Revelation

Lynn R. Huber is the Maude Sharpe Powell Professor of Religious Studies at Elon University in Elon, North Carolina. Originally from Portland, Oregon, Huber completed a BA in philosophy at Northwest Nazarene College in Nampa, Idaho, and an MDiv and PhD at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia. Her first two books, “Like a Bride Adorned”: Reading Metaphor in John’s Apocalypse (2007) and Thinking and Seeing with Women in Revelation (2013), explore Revelation’s use of gendered imagery and the ways the book invites interpreters to see along with these images. Gail R. O’Day (1954–2018) was professor of New Testament and preaching and dean of Wake Forest School of Divinity in 2010 to 2018. In 1987–2010 she taught at Candler School of Theology, Emory University, where she was also an associate dean for seven years. O’Day’s research focused on the Gospel of John and the book of Revelation. The author of several books, O’Day was also editor of Journal of Biblical Literature in 1999–2006 and general editor of the Society of Biblical Literature book series, Early Christianity and Its Literature, in 2009 to 2014. She was an ordained minister in the United Church of Christ.

• ContentsAcknowledgments    ixList of Abbreviations    xiiiList of Contributors    xviiForeword: “Come Eat of My Bread . . . and Walk in the Ways of Wisdom”    xixElisabeth Schüssler FiorenzaEditor’s Introduction to Wisdom Commentary: “She Is a Breath of the Power of God” (Wis 7:25)    xxiiiBarbara E. Reid, OPPrologue    xliiiAuthors’ Introduction: Getting Our Bearings: Putting Revelation in Context    lxiRevelation 1   Introducing the Apocalypse    1Revelation 2–3   To the Victor    25Revelation 4–5   Who Sits upon the Throne?    57Revelation 6   Revelation Unsealed    81Revelation 7   Who Can Stand?    97Revelation 8–9   Sounding the Alarm    117Revelation 10   A Queer Prophetic Digression    135 Revelation 11   The Power of Witness    145Revelation 12:1-17   Revelation of the Goddess    163Revelation 12:18–13:18   Meeting the Beast at the Shore    185Revelation 14   Following the Lamb    205Revelation 15–16   Drowning in a Sea of Plague    225Revelation 17   The Judgment of Babylon the Great Prostitute    241Revelation 18   The Judgment of the Great City    263Revelation 19   Here Comes the Bride and Bridegroom    281Revelation 20   Millennial Hope?    305Revelation 21–22:5   Unveiling the Bride    323Revelation 22:6-21   Final Things?    345Works Cited    351Index of Scripture References and Other Ancient Writings    393Index of Subjects    405

"Lynn Huber is the ideal person to write Revelation’s first major feminist commentary in a generation. She grapples with Revelation’s most glaring theological and ethical liabilities yet persistently seeks its potential for resistance and hope. By blending queer and multicultural perspectives with attention to material culture, Huber shows us what’s at stake in interpreting the Apocalypse."Greg Carey, Professor of New Testament, Lancaster Theological Seminary