REVELATION

The Book of Revelation, often called the Revelation to John, the Apocalypse of John, The
Revelation, or simply Revelation or Apocalypse, is a book of the New Testament that occupies a
central place in Christian eschatology. Its title is derived from the first word of the text, written
in Koine Greek: apokalypsis, meaning "unveiling" or "revelation" (before title pages and titles,
books were commonly known by their first words, as is also the case of the Hebrew Five Books
of Moses (Torah)). The Book of Revelation is the only apocalyptic document in the New
Testament canon (although there are short apocalyptic passages in various places in the
Gospels and the Epistles).

The author names himself in the text as "John", but his precise identity remains a point of
academic debate. Second century Christian writers such as Justin Martyr, Irenaeus, Melito the
bishop of Sardis, and Clement of Alexandria and the author of the Muratorian fragment identify
John the Apostle as the "John" of Revelation. Modern scholarship generally takes a different
view, and many consider that nothing can be known about the author except that he was a
Christian prophet Some modern scholars characterise Revelation's author as a putative figure
whom they call "John of Patmos". The bulk of traditional sources date the book to the reign of
the emperor Domitian (AD 8196), and the evidence tends to confirm this.

The book spans three literary genres: the epistolary, the apocalyptic, and the prophetic. It
begins with John, on the island of Patmos in the Aegean, addressing a letter to the "Seven
Churches of Asia". He then describes a series of prophetic visions, including figures such as the
Whore of Babylon and the Beast, culminating in the Second Coming of Jesus.

The obscure and extravagant imagery has led to a wide variety of Christian interpretations:
historicist interpretations see in Revelation a broad view of history; preterist interpretations
treat Revelation as mostly referring to the events of the apostolic era (1st century), or, at the
latest, the fall of the Roman Empire; futurists believe that Revelation describes future events;
and idealist or symbolic interpretations consider that Revelation does not refer to actual people
or events, but is an allegory of the spiritual path and the ongoing struggle between good and
evil.
Title, authorship, and date
St. John receives his Revelation. Saint-Sever Beatus, 11th century.

Main article: Authorship of the Johannine works

The title is taken from the first word of the book in Koine Greek: apokalypsis,
which means "unveiling" or "revelation". The author names himself as "John", but it is currently
considered unlikely that the author of Revelation was also the author of the Gospel of John.
Some of the evidence for this was set out as early as the second half of the 3rd century by Pope
Dionysius of Alexandria, who noted that the gospel and the epistles attributed to John, unlike
Revelation, do not name their author, and that the Greek of the gospel is correct and elegant
while that of Revelation is neither; some later scholars believe that the two books also have
radical differences in theological perspective.

Tradition links him to John the Apostle, but it is unlikely that the apostle could have lived into
the most likely time for the book's composition, the reign of Domitian, and the author never
states that he knew Jesus. All that is known is that this John was a Jewish Christian prophet,
probably belonging to a group of such prophets, and was accepted as such by the
congregations to whom he addresses his letter. His precise identity remains unknown, and
modern scholarship commonly refers to him as John of Patmos.

Early Church tradition dates the book to end of the emperor Domitian (reigned AD 8196), and
most modern scholars agree, although the author may have written a first version under
Vespasian (AD 6979) and updated it under Domitian. The beast with seven heads and the
number 666 seem to allude directly to the emperor Nero (reigned AD 5468), but this does not
require that Revelation was written in the 60s, as there was a widespread belief in later
decades that Nero would return.

In her volume in the original Anchor Bible, J. Massyngberde Ford argues that the core of
Revelation, chapters 4-11, was written by John the Baptist and later surrounded with a
Christian beginning and ending, although this view is not held by the large majority of scholars.
70 AD is the likely date of writing according to Martha Himmelfarb in the recently published
Blackwell series.

Genre
Revelation is an apocalyptic prophecy with an epistolary introduction addressed to seven
churches in the Roman province of Asia. "Apocalypse" means the revealing of divine mysteries;
John is to write down what is revealed (what he sees in his vision) and send it to the seven
churches. The entire book constitutes the letterthe letters to the seven individual churches
are introductions to the rest of the book, which is addressed to all seven. While the dominant
genre is apocalyptic, the author sees himself as a Christian prophet: Revelation uses the word in
various forms twenty-one times, more than any other New Testament book.

