{"id":32492,"date":"2009-12-07T17:01:44","date_gmt":"2009-12-07T22:01:44","guid":{"rendered":"\/gazette\/?p=32492"},"modified":"2009-12-07T17:01:44","modified_gmt":"2009-12-07T22:01:44","slug":"revelations-on-revelation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.harvard.edu\/gazette\/story\/2009\/12\/revelations-on-revelation\/","title":{"rendered":"Revelations on Revelation"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\t\n\t
\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\tArts & Culture\t\t<\/a>\n\t\t\n\t\t

\n\t\tRevelations on Revelation\t<\/h1>\n\n\t\n\t\n\t
\n\t\t
\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t

\n\t\tCorydon Ireland \t<\/p>\n\t\t\t

\n\t\t\tHarvard Staff Writer \t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/address>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\n\t\t

\n\t\t\tElaine Pagels parses the New Testament\u2019s last, apocalyptic book\t\t<\/h2>\n\t\t\n<\/header>\n\n\n\n
\n\n\n\t\t

Still as strange, controversial, and influential as it was nearly 2,000 years ago, the biblical Book of Revelation is a fountainhead of \u201cvisions and dreams and nightmares,\u201d said Elaine Pagels<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The Princeton University<\/a> professor of religion, famous for infusing old religious debates with new urgency, was at Harvard Dec. 3 to share what she called \u201ca quick mad dash\u201d of her latest thinking on Revelation, its cultural impact, and its historical underpinnings.<\/p>\n

The occasion was the first session of this year\u2019s Dean\u2019s Lecture Series at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Revelation, the final book in the New Testament, was \u201csqueezed into the canon in the fourth century,\u201d said Pagels, and barely made it into the 27-book lineup. Over the centuries, it continued to draw the ire of critics, from theologian Martin Luther to author D.H. Lawrence. To this day, Eastern Orthodox Christian sects decline to use Revelation in public worship.<\/p>\n

At the center of the long controversy is Revelation\u2019s language, which is both concretely powerful and powerfully indirect. Christ appears as a terrifying warrior clad in white. Satan is a great red dragon waiting to devour a newborn child. The Whore of Babylon, \u201cdrunken with the blood of saints,\u201d is astride a scarlet beast with seven heads and 10 horns. A great lake of fire and brimstone opens up, ready to consume a long catalog of unbelievers.<\/p>\n

Pagels is exploring a range of questions. Who wrote this book, and why? Among the 30 or so similar books that appeared in the first through third centuries, why did this one survive? How is it still influential?<\/p>\n

During her lecture at Radcliffe Gymnasium to an unusually large crowd of 250, she made a direct appeal for help from the audience.<\/p>\n

But first Pagels gave a guided tour of Revelation, complete with artistic treatments through the ages, from Hieronymus Bosch, Albrecht D\u00fcrer, and William Blake to Roger Brown, James Hampton, and Robert Roberg. She said its author was John of Patmos. Exiled on a small island off the coast of present-day Turkey around the year 90 CE, she said, John wrote Revelation while \u201cin the spirit.\u201d<\/p>\n

That would explain the tumbling rush of images so famous now in apocalyptic literature: Revelation\u2019s slaughter, plague, famine, and catastrophe on the backs of dragons, and armies of good and evil warriors so vast they were in number like \u201cthe sands of the sea.\u201d<\/p>\n

History appears to have been a powerful influence on John, including the then-recent Jewish uprising against Rome (66-70 CE), which led to the destruction of Jerusalem by victorious Roman armies. \u201cWe can\u2019t understand this book,\u201d said Pagels of Revelation, \u201cunless we know it is war literature.\u201d<\/p>\n

Traditional prophets, Isaiah among them, had centuries before predicted Babylon would destroy Jerusalem. John of Patmos simply modernized the old prophecies, said Pagels, using Isaiah\u2019s corrupt Babylon as an allegory for what was then present-day Rome.<\/p>\n

\u201cJews would typically write in a kind of code,\u201d she said, unleashing hellfire on a present-day enemy, but obliquely. Revelation, in a touch of irony, was written to be not too revealing.<\/p>\n

Along the way, Pagels used a handout to illustrate a \u201ctiny, miscellaneous, hors d\u2019oeuvres sample\u201d of the other Revelation-like books that were written in the three centuries following the death of Christ.<\/p>\n

These texts \u2014 all now obscure and little studied \u2014 promoted ideas that threatened an evolving Christian orthodoxy. They included the idea that divine power had a feminine aspect. The handout included a snippet from \u201cThe Gospel of Mary\u201d and one from \u201cTrimorphic Protennoia,\u201d a reflection on \u201cshe in whom the All takes its stand.\u201d<\/p>\n

Other texts suggested another unorthodox idea for the time: that in each person is a divine light. \u201cThe Thunder\u201d includes a line, \u201cI am the hearing that can be grasped by everyone.\u201d<\/p>\n

Another idea in these little-known texts is that authority can be questioned. In \u201cThe Revelation of Ezra,\u201d the prophet Ezra is despondent over the ascendency of Babylon. An angel visits, giving Ezra three tasks intended to show how little he knows of the world: weigh fire, measure the wind, and bring back the day that is past.<\/p>\n

But instead of falling silent, as the Biblical Job did, Ezra is \u201cthe anti-Job,\u201d said Pagels. \u201cHe keeps asking questions.\u201d Ezra also goes on to express a perspective that has modern resonance. \u201cI did not wish to inquire about the ways above, but about those things which we daily experience and why we die like insects. \u2026\u201d<\/p>\n

So why was the Revelation we know elevated to the New Testament canon? Why was it so appealing, and how, 2,000 years later, does it remain so influential?<\/p>\n

