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A History of the End of the World: How the Most Controversial Book in the Bible Changed the Course of Western Civilization
"[The Book of] Revelation has served as a "language arsenal" in a great many of the social, cultural, and political conflicts in Western history. Again and again, Revelation has stirred some dangerous men and women to act out their own private apocalypses. Above all, the moral calculus of Revelation—the demonization of one's enemies, the sanctification of revenge taking, and the notion that history must end in catastrophe—can be detected in some of the worst atrocities and excesses of every age, including our own. For all of these reasons, the rest of us ignore the book of Revelation only at our impoverishment and, more to the point, at our own peril." The mysterious author of the Book of Revelation (or the Apocalypse, as the last book of the New Testament is also known) never considered that his sermon on the impending end times would last beyond his own life. In fact, he predicted that the destruction of the earth would be witnessed by his contemporaries. Yet Revelation not only outlived its creator; this vivid and violent revenge fantasy has played a significant role in the march of Western civilization. Ever since Revelation was first preached as the revealed word of Jesus Christ, it has haunted and inspired hearers and readers alike. The mark of the beast, the Antichrist, 666, the Whore of Babylon, Armageddon, and the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse are just a few of the images, phrases, and codes that have burned their way into the fabric of our culture. The questions raised go straight to the heart of the human fear of death and obsession with the afterlife. Will we, individually or collectively, ride off to glory, or will we drown in hellfire for all eternity? As those who best manipulate this dark vision learned, which side we fall on is often a matter of life or death. Honed into a weapon in the ongoing culture wars between states, religions, and citizenry, Revelation has significantly altered the course of history. Kirsch, whom the Washington Post calls "a fine storyteller with a flair for rendering ancient tales relevant and appealing to modern audiences," delivers a far-ranging, entertaining, and shocking history of this scandalous book, which was nearly cut from the New Testament. From the fall of the Roman Empire to the Black Death, the Inquisition to the Protestant Reformation, the New World to the rise of the Religious Right, this chronicle of the use and abuse of the Book of Revelation tells the tale of the unfolding of history and the hopes, fears, dreams, and nightmares of all humanity.
352 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1997
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August 10, 2021
A Charter for Hatred
Jonathan Kirsch is a Jew. This is not incidental to an appreciation of his book. The author of the Apocalypse, like the John of the roughly contemporary gospel to whom the book is historically (and erroneously) attributed, was also a Jew. It probably takes a Jew to understand the real horror of phrases like “the synagogue of Satan.” And it takes a Jew to notice the psychological and sociological subtleties of the conflict between the Judaic traditions of hope and the then recently proclaimed Pauline mandate of faith. If nothing else, the Apocalypse is a case study of a mind caught between Jewish hope and Christian faith. The result is a sort of mindless disgust with the world, a religious nihilism which echoes in the pronouncements of today’s evangelical politicians.
For me the central historical issue of Christianity is the process by which the meek, Jewish Jesus of Mark, the first gospel, became the merciless Christian warrior-king of the Apocalypse, the last book of the New Testament. There may be as much as a century between the two; and the transition from a message of universal salvation to that of almost universal revenge and retribution is startling. What theologians call a ‘tension’ in Christian thought, and the rest of us simply see as a contradiction, is deeply set. Perhaps only fundamentalists take the detail of the Apocalypse seriously; but as Kirsch is keen to demonstrate, its central ideas have had profound and enduring cultural and political consequences.
Arguably the strangest aspect of the Apocalypse is the way it’s arcane symbolism is typically taken by its most ardent readers. On the one hand, the book belies any attempt at the biblical literalism of fundamentalists. It simply cannot be read literally with any coherent meaning. On the other hand, rather than undermining literalist beliefs, the book seems to provoke the most outlandish interpretations of its symbols by true believers so that every age since it was written has been identified as the subject of its ‘prophecies.’ Institutions as diverse as the Roman Empire, Islam, the Catholic Church, the French Revolution, the Soviet Union, and (more recently) the American Democratic Party have all been tagged as the Whore of Babylon which is to be destroyed as the Saviour rolls out from the heavens to carry out mass carnage and start his thousand year Reich (where did you think the Nazi idea of the Third Reich came from?).
Paradoxically the fundamental ambiguity of the Apocalypse may be its greatest attraction to believers. It can be made to mean anything they want it to mean. Equivocations about the blessedness of the meek, the virtue of restraining from retaliatory violence, and the merits of unconditional forgiveness of wrongs committed against one, all clearly stated in the gospels, have limits. At root they all straightforwardly require followers of Jesus to act in the interests of others rather than themselves. As we all know from experience, this demands an incredible effort and often results in at least as much physical distress as spiritual satisfaction. The Apocalypse gives the green light to violence on an unlimited scale. It justifies the resentment and hatred which all those do-gooding parables and weak-willed gospel-stories are bound to generate.
In this sense the Apocalypse is the most human, if also inhumane, of the Christian Scriptures. It is also the most Jewish of the books in the Christian canon. The apocalyptic mode is a standard of Jewish tradition. It pops up every time the Almighty seems to have abandoned Israel to the slings and arrows of natives, invaders, and unsympathetic governments for no discernible reason. Unlike the prophecies of an Isaiah, for example, which call upon Israel to repent its wicked ways, the apocalyptic parts of Daniel, Ezekiel, Baruch and Ezra, and the (non-canonical) book of Enoch are not so much concerned with repentance as they are with relief from oppression. Even the synoptic gospels contain an apocalyptic hint in their reference to the enigmatic Son of Man who will unite all the peoples of the world. This is probably the intellectual seed from which the Apocalypse itself grew.
But there is an important difference between Jewish apocalyptic and the Christian Apocalypse. Jews just want to be left alone and are satisfied with the prospect of communal survival. Christians want to rule the planet, indeed all of creation. Their clear expectation is global regime change. Jewish apocalyptic typically involves the demonstration of the unparalleled majesty of the Hebrew God, which non-Jews can observe and be moved by to improve their behaviour. The Apocalypse predicts annihilation not edification for those who are not faithful members of the Christian tribe. The subsequent history of Christianity provides testimony to the power of this message - not just in the relations between Christians and non-Christians, but also among the perennially numerous Christian factions separated from each other by their antithetical ‘faiths.’
Ultimately no one understands what the Apocalypse has to say about the future, except that there will be winners and losers in the spiritual game. Being on the right side is the only thing that is important. And the sure-fire way of being there is the expression of passionate hatred for those on the other side. Thomas Jefferson thought the author was a maniac; George Bernard Shaw was sure he had been a drug addict; Martin Luther didn’t think he wrote about anything Christian at all. And they weren’t even Jewish.
Jonathan Kirsch is a Jew. This is not incidental to an appreciation of his book. The author of the Apocalypse, like the John of the roughly contemporary gospel to whom the book is historically (and erroneously) attributed, was also a Jew. It probably takes a Jew to understand the real horror of phrases like “the synagogue of Satan.” And it takes a Jew to notice the psychological and sociological subtleties of the conflict between the Judaic traditions of hope and the then recently proclaimed Pauline mandate of faith. If nothing else, the Apocalypse is a case study of a mind caught between Jewish hope and Christian faith. The result is a sort of mindless disgust with the world, a religious nihilism which echoes in the pronouncements of today’s evangelical politicians.
For me the central historical issue of Christianity is the process by which the meek, Jewish Jesus of Mark, the first gospel, became the merciless Christian warrior-king of the Apocalypse, the last book of the New Testament. There may be as much as a century between the two; and the transition from a message of universal salvation to that of almost universal revenge and retribution is startling. What theologians call a ‘tension’ in Christian thought, and the rest of us simply see as a contradiction, is deeply set. Perhaps only fundamentalists take the detail of the Apocalypse seriously; but as Kirsch is keen to demonstrate, its central ideas have had profound and enduring cultural and political consequences.
Arguably the strangest aspect of the Apocalypse is the way it’s arcane symbolism is typically taken by its most ardent readers. On the one hand, the book belies any attempt at the biblical literalism of fundamentalists. It simply cannot be read literally with any coherent meaning. On the other hand, rather than undermining literalist beliefs, the book seems to provoke the most outlandish interpretations of its symbols by true believers so that every age since it was written has been identified as the subject of its ‘prophecies.’ Institutions as diverse as the Roman Empire, Islam, the Catholic Church, the French Revolution, the Soviet Union, and (more recently) the American Democratic Party have all been tagged as the Whore of Babylon which is to be destroyed as the Saviour rolls out from the heavens to carry out mass carnage and start his thousand year Reich (where did you think the Nazi idea of the Third Reich came from?).
Paradoxically the fundamental ambiguity of the Apocalypse may be its greatest attraction to believers. It can be made to mean anything they want it to mean. Equivocations about the blessedness of the meek, the virtue of restraining from retaliatory violence, and the merits of unconditional forgiveness of wrongs committed against one, all clearly stated in the gospels, have limits. At root they all straightforwardly require followers of Jesus to act in the interests of others rather than themselves. As we all know from experience, this demands an incredible effort and often results in at least as much physical distress as spiritual satisfaction. The Apocalypse gives the green light to violence on an unlimited scale. It justifies the resentment and hatred which all those do-gooding parables and weak-willed gospel-stories are bound to generate.
