

The subtitle of this new work from Beal (Florence Harkness Professor of Religion, Case Western Reserve Univ.; The Rise and Fall of the Bible) hints at his approach to the very lively Book of Revelation. The author begins with the circumstances of the text's "birth," a collision between Hebrew and pagan imagery combined with an existential dilemma of Judaism and its small sect of Jesus followers against an aggressive empire. As Christianity moves from holding this book at arm's length to a full embrace, it attempts-in vain-to tame it. Partly because of crises that followed the first millennium and also owing to writers such as -Hildegard of Bingen who were able to exploit its imagery into illustration, Revelation hits its stride, as seen in the pictorial representations in the first edition of Martin Luther's New Testament. VERDICT Beal offers a compelling history that might leave readers wondering whether Revelation is an autobiography of our own making.-James Wetherbee, Wingate Univ. Libs., NC © Copyright 2018. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

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