The Book of Revelation — the apocalyptic conclusion to the New Testament — has been a narrative staple in popular culture for centuries. Filled with angels battling demons in heaven, the Beast with the number 666, the Antichrist, and the end times, its fingerprints are all over blockbuster modern storytelling like Star Wars and Lord of the Rings. Elaine Pagels' new book — Revelations: Visions, Prophecy, and Politics in the Book of Revelation — considers this vivid and controversial text.
Pagels is a religion professor at Princeton and perhaps the most important American scholar of early Christianity. Her 1979 study of gospel stories that didn't make it into the Bible — the so-called gnostic gospels — became a bestseller. Since then her influence has spread beyond the academic world, thanks, in part, to The DaVinci Code author Dan Brown's interest in her scholarship.
Pagels says the Book of Revelation is a work of wartime literature, an allegory reflecting Rome's brutality at the end of the first century C.E, and its author John of Patmos an observer of that trauma. She describes to Kurt Andersen how the number "666" is code referring to the enemy power. "In Jewish mystical tradition, you have a numerical equivalent for every letter and Jews were often hiding codenames that way,” Pagels explains. “So this is probably the code name of the Emperor Nero, who was taken by many people to be the epitome of the worst of Roman rule. Because the Romans had crushed his people, this prophet is adamantly opposed to the force of evil he sees embodied in this Antichrist, this beast, this one with this number."
This allegorical language, Pagels suggests, allowed John of Patmos to express his fear and loathing of Rome, while keeping him safe: "He was an early follower of Jesus. Jesus had been crucified for sedition against Rome. Peter had been crucified. Paul had his head cut off. Jesus' brother James was stoned to death. So it was dangerous belonging to this movement. And Romans were very suspect of Jews after the Jewish war against Rome, which ended in the year 70 in the complete destruction of Jerusalem."
Pagels says the Book of Revelation is still a deeply contentious topic among Christians, and several have spoken out against her scholarship. "Some say I'm not a Christian because I don't share their view of it," she says. One recent piece of hate mail she received: "It said that 'I and the president of Princeton, Barack Obama, Mitt Romney, and Joel Osteen, and the Pope were all going to hell.' That I can laugh at. I thought it was interesting company."
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Studio 360 with Kurt Andersen is a co-production of Public Radio International and WNYC Radio, and is funded in part by Ken and Lucy Lehman and the National Endowment for the Arts. Studio 360's American Icons series is supported in part by the National Endowment for the Humanities. Our Science and Creativity series is supported in part by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.
Comments [5]
"he author of Revelation was John the disciple and this is not a controversial point (or should not be). "
No serious scholar thinks that. Pagels' interpretation of Revelation is very mainstream.
I was excited by the topic but quickly became disappointed as the interview progressed. Pagels' scholarship leaves much to be desired and the fact that it was unquestioningly embraced by Mr. Andersen was a letdown. The author of Revelation was John the disciple and this is not a controversial point (or should not be). And, with respect to Ms. Pagels, it was Christ who claimed that the only way to the father was through belief in him (John 14:8). An inconvenient truth, perhaps, but not one you can blame on "unhappy Christians." By the way, I suspect many of the Christians who disagree with you are quite happy generally; it's your shoddy scholarship that makes us sad.
Great segment. Thank you for this. I'm a big fan of Bart D. Ehrman's work and it sounds like I now need to check out Elaine Pagels as well.
I listened to tonight's broadcast of the Elaine Pagels interview about her book, Revelations. I thought I heard her say that the mystical number 666 probably referred to the Emperor Nero. I also heard that John of Patmos was composing the Book of Revelations c. A.D.90. If that were so, Nero had been dead for 22 years. The Emperor Domitian was then in power (A.D. 81-96). The destruction of Jerusalem occurred two years after Nero's suicide (?)in A.D. 70. Titus, Vespasian's eldest son, and later emperor, commanded the legions at Jerusalem, and there is a triumphal arch honoring his victory at the entrance to the Forum in Rome. If I misheard Professor Pagels, my apologies.
Really? The most important scholar of early Christianity? I have some doubts about that. Why do we insist on always trying to explain away the difficult things of the Bible, simply because we don't like them? Explain away the prophecy of John (who was, by the way, John the disciple). Explain away evil and judgment. Explain away the resurrection. I grant that these are difficult topics, but surely that doesn't mean we should simply ignore them! Their implications are things we might rather not deal with, but that makes them no less important. I was intrigued when I heard the intro for this story, and was excited to hear it. But I was disappointed by what seemed less like an actual scholarly look at Christianity or the book of Revelation and more like a puff piece or an advertisement for Pagels' book. Come on Studio 360, can't you do better?
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