How did early Christians generally interpret the Book of Revelation?
>>17982929they didn't since the book of revelation hadn't been written yet
The Book of Revelation contains many linguistic parallels with the phrasing in the targums, most notably the Palestinian targum. The phrasing of these latter compared with the Alexandria translation of the Hebrew Bible into the Septuagint demonstrates the active exegetical moves regarding the OT in the synagogue tradition. Some of these exegetical moves are inherited by Revelation.In other words, the language of Revelation (and of the New Testament in general) carries the interpretive moves of the commentary that was read along with verses in the synagogue. For example, there is much in the Paschal liturgy of the synagogue that was inherited by the text of Revelation.What this suggests is that Revelation is best understood in a liturgical context. This, along with the developments in the Qumranic texts of a "spiritual" eschatological temple, are all inherited by the Christian tradition, in that the eschatology of Revelation is related to the ritual fulfilment of the Old Testament's prophecies and the Messianic coming in the context of the Christian liturgical scheme. Revelation is a mystical work on how the Christian liturgy anticipates the world to come and at the same time how the Church mystically realizes this world to come here, now and in the presence of the liturgical setting. Revelation is as a whole an argument for the fulfillment of prophecy in the Christian narrative and also the justification for how the Christian liturgy actualizes the world to come in its rites. The old Glory and Shekinah of the Jewish thought are revealed to be the Body of Christ enthroned.The liturgy of the Christian church is portrayed as participating in the angelic glorification of the Trinity, where their prayers extend all the way up the pleroma through the saints who offer the prayers as incense and crowns, and all the way to the Son who unifies and comprehends the divisions and hierarchical degrees into a supreme unity that completely images the divine scheme.
>>17983138Good postAnyways, my personal opinion is that Revelation is one of the best books of the NT since it's actually interesting and full of visuals and metaphor and isn't just the apostles endlessly glazing Jesus for hundreds of pages like the other books of the NT. I have often heard that the reason it stands out so much is because it was likely inspired by earlier Jewish and/or Greek texts, which makes sense, content wise, and in terms of phrasing and prose, it definitely resembles something more from the OT than the NT.
Something fascinating about the OT is that the phrasing of the Burning Bush is the most original and first historical document where God is described in terms of ontology using a genius expression that isn't paralleled in any other tradition describing divinity prior to it. The closest is perhaps Egyptian texts, but most of that is only if you assume a framework (such as Neoplatonism) on top of it. It's still extremely mythical even if you extend it the benefit of the doubt and never reaches the unambiguous abstract idea that is evident in the OT
