It fascinates me that John put so many Old Testament references in Revelation, as well as allusions to the New Testament and other books not even found in the Bible.
I think it would be fun to collect as many as we can find! Often times they can give great insights into the meaning of the text. When he puts in OT allusions it is clearly because he intends to suggest something. And reading that passage can really make things easier to understand. See my first reply for some of my favorite examples..I hope to add more later of course.
Please post the text in revelation, followed by the source of the reference. I will try to check back and make a chapter by chapter list!
Then if you have ideas on why he might have included it, or any insights it gives, put those too! For instance, Eugene in his work on revelation mentions the allusions to Jesus' Olivet discourses in his book, then gives his insights into what they might mean. (I won't spoil the book, but you can check it out! ) I think we will have fun going over the possibilities. And it is using scripture to interpret itself!
Last edited by tall73 on Sat Mar 26, 2005 2:08 am; edited 1 time in total
11: 2 (42 months, Daniel times, times and half a time, etc. Daniel 7:25, Daniel 12:17)
11: 4 (lampstands, Zechariah 4, two olive trees and a lampstand, two annointed)
11:5 (Reference to Elijah's ministry, fire destroying, 2 kings 1 (though from mouth instead of heaven..., and also to shutting up the rain...1 kings 17-19 etc. There are also references to Moses' ministry, water to blood, Exodus 7, and to the plagues in general. )
One of my favorite examples is in reference to the seal of God and the mark of the beast. One of the key allusions is to the vision of Ezekiel in chapters 8 and 9. Here we see an account of the false worship of the Israelites, practiced by the leaders, in the temple itself. God pronounces judgement on them, and in the vision that Ezekiel sees this judgement is immediate. It foreshadows the actual judgement brought about during the destruction of Jerusalem by Babylon.
Here is the key part of the passage as it regards the Seal of God.
Quote:
EZE 8:17 He said to me, "Have you seen this, son of man? Is it a trivial matter for the house of Judah to do the detestable things they are doing here? Must they also fill the land with violence and continually provoke me to anger? Look at them putting the branch to their nose! 18 Therefore I will deal with them in anger; I will not look on them with pity or spare them. Although they shout in my ears, I will not listen to them."
EZE 9:1 Then I heard him call out in a loud voice, "Bring the guards of the city here, each with a weapon in his hand." 2 And I saw six men coming from the direction of the upper gate, which faces north, each with a deadly weapon in his hand. With them was a man clothed in linen who had a writing kit at his side. They came in and stood beside the bronze altar.
EZE 9:3 Now the glory of the God of Israel went up from above the cherubim, where it had been, and moved to the threshold of the temple. Then the LORD called to the man clothed in linen who had the writing kit at his side 4 and said to him, "Go throughout the city of Jerusalem and put a mark on the foreheads of those who grieve and lament over all the detestable things that are done in it."
EZE 9:5 As I listened, he said to the others, "Follow him through the city and kill, without showing pity or compassion. 6 Slaughter old men, young men and maidens, women and children, but do not touch anyone who has the mark. Begin at my sanctuary." So they began with the elders who were in front of the temple.
As you notice the imagery of a mark in the forehead of those who are faithful to God was already seen here. And it is clear from the vision and subsequent fulfillment of the vison that
a. the mark is not a literal mark
b. The mark is a sign of loyalty to God, and grieving over apostasy and false worship.
The vision was in fact fulfilled literally by the destruction of Jerusalem by the Babylonians. Those who trusted in God were clearly told to surrender, and those who did would be spared.
In revelation we likewise see God placing a sign of loyalty on those who are faithful to Him amid widespread apostasy. The remnant concept was well firmly anchored in the OT where God had a group that were faithful to Him.
Compare the above vision with this of John's in Revelation 7. Again we see the idea that those who are spared are those who receive the Seal of God.
Quote:
Then I saw another angel coming up from the east, having the seal of the living God. He called out in a loud voice to the four angels who had been given power to harm the land and the sea: 3 "Do not harm the land or the sea or the trees until we put a seal on the foreheads of the servants of our God."
The mark of the beast is likewise the sign of loyalty to false worship. In fact we see in Revelation a false trinity (dragon, beast, false prophet), a false lamb (lamb-like beast), a false worship and a false seal, which is the Mark of the Beast.
