How does Revelation configure space and time?

I am contributing the chapter on Revelation to the forthcomingCambridge Handbook to Apocalyptic Literature, and this is what I am planning to say near time and space in Revelation. Whatsoever observations welcome!

As part of the extended epistolary opening (which runs from Rev 1:4 to i:xi), John locates himself temporally, spatially, relationally and spiritually in a series of 'in' statements which are ordinarily obscured in English language translations:

I, John, your brother and companion
inthe tribulation and kingdom and patient-endurance that are ours
inJesus was
inthe island chosen Patmos…I was
inthe Spirit
inthe Lord's 24-hour interval…

This striking succession of 'in' phrases (Greek en, idiomatically translated by a variety of phrases in ETs) locates John temporally—explicitly 'on the Lord'due south day', implicitly in the recent past, more than or less contemporaneous with his readers—and spatially 'on the island called Patmos'. The relational dimensions of this are both explicit and implicit; John is 'brother' to those to whom he writes, using the about common term in the early Jesus movement that redrew the boundaries of familial loyalty effectually allegiance to the proclamation of the kingdom of God in the person and didactics of Jesus (see the foundational example of this in Matt 12.46–50 and pars). But his spatial location also has implicit relational overtones, since from Patmos John is just able to come across the hills on coast of the Roman province of Asia surrounding Ephesus, the nearest of the seven cities. He is at some distance, but as a pastor he is non remote.

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Spiritually, he and his readers are 'in Jesus', a phrase that has echoes of the key theological term of incorporation within the Pauline corpus 'in Christ'.[1]But John understands this incorporation to include 'tribulation' every bit well as 'kingdom', and in doing so is both post-obit the temporal merits of Peter that Pentecost signifies the beginning of the 'last days' (Acts 2.16–17) and Paul's teaching that entry into the kingdom of God will entail 'tribulation' (thlipsis) or suffering (Acts fourteen.22). John'south spatial location on Patmos also has an implicit theological, or mayhap mythological significance, being 70 miles west from Delos, the loonshit where the central action of the Python-Leto myth was played out, which John draws on extensively in the key narrative of Revelation 12.[2]

The classic definition of the apocalyptic genre, developed by John J Collins and others, highlights both the temporal and spatial attribute of apocalyptic literature, reflecting the fact that, in other apocalypses, the 'seer' is taken on an other-worldly journey.[3]The Book of Revelation appears at commencement to conform to this, with John beingness invited to 'come up upwardly hither' to see 'what must accept identify after this', and plainly going through a door into a heavenly throne room (Rev 4.1). But this sense of 'otherworldly journeying' is disrupted as the text develops. Although John enters this heavenly throne-room, he never appears to leave it, even at the very end of his vision report, and what he sees appears to alternate betwixt the heavenly and the earthly with no clear distinction. The audition of the 144,000 which becomes a vision of an uncountable people in affiliate vii is located explicitly on earth, but the adjacent vision of the 144,000 is quite articulate heavenly, located on a spiritual 'Mount Zion' where they sing 'earlier the throne' (Rev xiv.3). in Rev 13.6–vii, the starting time beast 'from the ocean' (later simply called 'the beast') blasphemes and makes war against God's people, who are described as 'those habitation in sky'. They are assorted with 'the inhabitants of the globe' (a phrase repeated 10 times in iii:ten; vi:10; 8:thirteen; xi:x twice; 13:8; thirteen:14 twice; 17:2; 17:8) who follow the beast, and this partition of humanity corresponds to the partition betwixt those who receive the seal of the living God in Rev 7.ii (which appears to be identified every bit the 'name of the lamb and his Father' in xiv.one), and those who receive the mark of the brute (mentioned twice in Rev 13.16–eighteen and in xiv.9, 11; 16.ii; xix.20 and 20.4, making 7 occurrences in all). This points to the spatial references in the text functioning together as an extended metaphor for humanity's spiritual state, and the descriptions of the heavenly realm as suggesting a spiritual, prophetic perspective on the mundane realities of the earthly realm.[4]The consummation of his vision written report is the coming of the New Jerusalem downward from heaven to earth, where the two realities finally converge.

