What I’m Reading: Revelations

It’s not a typo and I haven’t mistakenly named the last book of the New Testament in the plural.  The full name of the book I’ve just finished reading is Revelations: Visions, Prophecy and Politics in the Book of Revelation by Elaine Pagels[i].  Pagels is a well respected professor of religion and author of several books focusing on Gnostic texts.  Her latest book is a history of the canonical book of Revelation and of other, Gnostics revelation texts.  In Revelations she shows how John’s Revelation came to its place in the accepted books of the canon and why these other Gnostic works were excluded.

In 1945 a cache of ancient manuscripts was found in Egypt.  These documents have come to be known as the Nag Hamadi texts.  Some of these were “gospels” and some were “books of revelation.”  It is to these that Pagels would like us to turn our attention – but I was really surprised by how little space she devoted to them in the book.

Revelations is not a commentary on the canonical book of Revelation, but out of necessity Pagels does give some comment and an outline of her interpretation of this notoriously difficult book.  Her interpretation surprised me a little; and this surprise surprised me.  I like the book of Revelation.  I’ve read it and re-read it again and again. I’ve read quite a few commentaries on it, both modern and some ancient and I haven’t (yet) encountered any that interpreted it in the way she has.  I guess I haven’t read the right ones yet.

Pagels believes that the writer of the Revelation was a “strictly observant Jew” who was enraged with “Gentile followers of Jesus converted through Paul’s teaching” who had begun to corrupt the synagogues of Asia Minor[ii].   She interprets John’s harsh words against “those who claim to be apostles but are not[iii],” and those “who hold to the teachings of Balaam[iv]” and “those who say they are Jews and are not, but are a synagogue of Satan[v]” to be these Gentile followers of the Christ who had joined the Jewish community through the teaching of Paul but who did not adhere to the torah.

This is not an interpretation that I’ve encountered before. Again, maybe I’m reading the wrong books.  Pagels seems to have anticipated my rejection of her interpretation.

“But, some readers may ask, when John attacks the ‘synagogue of Satan’ isn’t he talking about actual Jews, that is, members of local synagogues who are hostile to Christians?  When he warns ‘those who way they are Jews and are not,’ doesn’t he mean the opposite of what he says – that they actually are Jews who don’t deserve to be called by that name?”[vi]

She calls this interpretation “convoluted.”

But I disagree.  Or maybe – I accept that it is a “convoluted” argument, but it seems to square with what much of the rest of the New Testament seems to indicate about the state of relationship between the “Jews” and the burgeoning “Christian” community within the established Jewish synagogues.

We find this kind of “convoluted” argument in John’s gospel where Jesus refers to some of his “Jewish” opponents as children of the devil.[vii]  This clash is found throughout Paul’s letters.  In one of them he says that not everyone descended from Israel is actually Israel.[viii]  These are just a couple of references to this same kind of argument.  Why is it convoluted (and wrong) in Revelation, but natural in these other places?

Pagles also suggests that “John” (whoever he might have been, -but certainly not John the Apostle, according to Pagles) wrote in bizarre apocalyptic style as a sort of code in order to hide the meaning from prying Roman eyes because “open hostility to Rome could be dangerous; he may have feared reprisal[ix].”  This is an idea I’ve heard and read before. But it’s not one I’ve ever found very convincing.  If this is a code intended to disguise anti-Imperial propaganda, John failed.  That message is pretty clear – even if the book as a whole is difficult.  I don’t believe that John (whoever he may have been) wrote as he did to –hide- anything; this is a “revelation” after all.  John wrote to reveal not to hide.  But John’s choice of images and allusions are drawn from a deep knowledge of the Jewish scriptures and are used to reveal his message about Jesus, and the things to come.

Pagles seems to believe that history has proven John’s Revelation wrong[x] and that it only has value in a post-modern sort of subjective-true-if-it-works way instead of being grounded in an objective and historical truth.  I won’t defend an “inerrant” definition of biblical inspiration, but if any text (scripture or otherwise) can mean anything then it means nothing. 

In the third chapter, “Other Revelations: Heresy or Illuminations” Pagels gives a very brief overview of some of “revelations” found in the Nag Hamadi texts.  But it’s very brief – barely 30 pages (out of the 180 pages of actual text).  This is the material that I actually expected when I picked up the book at the library. I knew of Pagels’ other writings on Gnostic material and I had hoped to learn a bit more about these other revelations.  Oh well.  I guess I’ll have to hunt them down and read them.

While I disagreed with Pagels through chapters 1 and 2 and was disappointed by chapter 3, I thought chapter 4 “Confronting Persecution: How Jews and Christians Separated Politics from Religion” and chapter 5 “Constantine’s Conversion: How John’s Revelation Became Part of the Bible” were wonderful.

These two chapters are a short history of how the Christian church moved from persecuted minority to the religion of the empire – and how the book of Revelation was variously interpreted for political and ecclesiastical purposes and used against enemies from without and from within the developing Christian church.  This was great material, and I would have been pleased to read more.

As an example- Pagles notes how Tertullian’s interpretation of Revelation led him to an impassioned plea for a secular government that would allow its citizens the freedom to worship according to the dictates of their conscience – a liberate religionis – freedom of religion.  “Those of us who think of human rights and natural rights as concepts born of the French and American revolutions, might be surprised to see this African Christian standing up to defy Scapula, the Roman magistrate stationed in Africa, circa 205 C.E., with these words: ‘It is a fundamental human right, a power bestowed by nature, that each person should worship according to his own convictions, free from compulsion.’”[xi]

In the book’s conclusion Pagles briefly laments that Gnostic voices of revelation were excluded from the canon.  She describes them as “visions that lift their hearers beyond apocalyptic polarities to see the human race a whole…to see each one of us as a whole, having the capacity for both cruelty and compassion.” 

“Living in an increasingly interconnected world, we need such universal visions more than ever.”[xii]

I won’t at this time go into an apologetic defense of ‘orthodox’ (whatever that may be) Christianity against Gnosticism, but I hardly think we need these forgotten ancient voices to bring back Gnostic ideas.  The Gnostic texts may have been suppressed, but their ideas have never really disappeared.  Listen to Oprah, or Osteen, or Chopra if it’s Gnosticism you want.

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[i] Pagels, Elaine, Revelations: Visions, Prophecy and Politics in the Book of Revelation,

 Penguin Books, New York, NY, 2012

[ii] Page 54

[iii] Revelation 2:2

[iv] Revelation 2:14

[v] Revelation 2:9

[vi] Page 59- 60 – Italics in the original.

[vii] John 8:44

[viii] Romans 9:6

[ix] Page 30

[x] Page 135

[xi] Pages 131- 2

[xii] Page 176