Metaphors and Revelation 12-13
Alan Brady over at Café Apocalypsis has a nice summary of parts of Dr. Ian Paul’s article “” in Studies in the Book of Revelation, ed. S. Moyse (see here) and some methodological reflections on the interpretation of metaphors.

Ian Paul’s essay is based on his Ph.D.-dissertation, “The Value of Paul Ricoeur’s Hermeneutic of Metaphor in the Interpretation of the Symbolism of Revelation 12 and 13″. According to Paul’s web pages (here and, especially, here), he is preparing a revised edition for publication by Paternoster.

See also:

• Paul, Ian. “The Use of the Old Testament in Rev 12.” In: The Old Testament in the New Testament: Essays in Honour of J.L. North. Edited by Steve Moyise. Sheffield, England: Sheffield Academic Press, 2000.
• Paul, Ian. “The Interpretation of Metaphor and Symbol” (no longer available online)

Update: Unfortunately, the update is no longer on-line.

Pattemore, Stephen W. The People of God in the Apocalypse: Discourse, Structure, and Exegesis. Society for New Testament Studies Monographs Series, 128. Cambridge; New York: Cambridge University Press, 2004. Also available in an Ebrary-edition. xv + 256.

This volume is based on parts of the author’s doctoral dissertation, The People of God in the Apocalypse: A Relevance-Theoretic Study (Unpublished Ph. D. thesis, Dunedin: University of Otago, 2000). His thesis addressed both discourse-structural and exegetical issues. The structural studies
have been published as Souls under the Altar. The people of God in the Apocalypse contains the exegetical work (cf. p. 11, note 40).

Preliminary chapters (chs. 1-3)
Pattemore takes the lead from a quote from Adela Yarbro Collins: “Revelation … provides a story in and through which the people of God discover who they are and what they are to do” (Interpretation 40 [1986]: 242). Pattemore’s study “aims to elucidate this process of discovery on both fronts, identity and action” (p. 9). He wants to answer: “What are the cognitive and behavioural outcomes to which the narrative seeks to lead them?” (p. 10).

Pattemore uses narrative and rhetorical theory (Kirby; D. L. Barr) and, especially, Relevance Theory (cf. also Garrow). Pattemore employs Relevance Theory as “a discriminatory hermeneutic criterion by which to evaluate the significance of proposed background information for the understanding of the text” (p. 11).

Ch. 2 is therefore devoted to a presentation of Sperber and Wilson’s Relevance Theory (cf. Sperber, Dan, and Deirdre Wilson. Relevance: Communication and Cognition. 2nd ed. Oxford; Cambridge, Massachusetts: Blackwell Publishers, 2001) (pp. 13-50). David Barr summarises the theory in his review (see below).

Ch. 3 discusses the external and internal context of Revelation and summarises the analyses, published in Souls Under the Altar. In Revelation, the people of God are featured as addressees, as audience, and as actors (pp. 64-67). Chs. 4-6 examine the references to the people of God as the last category: actors. They yield a good number of helpful results. However, the focus on the people of God as actors also means that some questions are not posed and thus not answered. I will comment briefly on that below.

Ch. 4-6 presents the exegetical analyses (see especially p. 11f for the following overview).

Ch. 4, pp. 68-116, begins with Revelation 6:9-11, “the first actual visionary depiction of the people of God,” and it “follows themes relating to martyrdom through the book”.

Ch. 5, pp. 117-196, traces “militaristic depictions of the people of God, from Revelation 7 forwards.” Key texts are Rev 7:1-8 (ch. 5.3, pp. 125-140), 7:9-17 (ch. 5.4, pp. 140-159) and 14:1-5 (pp. 179-193), but also Daniel 7 and a number of Revelation-texts that portray “War against the saints” (ch. 5.5, pp. 159-179). Rev 7:1-8 and 14:1-5 paint “a picture … of victory through suffering after the pattern of the Messiah.”

Ch. 6, pp. 197-212, “briefly shows how the various threads are woven together in the picture of the New Jerusalem.” Here Pattemore focuses on three themes, “or, rather, clusters of themes, namely the vindication of the martyrs, the victory of the saints, and the marriage of the Lamb” (p. 197). Pattemore describes the intra-textual connections that many others have shown as well (e.g., Mark Wilson).

