The Big Reveal
October 22, 2023 6:11 PM Subscribe
An older New Yorker review of 'Revelations: Visions, Prophecy, and Politics in the Book of Revelation' (Viking) [waybackmachine]
"Revelation, far from being meant as a hallucinatory prophecy, is actually a coded account of events that were happening at the time John was writing. It’s essentially a political cartoon about the crisis in the Jesus movement" and goes on to draw parallels in Revelation and world events of those days.
"Revelation, far from being meant as a hallucinatory prophecy, is actually a coded account of events that were happening at the time John was writing. It’s essentially a political cartoon about the crisis in the Jesus movement" and goes on to draw parallels in Revelation and world events of those days.
I had thought there was another review about a book about Revelations in The New Yorker more recently within the past decade, but it doesn't goggle, so I must be mistaken?
posted by ovvl at 7:54 PM on October 22, 2023
posted by ovvl at 7:54 PM on October 22, 2023
The best book I ever read about Revelations was Good Omens.
posted by vverse23 at 8:25 PM on October 22, 2023 [11 favorites]
posted by vverse23 at 8:25 PM on October 22, 2023 [11 favorites]
If you’re going to quote from the Book of Revelation
Don’t keep calling it the Book of Revelations
There’s no “s”, it’s the Book of Revelation
As revealed to St John the Divine
See also Mary Hopkin
She must despair
You’ve got a shit arm, and that’s a bad tattoo
You’ve got a shit arm, and that’s a bad tattoo
Half Man Half Biscuit - "Shit Arm, Bad Tattoo"
posted by prismatic7 at 10:07 PM on October 22, 2023 [5 favorites]
Don’t keep calling it the Book of Revelations
There’s no “s”, it’s the Book of Revelation
As revealed to St John the Divine
See also Mary Hopkin
She must despair
You’ve got a shit arm, and that’s a bad tattoo
You’ve got a shit arm, and that’s a bad tattoo
Half Man Half Biscuit - "Shit Arm, Bad Tattoo"
posted by prismatic7 at 10:07 PM on October 22, 2023 [5 favorites]
Friedrich Engels identified the 666Beast as Nero, and his argument convinced me. After his murder, Nero, very popular amongst many peoples (e.g., non-Senators and the non-aristo class.) was thought to be on the verge of a great return [Wikipedia]. More info here [JSTOR, free registration] Not sure what Pagels makes of that; guess I'll have to read the book.
posted by CCBC at 10:16 PM on October 22, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by CCBC at 10:16 PM on October 22, 2023 [1 favorite]
Spoiler alert!
posted by fairmettle at 5:58 AM on October 23, 2023
posted by fairmettle at 5:58 AM on October 23, 2023
Excellent: Some patient academic of the future will, on seeing “Transformers 2,” doubtless find patterns of local topical meaning—portents of the Arab Spring in the fight over the pyramids, evidence of the debate over the future of the automobile industry, and a hundred other things. But people just like violent otherworldly stuff, and give it a lot of non-allegorical license to do its thing. The fact that a religious book has a code in it doesn’t mean that it doesn’t also have an aura around it. Spiritual texts are the original transformers; they take mundane descriptions of what’s going on and make them twelve feet tall and cosmic and able to knock down pyramids.
Excellenter: As an alternative revelation to John’s, she focusses on what must be the single most astonishing text of its time, the long feminist poem found at Nag Hammadi in 1945 and called “Thunder, Perfect Mind”—a poem so contemporary in feeling that one would swear it had been written by Ntozake Shange in a feminist collective in the nineteen-seventies, and then adapted as a Helen Reddy song.
Excellentest: When God finally gets tired of waiting it out and decides to end things, the back-and-forth between dragons and serpents and sea monsters and Jesus is less like a scouring of the stables than like a Giants-Patriots Super Bowl.
posted by chavenet at 6:33 AM on October 23, 2023 [1 favorite]
Excellenter: As an alternative revelation to John’s, she focusses on what must be the single most astonishing text of its time, the long feminist poem found at Nag Hammadi in 1945 and called “Thunder, Perfect Mind”—a poem so contemporary in feeling that one would swear it had been written by Ntozake Shange in a feminist collective in the nineteen-seventies, and then adapted as a Helen Reddy song.
Excellentest: When God finally gets tired of waiting it out and decides to end things, the back-and-forth between dragons and serpents and sea monsters and Jesus is less like a scouring of the stables than like a Giants-Patriots Super Bowl.
posted by chavenet at 6:33 AM on October 23, 2023 [1 favorite]
I went into this being highly skeptical of "here's a new take on the bible" since it gave me "The Bible Code" grifter vibes, but after reading the article, it does make the book sound compelling enough to add to my to-read list.
posted by AlSweigart at 7:57 AM on October 23, 2023 [2 favorites]
posted by AlSweigart at 7:57 AM on October 23, 2023 [2 favorites]
Some patient academic of the future will, on seeing “Transformers 2,” doubtless find patterns of local topical meaning—portents of the Arab Spring in the fight over the pyramids, evidence of the debate over the future of the automobile industry, and a hundred other things. But people just like violent otherworldly stuff, and give it a lot of non-allegorical license to do its thing.
What about Avengers: Endgame? Steve Rogers is worthy of wielding the weapon of a god; Tony Stark died for your sins.
posted by Halloween Jack at 9:05 AM on October 23, 2023 [1 favorite]
What about Avengers: Endgame? Steve Rogers is worthy of wielding the weapon of a god; Tony Stark died for your sins.
posted by Halloween Jack at 9:05 AM on October 23, 2023 [1 favorite]
I went into this being highly skeptical of "here's a new take on the bible" since it gave me "The Bible Code" grifter vibes, but after reading the article, it does make the book sound compelling enough to add to my to-read list.
Elaine Pagels is a very serious person! I would actually really recommend her other books, but most especially her memoir, "Why Religion? A Personal Story." (Among the revelations in this book, she was friends with Jerry Garcia.)
posted by kensington314 at 10:51 AM on October 23, 2023 [6 favorites]
Elaine Pagels is a very serious person! I would actually really recommend her other books, but most especially her memoir, "Why Religion? A Personal Story." (Among the revelations in this book, she was friends with Jerry Garcia.)
posted by kensington314 at 10:51 AM on October 23, 2023 [6 favorites]
I liked Elaine Pagels's books about The Gnostic Gospels and the Gospel of Thomas. Thoughtful and measured.
posted by newdaddy at 4:32 PM on October 23, 2023 [2 favorites]
posted by newdaddy at 4:32 PM on October 23, 2023 [2 favorites]
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What, you mean like Jesus was constipated?
posted by Greg_Ace at 7:32 PM on October 22, 2023 [2 favorites]