While we often say that the Sabbath is the seal of God, mainly because it is one of the contested issues of loyalty, it is more true to say that the seal is a sign of one who is completely loyal to God in all things and who grieves and lament over all of the detestable things done in the land. Or to put it another way, it doesn't really do any good to keep the Sabbath but break all the rest of God's laws! We should want to do all that pleases the Lord!
I don't have time to expand at the moment on them, but I also want to go over some in chapter 12 of revelation, and chapter 6.
Some that I am not quite sure about yet are those in Revelation 11. It is packed with them.
Lists:
7: 2-3 (Seal of God, Ezekiel 8,9)
11: 2 (42 months, Daniel times, times and half a time, etc. Daniel 7:25, Daniel 12:17)
11: 4 (lampstands, Zechariah 4, two olive trees and a lampstand, two annointed)
11:5 (Reference to Elijah's ministry, fire destroying, 2 kings 1 (though from mouth instead of heaven..., and also to shutting up the rain...1 kings 17-19 etc. There are also references to Moses' ministry, water to blood, Exodus 7, and to the plagues in general. )
These give strong hints as to the nature of these witnesses, but what are we to make of them?
Posted: Mon Mar 20, 2006 9:51 pm Post subject: John's Vision and the Old Testament
Shouldn't we begin with the investigations that others have already completed? It would be easier to acknowledge the lengthy tabulations in Charles and Swete and then search for everything that they've missed.
Quote:
John's Vision and the Old Testament
We have questioned the extent of the apocalyptic connections of the Revelation. Its relationship with the Old Testament can scarcely be overemphasized. If the point is not continually stressed in this study, it is only because we are here concerned with the historical problem. The Old Testament echoes are probably far more numerous than even the lengthy tabulations in Charles and Swete would suggest. Often our text seems to derive from a mediation combining two or three scriptural passages and applying mingled reminiscences of them all to the present need of a recipient church. Sometimes these groupings may be derived from traditional exegesis, or from existing catenae of Messianic testimonia. If so, John's application of them is nevertheless luminously pointed and his mind seems to dwell on the context of each. Colin J. Hemer, The Letters to the Seven Churches of Asia in Their Local Setting, p. 13.
The only thing I know for sure is that the book, The Letters to the Seven Churches of Asia in Their Local Setting, by Colin J. Hemer, is very scholarly. So I assume that the reference he is citing by Charles and Swete, in the paragraph I quoted above, must be very respectable.
I just now googled for "Charles and Swete" and found the following article (I hope you find it useful):
Steve Moyise, ‘Intertextuality and the Book of Revelation’,
ExpT 104 (1993): 295-98.
Ever since the pioneering work of Dodd and Lindars,[1] there has been a steady flow of books and articles on the use of the Old Testament in the New. Many of these studies, with varying plausibility, have sought to show how particular New Testament passages are modeled on certain Old Testament texts. For example, Gregory Beale[2] has argued that key chapters of Revelation, namely chs. 1, 4-5, 13 and 17, are all modeled on Dan 7, whilst Michael Goulder[3] believes that the whole structure of Revelation is based on the book of Ezekiel. The discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls was a major stimulus in this field, for it allowed direct comparison with the exegetical practices of a community which was very nearly contemporaneous with the early church.
A more recent stimulus has come from those studies which broadly come under the rubric of 'Intertextuality'. Thomas Greene,[4] for example, uses a typology of four imitative strategies in order to analyse and describe Renaissance poetry. The first he calls 'reproductive', which is when a poem so venerates a precursor that it imitates it with 'slavish precision'. The precursor takes on the nature of a sacred object which cannot and should not be criticized. The second he calls 'eclectic', where the poem draws on a number of sources and traditions 'without binding itself in a determinative fashion to anyone subtext'. At its weakest, this can be mere plagiarism but in skilled hands, the author has access to a 'vocabulary of a second and higher power, a second keyboard of richer harmonies'. The third he calls 'heuristic', where the new work seeks to define itself through the rewriting or modernizing of a past text. In so doing, the poem becomes a sort of 'rite of passage' between a 'specified past and an emergent present'. It establishes a distance between new and old, not to leave the reader in an hermeneutical chasm but to make way for an act of resolution. The new is not a pale imitation of the old but its true successor. Lastly, Greene speaks of 'dialectical imitation'. This is when the poem engages the precursor in such a way that neither is able to absorb or master the other. It 'creates a kind of struggle between texts and between eras which cannot easily be resolved', where 'two symbolic worlds are brought into collision and both are vulnerable to criticism and interpretation by the other'.
