Reading Revelation

The Book of Revelation can be read in various ways. Where interpretation opts not to venture beyond Revelation or approach the book as a forecast of end-time events, it typically favours either going behind the text, in search of a socio-historical context of origin to which it might refer, or else standing in front of the text and investigating the book's reception history, or its present relevance and impact. Comparatively little interpretative work has been undertaken inside the text, exploring the mechanics of how Revelation 'works', still less how its complex parts might fit together into a meaningful whole. Gordon Campbell considers Revelation to be a coherent narrative composition that draws its hearer or reader into its text-world. In Reading Revelation: A Thematic Approach, Campbell gives an innovative account of Revelation's sophisticated thematic content. Mindful of Revelation's narrative verve, or its architecture en mouvement (as Jacques Ellul once put it), Campbell plots a series of thematic trajectories through the book. On this reading, parody and parallelism fundamentally shape the whole narrative. As a first-ever integrated account of Revelation's macro-themes, Reading Revelation makes an important contribution to Revelation scholarship. In its light, the book may justifiably be seen as the 'crowning achievement' of the Scriptures.