Ch. 7, pp. 213-219, summarises the results and assesses the use of Relevance Theory. The use of Relevance Theory as a tool for a sharper application of existing methodologies led Pattemore to identify “three types of roles”: 1) martyrdom, 2) the messianic army that “intersected with the previous one at many points and turned out to have many similar implications for the audience” and the New Jerusalem-visions (p. 213f; quote at p. 214).

Pattemore concludes that Relevance Theory has proved useful “at every stage of this investigation” (p. 214), although it is a limitation that we have only incomplete knowledge of the cognitive environment and “don’t know what we don’t know” (p. 215). “The use of RT has not eliminated all subjectivity from the process of exegesis” (ibid.).

As to the identity of the people of God, they are God’s people (ch. 7.3; p. 216f, which means, among other things, that they are secure and on their way from captivity to the Promised Land, the New Jerusalem, the dwelling place of God. They are also “the close companions of the Lamb.” “Their victory, like his and because of his, consists in their lives being offered in sacrifice, the outcome of which is salvation for the world.” The OT marital imagery shows that “The goal of their existence is to be united with their Lord.” (p. 216).

There are sharply drawn boundaries between the people of God and the earth-dwellers. Persecution may be present and certainly will occur in the future (p. 216f).

Allusions to the seven messages and rare instances of direct address to the audience prompt the audience to identify with the actors of John’s portrayal. It is also done indirectly. Finally, John’s opponents are categorised as earth-dwellers and outsiders (p. 217).

As regards the task of the people of God (ch. 7.4; pp. 217f), they are to offer their life as a sacrifice to God, align their behaviour with what is desirable, and ensure “that they are ‘in’ rather than ‘out.’ They are to “resist the seduction of every form of idolatry associated with the political and economical power-structures of their society” and endure the consequences. “Positively they are to remain faithful to their Lord in anticipation of ultimately being united with him,” which “requires obedience to his commands in terms of ethical conduct in the
world and of true worship. It also requires them to bear witness to him.” (p. 218). As in Mark 8:34f.

The back matters include an appendix, “Abbreviated discourse outline,” a 20 page bibliography, and a combined index (of subjects, Biblical and modern authors), but no index of Scripture passages.

Concluding remarks
The ecclesiology of Revelation is a field of research with relatively few works. Pattemore asserts – in my opinion correctly – that “Revelation’s ecclesiology is crucially dependent on its christology” (p. 216).

However, I think that a crucial part of its Christology is soteriology. It seems to me that Pattemore’s study suffers from inadequate consideration as to how the people of God is saved. One – important – reason for this neglect may be the focus on the people of God as actors.

Soteriology, however, is certainly a central issue, as Christ repeatedly urges the recipients of the seven messages to repent. In other words, some of the recipients were in grave danger of losing their salvation. They would then experience the parousia, the second coming of Christ, not as the victorious coming of their bridegroom for their victory, but as the victorious coming of their judge and warrior for their defeat, judgement, and, indeed, eternal punishment.

Relevance Theory may be relevant and helpful. The use of Relevance Theory, however, is no guarantee that one identifies the most important issues (cf. the third step of his relevance-sensitive methodology, p. 49). That Pattemore has, indeed, identified important issues is beyond doubt.

Pattemore’s volume is reviewed by David L. Barr in Review of Biblical Literature (2005) (direct link here)

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Huber, Lynn R. 2007. Like a Bride Adorned: Reading Metaphor in John’s Apocalypse. Emory Studies in Early Christianity. New York: T&T Clark International. xi + 221 pp.

The bride metaphor is a powerful one. It has been investigated by McIlraith and Jan Fekkes (and others). Studies like this one are welcome additions to this topic.

Synopsis from the publisher
“The phrase ‘like a bride adorned’ is one of the ways Revelation describes the new Jerusalem which descends from heaven. This phrase can also be read as describing one of the ways interpreters historically have understood the relationship between Revelation and its metaphorical language. In contrast to views that suggest Revelation’s metaphorical language is simple adornment, Huber argues that Revelation’s persuasive power resides within the text’s metaphorical nature and she articulates a method for exploring how Revelation employs metaphor to shape an audience’s thought.

