Book of Revelation still a riddle
Published 9:00 pm Friday, March 9, 2007
For nearly 2,000 years, each succeeding generation of Christians has tried to puzzle out whether the Book of Revelation’s riddles and symbols has meant its own time was the end of time.
Over the past six decades alone, the beast with seven heads and 10 horns rising out of the sea at the start of Chapter 13 has been variously pegged as Hitler, Stalin, Mao Tse-tung and Saddam Hussein, or the nations they represented.
The debate over Revelation has continued for generations. Given world events and the ease of communication in the media age, the discussion shows no signs of abating. Books about Revelation remain brisk sellers, and two recent publications, by John Hagee and Jonathan Kirsch, highlight the differing analyses of the text.
For many Christians, the Book of Revelation, attributed to the apostle John, continues to serve as God’s countdown to his son’s return to Earth in a final triumph over evil. Without it, they say, Christianity would be an incomplete story.
But is humanity finally facing the final chapter? That depends on who is asked.
Malcolm Yarnell, director of theological research at Southwestern Baptist Seminary in Fort Worth, Texas, acknowledged that “these are very unsettling times, and I often wonder, ‘Lord, is this it?’ But I also think it’s an incredible waste of time to speculate on whether today’s headlines are mirrored in the Book of Revelation.”
Essentially, the plot goes like this: Billions of people perish in seven years of natural disasters and plagues, an antichrist arises to rule the world, the battle of Armageddon erupts north of Israel, and Jesus returns to defeat Satan’s armies and preside over Judgment Day.
The text never fully explains its monstrous key characters and clashes – the Great Whore of Babylon, the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, the antichrist, the Battle of Armageddon – or any of the other eerie images, numbers and colors.
Hagee’s latest book, “Jerusalem Countdown,” predicts an impending battle “that will usher in the end of the world” and turn a huge chunk of the Middle East into “a sea of human blood.”
It has sold more than 1.1 million copies since its release in 2006. A revised version was published in January.
Revelation, he said, “is the story of truth over deception, and of hope over despair. The Book of Revelation, when we truly know it, is a thunderous applause of God’s victory over the world, the flesh and the devil.”
Hagee’s peers include Mark Hitchcock, pastor of Faith Bible Church in Edmond, Okla., and contributing editor for the Left Behind Prophecy Club, whose new book “Iran: The Coming Crisis” outlines an “apocalyptic vision of Islam.”
Both pastors believe that Revelation and other prophetic books of the Bible, including Ezekiel and Daniel, are previews of epic history confirmed by current world events. As evidence, they point out that the creation of Israel – which achieved nationhood in 1948 – was listed in Revelation as a precondition for the onset of the end times.
“In fact, history is unfolding exactly the way you would expect it to if the Bible is true,” Hitchcock said. “You’d have to be blind not to see the parallels.”
Not so fast, argues Kirsch, an intellectual property attorney and author of “A History of the End of the World: How the Most Controversial Book in the Bible Changed the Course of Western Civilization.”
Published in August, it chronicles what Kirsch calls the use and abuse of Revelation from the fall of the Roman Empire to the rise of the religious right.
Kirsch suggests that Revelation was a product of its own time. It wasn’t meant to predict the future, he said, but to help early Christians cope with their Roman oppressors.
If the viewpoints of Kirsch or Hagee don’t mesh with a reader’s belief system, there probably is a book somewhere that does. And they tend to carry weighty titles, such as “Controversies in the Book of Revelation: A Comparative Analysis of Premillennial Interpretation.”
On the other hand, there’s also “The Book of Revelation for Dummies.”
