Reading Revelation: A Literary and Theological Commentary - Review

A review of Jamie Davies, Reading Revelation: A Literary and Theological Commentary, Smith & Helwys, 2023. Presented to the British New Testament Society Conference 2023 Revelation Seminar as part of a panel review of this book.
https://www.helwys.com/sh-books/reading-revelation-2nd-series/

A commentary that is both ‘Literary’ and ‘Theological’? I’m reminded of the scene in the classic film The Blues Brothers, where the band rock up at the Good Ole Boys diner to play, and ask the manager what kind of music they usually like. She replies, ‘Oh, we got both kinds. We got Country and Western.’
 
Nearly two decades ago, when I was being interviewed for my job as Tutor in Biblical Studies at Cardiff University and Cardiff Baptist College, the interview panel comprised some from the academy and some from the seminary.
 
I was aware that the questions I was receiving from these two groups were quite different to each other: the academics quite properly wanted to know about my credentials and my ability to teach and research, whilst the theologians wanted to know about my faith and my ability to impart that faith to others.
 
These two sat uneasily alongside each other both in the interview, and in the happy years of teaching and training that followed.
 
When I was Acting Principal of the College for a while, a review process called on me to defend and justify the close historic partnership between the Russell Group University and the Theological Colleges in Cardiff, and one of the inspectors commented that it was entirely inappropriate for Christian Clergy to be teaching the Bible to University undergraduates. My response was that if the idea of practitioners teaching their own subject ever caught on in medicine or dentistry, we’d all be in trouble!
 
But the tension remains, and it is one we feel here at the British New Testament Society. Do we go to morning prayer before breakfast? In my case – the answer is an emphatic no! But I could if I wanted to, and this is testimony to the ongoing tension in our own discipline between faith and academy.
 
The academy looks to the literary context, and the church looks to God. But can the two meet? This, it seems to me, is the premise behind Jamie’s excellent treatise on the Book of Revelation.
 
The designation of this commentary as both literary and theological allows it to pay attention not only to the historical critical context of the Apocalypse, but also to the way that the text speaks of God.
 
Those of us within the guild of biblical studies are probably here because we have come to love and value the historical critical approach, and many of us have come to distrust more theologically motivated hermeneutical approaches to the Bible.
 
But of course, the texts we study are theological documents – they bear testimony to their authors’ faith in God, and their history of interpretation bears witness to millennia of ‘faith-full’ reading.
 
And so to adequately account for the text as we have it, we do well to pay attention not only to its literary and historical origins, but also to the words about God that it offers.
 
Which brings me to my first question, that of the intended audience for this commentary.
 
Is this a commentary written primarily for those in the academy, or for those in the church; or does it aim for both? Or rather, does it aim at people who inhabit both?
 
An example of this comes in the discussion of the way the Book of Revelation might be considered prophecy.
 
Quite rightly, Jamie notes that the book is explicitly self-designated as prophecy in the benediction of 22.7, observing that, ‘in most prophecy, the primary audience is the contemporary inhabitants of the world of the prophet, and Revelation is no different’ (p.34).
 
However, then he continues, ‘But Revelation, also in line with the biblical prophetic tradition, has a meaning that spills over from that contemporary time and place to times and places beyond the prophet’s horizon’ (p.34).
 
This means, he asserts quite rightly, that ‘we can no longer read the ‘nearness’ of what is revealed in the book of Revelation in such a way as to plot its events on the linear schemes of earthly chronological time’ (p.35).
 
But then he goes on to say that, ‘Instead, we must become and remain sensitive to its claims concerning divine eschatological action and the fulfilment of God’s purposes for his world, as in Christ time’s fulfilment has come ‘near’ to the world of the first century and the twenty-first.’
 
And so back to my question: who is the ‘we’ that is in view here?
 
It must be people of faith, those who believe that John’s textual communication of what he believed God to be saying in his time, is also applicable to those who seek to hear God’s words in the present time.
 
Which takes me back to the question of whether biblical scholars of faith can both have their cake and eat it? Can one be faithfully attentive to both literary and theological concerns? Or is there always a compromise to be struck along the way?
 
This tension runs through the commentary, and I am impressed by the way in which Jamie negotiates the tightrope, but I want to draw attention to the difficulty of maintaining this methodology. For some, this will be the commentary’s greatest strength, for others it will represent a significant compromise.
 
And this brings me to my next question: that of the eschatology in play in this commentary’s interpretation.
 
