A tale of two cities: Rome and Babylon in Revelation
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.56487/dl.v21i2.1036Keywords:
Apocalipsis – Babilonia – Roma – Imperio – Persecución – ApostasíaAbstract
The historical-contemporary or preterist approach has consecrated the Roman empire inthe first century as the referent behind the spiritual Babylon of chapters 16 to 18 of Revelation.However, a reassessment of this theological motif from the document itself and inthe light of certain hermeneutical, exegetical and historical considerations demonstrates atranstemporal referentiality in harmony with the chronologically multivalent and historicallycontinuous character of biblical apocalyptic eschatology in general and Johannineeschatology in particular. The recurring apostasy of God’s people at key moments in historyemerges from such an analysis as the referent behind the great prostitute-city of theApocalypse.Downloads
References
E. g., Michael W. Holmes, The apostolic fathers (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 1999), 22: “… in Revelation Rome is presented as the great harlot whose attacks upon the church must be resisted (to the point of death if necessary).”
Concerning the word Babylon as a veiled designation of Rome in Revelation in the light of 1 Pet 5,13, written around 67, it should be noted that such an onomastic association is first attested in the literature of postexilic Judaism (e. g., 4 Ezra 3,1.2.2831; 2 Bar 10,13; 11,1; 67,7; SibOr 5,143.159) after 70 and because of the fall of Jerusalem at the hands of Titus. See on this point Greg Carey, Elusive Apocalypse: Reading authority in the Revelation to John, Studies in American Biblical Hermeneutics 15 (Macon, GA: Mercer University Press, 1999), 13. In addition, and unlike the Judaism that produced such literature, early Christianity seems to have seen the destruction of the city as an act of justice from God because of the rejection and execution of Jesus as Messiah and the persecution of the church. On this, see Colin J. Hemer, The letters to the seven churches of Asia in their local setting, Journal for the Study of the New Testament, Supplement Series 11 (Sheffield, GB: JSOT, 1986), 11; Richard Bauckham, The theology of the book of Revelation (Cambridge, GB: Cambridge University Press, 1993), 128, 129; Jon Paulien, Decoding Revelation’s trumpets: Literary allusions and the interpretation of Revelation 8:7-12, Andrews University Seminary Doctoral Dissertation Series 11 (Berrien Springs, MI: Andrews University Press, 1987), 418; cf. Matt 23,37.38 through 24,2; 1 Thess 1,1416; Rev 11,8; Justin, Trypho 16.18; cf. First apology 7.31; Origen, Homily on the book of Jeremiah 13.1; Eusebius, Ecclesiastical history 5.27. Therefore, the alleged equating of Rome with Babylon in 1 Pet 3,15 as an implicit show of sympathy on the part of the early church toward Judaism is unlikely.
On the difficulty of distinguishing between the original Jewish material in those works and later Christian interpolations in documents such as the fifth book of the Sibylline Oracles, see Robert A. Kraft, “Christianization of ancient Jewish writings: Setting the stage and framing some central questions,” Journal for the Study of Judaism 32 (2001): 379, 381. Among the inherent problems to identify Babylon with Rome in 1 Peter as reflecting the same in Revelation are the following: 1) Peter does not identify the reality designated by him as Babylon; 2) The word appears only once in the NT (in 1 Pet 5,13), thus the biblical evidence is insufficient to arrive at a conclusion regarding its meaning; 3) The use of 1 Pet 5,13 to demonstrate that Babylon is Rome in Revelation and vice versa represents a circular argument, where an unproven premise is used as a foundation for a conclusion based on it. The interpretative option that seems most natural considering the context of the whole letter, and Peter’s typological use of the history of God’s people in the Old Testament from Abram to the Babylonian captivity, seems to be that “the
church which is in Babylon” represents the same rhetorical strategy that Peter uses from
the very beginning of the document (Christians as “expatriate” spiritual Israelites in 1,1).