“In order to gain a sense of how metaphorical language works in Revelation’s highly metaphorical text, Like a Bride Adorned: Reading Metaphor in John’s Apocalypse engages one set of conceptual metaphors in relation to Revelation’s literary and social-historical milieu. Specifically, Huber explores the conceptual metaphors undergirding Revelation’s nuptial or bridal imagery. Positioned at the culmination of the text’s, nuptial imagery serves as one the text’s final and arguably one of its most important characterizations of the Christian community

“Examining the function of Revelation’s nuptial imagery involves investigating how the text redeploys conventional metaphorical constructions used in the writings of the Hebrew prophets and how its imagery engages Greco-Roman depictions of women, weddings, and brides. Discourse about marriage and family was such an important part of Revelation’s historical context, especially as it was shaped by the Roman Empire, that any discussion of the text’s nuptial imagery must examine how it reflects and responds to this discourse. By addressing these questions, we see that Revelation’s nuptial imagery serves to further the text’s goal of shaping Christian identity in opposition to the social demands of the Roman Empire. Moreover, exploration of the conceptual metaphors undergirding Revelation’s ‘bride adorned’ reveals how John seeks to shape Christian identity as a transitional identity.

“Through metaphor, Revelation encourages its audience to envision the Christian community as a bride who constructs ‘her’ own identity as she transitions into a new role in relation to God and the Lamb. Through the process of exploring Revelation’s nuptial imagery with insights gained from conceptual metaphor theory, we uncover the ways that John employs metaphorical language to persuade his audience’s thought about themselves and about others. Consequently, this work contributes both to our understanding of the text’s nuptial imagery and to our knowledge of how Revelation employs metaphor as tool for persuasion.”

Table of Content:

1. Reading through the “Veil of Obscurity:” Interpreting Revelation’s Imagistic Language
2. KNOWING IS SEEING: Theories of Metaphor Ancient, Medieval, and Modern
3. Envisioning the City as a Woman: A Metaphorical Framework in the Jewish Literary Traditions
4. Unveiling the Bride: Nuptial Traditions and Roman Social Discourse
5. “Alleluia . . . the wedding of the Lamb has come:” Reading Revelation’s Nuptial Imagery
6. “Like a Bride Adorned:” Reading Metaphor in Revelation

• Appendix Babylon–A City without a Bride: Revelation 18:23
• Bibliography

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Andreas J. Köstenberger has written the chapter “Use of Scripture in the pastoral and general epistles and the Book of Revelation” in Stanley E. Porter, ed. Hearing the Old Testament in the New Testament. Grand Rapids, Michigan: William B. Eerdmans Publishing, 2006, pp. 230-254.

The names of Köstenberger and Porter guarantee the quality of this chapter.

Apart from the chapter on, among other Scriptures, the Book of Revelation, there are some other interesting chapters. Porter has written an introductory chapter, while Dennis L. Stamps has a methodological proposal in “Use of the Old Testament in the New Testament as a rhetorical device: a methodological proposal.” See further http://www.loc.gov/catdir/toc/ecip0613/2006014253.html. You can also take a look at the content at Amazon (follow the link below).

Latest: See Rick Brannan’s blog on Köstenberger’s essay as well as a methodological essay written by Porter as well as full bibliographic details here.

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Evans, Craig A., and James A. Sanders, eds. Early Christian Interpretation of the Scriptures of Israel: Investigations and Proposals. Journal for the study of the New Testament, vol. 148; Studies in Scripture in Early Judaism and Christianity, 5. Sheffield, England: Sheffield Academic Press, 1997. 476 pp.

Includes a methodological essay on the use of the Old Testament by Stanley E. Porter. The title is “The Use of the Old Testament in the New Testament: A Brief comment on Method and Terminology” (pp. 79-97).

The volume also includes an essay by Gregory K. Beale: “Solecisms in the Apocalypse as Signals for the Presence of the Old Testament Allusions: A Selective Analysis of Revelation 1-22″ (pp. 421-446). A revision of this chapter in includes in ch. 5 of Beale, Use of the OT.

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