bloody goats and such.

May 30, 2006 11:45 AM

revalationfilter: What happens in the book of revalations?

I'm thinking of writing a schlocky novel about religious fanatics who try to bring about the apocalypse, bring about the anti-christ, etc. What happens in the book of revelations and how might some of those things happen on earth? (like what would a religious nutter expect to actually happen) I don't want to read the whole "Left Behind" series, but Is there a general overview?

posted by delmoi to religion & philosophy (33 comments total)

I'd recommend reading it, if you're planning to write a novel about it. It's only about 25 pages--you should be able to get through it in one sitting. There's some fantastically trippy stuff, too, once you get past the letter-writing.
posted by EarBucket at 11:50 AM on May 30, 2006

(You should know, though, that the "Left Behind" books aren't based so much on Revelation as on a hodge-podge of stuff from that book, little bits of Daniel, Ezekiel, and several other books of the Bible, and some things that have been made up out of whole cloth over the years. The "rapture," for instance, doesn't appear in anywhere in the Bible. It's a late 19th-century invention.)
posted by EarBucket at 11:52 AM on May 30, 2006

Hoo boy.

There are at least 5 utterly incompatible narratives that interpret Revelations. Do not expect any of them to make much sense.

You might check out some of the rapture watch sites, or google around for the "ashes of the red heifer" and the tunnels that have been dug under the Temple Mount.

Maybe look at Apocamon.
posted by sonofsamiam at 11:53 AM on May 30, 2006

Well I want to know more about "revelation theology" I guess. There seems to be a lot of it. What does revelations look like to someone who actually believes it will happen in their lifetime?
posted by delmoi at 11:54 AM on May 30, 2006

Revelation (note: singular, not plural) is really not that long. You'd be better off starting with a decent text and commentary, and then a wee bit of reading on various eschatological traditions. The Wikipedia entry is not too bad in this regard.

Might I suggest that a historical novel (say, Apocalypse A.D. 1000) might tread a little less worn ground?
posted by holgate at 12:01 PM on May 30, 2006

You will probably find Slacktivist's page-by-page critique of Left Behind useful (especially this entry). The author of the critique is a believer, but not of the premillennial dispensationalist sort.
posted by wheat at 12:06 PM on May 30, 2006

Get Strong's Concordance so you can look up the root meanings of the words. The Ajax Bible, by MetaFilter's own walljim, is a KJV translation with built-in links to Strong's, Greek morphology, and Theopedia, a Christian wiki of theology created and maintained by MetaFilter's own aaronshaf. Theopedia is written from a Reformed (Calvinist) perspective, so look elsewhere for more evangelical interpretations. The Theopedia entry on the Book of Revelation is pretty sparse, but they will have plenty to say about the various doctrines, including the rapture, pre, post, and amillenialism.

Read Calvin's Institutes of the Christian Religion for his commentary on Revelation (a standard for Christians of the Calvinist persuasion - very prevalent in parts of the Midwest). You can get this online.

Get a good Bible with an included commentary (other than Calvin, obviously) that explains the context of much of what is written in Revelation. Keep in mind that Revelation deals with eschatology (see also Theopedia) - the three most prominent interpretations of Revelation's eschatology by Protestants, in descending order, are pre-millenialism, a-millenialism, and post-millenialism. Roman Catholicism, on the other hand, tends towards a-millenialism and pre-millenialism.

Christians throughout history have taken different approaches to the religion. It is wrong to lump Christians into a single group based on a few uneducated assumptions, so unless you are specifically targeting a certain group, such as Evangelical Baptists, be careful about making generalizations.

It is also worth noting the historical context in which Revelation was written - the persecution by Nero had occured, Israel had been destroyed by Rome, things did not look to good for Christians (who were considered an illegal Jewish cult until Constantine).
posted by tweak at 12:06 PM on May 30, 2006

Please listen to tweak. If you want to write a schlocky novel about religious beliefs it's good to know a little something about the religion first.
posted by schroedinger at 12:09 PM on May 30, 2006

The cliff notes version can be found under christian eschatology, which will give you the context needed to grok what the xtians think of the second coming, end of the world, etc.
posted by skallas at 12:21 PM on May 30, 2006

tweak's second paragraph is actually a quick summation of Revelation, from one perspective. The thought is that it was written about the contemporary trials and tribulations of Christians during the reign of Nero and was not necessarily prophetic. It was written in code, however, to avoid the scrutiny of Roman authorities.
posted by Doohickie at 12:27 PM on May 30, 2006

Please listen to tweak. If you want to write a schlocky novel about religious beliefs it's good to know a little something about the religion first.