Namely, to refer to the disadvantaged and precarious situation of the church in the present of the apostle and his audience (first century in his case) as a temporary captivity that would give way to the great final liberation of God’s people on the occasion of the second coming of Christ (cf. 1,313; see also the drying up of the Euphrates in preparation for the arrival of “the kings of the east” as an allusion to the liberation of the Jewish captives from Babylon by Cyrus and Darius in Rev 16,12). If this is so, the expression “the church which is in Babylon” could have its correlate and parallel in John’s statement to the Christians of the same region: “I, John, your brother and fellow partaker in tribulation, in the kingdom and patience of Jesus Christ” (Rev 1,9).
For an illuminating review about the circumstances of 1 Peter’s intended audience, see Travis B. Williams, “Suffering from a critical oversight: The persecutions of 1 Peter within modern scholarship,” Currents in Biblical Research 10, No. 2 (2012): 275292. Williams reevaluates the issue and concludes that there is no imperial persecution in the background of the letter. Robert M. Johnston says in agreement: “… the Christians to whom Peter wrote were experiencing the same kind of pressures that believers often face in our day” (Peter and Jude [Boise, ID: Pacific Press, 1995], 30; see also 17). According to some interpreters, Rome may have been metaphorically designated as Babylon by the early Christians to avoid reprisals from the empire.
The main problem with this hypothesis is that it represents an anachronism since the suppression of
Christianity was only on the agenda of the empire as a state policy between the second half
of the third century and the beginning of the fourth. The traditional idea that Rome systematically and officially persecuted the church during the first century has been seriously challenged by historiographical research for several decades. The very testimony of the New Testament (e. g., the synoptic Gospels, Acts, Rom 13; 1 Pet 2,17.18) indicates that the empire was not an enemy (much less a declared and systematic enemy) of the church during the first century.
On the contrary, it seems to have acted in general as a facilitator of the missionary work of the early Christians (cf. 2 Thess 2,6.7).
Some have argued that both Babylon and the new Jerusalem, its counterpart in Revelation, represent not places but spiritual conditions of both the original and future recipients of Revelation. In this respect, if, as Robert H. Gundry argues, the new Jerusalem of Rev 21,1 through 22,5 is a spiritual symbol of God’s redeemed, “not their future dwelling place, but… their future selves and state” (“The new Jerusalem: People as place, not place for people,” Novum Testamentum 29 [1987]: 264), we should expect something similar in regard to its counterpart, the harlot-city Babylon of chapters 14, 16, 17, and 18. Thus, Babylon would conversely stand for the unredeemed wicked, not for a literal city or an empire.
The word “kings” [οἱ βασιλεῖς] may also stand for “kingdoms” in this context (cf. the use of βασιλεία in LXX-Dan 2,39).
The sequence peoples-crowds-nations-languages (λαοὶ καὶ ὄχλοι καὶ ἔθνη καὶ γλῶσσαι) in verse 15 appears, with variations in order, negatively connoted in Revelation as designating the majority of mankind opposed to God and his faithful witnesses (e. g., 5,9; 7,9 [see, for instance, English Revised Version and New International Version for their translation of ἐκ]; 10,11 [see New Jerusalem Bible’s translation of ἐπί]; 11,9; 13,7; 14,6; 17,15), object, for that very reason, of the warnings and, in a last stage, of the divine retributive judgments, sometimes linked in the same negative sense with γῆ by means of the conjunction και used epexegetically (e. g., 14,6). Note the following pattern of use of that formula, in which βασιλεύς and ὄχλος occupy as an exception
the place of φυλή in 10,11 and 17,15 respectively, suggesting that the three of them could work in Revelation as interchangeable symbolic motifs, especially within the fourfold sequence:
