Revelation - 2. Overview – d. John's Four Sources

2. Overview – John's Four Sources
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John’s Four Sources

John drew his information for his apocalyptic letter from these four sources:

• The Old Testament – John would have memorized the Torah, the Writings, and the Prophets from childhood. He knew them well. In these following passages of Revelation, we find striking similarity to passages in Isaiah, Daniel, Ezekiel, Zechariah, and the Psalms. Following are four examples of many. Compare these Old Testament passages to Revelation. It is a blessing to read these passages together:
  
  
  • Psalm 2 - Revelation 2:26-27; 12:5; 19:11-16
    
    
  • Ezekiel 27 about Tyres doom – similar to Revelation 18:1-24 about Rome’s demise.
    
    
  • Isaiah 54 - Revelation 21:18-21 – the New Jerusalem

¹⁸ The material of the wall was jasper, and the city was pure gold like clear glass. ¹⁹The foundation stones of the city wall were decorated with every kind of precious stone. The first foundation stone was jasper; the second, sapphire; the third, chalcedony; the fourth, emerald; ²⁰ the fifth, sardonyx; the sixth, sardius; the seventh, chrysolite; the eighth, beryl; the ninth, topaz; the tenth, chrysoprase; the eleventh, jacinth; the twelfth, amethyst. ²¹ And the twelve gates were twelve pearls; each one of the gates was a single pearl. And the street of the city was pure gold like transparent glass.

• • Isaiah 60 - Revelation 21:22-27 – the character of the New Jerusalem

²² I saw no temple in it, for the Lord God the Almighty and the Lamb are its temple. ²³ And the city has no need of the sun or of the moon to shine on it, for the glory of God has illuminated it, and its lamp is the Lamb. ²⁴The nations will walk by its light, and the kings of the earth will bring their glory into it. ²⁵ In the daytime (for there will be no night there) its gates will never be closed; ²⁶ and they will bring the glory and the honor of the nations into it; ²⁷ and nothing unclean, and no one who practices abomination and lying, shall ever come into it, but only those whose names are written in the Lamb’s book of life.

• The Second-Temple Period Jewish Literature found in the Dead Sea Scrolls at Qumran.
  
  
• Greco-Roman Mythology – John engages with these images familiar to the FCAM JCs and reuses them to tell the Gospel and turn them on their heads.
  
  
• The Christian worship and visions at the time.

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Blessings and love in Him,
Beth Ann