Reading the Bible again for the First Time

by Marcus J. Borg

  Lindsey then “decodes” much of the language of Revelation to refer to phenomena of our time. For example, he speculates that the opening of the sixth seal in Revelation 6.12–17 refers to a thermonuclear exchange. The “stars of the sky falling to earth” are orbiting nuclear bombs reentering the atmosphere. The sky vanishing “like a scroll rolling itself up” refers to what happens to the atmosphere in a nuclear explosion.

  When the sixth angel blows the sixth trumpet in Revelation 9.13–16 and unleashes an army from the east that numbers two hundred million, Lindsey deduces that the reference is to Communist China. Only China, he says, has a large enough population to put so huge an army in the field. So also he speculates that the giant locusts with tails like scorpions and wings that make a noise like many chariots (Rev. 9.7–10) may be a particular kind of attack helicopter.

  The ten-horned beast from the sea in Revelation 13 is central to Lindsey’s interpretation. Recognizing that it has some connection to Rome, he suggests that it refers to a revived Roman Empire composed of a ten-nation confederacy. This confederacy, he suggests, is the European Economic Community, whose membership was nearing ten nations when he wrote, and which was formed by the Treaty of Rome. The horn that received a mortal wound but recovered refers to a future ruler of the ten-nation confederacy who will also become the ruler of the world. Lindsey speaks of this person as “the future Führer” and claims that he is already alive, even though we do not yet know who he is.

  Thus, according to Lindsey, the time of “the rapture,” the final “tribulation,” the battle of Armageddon, the second coming of Christ, and the last judgment is near. The rapture is the notion that “true-believing Christians” will be taken up from the earth “to meet the Lord in the air” and thus be spared the intense suffering that will precede the end.17 That period of suffering is known as the “tribulation” and is signified in Revelation by the opening of the seven seals, the blowing of the seven trumpets, the pouring out of the seven bowls, all of them unleashing the destructive wrath of God upon the world. The tribulation comes to an end with the battle of Armageddon and the defeat of the armies of the beast by the returning warrior Christ.

  The futurist reading in its millennialist form has striking effects on the meaning of the Christian message. The gospel (if it can be called that in this context) becomes “the good news” that you can be saved from the soon-to-come wrath of God by believing strongly in Jesus. The focus is on saving yourself and those whom you love (and as many others as you can get to listen to you) from the fate that awaits most of humankind. The message also has striking effects on our attitude toward life on earth, including issues of social justice and the environment. If the world is going to end soon, why worry about improving conditions here? Why worry about preserving the environment? It’s all going to end soon anyway.

  Though Lindsey’s approach has attracted millions of Christians, many other Christians (and, I suspect, most readers of this book) find his reading of Revelation to be bizarre and perhaps even amusing. But the central claim of a futurist reading—that Revelation speaks about what will happen some time in the future—is shared by a broad spectrum of Christians, including many who reject a millennialist reading. The latter group of Christians are doubtful, however, that the images of Revelation can be decoded in a highly specific way. They see the book as speaking in vague, general terms about the end of the world and regard attempts to figure out whether we are living in the last days as misguided interpretations or even as manifestations of human pride. They are content to leave the future up to God, even as they affirm with varying degrees of conviction and in a general way that God will bring history to a conclusion consistent with the overall message of Revelation. Indeed, this has probably been the conventional and commonsense way of reading Revelation throughout most of Christian history: it tells us about the future, but we should not become too fascinated with it or too confident that we have discerned the meanings of its symbolic language.

  But if we think that Lindsey’s approach is farfetched at best, what is wrong with it? Is it simply that Lindsey has got the details wrong? That, in his enthusiasm, he has become too specific? Or does he perhaps simply have the timing wrong? Is it the case that Revelation does describe what will happen sometime, in however general a way, even if that time is hundreds or thousands or even millions of years in the future? Or is the futurist approach itself—not just Lindsey’s version of it—mistaken? These questions lead us to a second way of reading Revelation.

  The Past-Historical Interpretation

  The past-historical reading, which grows out of the belief that we understand the message of Revelation only by setting the text in the historical context in which it was written, emphasizes what Revelation would have meant in the past.18 In this reading, Revelation tells us what the author believed would happen in his time. This approach takes seriously that the visions of Revelation are found in a letter addressed to specific Christian communities in Asia Minor late in the first century. As such, the text was meant to be a message to them, not a message to people thousands of years later.

  The book itself indicates that John was thinking of his own time. Seven times in his prologue and epilogue, he tells his audience that he is writing about the near future. His first sentence begins, “The revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave him to show his servants what must soon take place.” Two verses later, he says, “Blessed is the one who reads aloud the words of the prophecy, and blessed are those who hear and who keep what is written in it; for the time is near.” In his epilogue, the emphasis upon nearness occurs five times. The italicized phrases above are repeated once each, and three times the author attributes to the risen Christ the words, “I am coming soon.” 19

  Christians in subsequent centuries have often sought to avoid the implications of “soon” and “near” by saying that God’s time is not our time. As the latest book in the New Testament puts it, “With the Lord, one day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like one day.”20* But the original hearers of Revelation would not have thought of hearing the language of “soon” with this qualification. It would not have occurred to them to think, “Maybe soon, maybe thousands of years from now.”