,9: φυλῆς καὶ γλώσσης καὶ λαοῦ καὶ ἔθνους
,9: ἔθνους καὶ φυλῶν καὶ λαῶν καὶ γλωσσῶν
,11: λαοῖς καὶ ἔθνεσιν καὶ γλώσσαις καὶ βασιλεῦσιν
,9: λαῶν καὶ φυλῶν καὶ γλωσσῶν καὶ ἐθνῶν
,7: φυλὴν καὶ λαὸν καὶ γλῶσσαν καὶ ἔθνος
,6: ἔθνος καὶ φυλὴν καὶ γλῶσσαν καὶ λαόν
,15: λαοὶ καὶ ὄχλοι εἰσὶν καὶ ἔθνη καὶ γλῶσσαι
E. g., Isa 1,21; Jer 2,1 through 3,5 (cf. Rev 2,4.5); Ezek 16, 23; Hos 1,2 through 13,13.
The same imagery—although not so meaningful in extension and elaboration—is certainly also applied to Assyria (see Nah 3,4-6.11), Phoenicia (Isa 23,15-17)—birth place of Jezabel, daughter of an idolatrous priest; cf. Rev 2,20-22—and Babylon (Isa 47), for their idolatrous influence and hostility toward God’s people. The pseudepigraphic literature characterizes in the same way Rome (e. g., SibOr 5,162-178, dated from the second half to the end of the 1st century AD; see James H. Charlesworth, ed., The Old Testament pseudepigrapha, 2 vols. [Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1983], 1:390; SibOr 3,356-358) and its eastern province of Asia Minor (e. g., 4 Ezra 16,46-58). But the emphasis in these cases was not in the covenant-related adulterine dimmension of the imagery, but on its alluring and leading astray side.
The Greek word πόρνη translated as “prostitute” in Rev 17 means, like its Hebrew equivalent זֹנָה also “adulteress.” See in this regard LXX-Prov 5,3; LXX-Isa 57,3; LXX-Jer 3,1-3; 5,7; LXX-Hos 4,14, etc. Cf. Prov 2,16.17; 5,3-6.8.15-20; 6; 7,5-27; 23,27.28. On the interchangeability and overlapping of both nuances—prostitution and adultery—in the Hebrew Old Testament and the NT, particularly Revelation, see Leon J. Wood, “זָנָה”, in Theological wordbook of the Old Testament (Chicago, IL: Moody Press, 1980), 2:246; also Friedrich Hauck and Siegfried Schulz, “πόρνη”, in Theological dictionary of the New Testament, ed. by Gerhard Friedrich (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1968), 6:579-595. On the dual nuance of זֹנָה and πόρνη (prostitution and adultery), the latter comments: “Examples show that זֹנָה can be used of the married woman who is unfaithful to her husband (Hos 1, 2; Ezek 16, 23) or of the betrothed who by law already belongs to her husband, Gen 38:24” (584).
Cf. Eph 2,12.
Gregory K. Beale comments on this: “Nineveh and Tyre are harlots because they cause destruction and induce uncleanness among the nations by economically dominating them and influencing them through idolatry” (The book of Revelation, The New International Greek Testament Commentary [Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1999], 850).
Cf. 18,20.24; Matt 23,30-37; Luke 13,33.34.
On this, see Margaret Barker, The revelation of Jesus Christ: Which God gave to him to show to his servants what must soon take place (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 2000), 227, 235, 237.
See Ryszard Rubinkiewicz, The Apocalypse of Abraham: A new translation and introduction, in The Old Testament pseudepigrapha, ed. by James H. Charlesworth (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1983), 1:685; see also 4 Baruch 6,23 [from between i-ii AD] on the Babylonian captivity as a historical prefiguration of AD 70; Jub 16,26.34; 23,16-21 (reflecting via allusion some Old Testament passages as Deut 5,31ff; Jer 8,2; Hos 4,3; Ezek 9,6; 38,20; Zeph 1,3; see also Orval S. Wintermute, Jubilees: A new translation and introduction, in Charlesworth, The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha, 2:101, 102; Pseudo Philo 19,2f [from i AD]; Pss. Sol. 2,2-20, especially 6, 20, where the exile and enslaving by Rome is depicted in the terms and images of the Babylonian conquest and deportation. See on this postexilic Jewish perception of God’s dealings with his people in covenantal terms especially Barker, Revelation, 227, 235, 237 (she quotes 1 Enoch 89,59-64; 90,22.25; Tg. Pseudo Jonathan Deut 32,8; Pss. Sol. 8,15, and Josephus Wars 3.351-354; 5.412; 6.110). On idolatry, incest and murder among the moral impurities God would punish by allowing the desecration of the land and of the sanctuary, and ultimately through exile according to some Jewish postexilic literature as 4Q 381, Jubilees, the Temple Scroll, and the Damascus Document, see Jonathan Klawans, “Idolatry, incest, and impurity: Moral defilement in ancient Judaism,” Journal for the Study of Judaism 29 (1998): 394, 414.