One reason was John\u2019s writing technique, said Pagels, which shifted perspective from heaven to Earth and back again. By providing God\u2019s perspective of events on Earth, she said, John suggested that evil would not prevail and would be avenged.<\/p>\n

Then there is the \u201cwildly imaginary garden\u201d of Revelation, peopled by \u201creal beasts,\u201d said Pagels, devils and whores and dragons that represent \u201cthe emperors and soldiers who killed and humiliated\u201d so many Jews. If the images had been \u201ctied to one person or event,\u201d that is, identified clearly, she said, John\u2019s vivid allegory of evil and revenge \u201cwould simply be an antiquarian book.\u201d<\/p>\n

Pagels offered a third theory for the survival and prominence of Revelation: that it suggests there is moral meaning in human conflict.<\/p>\n

Evoking fear and then hope invites people \u201cto make sense out of conflict and struggle,\u201d she said, offering as proof a quick survey of how Revelation\u2019s message of good and evil has been employed over two millennia.<\/p>\n

Revelation\u2019s Four Horsemen rode back to medieval Europe, when the Black Death killed a third of the population.<\/p>\n

The Antichrist reappeared as Martin Luther to his critics. To Lutherans, the Whore of Babylon was recast as the Pope of Rome.<\/p>\n

Revelation\u2019s good-and-evil imagery came back to represent the religious wars of Europe, the rise of Napoleon, and even the American Civil War, in which each side appropriated the serpent of Satan to represent the other.<\/p>\n

Social philosopher Thomas Hobbes used the biblical Leviathan as an image of contemporary society, and London\u2019s detractors saw it as a new Babylon. During World War II, Nazi leader Adolf Hitler was portrayed as Satan\u2019s voracious serpent, being repelled by a host of angel-like Allies, of course.<\/p>\n

To bring Revelation\u2019s power nearly to the present, Pagels showed an aerial image of Baghdad in April 2003 being battered by the shock and awe of U.S. bombs \u2014 right at the spot over the Euphrates River where a New Testament angel pours the cup of God\u2019s wrath.<\/p>\n