The first to make use of this typology in the biblical field was Richard Hays. In his book Echoes of Scripture in the Letters of Paul (Yale,1989), Hays finds Greene's fourth category an excellent description of Paul's use of the Exodus tradition in 2 Cor 3. Paul's presentation, he says, is ambiguous. On the one hand, he introduces the figure of Moses as a 'foil against which to commend the candor and boldness of his own ministry'. On the other hand, Paul recognizes that there was a glory associated with the old covenant and Moses did in fact commune with God unveiled (according to the text). Hays says:
Quote:
The rhetorical effect of this ambiguous presentation is an unsettling one, because it simultaneously posits and undercuts the glory of Moses' ministry. . . Since Paul is arguing that the ministry of the new covenant outshines the ministry of the old in glory, it serves his purpose to exalt the glory of Moses; at the same time, the grand claims that he wants to make for his own ministry require that the old be denigrated.[5]
At the most general level, alluding to a previous text sets up a link between new and old. It is not that a New Testament author is bound to mean the same thing as the Old Testament text (even if that could be determined) or that the Old Testament text necessarily loses its identity when incorporated into the New Testament. Rather, a correspondence is established where 'text B should be understood in light of a broad interplay with text A'.[6] As H. Davidson says of T. S. Eliot's The Wasteland: 'The work alluded to reflects upon the present context even as the present context absorbs and changes the allusion'.[7]
This two-way approach has led some scholars to re- evaluate the way that Jewish exegesis has been understood. Bruns, for example, says: 'We need to get out from under the model of methodical solipsism that pictures a solitary reader exercising strategic power over a text.'[8] The placing of texts side by side in the Jewish midrashim might be a case in point. Boyarin argues that the purpose of midrash was not to get at the 'true meaning' of the text, but:
Quote:
the laying bare of an intertextual connection between two signifiers which mutually read each other. It is not, nor can it be, decided which signifier is the interpreter and which the interpreted.[9]
Another way of expressing this is to say that when we read a text which utilizes Old Testament allusions, we hear a number of competing voices. One voice comes from the new work and suggests that we are to take the meaning of the words in a way that best suits their present context. Others stem from our knowledge (conscious or unconscious) of particular Old Testament texts, a time in Israel's history or perhaps a significant theme or symbol. Like a radio dial that is incorrectly tuned, the listener hears several 'voices' simultaneously and may have to choose which to concentrate on. The effect with the radio dial is usually annoyance since it is unlikely that the separate broadcasts are in any way connected. However, when reading a work where an author has deliberately alluded to past texts, the effect is more like listening to a set of harmonies as opposed to a single tone. We will now illustrate some of these points by looking at four texts from the Book of Revelation.
1:4-5: Grace to you and peace... from Jesus Christ the faithful witness, the first-born of the dead, and the ruler of kings on earth.
Most scholars agree that the source text for the titles 'firstborn' and 'ruler of kings on earth' is Ps 89:27, which reads: 'And I will make him the first-born, the highest of the kings of the earth'. This being so, the case is strengthened that the third title used in John's greeting, namely 'faithful witness' (ho martus ho pistos), comes from v. 37 of the same psalm, which according to the LXX reads: ho martus en ourano pistos. Thus John appears to be applying the kingly titles of Ps 89 to Christ and as a result, both Charles and Swete took the allusions to be references to power. John greets his readers with the affirmation that Jesus is Lord of all. He was faithful in his earthly ministry, has risen from the dead and now sits at God's right hand, ruler of everything. John could have put this in his own words, but instead, he decides to exploit the resonant echoes of Ps 89. On the other hand, Caird[10] has argued that this fails to do justice to the new setting that John has given these titles in the Book of Revelation. The second half of v. 5 says 'To him who loves us and has freed us from our sins by his blood'. The Christian does not believe that Jesus' power lies in military victory (as in Ps 89) but in his sacrificial death. The use of the word 'blood' in the second half of the verse confirms that this is the intended focus. Caird thus concludes that the 'voice' that we are asked to concentrate on is not from Ps 89 but our knowledge of the cross. John has used Ps 89 only to distance himself from it.