On the long lasting and pervading religious influence of Babylonian thought in the Near East in general—including Judaism—and in the West as probably also behind John’s use of Babylon to some degree, cf. Franz Cumont, The Oriental religions in Roman paganism (Chicago, IL: Open Court, 1911), 122-125. In this respect, Cumont calls Babylon “the perennial source of the Near Eastern and the Mediterranean paganism” (p. 133). On the harlot of Rev 17 as a reference to the faithless Jerusalem rather than Rome, Josephine Massyngberde Ford states: “There is no clear indication [in Rev 17] that Babylon is Rome as in the Christian Sibyllines” (Revelation, Anchor Bible 38 [Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1975], 27).
See Num 23 through 25; 31,16; cf. Rev 14,4.
Cf. Matt 22,11-13.
E. g., the devilish trinity versus the heavenly true one, the mark of the beast versus the seal of God, the lamb-like beast versus the seven-eyed and seven-horned Lamb, the slaughtered but risen Lamb versus the sea-beast’s slain and healed head, etc.
For an Old Testament prophetic antecedent of the imagery of a virtuous woman turned into an adulteress and prostitute, and finally restored through repentance and forgiveness—thus, an ontological continuum constituted by three consecutive antithetic stages—, see Ezekiel 16.
The historical continuous approach is the closest to this proposed identification since it holds that the harlot-adulteress is in fact the Christian church in its medieval condition of nominalism and apostasy (e. g., Jacques B. Doukhan, Secrets of Revelation: The Apocalypse through Hebrew eyes [Hagerstown, MD: Review and Herald, 2002], 161). While the imminence pervading the book and the need of first century contemporary relevance to some degree, plus several hermeneutical and exegetical considerations, would render that identification unviable as the only or the primary one, such an approach is not incompatible with a Christian identity of the harlot-adulteress within the scope of John’s past and contemporaneous historical frame. A murderous harlot-adulteress Babylon far in the future of his and his first century audience has a place in the picture, although typologically prefigurated or illustrated by manifestations both former and present to him. While the beast—the harlot’s condition for existence and action—is said to no longer be (ἦν καὶ οὐκ ἔστιν) in verses 8, 11, is implied to partially be in verse 10
(ὁ εἷς ἔστιν; cf. 2 Thess 2,7a). This could only mean two things: either a contradiction or an already somehow present entity not yet fully developed, whose heyday and final demise were still in the future (cf. 2 Thess 2,1-12; 1 John 2,18ff).
Nevertheless, it must be recognized an implied confrontation in the fact that the harlot-adulteress is said to be drunk with the blood of the martyrs (17,3), but even that does not necessarily presuppose two ontologically different entities. The apostate majorities within God’s people along the history of salvation were never represented in the Bible as realities ontologically different from the faithful remnants, yet both groups were always distinctly characterized as clearly opposed. That is also evident in the letters to most of the seven churches in chapters 2 and 3.
Even though not in a symbolic realm, remember Moses’s snake-rod devouring those of the Pharao’s court sorcerers.
On this, see the linguistic connections between Revelation 12 and 17.
The Greek πόρνη, translated as “prostitute” or “harlot” in Rev 17, also means “adulteress” (cf. LXX-Prov 5,3; Isa 57,3; Jer 3,1-3; 5,7; Hos 4,14).
Cf. Rev 2,9; 3,9; Matt 23,34: Mark 13,9; Luke 12,11; 21,12; Acts 5-8; 13; 14; 21-24; 1 Thess 1,14-16.
Cf. Rev 13.
E. g., Ps 46,2.3.6; Isa 2,2; Jer 51,24-26; Hab 3,6.10; cf. Rev 8,8.
Hence the translation of oρoς as “hills” hardly reflects John’s intended meaning in light of his Old Testament sources, unlike the rendering “mountains” by most versions.
