The Book of Revelation is not only the last book in the Bible. It was also one of the last books to have gained full acceptance into the New Testament canon of Scripture. Interestingly, controversy about Revelation arose starting around the 3rd century, despite its general acceptance in the 2nd century. Hesitancy about the book was largely due to various difficulties readers had in trying to understand what the author, named John, was trying to teach.
Back when I was in high school, I managed to read the entire New Testament cover-to-cover over several days…. EXCEPT for the Book of Revelation.
Frankly, I could not make sense of it. I gave up on it, until I picked it back up again in briefly in college, and more intensely years later in seminary. Over the years since then, I have learned that I was not alone with my initial confusion about the book.
Even the great conservative stalwart Protestant of the 16th century, Martin Luther, had his own doubts about the very inspiration of the Book of Revelation, as Bart Ehrman tells us, saying that Luther “can in nothing detect that it [Revelation] was provided by the Holy Spirit” (Armageddon, Ehrman, p. 32). Nevertheless, Luther submitted to the collective mind of the early church as accepting Revelation as part of canonical Scripture, translating it into his German version of the New Testament, though he did place the book in his New Testament translation in an appendix and not the main body of the translation (Ehrman, p. 31). Despite Luther’s personal skepticism, traditional Lutherans today still accept the Book of Revelation as inspired Word of God, as do all historically orthodox Christians.
The late Protestant Bible teacher, R.C. Sproul, once said that the canon of Scripture is a fallible list of infallible books. My Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox friends might push back a little on this, and Sproul’s statement can sound a little odd even to Protestants. Nevertheless, all historically orthodox Christians affirm the Book of Revelation as infallible…. though difficult to interpret when it comes to some of the nuts and bolts of the text.
Revelation can be a hard book to understand. But why?
In the first part of this book review of Armageddon: What the Bible Really Says About the End, some consideration was made as to the violent imagery we find in the book, analyzing the type of literature the book is (apocalyptic), and concluding with a look into the controversy regarding the millennium. While every biblical scholar knows that Revelation contains a great deal of symbolism, much of the controversies in interpreting the book come down to (a) how much is symbolism being used, and (2) when you do find symbolic language, what do these symbols mean?
In this second and last part of this review, some of the other difficulties are explored, along with an analysis of what Bart Ehrman thinks the book is really about. I then hope to show why Ehrman’s solution is itself problematic.
Armageddon: What the Bible Really Says about the End, by Bart Ehrman.
Veracity 