Book Project
"Βlessed is the One Who Reads and Those Who Hear the Words of Prophecy: Rome and Revelation’s Use of Scripture," explores the Book of Revelation (the Apocalypse of John) and its use of scripture. I argue that Revelation's prophet-author John engaged in a conflict over authority in the churches of Asia Minor with rival Christian leaders who tolerated greater integration with Roman paganism, namely the eating of meat sacrificed to idols and participation in emperor cults. In this battle, John used scripture to align himself with brothers the prophets and authorize his oracles and visions of Rome and its impending downfall.
East Window of York Minster, York, UK
Explicating the allusions in Revelation 13, I demonstrate how John cast the Roman emperor as an new Antiochus IV Epiphanes and local agents of Rome as false prophets, pale simulacra of the prophets of God. Turning to Revelation 17-18, I explore John's use of scripture to establish Rome's antecedents, the already desolated polities of Jerusalem, Babylon, Tyre, Nineveh, Edom, Samaria, and Sodom. Rome, like them will fall at God's hand. An epilogue considers the implications of Revelation's polemic and future avenues of research.