Apocalypse
Apocalypse is another name for the last book in the New Testament, the book of Revelation.
The word “apocalypse” is taken from Greek, where it simply meant “revelation.” It is the first word in Greek in the first verse of the first chapter of the book of Revelation: “The revelation of Jesus Christ…” The word “apocalypse” is also used for any of a class of Jewish and Christian writings that appeared between about 200 BC and AD 350 describing a cataclysm in which the forces of good and evil battled, with good finally triumphing over evil. This apocalyptic literature was produced by communities that were suffering persecution or felt oppressed and marginalized. The New Testament book of Revelation is the only book of the Bible that can be identified as a part of this sort of literature, though books like it were quite common in that period.
There are no modern works that are equivalent to ancient apocalypse, and as a consequence, the book of Revelation is often confusing to modern readers. However, once the conventions of that literary form are understood—along with its very common images and metaphors employed—the book becomes quite easy to make sense of.
The closest modern analogies to apocalypse are the old Negro spirituals that were produced before the American Civil War. Rather than being religious in nature, they were actually subversive. They were filled with code language designed to be understood one way by the slave owners and in an entirely different way by the slaves who had produced them. For instance, the “river Jordan” was used as a stand-in for the Ohio River. Once a slave had made it past the Ohio River, he or she would be free. In the song “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot” the “sweet chariot” refers to the Underground Railroad that could rescue slaves and move them to freedom.
Likewise, in apocalyptic literature in general, “Babylon” was code for the city of Rome. Just as the Babylonians had oppressed Israel, killed the people of God, corrupted the world, destroyed Jerusalem, and burned the Temple, so too had the Romans. The “whore of Babylon” described in Revelation 17 is a reference to the city of Rome, as is made obvious when the reader is told “The seven heads are seven hills on which the woman sits” (Revelation 17: 9) and “The woman you saw is the great city that rules over the kings of the earth.” (Revelation 17:18). Rome was noted for being built upon seven hills, and it ruled over the known world. Likewise, when Peter writes in 1 Peter 5:13 that the church in “Babylon” sends greetings, the original readers of his letter understood that he was writing from Rome.
