Dhe Apocalypse of John is a good example of how the exegesis of the New Testament has undergone exciting paradigm shifts in recent years and decades. Historical approaches to the interpretation of texts rightly continue to play an important role, but their interests have changed and methodological caution has increased. In addition, there are approaches that regard the text as a piece of theological literature, as a weighty, highly exciting statement in early Christian discourses. An increased interest in aspects of intertextuality and intermediality is recognisable, and the question of the influence of the Apocalypse on culture and societies is becoming more important, including the problem of the extent to which the Apocalypse attempts to influence the world perception of its addressees. This is only part of the possible spectrum. My contribution is therefore only a sketch.
Text and canonical status of the Apocalypse
It may come as a surprise, but even some very basic problems of interpreting the Apocalypse of St John have not been definitively solved: As with almost all texts from antiquity and the Middle Ages before the age of printing, and as with all writings in the Bible, we do not have an original copy of the Apocalypse of St John. Instead, a large number of manuscripts, some of them very old, have been handed down to us, whose texts of the Apocalypse differ from one another in some important details. In recent years, the New Testament discipline of textual criticism has increasingly moved away from reconstructing "the" original text of the Apocalypse (or other New Testament writings). Instead, attempts are being made to come as close as possible to a "source text" of the New Testament writings, i.e. a text from which the surviving textual forms can best be explained. This should come quite close to an original text, but is not necessarily identical to it. With the completion of the project of an Editio Critica Maior of the Apocalypse of St John under the direction of Martin Karrer, a decisive step has now been taken: Unlike the usual critical editions of the Greek text (e.g. Nestle-Aland 28), such an edition truly attempts to make accessible and take into account all accessible witnesses to the textual tradition. This in itself is an incredible advance over the previous textual basis, which will also be important for our understanding of the history of the reception of the Apocalypse. At the same time, the renewed, in-depth analysis of the textual tradition has led to the text of the previous editions being called into question in almost a hundred places. Does Acts 2:13 really speak of a "witness" named Antipas, who suffered martyrdom in Pergamum? Or does the Greek ΑΝΤΙΠΑΣ (= "ANTIPAS") stand for a verb form ἀντῖπας? Then Acts 2:13 would have to be read in such a way that the Christ worshippers in Pergamum addressed would not have denied and contradicted the faith in Christ. Does the Apocalypse end with an all-encompassing promise of grace: "The grace of the Lord Jesus with all!" (Acts 22:21) or is this grace only granted to a select group? It is obvious that such decisions have serious theological consequences. The effects of the newly proposed readings, which are of course not necessarily to be adopted, on the interpretation of the text are not yet foreseeable.
The fact that the textual tradition of the Apocalypse of John is probably less stable in parts than that of many other writings of the New Testament is also due to the fact that, at least in the Christian East, it was not understood as canonical for a long time, or only very cautiously. Its difficult path into the New Testament canon has been known for a long time and has been traced time and again. But there are also exciting observations and considerations beyond this: By examining the transmission of the Apocalypse in specific manuscripts, including those of the Byzantine Middle Ages, Garrick Allen has been able to show that even in times when it is usually understood as recognised canonical, the Apocalypse of John could also be seen as a text that was granted a certain significance and authority, but which was placed more on a level with, for example, the philosophical-theological corpus of Pseudo-Dionysius Areopagita, which was highly revered in the churches of the East, but not like the Gospels or the letters of Paul. Perhaps even more important, however, is the question of the extent to which the theological voice of the Apocalypse is significant for the biblical canon and - conversely - why it may be important that the Apocalypse, as part of the canon, is also supplemented by other voices that we find in the writings of the Bible. Before it is possible to address this important question, however, it is necessary to make some basic preliminary decisions about the interpretation of the Apocalypse of John:
Poetics and intertextuality of the Apocalypse of St John
