Abstract
This unusual teaching aid offers all students of the Apocalypse a useful set of charts to assist them with a theological reading of the drama. These are more than merely lexicographical in character. Together they highlight the key themes, ideas and terms running through Revelation and its background literature. Lemcio wants the charts to be understood primarily as guides; and, with leading statements and searching questions, they are designed to foster ‘orderly and disciplined teaching and learning’ so far as the book of Revelation is concerned (p. vii).
The total exercise is prefaced by a clear list of the definitions used in this work, and a summary of the characteristics that appear in Revelation (such as the nature of earthly and divine power), as well as the transformations in scope belonging to its perspective (including ‘history to myth’, ‘particular to universal’ and ‘past to present and future’). In this way the author provide us with a helpful overview of the balanced pairings so typical of John’s apocalyptic style, which brings together time and eternity in a far-reaching manner that extends to distinctive Johannine theology, cosmology, sociology, eschatology and ecclesiology. I have to say that I missed in Lemcio’s approach an emphasis on the personal and corporate attainment of ‘salvation through judgment’ as an overarching motif in John’s vision. I also find it difficult to respond to his interpretation of the ‘Son of man’ figure in Daniel and the Apocalypse as being simply representative of the ‘downside of human experience’ (p. 9).
In the end, I came to the conclusion that Professor Lemcio’s study is both exciting and frustrating. He has provided us with ‘Charts for the Voyage’ through Revelation that are also – to change the imagery – ‘appetisers’. There is engaging allusive material in the charts and their brief commentaries, but there seems to be insufficient theological narrative to accompany them. When the author provides this, even with associated illustrations (as in the analysis of the symbolism of sphinxes and ‘locusts’ in Rev. 9), his work appears suddenly to come alive. Can we now move on to the Apocalyptic ‘main course’? There is ‘much in little’ here, indeed. But perhaps Lemcio could give us further ingredients with which to enrich the study of this fascinating New Testament document?