My Take on a Single Author for the Book of Revelation

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klewis
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My Take on a Single Author for the Book of Revelation

Post by klewis »

I know that I am in the minority on this forum in the belief of a single author for the Apocalypse (another name for the Book of Revelation). Therefore, I have taken the time to provide a terse but lengthy argument as to the author of Revelation as a single author.
The Writing Process

There are many works that point out that John did not know Greek. His grammar sucked is merely a polite way of covering up how bad it really is. This is not the road I will take in my argument, but rather the literary and mechanical process that it was produced. To understand this we need to look into how John created content. Almost everyone agrees that Revelation has the most allusions to the Hebrew Scriptures and there are works that show how Revelation uses Zechariah ( Marko Jauhiainen, The Use of Zechariah in Revelation, Mohr Sidbeck, 2005) and how Revelation uses Isaiah (Jan Fekkes, Isaiah and Prophetic Traditions in the book of Revelations). Those works are merely looking for the commonality between Revelation and its source.

The way, I look at the formation of Revelation is different, I don’t see it as a finish product, but a process. How Revelation incorporates the Hebrew Scriptures is via a process and determining the process is essential to understanding the work and whether one or more authors were involved.

The process that John wrote Revelation is the same process in which the vast majority of the Hebrew Scriptures, and most of the Christian Scriptures, were written in. The process is known as Hebrew Poetry, which in essence is comprise of making two lists that have some kind of logical agreement with each other. The two lists can follow the same order (called in this post, a simple parallel) or one list can be in the reverse order (called in this post, an inverted parallel or a chiasmus). The individual items in the list can be complementary to each other or they can be opposite to each other. The fundamental advantage to Hebrew Poetry, is once you have one story, by making a few tweaks you have a second story. For example, the book of Ezekiel is a simple parallel to the latter half of the book of Exodus.
Exodus 19:1 - 40:38 Ezekiel (1:1 - 48:35) (Ordered by)
  • Moses at Mount Sinai (Exod 19:1-2).
  • Yahweh descends in a thick cloud and Moses ascends (Exod 19:7-20).
  • God sends Moses back to his people to give a message (Exod 19:21-25).
  • Moses is given the ten commandments on two stone tablets, written on both sides (Exod 20:1-26; 24:12-28; 32:15).
  • Ezekiel at a River (Ezek 1:1-3).
  • A cloud comes to Ezekiel and he is taken to it (Ezek 1:4-28).
  • God tells Ezekiel that he will send him to the Israelites (Ezek 2:1-7).
  • Ezekiel is given a scroll written on two sides (2:8 - 3:3).
  • God tells Moses that he will kill the Israelites because they are unfaithful (Exod 32:7-9)
  • God tells Ezekiel that he will destroy idolatrous Israel (Ezek 6:1 - 7:27).
  • Moses pleads with God to preserve his people (32:7-14).
  • God pleads with Ezekiel to tell his people (Ezek 3:4-15).
  • In anger, Moses breaks the ten commands written on both sides of the stone (Exod 32:15-20).
Ezekiel eats the two sided scroll which tastes like honey (2:8 - 3:3).
  • Aaron makes a golden god in the shape of a calf (Exod 32:1-6).*
  • Ezekiel told to make a low quality food and bake it with cows dung (Ezek 4:9-16).
  • The sons of Levi with a sword were to kill (Ezek 32:26-27):
    1. Every man’s brother.
    2. Every man’s companion.
    3. Every man’s neighbor.
  • They will be blotted out of the book (Exod 32:31-33).
  • Ezekiel with a barber razor / sword was told that god will do (Ezek 5:1-2):
    1. A third shall burn in the fire.
    2. A third killed with the sword.
    3. A third scattered to the wind to be killed by God’s sword.
  • God uses an ink blot on the Israelites forehead as a means of identifying who will be killed (Ezek 9:1-11).
  • Yahweh’s followers went to the tent of the meeting (Exod 33:7).
  • Moses stood at the door and Yahweh’s glory talked with him (Exod 33:8).
  • Everyone left the tent and shows mercy to the Israelites (Exod 33:7-23)
  • God shows Moses his glory (Exod 33:18-22).
  • God sends his executions to the six Jerusalem gates (Ezek 9:1-2).
  • The God’s glory ascends to talked with a man at the door (Ezek 9:3).
  • The man was told to mark everyone with ink on their forehead who committed abominations. The man was told not to show any mercy (Ezek 9:4-5).
  • The glory of God flees Jerusalem (Ezek 10:1-22).
  • God orders Israel to keep the Sabbath (Exod 16:23-29; 20:8-11; 31:14-16)
  • Breastplate of 12 stones (Exod 28:15-20).*
  • God promises the conquest of Canaan (Exod 23:20-33).*
  • Israel did not follow the Sabbath (Exek 20:13-30).
  • Same 12 stones as Exodus’ breastplate but found in the garden of Eden (Ezed 28:13).
  • God promises the restoration and protection of Israel (Ezek 29:3 - 39:29).
  • The building of the tabernacle (Exod 35:4 - 40:38).
  • The twelve tribes encamped around the city of God (Num 1:50 -3:38).
  • The offering by the princes of Israel (Num 2:3-34).
  • The city of God (Ezek 40:1 - 48:35).
  • The twelve tribes will camp around the city of God (Ezek 48:1-8).
  • The princes of Israel will provide offerings (Ezek 48:9-29).