One of the most important paradigm shifts that exegesis of basically all biblical writings has undergone in recent decades is the fact that the interest of scholarly exegesis is less focussed on the question of the origin of a text and the reconstruction of its sources and earlier editorial stages than it was a few decades ago. This does not mean that such questions are in themselves uninteresting and irrelevant, but it is due to the fact that the reconstruction of possible sources and editorial stages of a text can hardly be carried out with the degree of certainty appropriate for further historical enquiry. So even if it cannot be ruled out that the author of the Apocalypse of John may have drawn on sources that helped him to compose the present text, another observation is clearly more important: the Apocalypse of John in its present form can be meaningfully interpreted as a "coherent and complete whole". At first glance, this sounds banal, but it is by no means the case. Only where this can be assumed is it appropriate to interpret the text meaningfully in its present form. In this context, an observation by Stefan Alkier, who describes a very clear plot, i.e. a line of action in the Apocalypse of St John, may be particularly helpful. As confusing as the course of some sections of the Apocalypse seems to be, the following basic pattern remains recognisable: the starting point is the experience of distress in a world in which the powers of evil are gaining more and more weight and in which the addressees of the text feel helplessly at the mercy of these powers (cf. Acts 1:9). This crisis is described in the first chapters, especially the epistles to the Ekklesiai (Acts 2-3), i.e. the "assemblies" of Christ's followers in Asia Minor. A look at the supratemporal liturgy of the heavenly throne room and the enthronement of the Lamb (or better: the little goat), which is simultaneously described as the Lion of Judah (Acts 5:5) and stands for the exalted Christ, shows that the crisis has not yet been overcome, but that the victor in the confrontation with the forces of evil has already been determined: the enthroned and simultaneously coming God and his representative, the little goat enthroned next to him and simultaneously slaughtered, i.e. the exalted Christ. i.e. the exalted Christ. The opening of a heavenly book by the little goat, which suddenly appears in chapter 5, determines a large part of the rest of the plot: Interlaced are visions of the opening of the seven seals, the seven trumpets and the seven bowls of wrath. These in turn are interspersed with visions that already hint at or look ahead to the end-time fate of the saved. Although the representatives of evil, the satanic dragon and the beings associated with it, have already been defeated in principle, their final overcoming is described as a matter to be taken extremely seriously: Evil celebrates its comeback again and again. In the end, however, it turns out like a classic Western: even if the opponents of the righteous seem to be overwhelmingly outnumbered at times, the representatives of evil meet their final end in God's judgement, while the heavenly Jerusalem is presented to the saved as an end-time place of hope. Whether or not the text in Acts 22:21 ends with a comprehensive proclamation of "the grace of the Lord Jesus" to all is, as indicated above, more questionable today than it was a few years ago.
Before we interpret the text of the Apocalypse in detail, however, there are a few more problems to consider: For a long time, the language of the Apocalypse was understood as the highly deficient Greek of an author who could not adequately express his thoughts in Greek in a Semitic language, i.e. probably an Aramaic dialect. In fact, the Greek of the Apocalypse does not always and everywhere follow the rules of standard grammar. However, the question of how this is to be interpreted remains controversial. Very attractive, however, are the thoughts of philologist Thomas Paulsen, who shows on the one hand that the author of the Apocalypse evidently knows how to write clean Koine Greek where he wants to, but that, above all in his descriptions of God, he evidently consciously transgresses the boundaries of Greek grammar in a way that perhaps no other work of his time dared to do. Some of the effects are astonishing. The self-description of God in Acts 1:9, for example, can perhaps best be translated into German as "I AM the Alpha and the Omega, says the Lord, the God, the Existing One, the "He who was" and the Coming One, the All-Ruler", thus at least partially capturing in German what the text does with the Greek. As unusual as the grammar is, any attempt to render what is said in Greek with the help of correct grammar would take away much of its effect. Conversely, the result is: "God has probably never been described more majestically".