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Any simple configuration of Revelation'southward temporal dynamics is immediately challenged past the large-scale construction of the text. Revelation certainly has an eschatological focus, as with other apocalyptic texts, and the closing chapters take a detail eschatological finality about them. However, almost every major earlier section likewise includes last eschatological motifs, linking with the endmost visions, and these frequently correlate with one another. So, for instance, each of the series of seven seals, trumpets and bowls ends with an eschatological motif, following some sort of interlude—the one associated with the final trumpet being particularly developed:

The kingdom of the world has become
the kingdom of our Lord and of his Messiah,
and he volition reign for ever and always. (Rev xi.xv)

There are also eschatological anticipations at the end of the vision-interval between the 6th and seventh seals, in Rev 7.15–17 ('Never again will they hunger; never again will they thirst…') and in the central, pivotal narrative in Rev 12.10–12 ('Now have come up the salvation and the ability and the kingdom of our God, and the authority of his Messiah…'). In this fashion, throughout the text, the eschatological finale casts its shadow (or, perhaps meliorate, casts its light) ahead of itself into the early on narrative sections. This sense of recapitulation and anticipation reminds us that John's repeated use of 'And I saw…' indicates the temporality of his vision experience, and not the temporal significance of the events that the visions symbolize.[5]

The pulling forward into the present of the final reality is also effected by the deployment of ii primal eschatological terms, 'woe' and 'tribulation'.

The association of 'woe' with eschatological judgement is made clear in chapter 18, where the fall of the great metropolis Babylon (symbolically representing Rome every bit an archetypal human empire) is mourned with double woes by three groups—the client 'kings of the earth', merchants, and sea captains—who accept until then profited from the city's power and trade (18.10, 16 and 19). But the proclamations of 'woe' are brought forwards as a disruptive overlay on the sequence of seven trumpets. In Rev eight.13, a flying hawkeye (a heathen symbol of divine guidance) declares the concluding three trumpet blasts to exist a three-fold 'woe', and this is confirmed for the fifth and sixth trumpet blasts by a repeated formula in 9.12 and 11.fourteen:

The kickoff woe has passed; ii other woes are yet to come.

The second woe has passed; the third woe is coming soon.

But the strong apprehension (that the final trumpet is the third woe) is disrupted, with no mention of 'woe' in relation to the terminal blast, which instead leads to a declaration of eschatological triumph. So where is the third 'woe'? Information technology actually comes in the following chapter and is connected with the victory of God's anointed one ('Messiah') achieved through his decease on the cantankerous:

Now have come the salvation and the power
and the kingdom of our God,
and the authority of his Messiah.
For the accuser of our brothers and sisters,
who accuses them before our God day and nighttime,
has been hurled downwardly.
They triumphed over him
by the blood of the Lamb
and by the word of their testimony;
they did not beloved their lives so much
as to shrink from death.
Therefore rejoice, you lot heavens
and you who dwell in them!
But woe to the earth and the sea… (Rev 12.10–12)[6]

This argument connects the preceding narrative, and the identity of the 'male son who will rule the nations with a rod of iron' (12.five, compare two.27 and xix.15), with the 'lamb looking as though slain' in five.6 and further back to the apologetic, kingdom-forming decease ('blood') of Jesus in ane.v–6. The fourth dimension of woe is, therefore, the time in which John is writing and in which his readers are living—a time of 'tribulation, kingdom and patient endurance' (1.9) as John fix out from the very get-go.