1:17-18: But he laid his right hand upon me, saying, 'Fear not, I am the first and the last, and the living one; I died, and behold I am alive for evermore. . .'.
The title 'first and last' is usually traced to either Isa 44:6 or 48:12, and is a statement of the eternity of God. Here, however, it is placed next to a statement concerning Christ's death and resurrection. No help is offered as to whether we should read the statement of eternity in the light of the death and resurrection or the death and resurrection in the light of God's eternity. One could argue that John is assuring his readers that their crucified founder is none other than the 'first and the last' and that this would help them remain faithful under persecution (whether actual, perceived or future). On the other hand, modem theology would find it appealing to find John re-interpreting the divine glory in the light of the cross of Christ. As Boyarin says, it cannot easily be determined which 'signifier is the interpreter and which the interpreted' and perhaps it is not vital to do so.
5:5-6: Then one of the elders said to me, 'Weep not; lo, the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, has conquered, so that he can open the scroll and its seven seals'. And between the throne and the four living creatures and among the elders, I saw a Lamb standing, as though it had been slain.
John's distress that no one is worthy to open the seals is met by a description of one who is the 'Lion of the tribe of Judah' and the 'Root of David'. Both these titles evoke traditional messianic hopes based on Gen 49:9 and Isa 11:10 respectively. Indeed Juel[11] points out that these verses are also found together in the Midrash on Genesis known as Genesis Rabbah (2.901):
Quote:
Furthermore, the royal Messiah will be descended from the tribe of Judah, as it says, 'And it shall come to pass in that day, that the root of Jesse, that standeth for an ensign of the peoples, unto him shall the nations seek' (Isa 11:10).
What is surprising, however, is that John goes on to say that he saw a 'Lamb standing, as though it had been slain'. There is considerable debate as to what 'Lamb' John had in mind here but it is clear that he is presenting us with some sort of contrast (even if it is only Jesus being both Lion and Lamb). It would appear then that once again, we have the juxtaposition of a traditional title or titles with one drawn from Christian tradition, with no help as to how they fit together. One answer might be that of John Sweet: 'the Lion of Judah, the traditional messianic expectation, is reinterpreted by the slain Lamb: God's power and victory lie in self-sacrifice'.[12]
On the other hand, if we look at what else John says about the Lamb, it appears to be closer to what Ford[13] calls the 'victorious and destroying lamb' known in the apocalyptic tradition (e.g., Test. Joseph.19:8: 'All the wild animals rushed against him, but the lamb conquered them, and destroyed them, trampling them underfoot'). Thus in the following chapter of Revelation we read:
Quote:
Fall on us and hide us from the face of him who is seated on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb; for the great day of their wrath has come, and who can stand before it? (Rev 6:16-17).
It is by no means obvious that the 'wrath of the Lamb' is to be understood in terms of self-sacrifice. Neither is it clear that the victory won in Rev 17:14 ('they will make war on the Lamb, and the Lamb will conquer them, for he is Lord of lords and King of kings') is anything but a military victory (even if in the end the language is metaphorical). Different commentators may choose to 'tune-in' to images of power or images of sacrifice but the text holds the tension rather than offering a resolution.
21:22: And 1 saw no temple in the city, for its temple is the Lord God the Almighty and the Lamb.
