David A. DeSilva. “The Strategic Arousal of Emotions in the Apocalypse of John: A Rhetorical-Critical Investigation of the Oracles to the Seven Churches.” New Testament Studies 54 (2008): 90-114.

Currently freely available online here in a pdf version. Here is the abstract:

Heuristic use of classical rhetorical theorists’ discussion of appeals to the emotions allows the interpreter to discern the strategic arousal of three principal pairs of emotions in the seven oracles of Revelation: fear and confidence, friendship and enmity, and shame and emulation. While some of these emotional responses are evoked in multiple oracles, certain ones tend to be more fully nurtured in particular oracles, being more strategic to achieving the speaker’s specific goals for the audiences in those settings. John gives attention to the multiple dimensions of appeals to emotion as discussed by Aristotle (nurturing the frame of mind that is disposed to that particular emotion, identifying particular ‘others’ in regard to whom that emotion is rightly directed, and inscribing situations that naturally give rise to that emotion).

Carey, Greg: Elusive Apocalypse: Reading Authority in the Revelation to John. (Studies in Biblical Hermeneutics, 15). Macon, Georgia: Mercer University Press, 1999. xiv + 209 pp.

Employing not only the rhetorical notion of authorial ethos, but postcolonial and resistance criticism, this book, a (probably revised) edition of Carey’s 1996 Ph.D.-thesis, deals with how Revelation constructs authority and concludes that John’s authorial ethos is unstable, and that the same modern unstability only can be escaped by finding a way to submit our visions to public dialogue.

See further Carey’s abstract.

Moyise, Steve (ed.) Studies in the Book of Revelation. Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 2001. xvii + 206 pp. ISBN: 0567088146 (hb.), 0567088049 (pbk.).

Essays included:

• The Words of Prophecy: Reading the Apocalypse Theologically, by Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza (pp. 1-20)
• Seventh-Day Adventism: Self-Appointed Laodicea, by Robert Surridge (pp. 21-42)
• The Enthroned Christ of Revelation 5:6 and the Development of Christian Theology, by Jonathan Knight (pp. 43-50)
• The Many Faces of Babylon the Great: Wirkungsgeschichte and the Interpretation of Revelation 17, by Ian Boxall (pp. 51-68)
• Praise and Politics in Revelation 19:1-10, by Jean-Pierre Ruiz (pp. 69-84)
• The Millennium and the Second Coming, by R. Jack McKelvey (pp. 85-100)
• Waiting for the End that Never Comes: The Narrative Logic of John’s Story, by David L. Barr (pp. 101-112)
• Criteria and the Assessment of Allusions to the Old Testament in the Book of Revelation, by Jon Paulien (pp. 113-130; also available here)
• The Book of Revelation: Image, Symbol and Metaphor, by Ian Paul (pp. 131-148)
• Out of the Wilderness: Feminist Perspectives on the Book of Revelation, by Alison Jack (pp. 149-162)
• The Apocalypse and Its Ambiguous Ethos, by Greg Carey (pp. 163-180)
• Does the Lion Lie down with the Lamb, by Steve Moyise (pp. 181-194; also available here)

Christopher Rowland has written the Foreword (pp. ix-ixvii). The back matters consists of Indices of Bible and Ancient Sources, Modern Authors, and Subjects.

“This is a specially commissioned set of state-of-the-art studies on the most important aspects of Revelation and its significance for the 21st century–by the world’s leading scholars. The studies can be grouped in relation to three main themes: strategies of interpretation (theological, literary, feminist, metaphorical); the nature of the violent imagery; and passages of particular interest (the letter to Laodicea, ‘praise and politics’, Old Testament allusions, the second coming of Christ).This book will provide an invaluable resource for researchers and students alike,” according to the publisher.

Reviewed by John M. Court, in Journal of Theological Studies 54, no. 2 (October 2003): 726-729.

Barr, David Lawrence (ed.) The Reality of Apocalypse: Rhetoric and Politics in the Book of Revelation. Society of Biblical Literature symposium series, 39. Leiden; Boston: Brill, 2006. ix + 306 pp. RRP £19.22

Barr, who headed the Seminar on the Apocalypse: The Intersection of Literary and Social Methos, has selected a number of essays to represent the work of the seminar. Barr also edited a volume for students.

Essays included:

• Reading the Apocalypse as Apocalypse: the limits of genre, by Gregory L. Linton
• Apocalypse renewed: an intertextual reading of the Apocalypse of John, by David E. Aune
• Beyond genre: the expectations of Apocalypse, by David L. Barr
• Hearing and seeing but not saying: a rhetoric of authority in Revelation 10:4 and 2 Corinthians 12:4, by Jean-Pierre Ruiz
• To rejoice or not to rejoice? rhetoric and the fall of Satan in Luke 10:17-24 and Rev. 12:1-17, by Edith M. Humphrey
• Sarcasm in Revelation 2-3: churches, Christians, true Jews, and Satanic synagogues, by Steven J. Friesen
• The “synagogue of Satan”: crisis mongering and the Apocalypse of John, by Paul Duff
• Symptoms of resistance in the book of Revelation, by Greg Carey
• Dragon myth and imperial ideology in Revelation 12-13, by Jan Willem van Henten
• The Lamb who looks like a dragon? characterizing Jesus in John’s Apocalypse, by David L. Barr
• Betwixt and between on the Lord’s day: liturgy and the Apocalypse, by Jean-Pierre Ruiz
• Babylon the great: a rhetorical-political reading of Revelation, by Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza

This topic refers to various studies which, while analysing various aspects of Revelation, employ ancient or modern rhetorical theory.

As with alle the other topics, suggestions or contributions are welcome.