Category: Epistle of 2 John

Anderson on Revelation – Session 2

[Disclaimer: I was not at my best mentally when I attended this session, so this is from my own perspective of and understanding of Paul's lecture; all errors in reporting are solely mine. For more information on Anderson's view of the Johannine situation, see FOR FURTHER READING below.]

Last Wednesday was part two of Paul Anderson’s lecture at Trinity Episcopal on Revelation. The beginning focus was on the villainization of various groups as the Beast and/or the Antichrist throughout history. We examined this from the perspective of art and various writings. I found it quite interesting how each side did a great job at portraying the other groups as the Beast/Antichrist: for the early church, the Roman emperors were the heads of the Beast; during the Crusades, Islam was the Antichrist for the Roman Church – and vice versa; for the Protestants, the Roman Church was the Babylon; etc. These caricatures, of course, were often connected with one particular group’s interpretation of Revelation, which was often quite speculative.

Anderson posed the question of whether the imagery of the Beast and Antichrist had some significance to John’s audience(s) in their historical context. That is, for the Johannine community, did they understand “antichrist(s)” to refer to something in their time? Anderson answered this question in the affirmative from various aspects. I will only recount one of those aspects: the compositional theory.

It is widely held that the writings attributed to John went through stages of composition. Going with a minimal theory of two editions, the first dealt with various tensions, particularly in regard to Jewish leaders and the synagogues; the second is the finalized edition and complements other legitimate Jesus traditions, like those found in the Synoptics. Between these two editions is the writing of the epistles, which deal with those leaving the church for the synagogue and those coming into the churches with gnostic-docetic doctrines, along with certain institutionalizations of Christianity. As mentioned in the first post, it is these groups that are precisely identified as “antichrists.” The historical situation of the Johannine community is important for determining who these terms were applied to in the writer’s and the audience’s minds.

At this point, I have trouble recalling the rest of the aspects and how they related to the broader imagery of Revelation—that would be reason enough for one to attend the sessions oneself.
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FOR FURTHER READING

Paul Anderson, The Christology of the Fourth Gospel: Its Unity and Disunity in Light of John 6: With a New Introduction, Outlines, and Epilogue, 3rd printing (Eugene, OR: Cascade Books, 2010), lxiv-lxxiii.

———, The Fourth Gospel and the Quest for Jesus: Modern Foundations Reconsidered, Library of New Testament Studies Series 321 (London: T&T Clark, 2007).

———, “The Having-Sent-Me-Father: Aspects of Agency, Encounter, and Irony in the Father-Son Relationship,” Semeia 85 (1999): 44-48.[Back to Top]

Paul Anderson on Revelation – Session 1

Last Wednesday I attended the first session of Paul Anderson’s series at Trinity Episcopal Cathedral. It was quite an enjoyable session and I came away with some interesting insights.

Anderson opened with a brief bio and then posed the questions of who and what the Antichrist and the Beast were. The audience was invited to participate and they gave a variety of answers ranging from the Roman Papacy to technology. Anderson then went through the many historical speculations on the Antichrist, the Beast, 666, and the End Times. I must admit that some of these speculations were pretty clever (for example, Ronald W. Reagan, a politician with three names and six letters to each name).

After the speculation, we went into looking at some of the key biblical texts: Revelation 13, 1 John 2, 1 John 4, and 2 John. Anderson noted a few things about these texts in relation to the Antichrist, the Beast, and 666. First, the term “Antichrist” is not found in Revelation; it is found only in 1 John 2 and 4 the Johannine epistles (particularly 1 and 2 John). Second, the term is applied to groups, one in particular having gone out from the Christian community. (At this point, Anderson used an analogy of people going out of the Trinity Episcopal Cathedral to the Presbyterian church in town, and this analogy was met by a man in the back who hurrah’ed and clapped his hands. His actions certainly made for a good laugh.) It is likely that this group was a Jewish group that sought to return to the synagogues; the author of 1 John is warning them that if they seek to return to the synagogues to maintain monotheism (as opposed to the ditheism that Christians were being accused of) then by denying the Son they will also lose the Father, the very one they are trying to retain. Anderson sees that there is another group of those who are antichrist. This second group is a group that denies the true humanity of Christ (1 John 4) and is bringing this teaching into the churches (2 John).

Lastly, Anderson’s stance was that the imagery in Revelation was something that made sense to both its author and its recipients. The Beast and 666 is often believed to refer to Nero. What is interesting (and a mystery to me at the moment) is why some manuscripts have 616 instead.

I noted the emphasis Anderson had on taking the Bible literally. His contention (and I agree with it) was that the Bible could only be taken literally if one understood the historical and cultural contexts as well as literary considerations. The many groups who have prided themselves on a literal hermeneutic and that have speculated on the Antichrist, the Beast, and 666 often have not kept these considerations in mind; their conjectures have amounted to what are essentially non-literal interpretations. Furthermore, while I admire the canonical approach that seeks to deal solely with the text, this approach often neglects or minimizes these considerations, and I think that can be a hinderance to careful Bible interpretation. Keeping to a hermenutic that considers the various background contexts does not keep the text there; Anderson holds that the biblical texts are applicable to every generation.

Tomorrow is the second session and I am looking forward to learning more.