Barr (ed.), Reading Revelation

Barr, David L. (ed.) Reading the Book of Revelation: A Resource for Students. Resources for Biblical study, 44. Leiden; Boston: Brill, 2004. x + 206 pp. A much cheeper paperback edition (ix + 199 pp.) is published by Society of Biblical Litterature.

Publisher’s information, including a Table of Contents, is available here. For a presentation and a broad evaluation, see Mark Bredin’s review in Review of Biblical Literature (here).

The essays included are written by members of the SBL Seminar on Reading the Apocalypse: The Intersection of Literary and Social Methods. According to the publisher, “Each of the essays focuses on a specific text from Revelation and shows how the method used helps interpret that text, and how diverse methods produce divergent readings of a text” (here). It is intended for students, but it will be useful to every one who wants to explore the relationship between hermeneutics and interpretation.

This volume includes the following essays:

• Introduction: Reading Revelation Today: Consensus and Innovations, by David L. Barr
• The Story John Told: Reading Revelation for Its Plot, by David L. Barr
• Ordinary Lives: John and His First Readers, by Leonard L. Thompson
• The Beast from the Land: Revelation 13:11–18 and Social Setting, by Steven J. Friesen
• Wolves in Sheep’s Clothing: Literary Opposition and Social Tension in the Revelation of John, by Paul B. Duff
• A Tale of Two Cities and (At Least) Three Women: Transformation, Continuity, and Contrast in the Apocalypse, by Edith M. Humphrey
• Doing Violence: Moral Issues in Reading John’s Apocalypse, by David L. Barr
• Undercurrents and Paradoxes: The Apocalypse to John in Process Hermeneutic, by Ronald L. Farmer
• Taking a Stand on the Sand of the Seashore: A Postcolonial Exploration of Revelation 13, by Jean-Pierre Ruiz
• Spirit Possession: Revelation in Religious Studies, by Leonard L. Thompson
• The Lion/Lamb King: Reading the Apocalypse from Popular Culture, by Jon Paulien
• Conclusion: Choosing between Readings: Questions and Criteria, by David L. Barr