In this sense the Apocalypse is the most human, if also inhumane, of the Christian Scriptures. It is also the most Jewish of the books in the Christian canon. The apocalyptic mode is a standard of Jewish tradition. It pops up every time the Almighty seems to have abandoned Israel to the slings and arrows of natives, invaders, and unsympathetic governments for no discernible reason. Unlike the prophecies of an Isaiah, for example, which call upon Israel to repent its wicked ways, the apocalyptic parts of Daniel, Ezekiel, Baruch and Ezra, and the (non-canonical) book of Enoch are not so much concerned with repentance as they are with relief from oppression. Even the synoptic gospels contain an apocalyptic hint in their reference to the enigmatic Son of Man who will unite all the peoples of the world. This is probably the intellectual seed from which the Apocalypse itself grew.
But there is an important difference between Jewish apocalyptic and the Christian Apocalypse. Jews just want to be left alone and are satisfied with the prospect of communal survival. Christians want to rule the planet, indeed all of creation. Their clear expectation is global regime change. Jewish apocalyptic typically involves the demonstration of the unparalleled majesty of the Hebrew God, which non-Jews can observe and be moved by to improve their behaviour. The Apocalypse predicts annihilation not edification for those who are not faithful members of the Christian tribe. The subsequent history of Christianity provides testimony to the power of this message - not just in the relations between Christians and non-Christians, but also among the perennially numerous Christian factions separated from each other by their antithetical ‘faiths.’
Ultimately no one understands what the Apocalypse has to say about the future, except that there will be winners and losers in the spiritual game. Being on the right side is the only thing that is important. And the sure-fire way of being there is the expression of passionate hatred for those on the other side. Thomas Jefferson thought the author was a maniac; George Bernard Shaw was sure he had been a drug addict; Martin Luther didn’t think he wrote about anything Christian at all. And they weren’t even Jewish.
February 10, 2011
If this book were food, it would be peanut butter crackers. I suggest an alternative title for the next edition: "1001 Things I Hate About the Book of Revelation." From the review I read, I’d been hoping for a balanced, scholarly critique of the Revelation to John, but instead I got a 200-page polemic by a lawyer whose sloppy research wouldn’t get him through a master’s thesis, let alone the lavish praise of someone like Karen Armstrong, who should be embarrassed to be quoted on the front cover.
Kirsch’s theme can be summed up thus: The Book of Revelation is the elaborate, violent fantasy of a man named John who expected the imminent end of the world, whereupon he would see someone vaguely resembling Jesus kick the asses of all the people John didn’t like. The world didn’t end, and since then millions of deluded people have embraced John’s vision and hoped to see the end of the world and Jesus kicking their enemies’ butts too. Along the way, these have included kings, Crusaders, invaders, monastics, the Nazis, televangelists, and presidents.
I love peanut butter crackers, but man lives not by peanut butter crackers alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God; and there is something of worth even in this last book of the Bible, even for millions of us Christians who are repelled by its violence and vengefulness. Spiritual writings before John’s were read allegorically, not literally. Readers from Augustine to Martin Luther King who did not take the story literally have found in Revelation reason to work for the perfection of the church, or to care for God’s creation, or to hope for spiritual elevation. Kirsch dismisses all of this. While he argues briefly (and not always effectively) for an allegorical reading of Revelation, he shows little comprehension of the hope that moved its readers: “Augustine prefers to see all the spooky and scary details in the prophecies of Revelation as a series of elaborate metaphors for a divine truth so ineffable that John is compelled to reduce it to concrete words, numbers, and images because the ordinary human mind could not otherwise comprehend them.” Indeed. That is the very problem with the un-world, other-world, dream-world that is God—and the reason Jews do not write God’s name—words cannot comprehend it.
The book isn’t entirely bad. Every fifty pages or so, in the middle of flogging a horse carcass, he tells me something I didn’t already know, such as that the Tenth Legion stationed in Judea had standing orders to execute any Jew claiming to be a descendant of King David, which is one possible answer to why Jesus was executed. He’s also a reasonably good storyteller when he’s not foaming at the mouth. Unfortunately he does that a bit too often. You know how eventually you get sick of peanut butter, but there’s nothing else in the house that doesn’t take a lot of effort? It’s like that.
Kirsch didn’t even bother to work with original sources. “I have taken the liberty of omitting some words and phrases from some quoted material,” he remarks, which presumably excuses the fact that he also omitted to point out in the text exactly where he omitted them. I took the liberty of glancing at the endnotes now and then, and I admit that he does seem to have read several books. But his most interesting citations are “Quoted in” so-and-so’s history or review. After ten or fifteen similar citations of the same author, you wonder why he didn’t just go and read the original. Josephus’ History of the Jewish War, for example, is readily available in translation. Kirsch’s facility with English suggests that he would be capable of reading it. At other times he doesn’t bother to cite anybody at all, such as his long discourse on the early church fathers’ linking the Antichrist to the Jews, leaving the reader wondering where he came up with this—a more interesting question given how often he brings up the topic for the next 100 pages.
Kirsch is good enough to provide the text of Revelation in an appendix. He does not explain why he chose the King James Version, which has fallen out of favor in many circles both for its archaic language and the quality of the translation. Kirsch seems to have his own problems with it, given that he quotes from six other, wildly different translations of the Bible, freely and without justification, sometimes even within the same biblical chapter.
He includes a nice glossary with long definitions of terms like preterism and dispensationalism. It has a nice definition of messiah, much better than the one I’ve typically gotten in the Episcopal Church—“Messiah means Christ.” “Christ means messiah.” Tautology means oh forget it. Still, after reading the rest of the book, I’m inclined to distrust his glossary and go back to the encyclopedia after all.
Kirsch’s theme can be summed up thus: The Book of Revelation is the elaborate, violent fantasy of a man named John who expected the imminent end of the world, whereupon he would see someone vaguely resembling Jesus kick the asses of all the people John didn’t like. The world didn’t end, and since then millions of deluded people have embraced John’s vision and hoped to see the end of the world and Jesus kicking their enemies’ butts too. Along the way, these have included kings, Crusaders, invaders, monastics, the Nazis, televangelists, and presidents.
I love peanut butter crackers, but man lives not by peanut butter crackers alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God; and there is something of worth even in this last book of the Bible, even for millions of us Christians who are repelled by its violence and vengefulness. Spiritual writings before John’s were read allegorically, not literally. Readers from Augustine to Martin Luther King who did not take the story literally have found in Revelation reason to work for the perfection of the church, or to care for God’s creation, or to hope for spiritual elevation. Kirsch dismisses all of this. While he argues briefly (and not always effectively) for an allegorical reading of Revelation, he shows little comprehension of the hope that moved its readers: “Augustine prefers to see all the spooky and scary details in the prophecies of Revelation as a series of elaborate metaphors for a divine truth so ineffable that John is compelled to reduce it to concrete words, numbers, and images because the ordinary human mind could not otherwise comprehend them.” Indeed. That is the very problem with the un-world, other-world, dream-world that is God—and the reason Jews do not write God’s name—words cannot comprehend it.
The book isn’t entirely bad. Every fifty pages or so, in the middle of flogging a horse carcass, he tells me something I didn’t already know, such as that the Tenth Legion stationed in Judea had standing orders to execute any Jew claiming to be a descendant of King David, which is one possible answer to why Jesus was executed. He’s also a reasonably good storyteller when he’s not foaming at the mouth. Unfortunately he does that a bit too often. You know how eventually you get sick of peanut butter, but there’s nothing else in the house that doesn’t take a lot of effort? It’s like that.
Kirsch didn’t even bother to work with original sources. “I have taken the liberty of omitting some words and phrases from some quoted material,” he remarks, which presumably excuses the fact that he also omitted to point out in the text exactly where he omitted them. I took the liberty of glancing at the endnotes now and then, and I admit that he does seem to have read several books. But his most interesting citations are “Quoted in” so-and-so’s history or review. After ten or fifteen similar citations of the same author, you wonder why he didn’t just go and read the original. Josephus’ History of the Jewish War, for example, is readily available in translation. Kirsch’s facility with English suggests that he would be capable of reading it. At other times he doesn’t bother to cite anybody at all, such as his long discourse on the early church fathers’ linking the Antichrist to the Jews, leaving the reader wondering where he came up with this—a more interesting question given how often he brings up the topic for the next 100 pages.
Kirsch is good enough to provide the text of Revelation in an appendix. He does not explain why he chose the King James Version, which has fallen out of favor in many circles both for its archaic language and the quality of the translation. Kirsch seems to have his own problems with it, given that he quotes from six other, wildly different translations of the Bible, freely and without justification, sometimes even within the same biblical chapter.
He includes a nice glossary with long definitions of terms like preterism and dispensationalism. It has a nice definition of messiah, much better than the one I’ve typically gotten in the Episcopal Church—“Messiah means Christ.” “Christ means messiah.” Tautology means oh forget it. Still, after reading the rest of the book, I’m inclined to distrust his glossary and go back to the encyclopedia after all.
July 24, 2016
Target audience: People interested in the Book of Revelation and Christian eschatology. But I think that common people may have a hard time reading it.
