Reading Revelation’s martyrs in context
Information technology is a well-worn (though often neglected!) principle of reading any text that 'a text without a context is a pretext'—in other words, if y'all are going to read anything well, then you need to put it in its context, else you will exist able to brand it mean whatsoever you want. This is one of the four major principles I set out in my own study of How to Interpret the Bible.
Ben Blackwell, John Goodrich and Jason Maston (friends from doing their PhDs in Durham) have been producing a series of volumes on reading NT texts in context, and the volume on Revelation has just come out. It includes a great introduction:
The book of Revelation is similar a magnificent theme park. Replete with visual and auditory stimuli and brimming with chaos and catastrophe, reading this work is a disorienting, multisensory feel that terrifies virtually as much as it clarifies. While the book frequently requires more conscientious written report than many armchair theologians are prepared to invest, Revelation may well be, as Ian Paul promises, 'the near remarkable text you volition always read.'
I include the full contents list below, grabbed from the Amazon preview; I think the book volition get a standard work on Revelation at any level. This is the pre-publication typhoon of my chapter on the souls under the throne in Rev six, read in the context of the martyrdom of the seven brothers in 2 Maccabees.
The Book of Revelation begins in chapter 1 with apocalyptic and prophetic elements set within an epistolary framework, communicating unambiguously that John is writing to item people in a particular time and place. Only the cosmic vision he has of Jesus in the second one-half of the chapter, equally not only identified with God, merely also every bit both the angelic messenger of God and priestly mediator between God and humanity, shows his bulletin has transcendent significance. After recording the letters he hears for the assemblies of Jesus-followers in 7 of the cities in Asia (Western Turkey), the vision report resumes every bit he enters the heavenly throne room in chapters 4 and 5 and he both sees and hears the worship of God and Jesus (now depicted as the slain but raised lamb) as without rival in all of creation. This sets the scene for the unsealing of the gyre, all-time understood equally the volition of God for the world, and the sequence of seven seals, with its images of death, devastation and judgement, represent for many readers the beginning of the truly apocalyptic section of the volume—and is often the identify where they stop reading.
Affiliate 6 does indeed present some distinctively apocalyptic features. The most obvious is the explicit utilise of numerical structure. Nosotros have already seen the use of 7 in spatial terms as the number of the cities addressed past the letter, which must have at least some symbolic significance, since in that location were many other cities with Christian communities in Asia at the time that John was writing. Just now 'seven' is used with temporal, rather than spatial, significance, marking the sequence of events flowing from the breaking of each seal, and ending (as practice the two other temporal sequences of seven trumpets and seven bowls) with an anticipation of The End, here a menstruation of silence (8.one) which in rabbinic thinking was a sign of the finish of all things. The sequence therefore corresponds to the thought of this world having vii ages, as a cosmic expression of the seven days of cosmos, culminating in a final Sabbath rest. Whilst the messages to the seven assemblies are structured as iii + four, marked past the switch in order of the 2 concluding exhortations ('the 1 having ears/the i conquering'), the opening of the seals is structured every bit 4 + 3, as is the trumpeting of the trumpets in chapters viii and 9 and (slightly less conspicuously) the pouring of the vii bowls in chapter 16.
The second apocalyptic feature is the cascade of vivid, emotive and archetypal imagery; the iv horsemen are perhaps the well-nigh widely known image from the text, occurring frequently in film, political cartoon and cultural annotate.[1]Just, like all the images in Revelation, the vehiclesof the metaphors (lamb, horsemen, beasts) are deployed without any explicit mention of the subjectsof the metaphors (Jesus, natural disasters, empires), which makes them both vivid andambiguous, able to be interpreted in a broad range of later contexts. Is the blazing mount in Rev viii:eight a reference to the eruption of Vesuvius in AD 79, an anticipation of an 'end times' event, or an expression of the disasters that befall humanity in all ages?
Within this structured, vivid sequence, at the opening of the fifth seal of the gyre past the lamb, John is given a vision of the 'souls of those who had been slain because of the word of God and the testimony they had maintained' under the chantry.