  In addition to John’s prologue and epilogue, there is also compelling evidence in the main body of the book that the author was writing about realities of his own day. This evidence is most visible in chapters thirteen and seventeen. In chapter thirteen, the ten-horned beast from the sea rules the world and demands worship, just as the Roman Empire ruled the world known to John. Its emperors were hailed as lord and god in temples honoring them throughout the empire. At the end of chapter thirteen, we are told that the “the beast” is a person whose “number is 666.” In antiquity, letters of the alphabet had numerical values, and the technique for encoding and decoding a name into a number was called gematria. Using the rules of gematria, the number 666 decodes into “Caesar Nero.”21

  That John intended to identify the beast of chapter thirteen with the Roman Empire of his day is confirmed in the vision of “the great whore” in chapter seventeen. This woman, dressed in royal attire, rides upon the beast of chapter thirteen, and her name is “Babylon the Great.” The Babylonian Empire had vanished some six hundred years earlier, so why would John name this creature Babylon? Historical context provides the answer: just as Babylon had destroyed Jerusalem and the temple in 586 BCE, so Rome had destroyed Jerusalem and the temple in 70 CE. In some Jewish and Christian circles, Babylon had become a symbolic name for Rome.22

  The identification of this woman whose name is Babylon with the Roman Empire is made complete by two more details in chapter seventeen. The woman is seated on “seven mountains”; from antiquity, Rome has been known as the city built on seven hills or mountains. The identification becomes explicit in the last verse of the chapter: “The woman you saw is the great city that rules over the kings of the earth.”23 In the first century, this could only have meant Rome. For John, the
beast and the person whose number was 666 were not figures of the future, but realities of his present.

  In addition to this evidence in the book, there is a further reason why the past-historical reading supplants the futurist reading. If John was in fact writing about events thousands of years in the future, then the communities to which he wrote had no chance whatsoever of understanding his letter. If the ten-horned beast is really the European Economic Community (or some other future empire), if the giant locusts are really attack helicopters (or symbolize some other future death-dealing machines), and if the army of two hundred million refers to some future army, then the message of Revelation had no significance for the people to whom it was addressed. Though John wrote the letter and apocalypse to a specific audience, its message could not have been intended for them.

  For all of these reasons, the past-historical reading of Revelation affirms that John was writing about realities of his time. Of course, John was also writing about the future, but it was a future that he expected to happen soon, not a future that is still future from our point in time. His message to the communities to which he was writing was a mixture of warning (especially in the letters in chapters two and three) and encouragement. About his message, I will soon say more. For now, I summarize it very compactly as threefold:

  Despite appearances to the contrary, Christ is Lord; Caesar and the beast are not.

  God will soon act to overthrow the rule of the beast and its incarnation in Caesar.

  Therefore, persevere, endure, be confident, take heart, have faith.

  The past-historical reading of Revelation has an important implication. To make the implication explicit: to the extent that Revelation is seen as foretelling the future, as prediction, it is mistaken prediction. What the author expected to happen soon did not happen. The Roman Empire continued for another three hundred years, more or less; and when it did fall, the events leading up to its collapse were not like those spoken of in John’s visions. Furthermore, Jesus did not return soon.

  In other words, the past-historical interpretation takes seriously that the Bible is a human product, not a divine product with a divine guarantee. It acknowledges that the Bible can be mistaken.

  This realization raises the question of what it means to take the Apocalypse of John seriously. Do we take it seriously if we project John’s symbols, visions, and end-times scenario from the first century to our time or some still-future time? Do we honor the message of the book by affirming that what it says will still come to pass? Which reading of the book—the futurist or the past-historical—takes the text more seriously? Ironically, though the millennialist reading claims to take Revelation very seriously indeed, it does not, because it ignores what John was saying to the people to whom he was writing.24

  The past-historical reading of Revelation also raises the question of what to think about the second coming of Jesus. Not just John of Patmos, but other early Christians as well, believed that it would be soon. The authors of Mark and Matthew, for example, refer to the imminent coming of “the Son of Man,” presumably referring to the second coming of Jesus. The gospel of John also refers to the imminent second coming, though it is not clear that the author accepts the notion literally. Passages in Paul point to the same expectation.