As many commentators have pointed out, John's final chapters exhibit numerous parallels with the final chapters of Ezekiel; both describe a battle under the names of Gog and Magog (Rev 20:8, Ezk 38:2), both speak of a resurrection or restoration (Rev 20:5f, Ezk 37:7f), both speak of a tree or trees of life whose leaves are for healing (Rev 22:2f, Ezk 47: 12) and both see the new city surrounded by twelve gates, each bearing the name of one of the twelve tribes of Israel (Rev 21: 12, Ezk 48 :30f). Further, it is important to both that what they are describing is to be the dwelling place of God's glory (Rev 21:23, Ezk43:2). However, having followed Ezekiel thus far, John then denies the existence of the very thing that Ezk 40-48 revolves around ('I saw no temple in the city, for its temple is the Lord God the Almighty and the Lamb'). According to Vogelgesang,[14] this denial is part of John's attempt to 'democratize' Ezekiel's vision. The presence of God in John's vision is to be located in a city of enormous proportions (about 1500 x 1500 miles), not a particularistic symbol like a temple. However, from a literary point of view, we have an example of what Hollander[15] calls 'metalepsis' or 'transumption'. This is a mode of allusion that involves an ellipsis. Moving from degrees of 'volume', Hollander speaks of quotation, allusion and echo. He then describes what he calls a transumptive style, which is when the necessary subtext has disappeared altogether and so involves the reader in a process of recovery. Bloom uses the same terminology to describe Gen 1:
Quote:
The Priestly Author has swept away by his own breath the enormous wars against the abyss and its creatures that God fights and wins, victories celebrated throughout the Psalms, the Prophets, Job and other biblical texts. By a magnificent ellipsis of tradition, the Priestly Author has strengthened the creative force of the divine by making that force transcend its traditional opponents to the point where they have vanished wholly.[16]
John denies that his city has a temple but it is nevertheless required of the reader to have Ezekiel's temple in mind. One cannot strictly speak of John alluding to Ezekiel's temple when he denies its very existence. Nevertheless, the general dependence on Ezekiel's vision in these last chapters means that a 'temple voice' is continually resonating.
Conclusions
It is clear from these brief references that John does not present us with a Christian interpretation of the Old Testament as a finished product. Indeed, it is most noticeable how he juxtaposes Old Testament texts with Christian tradition without offering any help as to which should be read in the light of the other. Elsewhere in Revelation, John suggests that his message is for those who have an 'ear to hear' (Rev 2:7,11,17,29, etc.) and specifically calls upon them in Rev 13:18 and 17:9 to exercise wisdom with respect to the number of the beast and the seven hills. Could it be that the same is true of his use of scripture? John does not define how the new relates to the old but forces the reader/hearer to think it out for themselves. As a circus performer sets a number of plates spinning, so John sets off a number of voices. Some rise to a peak and are then allowed to run down. Others are reactivated by repetition or are brought into relationship with other texts. As Ruiz[17] says, the reader of Revelation is called upon to engage in a 'dialogue with the text and with the texts within the text'. It is for this reason that insights gained from Intertextua1ity can offer much to the reader of the Book of Revelation.
[1] C. H. Dodd, According to the Scriptures (London [1952]); B. Lindars, New Testament Apologetic (London [1961]).
[2] G. K.BeaIe, The Use of Daniel in Jewish Apocalyptic Literature and in the Revelation of St John (Lanham [1984]).
[3] M. D. Goulder 'The Apocalypse as an Annual Cycle of Prophecies' (NTS 27 [1981], 342-367).
[4] T. M. Greene, The Light in Troy: Imitation and Discovery in Renaissance Poetry (Yale [1982]), 16-19,37-53.
[5] Op. cit., 132.
[6] Ibid., 20.
[7] H. Davidson, T.S. Eliot and Hermeneutics (Louisiana [1985]), 117.
[8] G. L. Bruns, 'The Hermeneutics of Midrash' in The Book and the Text, ed. R. Schwartz (Cambridge, MA [1990]),192.
[9] D.Boyarin, 'The Song of Songs: Lock or Key? Intertextuality, Allegory and Midrash' in The Book and the Text, ed. R. Schwartz (Cambridge, MA [1990]), 223.
[10] G. B. Caird, The Revelation of St John the Divine (London [1984]),117.
[11] D. Juel, Messianic Exegesis. Christological Interpretation of the Old Testament in Early Christianity (Philadelphia [1988]),. 105.
[12] J. P. M. Sweet, Revelation (London [1990]), 125.
[13] J. M. Ford, Revelation (New York [1975]), 31.
[14] J. M. Vogelgesang, ‘The Interpretation of Ezekiel in the Book of Revelation’ (Ph.D.Dissertation. Harvard University, Cambridge, MA [1985]), 85.
[15] J. Hollander, The Figure of Echo: A Mode of Allusion in Milton and After (Berkeley [1981]), ch. 5.
[16] H.Bloom, The Breaking of the Vessels (Chicago[1982]),16-17.
[17] Jean-Pierre Ruiz, Ezekiel in the Apocalypse: The Transformation of Prophetic Language in Revelation 16:17- 19:10 (European University Studies 23, Frankfurt [1989]), 520.
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