REVELATION  2:8-15

Smyrna (modern Izmir) was destroyed in about 500 BC and rebuilt, on a lower site in 70 BC.  The old acropolis overlooked the new city, and was called the “crown of Smyrna”.

In New Testament times, Smyrna was a major and prosperous city.  The Christian church was well established, but subject to conflict with the Jewish community and the Graeco-Roman authorities.  The church father Polycarp was martyred there.

John commends their faith, but forecasts persecution, though this will not last for a long time.

Many commentators* seem to read the reference to “the synagogue of Satan” in a way directly opposite to its surface meaning.  John refers to “those who pretend to be Jews and are not”.  It is perhaps unreasonable to jump to the conclusion that John is in fact talking about Jews.  Perhaps he is writing from the point of view of a conservative Jewish Christian, who is unconvinced that Gentiles can be Christians since they are not Jews.  Certainly “the nations” are invariably portrayed as evil in the rest of the Book.  On this reading, the “pretenders” would be Gentiles who adopted Jewish practices on becoming Christians, a practice that Paul opposed, in the face of opposition from “people sent by James”.  The “synagogue of Satan” would actually be part of the Gentile Christian community………

·          For example:  http://www.wels.net/cgi-bin/site.pl?1518&cuTopic_topicID=815&cuItem_itemID=28248  

REVELATION 1 and 2:1-7

The last book of the New Testament and of the Bible is the Book of Revelation.  The word “revelation “ is a translation of the Greek word Apocalypse.  Apocalyptic literature forms a class of writings that were popular in the First Century.  Revelation is the only wholly apocalyptic book in the Bible, though Daniel, Ezekiel, and even the gospels contain apocalyptic elements.  The apocryphal books 2 Esdras and the Shepherd oF Hermas are apocalyptic.  

Apocryphal books are presented as an explanation of the Last Things” to the writer.  They are highly symbolic, but this may not mean that they attempted to conceal secrets, but they used a commonly accepted “vocabulary” that is, however, difficult for the modern reader.

We looked as some cartoons, drawn and published for political purposes.  We had no difficulty with cartoons drawn in the 1940’s, but those a hundred years earlier were opaque.

Apocryphal books are often pseudepigraphical – examples are the apocalypses of Moses, Abraham, and Enoch .  Traditionally Revelation is ascribed to John the Evangelist, who is also identified as the writer of the Gospel of John and the Letters of John.  However, it was pointed out early on that the Greek of the Gospel and the Letters is impeccable, whereas the Greek of Revelation is very strange. 

Ireneaus dated Revelation to the later years of the emperor Domitian, but the book may well be earlier.  We worked through the prophecy of the temple contained in chapter 11, which seems to indicate that the book was written while the Jerusalem temple was under siege, though the author predicts that the  siege will be lifted “after 42 months” and after “the Gentiles’ had penetrated only to the outer courts.  Since in fact the Roman legions conquered the center of the temple in 70 AD, this suggests that the book is earlier than that.

An interesting puzzle is the prophecy of the “eight kings” in chapter  17:9-11.  Comparing this to a list of actual Roman emperors suggest that the book was written during the Year of the Four Emperors, when the author expects “one of the seven” to return “although dead”, which suggests a reference to the abortive rebellion under “Nero Revividus”.

Revelation contains short letters to the churches of the Roman province of Asia.  We looked briefly at the first – to the city of Ephesus.  Three members of our group have been to Ephesus, and told us of its great buildings including one of the Wonders of World – the Artemisium, or “Temple of Diana of the Ephesians”

Paul spent over two years at Ephesus, and it was a center of Christian development for several hundred years.  “John” however, upbraids the Ephesians for having lost “the love you had at first.”   However, the Ephesian Christians are congratulated on resisting heretics, and even those who “claim to be apostles and are not.”

Some have suggested that the prophecy about the “tree of life” is a subtle reference to the sacred date-tree of Aphrodite in Ephesus.