Sources
The predominant view is that Revelation alludes to the Old Testament although it is difficult
among scholars to agree on the exact number of allusions or the allusions themselves.
Revelation rarely quotes directly from the Old Testament, almost every verse alludes to or
echoes older scriptures. Over half of the references stem from Daniel, Ezekiel, Psalms, and
Isaiah, with Daniel providing the largest number in proportion to length and Ezekiel standing
out as the most influential. Because these references appear as allusions rather than as quotes,
it is difficult to know whether the author used the Hebrew or the Greek version of the Hebrew
scriptures, but he was clearly often influenced by the Greek. He very frequently combines
multiple references, and again the allusional style makes it impossible to be certain to what
extent he did so consciously.

Setting
Conventional understanding until recently was that Revelation was written to comfort
beleaguered Christians as they underwent persecution at the hands of a megalomaniacal
Roman emperor, but much of this has now been jettisoned: Domitian is no longer viewed as a
despot imposing an imperial cult, and it is no longer believed that there was any systematic
empire-wide persecution of Christians in his time.

The current view is that Revelation was composed in the context of a conflict within the
Christian community of Asia Minor over whether to engage with, or withdraw from, the far
larger non-Christian community: Revelation chastises those Christians who wanted to reach an
accommodation with the Roman cult of empire. This is not to say that Christians in Roman Asia
were not suffering, for withdrawal from, and defiance against, the wider Roman society
imposed very real penalties; Revelation offered a victory over this reality by offering an
apocalyptic hope: in the words of professor Adela Yarbro Collins, "What ought to be was
experienced as a present reality."
Canonical history
Further information: Development of the New Testament canon

Revelation was the last book accepted into the Christian biblical canon, and to the present day
some "Nestorian" churches such as the Church of the East reject it. It was considered tainted
because the heretical sect of the Montanists relied on it and doubts were raised over its
Jewishness and authorship.

Dionysius (248 AD), bishop of Alexandria, disciple of Origen wrote that the Book of Revelation
could have been written by Cerinthus although he himself did not adopt the view that
Cerinthus was the writer. He regarded the Apocalypse as the work of an inspired man but not
of an Apostle (Eusebius, Church History VII.25).

Eusebius, in his Church History (c. 330 AD) mentioned that the Apocalypse of John was
accepted as a Canonical book and rejected at the same time:

1. [] it is proper to sum up the writings of the New Testament which have been already
mentioned... After them is to be placed, if it really seem proper, the Apocalypse of John,
concerning which we shall give the different opinions at the proper time. These then
belong among the accepted writings [Homologoumena].

2. Among the rejected [Kirsopp. Lake translation: "not genuine"] writings must be
reckoned, as I said, the Apocalypse of John, if it seem proper, which some, as I said,
reject, but which others class with the accepted books.

The Apocalypse of John, also called Revelation, is counted as both accepted (Kirsopp. Lake
translation: "Recognized") and disputed, which has caused some confusion over what exactly
Eusebius meant by doing so. The disputation perhaps attributed to Origen.

Cyril of Jerusalem (348 AD) does not name it among the canonical books (Catechesis IV.3336).

Athanasius (367 AD) listed the Book of Revelation as a Canonical book.

The monk Tyrannius Rufinus (c. 400 AD) named as a Canonical book the Revelation of John.

Pope Innocent I (405 AD) in a letter to the bishop of Toulouse listed as Canonical book the Book
of Revelation.

John of Damascus (about 730) wrote in An Exposition of the Orthodox Faith (Book IV:7) that
"the Revelation of John the Evangelist" was a canonical book.
Synods
The Council of Laodicea (363) omits it as a canonical book.

The Synod of Hippo (in 393), followed by the Council of Carthage (397) and the Council of
Carthage (419), classified it as a canonical book.

Augustine of Hippo (c. 397 AD) confirms in his book On Christian Doctrine (Book II, Chapter 8)
its canonicity.

The Decretum Gelasianum, which is a work written by an anonymous scholar between 519 and
553, contains a list of books of scripture presented as having been reckoned as canonical by the
Council of Rome under Pope Damasus I (366383). This list mentions it as a part of the New
Testament canon.

The Apostolic Canons, approved by the Eastern Orthodox Council in Trullo in 692, omit it.

Protestant Reformation
Doubts resurfaced during the Protestant Reformation. Martin Luther called it "neither apostolic
nor prophetic" and it was the only New Testament book on which John Calvin did not write a
commentary. As of 2015 it remains the only New Testament work not read in the Divine Liturgy
of the Eastern Orthodox Church, though Catholic and Protestant liturgies include it.

