Becoming a Reader
Sources: Karl Barth, "The Strange New World of the Bible," in The World of God and the Word of Man (Harper, 1957); Willis Barnstone, ed., The Other Bible: Ancient Alternative Scriptures (HarperCollins, 1984); Bart Ehrman, The New Testament: A Historical Introduction to the Early Christian Writings, 3d ed. (Oxford, 2004); I. Howard Marshall et al., Exploring the New Testament: A Guide to the Letters and Revelation (IVP, 2002), chapter 21; John O'Keefe and R.R. Reno, Sanctified Vision: An Introduction to Early Christian Interpretation of the Bible (Johns Hopkins, 2005).
Reading: Rev 1:3.
The World of a Text
It is one thing to read, but another thing to be a reader.
Reading is not just a technique but a skill and ultimately a form of wisdom.
The frustration and exhilaration of reading owe to the demands it makes on us.
This course is not just a backgrounder on the New Testament or Christian thinking, but a pilgrimmage through the New Testament to the Kingdom of God.
An exercise in close reading of Rev 1.
The Family of a Text: Genre
Genre is the literary class of a text whose conventions structure it and guide its right interpretation ("knock knock").
Genre is like the (unwritten) legend of a map.
Family resemblances can be direct inheritance or indirect, shared heritage.
Revelation's ancestors:
- Uncles and aunts: 1 Enoch (<175 BC), Sibylline Oracles (~150 BC onward).
Parents: Ezekiel 1, Daniel 7-9, and Rev's other echoes.
- Revelation's kindred (siblings? cousins?):
- Other apocalyptic texts of the New Testament (e.g., Mark 13), 4 Ezra (2 Esdras 3-14, see e.g. 11:1-12:39), Apocalypse of Peter (>100 AD), Shepherd of Hermas (e.g., Fourth Vision), Ascension of Isaiah.
- Revelation's heirs:
- Children (nieces and nephews?): Apocalypse of Paul, Apocalypse of Thomas.
Second cousins: (Gnostic?) Christian Sibyllines, (Gnostic) Book of Thomas the Contender.
Grandchildren:
Divine Comedy, etc. (and us as well?).
- The Goal of a Text: Occasion and Audience
People write for specific reasons and motivations.
- Since they are often implied, critics want to know or correctly infer the occasion and purpose of a writing.
Clues: Rev 1:3, 1:9a, 2:5-7+2:10-11+2:16-17+2:24-26+3:3:3-5+3:11-12+3:18-21, etc.
- People write to specific or 'implied' audiences.
- Rev is unusual for apocalyptic literature in being addressed to seven specific churches in Asia Minor (1:4, 1:11, 1:20, 2:1-3:22).
Like Deut 27-32, Rev 2-3 gives these audiences moral directions and warnings,
backing them with the depictions that follow (Johnson, 585).
(Is this distinct quality a function of Rev's Christian character and context?)
- Yet texts exceed these occasions and audiences, sometimes intentionally.
- The moral thrust of 2-3 is as universally applicable as the apocalyptic scenarios that follow.
So Rev focuses apocalyptic prophecy on specific circumstances of apostolic churches, yet with an expansive view beyond (7:9-17).
- This overflow is fundamental to the character of Holy Scripture.
- The Bible is the Bible of the one, whole, universal, original Church of Jesus Christ.
- So Christians today read Rev as in some sense to and for us too (e.g., my "Laodicia, U.S.A." chapel talk).
Becoming a reader of the Bible thus demands and confers wisdom regarding scripture's character, role, senses, and use.
(So: What constitutes moral failure for us, in light of what it means for original audiences?)
