Revelations: Visions, Prophecy, & Politics in the Book of Revelation

 

Revelations: Visions, Prophecy, & Politics in the Book of Revelation by Elaine Pagels

This is one of those books that was not at all what I was expecting, but I ended up enjoying it immensely regardless.  In fact, my biggest gripe about this book is that it wasn’t long enough.  Excluding end notes, indices, etc., the actual reading material consisted of 177 pages.  I felt like this topic needed about 500. I wanted more. I really wish the author would have expanded on the subject matter she presents here for her audience.

The Book of Revelation is by far the most controversial book of the New Testament.  It’s controversial because most can’t seem to come to an agreement as to how all of the wild imagery, strange narratives, and bizarre predictions are supposed to actually look like, represent, and unfold.  Sadly, for 2,000 years, many have used this book of the Bible to justify that the people of the earth are now living in the “end times” and that “Jesus is coming SOON”.   There are many learned scholars, though, who speculate that maybe the majority of Christians are misunderstanding the book.  Perhaps the author of Revelation was alluding to events that happened shortly after Jesus’ ministry, and much of the bizarre settings and language has already, to some extent, taken place.

Author Elaine Pagles is a renowned historian of religion and a professor at Princeton University.  She’s authored at least one book on Gnosticism, so it shouldn’t be a surprise that much of her ideas and speculations aren’t closely aligned to what many would consider mainstream Christianity.  This should be an asset rather than a deterrent when studying the subject matter, however, since the vast majority of Christians don’t really have much of a knowledge of the history of their faith nor their church.  Where things such as The Bible are concerned, most Christians are perfectly content to believe what their pastor or their parent have always taught them since birth.

So some of Pagels’ findings are not immediately embraced by the dogmatically devout, but she presents her thesis in a calm, non-threatening way when discussing the early history of the Christian church. In fact, there were times when I forgot I was reading a book supposedly about the book of Revelation since she tends to focus so strongly on the many personalities and situations during these early times as opposed to keeping the particular book of the Bible as her main subject.  So if you’re looking for a verse by verse explanation of Revelation, you won’t find that here.

Instead, her focus is mainly on the fact that there were multiple accounts and gospels that were written in the first couple of hundred years after Christ, and several were “revelations” of future times. These other revelations, while just as peculiar, seemed to be a bit lighter overall. It wasn’t until the 4^th century at the Council of Nicaea where what we know as “The Bible” was actually created. So why did it take over 300 years?  If “The Bible” is supposedly such a cornerstone of the Christian faith, shouldn’t it have been compiled a lot sooner?  Say, immediately after the ascension of Jesus?  The answer to this seems to be more of the focus of this book rather than a verse by verse explanation of Revelation.

Pagels give us a brief look at early Christianity, and how they were mostly persecuted by the pagan Roman government.  The underlying theme is that since Christianity was such as a small (yet important and growing) sect that was always facing persecution, having a strict canon of scripture wasn’t exactly the focus of any of the early leaders.  When Constantine becomes emperor of Rome in the year 306, however, he soon becomes a Christian himself.  Talk about a shift in culture.  Well, like what happens in present day, now that Christianity is so popular, there’s a lot of bickering and infighting as to what the true faith should look like as well as the nature of Jesus Christ himself.  A canon of scripture called “The New Testament” needs to be formed to curtail the squabbling, and the Book of Revelation does get included. But it almost does not.

This is where this book becomes the most interesting. We read about the politics of the time and how certain religious leaders insist on this book’s inclusion (even though many believe the events within the book have already happened). The main reason Revelation is included in the New Testament, the author argues, was to keep the masses of followers somewhat in line with what the current leaders felt was necessary.  I’ll state again, I wish there was more included about this particular argument.  It really does warrant much more page space.

We read other things as well that might come as a shock to many mainline Christians.  The author alleges that John of Zebedee (the author of the “John” gospel) very well might be a different “John” who penned Revelation.  She then spends an adequate amount of time stating that the author of Revelation (she refers to him as “John of Patmos”) was trying to reach an entirely different audience than the apostle Paul, and there wasn’t always harmony between the two audiences. She also makes a convincing argument that the “Beast” in Revelation may very well be referring to the maliciously deranged emperor of Rome at the time, Nero. (The Hebrew letters of the name “Nero”, when corresponding to each number of each letter add up to 666.) Nero used to illuminate his nightly parties by lighting Christians on fire. So, yes, one can see how one might come to such a conclusion.

The last part of the book that explains how, ever since Jesus ascended, nations and Christian leaders are constantly trying to assign the “Beast” within Revelation, as well as everything else within the book, to whomever and whatever they see as a threat of Christianity during the present time.  I never realized, for example, that the lyrics of the U.S. Civil War anthem “The Battle Hymn of the Republic” makes this exact claim about their confederate enemy and the particular time of strife during the country’s history.  Pagels spends very little time discussing this notion, and again, I would have enjoyed a much lengthier exposition.

