Many of these symbols are mysterious, many can be deciphered, and some are even self-interpreted by the text itself. Nearly all of Revelation is highly symbolic nearly none of it is literal. If the letter’s contents had something bad to say about his captors, John had to make it mysterious, coded, and not easy to understand. Revelation was written by a political prisoner. As we will see, it is key to interpreting what he is talking about with the Mark of the Beast. We cannot ignore the time frame that John had in mind that God communicated to him. John is explicit throughout his letter that there is an urgency to his message. John was describing through the genre of apocalyptic literature what was about to happen soon-in the first century. John starts his letter stating that the revelation was to show God’s servants “what must soon take place” and to “take to heart what is written in it, because the time is near“ (Revelation 1:1-3). Revelation was written to real historical Church communities living near the end of the first century and had applicable purpose and meaning for their lives. The English word “apocalypse,” which originally didn’t mean “end of the world,” comes from this ancient writing style. Apocalypses feature revelatory visions within a narrative framework they utilize symbolic, figurative, and metaphoric language and interpret present, earthly circumstances in light of supernatural, heavenly realities. The name “Revelation” comes from the Greek word “apokalypsis,” which means “to make fully known, or reveal.” This is why the letter starts with the phrase, “the revelation of Jesus Christ.” Much of the letter is written in the style of “apocalyptic literature,” which was popular in post-Exilic Jewish culture. The initial verses indicate that this work belongs to three kinds of ancient literature: apocalypse, prophecy, and epistle, each of which is important for considering the sort of book Revelation is and how we should interpret it. Many readers struggle with or misinterpret Revelation because they misunderstand its literary genre. Ancient and modern interpreters have typically dated Revelation to the reigns of Nero (AD 54–68) or Domitian (AD 81–96). The book of the Bible called Revelation was originally a letter written in the first century by a man named John while living in exile on the island of Patmos to seven churches in the Roman province of Asia (Revelation 1:4). We will examine this theory, and you can decide for yourself what you think. There are so many interesting questions: Who is the Beast? What is his Mark? Where does the number 666 come from? When will it come? How will it be given to everyone? While there have been many theories throughout the last few decades, Biblical scholars have come to a widely believed consensus. Let the person who has insight calculate the number of the beast, for it is the number of a man. It forced all people, great and small, rich and poor, free and slave, to receive a mark on their right hands or on their foreheads, so that they could not buy or sell unless they had the mark, which is the name of the beast or the number of its name. Is it a barcode? Is it a microchip? Is it a one-world currency? For many Evangelical Christians who believe the end of the world is coming soon, there is perhaps nothing more fascinating than trying to decipher what could be “signs of the times.” Topics such as the Tribulation, the Rapture, and the Anti-Christ capture the imagination of pop-culture Christianity, but perhaps none more so than the Mark of the Beast.
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