Wilson, Mark Wayne. The Victor Sayings in the Book of Revelation. Eugene, Oregon: Wipf and Stock Publishers, 2007. 294 pp. Paperback

This volume is based on the author’s Ph.D.-thesis (see abstract here). Wilson analyses this very important motif that also is also of great importance for the overall interpretation of Revelation’s message and purpose.

The publisher’s description
“This is the first major study to focus solely on the victor sayings and should prove invaluable to scholars and students of Revelation and apocalyptic literature. It demonstrates that the motif of victory is Revelation’s macrodynamic theme.

“Chiasmus is proposed as the book’s macrostructure, based in part on the chiastic nature of the promises to the victors, with the later fulfillment of these promises in the book. The proposed forms for the seven letters—forms such as edicts, oracles, and epistles—are examined, and it is concluded that they are a mixtum compositum best called ‘prophetic letters.’

“The sociological significance of victory is explored within the Greco-Roman world. The text of the promises and their co-texts (as reflected intertextually in traditions of biblical literature) receive thorough examination.

“The eschatological fulfillment of the victor sayings is surveyed in Revelation’s later chapters, especially in chapters 21-22, where the new Jerusalem is depicted.

“The study concludes with an investigation of the ways that the promises were appropriated for the time and the text world of Revelation.” (More at the publisher’s page)

About ten years ago, the author very kindly gave me access to an electronic copy of his very useful thesis. I think I have some discussions with Wilson’s analyses in my own thesis (which you can read about here)

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Barr, David Lawrence. “The Apocalypse of John As Oral Enactment.” Interpretation 40 (1986): 243-56.

“The original audience encountered (Apoc) as an aural experience (1:3) and that experience determined both the way the Apoc. was structured and the meaning the auditors found in it.”

Quoted from Wood, Structure, p. 13 n. 37.

Dr. Darin M. Wood has written a helpful and well-documented essay on the structure(s) of Revelation (2006).

I noticed one or two minor mistakes. Wood ascribes the recapitulation theory to Joachim of Fiore and cites Wainwright, Mysterious Apocalypse, p. 51. However, according to Wainwright (p. 35), the recapitulation theory was used by Victorinus and formulated by Tyconius.

In notes 56 and 60, p. 18, and in note 67, p. 22 one could get the (erroneous) impression that Lambrecht and Beasley-Murray co-authored the article “A Structuration of Revelation 4:1-22:5,” but this is not the case (according to my notes, at least). Beasley-Murray was one of the contributors.

Bornkamm, Günther. “Die Komposition der apokalyptischen Visionen in der Offenbarung Johannis.” Zeitschrift für die neutestamentliche Wissenschaft 36 (1937): 132-149. Reprinted in Studien zu Antike und Christentum: Gesammelte Aufsätze II, 204-22. Beiträge zur evangelischen Theologie, 28. 3rd ed. München: Chr. Kaiser Verlag, 1970.

Bornkamm’s article is an important, but, unfortunately, rarely used essay about the composition of Revelation. Bornkamm points to some very important aspects of John’s narrative technique, e.g., that John often describes the same event twice (indeed, some times more than twice). The second occurrence adds information that was omitted and thus assumed in the first. An example would be 14:14-20 and 19:11ff. Because of this narrative technique, it is justified to interpret a given passage in the light of later parallel passages.

For a Danish presentation of this aspect of Bornkamm’s essay, see my Fortælleteknikker i Johannes’ Åbenbaring.

Pattemore, Stephen W. Souls Under the Altar: Relevance Theory and the Discourse Structure of Revelation. UBS Monographs Series, vol. 9. New York: United Bible Societies, 2003. xiii + 241.

More to follow …