Parallel text: the martyrdom of the seven sons in 2 Maccabees seven
The four books with the title 'Maccabees' all relate to the crisis precipitated by the Seleucid ruler Antiochus IV 'Epiphanes' and his desecration of the temple by sacrificing pigs and erecting infidel statues in 167 BC. This provoked the revolt led by the Hasmonean priest-ruler Judas Maccabeus, and his reconsecration of the temple in 164 BC is still celebrated in the Jewish festival of Hanukkah. Judas' appellation 'Maccabeus' is unremarkably understand to mean 'hammer', but it is also the acronym of the Exodus battle-cry of Moses and the people 'Who is like you among the gods Yahweh?' (Ex 15:eleven). Similar claims to exclusivity are found in the name of Michael (literally 'Who is like God?') in Rev 12:vii and the rival, parallel assertion 'Who is like the beast?' in Rev xiii:4.
1 and 2 Maccabees are not in the Jewish or Protestant canon of Scripture, but are in the Apocrypha of the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox canon. iii and 4 Maccabees are later works with a more philosophical outlook which are usually considered to the function of the Onetime Testament pseudepigrapha. The four texts are continued though distinct. 1 Maccabees appear to exist a translation into Greek from a Hebrew or Aramaic original, and is reminiscent of the 'histories' ('Onetime Prophets' in the Hebrew Bible) of the Sometime Testament, though without any of the miraculous elements. 2 Maccabees claims to be a summary of a 5-book work past 'Jason of Cyrene' (two Macc ii:xix, 23) and is written in koine(common) Greek[2]. Information technology expands the events of the outset seven chapters of 1 Maccabees, calculation in the martyrdom of the rabbi Eleazar in chapter vi followed past the martyrdom of the seven sons in affiliate 7. The text is of import in articulating some key theological ideas of Second Temple Judaism which are essential background to reading the New Attestation, particularly the idea of bodily resurrection. 3 Maccabees announced to recount legendary material from the preceding period, whilst iv Maccabees is a treatise on the virtue of pious reason over against passion, and includes extended reflections on the martyrdom of the seven sons in 4 Macc 8–12.
The account of the martyrdoms is detailed and gruesome, and came to be admired and emulated in mediaeval Christian devotions to martyred saints; it gives rise to the English term 'macabre'.[three]
They were being tortured by the king with whips and thongs to force them to swallow pork, contrary to the police. But one of them, speaking for all, said: 'What do you expect to learn by interrogating us? Rather than interruption our bequeathed laws we are prepared to die.' In fury, the king ordered groovy pans and cauldrons to be heated. This was attended to without delay; meanwhile he gave orders that the spokesmans' tongue should exist cut out and that he should be scalped and mutilated earlier the eyes of his mother and six brothers. A wreck of a human being, but still breathing, he was taken at the male monarch'south direction to the fire and roasted in one of the pans. (2 Macc seven.1b–5a)
There are v things to note about the martyrdoms and the manner they are described. The kickoff is the proximate reason for the suffering of the brothers: their adherence to their 'ancestral laws' (two Macc 7:2) which are the laws of the 'King of the universe' (verse 9). Faithfulness to God's laws, and in particular the food laws, is worth suffering and dying for.
When the question was put to [the third brother], he at once showed his tongue and courageously held out his easily. 'The God of heaven gave these to me, merely his laws mean far more to me than they do…' (2 Macc 7:10–11).
The importance of food laws equally thepoint of testing loyalty lies behind controversies nosotros detect well-nigh the subject field in the New Testament (Marker seven.17–23, Acts 10.9–16, Rom 14.17).
But, secondly, the explanation for their suffering goes beyond a simple question of loyal resistance to forces that might make them compromise. The oppression of Antiochus Epiphanes has been brought about (by God?) every bit a just punishment of the Jewish people for their sins. In the words of the seventh brother:
It is for our own sins that nosotros are suffering, and, though to right and discipline u.s. our living Lord is angry for a brief time, nevertheless he volition exist reconciled with his servants (2 Macc vii:32–33).
