Wow, that is a lot of questions in a short paragraph.davidmartin wrote: ↑Fri Nov 15, 2019 2:45 pm klewis, interesting but could you identify the parts that don't derive from the OT
how about the book of life, tree of life (is it mentioned outside Genesis?), woman standing on the moon, hell, or are there too many to list?
I had a feeling it was composed of several documents, conceivably one of these may date back to a real John and the later editor reworked this into something that because of the earlier association kept the name.
First, things first, don't think of Revelation, or for that matter any large book in the Hebrew and Christian scriptures composed in one single sitting. Second, don't think in terms of a single passage being derived from a single source, but think of it as a process. With that in mind, the tree of life first came into the book of Revelation during the first draft which I call the Ezekiel-Isaiah draft (see page 62 in https://drive.google.com/file/d/12JZcor ... uSXCx/view). As you can see it came from Ezekiel 47:12. As later texts were added and internal parallel formations came about, it became much more refined.
There is nothing in the process in which I can conclude that there were multiple authors. Parallel formation is a messy process in which lots of in-congruent texts are rammed together. For example, John provides two different descriptions of the New Jerusalem where as one is derived from Ezekiel and the other from Isaiah (see pages 62 and 63 in https://drive.google.com/file/d/12JZcor ... uSXCx/view). He kept both of them in there because they form parallels with other sections in Revelation. For example the Alpha and Omega parallels which is derived from the Isaiah text becomes malformed through other processes which I discuss in my book (see https://drive.google.com/file/d/14MAHAc ... sp=sharing). However, once you see the process in action then it is easy to see how they are so different from each other.
As for what is unique and what is copy, I can only mention what is different from the text and the drafts. Since I don't know all that was written at the time I cannot speak to that. How ever, certain tuning of numbers, and specifics, are made to represent changes in time such as the four chariots in Zechariah 6:1-8 become the four horsemen in Revelation 6:1-8. That was done to reflect the times have change and chariots were only good for racing and not for war. In the Ezekiel draft attachment you can see that the gem stones were added to reflect the value of the day (see page 62 in https://drive.google.com/file/d/12JZcor ... uSXCx/view).
In actuality there are few places in Revelation that is unique, specific numbers, such as 666, 10 days in the letter to the church in Smyrna, and the 42 months, 1260 day, 3 1/2 days were not from the original source but was change to reflect the story line John wanted to convey. Most people point out the thousand years in Revelation 20 as on such example. That was part of the writing process, in which John is trying to depict 1000 years if Israel before the destruction of Jerusalem and a second destruction. I feel that this part of the story was not working for him as well as us today.
It is funny, at 300+ pages, I did leave out a few parallels, one from Tacitus. I do include five separate approximation drafts similar to the one plastered all over this post. The book goes in the order in which it was written so you will get to see the process in action. Each of the chapters I go into how John solved various parallel formation problems and how he created new ones.
Please feel free to ask more questions.