In her previous books, Pagels has challenged orthodox interpretations of Adam and Eve, Satan, and Judas. Perhaps most famously, she has argued that Christ saw himself not as the deity, but as a teacher eager to have people feel the light of God in themselves.<\/p>\n\n\n<\/div>\n\n\t\t","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Biblical scholar Elaine Pagels visits Radcliffe, presenting a \u201cmad dash\u201d of fresh thinking on the New Testament\u2019s Book of Revelation.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":105622744,"featured_media":32493,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"gz_ga_pageviews":211,"gz_ga_lastupdated":"2023-11-30 20:21","document_color_palette":null,"author":"Corydon Ireland ","affiliation":"Harvard Staff Writer 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book","className":"is-style-square","backgroundFixed":false,"backgroundTone":"light","centeredImage":false,"coloredBackground":false,"displayOverlay":true,"fadeInText":false,"isAmbient":false,"mediaHeight":0,"mediaLength":"","mediaPosition":"","mediaWidth":0,"posterText":"","titleAbove":false,"useUncroppedImage":false,"lock":[],"metadata":[]},"innerBlocks":[],"innerHTML":"","innerContent":[],"rendered":"<header\n\tclass=\"wp-block-harvard-gazette-article-header alignfull article-header is-style-square has-light-background has-colored-heading\"\n\tstyle=\" \"\n>\n\t\n\t<div class=\"article-header__content\">\n\t\t\t<a\n\t\t\tclass=\"article-header__category\"\n\t\t\thref=\"https:\/\/news.harvard.edu\/gazette\/section\/arts-humanities\/\"\n\t\t>\n\t\t\tArts & Culture\t\t<\/a>\n\t\t\n\t\t<h1 class=\"article-header__title wp-block-heading has-large-text\">\n\t\tRevelations on Revelation\t<\/h1>\n\n\t\n\t\n\t<div class=\"article-header__meta\">\n\t\t<div class=\"wp-block-post-author\">\n\t\t\t<address class=\"wp-block-post-author__content\">\n\t\t\t\t\t<p class=\"author wp-block-post-author__name\">\n\t\tCorydon Ireland \t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p class=\"wp-block-post-author__byline\">\n\t\t\tHarvard Staff Writer \t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/address>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\n\t\t<time class=\"article-header__date\" datetime=\"2009-12-07\">\n\t\t\tDecember 7, 2009\t\t<\/time>\n\n\t\t<span class=\"article-header__reading-time\">\n\t\t\t6 min read\t\t<\/span>\n\t<\/div>\n\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\n\t\t\t<h2 class=\"article-header__subheading wp-block-heading\">\n\t\t\tElaine Pagels parses the New Testament\u2019s last, apocalyptic book\t\t<\/h2>\n\t\t\n<\/header>\n"},"2":{"blockName":"core\/group","attrs":{"templateLock":false,"metadata":{"name":"Article content"},"align":"wide","layout":{"type":"constrained","justifyContent":"center"},"tagName":"div","lock":[],"className":"","style":[],"backgroundColor":"","textColor":"","gradient":"","fontSize":"","fontFamily":"","borderColor":"","ariaLabel":"","anchor":""},"innerBlocks":[{"blockName":"core\/freeform","attrs":{"content":"","lock":[],"metadata":[]},"innerBlocks":[],"innerHTML":"\n\t\t<p>Still as strange, controversial, and influential as it was nearly 2,000 years ago, the biblical Book of Revelation is a fountainhead of \u201cvisions and dreams and nightmares,\u201d said<a href=\"http:\/\/www.princeton.edu\/religion\/people\/display_person.xml?netid=epagels\"> Elaine Pagels<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>The <a href=\"http:\/\/www.princeton.edu\/main\/\">Princeton University<\/a> professor of religion, famous for infusing old religious debates with new urgency, was at Harvard Dec. 3 to share what she called \u201ca quick mad dash\u201d of her latest thinking on Revelation, its cultural impact, and its historical underpinnings.<\/p>\n<p>The occasion was the first session of this year\u2019s Dean\u2019s Lecture Series at the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.radcliffe.edu\/default.aspx\">Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Revelation, the final book in the New Testament, was \u201csqueezed into the canon in the fourth century,\u201d said Pagels, and barely made it into the 27-book lineup. Over the centuries, it continued to draw the ire of critics, from theologian Martin Luther to author D.H. Lawrence. To this day, Eastern Orthodox Christian sects decline to use Revelation in public worship.<\/p>\n<p>At the center of the long controversy is Revelation\u2019s language, which is both concretely powerful and powerfully indirect. Christ appears as a terrifying warrior clad in white. Satan is a great red dragon waiting to devour a newborn child. The Whore of Babylon, \u201cdrunken with the blood of saints,\u201d is astride a scarlet beast with seven heads and 10 horns. A great lake of fire and brimstone opens up, ready to consume a long catalog of unbelievers.<\/p>\n<p>Pagels is exploring a range of questions. Who wrote this book, and why? Among the 30 or so similar books that appeared in the first through third centuries, why did this one survive? How is it still influential?<\/p>\n<p>During her lecture at Radcliffe Gymnasium to an unusually large crowd of 250, she made a direct appeal for help from the audience.<\/p>\n<p>But first Pagels gave a guided tour of Revelation, complete with artistic treatments through the ages, from Hieronymus Bosch, Albrecht D\u00fcrer, and William Blake to Roger Brown, James Hampton, and Robert Roberg. She said its author was John of Patmos. Exiled on a small island off the coast of present-day Turkey around the year 90 CE, she said, John wrote Revelation while \u201cin the spirit.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>That would explain the tumbling rush of images so famous now in apocalyptic literature: Revelation\u2019s slaughter, plague, famine, and catastrophe on the backs of dragons, and armies of good and evil warriors so vast they were in number like \u201cthe sands of the sea.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>History appears to have been a powerful influence on John, including the then-recent Jewish uprising against Rome (66-70 CE), which led to the destruction of Jerusalem by victorious Roman armies. \u201cWe can\u2019t understand this book,\u201d said Pagels of Revelation, \u201cunless we know it is war literature.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Traditional prophets, Isaiah among them, had centuries before predicted Babylon would destroy Jerusalem. John of Patmos simply modernized the old prophecies, said Pagels, using Isaiah\u2019s corrupt Babylon as an allegory for what was then present-day Rome.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cJews would typically write in a kind of code,\u201d she said, unleashing hellfire on a present-day enemy, but obliquely. Revelation, in a touch of irony, was written to be not too revealing.<\/p>\n<p>Along the way, Pagels used a handout to illustrate a \u201ctiny, miscellaneous, hors d\u2019oeuvres sample\u201d of the other Revelation-like books that were written in the three centuries following the death of Christ.