How John Wrote the Book of Revelation Chapter 1

Discussion about the New Testament, apocrypha, gnostics, church fathers, Christian origins, historical Jesus or otherwise, etc.
klewis
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How John Wrote the Book of Revelation Chapter 1

Post by klewis »

This is the first chapter of my Book: How John Wrote the Book of Revelation: From Concept to Completion:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1QLNLgG ... sp=sharing

The rest of the book, over 300 pages, contains the evidence to support this chapter.

Each draft is contains what is called an approximation draft, which contains one column representing the source text and the second column representing the text found in Revelation. This allows the reader to make their own determination as to what the content was at that stage. So, if you want to see how the Biblical writers wrote there text then this book is for you.

Please forgive me for posting this shameless plug on my book.
klewis
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Re: How John Wrote the Book of Revelation Chapter 1

Post by klewis »

In case anyone wants to see what an approximation draft looks like:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/18Ew9oM ... sp=sharing

This is how Revelation chapter 18 and 19 started with from the first draft that John wrote (see chapter 1, page 6, EP7 & IP7) in the original post's link.
klewis
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Re: How John Wrote the Book of Revelation Chapter 1

Post by klewis »

Dr Robert M. Price's review my book on Amazon:
Kim Mark Lewis’s book How John Wrote the Book of Revelation: From Concept to Publication is itself a revelation! How nobody else ever came up with this I don’t know. It seems so obvious once he points it out! The author frames a new approach, a new methodology, enabling us to discern distinct stages of composition in the Apocalypse of John. Sure, the late, great Raymond E. Brown outlined a series of stages in the composition of John’s Gospel, but that’s not what’s new and compelling here. Essentially it’s this: All careful readers know that Revelation is not simply an eyewitness account of a series of mind-blasting visions. That is a fictive premise. That doesn’t mean it’s some kind of fraud; that’s just part of the literary genre of an apocalypse, of which there are many, both ancient (e.g., Daniel, 4 Ezra, the Apocalypse of Peter) and modern (e.g., Dante’s Divine Comedy and Dickens’s A Christmas Carol). Revelation is instead a fantastically elaborate tapestry woven with threads borrowed from many biblical books, especially Ezekiel, Zechariah, and Daniel. Yes, that quickly becomes evident to the serious reader. What Kim has done is to distinguish broken patterns in the text. That is, he zeroes in on all the allusions/quotations from any single Old Testament source text and is able to show how these verses look as if they were used by the author to create, e.g., a chiasm, a ABC-C’B’A’ pattern, an initial sequence of words and ideas counting down, then counting back up again. (This is a common stylistic device in the New Testament.) But it only works in Revelation once you isolate the relevant verses. And the fact that it does work implies it is no coincidence, and that the intervening material must have been a subsequent addition by the same author, expanding his book. He was willing to sacrifice his original structural flourishes to accommodate new Old Testament material appropriate to the context. This material, too, may have been laid out in new patterns. In a still subsequent stage of revision, the author will have again felt free to obscure his previous structures in favor of the intended content.

This would have been much easier if John of Patmos had had access to a computer! But he didn’t. He couldn’t even have flipped back and forth between Old Testament passages to compare them, since there weren’t yet bound collections of biblical books like our modern Bibles. So how on earth did he manage it? Lewis explains how ancient writers often employed reusable wax writing tablets, placing them side by side. These would have contained earlier drafts of Revelation, simplifying his redactional task.

The technique Lewis sets forth enables us not only to track the progress of the Revelator’s work; by doing so, he is also able to demonstrate the evolution of major themes in the book. We do this all the time in redaction criticism of the gospels, comparing Mark’s text with Matthew’s and Luke’s rewrites of it. In this way, e.g., we can trace the progress of Christology from one gospel to another. Lewis enables us to make such comparisons between editions of a single work by a single author. The analytical tool he has fashioned in this book may prove to be of great value in reconstructing the composition history of other biblical writings as well. I can’t wait to see the results of that!
https://www.amazon.com/How-John-Wrote-B ... way&sr=8-1

Dr Price's website http://robertmprice.mindvendor.com/
Giuseppe
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Re: How John Wrote the Book of Revelation Chapter 1

Post by Giuseppe »

I am curious. Does the your book imply something about the question of historicity of Jesus regarding Revelation? Do you reply to Questions like "where did the author place the sacrifice of the Lamb?", et similia.

Thanks in advance.
Nihil enim in speciem fallacius est quam prava religio. -Liv. xxxix. 16.
klewis
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Re: How John Wrote the Book of Revelation Chapter 1

Post by klewis »

The book does not go into the historicity of Jesus at all. The scope of How John Wrote the Book of Revelation is how it was written which includes how John incorporated Jesus into Revelation. It does go into the question of "how the Lamb was placed in Revelation and why it is in chapter 5 of Revelation" (see chapter 4, pages 131 to 190 or the Deuteronomy-Joshua Draft in chapter 1 provided in the first post). In short, it covers many things, line by line, draft by draft, so the reader gets a sense of how each draft was created and how the content moved to satisfy the next stage / draft in the process. If you are familiar with Genetic Literary theory, it is a modified version that works in many Hebrew and Christian texts.