In light of the Old Testament passages evoked in Rev 17 (e. g., Jer 51,13), it is very likely that
מַ֣יִם רַבִּ֔ים is behind ὑδάτων πολλῶν in verse 1.
E. g., Ps 46,3.6; Isa 17,12.13.
E. g., Jer 4,7; 50,17; Dan 7, 8.
Interestingly, the LXX always renders the Hebrew עַל in עַל־מַ֣יִם רַבִּ֔ים for ἐπί, which can be rendered as “by,” “beside” or “near” as well as “on” or “over.” On this, see, for instance, Ps 29,3; Jer 28,13; 41,12 (about Egypt); Ezek 17,5.8 (regarding Israel).
E. g., Exod 15,10; Pss 18,16.17; 29,3; 93,4; Tg. Isa 17,12; Ezek 1,24; 43,2.
Cf. 1,10 for רַב as also probably behind μεγάλην. On the pagan nations enraged against God’s people compared to the “strong” or “mighty” waters of a roaring sea, see the Tg. Isa 17,12.
Other examples of this typically biblical linguistic modesty are the expressions “to know,” “to come out of the loins,” “to uncover the nakedness,” “to come to someone,” etc.
Amy J. Levine and María Mayo Robbins, eds., A companion to the Apocalypse of John (London: T&T Clark, 2010), 10.
E. g., Isaiah, Jeremiah, Micah, Ezekiel, Hosea, Micah; cf. Exod 20,3-5; Deut 5,7-9.
In this sense, the stem πορφυρ and its derivatives are widely present in ontexts of kingship in the Septuagint (e. g., Judg 8:6; Est 8,15; Dan 5,7.16.29; 6,4; 1 Macc 8,14; 10,62.64; 11,58; Judith 10,21; 1 Esdras 3,6); see also Alfred Zimmern, The Greek Commonwealth: Politics and economics in fifth-century Athens (Oxford, GB: Clarendon Press, 1931), 35.
E. g., LXX-1 Macc 10,20; 2 Macc 4,38; 14,43.44.
See LXX-Prov 31,22.
On this, see LXX-Jer 10,9 and Epistle of Jeremiah 1,11.71, whose language is particularly akin to that of Rev 17.
On the purplish or purplishred dye produced in Thyatira, see Zimmern, Greek Commonwealth.
E. g., that is the word used in LXX-Isa 1,18 to illustrate sin metaphorically and as a metonymy for purplish red, since the dye of that color and so designated was mainly obtained from the coast of Phoenicia [Greek Φοινίκη], in the eastern Mediterranean (cf. 2 Chr 2,14; Ezek 27,7.8); see in this respect Zimmern, Greek Commonwealth, 35; William M. Ramsay, The letters to the seven churches of Asia (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 1963), 325.
E. g., the second horse of Rev 6,4 is red or scarlet (πυρρός), as is the persecuting dragon in Rev 12,3. In 1 Enoch 85,3.4, Abel, killed by Cain, is represented as a red calf, a sacrificial victim. Regarding the red color as a symbol of martyrdom or persecutory violence, see the comments on 1 Enoch 85,3 by Alejandro Diez Macho in Apócrifos del Antiguo Testamento (Madrid: Ediciones Cristiandad, 1983), 4:111. Japheth and his descendants are also represented as red bulls in 1 Enoch 89,1.9.
The image of a married woman is frequently applied in the Bible to God’s people, both in their faithful condition to their heavenly Bridegroom and when they metaphorically prostituted themselves in pursuit of their lovers, the idols of the pagan nations (cf. Heb. Baal [“husband”] and Jezebel [“Baal is a shame”]; on this, see Larry G. Herr, “Is the spelling of Baalis in Jeremiah 40:14 a mutilation?,” Andrews University Seminary Studies 23 [1985]: 190).
