Apocalypse

[winters500]

Can anybody recommend any good commentaries/theologies on Revelation? I'm in a Sunday School class and the teacher keeps talking about the rapture and stuff and I'm thinking "ok, I'm basically an Augustinian amillenialist," But I have not real textual support for my view. For a good start, I just ordered Jacques Ellul's book on the subject from

Comments

[imtryingtodie]

i hear dr. eckley has a good one. hahaha!

revelation

[imyerbrother]

yeah, i'm gonna get eckley's one of these days. and i actually just started with leon morris' for tyndale's NT commentary. i will let you know if it's worth it.
and i have to tell you jon, that i keep on meaning to write you a real letter. but that i suck at writing real letters. i'm currently halfway through leaves from the notebooks of a tamed cynic and i have been really enjoying and encouraged by it. thank you so so much.

Leaves

[winters500]

Cool BJ. I'm glad you like it.

[storyofthealamo]

while I will let BJ confirm or deny the goodness of Leon Morris' later on, I expect that it is a good one. Not necessarily Augustinian amillenialist (in fact i can almost guarantee that it is not), but the scholarship is, I am sure, top notch.

I just pulled out a short paper I wrote on Amillenialism for Dr Schultz, and while i didn't really site any commentaries that fit your view (I did cite Leon Morris' and GE Ladd's commentaries on Reveliation--both good), there was one very good article i used for that paper I would encourage you to check out if you have access. It is in Review and Expositor issue 97, year 2000, pp 339-354. It is "Eschatological Hope: Contours of a Postmodern Theology of Hope," by Stanley Grenz. I don't recall how much was direct commentary on Revelation, but the quotes I have from that in my paper are really good, and that was right around the time i was really coming to look on Grenz as one of the best theologians around, so I know it impressed me.

Access to theological journals being what it is...

[winters500]

I don't know, Dave, that's a pretty obscure reference. There are a couple Bible colleges around here, though, so perhaps I'd be able to track it down.

not so obscure

[storyofthealamo]

as far as worthwhile theology journals go, Review and Expositor is about as non-obscure as you're going to get. At least i read a lot of articles out of it at Houghton, so i figure it must be common.

jacques the rocques

[storyofthealamo]

oh, and I read sections of Ellul's book for another paper I wrote for that class with Schultz. There are certainly better specific textual commentaries, but Ellul's wider comments based on things which stand out in the text were, I remember, very good. And i know how much you love Ellul, so enjoy.

preterist

[owentrout]

Don't read anything else until you've read Austin Farrer's A Rebirth of Images: The Making of St. John's Apocalypse

The Apocalypse is built upon a system of symbolism already present in the old testament scriptures, and cannot be understood at all apart from that context.

Merrill Tenney, in his book Interpreting Revelation, offers the conservative number of 348 clear Old Testament references in Revelation. Revelation is the most biblical book of all of the Bible, saturated with biblical allusions.

I also highly recommend The Days of Vengeance by David Chilton. Ignore any criticisms that you read of this book that dismiss it simply because Chilton was part of theonomic/reconstruction circles. Chilton had a very catholic mindset and incorporates many insights from the early church through to works like Farrer's in the 20th century.

Re: preterist

[owentrout]

... And I'm also eagerly awaiting Eckley's offering.

Re: preterist

[winters500]

Thank you John and everyone for all the suggestions. Looks like I will have my hands full for a while...