Abstract
In this monograph, the author attempts to show the unity of the Bible (presupposed by canonical criticism) and how Revelation completes the ‘biblical story’ (p. 139). Since canon criticism involves selecting a particular canonical text, Tõniste chooses the Protestant canon, claiming that the NT part of which has existed since Athanasius’ Festal Letter of 367 ce (pp. 15–16). However, her claim that the canonization of the NT is usually dated to 367 ce (p. 84, n. 8) is completely mistaken. Though canonical criticism involves the OT and NT in tandem, she omits to mention that the Protestant 39 book OT was a Reformation innovation, since the Catholic 46 book OT dominated the Western church until the sixteenth century. The OT of Athanasius had 46 books, as did the canonical lists of the local Councils of Hippo and Carthage (393 and 397 ce) and the later ecumenical Councils of Florence and Trent (1442 and 1546 ce). The 27 book NT was not universal: Codex Alexandrinus (fifth century ce) includes 1–2 Clement in the NT.
Tõniste approaches canonical criticism through narrative criticism, which she argues has the potential of taking the theological unity of the canon seriously. She narrows this approach by focusing on intertextuality. Though fully aware of what intertextuality is, à la Kristeva and Barthes, she follows Richard Hays in understanding intertextuality in a very limited sense, i.e., actual citations and allusions to the OT in Revelation. This approach does not deserve to be labeled as intertextuality.
She concludes that Revelation is ‘a book of apocalyptic prophecy in an epistolary framework’ (pp. 50–1), though it is of course impossible to discuss genre without discussing non-canonical parallel forms (e.g., the Jewish apocalypses). In Tõniste’s discussion of the literary structure of Revelation (pp. 51–79), she makes no use of narrative criticism, but proposes only an outline of the contents of the book.
The two focal chapters of the book contain lengthy discussions of ‘Intertextual Vorbild of Revelation’ (pp. 81–131) and the focus of the monograph, ‘Revelation 21–22 as the Ending of the Canon’ (pp. 132–198). The first is essentially a general catalogue of the use of OT and NT texts in Revelation. The second is a more complex and detailed discussion of the myriad canonical influences on Revelation, which the author claims reveal the full meaning of the canon, since literary endings typically deal with closure. She concludes that a canonically and intertextually guided narrative reading of Revelation does not arrive at any earth-shattering theological revelations about the end of the world (p. 202).