About the author: Not be accused of being biased, I’ll quote exactly from book the information about the author: Jonathan Kirsch is the author of ten books, including the national bestseller The Harlot by the Side of the Road: Forbidden Tales of the Bible, King David: The Real Life of the Man Who Ruled Israel, Moses: A Life, and his most recent work, God Against the Gods: The History of the War Between Monotheism and Polytheism. Kirsch is also a book columnist for the Los Angeles Times, a broadcaster for NPR affiliates KCRW-FM and KPCC-FM in Southern California, and Adjunct Professor on the faculty of New York University, and an attorney specializing in publishing law and intellectual property in Los Angeles.
Structure of the book: The book is 352 pages long, divided in Epigraph – the 7 chapters and appendix – additional information: the Book of Revelation, notes, bibliography, glossary, and so on. I don’t really know if the first chapter is a chapter or the introduction.
Overview: When you see a book that contains “famous” quotes at the start of each chapter, dedications and all sort of bragging, that should ring a bell. A good book needs no embellishment.
From the first lines I knew this book is not good. And my instinct was not wrong. Kirsch attempts to do something glorious and fails miserably. I had the impression that I’m not reading a book, but notes of research put together without finishing touches. I don’t know how much research was behind this book, but I do know that it simply does not “flow.” He makes statements after statements and jumps from one thing to another without notice, uses exotic words without explaining them and sometimes he tries to allure the reader into reading further by saying “we will see.” I personally understood what I’ve read because I have a strong background in apocalyptic research. But a novice in this field will have a hard time understanding what is the deal with the messianic emperor, New Jerusalem, the angelic pope or the millennial week. You can’t understand much from a chapter that starts with the fears of the year 1000 and ends with Columbus and the discovery of America. There are so many things uncovered.
To be honest, the book has the wrong title. It is not about how the Book of Revelation changed the course of the Western Civilization, but rather how the Book of Revelation was perceived and interpreted in different periods of time. And there is a big difference between influence and perception. If you want to write about how the Book of Revelation changed to course of Western civilization then you write and insist on historical facts caused by apocalyptic beliefs: how Nero was believed to be the Antichrist, Islamophobia, the Protestant Reformation, historicism, preterism, futurism, dispensationalism, how the Book of Revelation influenced Columbus to discover America or how American exceptionalism came to birth and so much more. Instead, he insists on aspects such as the language of the book, the context of its writings, when it was written, how it was written, who was the author of the book, what other modern and past authors said about the book and so on. And everything combined with his own speculations and interpretations; I don’t know if I remember a book using so many times words like: might have been, possibly, are possible, would be, etc.
And least but not least, I think that almost a fifth of the text is composed of quotations and verses from the Book of Revelation (and the Bible). And, to make matters worse, the author even includes in appendix the Book of Revelation in full, as if the text is hard to find or is not available to anyone anytime. In fact, the appendix is ridiculously long: aside from the Book of revelation, the author also included Searchable Terms, Glossary, about the author, credits and glossary. This is definitely not a good way to make your work larger.
Strong points: I believe the intent, or better said the idea from behind the book, is a strong point.
Weak points: Very hard to read, chaotic, boring; and I could add so much more.
_______________
★★★ Follow us on Goodreads
★★★ Visit our website www.reasonandreligion.org
About the author: Not be accused of being biased, I’ll quote exactly from book the information about the author: Jonathan Kirsch is the author of ten books, including the national bestseller The Harlot by the Side of the Road: Forbidden Tales of the Bible, King David: The Real Life of the Man Who Ruled Israel, Moses: A Life, and his most recent work, God Against the Gods: The History of the War Between Monotheism and Polytheism. Kirsch is also a book columnist for the Los Angeles Times, a broadcaster for NPR affiliates KCRW-FM and KPCC-FM in Southern California, and Adjunct Professor on the faculty of New York University, and an attorney specializing in publishing law and intellectual property in Los Angeles.
Structure of the book: The book is 352 pages long, divided in Epigraph – the 7 chapters and appendix – additional information: the Book of Revelation, notes, bibliography, glossary, and so on. I don’t really know if the first chapter is a chapter or the introduction.
Overview: When you see a book that contains “famous” quotes at the start of each chapter, dedications and all sort of bragging, that should ring a bell. A good book needs no embellishment.
From the first lines I knew this book is not good. And my instinct was not wrong. Kirsch attempts to do something glorious and fails miserably. I had the impression that I’m not reading a book, but notes of research put together without finishing touches. I don’t know how much research was behind this book, but I do know that it simply does not “flow.” He makes statements after statements and jumps from one thing to another without notice, uses exotic words without explaining them and sometimes he tries to allure the reader into reading further by saying “we will see.” I personally understood what I’ve read because I have a strong background in apocalyptic research. But a novice in this field will have a hard time understanding what is the deal with the messianic emperor, New Jerusalem, the angelic pope or the millennial week. You can’t understand much from a chapter that starts with the fears of the year 1000 and ends with Columbus and the discovery of America. There are so many things uncovered.
To be honest, the book has the wrong title. It is not about how the Book of Revelation changed the course of the Western Civilization, but rather how the Book of Revelation was perceived and interpreted in different periods of time. And there is a big difference between influence and perception. If you want to write about how the Book of Revelation changed to course of Western civilization then you write and insist on historical facts caused by apocalyptic beliefs: how Nero was believed to be the Antichrist, Islamophobia, the Protestant Reformation, historicism, preterism, futurism, dispensationalism, how the Book of Revelation influenced Columbus to discover America or how American exceptionalism came to birth and so much more. Instead, he insists on aspects such as the language of the book, the context of its writings, when it was written, how it was written, who was the author of the book, what other modern and past authors said about the book and so on. And everything combined with his own speculations and interpretations; I don’t know if I remember a book using so many times words like: might have been, possibly, are possible, would be, etc.
And least but not least, I think that almost a fifth of the text is composed of quotations and verses from the Book of Revelation (and the Bible). And, to make matters worse, the author even includes in appendix the Book of Revelation in full, as if the text is hard to find or is not available to anyone anytime. In fact, the appendix is ridiculously long: aside from the Book of revelation, the author also included Searchable Terms, Glossary, about the author, credits and glossary. This is definitely not a good way to make your work larger.
Strong points: I believe the intent, or better said the idea from behind the book, is a strong point.
Weak points: Very hard to read, chaotic, boring; and I could add so much more.
_______________
★★★ Follow us on Goodreads
★★★ Visit our website www.reasonandreligion.org
July 10, 2018
“Today… at the edge of our hope, at the end of our time, we have chosen not only to believe in ourselves, but in each other. Today, there is not a man or woman in here that shall stand alone. Not today. Today, we face the monsters that are at our door and bring the fight to them. Today, we are cancelling the apocalypse!”
Jesus, The Revelation of John Chap 22, verse 19.
Sometime in the last two years I think I read a scholarly look at the biblical book of Daniel. That was a dry read, filled with references and light on context. It was still an interesting read, but with so many references that are only explained by a footnote directing me to dig up the original paper and read it myself… I was left feeling like I was reading a Marvel Comic from the 90’s, you know, the ones where you had to purchase about seven different titles in order to follow the single story being told. But like those old comics, I was able to pick up enough via contextual clues to figure out the larger tale. But it wasn’t very satisfying.
So when I eventually got around to doing something similar with the book of Revelation, I chose to get a more fun version to read. Granted, this book was not written for the purpose of having a scholarly look at the book, but it does give a nice recap of how modern scholarship views it. The short of it? Nero Cesar is the beast (possibly resurrected in Domitian) and all the dragons, whores, and tortured souls in the book are evil cities, or the church, or the saints.
This book spent a few chapters going over all this stuff, but it really shined for me when it got past the inexplicably complicated book itself and focused more on the effect it’s had on believers throughout the ages.
And put simply – it’s wound people up on a relatively regular basis since it first found an audience. Widely considered fraudulent among the sophisticated Christian readers of the day, it picked up steam (i.e., legitimacy) as time went on. By the early middle ages it was about as accepted in Christendom as it is today.
Anyway, it drove folks nuts. Seems like the universal opinion of any age was the prophecies in the book of Revelation were meant for the generation of folks actually reading them. Long after Domitian was gone, folks thought the beast was the Pope, or Islam, or whomever the latest war was against. In the 20th century it was Mussolini, then Ronald Regan, and on it goes. Every generation seems to have a large segment of the Christian church unabashedly certain that Jesus is coming back at any moment due to the fulfilled prophecies.
As is mentioned in the book, every believer susceptible to this way of thinking seems to see no irony in thinking each preceding generation was full of idiots who couldn’t see the signs that are obvious to them.
For example, one of the more famous passages from the book details that a great beast will come at the end. It will be a man, or at least appear to be one, and do all this somewhat evil stuff to believers. The writer of the book of the Revelation of John was so cryptic that it might be impossible to figure out who it is. But no worries, he gave us a clue - the number of the beast is 666 (or possibly 616). So there. I mean, Barak Hussain Obama translates as 616 in the Jewish gematria, after all… sure, I have to misspell his name, and go with 616 instead of 666 (to elaborate on that point, scholars aren’t sure if the number of the beast is 616 or 666, since both appear in our oldest copies of the book of the Revelation) but it’s close enough for prophecy, I guess.
