Quotes About Revelation

what the book of Revelation actually does say and how it says it, matters surprisingly overlooked by many so-called experts on biblical prophecy.

A very common technique is simply to open the Bible at random—either with a particular concern in mind or hoping to learn whatever God "wants to tell me today"—and to read the first passage that strikes your eye

the New Testament is arranged not according to when the books were written but according to genre, with the Gospels first, then the book of Acts, then the letters (of Paul and others), and then the book of Revelation.

When he comes to learn that he is in fact not related to the queen, and so is not the royal heir

The Greek word apocalypsis means a "revealing" or an "unveiling." Scholars have called this view apocalyptic because its proponents believed that God had revealed or unveiled to them the heavenly secrets that could make sense of the realities they were experiencing—many of them nasty and ugly—here on earth. One

apocalypses, in which an author is given a secret revelation about the divine, heavenly mysteries that can make sense of the mundane, earthly realities.

Paul did not see himself as switching religions. He came to realize that Christ was the fulfillment of Judaism, of everything that God had planned and revealed within the sacred Jewish Scriptures.

What if the book you take as giving you God's words instead contains human words?

the God of Revelation cannot be the true God.

especially what it has to say to me personally or to my society.

visions are almost always believed by the people who experience them.

It was clear to me that this newly discovered Gospel of Judas could be one of two things. Its importance and the breadth of its appeal would depend entirely on which of these two things it was.

For the only reason (I came to think) for God to inspire the Bible would be so that his people would have his actual words; but if he really wanted people to have his actual words, surely he would have miraculously preserved those words, just as he had miraculously inspired them in the first place. Given the circumstances that he didn't preserve the words, the conclusion seemed inescapable to me that he hadn't gone to the trouble of inspiring them.

a one-sentence definition of an entire literary genre, but if I were to take a stab for "apocalypses," it would be something like this: apocalypses are first-person narratives of highly symbolic visionary experiences that reveal heavenly secrets to explain earthly realities.

an apocalypse is a vision of heavenly secrets that can make sense of earthly realities)

One of the interesting features of the book of Revelation is that unlike nearly all the other apocalypses it does not appear to be pseudonymous.

The English word "Almighty" is a bit weak for the Greek term used here: Pantokrator, a rare word, or at least it was before the book of Revelation.

there is not a single word in all of Revelation about God loving others and no instruction to the followers of Christ to do so, either.

What I hide by my language, my body utters

He could not even kid himself that everything had not been up front, because it had been. And he hadn't even done it alone. There were currently ninety-five other fools in this parade.

Until that afternoon in October four years ago, I hadn't known dogs could scream.

That in turn made him think of some poem or other, one about how you could spend years running, but in the end you always wound up facing yourself in a hotel room, with a naked bulb hanging overhead and a revolver on the table.

When he remembered to turn and look for it, the Talisman was gone.

The back of the seat in front of Richards was a revelation in itself. There was a pocket with a safety handbook in it. In case of air turbulence, fasten your belt. If the cabin loses pressure, pull down the air mask directly over your head. In case of engine trouble, the stewardess will give you further instructions. In case of sudden explosive death, hope you have enough dental fillings to insure identification.