Another question also only sounds banal at first glance: To what extent must the text of the Apocalypse be integrated into a larger network of texts in order to be able to interpret it appropriately? Or rather: Which intertextual links lead to which meaningful interpretations of the text of the Apocalypse of John? This question is anything but artificial as soon as you understand that no text is simply an "island", i.e. can be understood in isolation, but that we - consciously or unconsciously - always (have to) establish references to other texts, but also other media, when we interpret a spoken or written text. One task of interpretation is therefore to discover such intertexts, in our case texts to which the Apocalypse of St John refers or appears to refer. But it must not stop there: An appropriate interpretation asks itself what happens when the text of the Apocalypse is confronted with such intertexts and to what extent the understanding of what is said in the Apocalypse changes, indeed deepens, as a result. The Apocalypse does not necessarily make it easy for its interpreters: unlike the Gospel of Matthew, for example, which is full of marked so-called "fulfilment quotations" in its infancy narrative, the Apocalypse of John does not offer a single quotation marked by an introductory formula, for example. Instead, it is woven like a tapestry of allusions to and echoes of motifs from biblical, especially Old Testament writings: The Apocalypse's examination of the books of Ezekiel, Daniel and Zechariah is particularly intense, but so is basically every other prophetic writing of the Old Testament; however, other things such as crucial aspects of the Torah can also be found. The question of the form in which these texts were available to the author of the Apocalypse is particularly difficult to answer today: the textual discoveries from Qumran have shown us that the writings we know today as the Old Testament were still circulating in very different forms in the first century of our era. As far as we can judge today, the author of the Apocalypse of John must therefore have been a person who intensively studied the writings of Israel in various forms, even living in their images and their thinking. At the same time, even if he seems to have separated himself from the rest of the world while on Patmos (cf. Acts 1:9), we must not imagine him as a person isolated from the rest of the world. Limiting ourselves to the texts of the writings of Israel alone is not enough: a closer look makes it clear that the Apocalypse also plays with a variety of texts and ideas from the Greco-Roman world, indeed that it also makes a great deal of sense to look at "things" in order to understand the images of the Apocalypse: from philosophical thought to Greco-Roman mythology, from representations of Greco-Roman deities omnipresent in the cities of Asia to coins to the materiality of books and cultures of reading.
This leaves a final preliminary decision to be made: Is the Apocalypse of John to be read as a text that alludes to specific historical events of the time (and whose interpretation ultimately involves deciphering these allusions) or is it a myth, i.e. a text that seeks to reflect general human experience, at least in key aspects of its basic narrative, without establishing specific references to the circumstances of its time of origin? I consider both approaches to be inappropriate in the extreme. The epistles to the groups of Christ in Asia Minor (Acts 2-3) already show that the text cannot be understood without reference to specific events in specific places. However, the epistles are already so coded and at the same time open to addressees who do not live in Ephesus, Smyrna, Philadelphia or other places in Asia Minor of the first or early second century that we must not lose sight of the second interpretation: Even if the Apocalypse is not to be interpreted completely as a "myth", the things it tells us about reflect existential experiences of people of all times and interpret them within the framework of a perspective on the world and history that is characterised by the Christ event. This is precisely where the lasting significance and fascination of the Apocalypse lies, but it can also be dangerous if it is used without distance as a template for interpreting specific historical constellations and, in conjunction with this, as an instrument of power against alleged henchmen of evil.