The book shows why the order of Revelation and Ezekiel differ in several sections but uniform in many, or rather how Revelation changed the order of the Ezekiel passages. It shows how content differs such as the Alpha and Omega passages in Revelation chapter 1, 21, 22 are different and the process that made them different. If you want to know when and how elements such as Satan, the Beast, the Harlot, the seven churches were incorporated into Revelation, this shows it. It goes into many places where John struggled with content, how he split the text in a prior draft to insert new material, and how he conflated source material.

If you do not care to know about how it was written, a huge section of the book shows many of the Hebrew Poetry parallels throughout the book of Revelation. The vast majority of the book contain illustrations of how Revelation uses the Hebrew scriptures and how parallels are formed within the text of Revelation itself.

Feel free to ask any specific questions. If it was answered in my book, I will most likely just provide the page that I answered it. Please keep in mind that many sections are a product of several drafts and will not be a good candidate for a single line answer or a single picture answer. I will have do my best to answer the question(s).
Bernard Muller
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Re: How John Wrote the Book of Revelation Chapter 1

Post by Bernard Muller »

to klewis,
The rest of the book, over 300 pages, contains the evidence to support this chapter.
Can you show "smoking guns" to support your theories (just like what I have to support mine).

Cordially, Bernard
I believe freedom of expression should not be curtailed
Giuseppe
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Location: Italy

Re: How John Wrote the Book of Revelation Chapter 1

Post by Giuseppe »

klewis wrote: Sun Apr 21, 2019 8:25 am The book does not go into the historicity of Jesus at all.
ok, but basing on the your conclusions about how the book was written etc, what do you think about the question of historicity in Revelation, particularly about 11:8 and about 13:8 ?
Nihil enim in speciem fallacius est quam prava religio. -Liv. xxxix. 16.
klewis
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Joined: Mon Apr 15, 2019 9:39 am

Re: How John Wrote the Book of Revelation Chapter 1

Post by klewis »

Good question, and I hope that this long answer answers it:

First, the book of Revelation was written after 70 CE. That much is obvious, because the selection of the book of Ezekiel, which depicts the temple being destroyed, as its foundation. However, the book was written decades after the destruction of Jerusalem while depicting its writing prior to its destruction (see Rev 10:1-11).

The entry of the beast narratives come from Daniel, and was the last text added to Revelation. The person, that John is describing as the beast is Domitian. The reasoning is based upon when John wants you to believe that it is written and how he predicts it. If you follow how John splits up the texts of Daniel and the numbers he gives for the kings of the beast. Domitian is the only one that would fit that context. Vespasian when he became emperor, he made his two sons co-emperors. When he died, Titus became emperor for a little while, 2 years, and then Domitian became emperor again.
Now to the question that you are asking. Lots of passages that are claimed as history in Revelation is actually quotations from the Hebrew Scriptures.

Revelation 13:8 is a product of parallel formation between the second church and Revelation 13. You cannot think of Revelation being written in one sitting by done in many with many processes. Below is a snap shot, in fact, one of the very last parallels done in Revelation.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1gGkg-a ... sp=sharing

However, it is my belief that John was predicting the end of the world at 105 CE and the 10 days of being imprisoned was 10 years from 96 CE to 105 CE.

I will have to get back on the source for 11:8. Sorry, I hope this was at least a good start.
klewis
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Re: How John Wrote the Book of Revelation Chapter 1

Post by klewis »

Bernard Muller wrote: Sun Apr 21, 2019 8:27 am to klewis,
The rest of the book, over 300 pages, contains the evidence to support this chapter.
Can you show "smoking guns" to support your theories (just like what I have to support mine).

Cordially, Bernard
The Author's notation, that i have posted earlier and the posts in this thread and others should suffice. Not to mentioned that a third party, who I do not know, validated the process. His review is posted in this thread.
Last edited by klewis on Sun Apr 21, 2019 10:18 am, edited 1 time in total.
klewis
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Joined: Mon Apr 15, 2019 9:39 am

Re: How John Wrote the Book of Revelation Chapter 1

Post by klewis »

Giuseppe,

Here is a parallel for 13:8 that includes the full text of with the source material used to construct the church in Smyrna.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1V3UFyZ ... sp=sharing

Keep in mind that the farther you go from the original parallel the harder it is to detect. I call that parallel drift. Also, there are many texts that form a parallel with Revelation 13 as well as Smyrna. My book shows the order in which they were written in and thus provides techniques to unravel those in books other than Revelation. For example, I took this same process and showed how Genesis-Exodus was written. That article is in the most recent Journal of Higher Criticism (Vol 14:1 2019).

Revelation 11:8 is a parallel of 13:8 and 11:8 has all to do about the destruction of Jerusalem. Prior to the Daniel Draft, the last draft prior to publication, the Beast did not exist in it. There was God, Jesus, verses Satan and the harlot. In my book I show many passages that show the transition, but the best is found in the description of Satan / Dragon in Rev 13:1-2 and 13:3-4. There are others if you request it. The addition of the beast allowed for Revelation to have symmetry in that Jesus works with Satan to destroy Jerusalem and God and the Beast work together to destroy the Harlot. Jesus is used to defeat the beast and God is used to defeat Satan.

I hope that I am not boring you with all of these details.
Last edited by klewis on Sun Apr 21, 2019 10:15 am, edited 1 time in total.
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