Texts and manuscripts

There are approximately 300 Greek manuscripts of Revelation. While the Codex Vaticanus does
not include it, the other major manuscripts that do are the Codex Sinaiticus (4th century),
Codex Alexandrinus (5th century), and Codex Ephraemi Rescriptus (5th century). In addition,
there are numerous papyri, especially that of p47 (3rd century); the minuscules (8th to 10th
century), plus fragmentary quotations in the Church fathers of the 2nd to 5th centuries and the
6th century Greek commentary on Revelation by Andreas.
 DANIEL
The Book of Daniel is a biblical apocalypse, combining a prophecy of history with an eschatology
(the study of last things) which is both cosmic in scope and political in its focus. In more
mundane language, it is "an account of the activities and visions of Daniel, a noble Jew exiled at
Babylon." In the Hebrew Bible it is found in the Ketuvim (writings), while in Christian Bibles it is
grouped with the Major Prophets. The book divides into two parts, a set of six court tales in
chapters 16 followed by four apocalyptic visions in chapters 712. The deuterocanon contains
three additional stories, the Song of the Three Holy Children, Susanna, and Bel and the Dragon.
Its message is that just as the God of Israel saved Daniel and his friends from their enemies, so
he would save all of Israel in their present oppression.

Though the book is traditionally ascribed to Daniel himself, modern scholarly consensus
considers it pseudonymous, the stories of the first half legendary in origin, and the visions of
the second the product of anonymous authors in the Maccabean period (2nd century BC). Its
influence has resonated through later ages, from the Dead Sea Scrolls community and the
authors of the gospels and Revelation, to various movements from the 2nd century to the
Protestant Reformation and modern millennialist movements on which it continues to have a
profound influence.

Historical Backgrounds
The visions of chapters 712 reflect the crisis which took place in Judea in 167164 BC when
Antiochus IV Epiphanes, the Greek king of the Seleucid Empire, threatened to destroy
traditional Jewish worship in Jerusalem. When Antiochus came to the throne the Jews were
largely pro-Seleucid. The High Priestly family was split by rivalry, and one member, Jason,
offered the king a large sum to be made High Priest. Jason also asked or more accurately, paid
to be allowed to make Jerusalem a polis, or Greek city. This meant, among other things, that
city government would be in the hands of the citizens, which meant in turn that citizenship
would be a valuable commodity, to be purchased from Jason. None of this threatened the
Jewish religion, and the reforms were widely welcomed, especially among the Jerusalem
aristocracy and the leading priests. Three years later Jason was deposed when another priest,
Menelaus, offered Antiochus an even larger sum for the post of High Priest.

Antiochus invaded Egypt twice, in 169 BC with success, but on the second incursion, in late 168,
he was forced to withdraw by the Romans. Jason, hearing a rumour that Antiochus was dead,
attacked Menelaus to take back the High Priesthood. Antiochus drove Jason out of Jerusalem,
plundered the Temple, and introduced measures to pacify his Egyptian border by imposing
complete Hellenisation: the Jewish Book of the Law was prohibited and on 15 December 167 an
"abomination of desolation", probably a Greek altar, was introduced into the Temple. With the
Jewish religion now clearly under threat a resistance movement sprang up, led by the
Maccabee brothers, and over the next three years it won sufficient victories over Antiochus to
take back and purify the Temple.

The crisis which the author of Daniel addresses is the destruction of the altar in Jerusalem in
167 BC (first introduced in chapter 8:11): the daily offering which used to take place twice a
day, at morning and evening, stopped, and the phrase "evenings and mornings" recurs through
the following chapters as a reminder of the missed sacrifices.[27] But whereas the events
leading up to the sacking of the Temple in 167 and the immediate aftermath are remarkably
accurate (chapter 11:2129), the predicted war between the Syrians and the Egyptians (11:40
43) never took place, and the prophecy that Antiochus would die in Palestine (11:4445) was
inaccurate (he died in Persia). The conclusion is that the account must have been completed
near the end of the reign of Antiochus but before his death in December 164, or at least before
news of it reached Jerusalem.

Development
It is generally accepted that Daniel originated as a collection of Aramaic court tales later
expanded by the Hebrew revelations. The court tales may have originally circulated
independently, but the edited collection was probably composed in the third or early second
century BC. When the full collection was assembled, it is likely that the brief Aramaic
introduction of chapter 1 was composed to provide historical context, introduce the characters
of the tales, and explain how Daniel and his friends came to Babylon. In the third stage the
visions of chapters 712 were added and chapter 1 was translated into Hebrew.