The dual nature of the present fourth dimension is expressed numerologically past John in the iii equivalent phrases 'time, times and half a time', '42 months' and '1,260 days' which link together the otherwise highly differentiated capacity 11 and 12 (occurring in xi.2, 3, nine, xi, 12.6 and 14). The beginning phrase derives from Daniel'south half-week of tribulation in Daniel 7.25 and 12.7, which is then calculated every bit beingness equal to either one,290 or 1,335 days. John changes this calculation by eliminating whatsoever intercalated months, so it equals thirty x 12 x 3.five = one,260 days or 42 months.[7]This so corresponds with the 42 years and 42 stations of the wilderness wanderings listed in Numbers 33 ('the stages of the journeying'). For John and his readers, the present time of tribulation is also the fourth dimension of Exodus wanderings; they have been 'freed from [the slavery] of our sins' (Rev 1.five) but have not nonetheless entered the Promised Land.[8]

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This present age therefore has, according to John, a double significance. Information technology is a time of victory, since the death of Jesus has brought the final, eschatological victory of God into the nowadays. And yet that victory is non still completely realized, and the Enemy and the enemies of God are still at large, causing the people of God to suffer and even die. This cryptic nature of the nowadays fourth dimension in fact forms the very basis of the appeal of the risen Jesus through John to invite his readers to 'conquer' (2.vii, 2.xi, 2.17, 2.26, 3.5, 3.12, three.21)—living out the as-however-not-fully-realised victory of the lamb, rather than succumbing the apparent but passing power of their opponents.

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Footnotes

[1]For a detailed written report of the 'in Christ' language in Paul, see Constantine Campbell, Paul and Union with Christ(Chiliad Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2012). See also Michael J. Gorman, Becoming the Gospel: Paul, Participation, and Mission(Grand Rapids, Michigan: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Visitor, 2015).

[ii]The Python-Leto myth functioned as majestic propaganda in which the emperor played the office of Apollo who vanquishes Python the chaos monster. Rev 12 inverts this, then that the Christ figure has the role of Apollo, bringing order and peace, and the Roman Empire (and with it all human empires) depicted equally the beast from the sea is allied with the anarchy monster, Satan.

[three]'An apocalypse is a genre of revelatory literature with a narrative framework, in which a revelation is mediated by an otherworldly being to a human recipient, disclosing a transcendent reality which is both temporal, insofar equally it envisages eschatological conservancy, and spatial, insofar every bit it involves another, supernatural globe'. John J. Collins, The Apocalyptic Imagination: An Introduction to Jewish Apocalyptic Literature, tertiary edition (Chiliad Rapids, Michigan: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2016).

[iv]We see a similar metaphorical development in the linguistic communication of 'staying' or 'abiding' (the Greek verb meno) in John'due south gospel. In the opening scenes, it appear to office as a reference to a physical identify ('Where are you staying?' John 1.38), but by the 'final supper' discourses it becomes a key term of spiritual discipleship and faithfulness ('If you remain in me and I in y'all, you lot will conduct much fruit; apart from me you can do zilch' John 15.5).

[5]It is often overlooking how striking it is that most of Revelation is written in the past tense, considering that (unlike other apocalyptic work) John is not writing a vaticinium ex eventu. The only extended use of the future tense is found in the angel'due south narrative of Rev 11.3–10, followed by an abrupt switch to John'due south prophetic past tense in verse xi.

[half dozen]This observation runs contrary to a number of major commentators, including Koester, Revelationwho (p 504) asserts that the third woe mustbe the seventh trumpet, even though it is not mentioned—only is picked up by a few; see p 175 in James 50. Resseguie, The Revelation of John: A Narrative Commentary(Thou Rapids, Mich: Baker Academic, 2009).No other commentator notices that the discussion 'woe' comes 14 times in all, which points to the occurrence in 12.10 as beingness a part of the wide scheme of eschatological reality.

[7]On the multiple significance of these numbers, run into Bauckham, The Climax of Prophecy.chapter 11 'Nero and the Fauna', especially pp 401–404.

[8]This explains the prevalence of Exodus references; the book is alluded to 53 times. Run into Ian Paul, Revelation: An Introduction And Commentary(London: Inter-Varsity Press, 2018)p 39 and Judith Kovacs and Christopher Rowland, Revelation: The Apocalypse to Jesus Christ(Oxford: Blackwell, 2004)pp 284–295.

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