My quick notes on the Book of Revelation
The New Testament is the subject of the LDS Sunday School lessons for 2024. Currently the discussion is centered around the Book of Revelation. So lets mention some points to consider:
- the author of the Book of Revelation is not the same author as the Gospel of John. The Greek writing style and grammar in the Book vs Gospel are completely different. The Gospel author has great Greek grammar - the author of Revelation has horrible Greek grammar. The Gospel doesn't attribute itself to John, others did that much later.
- The author of Revelation calls himself John, but leaves no hints that he would be the same John (nothing like "...the son of Zebedee, the same who was with Christ") yada yada. If there was a historical John son of Zeb, he wouldn't be the author of either - he would've been an illiterate Aramaic-speaking fisherman. The Gospel has many Greek word-plays which do not make sense when written in Aramaic - meaning, the original Gospel author was extremely fluent and educated in Greek. (for example, using a wordplay allusion with the Sun [big sky fireball] and the Son [Christ] only work in English because the words sound the same, things like that, but in Greek) Even Dionysius in the 3rd century rejected the notion that they were one and the same author - this isn't a new concept...
- The Book is not meant as anything more than coded references to the persecution his particular followers (specifically his audience in the 7 churches in Asia, see 1:4) were facing right then and there.
- The author makes it abundantly clear these things he's writing about are imminent - for instance, see bookend verbiage in verses such as 1:1 "must soon take place", 1:3 "because the time is near", and at the end with 22:20 "I am coming soon". It would be preposterous to assume the author was referring to events that would take place after the lifetime of his actual intended audience (ie those people in the 7 churches in Asia living around 95 CE). What would that audience need with writings that would be intended for people living 2,000+ years in the future from them - when they're facing persecution NOW. It was intended (as all ancient apocalypses are) to give them hope now.
- the coded references the author of the Book are obviously pointing to Rome and Nero Caesar. Babylon originally persecuted the Jews and destroyed the temple. "Babylon" here (see 17:9) is Rome built on 7 mountains (Mons Capitolinus, Mons Quirinalis, Mons Viminalis, Mons Esquilinus, Mons Caelius, and Mons Aventinus). The "woman" is also Rome (17:18, 18:3, etc)
- 13:17 "the name...or the number of its name", 13:18 "...for it is the number of a man" (ie "mark of the beast") is most likely a reference to Nero Caesar. Some ancient manuscripts have 666 and some have 616. In Hebrew, all characters correspond to a number (gematria), and you add up the numbers of a word to get its numeric value. The Greek version of the name and title (Neron Caesar) when transliterated to Hebrew adds up to 666, and the Latin version (Nero Caesar) adds up to 616.
- As Tertullian (160-240 CE) stated in his Apology, Nero was: "the first emperor who dyed his sword in Christian blood, when our religion was but just arising at Rome". Despite Nero committing suicide, out of the collective horror among early Christians, a superstition arose that Nero wasn't dead, or if he was, he would somehow return.