Authorship
Daniel is one of a large number of Jewish apocalypses, all of them pseudonymous. Although the
entire book is traditionally ascribed to Daniel the seer, chapters 16 are in the voice of an
anonymous narrator, except for chapter 4 which is in the form of a letter from king
Nebuchadnezzar; only the second half (chapters 712) is presented by Daniel himself,
introduced by the anonymous narrator in chapters 7 and 10. The real author/editor of Daniel
was probably an educated Jew, knowledgeable in Greek learning, and of high standing in his
own community. The book is a product of "Wisdom" circles, but the type of wisdom is mantic
(the discovery of heavenly secrets from earthly signs) rather than the wisdom of learning the
main source of wisdom in Daniel is God's revelation.

It is possible that the name of Daniel was chosen for the hero of the book because of his
reputation as a wise seer in Hebrew tradition. Ezekiel, who lived during the Babylonian exile,
mentioned him in association with Noah and Job (Ezekiel 14:14) as a figure of legendary
wisdom (28:3), and a hero named Daniel (more accurately Dan'el, but the spelling is close
enough for the two to be regarded as identical) features in a late 2nd millennium myth from
Ugarit. "The legendary Daniel, known from long ago but still remembered as an exemplary
character ... serves as the principal human "hero" in the biblical book that now bears his name";
Daniel is the wise and righteous intermediary who is able to interpret dreams and thus convey
the will of God to humans, the recipient of visions from on high that are interpreted to him by
heavenly intermediaries.

Dating
The prophecies of Daniel are accurate down to the career of Antiochus IV Epiphanes, king of
Syria and oppressor of the Jews, but not in its prediction of his death: the author seems to
know about Antiochus' two campaigns in Egypt (169 and 167 BC), the desecration of the
Temple (the "abomination of desolation"), and the fortification of the Akra (a fortress built
inside Jerusalem), but he seems to know nothing about the reconstruction of the Temple or
about the actual circumstances of Antiochus' death in late 164. Chapters 1012 must therefore
have been written between 167 and 164 BC. There is no evidence of a significant time lapse
between those chapters and chapters 8 and 9, and chapter 7 may have been written just a few
months earlier again.

Further evidence of the book's date is in the fact that Daniel is excluded from the Hebrew
Bible's canon of the prophets, which was closed around 200 BC, and the Wisdom of Sirach, a
work dating from around 180 BC, draws on almost every book of the Old Testament except
Daniel, leading scholars to suppose that its author was unaware of it. Daniel is, however,
quoted in a section of the Sibylline Oracles commonly dated to the middle of the 2nd century
BC, and was popular at Qumran at much the same time, suggesting that it was known and
revered from the middle of that century.

Genre
The Book of Daniel is an apocalypse - a representative of a literary genre in which a heavenly
reality is revealed to a human recipient; such works are characterized by visions, symbolism, an
other-worldly mediator, an emphasis on cosmic events, angels and demons, and pseudonymity
(false authorship). The production of apocalypses occurred commonly from 300 BC to 100 AD,
not only among Jews and Christians, but also among Greeks, Romans, Persians and Egyptians.
Daniel, the book's hero, is a representative apocalyptic seer, the recipient of the divine
revelation: he has learned the wisdom of the Babylonian magicians and surpassed them,
because his God is the true source of knowledge; he is one of the maskil, the wise, who have
the task of teaching righteousness.

The account is also an eschatology: the divine revelation concerns the end of the present age, a
moment in which God will intervene in history to usher in the final kingdom. The Book of Daniel
gives no real details of the end-time, but it seems that God's kingdom will be on this earth, that
it will be governed by justice and righteousness, and that the tables will be turned on the
Seleucids and on those Jews who cooperated with them.
 PRAYERS
Prayer of Jabez
1 Chronicles 4:10

Jabez cried out to the God of Israel, Oh, that you would bless me
and enlarge my territory! Let your hand be with me, and keep me from
harm so that I will be free from pain. And God granted his request.

-The prayer is about crying for help

2 Corinthians 5:14-15
Father God, we praise you for the confidence you give our hearts
through the love of your Son. We look forward to the day when we will
not pass from this world into condemnation, but instead will enter into
your presence of everlasting celebration. Father, we confess that we
are tired of living for ourselves. We thank you for sending Jesus to die in
our place to deliver us from the misery of a self-centered life. No
matter what struggles, temptations, or tragedies we face this week,
please help us not to lose heart. Through the Holy Spirit, guard us from
ever doubting your great love for us. Help us to remember the good
news that you have made us your own and that you have forgiven our
sins. Lead us to live our lives for Christs sake at our workplaces, with
our friends and families, and wherever else we may go this week. We
pray all this in the name of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, Amen.

-This prayer is about praising God.