However, if we understand the Apocalypse in this way, it is possible to read it as a text that is still highly significant theologically today:
Aspects of the theological profile of the Apocalypse
If we want to accept the previous premises, then it is possible to regard the author of the Apocalypse - we are welcome to call him "John the Seer" - as an intellectual who, despite the strange form of his text and the unusual language he has chosen, takes on the role of a prophet with the help of the traditions of thought accessible to him, who boldly offers an analysis of the world he finds. He seems to be driven by a form of theodicy, which he puts into the mouths of those who, as the righteous and faithful to their God, have experienced death. Under the heavenly altar of sacrifice, the "souls of the slain" cry out to God: "How long, O ruler, holy and true, do you not judge and bring justice to our blood for those who dwell on the earth!" (Acts 6:10). The immediate answer that they should only wait a "little while" is ultimately unsatisfactory: even a short chronological time from the perspective of the supratemporal God can be too much or too long for what people can endure in their lives. The text's answer is only acceptable if the entire Apocalypse is understood as an answer to this question - an answer, however, that presents its readers with a multitude of paradoxes that must be accepted: The forces of evil rage because they are already defeated and only limited opportunity remains for them (Acts 12:12); Christ, as the slain goat, is the victorious Lion of Judah (Acts 5:5). God is described as sitting inaccessible (e.g. Acts 4:2-3), who is coming (e.g. Acts 1:8), as a silent one who - through the medium of the Apocalypse - nevertheless speaks into time (e.g. Acts 1:1-3). And the victory over the forces of evil is bloody, but it remains unclear whose blood is shed in the process (e.g. Acts 19:13). Finally, the descent of the heavenly city seems to lie in an incalculable future, but is already visualised now. The invitation of the Apocalypse is to live from the presence of this city and the direct relationship with God and the little goat (Acts 22:3-4) that is possible in it, even in a time that stretches out. In order to understand how this is possible, it is necessary to look at two concepts of "time" used in the Apocalypse. Acts 6:11, the answer to the cry of the slain, speaks of a "little time" that still has to wait until God's justice prevails. The Apocalypse uses the Greek word chronos here, which stands for a steady passage of time, as we can measure it with a clock. However, the fact that this "small" chronological time until God's judgement is still filled with an almost unmanageable number of events suggests that it can only be a matter of a few years: It can only be understood as "small" from a heavenly perspective. However, when Acts 1:3 speaks of "the time is near", it uses a different term in Greek: the word kairós. However, this does not stand for a chronological, evenly passing time, but for the special, favourable moment that is to be seized in the truest sense of the word. In the context of the apocalypse, we can think of the "eye-gaze", in which God's reality breaks through in an unexpected and incomprehensible way and can completely change the way the person who is struck by it looks at the world: to be able to interpret this form of unavailable presence, to sensitise oneself to it, to perceive it and to place it in a larger picture of the world and time is probably a decisive goal of the apocalypse: this therefore does not simply stand for chronological, but kairological near-expectation: what breaks in now, in the special "eye-gaze", is nothing other than what we seek to describe as "eternity".
This particular interpretation of the world and time alone makes the Apocalypse a valuable part of the Christian canon. It offers a view of the world that challenges us to resolutely confront constellations of evil and not to accept lazy compromises; it is sensitive to the vulnerability, seductiveness and brokenness of human existence; at the same time, it trusts people to do anything. It offers a fascinating, courageous, high Christology and develops the image of a God who is not only "Being", but "Being" and "Coming", even against the philosophical currents of her time, and into whose face it is once directly possible to look. At the same time, it is a dangerous, deeply misogynistic text (cf. e.g. his treatment of the prophetess "Jezebel" in Acts 2:20-23), which contains passages with the highest anti-Semitic potential (cf. e.g. Acts 2:9 and 3:9). His fantasies of violence and revenge had and still have an attractive effect on people who used and use them to realise their own fantasies of violence. The task of tracing such aspects of the text's reception history has so far only been partially completed. At the same time, it is good to realise that the fascinating, magnificent, but also dangerous Apocalypse is only one voice in the biblical canon and that other voices oppose it, even contradict it in part. For example, it is important to emphasise more strongly than in the Apocalypse the almost complete absence of the ethic of love and the view of the enemy as a human being who is to be confronted as a human being. However, it is not only the voices within the canon that are important, but also the voices of responsible readers - including exegetes - who are still facing up to the task of allowing this text to speak in a way that enables life and does not destroy it.
