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Revelations: Visions, Prophecy, and Politics in the Book of Revelation, by Elaine Pagels
Ebook Download Revelations: Visions, Prophecy, and Politics in the Book of Revelation, by Elaine Pagels
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Review
"Revelations is a slim book that packs in dense layers of scholarship and meaning . . . One of [Elaine Pagels's] great gifts is much in abundance: her ability to ask, and answer, the plainest questions about her material without speaking down to her audience . . . She must be a fiendishly good lecturer." — The New York Times"One of the significant benefits of Pagels's book is its demonstration of the unpredictability of apocalyptic politics . . . The meaning of the Apocalypse is ever malleable and ready to hand for whatever crisis one confronts. That is one lesson of Pagels's book. Another is that we all should be vigilant to keep some of us from using the vision for violence against others." — The New York Times Book Review (Editors' Choice)"Pagels is an absorbing, intelligent, and eye-opening companion. Calming and broad-minded here, as in her earlier works, she applies a sympathetic and humane eye to texts that are neither subtle nor sympathetically humane but lit instead by fury." — Adam Gopnik, The New Yorker"Any book in the Bible that can be cited simultaneously by deeply conservative end-of-times Christians who see the Apocalypse around the corner and by Marxist-friendly Christians looking forward to justice at the End of History must have a compelling back story. That back story is told well and concisely by Elaine Pagels in her new book, Revelations." — The Boston Globe
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About the Author
Elaine Pagels is the Harrington Spear Paine Professor of Religion at Princeton University and the author of Reading Judas, The Gnostic Gospels-winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award and the National Book Award- and the New York Times bestseller Beyond Belief. She lives in Princeton, New Jersey.
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Product details
Paperback: 256 pages
Publisher: Penguin Books; Reprint edition (February 26, 2013)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0143121634
ISBN-13: 978-0143121633
Product Dimensions:
5.3 x 0.6 x 8 inches
Shipping Weight: 7 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
Average Customer Review:
4.2 out of 5 stars
195 customer reviews
Amazon Best Sellers Rank:
#60,402 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
I have read Elaine Pagels' work before (Gnostic Gospels) and have admired her work. I am not an expert in this aspect of history, but her works read well and she shows much knowledge of the material. She also places the issues addressed in an historical context.Here, she explores the Book of Revelation, written, she says, by John of Patmos (an island off the coast of Turkey). She asks a number of questions in this book and strives to answer each (Page 3): "Who wrote this book? Why--and how--do so many people still read it today?" Pagels suggests that John began writing the book in 90 AD, probably after having fled his homeland in Judea.Pagels discusses revelatory works, showing how John's book fit into this tradition. She also notes that, from the documents from Nag Hammadi, John's was not the only work of revelation. Why did his become part of the Biblical canon and not some other? She discusses the history and politics of the time and how the emerging church hierarchy wanted a definitive "Bible." She outlines the logic that ended up locating John's Book of Revelation within the canon.This volume is well written, albeit a bit short. But it takes on a big subject and does not disappoint.
The most mysterious, controversial and disturbing of all of the books of the New Testament portion of the Christian Bible is the Book of Revelation. While most Christians are led to believe that all books of the Bible were compiled by some sort of divine mandate, the Book of Revelation was not an inevitable addition to the Canon. Elaine Pagels recounts what scholars know about the Book of Revelation in terms of its composition, how it was viewed by contemporaries and its eventual inclusion into the New Testament. Pagels began her career studying and writing about the so-called Nag Hammadi Library, previously unknown and/or lost Christian texts which were discovered in the 1940's in Egypt which forever altered scholars' views of Early Christianity.The Book of Revelation was written by a figure which has come down to us as John of Patmos. Much of Christian tradition has believed John of Patmos and John the Evangelist, writer of the Gospel According to John, are the same person. According to Pagels, not only is there widespread scholarly consensus that John of Patmos and John the Gospel writer are two different figures, this assertion was made during the earliest centuries of the church. Scholars have determined that the writing styles of John of Patmos and John the Gospel writer are distinctive enough in Greek to conclude that these people were separate writers whose literary goals were quite disparate, and these distinctions were recognized during Christianity's formative years. John the Evangelist was writing a mystical/spiritual account of the life of Jesus, dissimilar from the synoptic gospels. By contrast, John of Patmos wrote a war-time revelation which as Pagels points out became a popular literary genre for a time, from about the late first century and into the third century.Pagels makes other assertions about the Book of Revelation which challenges Christian tradition. In addition to her assertion that John of Patmos is not John the Evangelist, Pagels also contends John of Patmos is not a Christian in our modern sense of the term. He is a Jew who is also a follower of Jesus, similar to Franciscan monks being followers of St. Francis of Assisi while also being Christians. Christians and Jews were not quite separate groups yet; followers of Jesus of the First Century were largely Jews. What would become "Christianity" as a distinctive religion from Judaism probably doesn't occur until the 2nd century when Gentiles took the reigns of the leadership.Another