Before Jerusalem Fell

Revelation Studies 13
other book, whether in sacred or profane literature, has received in
whole or in part so many different interpretations. Doubtless no other
book has so perplexed biblical students throughout the Christian
centuries down to our own time. “4 9
Some biblical scholars are severe in their analysis of the interpretive
attempts on Revelation among commentators. Walter F. Adeney
noted that “imagination runs riot with the elaborate fancies of this
marvelous book. “5° Anthropologist and commentator Vacher Burch
in his thought-provoking Anthropology and the Apocalypse lamented:
“The Book of thz Revelation of Jesus Christ is the most dificult writing
in the New Testament. No plainer proof of this is needed than the
fact that most often it has been artificially sequestered so as to yield
strange chronology and stranger sense, by the ignorant and the wise.
The long history of its interpretation seems to demonstrate that the
majority has desired it to be only a semi-magical writing.”51 With
evident concern, Donald W. Richardson observed that “the ‘lunatic
fringe’ of thinking on the times and seasons and last things of history
has always revelled in the Revelation.”5 2
With a concern akin to that
of Richardson, Greville Lewis complained that “through the centuries
this book has been the happy hunting ground of the cranks who
believed that its cryptic messages were meant to refer to the events
of their own troubled age.”5 3 William Barclay follows suit in his
statement that it has “become the playground of religious eccentries.”5
4
On and on the calls to caution stretch: O. T. Allis, Ralph Earle,
G. R. Beasley-Murray, A. Berkeley Mickelson, 55
and a host of other
commentators and theologians agree to its perplexing difficulty. C.
49. Isbon T. Beckwith, The Apoca~jue of John: Stuo!res m Introduction (Grand Rapids:
Baker, [1919] 1967), p. 1.
50. Adeney, Bzblical Introduction 2467.
51. Burch, Anthropolo~, p. vii.
52. Donald W. Richardson, The Rewlation of Jesus Chn.d (Richmond: John Knox,
[1939] 1964), p. 12.
53. Greville P. Lewis, An Approach to New I%tame.t (London: Epworth, 1954), pp.
244-245.
54. William Barclay, The Rerxlatwn of John, 2 vols. Daily Study Bible (Philadelphia:
Westminster, 1960) 1:1.
55. “The Book of Revelation is a hard book to interpret . .“ (O. T. Allis, Pro@e~
and t/w Church [Nutley, NJ: Presbyterian and Reformed, 1945], p. 210). Ralph Earle,
“Preface” to Harvey J. S. Blaney, Revelation, in Earle, ed., Thz Weslyan Bible L%nmenta~,
vol. 6, (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1966), p. 401. Of the interpreting of Revelation, A.