Revelation is not simply the title of this work. It’s the title of a genre. Many works in the genre were produced during the first and second centuries, times of great economic and martial strife, which are always marked by increases in end-time thinking and the accompanying visions of how it will go down. But of the revelations produced around then, only John’s has stood the test of time. First, its vague and coded language—likely employed to save himself from Roman retribution, via plausible deniability—has allowed groups throughout history to plug their own enemies into its narrative. It’s
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