<\/p>\n<p>These texts \u2014 all now obscure and little studied \u2014 promoted ideas that threatened an evolving Christian orthodoxy. They included the idea that divine power had a feminine aspect. The handout included a snippet from \u201cThe Gospel of Mary\u201d and one from \u201cTrimorphic Protennoia,\u201d a reflection on \u201cshe in whom the All takes its stand.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Other texts suggested another unorthodox idea for the time: that in each person is a divine light. \u201cThe Thunder\u201d includes a line, \u201cI am the hearing that can be grasped by everyone.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Another idea in these little-known texts is that authority can be questioned. In \u201cThe Revelation of Ezra,\u201d the prophet Ezra is despondent over the ascendency of Babylon. An angel visits, giving Ezra three tasks intended to show how little he knows of the world: weigh fire, measure the wind, and bring back the day that is past.<\/p>\n<p>But instead of falling silent, as the Biblical Job did, Ezra is \u201cthe anti-Job,\u201d said Pagels. \u201cHe keeps asking questions.\u201d Ezra also goes on to express a perspective that has modern resonance. \u201cI did not wish to inquire about the ways above, but about those things which we daily experience and why we die like insects. \u2026\u201d<\/p>\n<p>So why was the Revelation we know elevated to the New Testament canon? Why was it so appealing, and how, 2,000 years later, does it remain so influential?<\/p>\n<p>One reason was John\u2019s writing technique, said Pagels, which shifted perspective from heaven to Earth and back again. By providing God\u2019s perspective of events on Earth, she said, John suggested that evil would not prevail and would be avenged.<\/p>\n<p>Then there is the \u201cwildly imaginary garden\u201d of Revelation, peopled by \u201creal beasts,\u201d said Pagels, devils and whores and dragons that represent \u201cthe emperors and soldiers who killed and humiliated\u201d so many Jews. If the images had been \u201ctied to one person or event,\u201d that is, identified clearly, she said, John\u2019s vivid allegory of evil and revenge \u201cwould simply be an antiquarian book.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Pagels offered a third theory for the survival and prominence of Revelation: that it suggests there is moral meaning in human conflict.<\/p>\n<p>Evoking fear and then hope invites people \u201cto make sense out of conflict and struggle,\u201d she said, offering as proof a quick survey of how Revelation\u2019s message of good and evil has been employed over two millennia.<\/p>\n<p>Revelation\u2019s Four Horsemen rode back to medieval Europe, when the Black Death killed a third of the population.<\/p>\n<p>The Antichrist reappeared as Martin Luther to his critics. To Lutherans, the Whore of Babylon was recast as the Pope of Rome.<\/p>\n<p>Revelation\u2019s good-and-evil imagery came back to represent the religious wars of Europe, the rise of Napoleon, and even the American Civil War, in which each side appropriated the serpent of Satan to represent the other.<\/p>\n<p>Social philosopher Thomas Hobbes used the biblical Leviathan as an image of contemporary society, and London\u2019s detractors saw it as a new Babylon. During World War II, Nazi leader Adolf Hitler was portrayed as Satan\u2019s voracious serpent, being repelled by a host of angel-like Allies, of course.<\/p>\n<p>To bring Revelation\u2019s power nearly to the present, Pagels showed an aerial image of Baghdad in April 2003 being battered by the shock and awe of U.S. bombs \u2014 right at the spot over the Euphrates River where a New Testament angel pours the cup of God\u2019s wrath.<\/p>\n<p>In her previous books, Pagels has challenged orthodox interpretations of Adam and Eve, Satan, and Judas. Perhaps most famously, she has argued that Christ saw himself not as the deity, but as a teacher eager to have people feel the light of God in themselves.<\/p>\n","innerContent":["\n\t\t<p>Still as strange, controversial, and influential as it was nearly 2,000 years ago, the biblical Book of Revelation is a fountainhead of \u201cvisions and dreams and nightmares,\u201d said<a href=\"http:\/\/www.princeton.edu\/religion\/people\/display_person.xml?netid=epagels\"> Elaine Pagels<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>The <a href=\"http:\/\/www.princeton.edu\/main\/\">Princeton University<\/a> professor of religion, famous for infusing old religious debates with new urgency, was at Harvard Dec. 3 to share what she called \u201ca quick mad dash\u201d of her latest thinking on Revelation, its cultural impact, and its historical underpinnings.<\/p>\n<p>The occasion was the first session of this year\u2019s Dean\u2019s Lecture Series at the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.radcliffe.edu\/default.aspx\">Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Revelation, the final book in the New Testament, was \u201csqueezed into the canon in the fourth century,\u201d said Pagels, and barely made it into the 27-book lineup. Over the centuries, it continued to draw the ire of critics, from theologian Martin Luther to author D.H. Lawrence. To this day, Eastern Orthodox Christian sects decline to use Revelation in public worship.<\/p>\n<p>At the center of the long controversy is Revelation\u2019s language, which is both concretely powerful and powerfully indirect. Christ appears as a terrifying warrior clad in white. Satan is a great red dragon waiting to devour a newborn child. The Whore of Babylon, \u201cdrunken with the blood of saints,\u201d is astride a scarlet beast with seven heads and 10 horns. A great lake of fire and brimstone opens up, ready to consume a long catalog of unbelievers.<\/p>\n<p>Pagels is exploring a range of questions. Who wrote this book, and why? Among the 30 or so similar books that appeared in the first through third centuries, why did this one survive? How is it still influential?<\/p>\n<p>During her lecture at Radcliffe Gymnasium to an unusually large crowd of 250, she made a direct appeal for help from the audience.<\/p>\n<p>But first Pagels gave a guided tour of Revelation, complete with artistic treatments through the ages, from Hieronymus Bosch, Albrecht D\u00fcrer, and William Blake to Roger Brown, James Hampton, and Robert Roberg. She said its author was John of Patmos. Exiled on a small island off the coast of present-day Turkey around the year 90 CE, she said, John wrote Revelation while \u201cin the spirit.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>That would explain the tumbling rush of images so famous now in apocalyptic literature: Revelation\u2019s slaughter, plague, famine, and catastrophe on the backs of dragons, and armies of good and evil warriors so vast they were in number like \u201cthe sands of the sea.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>History appears to have been a powerful influence on John, including the then-recent Jewish uprising against Rome (66-70 CE), which led to the destruction of Jerusalem by victorious Roman armies. \u201cWe can\u2019t understand this book,\u201d said Pagels of Revelation, \u201cunless we know it is war literature.