Preterism Part 2 (Rev 1)

I am getting better, but now J is sick. Reading for today has been Il 4, Matt 18, Jos 8, Ps 15, Barnaby Rudge, and Orthodoxy. I had vivid nightmares last night (apparently during a lightning storm) of missing a gig, somehow more terrorizing after two nights of drugged sleep. Last night we watched The King’s Speech, which was outstanding. And for the record, the use of Beethoven didn’t bother me at all.

As promised, I am opening the book of Revelation in the most unscholarly of attitudes, simply flipping through the pages from high above its well-worn terrain. The first thing I see as I open to the book is the word ΑΠΟΚΑΛΥΨΙΣ, looking more etched than written in the stark Greek capital letters. It is, transliterated, apokalupsis, which has become our “apocalypse.” Now, apocalypse has gradually come to mean the same sort of event as Gotterdammerung, but before it picked up these extra flavors of meaning it was simply “revelation”—the revealing of the secret or the hidden.

What “God’s servant John” promises is to reveal is ἃ δεῖ γενέσθαι ἐν τάχει; a painfully literal translation of which would read “what is necessary to be in swiftness,” probably in paraphrase more along the lines of “what soon coming shall pass.” Again, I will withhold myself from the scholarly fray, and without commenting on the merits of either case remark here that there are two possible dates for Revelation: circa 60 or 95. The case for Preterism is staked entirely on the earlier date. The Preterist would say that when John says “swiftly,” he means it. If, of course, none of Revelation has yet come about, the date makes no difference; but it makes John’s insistence of swiftness and imminence difficult to understand. He is always promising ὁ γὰρ καιρὸς ἐγγύς; The time is near.

The presentation of Jesus and his address to the seven churches is, for our purposes, not needed. As I understand it, there is room in the philosophy of most Left-Behinders to understand these letters as local mail. Whether or not they are somehow allegorical or addressed to different ages of the church can be answered in the discussion afterwards. I’ll note only one other verse in chapter 1, since it further clarifies the imminent tone of the book, Jesus’ instructions in verse 19: γράψον οὖν ἃ εἶδες καὶ ἃ εἰσὶν καὶ ἃ μέλλει γίνεσθαι μετὰ ταῦτα. Write thus, what you saw and what now is and what is intended to be after these.

Preterism, Part 1

Today I’m still home fighting the common cold, girded with Alka-Seltzer tablets, tea, and lotion Kleenexes. I did venture out briefly yesterday to attend a concert by Calvus’ Songwriter’s Guild. I instantly like any organization that calls itself a guild (this means that someone among them has at some point read a book on the Middle Ages) and their concert was well done. They are mostly guitarists, singing folk music in the tradition of the troubadours. Calvus did especially well, singing his arrangement of the Burns “Red Rose” poem, some sort of blues number partially in Greek, and an interesting piece reproaching himself as a theological disputant. I am always surprised at how distant we seem to be at this point; especially since he is a professional minister and I a musician. I suspect the real conflict lies in differing standards of etiquette: I don’t think he derives the same semantic pleasure that I do from wielding the English language. He is far too concerned for the other party.

I’ve been meaning to write about Preterism for some time now, but haven’t the slightest idea where to start. For one thing, nearly every source of what is currently called “Preterism” has a different definition of what the term means (try a google search to confirm this) and the few really orderly accounts of it tend to be far removed from its appealing parts. Also, I despise “-isms.” What I’d really like to discuss is not some scholarly catalogue of book fights, but a real re-interpretation of history.

I, like many other Christians, am unnerved by the sway of the Left Behind genre of books. They hold enormous sway over certain theological camps (my wife’s home church being one of them) and, though well-intentioned, they turn Christian hypotheses into the battlefield as Christian dogmas. Here is the problem: We are, at present, trying to make sense of the Bible’s apocalyptic prophecy. The Left Behind books (representing something along the lines of Milennial Dispensationalism) are one perfectly orthodox and tenable interpretation. But they are not the only interpretation. There is, as is easily learned from even a cursory glance through Revelation with a book on Roman history, another possibility that most of the apocalyptic prophecies, at least as far as the end to which they were made, have already been fulfilled. We are like actors attempting to stage King Henry V without having read King Henry IV or having any idea of the actual history. We won’t have any idea of where to put Falstaff if we don’t look outside our one “primary” text. In the next few bloggeries I’ll take an unscholarly and unreliable scan through Revelation, and I’ll try to make sense of this verse:

μέλλει γὰρ ὁ υἱὸς τοῦ ἀνθρώπου ἔρχεσθαι ἐν τῇ δόξῃ τοῦ πατρὸς αὐτοῦ μετὰ τῶν ἀγγέλων αὐτοῦ, καὶ τότε ἀποδώσει ἑκάστῳ κατὰ τὴν πρᾶξιν αὐτοῦ.

ἀμὴν λέγω ὑμῖν ὅτι εἰσίν τινες τῶν ὧδε ἑστώτων οἵτινες οὐ μὴ γεύσωνται θανάτου ἕως ἂν ἴδωσιν τὸν υἱὸν τοῦ ἀνθρώπου ἐρχόμενον ἐν τῇ βασιλείᾳ αὐτοῦ.

For the Son of Man intends to come with his angels in the glory of his Father and then he will repay to each person according to his deeds. Amen I say to you that there are some standing here who will not taste death until they see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom.