Furthermore, a recent thematic issue of the theological journal Interpretation was entitled “Revelation as a Critique of Empire.” In the opening article in the issue, Craig Koester notes that the empire addressed in Revelation consists of three inseparable components, all of which are challenged by the book: political domination, religion in which the political order is identified with the divine, and economic networks that favored the elite and permitted human exploitation.32 Revelation is therefore a “visionary critique” of “the beastly side of empire,” the “deification of human power,” and
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