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Traditional prophets, Isaiah among them, had centuries before predicted Babylon would destroy Jerusalem. John of Patmos simply modernized the old prophecies, said Pagels, using Isaiah\u2019s corrupt Babylon as an allegory for what was then present-day Rome.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cJews would typically write in a kind of code,\u201d she said, unleashing hellfire on a present-day enemy, but obliquely. Revelation, in a touch of irony, was written to be not too revealing.<\/p>\n<p>Along the way, Pagels used a handout to illustrate a \u201ctiny, miscellaneous, hors d\u2019oeuvres sample\u201d of the other Revelation-like books that were written in the three centuries following the death of Christ.<\/p>\n<p>These texts \u2014 all now obscure and little studied \u2014 promoted ideas that threatened an evolving Christian orthodoxy. They included the idea that divine power had a feminine aspect. The handout included a snippet from \u201cThe Gospel of Mary\u201d and one from \u201cTrimorphic Protennoia,\u201d a reflection on \u201cshe in whom the All takes its stand.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Other texts suggested another unorthodox idea for the time: that in each person is a divine light. \u201cThe Thunder\u201d includes a line, \u201cI am the hearing that can be grasped by everyone.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Another idea in these little-known texts is that authority can be questioned. In \u201cThe Revelation of Ezra,\u201d the prophet Ezra is despondent over the ascendency of Babylon. An angel visits, giving Ezra three tasks intended to show how little he knows of the world: weigh fire, measure the wind, and bring back the day that is past.<\/p>\n<p>But instead of falling silent, as the Biblical Job did, Ezra is \u201cthe anti-Job,\u201d said Pagels. \u201cHe keeps asking questions.\u201d Ezra also goes on to express a perspective that has modern resonance. \u201cI did not wish to inquire about the ways above, but about those things which we daily experience and why we die like insects. \u2026\u201d<\/p>\n<p>So why was the Revelation we know elevated to the New Testament canon? Why was it so appealing, and how, 2,000 years later, does it remain so influential?<\/p>\n<p>One reason was John\u2019s writing technique, said Pagels, which shifted perspective from heaven to Earth and back again. By providing God\u2019s perspective of events on Earth, she said, John suggested that evil would not prevail and would be avenged.<\/p>\n<p>Then there is the \u201cwildly imaginary garden\u201d of Revelation, peopled by \u201creal beasts,\u201d said Pagels, devils and whores and dragons that represent \u201cthe emperors and soldiers who killed and humiliated\u201d so many Jews. If the images had been \u201ctied to one person or event,\u201d that is, identified clearly, she said, John\u2019s vivid allegory of evil and revenge \u201cwould simply be an antiquarian book.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Pagels offered a third theory for the survival and prominence of Revelation: that it suggests there is moral meaning in human conflict.<\/p>\n<p>Evoking fear and then hope invites people \u201cto make sense out of conflict and struggle,\u201d she said, offering as proof a quick survey of how Revelation\u2019s message of good and evil has been employed over two millennia.<\/p>\n<p>Revelation\u2019s Four Horsemen rode back to medieval Europe, when the Black Death killed a third of the population.<\/p>\n<p>The Antichrist reappeared as Martin Luther to his critics. To Lutherans, the Whore of Babylon was recast as the Pope of Rome.<\/p>\n<p>Revelation\u2019s good-and-evil imagery came back to represent the religious wars of Europe, the rise of Napoleon, and even the American Civil War, in which each side appropriated the serpent of Satan to represent the other.<\/p>\n<p>Social philosopher Thomas Hobbes used the biblical Leviathan as an image of contemporary society, and London\u2019s detractors saw it as a new Babylon. During World War II, Nazi leader Adolf Hitler was portrayed as Satan\u2019s voracious serpent, being repelled by a host of angel-like Allies, of course.<\/p>\n<p>To bring Revelation\u2019s power nearly to the present, Pagels showed an aerial image of Baghdad in April 2003 being battered by the shock and awe of U.S. bombs \u2014 right at the spot over the Euphrates River where a New Testament angel pours the cup of God\u2019s wrath.<\/p>\n<p>In her previous books, Pagels has challenged orthodox interpretations of Adam and Eve, Satan, and Judas. Perhaps most famously, she has argued that Christ saw himself not as the deity, but as a teacher eager to have people feel the light of God in themselves.<\/p>\n"],"rendered":"\n\t\t<p>Still as strange, controversial, and influential as it was nearly 2,000 years ago, the biblical Book of Revelation is a fountainhead of \u201cvisions and dreams and nightmares,\u201d said<a href=\"http:\/\/www.princeton.edu\/religion\/people\/display_person.xml?netid=epagels\"> Elaine Pagels<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>The <a href=\"http:\/\/www.princeton.edu\/main\/\">Princeton University<\/a> professor of religion, famous for infusing old religious debates with new urgency, was at Harvard Dec. 3 to share what she called \u201ca quick mad dash\u201d of her latest thinking on Revelation, its cultural impact, and its historical underpinnings.<\/p>\n<p>The occasion was the first session of this year\u2019s Dean\u2019s Lecture Series at the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.radcliffe.edu\/default.aspx\">Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Revelation, the final book in the New Testament, was \u201csqueezed into the canon in the fourth century,\u201d said Pagels, and barely made it into the 27-book lineup. Over the centuries, it continued to draw the ire of critics, from theologian Martin Luther to author D.H. Lawrence. To this day, Eastern Orthodox Christian sects decline to use Revelation in public worship.<\/p>\n<p>At the center of the long controversy is Revelation\u2019s language, which is both concretely powerful and powerfully indirect. Christ appears as a terrifying warrior clad in white. Satan is a great red dragon waiting to devour a newborn child. The Whore of Babylon, \u201cdrunken with the blood of saints,\u201d is astride a scarlet beast with seven heads and 10 horns. A great lake of fire and brimstone opens up, ready to consume a long catalog of unbelievers.<\/p>\n<p>Pagels is exploring a range of questions. Who wrote this book, and why? Among the 30 or so similar books that appeared in the first through third centuries, why did this one survive? How is it still influential?<\/p>\n<p>During her lecture at Radcliffe Gymnasium to an unusually large crowd of 250, she made a direct appeal for help from the audience.