It got me curious and so I decided to play that same game. So, according to one gematria calculator I found online, “Lego Batman is the beast” equals 666 (in Jewish gematria). I’ll let modern day experts determine the theological nuance there. But then again, see below:
“Dumb people sell ads” = 666
“Helen, artificial cheese is crap” = 616
“The Baptist church” = 777 (oooh)
“Starbucks lol” = 666
I could do that all day long, and was tempted to, but I stopped there. I think the point was made. Which is that the book is vague enough that every generation has been able to fit some current figure into the role of the beast of Revelation. And people have. And do.
Anyhoo - if you’re interested in this sort of thing, I think it’s a fine summary and is written entertainingly enough to appease anyone who doesn’t want to be drug into the endless minutia of the more scholarly works on the topic.
August 31, 2017
I could not help noticing my fellow reviewers are all over the map when rating this book. (Veering from one to five and back again and quite emphatic about their opinions!) My little inner voice tells me that the variation in stars has a lot to do with the controversial nature of its contents. The Apocalypse of John, or Revelations, has had nearly two thousand controversial years now and has confounded, astonished and obsessed readers for most of that time. I admire Jonathan Kirsch for his exceptional audacity in even attempting to chronicle the history of this literary dynamite. It requires amazing dexterity, like juggling lit blowtorches, to essay the story of John's lurid, vivid, flamboyant vision.
First of all, for a book that has been in print for 2000 years, most of us know very little about it. For example, who was John that we should care to read his dreams? For some, there is a swift easy answer. John was St. John the Evangelist, Jesus' Beloved Disciple, author of the Gospel of John. But for others, identifying John is not so easy. For example, the writing style in the Gospel and the Revelation varies to an extreme. The voice of the Gospel is smooth, stylish and educated, while the Apocalypse is crude, colloquial and ungrammatical. Time is also not on the side of the simple answer. The Apocalypse seems to have been written in a time when Rome has already conquered Jerusalem, which would make John implausibly old at the time of his exile to Patmos, where he states he wrote his work. For these and many more complicated reasons, a lot of Biblical scholars think that John of Patmos and John the Evangelist are two different people.
Next, the content of the vision is disturbing, violent and morbid. John does not hesitate to revile his enemies and he rejoices at the coming vengeance. There is no gentle Good Shepherd in Revelations. Instead we find evil, frightening, multi-headed and horned beasts rising from land and sea to torment all humanity. The four horsemen thunder forth to bring famine and pestilence and war and death to mankind. The Messiah is huge, crowned with gold and armed with a sword. John describes the chaos and disaster with relish and gory detail.
From the first, the church has had issues with the Apocalypse. Several of the respected early church fathers felt it should not be a part of the canon. Others felt that worshipers should be warned against taking it literally or seeking to interpret it to fit current events. Naturally, readers have been doing both to the present day. Some of the most interesting history in Kirsch's book tells us of various obsessed scholars attempting to "crack the code" of Revelations to predict the timing of the end of the world. John, himself, seemed to feel that the end would be upon his readers very swiftly. Unfortunately, the world has failed to end when the calculating scholars predicted. However, that fact has not deterred many present day commenters from trying their calculators and calendars.
Kirsch also gives us some insight into the enormous impact the Apocalypse has had on our literature and language. Without John of Patmos, Handel did not have much of the inspiration for his sublime Messiah. Julia Ward Howe borrowed John's imagery for The Battle Hymn of the Republic. The famous "Four Horsemen" of Notre Dame owe John for their nickname. The world's great painters and sculpters have found John's vivid descriptions challenging and inspiring. Kirsch tells us the when and who and why of Revelations' influence. The tale is lively, fascinating and perhaps more important than we can know.
First of all, for a book that has been in print for 2000 years, most of us know very little about it. For example, who was John that we should care to read his dreams? For some, there is a swift easy answer. John was St. John the Evangelist, Jesus' Beloved Disciple, author of the Gospel of John. But for others, identifying John is not so easy. For example, the writing style in the Gospel and the Revelation varies to an extreme. The voice of the Gospel is smooth, stylish and educated, while the Apocalypse is crude, colloquial and ungrammatical. Time is also not on the side of the simple answer. The Apocalypse seems to have been written in a time when Rome has already conquered Jerusalem, which would make John implausibly old at the time of his exile to Patmos, where he states he wrote his work. For these and many more complicated reasons, a lot of Biblical scholars think that John of Patmos and John the Evangelist are two different people.
Next, the content of the vision is disturbing, violent and morbid. John does not hesitate to revile his enemies and he rejoices at the coming vengeance. There is no gentle Good Shepherd in Revelations. Instead we find evil, frightening, multi-headed and horned beasts rising from land and sea to torment all humanity. The four horsemen thunder forth to bring famine and pestilence and war and death to mankind. The Messiah is huge, crowned with gold and armed with a sword. John describes the chaos and disaster with relish and gory detail.
From the first, the church has had issues with the Apocalypse. Several of the respected early church fathers felt it should not be a part of the canon. Others felt that worshipers should be warned against taking it literally or seeking to interpret it to fit current events. Naturally, readers have been doing both to the present day. Some of the most interesting history in Kirsch's book tells us of various obsessed scholars attempting to "crack the code" of Revelations to predict the timing of the end of the world. John, himself, seemed to feel that the end would be upon his readers very swiftly. Unfortunately, the world has failed to end when the calculating scholars predicted. However, that fact has not deterred many present day commenters from trying their calculators and calendars.
Kirsch also gives us some insight into the enormous impact the Apocalypse has had on our literature and language. Without John of Patmos, Handel did not have much of the inspiration for his sublime Messiah. Julia Ward Howe borrowed John's imagery for The Battle Hymn of the Republic. The famous "Four Horsemen" of Notre Dame owe John for their nickname. The world's great painters and sculpters have found John's vivid descriptions challenging and inspiring. Kirsch tells us the when and who and why of Revelations' influence. The tale is lively, fascinating and perhaps more important than we can know.
March 27, 2009
Only one quarter in, I find this hard going. I am struggling with the organization and writing style. It reads like notes hastily edited together rather than a book; clearly a lot of research went in, but not enough effort went in to make it build smoothly from chapter to chapter as books for lay-people like this one should. The phrase "as we will soon see" keeps coming up, which would be the first thing I'd try to eliminate in a revision. Apocalyptic factoids come up in multiple places, causing chapter 1 to steal some of chapter 2's thunder, for example. Adding to the confusion, the chapter titles don't seem to correspond to what's in them. A chapter called "The History of a Delusion" is about the identity of Revelation's author.
The prose is adjective-heavy in a way that distracts from content that should generate its own interest.
It could be I've become spoiled by reading Ehrman, another who writes about this sort of thing and does better at revealing information in a progressive way.
More to come as I hurry through; here's hoping it gets more focused in the last three quarters.
The prose is adjective-heavy in a way that distracts from content that should generate its own interest.
It could be I've become spoiled by reading Ehrman, another who writes about this sort of thing and does better at revealing information in a progressive way.
More to come as I hurry through; here's hoping it gets more focused in the last three quarters.
June 20, 2018
Enlightening cultural history of the book of Revelation--showing its origin and sources as well as its presence and effects over the last two millennia.
February 24, 2010
"A History of the End of the World" chronicles the history of the Book of Revelations and its impact on Western Civilization. Characterized by Kirsch, and in the minds of many readers rightfully so, as the single scariest book in the Bible (and arguably in all of Judeo-Christian writing), Revelations is a strange book that is both at odds with the rest of the Bible and yet surprisingly the biggest attraction in the Bible.
To serious scholars, much of what Kirsch discusses here is old news. He covers in great detail the theories behind the origins of Revelations and the identity of its author, and points out how Revelations borrowed and adapted the apocryphal works of the time period. But the bulk of Kirsch book is less about the Book of Revelations itself than how it has been used, and misused, by the Catholic Church, politicians, and most recently the Religious Right to both soothe the minds of the faithful and as a weapon against the "enemy," whomever that enemy might be.
One of the recurring themes in the book is the fact that, despite several millennia of biblical scholars and street corner preachers' claims; the world has "failed to end on time." Kirsch exhibits a slightly sarcastic tone on occasion as he goes through the litany of previous attempts to determine the end of the world, and how the world refused to cooperate. For casual readers, the history lesson is enjoyable and provides some perspective with which to view the current cries of the impending Apocalypse. "True Believers" will take offense to the tone, however as Kirsch points out they want to be offended. And in truth, need to be for Revelations to be legitimate.
One of the key elements of Kirsch's arguments focuses on how the Book of Revelations, and the belief in the end of the world, feeds the psychological needs of the believer. He notes that the book is written for an oppressed audience. The original audience of the Book of Revelations were early Christians who still felt the sting of persecution. However Revelations has become the favorite book of those who simply believe they are oppressed, but aren't necessarily being persecuted. Revelations is a book that does not seek to uplift the spirit of the reader, but instead seeks to sate the hunger for revenge against all the non-believers and allies of Satan that have wronged them. While violence is a normal topic in the Old Testament, nowhere do we see a Biblical author revel in depicting violence against the enemies of God like we do in Revelations. If Revelations was a "fiction" book, it would be banned from most schools.
Revelations, as Kirsch points out, is meant to provide a feeling of empowerment to those who feel they have no power; whether that feeling is based on fact or delusion (and as Kirsch explains, more often than not it is delusion). It allows the reader to shift blame for all of societies' real and imagined ills onto otherworldly forces, and provides a succor that these forces will be overcome by God for them.