Eugene M. Boring, Revelation, Interpretation: A Bible Commentary for Teaching and Preaching (Louisville, KY: John Knox, 1989), 20; Hanns Lilje, The last book of the Bible: The meaning of the Revelation of St. John (Philadelphia, PA: Muhlenberg, 1957), 32; Martin Kiddle, The Revelation of St. John, The Moffat New Testament Commentary (New York: Harper, 1940), xl; William Riley, The spiritual adventure of the Apocalypse (Mystic, CT: Twenty-Third Publications, 1997), 112. Regarding the Neronian persecution of the year 64, confined to the capital, as a personal rather than official or institutional initiative on the part of the empire, the Roman historian Gaius Cornelius Tacitus referred in the second century to the Christians killed as: “People whose lives were taken… to satisfy the cruelty of a single one” (Annals 15.44). Regarding Poppea’s alleged secret conversion to Judaism, see art. Popea Sabina, Gran enciclopedia universal Espasa Calpe (Buenos Aires: Editorial Planeta, 2005), 31:9488.
On the problems of this biased portrayal of Domitian and the true motivations and scope of some of his measures, especially for the Christians of Asia, see David E. Aune, Revelation 1-5, Word Biblical Commentary, vol. 52a (Dallas, TX: Word Books, 1997), lxvii-lxix; Leonard L. Thompson, The book of Revelation: Apocalypse and empire (New York: Oxford University Press, 1990), 101-110; 463-469; David Maggie, Roman rule in Asia Minor, to the end of the third century after Christ (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1950), 576-582; Henri W. Pleket, “Domitian, the senate and the provinces,” Mnemosyne 14 (1961): 296-315; Richard B. Vinson, “The social world of the book of Revelation,” Review and Expositor 98 (2001): 11-33; W. H. C. Frend, Martyrdom and persecution in the early Church (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1967), 159-162.
Martin P. Charlesworth, The Roman empire (London, GB: Oxford University Press, 1954),
-141. Unlike, for instance, Bruce W. Winter, Divine honours for the caesars: The first Christians responses (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2015). On the problems inherent to forceful emperor-worship as part of the scenario of first-century Christianity, including Revelation, see Maggie, Roman rule in Asia Minor, 576-582; Pleket, “Domitian,” 296-315; Frederick C. Grant, Roman hellenism and the New Testament (New York, NY: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1962), 17; Isbon T. Beckwith, The Apocalypse of John: Studies in introduction with a critical and exegetical commentary (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 1967), 642; Sean P. Kealy, The Apocalypse of John (Wilmington, DE: Michael Glazier, 1987), 179; Barker, Revelation of Jesus Christ, 239; Mathias Rissi, Time and history: A study on the Revelation (Richmond, VA: John Knox, 1966), 68; George E. Ladd, A commentary on the book of Revelation of John (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1972), 162; Antoninus King Wai Siew, The war between the two beasts and the two witnesses: A chiastic reading of Revelation 11.1-14.5 (Edinburgh, GB: T&T Clark, 2005), 254, 268; Ramsay, The letters to the seven churches of Asia, 121; Alan J. P. Garrow, Revelation, New Testament Readings Series (New York, NY: Routledge, 1997), 88, 89; Henry B. Swete, The Apocalypse of St. John: The Greek text with introduction, notes, and indices (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1951), lxi, 25, 26, 31; Steven J. Friesen, “Revelation, realia, and religion: Archaeology in the interpretation of the Apocalypse,” Harvard Theological Review 88 (1995): 300; David E. Aune, Revelation 6-16, WBC 52b (Nashville, TN: Nelson, 1998), 756; Beale, Revelation, 6, 714; Kenneth Cukrowski, “The influence of the emperor cult on the book of Revelation,” Römische Quartalschrift für christliche Altertumskunde und Kirchengeschichte 45 (2003): 64; Colin Miller, “The imperial cult in the Pauline cities of Asia Minor and Greece,” Catholic Biblical Quarterly 72 (2010): 316-332; cf. C. L. Brinks, “‘Great Is Artemis of the Ephesians’: Acts 19:23-41 in Light of Goddess Worship in Ephesus,” Catholic Biblical Quarterly 71 (2009): 784. See also Travis B. Williams, “Suffering from a critical oversight: The persecutions of 1 Peter within modern scholarship,” Currents in Biblical Research 10 (2012): 275-292.
E. g., Matt 22,21 and par.; Rom 13,1-7; 1 Pet 2,13.14.
Mark 15,14; Luke 23,20.22; John 18,29.31.38; 19,12.