<\/p>\n<p>But first Pagels gave a guided tour of Revelation, complete with artistic treatments through the ages, from Hieronymus Bosch, Albrecht D\u00fcrer, and William Blake to Roger Brown, James Hampton, and Robert Roberg. She said its author was John of Patmos. Exiled on a small island off the coast of present-day Turkey around the year 90 CE, she said, John wrote Revelation while \u201cin the spirit.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>That would explain the tumbling rush of images so famous now in apocalyptic literature: Revelation\u2019s slaughter, plague, famine, and catastrophe on the backs of dragons, and armies of good and evil warriors so vast they were in number like \u201cthe sands of the sea.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>History appears to have been a powerful influence on John, including the then-recent Jewish uprising against Rome (66-70 CE), which led to the destruction of Jerusalem by victorious Roman armies. \u201cWe can\u2019t understand this book,\u201d said Pagels of Revelation, \u201cunless we know it is war literature.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Traditional prophets, Isaiah among them, had centuries before predicted Babylon would destroy Jerusalem. John of Patmos simply modernized the old prophecies, said Pagels, using Isaiah\u2019s corrupt Babylon as an allegory for what was then present-day Rome.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cJews would typically write in a kind of code,\u201d she said, unleashing hellfire on a present-day enemy, but obliquely. Revelation, in a touch of irony, was written to be not too revealing.<\/p>\n<p>Along the way, Pagels used a handout to illustrate a \u201ctiny, miscellaneous, hors d\u2019oeuvres sample\u201d of the other Revelation-like books that were written in the three centuries following the death of Christ.<\/p>\n<p>These texts \u2014 all now obscure and little studied \u2014 promoted ideas that threatened an evolving Christian orthodoxy. They included the idea that divine power had a feminine aspect. The handout included a snippet from \u201cThe Gospel of Mary\u201d and one from \u201cTrimorphic Protennoia,\u201d a reflection on \u201cshe in whom the All takes its stand.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Other texts suggested another unorthodox idea for the time: that in each person is a divine light. \u201cThe Thunder\u201d includes a line, \u201cI am the hearing that can be grasped by everyone.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Another idea in these little-known texts is that authority can be questioned. In \u201cThe Revelation of Ezra,\u201d the prophet Ezra is despondent over the ascendency of Babylon. An angel visits, giving Ezra three tasks intended to show how little he knows of the world: weigh fire, measure the wind, and bring back the day that is past.<\/p>\n<p>But instead of falling silent, as the Biblical Job did, Ezra is \u201cthe anti-Job,\u201d said Pagels. \u201cHe keeps asking questions.\u201d Ezra also goes on to express a perspective that has modern resonance. \u201cI did not wish to inquire about the ways above, but about those things which we daily experience and why we die like insects. \u2026\u201d<\/p>\n<p>So why was the Revelation we know elevated to the New Testament canon? Why was it so appealing, and how, 2,000 years later, does it remain so influential?<\/p>\n<p>One reason was John\u2019s writing technique, said Pagels, which shifted perspective from heaven to Earth and back again. By providing God\u2019s perspective of events on Earth, she said, John suggested that evil would not prevail and would be avenged.<\/p>\n<p>Then there is the \u201cwildly imaginary garden\u201d of Revelation, peopled by \u201creal beasts,\u201d said Pagels, devils and whores and dragons that represent \u201cthe emperors and soldiers who killed and humiliated\u201d so many Jews. If the images had been \u201ctied to one person or event,\u201d that is, identified clearly, she said, John\u2019s vivid allegory of evil and revenge \u201cwould simply be an antiquarian book.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Pagels offered a third theory for the survival and prominence of Revelation: that it suggests there is moral meaning in human conflict.<\/p>\n<p>Evoking fear and then hope invites people \u201cto make sense out of conflict and struggle,\u201d she said, offering as proof a quick survey of how Revelation\u2019s message of good and evil has been employed over two millennia.<\/p>\n<p>Revelation\u2019s Four Horsemen rode back to medieval Europe, when the Black Death killed a third of the population.<\/p>\n<p>The Antichrist reappeared as Martin Luther to his critics. To Lutherans, the Whore of Babylon was recast as the Pope of Rome.<\/p>\n<p>Revelation\u2019s good-and-evil imagery came back to represent the religious wars of Europe, the rise of Napoleon, and even the American Civil War, in which each side appropriated the serpent of Satan to represent the other.<\/p>\n<p>Social philosopher Thomas Hobbes used the biblical Leviathan as an image of contemporary society, and London\u2019s detractors saw it as a new Babylon. During World War II, Nazi leader Adolf Hitler was portrayed as Satan\u2019s voracious serpent, being repelled by a host of angel-like Allies, of course.<\/p>\n<p>To bring Revelation\u2019s power nearly to the present, Pagels showed an aerial image of Baghdad in April 2003 being battered by the shock and awe of U.S. bombs \u2014 right at the spot over the Euphrates River where a New Testament angel pours the cup of God\u2019s wrath.<\/p>\n<p>In her previous books, Pagels has challenged orthodox interpretations of Adam and Eve, Satan, and Judas. Perhaps most famously, she has argued that Christ saw himself not as the deity, but as a teacher eager to have people feel the light of God in themselves.<\/p>\n"}],"innerHTML":"\n<div class=\"wp-block-group alignwide\">\n\n\n\n<\/div>\n","innerContent":["\n<div class=\"wp-block-group alignwide\">\n\n","\n\n<\/div>\n"],"rendered":"\n<div class=\"wp-block-group alignwide has-global-padding is-content-justification-center is-layout-constrained wp-block-group-is-layout-constrained\">\n\n\n\t\t<p>Still as strange, controversial, and influential as it was nearly 2,000 years ago, the biblical Book of Revelation is a fountainhead of \u201cvisions and dreams and nightmares,\u201d said<a href=\"http:\/\/www.princeton.edu\/religion\/people\/display_person.xml?netid=epagels\"> Elaine Pagels<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>The <a href=\"http:\/\/www.princeton.edu\/main\/\">Princeton University<\/a> professor of religion, famous for infusing old religious debates with new urgency, was at Harvard Dec. 3 to share what she called \u201ca quick mad dash\u201d of her latest thinking on Revelation, its cultural impact, and its historical underpinnings.<\/p>\n<p>The occasion was the first session of this year\u2019s Dean\u2019s Lecture Series at the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.radcliffe.edu\/default.aspx\">Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Revelation, the final book in the New Testament, was \u201csqueezed into the canon in the fourth century,\u201d said Pagels, and barely made it into the 27-book lineup. Over the centuries, it continued to draw the ire of critics, from theologian Martin Luther to author D.H. Lawrence. To this day, Eastern Orthodox Christian sects decline to use Revelation in public worship.