REVELATION

This journey follows Revelation in 21 readings, from the first chapter to the last. The book presents itself as the vision of a John who was on the island of Patmos (1:9) and addresses seven real churches of Asia Minor: Ephesus, Smyrna, Pergamum, Thyatira, Sardis, Philadelphia and Laodicea. Irenaeus, in the second century, places the vision at the end of the reign of the emperor Domitian, around 95; some scholars propose an earlier date, under Nero. In either case, the readers were a small community facing the power of Rome.

The path follows the book: the letters to the churches, the throne in heaven (chapter 4), the Lamb and the seals (5 and 6), the 144,000 (7), the trumpets (8 and 9), the woman and the dragon (12), the beast and the number 666 (13), the bowls, the fall of Babylon (17 and 18), the wedding of the Lamb (19), the millennium and the judgment (20) and the new Jerusalem (21 and 22). The last days return to the Roman context, to the prophecies tied to Daniel 7:13-14 and to the ways of interpreting the millennium.

Two pieces of information help in reading carefully. The number of the beast appears as 666 in most manuscripts, but some ancient witnesses have 616, and Irenaeus already knew both readings. And Revelation was slow to be accepted throughout the East: the first Syriac version of the New Testament left it out. The journey shows what the text says and how different traditions read it, without imposing one.