This theological interpretation of what is happening is in line with the theological shape of the Deuteronomistic history, beginning with the approval and curses for obedience and defiance in Deut 28, and ending with the destruction of Jerusalem and the people carried off to exile in 2 Kings 25. It also correlates with Jesus' language in Luke 19:41–44, in which he anticipates (and Luke has now seen) the fall of Jerusalem as judgment on their refusal to recognise God's presence in Jesus' coming to the city.
Thirdly, the brothers' death has further significance—not just coming as a result of the sin of the people, but in their faithfulness and suffering even atoning for these sins and in some sense satisfying and bringing to an cease God's anger.
May the Omnipotent's anger, which has justly fallen on all our race, end with me and my brothers! (poesy 38).
The importance of the death of these seven, and the faithfulness of their mother (whose crusade of death in verse 41 is unexplained) is that, in some sense, they have died forthe people, an thought echoed in the words of Caiaphas nearly Jesus 'meliorate that one human die for the people…' (John 11:50, 18:14).
All of this is (fourthly) framed in a quite explicit joint of the hope of bodily resurrection for those who accept kept faith. With his concluding jiff, the 2d blood brother declares:
The King of the Universe will raise us upward to everlasting life made new (verse 9).
The language here of 'everlasting' or 'eternal life' is the same as what we discover in the Fourth Gospel (John three:xv, 16, 36, 4:fourteen, 36 and and then on) but with an indication of life 'fabricated new' which corresponds to the distinction between 'this age' and the 'age to come up' (Matt 12:32, Mark 10:forty, Luke twenty:34–35). In the resurrection, the brothers' bodies, at present dismembered and disfigured, volition be healed and restored (2 Macc 7:eleven) and the mother volition receive her sons back (verse 29). However, in contrast to the universal resurrection described in Daniel 12:2 in which some rise to eternal life and other to sentence, the expectation is that Antiochus, equally one of the wicked, will die and non be raised (two Macc 7:14).
Finally, the hope of the brothers is that God will avenge them by raising up a leader who will punish Antiochus through violent opposition and warfare, and the post-obit chapters characterize just that outcome. Martyrdom here is paired with a willingness to resist through combat; in affiliate 8 the preparation for the conflict includes praying that God volition 'give ear to the blood that cried to him for vengeance' (2 Macc 8:3). This contrasts both with Paul'southward citation of Prov 25:21 in Rom 12:xx which leaves vengeance to God lonely and non our action, and the 'quietist' response to the Antiochene crisis set out in the book of Daniel which was written at a similar fourth dimension to 2 Maccabees.
Exegesis of Rev vi.9–11
The catastrophes unleashed with the breaking of the first iv seals have an ambiguous status in relation to the sovereignty of God. On the ane hand, they are released at the instigation of Jesus-equally-lamb, but the iv horsemen mediate the catastrophes, and they in plow are called forth by i of the 4 living creatures effectually the throne. In dissimilarity to the direct sovereignty of God expressed in 2 Maccabees, the action of God in bringing disaster seems here to be at least qualified or in some sense mediated. God's start unmediated action in Revelation is to 'wipe every tear from their eyes' (Rev 7:17, 21:4). The catalogue of conquest, violent warfare, famine and food shortages, and early expiry and illness represented by the horsemen are experiences with which John's readers would have been very familiar—every bit have many subsequently generations.[iv]
Opening the fifth seal does not lead to further action, but allows John a vision of the 'souls who had been slain'. The term 'soul' might suggest a not-bodily existence, so it is unclear in what sense John tin can 'encounter' them. But the term 'slain' links them with the image of the lamb 'standing as slain' (Rev 5:6); where the martyrs of 2 Maccabees receive suffering at the manus of God (justly) punishing his people, here the martyrs share the suffering that their Lord himself has experienced. Although John sees these souls 'under the altar', at that place is no suggestion that their suffering has atoning value, since the heavenly temple has only one altar, for the offering of incense (see Rev 8:3), whereas the earthly temple which it parallels has ii, i for incense and one for sacrifice. It is the slaying of the lamb which alone has atoning ability, his claret 'purchasing' his people for God (v:ix); information technology is as though the throne of God itself has go the altar of atoning sacrifice.