I detect a tension between the commentary’s reading of the text of Revelation as having a predominantly realised eschatology, and the broader theological theme of future hope.
 
Jamie quite properly anchors the eschatological language of the text within its original context, with the ‘eschatological soon’ creating a ‘time of expectation’ within which John’s church can faithfully and actively bear witness, rather than waiting quietistically for divine intervention (p.28-9).
 
The commentary then relates this eschatological scheme to the thrice repeated threefold ‘time-signature’, of the one ‘who is, who was, and who is the coming one’ (1.4, 8; 4.8). These are described as ‘not three separate events but three interrelated forms of the one ‘coming’ of God’ (p.30).
 
Jamie elaborates: ‘God’s past coming in the incarnation of Christ, his present coming by the Spirit, and his future coming in consummation are all united as the one and the same apocalyptic event.’ (p.30)
 
He concludes that ‘Seen from this perspective, it is clear that the threefold divine life cannot simply be plotted straightforwardly with the three tenses of creaturely history. Rather, God simply is ‘the coming one’ who comes to history and assumes it.’
 
And so the theme of witnessing through suffering unto death is thus seen as central to the book’s call to discipleship, and the eschatology described is correspondingly focussed on creating a context within which such witnessing can occur.
 
The calls to patient endurance through persecution, and to resistance against empire, are seen as an outworking of what it means to live faithfully in the time-between-times.
 
But against this there is also a desire to relate the future aspect of the time-signature, the description of Christ as ‘the coming one’, to a hope for future eschatological transformation. Jamie says, ‘Though Revelation is clear that God is sovereign, the cosmic battles against the powers challenging his rule are very real, and so the promise of a divinely ruled world remains, at least from an earthly perspective, in the future.’ (p.26)
 
I would be interested to hear more from Jamie on his view of Revelation’s eschatological theology, and how he relates this to those in his intended audience who read from a perspective of faith themselves, and how it relates to that other strand of the audience for this commentary, the academy.
 
The commentary proceeds through the text of Revelation in a way that is clear, helpful, and accessible. I think the decision to treat the 7 letters together as 7 ‘Oracles’ makes good sense of the way they relate to the wider visionary material in the text, helping anchor them as a key part of the overall prophecy rather than as an early diversion from it.
 
The journey Jamie describes around the churches brought back to mind my own travels in the region a few years ago, as I spent a week in 40-degree heat visiting each of the 7 churches. Jamie peppers his commentary with nuggets of insight, which serve to bring the text to life for modern readers, and in this he draws on his extensive research in both the Jewish and Graeco-Roman context and literature.
 
The ascent into heaven at the beginning of chapter 4 takes us into more familiar apocalyptic territory as John begins his tour of the heavens. But Jamie helpfully cautions that, ‘If we restrict our attention to that we will miss something profoundly important about this book, for it is also a renewed vision of earth, seen from a heavenly perspective.’ (p.84)
 
This introduces the theme of ‘apocalyptic reversal’ where all is not as it seems (p.85). This demands a double response of those encountering the vision: they are invited to ponder the ‘deeper theological significance’ of their existence in the world, and to then act on that reflection.
 
Readers are called, as Jamie puts it, to ‘hold those first-century historical insights together, simultaneously, with the theological ‘surplus of meaning’ that is expressed through the imagery, and transcends the specific first-century context.’ (p.85)
 
If we can manage this, Jamie suggests, ‘we will approach a reading that attends faithfully to the redoubled nature of the book’s literary form and theological meaning.’ (p.85)
 
The journey of the commentary through the visions pays frequent attention to the characterisation within the text, elaborating on the variety of characters a reader encounters to show how their description and actions speak to the world of the reader.
 
I found this approach to speak helpfully to my own character-driven analysis of the text, in which I suggested that Revelation is a bit like a Shakespearian play, where the number of characters is greater than the actors available to play them, and so actors play more than one role within the drama, often nipping into the wings for a quick costume change.
 
I think I probably fall more firmly on the side of realised eschatology that Jamie does, and we’ve had interesting debates on this one in the past. For example, I prefer to read the New Jerusalem as an image of the church militant, whereas for Jamie it is part of the eschatological hope (p.238). But this is to quibble, and such quibbles are best done over a pint in the bar.
 
So to conclude, I think this is a truly worthwhile addition to the commentary canon, and will be of particular use to those in more ecclesial settings who want to access the fruits of the latest literary studies on the apocalypse. It is, as it sets out to be, both literary and theological.
 
Simon Woodman, August 2023.