Book Of Revelation

The Book of Revelation is the final book of the new testament of the bible. Revelation is different than many of the other books in the new testament in that is is primarily an eschatological work. Revelation was written for 1st century Jews in response to the destruction of the second temple and their defeat in the Roman-Jewish War by a Jewish writer who names himself John in the text. Revelation predicts the end of the Roman Empire and the world, as a way of making sense of the destruction that Rome wrought on Israel and also gives the reader context to the piece and shows some similarities to society today.
Revelation chapter 6, verses 1-9 is a particularly interesting excerpt. In this section seven angels descend and set plague and destruction

The word blood is mentioned four times in this passage. Why is blood emphasized in the section? Blood was very important in first century Israel. According to Jewish traditions blood was seen as the sacred life force of animals. Blood is an important theme in many places in the Jewish scriptures that readers at the time would be familiar to readers. So when blood is mentioned in the passage it is designed to be provocative to the audience. The first and second references to blood describe the waters of the Earth being turned into blood. The third and forth explain why, “...why, for they have shed the blood of your holy people and your prophets, and you have given them blood to drink as they deserve.” They in this passage refers to the Romans, and as they deserve is partially because the destruction of the temple. John uses one of the most powerful pieces of imagery of the time in this section. This shows the strong feelings that Jews at the time about the Romans. Josephus also uses the idea of blood in his description of the destruction of the temple by the Romans. He writes, “...the blood was larger in quantity than the fire,” It is clear that just as in Revelation, Josephus uses blood as a provocative term designed to try to make sense of the immense destruction that has occurred in

There are three references to Romans here. The first describes the Romans as having the mark of the beast and worshipping its image, the second says they killed saints and prophets, and the third says that they curse God. It is clear that John has very negative feelings towards the Romans, and uses language with strong connotations to express these feelings onto the reader. The Romans are seen as evil sinners who reject the God of Israel. The purpose of the demonising portrayal of them is to inspire specific feelings in the audience. John wants to make Rome look bad. This is very similar to responses to war today. During wars or conflicts one side makes the other look as bad as possible through propaganda so that the people do not see them as human. Revelation seeks to make Romans look inhuman. There are many examples of this in modern culture, the red scare of the 1940s and 1950s, Iraq in the 2000s and China today. Revelation and propaganda today both are designed to unite the people against a common enemy. This is important because it shows us that the idea of ‘us’ versus ‘them’ is not a modern concept, it goes all the way back to the dawn of