surprising item which Pagels details is the Book of Revelation's controversy from very shortly after its composition, which Pagels dates circa 80-90 CE. While most Christians believe the Book of Revelation details future events which will occur in the far future, Pagels asserts that John of Patmos is describing very vividly conflicts during his own time. Today the word "Apocalypse" has come to mean "End Time" or "worldly destruction through divine intervention", but in fact, the term simply means an "unveiling" or a "revealing", hence "revelation". Over time, probably since no earlier than the inception of Protestantism, perhaps even more recent, the term "apocalypse" has the meaning used by people today as referring to a coming cataclysm.If the dating is correct, John of Patmos wrote very shortly after the Destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem during the Wars of the Jews and Romans, circa 66-70. The conflicts described by John of Patmos made the book very volatile during its own time. Many so-called Christian fathers condemned the book, stating it was heretical. There do exist some Christian denominations which do not accept John of Patmos' Revelation as a legitimately divine text and hence do not include it in their Bible. Again, despite what is taught in Christian churches, the Book of Revelation did not have a clear path to canonization.According to Pagels, from circa 100 to 300, John of Patmos' Revelation was not considered to be a divine text, but the opposite, a devil-inspired heretical text. Primary sources from the 2nd through the 3rd centuries CE survive in which early church fathers such as Origen, credited with being the first chronicler of the history of Christianity, condemned the book. The Book of Revelation's hero (or villain depending upon your point of view) was Athanasius of Alexandria according to Pagels. Athanasius declared John of Patmos' Revelation was divinely inspired and sought hard for its inclusion in the shaping of what would become the 27 books of the New Testament. In addition, Athanasius also condemned other books, such as the Gospel of Thomas, a copy of which was found among other lost Christian texts at Nag Hammadi.Pagels then shows how John of Patmos' Revelation was used throughout history. The Book of Revelation has become more than just a symbolic text but a metaphor for conflicting factions. Some of these factions have even believed they were experiencing the prophecies of John of Patmos. She uses examples from the Reformation, from the American Civil War, and even from the recent Iraq War in which the rhetoric of Revelation is used to prove one side is on the side of God and the other is on the side of evil. At the very end of the book, Pagels introduces some personal views in which she cautions people in interpreting this text as a literal revelation of events in their own time. She argues it can be very dangerous for humanity to take a text written nearly 2000 years ago and try to apply it literally to our times to decide who is on the side of good and who is on the side of evil.A fascinating description, history and account of perhaps the most fascinating book of the New Testament. Pagels book reads like a novelistic documentary in which the history of the book and how it was both influenced by Judeo-Christian thought and later influenced Christian belief. While I would certainly never wish to put into question anyone's religious beliefs, Pagel's book challenges many assertions about how John of Patmos' text came about and how it became part of the Canon. I would hope Christians would find interest in this book as it details much of how and why Christian thought and belief was shaped.
Very enlightening! In college, I took a semester course in the Book of Revelation, and this book reinforces much of what I remember learning. This book takes an academic approach, therefore, not a Sunday school lesson. My college professor, Dr. Charles Layman, often said that if you want to understand the Bible, you must study the conditions and beliefs that existed at the time the of writing. Simply opening the Book of Revelation and begin reading, without important background information, is confusing, indeed.
Elaine Pagels knowledge and writing is wonderful and insightfulHowever I found Lorna Raver's rendition of the audio book so distracting as to make the book difficult to get through.It is as if Ms. Raver sat in the studio and only read one line at a time, giving some stage-level dramatic interpretation to that line, independent of the context in the book. I frequently had rewind and listen again, to make sense of the text, outside what I found to be the misleading intonations Ms. Raver put into the words.As an avid listener and user of audio books, I'd have to say:Author: 5 starsreader: perhaps she would wonderful choice in dramatic novels, with other characters to play off of, but because of what was to my ear, a terrible mis-match in reader style from the intent of the text,Even thought I am a big fan of audio books,For this book, I'd suggest the reader purchase a paper or e-book copy and not the audio book.However for Elaine Pagel's book "Beyond Belief..." the Audio book is wonderful.
I've been reading Marcus Borg's "Evolution of the Word: The New Testament in the Order the Books Were Written". When I got to the book of Revelation, I found it reads like an indecipherable disjointed fantasy of the Steven King genre. So I purchased Elaine Pagels' "Revelations: Visions, Prophecy and Politics......" to see if it would throw any light on the subject including why such a book was included in the biblical canon, and it did. Pagels does not try to provide a single interpretation for the vision, instead she provides a very readable description, supported by numerous scholarly publications, of the different ways that the book has been interpreted by clergy and politicians throughout its history. More importantly she explains their motivations for interpreting it the way they did and some of the resulting implications. After reading Pagels' book I have gained a reasonable understanding of the Book of Revelation's complex history and a broader perspective into the growth of the early church.
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