So overall, a very good book, but simply too brief.  I’m sure that was the author’s intention, but this seems to be such a hot topic within the Christian church today. I would have welcomed a much deeper account into the subject matter.  Maybe she’ll pen up a follow up one day?

The Forest

 

The Forest – by Edward Rutherford

This was Edward Rutherford’s fourth book, and the fourth one of his that I’ve read. His formula, as I’ve stated in my other reviews, is similar to James Michener – you title your book about a place, and then cover several hundred years of this particular place with families and the descendants of those families, along with their interactions, their conflicts, their dramas, etc. So when all of the action takes place in the particular geography, the idea is for the “place” to serve, not only as a background to the characters, but also as a character of its own during the entire novel.  This allows the historical events throughout the years of the particular place to influence the many actions and predicaments that the people in the novel face.

Sometimes this works, sometimes it doesn’t.  In my judgement, the “place” of this particular novel, really didn’t work that well, but the stories that were told within the book were mostly good.  It’s just that this “place” seemed rather mundane and hard to really grasp the intricacies of said location.   The particular “place” in this novel is “The Forest”.  What exactly is this “Forest”?  Essentially this is an area somewhere in Southern England close to the Isle of Wight; not too far from Rutherford’s first novel “Sarum” (or, for that matter, his second “London”).  What exactly is a forest?  In my mind, I picture an outdoor setting with plenty of thick trees, rivers, and wildlife.  This is an o.k. setting for a story like “Snow White” or a film about nature, but a novel about people?  So it was very hard for me to actually visualize the surroundings that these people lived their lives in and around.  Maybe, for us that live in America, a similar setting might be called “The Country”.

Anyway, such surroundings really didn’t add much to the story for me.  Unlike places like London, Paris, or New York (all titles of Rutherford books), there simply isn’t anything in the background that speaks to me like Big Ben, The Eifel Tower, or The Brooklyn Bridge.  I can’t really get excited reading about deer and trees.  In fact, Rutherford actually tells part of his story through the eyes of a deer and the um….eyes of a tree. Fortunately these instances are minimal, but having to read 2 or 3 pages of what a tree in a forest is thinking is 2 or 3 pages too many. When one is reading an almost 800-page book, one can get rather impatient when having to digest such narratives.

But Rutherford mostly tells good stories here, so overall I was pleased with the novel.  True, these particular stories could have probably taken place anywhere in the world. But for me, a good story is a good story regardless of where it takes place. I really don’t give a rip about the location, as long as I’m enjoying the story.  These stories are told over several centuries, and like his other books, the characters in the latter stories are all related to various characters in the earlier ones.  This is something I’ve never really been able to assimilate well. By the time we get to the 18^th century Pride family and Albion family, I had already forgotten what their ancestors were doing when I read about them in the 15^th century in earlier stories. Maybe my retention span isn’t that good?

One thing that I thought was an improvement in this book as opposed to some of his others was that the timeframe for the entire novel wasn’t nearly as long. The first story in this book takes place in 1099 and the last goes to 1925. Sure, that’s a whopping 826 years, but in some of Rutherford’s books, he starts in several millennia B.C. and goes to the present day.  Since this one is only 826 years instead of several thousand, it allows the stories to breathe a bit more; at least in most cases.  Sometimes Rutherford feels he has to pack too much time into too little space, and it’s too easy to get overwhelmed.  For example, the last story in this novel “Pride of the Forest” covers 67 years in 66 pages.  Not surprisingly, this was my least favorite chapter in the novel.

Conversely, my favorite story (chapter) here, “Albion Park” is the longest in the book at 192 pages, yet it essentially only covers one year (apart from a brief epilogue). This is so much better for my tastes as it allows me to relax and enjoy the stories, and I feel much more able to absorb all of the characters.  I’d much rather read a nice linear story of characters’ day-to-day interactions that move a particular narrative forward, then to have to read a story where parents, children, and grandchildren are packed in a small story so tightly over dozens of years that it makes your head spin. I hope in the author’s latter books, he lets his stories breathe more as he did in the “Albion Park” chapter.  Sure, I get it; he’s trying to tell as much as possible about the location.  But a story about people trumps stories where his focus is too heavy on the particular place, and sometimes only has characters to serve a scenery for his descriptions of places and events. Stories really should be focused on people.

Also, 764 pages is rather short compared to his other epics. Again, this is a good thing as one can’t get bogged down too heavily. Overall this was a good book, although not his best.  I still look forward to reading his other 5 (as of this writing) newer ones, and despite my gripes, it does have its own rewards to learn a bit about places of the world that you might know virtually nothing.