Acts 21,2736; 23,10.1735.
See also Acts 4,1-3.15-18; 5,17.18.27-33.40; 6,8-15; 7,51-60; 9,23.29; 13,10.45-50; 14,2-5.19; 17,5-8.13; 18,6.12.13.17; 19,9; 20,3; 21,10-36; 22,22.23; 23,12.20.21; 24,1-9.27; 25,2.3.7; 26,21; 28,17-29; Frend, Martyrdom and persecution in the early Church, 252-253.
On this, see Joseph B. Tyson, A study of early Christianity (New York: Macmillan Co., 1973), 66. The worship to the Dea Roma and its emperors was a pre-Christian, Asian—not roman—initiative originated in Ephesus in the year 48 BC. See Eugene Boring, K. Berger and C. Colpe, eds., Hellenistic commentary to the New Testament (Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 1995), 548; Eduard Lohse, The New Testament environment (Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 1976), 219.
Dan 7,25; Rev 13,5; cf. 11,2.3; 12,14.
Provided βλασφημία has in 17,3.5 the nuance of misrepresenting God before the unbelievers through a purely nominal profession of faith by an apostate entity (cf. 2 Thess 2,4; 1 John 2,18b.19; Rev 2,9; 3,9; 13,5.6; see also Rom 2,17-29), this would reenforce the non-imperial Roman nature of both the woman and the beast in the unit.
Rather than “drunkenness” in this context; cf. the use of μεθύω in LXX 36,8; LXX-Hag 1,6; etc. with the nuance of fulness instead of intoxication. In 17,2a, ἐπόρνευσαν οἱ βασιλεῖς τῆς γῆς is paralleled to ἐμεθύσθησαν οἱ κατοικοῦντες τὴν γῆν in 17,2b by the conjunction καί, probably with either an epexegetical (“with her the kings of the earth committed adultery, that is the inhabitants of the earth were fully satiated with the wine of her adulteries”) or an ascensive nuance of intensification (“with her the kings of the earth committed adultery, yea the inhabitants of the earth adulterated to the hilt with her”).
On this, see Hans Lietzmann, A history of the early Church: The founding of the Church universal (Cleveland/New York: The World Publishing Company, 1953), 2:83. Regarding the New Testament testimony about the hostility of certain sectors of Judaism against Christianity in the first century, see, for instance, Acts 4,1-3.15-18; 5,17.18.27-33.40; 6,8-15; 7,51-60; 9,23,.29; 13,10.45-50; 14,2-5.19; 17,5-8.13; 18,6.12.13.17; 19,9; 20,3; 21,10-36; 22,22.23; 23,12.20.21; 24,1-9.27; 25,2.3.7; 26,21; 28,17-29; 1 Thess 2,14-16; Rev 2,9; 3,9.
Note the link made in Rev 2,9; 3,9 between the synagogue and the local hostility against the church through the name “Satan” (Heb. accuser, adversary).
John 18,35; 19,11; Acts 3,15; 7,52; 13,27.28; 1 Thess 2,14.15; Rev 11,8.
Acts 4,1-3.15-18; 5,17.18.27-33.40; 6,8-15; 7,51-60; 9,23.29; 13,10.45-50; 14,2-5.19; 17,5-8.13; 18,6.12.13.17; 19,9; 20,3; 21,10-36; 22,22.23; 23,12.20.21; 24,1-9.27; 25,2.3.7; 26,21; 28,17-29.
Acts 5,1417; 13,45; 17,4.5; cf. Dan 9,2427. The nuptial language implied in Rev 3,9 (“I will cause them to come… and acknowledge that I have loved you;” cf. 2,4; Ezek 16,43) is interesting. If, according to some interpreters, the opening of the seven times sealed scroll of chapter 4 represents among other things the breaking of the marriage covenant between God and his people because of their unfaithfulness and their rejection of the Messiah, the announced recognition by the synagogue of Satan of God’s love for the church in Philadelphia can be interpreted as an implicit new marriage covenant between God and the Christian church as his new bride in place of the former one. See on this subject, for example, Josephine Massyngberde Ford, “The divorce bill of the Lamb and the scroll of the suspended adulteress: A note on Ap. 5:1 and 10:8-11,” Journal for the Study of Judaism 2 (1971): 136-143.