  Obviously, these early Christians were wrong. What are we to do with this? Do we say that they got the expectation right and that Jesus really will come again, but their timing was off? For a variety of reasons, I do not think that it makes sense to expect a visible future second coming of Christ. The belief can be understood metaphorically, however, as an affirmation that Jesus comes again and again in the lives of Christians: in the eucharist, in the celebration of Christmas each year, in the experience of the Spirit as the presence of Christ, and perhaps in other ways as well.25

  The Larger Themes

  But Revelation is more than mistaken prediction. The book has power.26 Its numinous language about God and Christ has been integrated into Christian worship, liturgy, and art. Its affirmation of another reality that transcends the visible world has been a source of inspiration, hope, and courage. Its archetypal imagery speaks to both the political and spiritual realms of life; indeed, it integrates rather than separates those realms.

  A Tale of Two Lordships

  John portrays the central conflict of the book of Revelation in a number of ways. One of the most important is the conflict between competing lordships: Christ’s and Caesar’s. Is Caesar lord, or is God as known in Jesus lord? John’s answer, of course, is clear. But to appreciate it fully, we must know the claims being made for Caesar.

  Ever since the emperor Augustus had brought the devastating civil wars that followed the assassination of Julius Caesar to an end, ushering in the Pax Romana (the peace of Rome) and a “golden age,” the emperors of Rome had been given divine titles. They were known as filius deus (son of god), dominus (lord), and even deus (god). Augustus was heralded as the savior who had brought peace on earth. As an inscription from 9 BCE in Asia Minor puts it:

  The most divine Caesar . . . we should consider equal to the Beginning of all things. . . . Whereas the Providence which has regulated our whole existence . . . has brought our life to the climax of perfection in giving to us the emperor Augustus . . . who being sent to us as a Savior, has put an end to war. . . . The birthday of the god Augustus has been for the whole world the beginning of good news (the Greek word is euaggelion, commonly translated “gospel”).27

  Throughout the empire, in temples of the imperial cult, worship was offered to the emperors. Such worship did not preclude the inhabitants from following their own religion as well. But it did have the effect of providing religious legitimation to the rule of Caesar and empire.

  Against this, John proclaims the exclusive lordship of God and “the Lamb”—that is, God as known in Jesus. John’s first description of Jesus speaks of him as “the faithful witness, the firstborn of the dead, and the ruler of the kings of the earth.”28 As “the faithful witness,” he is the Lamb that was slain, executed by the power of Rome. As “the firstborn of the dead,” he has been vindicated and exalted by God, disclosing Rome as a false pretender lord. Now he rules upon the throne with God and has become “the ruler of the kings of the earth.”

  Throughout the book, the honor and praise demanded by Caesar is offered to God and Jesus instead. Much of Revelation is doxology, and its hymns of praise have been a fountainhead for Christian hymn-writers ever since:

  Holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty.

  Worthy is the Lamb that was slain

  to receive power and wealth and wisdom

  and might and honor and glory and blessing.

  Blessing and glory and wisdom

  and thanksgiving and honor

  and power and might

  be to our God forever and ever.

  The kingdom of the world has

  become the kingdom of our Lord

  and of his Christ,

  and he will reign forever and ever.

  Hallelujah!

  For the Lord our God

  the Almighty reigns.29

  Jesus is Lord; Caesar is not. John shares this affirmation in common with the whole of the New Testament.

  The Ancient Cosmic Combat Myth

  Among the reasons for the power of the Apocalypse is John’s use of one of humankind’s most widespread archetypal stories: the ancient cosmic combat myth. John draws on that myth to continue the theme of two lordships and to deepen and amplify his indictment of empire.

  The cosmic combat myth appears in many cultures, ancient and modern, and it takes many forms.30 The archetypal plot is a story of cosmic conflict between good and evil. In the ancient world, the conflict was between a god (or gods) of light, order, and life against an evil power of darkness, disorder, and death. Commonly the evil power was imaged as a dragon or sea monster or primeval serpent.

  In the ancient Near East, the cosmic combat myth is found in one of the world’s oldest creati
on stories, the Enuma Elish. In that story, the god Marduk creates the world by slaying Tiamat, a seven-headed monster of chaos associated with the sea. In Babylon, that primordial battle was ritually reenacted each year.

  Traces of the ancient cosmic combat myth are found in the Hebrew Bible. According to Psalm 74, God “broke the heads of the dragons in the waters and crushed the heads of Leviathan.”31 Passages in Isaiah echo the myth: “On that day the LORD with his cruel and great and strong sword will punish Leviathan the fleeing serpent, Leviathan the twisting serpent, and will kill the dragon that is in the sea.”32 The book of Job refers several times to the dragon or sea monster, naming it Rahab and Leviathan.33

  In the New Testament, the cosmic combat myth lies behind one of the most central interpretations of the death and resurrection of Jesus. Often called the “Christus Victor” understanding of Good Friday and Easter, it portrays Jesus’ death and resurrection as the means whereby God defeated the principalities and powers that hold humankind in bondage.34 In the postbiblical Christian tradition, the cosmic combat myth is reflected in two of the most popular Christian icons: St. George slaying the dragon, and the archangel Michael warring with the dragon.