Red Famine: Stalin’s War on Ukraine

 

Red Famine: Stalin’s War on Ukraine by Anne Applebaum

This is quite possibly the most depressing book that I have ever read.  It was a very good, well researched book, but oh was it depressing. 

Most are at least vaguely aware of many of the terrors inflicted by Joseph Stalin and/or Adolph Hitler during the 1930s. Most are familiar with the fact that several million innocent people were killed by the hands of these megalomaniac brutal dictators.  What many don’t know, probably because they can’t stomach it, is just how detailed the suffering of the innocents actually was.  Often when I don’t enjoy a particular book, I find myself skimming through some of the more boring sections.  I had to skim my way through parts of this book, but for an entirely different reason.  The reason in this case was that I simply couldn’t stomach the detail that the author went through when describing many aspects of the particular calamity including the barbaric human suffering.

When Lenin and his lunatic-fringe Bolsheviks took over Russia near the tail end of World War I, it wasn’t long before the citizenry realized that they had been duped. All the promises of the glorious reign of the proletariat under communism was indeed a farce.  The problem is, when the masses are weak, hungry, disorganized, and ill-informed, they’re not in any position to put up much of a fight.  Many areas of what would soon be known as the U.S.S.R. were affected, some worse than others.  Probably none worse than a colony of the U.S.S.R. known back then as “The” Ukraine.

The Ukraine was mostly a rural area of farming communities in the unsophisticated part of Eastern Europe. Once the Bolsheviks came into power, they essentially ramroded the subjugated colony and forcibly imposed collectivization of the agricultural area. Without going into detail, this never worked, but those in charge never like to admit that they’re wrong. So rather than take a step back and reevaluate, those in power dig their heels in and blame everyone but themselves.  This causes starvation amongst many other problems.  As the decade of the 1920’s progresses, reforms are slowly made.  Then, Joseph Stalin succeeds Lenin as the Communist ruler of the U.S.S.R. and things go from very very bad, to somehow even worse.  All reforms in place or in the works for The Ukraine are essentially halted.

So the 1930s, which is where the bulk of this book takes place, ends up being one of the worst places in history for Ukrainians who want nothing more than to live in peace and enjoy the fruits (and vegetables) of their labors. Life in The Ukraine becomes a living hell.  There is no food for anyone.  All food that is produced is basically confiscated. Things are so bad that when authorities DO find people who aren’t starving, they assume they must be stealing the food meant for mother Russia, so they’re either arrested and sent to Siberia or the Gulag, or simply executed on sight.  This disastrous even would soon be known as “The Holodomor”.  Look it up.

The author then spends two brutal, but necessary chapters, describing in immaculate detail the suffering of the peasants.  This is the part of the book that I literally couldn’t stomach and had to skim through.  We read about how a starved human body deteriorates slowly into death, as well as the most atrocious things imagined that these poor people must eat in order to survive.  All because of a deranged psychopathic leader with a highly misguided ideology.  Today’s populace could benefit from reading of such travails when they moan about the fact that their local grocery store runs out of eggs for a week during a winter storm.

Obviously, the U.S.S.R. is trying to cover up all of these maladies.  They have no problem starving the people to death. They WANT them to starve to death. That’ll teach them to submit.  So no outside help (unlike post World War I) is accepted, nor really offered.  There are a few brave journalists who try very hard to leak the stories to the Western world, but this isn’t easy.  When the selected stories do safely make it out of the country, the vast majority of the world simply refuses to believe most of it.  In fact, the most famous journalists who end up being the most believed falsely claim that “Yes, the people are hungry, but they’re NOT starving”.

Once World War II enters the picture, the emaciated populace embraces their German invaders. Well, based on what we know about Germany in World War II, let’s just say that nothing got better. In fact, if it’s possible for things to get worse, they did in fact manage just that.  Finally after Stalin’s death in 1953, things do somewhat slowly return to normal, but there’s now a “cover up” in place.  The U.S.S.R. is still too proud to admit they’re wrong about anything, so most of the world knows nothing of the travesty that recently occurred.

The author then sadly brings us up to the current time period (around the first decade of the 21^st century) and reveals to us that it has only been very recently that the truth is now coming to light about the millions who were mercilessly starved or slaughtered. She then tells us that there’s still quite a handful of Russians who continue to deny the whole event.

So, yes, if you really want to read about just how horrible the U.S.S.R. was during the 1930s under Joseph Stalin, this book would be a good place to start. There were many aspects of human suffering during this time period, but this particular account was one of the worst.  It’s a brutal read though.  History can be ugly.