<\/p>\n<p>At the center of the long controversy is Revelation\u2019s language, which is both concretely powerful and powerfully indirect. Christ appears as a terrifying warrior clad in white. Satan is a great red dragon waiting to devour a newborn child. The Whore of Babylon, \u201cdrunken with the blood of saints,\u201d is astride a scarlet beast with seven heads and 10 horns. A great lake of fire and brimstone opens up, ready to consume a long catalog of unbelievers.<\/p>\n<p>Pagels is exploring a range of questions. Who wrote this book, and why? Among the 30 or so similar books that appeared in the first through third centuries, why did this one survive? How is it still influential?<\/p>\n<p>During her lecture at Radcliffe Gymnasium to an unusually large crowd of 250, she made a direct appeal for help from the audience.<\/p>\n<p>But first Pagels gave a guided tour of Revelation, complete with artistic treatments through the ages, from Hieronymus Bosch, Albrecht D\u00fcrer, and William Blake to Roger Brown, James Hampton, and Robert Roberg. She said its author was John of Patmos. Exiled on a small island off the coast of present-day Turkey around the year 90 CE, she said, John wrote Revelation while \u201cin the spirit.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>That would explain the tumbling rush of images so famous now in apocalyptic literature: Revelation\u2019s slaughter, plague, famine, and catastrophe on the backs of dragons, and armies of good and evil warriors so vast they were in number like \u201cthe sands of the sea.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>History appears to have been a powerful influence on John, including the then-recent Jewish uprising against Rome (66-70 CE), which led to the destruction of Jerusalem by victorious Roman armies. \u201cWe can\u2019t understand this book,\u201d said Pagels of Revelation, \u201cunless we know it is war literature.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Traditional prophets, Isaiah among them, had centuries before predicted Babylon would destroy Jerusalem. John of Patmos simply modernized the old prophecies, said Pagels, using Isaiah\u2019s corrupt Babylon as an allegory for what was then present-day Rome.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cJews would typically write in a kind of code,\u201d she said, unleashing hellfire on a present-day enemy, but obliquely. Revelation, in a touch of irony, was written to be not too revealing.<\/p>\n<p>Along the way, Pagels used a handout to illustrate a \u201ctiny, miscellaneous, hors d\u2019oeuvres sample\u201d of the other Revelation-like books that were written in the three centuries following the death of Christ.<\/p>\n<p>These texts \u2014 all now obscure and little studied \u2014 promoted ideas that threatened an evolving Christian orthodoxy. They included the idea that divine power had a feminine aspect. The handout included a snippet from \u201cThe Gospel of Mary\u201d and one from \u201cTrimorphic Protennoia,\u201d a reflection on \u201cshe in whom the All takes its stand.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Other texts suggested another unorthodox idea for the time: that in each person is a divine light. \u201cThe Thunder\u201d includes a line, \u201cI am the hearing that can be grasped by everyone.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Another idea in these little-known texts is that authority can be questioned. In \u201cThe Revelation of Ezra,\u201d the prophet Ezra is despondent over the ascendency of Babylon. An angel visits, giving Ezra three tasks intended to show how little he knows of the world: weigh fire, measure the wind, and bring back the day that is past.<\/p>\n<p>But instead of falling silent, as the Biblical Job did, Ezra is \u201cthe anti-Job,\u201d said Pagels. \u201cHe keeps asking questions.\u201d Ezra also goes on to express a perspective that has modern resonance. \u201cI did not wish to inquire about the ways above, but about those things which we daily experience and why we die like insects. \u2026\u201d<\/p>\n<p>So why was the Revelation we know elevated to the New Testament canon? Why was it so appealing, and how, 2,000 years later, does it remain so influential?<\/p>\n<p>One reason was John\u2019s writing technique, said Pagels, which shifted perspective from heaven to Earth and back again. By providing God\u2019s perspective of events on Earth, she said, John suggested that evil would not prevail and would be avenged.<\/p>\n<p>Then there is the \u201cwildly imaginary garden\u201d of Revelation, peopled by \u201creal beasts,\u201d said Pagels, devils and whores and dragons that represent \u201cthe emperors and soldiers who killed and humiliated\u201d so many Jews. If the images had been \u201ctied to one person or event,\u201d that is, identified clearly, she said, John\u2019s vivid allegory of evil and revenge \u201cwould simply be an antiquarian book.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Pagels offered a third theory for the survival and prominence of Revelation: that it suggests there is moral meaning in human conflict.<\/p>\n<p>Evoking fear and then hope invites people \u201cto make sense out of conflict and struggle,\u201d she said, offering as proof a quick survey of how Revelation\u2019s message of good and evil has been employed over two millennia.<\/p>\n<p>Revelation\u2019s Four Horsemen rode back to medieval Europe, when the Black Death killed a third of the population.<\/p>\n<p>The Antichrist reappeared as Martin Luther to his critics. To Lutherans, the Whore of Babylon was recast as the Pope of Rome.<\/p>\n<p>Revelation\u2019s good-and-evil imagery came back to represent the religious wars of Europe, the rise of Napoleon, and even the American Civil War, in which each side appropriated the serpent of Satan to represent the other.<\/p>\n<p>Social philosopher Thomas Hobbes used the biblical Leviathan as an image of contemporary society, and London\u2019s detractors saw it as a new Babylon. During World War II, Nazi leader Adolf Hitler was portrayed as Satan\u2019s voracious serpent, being repelled by a host of angel-like Allies, of course.<\/p>\n<p>To bring Revelation\u2019s power nearly to the present, Pagels showed an aerial image of Baghdad in April 2003 being battered by the shock and awe of U.S. bombs \u2014 right at the spot over the Euphrates River where a New Testament angel pours the cup of God\u2019s wrath.<\/p>\n<p>In her previous books, Pagels has challenged orthodox interpretations of Adam and Eve, Satan, and Judas. Perhaps most famously, she has argued that Christ saw himself not as the deity, but as a teacher eager to have people feel the light of God in themselves.