Apocalyptic Intertextuality

A fair bit of scholarship has been devoted recently to exploring the uses of Scripture in Revelation. This can have different focal points and effects on the reading. I am relying on Steve Moyise’s contribution to Hays and Alkier’s Revelation and the Politics of Apocalyptic Interpretation.

In his commentary, GB Caird highlighted the “rebirth of images” (Austin Farrer’s phase) that occurs in John’s use of Old Testament sources. Revelation 5:5-6 is the paradigm case: John hears that the lion of Judah has come, but what he sees is a Lamb. As Caird puts it, “Wherever the Old Testament speaks of the victory of the Messiah or the overthrow of the enemies of God, we are to remember that the gospel recognizes no other way of achieving these ends than the way of the cross” (35). Thus, the harvest scene of Revelation 14 is a vision of the rescue of the saints, and the blood is the blood of martyrs not the enemies. “John,” Caird writes, “has achieved [a] rebirth of images, and has found a way of telling his friends of Christ, who turned the Cross to victory and the four horsemen into angels of grace” and thus “can transform even the shambles of martyrdom into a glorious harvest-home” (quoted Moyise, 35).

Gregory Beale’s commentary on Revelation is one of the massive recent efforts to trace out the Old Testament roots of Revelation. Where Caird sees a transformation of images, Beale sees a distinction between the first and second coming of Christ. He is both Lion and Lamb, not a Lion who has become a Lamb, nor exactly a composite, but in two phases of his work.

Richard Bauckham likewise concludes that “John does not mean simply to set aside Israel’s hopes for eschatological triumph: in the Lamb and his followers these hopes are both fulfilled and transformed. The Lamb really does conquer, though not by force of arms, and his followers really do share his victory, though not by violence” (quoted in Moyise, 39).

As is evident from these discussions, assessments of the presence of the Old Testament are bound up with assessments of Revelation’s view of violence. What’s at stake in these discussions is not only hermeneutics, but, as the book title indicates, the politics implied by hermeneutical judgments.