The brothers were killed for their devotion to the law, but the martyrs here endure because of the 'word of God and the testimony they had'. The 'word of God' appears to refer to the message nearly Jesus, not least because at 1 betoken it is given as his championship (19:thirteen), and is twice paired with the 'testimony of Jesus' (1:ii, ix) which in turn is linked with the prophetic word of the Spirit (19:x).[5]'Testimony' and 'witness' both translate the same word in Greek, from which our word 'martyr' derives, and information technology is a key theological idea in the book. Jesus is described as the 'faithful and truthful witness' (1:v, 3:14) and his name occurs xiv times in the text, the product of two (the biblical number of witness; see Deut 17:6, 19:v) and 7 (the number of completeness). The discussion for 'saints', referring to God's people, also occurs fourteen times, indicating that those following Jesus are called to be faithful witnesses to the indicate of decease every bit he was. The parallel is fabricated explicit in Rev 12:eleven:
They triumphed over [Satan] past the claret of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony; they did not love their lives so much as to shrink from decease.
Indeed, the 'word of God and the testimony of Jesus' is identified by John every bit the reason for the 'tribulation' that he himself was suffering along with his brothers and sisters to whom he writes (one:9). In this sense, the martyrs under the altar are archetypal of what it means to be a follower of the lamb.
The idea that these martyrs are suffering considering of the sins of the people of God is entirely absent; the cause is the opposition of 'the inhabitants of the world', a term used x times to designate those who follow the creature and receive his mark (xiii:8) contrasted with the sky-domicile followers of the lamb. God's terminal judgment will exist against all who have 'shed the blood of [his] people' (16:6; compare 17:6, 18:24). Just God's but judgement is postponed 'a little time' during which the devil vents his fury (12:12) and God'southward people must patiently endure (1:9). Revelation here follows the quietist ethic in the face of oppression articulated in Daniel.
The 'white robes' signify purity in the presence of God (four:iv) granted past means of the atoning decease of Jesus as the slain lamb (7:14). Though bodily resurrection is non mentioned in this episode, it looms big on the eschatological horizon of the narrative every bit a whole (twenty:12–thirteen).
Conclusion
The depiction of martyrs in Revelation clearly shares a number of assumptions with the account in ii Maccabees—the virtue of suffering at the hands of an evil oppressor, the justice of the sovereign God, and the certainty of judgement. But at central points, Revelation offers a radically dissimilar theological agreement. God's judgement volition come afterward eschatological delay, and volition be effected past God lone and not by military or political action. Atonement is achieved by the suffering of Jesus alone, yet the suffering of his people follows his case of patient endurance. Their response to evil oppression is therefore non to accept upward artillery in resistance, merely to go on in their faithful testimony as they look to The End when God will make all things new (Rev 21:five).
[1] The publicity posters for Francis Ford Coppola's Vietnam war moving picture Apocalypse Now(1979) feature a sequence of 4 United states of america Regular army helicopters as an echo of the iv horsemen.
[two] That the text was equanimous in Greek is articulate from the regular references to the characters' 'native language' (ie Aramaic or Hebrew) eg in 2 Macc 7:21.
[3] From the Latin term,Machabaeorum chorea meaning Dance of the Maccabees.
[4] It is sobering to realise that the Black Decease of the 14thursdaycentury killed one third of Europe's population, and that the Spanish influenza of 1918–19 infected one 3rd of the world'southward population. Freedom from such experiences is a relatively rare miracle in man history.
[5] The speech of Jesus and the speech of the Spirit are closely identified throughout Revelation, not to the lowest degree in the seven letters in chapters 2 and iii, where the proclamation of Jesus is each time offered as 'what the Spirit is saying to the assemblies'.
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