Book Excerpt: Revelation: The Way It Happened

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After this I looked, and there before me was a door standing open in heaven. And the voice I had first heard speaking to me like a trumpet said, “Come up here, and I will show you what must take place after this.” At once I was in the Spirit, and there before me was a throne in heaven with someone sitting on it. –Relevation 4:1-2

Early Christians envisioned this passage in Revelation very differently than we do today. Let me paint you a picture of common first-century cosmological beliefs, whi...