One interesting point addressed by Kirsch is how Revelations factored into the push by Christian Zionist after WWII to establish the Israeli state. Kirsch notes that at the time, many Jewish leaders would have been happy with a land anywhere and were not themselves pushing for the lands of Israel, because they believed only God could restore their homeland. But for the Christian Zionists, it was vital that the Jews return to Israel in masse not out of compassion for the Jewish people, but because they considered it a prerequisite for the Apocalypse. Kirsch discusses the beliefs of these Christian Zionists when he notes "...that the Jews who returned to the land of Israel were destined to suffer and die during the reign of the Antichrist and to burn in hell for the rest of eternity." Further, he notes that "Christian Zionists, in fact, tend to regard the prospect of peace between Israel and its Arab neighbors as an obstacle to the second coming of Jesus Christ and, therefore, the work of the devil."
The book does, however, suffer a stylistic flaw. Kirsch has a tendency to pound away at a thought, rehashing it dozens of times after the point has already been made and explained. There is also an annoying tendency to overuse the phrase "as we have seen" and its evil cousin "as we shall see." Having read his previous work "God Against the Gods: The History of the War Between Monotheism and Polytheism," which was much more succinct in its arguments, I can only chalk this up to a bad editor. Someone should have slapped his typing fingers with a red pen over this.
But that issue aside, readers with an interest in understanding the psychology and history behind the Book of Revelations will find a book written with the casual reader in mind. It is very accessible to the reader and presents complex issues in a manner that is clear without oversimplifying.
To serious scholars, much of what Kirsch discusses here is old news. He covers in great detail the theories behind the origins of Revelations and the identity of its author, and points out how Revelations borrowed and adapted the apocryphal works of the time period. But the bulk of Kirsch book is less about the Book of Revelations itself than how it has been used, and misused, by the Catholic Church, politicians, and most recently the Religious Right to both soothe the minds of the faithful and as a weapon against the "enemy," whomever that enemy might be.
One of the recurring themes in the book is the fact that, despite several millennia of biblical scholars and street corner preachers' claims; the world has "failed to end on time." Kirsch exhibits a slightly sarcastic tone on occasion as he goes through the litany of previous attempts to determine the end of the world, and how the world refused to cooperate. For casual readers, the history lesson is enjoyable and provides some perspective with which to view the current cries of the impending Apocalypse. "True Believers" will take offense to the tone, however as Kirsch points out they want to be offended. And in truth, need to be for Revelations to be legitimate.
One of the key elements of Kirsch's arguments focuses on how the Book of Revelations, and the belief in the end of the world, feeds the psychological needs of the believer. He notes that the book is written for an oppressed audience. The original audience of the Book of Revelations were early Christians who still felt the sting of persecution. However Revelations has become the favorite book of those who simply believe they are oppressed, but aren't necessarily being persecuted. Revelations is a book that does not seek to uplift the spirit of the reader, but instead seeks to sate the hunger for revenge against all the non-believers and allies of Satan that have wronged them. While violence is a normal topic in the Old Testament, nowhere do we see a Biblical author revel in depicting violence against the enemies of God like we do in Revelations. If Revelations was a "fiction" book, it would be banned from most schools.
Revelations, as Kirsch points out, is meant to provide a feeling of empowerment to those who feel they have no power; whether that feeling is based on fact or delusion (and as Kirsch explains, more often than not it is delusion). It allows the reader to shift blame for all of societies' real and imagined ills onto otherworldly forces, and provides a succor that these forces will be overcome by God for them.
One interesting point addressed by Kirsch is how Revelations factored into the push by Christian Zionist after WWII to establish the Israeli state. Kirsch notes that at the time, many Jewish leaders would have been happy with a land anywhere and were not themselves pushing for the lands of Israel, because they believed only God could restore their homeland. But for the Christian Zionists, it was vital that the Jews return to Israel in masse not out of compassion for the Jewish people, but because they considered it a prerequisite for the Apocalypse. Kirsch discusses the beliefs of these Christian Zionists when he notes "...that the Jews who returned to the land of Israel were destined to suffer and die during the reign of the Antichrist and to burn in hell for the rest of eternity." Further, he notes that "Christian Zionists, in fact, tend to regard the prospect of peace between Israel and its Arab neighbors as an obstacle to the second coming of Jesus Christ and, therefore, the work of the devil."
The book does, however, suffer a stylistic flaw. Kirsch has a tendency to pound away at a thought, rehashing it dozens of times after the point has already been made and explained. There is also an annoying tendency to overuse the phrase "as we have seen" and its evil cousin "as we shall see." Having read his previous work "God Against the Gods: The History of the War Between Monotheism and Polytheism," which was much more succinct in its arguments, I can only chalk this up to a bad editor. Someone should have slapped his typing fingers with a red pen over this.
But that issue aside, readers with an interest in understanding the psychology and history behind the Book of Revelations will find a book written with the casual reader in mind. It is very accessible to the reader and presents complex issues in a manner that is clear without oversimplifying.
January 5, 2016
I haven't written a review in a while, but this book was really REALLY good. Americans in particular are a nation of apocalyptic thinkers (think some of your favorite sci fi films), and we are so for historical reasons. The very founding and early settlement of the US was based on the Puritan pursuit of "a new heaven and a new earth." "A shining city on a hill" as Ronald Reagan quoted it. It's all in here. Including the invention of the concept of "the Rapture," a very American, and historically rather RECENT innovation. Granted, John Nelson Darby was a Scotch-Irish preacher. But his theories caught on nowhere as much as in the United States, where he spread his cult with seven speaking tours over the course of as many years. Perhaps it is in our human DNA to seek patterns which indicate an "end time." (After all, one of the most apocalyptic civilizations ever was the Aztecs, developed without ANY assistance from European sources.) But it's good to have a history of, at least, the western world's fascination with it. Saint John of the Book of Revelations (almost certainly a different person than the Saint John of the Gospels) lived in a time when the "end time" was real. The Romans had destroyed Jerusalem, dispersing the Jews (and first century Christians very much thought of themselves as Jews) throughout the ancient world. When John of Patmos wrote of "things which must shortly come to pass," he was speaking of within his own lifetime, or at least certainly within the lifetimes of those who heard or read his words. But I'm giving some of it away. And Jonathan Kirsch tells it much better than I do. Suffice to say, if you've ever wondered about this stuff, or wanted an answer when some member of this cult comes knocking at your door (to be fair, I rather like Jehovah's Witnesses... they've always been very patient and gentle, avowed pacifists as they are), or babbling on your TV set about why peace in the Middle East would be a BAD thing, here is the book you've been looking for in order to have a few intelligent answers for them. Peace. Shalom. Salaam.
November 24, 2015
Fascinating. I had no idea that so many elements of modern American culture have roots in an ancient text that almost didn't make it into the final version of the Bible. And I was surprised at how little basis there is in the Bible for some of the most stridently held ideas regarding an ultimate "Day of Judgement." This is an eye-opening book for anyone who thinks about the end of the world. And among Cold War kids like myself who grew up in the shadow of nuclear holocaust with movies like "The Omen" and "Rosemary's Baby," I'm guessing that includes pretty much everyone. If you've ever shaken your head sadly over all the lives wasted in service to a Doomsday that's been scheduled and postponed hundreds of times over the last 2,0000 years, yet never happens, this book is probably for you.
July 30, 2017
This was a fascinating look inside the Book of Revelation from the identity of the author to the debate over its canonicity to the impact it has had on western thought through the millennia. It's essentially a literary criticism of one of the strangest books of the Bible and it does a good job of walking the fine line required to take on such a task.
I only gave it 4 stars because I went into it thinking it would be more focused on particular doomsday cults and while they featured, they served as illustrations of how fringe movements can take things to far, rather than highlights of the book.
Still, overall, great read!
I only gave it 4 stars because I went into it thinking it would be more focused on particular doomsday cults and while they featured, they served as illustrations of how fringe movements can take things to far, rather than highlights of the book.
Still, overall, great read!
January 24, 2021
It's interesting to see so many negative reviews of this book, seemingly from people of faith taking objection to the author's interpretation of the Book of Revelation. Speaking as a non-religious reader, albeit one with an interest in the subject, all I can say is a really enjoyed this book and found it pretty educational. Unlike a lot of other reviewers, I actually preferred the earlier sections of the Book focusing on the biblical aspect, probably because that's the area I know the least about. This book was also a really good companion piece to When Prophecy Fails, which I read before this.
July 31, 2011
This could have been a really good book, considering how widely Revelation has been interpreted (and how disastrously in many cases). However, Kirsch doesn't seem to have the ability to discern between the good sources and the poor ones. Waaaaay too much of the book is given to explaining the explanations of Revelation, and too little covers the historical use or providing insight into how the post-modern Christian world can look at it.
September 6, 2014
في أحد الأمسيات دلفت إلى مقهى أوتاكوشي وطلبت كوب اللاتيه وأخذت أتجول حول الكتب كعادتي الإسبوعية في هذا المقهى
وبما أني منجذبة جداً للغموض والأخويات السرية وأسرار الديانات الأخرى وتاريخها لا سيما اليهودية
وقع بصري على كتاب تاريخ نهاية العالم .. تصفحته .. قرأت بعض الرؤى منه وقررت إقتنائه
فكرهم عن نهاية العالم والترهات التي يعتقدونها سببت لي إضطراباً حتى في أحلامي :/
الكتاب كان مزعج جدا بالنسبه لي ولكن سأمنحه نجمتان لإشباعه فضولي فحسب !
