{"id":5465,"date":"2014-09-22T06:47:53","date_gmt":"2014-09-22T13:47:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hoshanarabbah.org\/blog\/?p=5465"},"modified":"2014-09-22T06:47:53","modified_gmt":"2014-09-22T13:47:53","slug":"the-book-of-revelation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hoshanarabbah.org\/blog\/2014\/09\/22\/the-book-of-revelation\/","title":{"rendered":"Introduction to the Book of Revelation"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Koine Greek name for the Book of Revelation is apokalupsis <\/i>from which our English word apocalypse <\/i>derives, is a word that in the minds of most people conjures up visions of horrific and cataclysmic events in which there is war, political and environmental upheaval involving mass death and destruction. This idea is a misnomer however. Though the Book of Revelation indeed foretells of a cataclysmic end times scenario, the Greek word apokalupsis <\/i>literally means \u201claying bear, making naked; a disclosure of truth, instruction concerning things before unknown, manifestation, appearance,\u201d and hence our English name for this book: Revelation. <\/i>This meaning is made clear in the first verse of this same book.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Revelation<\/a><\/p>\n

The Revelation of Yeshua the Messiah, which Elohim gave unto him, to shew unto his servants things which must shortly come to pass; and he sent and signified it by his angel unto his servant John.<\/p>\n

The Book of Revelation is just that\u2014a revelation of things to come to pass, which Yeshua is making known to his servants (plural). This includes you and me.<\/p>\n

Although, I don\u2019t claim to have all or even much understanding pertaining to this book, I here share with you what I enlightenment I have been given to this point on several key topic. This is simply my understanding to this point<\/i> until YHVH by his Spirit gives us more understanding. Until then, may we remain as little children, pale in hand, on the seashore of the vast ocean of YHVH\u2019s unfathomable wisdom and knowledge in faith waiting for him to fill our buckets with more of his divine revelation.<\/p>\n

What Should Be Our Perspective on the Book of Revelation?<\/strong><\/p>\n

On another note, there are those who champion the view that events of the Book of Revelation are primarily in the past tense. That is to say, Revelation records the events leading up to and following the destruction of the Jewish temple and Jerusalem in A.D. 70. The view that the events of Revelation were mostly fulfilled in the first century is called the preterist view, and those who support this position draw our attention to verses which point to the immediacy of the prophecies of the book being fulfilled\u2014to events which must \u201cshortly take place\u201d (i.e., Rev 1:1, 3; 22:6, 10).<\/p>\n

The problems with this view are several. To make it work, most of the prophecies of the book have to be allegorized. As such, preterists believe that little if anything Revelation says can be taken literally. The purpose of Revelation, they say, was to comfort the churches in Asia Minor in light of the persecutions they were enduring (Rev 1:4). While much in Revelation is obviously allegorical, to say that it all<\/i> is, is simply applying a broad brush approach and, in my opinion, denies some of the basic rules of biblical interpretation. My approach is to take what the book says to be literal, unless the context or passages elsewhere in the Scriptures give us reason to interpret it symbolically.<\/p>\n

The second major objection I have to the preterist view is that since most scholars agree that John wrote this book in the last decade of the first century, this view would make John\u2019s Book of Revelation a record of history, as opposed to a prophecy \u201cof things which must shortly come to pass,\u201d which is contrary to the book\u2019s purpose as the first verse of the book clearly states. The preterist view cannot accommodate this reality unless scholars can prove that John wrote all of his book before A.D. 70, a date which is at odds with the records of the early church fathers, which place the date of the books writing in the 90s.<\/p>\n

Overview of the Book of Revelation<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

This book is not <\/i>the revelation of John, but the \u201crevelation of Yeshua the Messiah\u201d (Rev 1:1). As such, it reveals Yeshua in a variety of ways as indicated in the outline below.<\/p>\n