Saturday, May 31, 2025

Composition of Revelation and "A Bible Darkly"

 The site "A Bible Darkly" is a fairly recent addition to the blogroll here.

 It's got some decent stuff, per the first half of the header.

It's also got one huge problem.

No comment section AND no social media links, so I can't comment to the author on things like the first half of the post.

He says, at this link, that he originally supported a dual-author theory of Revelation. It's different than mine on some details, but the big picture is largely the same. A non-Jesus follower Jewish apocalypticist wrote the "non-Christian" sections, followed by a later, Christian author.

He now says that, per David Aune, he rejects dual authorship.

I think his grounds for the rejection aren't good. It doesn't allow for the Christian author to have done editing on the earlier sections, and also assumes that the rough, weird language is uniformly so throughout. 

I mean, per his own old idea, Chapter 14 has "Jesus" by name.

My theory is based on the old Anchor Bible commentary by J. Massingbyrde Ford, augmented by thoughts by James Tabor. Seeing "Jesus" in chapter 14 only augments my own thoughts here.

This all has the beast fit well as Nero, with composition of the pre-Christian core during the Jewish revolt, in all likelihood. 

And, per Aune's theory, one author doing 25 years or more of redaction (he also believes in a late 60s core, but final work in Domitian's time) seems unlikely. The explanation for different editorial foci, that the author was originally not a Jesus follower but later converted, is not highly likely.

Interestingly, Aune taught at Notre Dame, after earlier stints elsewhere. I don't know if Tabor was still there or not when he started.

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