أخيرا احمد الله وأسجد له مطولاً على نعمة الإسلام ❤️
وبما أني منجذبة جداً للغموض والأخويات السرية وأسرار الديانات الأخرى وتاريخها لا سيما اليهودية
وقع بصري على كتاب تاريخ نهاية العالم .. تصفحته .. قرأت بعض الرؤى منه وقررت إقتنائه
فكرهم عن نهاية العالم والترهات التي يعتقدونها سببت لي إضطراباً حتى في أحلامي :/
الكتاب كان مزعج جدا بالنسبه لي ولكن سأمنحه نجمتان لإشباعه فضولي فحسب !
أخيرا احمد الله وأسجد له مطولاً على نعمة الإسلام ❤️
February 14, 2021
I am incredibly grateful to Kirsch for sifting through the mountains of writing and research on this topic! While definitely not a "light read," the book is well worth the time and energy to plug through. He has put together a straightforward historical account of Revelation's impact on society, politics, and culture. Knowledge of Revelation's impact in America and the West in general is as relevant today as ever, especially given the conspiratorial thinking that seems to pair so well with popular fears and biblical prophecy...I highly recommend for both Christian and non-Christian readers!
January 23, 2019
The first chunk of this is slow and really repetitive, but the rest is an interesting if surface level look at apocalyptic beliefs and uses of Revelation.
October 21, 2017
I once attended bible college, so in that process was tasked to read through the entire old and new testament two times, plus medicate on the daily readings.
Little did I realize then that the book of Revelation was a booked tacked onto the end of the Bible, which had little to do with anything, other than a regional author suffering angst over oppression and persecution by a nation source, with no hope in sight. So, the book of Revelation was written to give a relief to the stress of the situation.
It is essentially a rehash of the same dynamic suffered in an earlier time in the book of Daniel in the Old Testament. It really appears to have nothing to do with Jesus, who is not mentioned by name.
In fact, there are those who would question why it was even included in the New Testament at all.
This New Testament book has appeared to have vexed many different generations of people, who have woven it into cult followings, horrid political stances, and even perhaps, the Ghost Dance of the American Indian. The book has a LOT of influence in modern Christian Church history, including Hal Lindsey and "The Late Great Planet Earth" book, and tje "Left Behind" series of books co-written by Tim LaHaye.
It seems humans need something to worry about, when all else fails.
Little did I realize then that the book of Revelation was a booked tacked onto the end of the Bible, which had little to do with anything, other than a regional author suffering angst over oppression and persecution by a nation source, with no hope in sight. So, the book of Revelation was written to give a relief to the stress of the situation.
It is essentially a rehash of the same dynamic suffered in an earlier time in the book of Daniel in the Old Testament. It really appears to have nothing to do with Jesus, who is not mentioned by name.
In fact, there are those who would question why it was even included in the New Testament at all.
This New Testament book has appeared to have vexed many different generations of people, who have woven it into cult followings, horrid political stances, and even perhaps, the Ghost Dance of the American Indian. The book has a LOT of influence in modern Christian Church history, including Hal Lindsey and "The Late Great Planet Earth" book, and tje "Left Behind" series of books co-written by Tim LaHaye.
It seems humans need something to worry about, when all else fails.
May 29, 2007
I heard about this book when I heard the author interviewed on Fresh Air.
The beginning of this book felt repetitive for a while, but once I got past the first 1/3 its editing was better.
There's an appendix with the Book of Revelation in the back, but it's the King James Version, and was very hard to follow. I opted to read the more plain spoken New International Version, which makes me wonder if part of the problem with some extremists is that they read texts in outdated language they can't really comprehend.
I'd never actually read Revelation before, and I feel confident now that unless I see locusts with human heads wearing gold plated armor and carrying tiny swords, I can go about my business as usual. The author does a nice job of describing the probable origin of this book in the Bible, its movement into acceptance, and attitudes toward it for the past couple thousand years (and the various religious sects obsessed with it).
This is a very comprehensive history and really interesting and useful in understanding a bizarre and often dangerous tradition that exists our social environment.
The beginning of this book felt repetitive for a while, but once I got past the first 1/3 its editing was better.
There's an appendix with the Book of Revelation in the back, but it's the King James Version, and was very hard to follow. I opted to read the more plain spoken New International Version, which makes me wonder if part of the problem with some extremists is that they read texts in outdated language they can't really comprehend.
I'd never actually read Revelation before, and I feel confident now that unless I see locusts with human heads wearing gold plated armor and carrying tiny swords, I can go about my business as usual. The author does a nice job of describing the probable origin of this book in the Bible, its movement into acceptance, and attitudes toward it for the past couple thousand years (and the various religious sects obsessed with it).
This is a very comprehensive history and really interesting and useful in understanding a bizarre and often dangerous tradition that exists our social environment.
August 27, 2013
I thoroughly enjoyed this book and highly recommend it. I had not even intended to read it, but after skimming a few pages in the opening chapter, I was hooked. You will not see history--especially Western history--in the same light after reading this book.
The best parts are the ones where he shares little-known facts about historical figure's writings about Revelation and the End Times--and not just figures already known in the study of religion. Understanding how Revelation influenced early explorers, kings, scientists, and politicians (among others) leads to a clearer comprehension of the major events of our civilization's past.
Once upon a time I was a prepubescent teen completely immersed in a fundamentalist Christian world, eagerly awaiting the Rapture and the end of the world. Now, as a middle-aged Jew who views the world through lens heavily influenced by the New Atheists--that is, by the light of reason and a better understanding of psychology and history--I'm amazed to see my old place in a movement and a time that now seem so foreign and utterly distant from me.
The best parts are the ones where he shares little-known facts about historical figure's writings about Revelation and the End Times--and not just figures already known in the study of religion. Understanding how Revelation influenced early explorers, kings, scientists, and politicians (among others) leads to a clearer comprehension of the major events of our civilization's past.
Once upon a time I was a prepubescent teen completely immersed in a fundamentalist Christian world, eagerly awaiting the Rapture and the end of the world. Now, as a middle-aged Jew who views the world through lens heavily influenced by the New Atheists--that is, by the light of reason and a better understanding of psychology and history--I'm amazed to see my old place in a movement and a time that now seem so foreign and utterly distant from me.
January 30, 2016
This book was not what I expected at all. Instead of a discussion of the Book of Revelation from the Bible, it is was a hate-filled diatribe poking fun and sneering at the Christian and Jewish faiths at every turn. The Antichrist is described as an arch-villain instead of evil incarnate as those of my faith believe as if this was a simple movie with the "good"guys and the "bad" guys. It is suggested that the Apostle John was not the author but a sanctimonious nut who believed he was victimized by fellow Christians and "nursed a bitter grudge" against "rival preachers". This John was sanctimonious "and by the deepest of ironies, a great many readers over the ages have succeeded in convincing themselves that the author of Revelation was a benighted soul who failed to grasp the actual meanings of the visions that he beheld and described so vividly," This had to be one of the worst books I've ever read.
August 23, 2025
من جزيرة بَطْمُس حيث كتب يوحنا رؤياه، إلى ساحات الحروب الصليبية، ثم إلى ثورات الإصلاح الديني، وحتى خطابات الرؤيويين الجدد في أميركا المعاصرة يكتب لنا جوناثان كيرش عن سفر الرؤيا، بأنه نص "غريب وفريد" وسط أسفار العهد الجديد: نص مملوء بالرموز العنيفة، بالوحوش، بالعدد 666، بالأبواق والملائكة والبحر الزجاجي والنار والكبريت. يوحنا- الذي كتب هذا السفر- لم يكن مجرد ناسك يصف أحلامه، بل كان صاحب رؤية احتجاجية ضد الإمبراطورية الرومانية، نصًا مشحونًا بالتحدي والمقاومة. ومنذ أن ظهر هذا السفر، بدأ اللاهوتيون يتساءلون: هل هو نبوءة حرفية عن نهاية الزمان؟ أم هو رمز سياسي لزمن يوحنا؟.
لكن الأكيد- كما يروي كيرش في كتابه تاريخ نهاية العالم: كيف غيّر أكثر أسفار الكتاب المقدس إثارة للجدل حضارة الغرب - أن هذا النص صار منذ القرون الأولى مادة ملتهبة للعقول: كل جماعة مضطهدة وجدت فيه عزاءً، وكل حركة ثورية استلهمت صوره لتبرير خروجها. القصة التي يسردها المؤلف تكشف لنا أن سفر الرؤيا لم يكن كتابًا عن النهاية فقط، بل عن البداية أيضًا: بداية أفكار التمرد، بداية الأمل في عالم جديد، بداية لخيال سياسي وديني غيّر مجرى التاريخ الغربي. كل جيل قرأ الرؤيا على ضوء همومه، ورأى نفسه في قلب أحداثه. في فترة فتح القسطنطينية، استعملوا سفر الرؤيا، لوصف السلطان العثماني بالشيطان، وجيشه بجيش يأجوج ومأجوج، بل ومن قبل العثمانيين كان يُستعمل السفر في الصراع مع روما الوثنية، ولذلك الغرب اللاتيني سرعان ما تبناه، ربما لأنه يخدم حاجتهم لرؤية واضحة للصراع مع "بابل" الجديدة (روما الوثنية).