Which is why I asked the question.

Christians throughout history have taken different approaches to the religion. It is wrong to lump Christians into a single group based on a few uneducated assumptions, so unless you are specifically targeting a certain group, such as Evangelical Baptists, be careful about making generalizations.

In the book the bad guys are pat-Robertson jerry Falwell 'megachurch' types, who are basically subverting religion in order to consolidate global power. In order to do that they basically try to play out revelations, etc in order to convince people to join their cult, in order to bring out 1000 years of rule with whoever they appoint as "jesus" to run things.

The heroes of the book foil their plots with SCIENCE. Anyway that’s the premise and mostly I just need to figure out what should happen in the plot, and of course the "bad guys" have their own "plot", the motions that they want people to think the world is going through.
posted by delmoi at 12:30 PM on May 30, 2006

If you want to make money, write it from the dispensational pretrib premillenial viewpoint. If you want to be accurate I recommend either historical premillenial or amillenial.

To properly understand Revelation at all you would need to be very familiar with Biblical imagery all throughout the entire Bible.
posted by konolia at 12:40 PM on May 30, 2006

Oh, and to answer your question? God sends judgements on the earth, there is a huge earthquake, a great white throne judgement, and then a new heaven and a new earth. As to engineering happenings, your average pretrib christian believes they'll be long gone before all the action starts.
posted by konolia at 12:42 PM on May 30, 2006

Just read it.
posted by agregoli at 12:56 PM on May 30, 2006

Most of Revelations is thinly-veiled anti-Rome propaganda written by early Christain scribes ca. 200 AD who were then living in an Israel subjugated by a pagan Rome. The message is "Keep the faith. God will smite the dragon with 7 heads, etc." where at that time Rome was the city of 7 hills. Unfortunately Revelations leaves much room for reinterpretation and is a favorite among apocalyptic cults.
posted by StarForce5 at 1:37 PM on May 30, 2006

Also, concordances and commentaries as I mentioned before are helpful for context - there is a lot of intertextual dialogue between the various books of the Bible - prophecies being made, and then later fulfilled, common themes and symbolic imagery (Christ archetype, idea of cleansing/purification, covenant based religion, 'enlightenment').

The books of Micah, Jeremiah, Isiah, Ezekiel, Hosea, Daniel, all deal with Hebrew prophecy. It is an incredible part of antiquity's literary tradition although it is today often overlooked in favor of Nostradamus or some idiot fiction writer like Dan Brown. I look at it as intertextual debate withn great, historically and culturally significant literature; Christians call it the divine word of God, but either way, there is a foundation to be found for understanding Revelation within those Old Testament books. Again, good commentaries will refer you back to connected verses in other books, and that is why I recommend them wholeheartedly.

These themes and images are incredibly powerful for Christians, and since I bought into it to some extent as a child, I can sympathize even with 'evangelical fundamentalists' who are drawn to these metaphors, they are foundational to Western culture. Try to put yourself in their shoes as you think about your story, and get as much background and context as possible, it may lead you to some valuable and interesting insights.

There is so much to be said about this, but my favorite bit of wisdom from the Good Book, among others, is the idea of the narrow, difficult path being the way to salvation - take the broad, easy road and you run the risk of simply being a Da Vinci Code parody.

Read Job and Ecclesiastes as well, it is a better introduction at least from a Christian perspective of Jewish thought. A lot of the Bible seems to contradict itself, but I don't see it that way, I think the Bible is, at it's core, far more Eastern and non-dualistic than most Western theologians think. It's a gestalt feeling I have, but I think there is no point in trying to rationally defend concepts like the Trinity or the resurrection. I don't mean that in a postmodern way, I just think that people who try to explain those things as such are missing the point.

Good luck.
posted by tweak at 1:56 PM on May 30, 2006

Well, given your premise, you are probably going to want to research the dispensational premillienialist point of view. That's basically the Left Behind-type scenario. Despite their prominence in the U.S., the southern U.S. in particular, that viewpoint is definitely in the minority among Christianity. In fact, the movement is fairly young - go back a century or so and you won't find much of anyone offering such an interpretation of the Revelation.

So do bear in mind that a person using your scheme would have a hard time taking over the world. They'd take over a lot of influencial people in the United States, which is certainly a good stepping stone for the world, but the Catholics, Greek/Orthodox Russians, most Presbyterians, Methodists, Anglicans, Episcopals, etc, would shrug the whole thing off, as they think the events preceeding chapter 20 of the Revelation have already happened in some form or another.

