If you’re actually curious about this, Elaine Pagels has a really great book about this. The book of Revelation was just a thinly-veiled series of jabs at specific people and the politics of the time.
Her interpretation is that it would have been blatantly obvious to John’s contemporaries, but it’s opaque to us now because we’re so far removed from that time period.
so something similar to Dante’s Inferno, which is basically a long shitpost about contemporary politics that over time diffused into religious culture?
If you’re actually curious about this, Elaine Pagels has a really great book about this. The book of Revelation was just a thinly-veiled series of jabs at specific people and the politics of the time.
Her interpretation is that it would have been blatantly obvious to John’s contemporaries, but it’s opaque to us now because we’re so far removed from that time period.
huh. Interesting.
so something similar to Dante’s Inferno, which is basically a long shitpost about contemporary politics that over time diffused into religious culture?