Matthias Rissi, Time and history: A study on the Revelation (Richmond, VA: John Knox, 1966), 66; John P. Sweet, Revelation, Westminster Pelican Commentaries (Philadelphia, PA: Westminster, 1979), 23; Robert L. Thomas, Revelation 8-22: An exegetical commentary (Chicago, IL: Moody Press, 1995), 158.
On the role of local Judaism in the episodes of pagan antiChristian hostility in the Mediterranean in general, including Asia Minor, during the first centuries of the Christian era, see Frend, Martyrdom and persecution in the early Church, especially 252-253, 305.
See Acts 7,52; 8,1-3; cf. 2,9; 14,19; 25,1-7; Rev 2,9.10; 3,9; cf. Mark 13,9.
E. g., Matt 21,33-45; 23,37; Luke 11,49.50; Acts 7,52; 18,24. The context in all these instances is the religious leadership of Jerusalem, not Rome. In Rev 11,8, Jerusalem—the precise spot on earth where the Messiah was actually put to death—is circumloquially alluded as “the great city where also their Lord [the Lord of the two witnesses] was crucified.” This could be an inclusive literary device embracing future Rome—although not excluding Jerusalem—, but hardly an exclusive allusion to first century Rome.
For a study on the symbolic correspondence between Ahab, Jezebel, and Eliah on the one side, and the sea-beast, the earth-beast/false prophet, the faithful remnant, and the kings from the east of chapters 13 through 20 on the other, see William H. Shea, “The location and significance of Armageddon in Rev 16:16,” Andrews University Seminary Studies 18 (1980): 157-162.
On this reading centered at Rome, see, for instance, The New Living Translation: “Seven hills where the woman rules.”
Contrary to some versions reading “a woman riding a beast” (e. g., New Jerusalem Bible).
Levine and Mayo Robbins, A companion to the Apocalypse of John, 10.
On the commercial items enumerated in Rev 18 as also able to reflect a first century Babylonian Jerusalem rather than or as well as Rome, see Joachim Jeremias, Jerusalem at the time of Jesus, 3rd ed. (Philadelphia, PA: Fortress, 1967), 35-51, where Josephus is quoted on the altar of the incense in Jerusalem’s temple, and “its thirteen kinds of sweet smelling spices with which the sea [i.e., the maritime commerce] replenished it” (Wars 5.218). On Jerusalem as behind the Babylon of Rev 18, see Janice E. Leonard, Come out of Her, my people: A study of the Revelation to John (Chicago, IL: Laudemont Press, 1991), 122; cf. Sophie Laws, In the light of the Lamb: Imagery, parody, and theology in the Apocalypse of John, Good News Studies 31 (Wilmington, DE: Michael Glazier, 1988), 38. On the “slaves” (σωμάτων) mentioned in Rev 18,13b, Rome, unlike Jerusalem, seems to have been a large-scale producer and seller of them (captives from wars, orphans for trade, etc.) rather than a buyer (on this, see Charlesworth, The Roman Empire, 129).
In passing, and unlike the Old Testament Babylon, neither the Roman Empire nor its capital ended abruptly, as the metaphoric language of 18,8.10.17.19 implies. On the contrary, Rome is known precisely as “the eternal city.”
Numerous versions account for this fact by translating κρίμα not as “judgment,” but as “sentence,” “condemnation,” “punishment,” etc.
Exod 32; Lev 16,10; Mark 1,12.13; Acts 7,39; 8,29; 21,38.
Exod 19,4; Deut 29,5.6; Rev 12,6.14.
Lev 26,22.31-34.43; 1 Kgs 9,6-9; 2 Chr 36,21; Jer 12,4.10.11; Lam 5,18; 25,3; Dan 9,17.18.26.27; Hos 2,1ff; Zac 7,14; cf. Matt 23,38; Acts 1,20.
Cf. Isa 1,9.10; 3,9; Jer 23,14; Lam 4,6; Ezek 16; Acts 7,39.
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