Which isn't to say that a return of Christ isn't expected by the rest of Christiandom. It is, and any person who claims to believe Christianity and doesn't at leat accept something along the lines of the Nicene Creed would be considered a heretic by most churches, but they just aren't expecting seven headed beasts and locusts with men's heads and the whore of babylon and all that.
posted by mragreeable at 2:13 PM on May 30, 2006

In the book the bad guys are pat-Robertson jerry Falwell 'megachurch' types, who are basically subverting religion in order to consolidate global power. In order to do that they basically try to play out revelations, etc in order to convince people to join their cult, in order to bring out 1000 years of rule with whoever they appoint as "jesus" to run things.

Aside from the 'megachurch' stuff, this is a good description of the bad guys from Preacher.
posted by jtron at 2:27 PM on May 30, 2006

Read Calvin's Institutes of the Christian Religion for his commentary on Revelation (a standard for Christians of the Calvinist persuasion - very prevalent in parts of the Midwest). You can get this online.

Are you sure? I could be wrong, but I seem to remember that Calvin didn't do a commentary on Revelation, because he didn't feel it was of much everyday use to Christians. Unlike your LaHayes and Jenkinses, he thought it was one of the least important parts of the book, not the most important.
posted by EarBucket at 3:26 PM on May 30, 2006

EarBucket, yeah, you are right. There is a huge body of literature on post-millenialism, however, and all the credit is given to the foundation Calvin laid. But it's been about 6 years since I've actually studied about it or cared. Memory fails me.
posted by tweak at 3:36 PM on May 30, 2006

What happens in the book of revalations?

Well, it's not good. There is this one bit about these four horsemen (Death, War, Famine, and... Pollution? Something like that), then things go a bit sideways, i think there is a river of blood...

Wasn't there something about frogs?

i think the anti-Christ shows up at one point.

Basically, we're screwed.

[book of Revalations as learned by bad horror movies :]
posted by quin at 5:28 PM on May 30, 2006

Good pub-trivia questions: how many times is the Antichrist mentioned in Revelation? He isn't.

How many times did Jesus refer to the Antichrist? He didn't.

In how many verses of the Bible is the Antichrist discussed? Four.
posted by Hogshead at 6:53 PM on May 30, 2006

How many antichrists did Nostradamus predict? Three. Napoleon and Hitler were supposedly one and two. Personally, it pays to be anywhere other than Europe, since it seems the great amalgamation of evil really only cares about destroying Europe.
posted by Atreides at 7:36 PM on May 30, 2006

By the way, I just want to stress again that Christians, as a group, are rather diverse in general. Don't make the ignorant mistake of lumping them all together. Heck, someone mentioned Baptists earlier, and I thought it not suitable. Having attended a Southern Baptist church for the past six months, neither revelations nor the rapture were ever brought up in the sermons. I would point towards those folks the Pentacostals (where many women only wear skirts and rarely cut their hair).
posted by Atreides at 7:41 PM on May 30, 2006

These paintings (scroll down) might help.
posted by tomharpel at 8:15 PM on May 30, 2006

This movie might help.
posted by deborah at 9:08 PM on May 30, 2006

This song might help. Probably not, though. :)
posted by pinespree at 9:42 PM on May 30, 2006

If anyone is still reading this "Premillennial dispensationalism" is definetly what I want to know more about. If it's any consolation, the Premillennial dispensationalists are the bad guys in the novel.
posted by delmoi at 2:18 AM on May 31, 2006

If you can find them, you should watch these movies. Not only are they gloriously cheesy, but they'll give you a fairly literal portrayal of what most PDs believe the apocalypse will look like.
posted by EarBucket at 4:33 AM on May 31, 2006

For good reading into someone else's similar work, read Heinlein's "Job, a Comedy of Justice". Highly recommended, one of his last works, and very good. I read somewhere that he and his wife hoped to go out in a "mutual disaster". I always thought that book was their attempt to score a lynching for themselves.
posted by Goofyy at 4:53 AM on May 31, 2006

"Last night I plugged into the internet and went looking for revelation..."

(An MP3 of Will Self reading his introduction to Cannongate's recent publication of Revelations.)
posted by verisimilitude at 12:50 PM on May 31, 2006 [1 favorite]

Here's a Slate explanation of the basis for Jerry Falwell's belief that "the Antichrist is "probably" alive and, as a "full-grown counterfeit of Christ," is without a doubt a Jewish male."

The writer of that article wrote a book on the topic of the impending Rapture, apparently.
posted by ibmcginty at 6:22 AM on June 1, 2006

dunno if you're still interested, delmoi, but here's a class on the topic (iTunes link).
posted by ibmcginty at 10:12 PM on June 8, 2006