يبدأ كيرش بتوصيف ما يسميه بـ"المعرفة المرعبة" أو "المعرفة الغامضة" عن الأزمنة الأخيرة. فكل حضارة تقريبًا احتوت على تصورات لنهاية العالم، عند الإغريق والفرس واليهود، يوحنا، وهو يكتب، كان ينهل من هذه الخزائن الرمزية. لذلك جاءت رؤياه مشحونة بلغة مألوفة لمستمعيه: وحوش مثل وحوش دانيال، أعداد رمزية مثل "سبعة" و"اثنا عشر"، ونهاية كونية كبرى. والمسيحية ورثت كل ذلك، لكنها صاغته في صورة درامية كبرى: المسيح عائد في مجد، الأموات يقومون، والكون كله يُعاد خلقه. بهذا، تحوّل "سفر الرؤيا" إلى ما يسميه كيرش "الملحمة العظمى عن الأشياء الأخيرة".
يحكي كيرش أن المسيحي البسيط في القرن الأول، حين يسمع "الرؤيا"، لم يكن يراها فلسفة لاهوتية معقدة، بل وعدًا بالنجاة من الظلم. كل كارثة طبيعية، كل غزو أو وباء، كان يُقرأ كعلامة على اقتراب النهاية. ومن هنا كيف خُلِقَت من سفر الرؤيا «آلة توقّع» لا تهدأ، تدور كلما عصفت بالأزمنة ريحٌ عاتية، فتُنتِجُ تفسيرًا جديدًا وتاريخًا جديدًا، وحشودًا جديدة… ثم خيبةً جديدة.
وهنا يظهر يواقيم الفيوري وهو أهم الرؤيويين في العصور الوسطى. يواقيم لم يكتفِ بالتفسير الروحي؛ بل وضع مخططًا تاريخيًا كاملًا للبشرية، مقسمًا التاريخ إلى ثلاث مراحل: عصر الآب، عصر الابن، عصر الروح القدس . كيرش يوضح أن يواقيم الفيوري هو أبو الفكر الرؤيوي الأوروبي: رؤيته انتقلت إلى الحركات الصليبية، وإلى بعض الثوار البروتستانت، بل حتى إلى فلاسفة الحداثة الذين حلموا بمجتمع جديد متحرر.
يمرّ كيرش على القرون الوسطى كمن يطارد شراراتٍ تسري في الحطب: الرايات الصليبية التي قرأت قتالها في مفردات «هرمجدون»، والطوائف التائبة إبّان الطواعين التي رأت في الوباء واحدةً من كؤوس الغضب. كل كارثةٍ كانت تُترجَم إلى علامة؛ وكل علامةٍ كانت تُقاس بمسطرة الأعداد: سبعاتٌ تتناسل، وعدد الوحش (٦٦٦) الذي يُعاد جمعه وفكّه ليُنتج أسماء خصوم اللحظة: مرةً «نيرون»، وأخرى «روما»، ولاحقًا وجوهًا جديدة بحسب الزمان والمكان. الفكرة ليست «من هو الوحش؟» بقدر ما هي: لماذا نحتاج دائماً إلى وحش؟. مع الإصلاح البروتستانتي، تتسارع الحكاية. يُظهِر كيرش كيف تحوَّل سفر الرؤيا إلى قاموس للغضب: «بابل» صارت روما، و«الوحش» صار البابوية. وهكذا السفر نفسه-كما يصوّره كيرش-كُتب ليخاطب الجرح المفتوح: ظلمٌ حاضر، أملٌ بالخلاص.
في الحروب الصليبية، حمل القادة والوعاظ السفر كرايةٍ فوق السيوف. أورشليم الجديدة لم تعد مدينة سماوية فقط، بل مدينة أرضية يجب انتزاعها بالقوة. بعضهم رأى في المسلمين «أدوات الشر» الموصوفة في الرؤيا، فجعلوا الحرب أكثر من صراع سياسي: جعلوها معركة كونية. بطبيعة الحال، أسس السفر لثقافة «المعركة الفاصلة»، التي ستُعاد صياغتها لاحقًا في الثورات الدينية والسياسية.
يبدأ كيرش بسرد كيف تحوّلت اللغة الرؤيوية من رموز عن الوحوش والتنينات والسيوف النارية إلى لغة سياسية ثورية في القرن السابع عشر وما بعده. يستعرض كيرش تأثير النص الرؤيوي في الثورة البيوريتانية في إنكلترا خلال القرن السابع عشر. فقد كان أوليفر كرومويل والبيوريتان يرون أنفسهم أدوات الله في "تطهير" إنكلترا من الفساد البابوي والملكي، وأنهم يقيمون "مملكة القديسين" على الأرض. كل خطابهم السياسي كان مشبعًا بعبارات من سفر الرؤيا، كأن الإنجيل نفسه صار برنامجًا ثوريًا.
لكن الحدث الأهم كان انتقال الرؤية الرؤيوية إلى العالم الجديد. المستوطنون الأوائل في أمريكا حملوا معهم حلم "المدينة على جبل"، وهو حلم مأخوذ من المزج بين العهد الجديد وسفر الرؤيا. رأوا في أمريكا أرض الميعاد الجديدة التي سيبنى فيها عالم يبدأ من الصفر، عالم يتحقق فيه وعد الله بمملكة خالية من الفساد. فالثورة الأمريكية نفسها أعادت توظيف الرمزية الرؤيوية: البريطانيون صُوِّروا على أنهم "بابل العظيمة"، بينما الثوار الأمريكيون هم "شعب الله المختار" الذي سيحطم قيود الاستبداد.
المثير في الكتاب، أن قوة الخيال الرؤيوي كانت من الضخامة بحيث لم تتلاشَ مع صعود العقلانية أو مع نقد اللاهوت. بل على العكس، استعار المفكرون العلمانيون- من الفلاسفة إلى العلماء- لغة النهاية والانفجار والكارثة، ولكنهم جرّدوها من المرجعية المسيحية.
كارل ماركس مثلاً لم يتحدث عن "الوحش" أو "بابل"، لكنه استعمل البنية نفسها: تاريخ يقترب من نهايته، صراع محتدم، ثم انفجار يقود إلى ولادة عالم جديد بلا استغلال طبقي. الماركسية هي، في نظر كيرش، نسخة دنيوية من الرؤيا. ثم يربط كيرش بين المخيال الرؤيوي وبين الحروب الحديثة. الحربان العالميتان، والهولوكوست، والقنبلة النووية على هيروشيما وناغازاكي، كلها أعادت إلى الأذهان الصور المروّعة لسفر الرؤيا: نار تلتهم المدن، وحوش معدنية (الدبابات والطائرات)، ودماء تسيل "حتى لجم الخيل". لقد أصبح العالم يعيش رؤيا بلا لاهوت؛ لم يعد الناس بحاجة إلى وحش بسبعة رؤوس، فالصواريخ العابرة للقارات والدمار الشامل تؤدي نفس الدور.
الكتاب مهم بتصوري، وهو عمل ثقافي-تاريخي أكثر منه لاهوتي. قوته الكبرى أنه يجعل القارئ يدرك كيف أن نصًا غامضًا وصادمًا مثل سفر الرؤيا ظل يطارد المخيلة الغربية عبر ألفي عام. إنه كتاب عن الخيال الجمعي بقدر ما هو عن الدين. يمكن اعتباره مثاليًا للقارئ العام الذي يريد أن يفهم كيف تشكلت صور نهاية العالم في التراث المسيحي، وكيف انتقلت إلى السياسة والعلوم والفن. الترجمة ممتازة وتعليقات المترجم د. عبد الوهاب علوب مفيدة جدًا. وهو من إصدارات مكتبة الشروق الدولية.
لكن الأكيد- كما يروي كيرش في كتابه تاريخ نهاية العالم: كيف غيّر أكثر أسفار الكتاب المقدس إثارة للجدل حضارة الغرب - أن هذا النص صار منذ القرون الأولى مادة ملتهبة للعقول: كل جماعة مضطهدة وجدت فيه عزاءً، وكل حركة ثورية استلهمت صوره لتبرير خروجها. القصة التي يسردها المؤلف تكشف لنا أن سفر الرؤيا لم يكن كتابًا عن النهاية فقط، بل عن البداية أيضًا: بداية أفكار التمرد، بداية الأمل في عالم جديد، بداية لخيال سياسي وديني غيّر مجرى التاريخ الغربي. كل جيل قرأ الرؤيا على ضوء همومه، ورأى نفسه في قلب أحداثه. في فترة فتح القسطنطينية، استعملوا سفر الرؤيا، لوصف السلطان العثماني بالشيطان، وجيشه بجيش يأجوج ومأجوج، بل ومن قبل العثمانيين كان يُستعمل السفر في الصراع مع روما الوثنية، ولذلك الغرب اللاتيني سرعان ما تبناه، ربما لأنه يخدم حاجتهم لرؤية واضحة للصراع مع "بابل" الجديدة (روما الوثنية).
