Revelation Resources

Remarks on writings in the Scandinavian languages

This topic includes references to on-line material or written contributions in the Scandinavian languages (Danish, Norwegian and Swedish) that are either scholarly of nature or written by scholars.

Full-scale exegetical commentaries
Major scholarly commentaries are few: Peder Madsen, Johannes’ Aabenbaring and Holger Mosbech, Johannes’ Aabenbaring with the two accompanying volumes: Mosbech, Fortolkningen (history of interpretation) and Mosbech, Sproglig Fortolkning (a linguistic commentary).

Other commentaries etc.
In Danish
Danish commentaries written by scholars include (apart from Madsen and Mosbech mentioned above): Torm, Johannes’ Åbenbaring, Anna Marie Aagaard’s Danish commentary on Revelation and Thestrup Pedersen, Johannes’ Åbenbaring.

See also Adamsen, Parousia and Paraenesis.

See my separate entry with an overview of a number of Danish writings on Revelation.

In Norwegian
Torm’s commentary from 1941 was mentioned above. Important is professor Olaf Moe’s commentary from 1960 and Martin Synnes’s commentary on Revelation 2-3. Martin Synnes has also published two articles on the millennium (see Synnes, Tusenårsrike). Moe and Synnes were professors at the present Norwegian Lutheran School of Theology.

In his thesis, Christ the Conqueror: Ideas of Conflict and Victory in the New Testament (London: SPCK, 1954), Professor of NT Ragnar Leivestad (1916-2002), University of Oslo, included a detailed discussion of Revelation.

Although written in English, one should notice the doctoral dissertation on Gog and Magog by Sverre Bøe. Like Bøe, Adamsen, a Dane, wrote and defended his as yet unpublished thesis on Parousia and Paraenesis at the Norwegian Lutheran School of Theology in Oslo.

See also Professor Jarl Henning Ulrichsen’s unpublished doctoral thesis “Das eschatologische Zeitschema der Offenbarung des Johannes”, submitted to University of Tronheim. Oslo, 1988.

Separate entry with an overview of a number of Norwegian publications will follow.

In Swedish
Otto Ferdinand Myrberg (1888) and David Hedegård (1944) [description to follow].

Bullinger’s commentary (2nd ed., 1909) was translated into Swedish and published in 1927.

In 2007, teol.dr. Leif Carlsson published a 272 page commentary on Revelation. Carlsson is the author of Round Trips to Heaven: Otherworldly Travelers in Early Judaism and Christianity. Lund University, 2004 (description to follow).

Although written in English, one should also notice the doctoral dissertation on Revelation 7:9-17 and the Feast of Tabernacles by Håkan Ulfgard. Ulfgard’s thesis was accepted by the University of Lund.

Separate entry with an overview of a number of Swedish publications will follow later.

In Finnish
Finnish does not belong to the Scandinavian languages, but see Simojoki, Apocalypse Interpreted.

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