<\/p>\n\n\n<\/div>\n"}},"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":69849,"url":"https:\/\/news.harvard.edu\/gazette\/story\/2002\/02\/religion-scholar-pagels-to-deliver-noble-lectures\/","url_meta":{"origin":32492,"position":0},"title":"Religion scholar Pagels to deliver Noble Lectures","author":"gazetteimport","date":"February 7, 2002","format":false,"excerpt":"Author and religious scholar Elaine Pagels will give the 2002 William Belden Noble Lectures in the Memorial Church on Monday-Wednesday, Feb. 11, 12, and 13 at 8 p.m. Harrington Spear Paine Professor of Religion at Princeton University, Pagels is the author of The Origin of Satan, Adam, Eve, and the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Campus & Community"","block_context":{"text":"Campus & Community","link":"https:\/\/news.harvard.edu\/gazette\/section\/campus-community\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":9681,"url":"https:\/\/news.harvard.edu\/gazette\/story\/2006\/06\/radcliffe-institute-names-06-alumnae-award-winners\/","url_meta":{"origin":32492,"position":1},"title":"Radcliffe Institute names ’06 alumnae award winners","author":"gazetteimport","date":"June 8, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"The Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University has named 12 recipients of its annual alumnae awards. Among others, this years honorees include Susan Faludi 81, a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and author Amy Gutmann 76, president of the University of Pennsylvania and Elaine Pagels 70, author of Beyond Belief:\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Campus & Community"","block_context":{"text":"Campus & Community","link":"https:\/\/news.harvard.edu\/gazette\/section\/campus-community\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":44609,"url":"https:\/\/news.harvard.edu\/gazette\/story\/2005\/06\/four-distinguished-scholars-receive-gsas-medal\/","url_meta":{"origin":32492,"position":2},"title":"Four distinguished scholars receive GSAS medal","author":"gazetteimport","date":"June 9, 2005","format":false,"excerpt":"A mathematician who has forged new paths in algebra and algebraic geometry, a Nobel Prize-winning biologist whose work may lead to breakthroughs in the treatment of deadly diseases, a scholar of religion whose best-selling books explore the diversity of belief in early Christianity, and an economist whose groundbreaking study of\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Campus & Community"","block_context":{"text":"Campus & Community","link":"https:\/\/news.harvard.edu\/gazette\/section\/campus-community\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":9244,"url":"https:\/\/news.harvard.edu\/gazette\/story\/2006\/03\/distinguished-panel-explores-martyrdom\/","url_meta":{"origin":32492,"position":3},"title":"Distinguished panel explores ‘martyrdom’","author":"gazetteimport","date":"March 16, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"If suicide terrorism is to be held in check, what's needed is an engaging, exciting \"counterperformance\" - whatever that might be - that can be offered in place of the \"theater of violence\" exemplified by the al-Qaida attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.","rel":"","context":"In "Campus & Community"","block_context":{"text":"Campus & Community","link":"https:\/\/news.harvard.edu\/gazette\/section\/campus-community\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":138425,"url":"https:\/\/news.harvard.edu\/gazette\/story\/2013\/05\/harvard-awards-9-honorary-degrees\/","url_meta":{"origin":32492,"position":4},"title":"Harvard awards 9 honorary degrees","author":"harvardgazette","date":"May 30, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"Media icon Oprah Winfrey, who will serve as the principal speaker for the Afternoon Exercises, joins eight other leaders in their fields \u2014 from medicine to politics to public service \u2014 in receiving an honorary degree at Harvard\u2019s 362nd Commencement.","rel":"","context":"In "Campus & Community"","block_context":{"text":"Campus & Community","link":"https:\/\/news.harvard.edu\/gazette\/section\/campus-community\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/news.harvard.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/05\/605_oprah-winfrey-courtesy-of-harpo-inc-photo-by-cliff-watts.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/news.harvard.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/05\/605_oprah-winfrey-courtesy-of-harpo-inc-photo-by-cliff-watts.jpg?resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/news.harvard.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/05\/605_oprah-winfrey-courtesy-of-harpo-inc-photo-by-cliff-watts.jpg?resize=525%2C300 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":45123,"url":"https:\/\/news.harvard.edu\/gazette\/story\/2005\/11\/bunting-papers-given-to-radcliffe\/","url_meta":{"origin":32492,"position":5},"title":"Bunting papers given to Radcliffe","author":"gazetteimport","date":"November 10, 2005","format":false,"excerpt":"The Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study recently celebrated the life and legacy of Mary Ingraham Bunting-Smith (1910 - 1998), known to the Harvard-Radcliffe community as Polly Bunting, president of Radcliffe College from 1960 to 1972. The event included remarks by Elaine Yaffe, author of Mary Ingraham Bunting: Her Two Lives\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Campus & Community"","block_context":{"text":"Campus & Community","link":"https:\/\/news.harvard.edu\/gazette\/section\/campus-community\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Bunting-Smith","src":"https:\/\/news.harvard.edu\/gazette\/wp-content\/uploads\/2005\/11\/09-bunt-1.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.harvard.edu\/gazette\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32492","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.harvard.edu\/gazette\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.harvard.edu\/gazette\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.harvard.edu\/gazette\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/105622744"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.harvard.edu\/gazette\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=32492"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/news.harvard.edu\/gazette\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32492\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.harvard.edu\/gazette\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/32493"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.harvard.edu\/gazette\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32492"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.harvard.edu\/gazette\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32492"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.harvard.edu\/gazette\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=32492"},{"taxonomy":"format","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.harvard.edu\/gazette\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/gazette-formats?post=32492"},{"taxonomy":"series","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.harvard.edu\/gazette\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/series?post=32492"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}