يبدأ كيرش بتوصيف ما يسميه بـ"المعرفة المرعبة" أو "المعرفة الغامضة" عن الأزمنة الأخيرة. فكل حضارة تقريبًا احتوت على تصورات لنهاية العالم، عند الإغريق والفرس واليهود، يوحنا، وهو يكتب، كان ينهل من هذه الخزائن الرمزية. لذلك جاءت رؤياه مشحونة بلغة مألوفة لمستمعيه: وحوش مثل وحوش دانيال، أعداد رمزية مثل "سبعة" و"اثنا عشر"، ونهاية كونية كبرى. والمسيحية ورثت كل ذلك، لكنها صاغته في صورة درامية كبرى: المسيح عائد في مجد، الأموات يقومون، والكون كله يُعاد خلقه. بهذا، تحوّل "سفر الرؤيا" إلى ما يسميه كيرش "الملحمة العظمى عن الأشياء الأخيرة".
يحكي كيرش أن المسيحي البسيط في القرن الأول، حين يسمع "الرؤيا"، لم يكن يراها فلسفة لاهوتية معقدة، بل وعدًا بالنجاة من الظلم. كل كارثة طبيعية، كل غزو أو وباء، كان يُقرأ كعلامة على اقتراب النهاية. ومن هنا كيف خُلِقَت من سفر الرؤيا «آلة توقّع» لا تهدأ، تدور كلما عصفت بالأزمنة ريحٌ عاتية، فتُنتِجُ تفسيرًا جديدًا وتاريخًا جديدًا، وحشودًا جديدة… ثم خيبةً جديدة.
وهنا يظهر يواقيم الفيوري وهو أهم الرؤيويين في العصور الوسطى. يواقيم لم يكتفِ بالتفسير الروحي؛ بل وضع مخططًا تاريخيًا كاملًا للبشرية، مقسمًا التاريخ إلى ثلاث مراحل: عصر الآب، عصر الابن، عصر الروح القدس . كيرش يوضح أن يواقيم الفيوري هو أبو الفكر الرؤيوي الأوروبي: رؤيته انتقلت إلى الحركات الصليبية، وإلى بعض الثوار البروتستانت، بل حتى إلى فلاسفة الحداثة الذين حلموا بمجتمع جديد متحرر.
يمرّ كيرش على القرون الوسطى كمن يطارد شراراتٍ تسري في الحطب: الرايات الصليبية التي قرأت قتالها في مفردات «هرمجدون»، والطوائف التائبة إبّان الطواعين التي رأت في الوباء واحدةً من كؤوس الغضب. كل كارثةٍ كانت تُترجَم إلى علامة؛ وكل علامةٍ كانت تُقاس بمسطرة الأعداد: سبعاتٌ تتناسل، وعدد الوحش (٦٦٦) الذي يُعاد جمعه وفكّه ليُنتج أسماء خصوم اللحظة: مرةً «نيرون»، وأخرى «روما»، ولاحقًا وجوهًا جديدة بحسب الزمان والمكان. الفكرة ليست «من هو الوحش؟» بقدر ما هي: لماذا نحتاج دائماً إلى وحش؟. مع الإصلاح البروتستانتي، تتسارع الحكاية. يُظهِر كيرش كيف تحوَّل سفر الرؤيا إلى قاموس للغضب: «بابل» صارت روما، و«الوحش» صار البابوية. وهكذا السفر نفسه-كما يصوّره كيرش-كُتب ليخاطب الجرح المفتوح: ظلمٌ حاضر، أملٌ بالخلاص.
في الحروب الصليبية، حمل القادة والوعاظ السفر كرايةٍ فوق السيوف. أورشليم الجديدة لم تعد مدينة سماوية فقط، بل مدينة أرضية يجب انتزاعها بالقوة. بعضهم رأى في المسلمين «أدوات الشر» الموصوفة في الرؤيا، فجعلوا الحرب أكثر من صراع سياسي: جعلوها معركة كونية. بطبيعة الحال، أسس السفر لثقافة «المعركة الفاصلة»، التي ستُعاد صياغتها لاحقًا في الثورات الدينية والسياسية.
يبدأ كيرش بسرد كيف تحوّلت اللغة الرؤيوية من رموز عن الوحوش والتنينات والسيوف النارية إلى لغة سياسية ثورية في القرن السابع عشر وما بعده. يستعرض كيرش تأثير النص الرؤيوي في الثورة البيوريتانية في إنكلترا خلال القرن السابع عشر. فقد كان أوليفر كرومويل والبيوريتان يرون أنفسهم أدوات الله في "تطهير" إنكلترا من الفساد البابوي والملكي، وأنهم يقيمون "مملكة القديسين" على الأرض. كل خطابهم السياسي كان مشبعًا بعبارات من سفر الرؤيا، كأن الإنجيل نفسه صار برنامجًا ثوريًا.
لكن الحدث الأهم كان انتقال الرؤية الرؤيوية إلى العالم الجديد. المستوطنون الأوائل في أمريكا حملوا معهم حلم "المدينة على جبل"، وهو حلم مأخوذ من المزج بين العهد الجديد وسفر الرؤيا. رأوا في أمريكا أرض الميعاد الجديدة التي سيبنى فيها عالم يبدأ من الصفر، عالم يتحقق فيه وعد الله بمملكة خالية من الفساد. فالثورة الأمريكية نفسها أعادت توظيف الرمزية الرؤيوية: البريطانيون صُوِّروا على أنهم "بابل العظيمة"، بينما الثوار الأمريكيون هم "شعب الله المختار" الذي سيحطم قيود الاستبداد.
المثير في الكتاب، أن قوة الخيال الرؤيوي كانت من الضخامة بحيث لم تتلاشَ مع صعود العقلانية أو مع نقد اللاهوت. بل على العكس، استعار المفكرون العلمانيون- من الفلاسفة إلى العلماء- لغة النهاية والانفجار والكارثة، ولكنهم جرّدوها من المرجعية المسيحية.
كارل ماركس مثلاً لم يتحدث عن "الوحش" أو "بابل"، لكنه استعمل البنية نفسها: تاريخ يقترب من نهايته، صراع محتدم، ثم انفجار يقود إلى ولادة عالم جديد بلا استغلال طبقي. الماركسية هي، في نظر كيرش، نسخة دنيوية من الرؤيا. ثم يربط كيرش بين المخيال الرؤيوي وبين الحروب الحديثة. الحربان العالميتان، والهولوكوست، والقنبلة النووية على هيروشيما وناغازاكي، كلها أعادت إلى الأذهان الصور المروّعة لسفر الرؤيا: نار تلتهم المدن، وحوش معدنية (الدبابات والطائرات)، ودماء تسيل "حتى لجم الخيل". لقد أصبح العالم يعيش رؤيا بلا لاهوت؛ لم يعد الناس بحاجة إلى وحش بسبعة رؤوس، فالصواريخ العابرة للقارات والدمار الشامل تؤدي نفس الدور.
الكتاب مهم بتصوري، وهو عمل ثقافي-تاريخي أكثر منه لاهوتي. قوته الكبرى أنه يجعل القارئ يدرك كيف أن نصًا غامضًا وصادمًا مثل سفر الرؤيا ظل يطارد المخيلة الغربية عبر ألفي عام. إنه كتاب عن الخيال الجمعي بقدر ما هو عن الدين. يمكن اعتباره مثاليًا للقارئ العام الذي يريد أن يفهم كيف تشكلت صور نهاية العالم في التراث المسيحي، وكيف انتقلت إلى السياسة والعلوم والفن. الترجمة ممتازة وتعليقات المترجم د. عبد الوهاب علوب مفيدة جدًا. وهو من إصدارات مكتبة الشروق الدولية.
November 20, 2016
This book attempts to explain why and how “The Book of Revelations” was written. It also covers how people have interpret it over time, including the process of canonization in the Bible. Unfortunately, I don’t have much to add. I made no significant notes. I did enjoy the book to a degree. Jonathan Kirsch writes well and seems to know his topic. I could recommend this book to someone looking to learn more about Revelations than he or she would learn from in church.
May 29, 2015
A little light holiday reading. Kirsch is an intelligent and compelling writer. Not sure that anyone can make sense of a book that seems to take such pleasure in savagery, but Kirsch does well in showing how that work has been drafted into use by a staggering array of players, both ancient and modern.
June 18, 2018
A textbbookish, slow read that provides a historian’s view of how Revelations has been received and understood over the centuries. It’s fascinating and, often, alarming. I put it in the hopper along with all the other reading I’ve done on Western religious history and it connects a lot of dots.
May 6, 2019
I appreciated Kirsch's history, his understanding of apocalyptic literature is not sufficient in my opinion. But I did really like how Kirsch showed the book of Revelation being misused over the centuries.
June 18, 2020
Kirsch is always a brilliant read on biblical topics and this book is, or should be, considered an articulate and essential reading of the Book of Revelations and about its interpretation by many end of the world apocalyptic proselytizers.
March 22, 2009
Engaging and detailed examination of the book of Revelation by John (which John is apparently anybody's guess...and boy do they keep guessing).
September 15, 2010
I'm to teach a Bible study on Revelation next year -- this book is thought-provoking and pleasant to read.
May 21, 2011
appropriate given today --- very well researched and written, I thought.
July 24, 2014
A partial read, I actually lost interest.
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