*Exodus passages aligned to Ezekiel passages.

The author of Ezekiel, or Exodus, depending upon your perspective, simply took the text of one story and tweaked it to make the next story. This is not a practice that is confined to Exodus and Ezekiel, but it is how most of the Hebrew Scriptures were written and most of the Christian Scriptures (the Gospels, Luke-Acts, and some Pauline works) were also written this way. It also shows us, that Moses may not have much of an existence after the Pentateuch, but he is there, just conveyed in different Hebrew heroes.

The First Draft, The Ezekiel-Isaiah Draft (EID)

The author of Revelation, like the author of Ezekiel, creates the vast majority of his content from the whole of Ezekiel and Isaiah chapters 6 to 29. The process, first involved identifying the parallel between the Ezekiel and Isaiah passages and then putting it into a form that would allow for more parallel formation. You can see the process and the text that formed the first draft of Revelation here https://drive.google.com/file/d/12JZcor ... sp=sharing . I have arrange content found in Revelation that maps to the content of Ezekiel and Isaiah in the order of Ezekiel and Isaiah which represents what the first draft must have looked like. If you print it out in double sided format, and bind it, I had made it so that the Ezekiel content would be on the left page and the Isaiah content would be on the right side. This is important for further exploration.

There are many things were mentioning about the first draft, but here are the key points that affect this topic.
  • The selection of Ezekiel, was due in part to the similarity between the destruction of Jerusalem by the Babylonians and by the Romans.
  • The author was well aware of the parallel between Ezekiel and Isiah 6 – 29.
  • The vast majority of the content selection from Isaiah was to depict Jesus.
The Second Draft, the Zechariah Draft (ZrD)

The next formation, John did was to produce a chiasmus with the content of the Ezekiel-Isaiah draft (EID) and Zechariah 1:1 to 12:10. John adjusted the order of the EID to conform to the reverse order of the Zechariah passage with the entry point of a passage used by Christians at the time:
I will pour on David’s house . . and they will look to me whom they have pierced (Zech 12:10).

The process of shifting the text of the EID to the Zechariah Draft (ZrD) can be seen in the first two pages of this document: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1AUjJo ... zv_Dp/view. The result of the process rearranges the text of Ezekiel in line with the text of Revelation today. The process, answers one of the great questions of Revelation, in that why does the order of Ezekiel, or how come the order of Ezekiel, differ from the order in Revelation. This is not proof, but it is evidence. Perhaps, what is more telling is how Revelation uses Zechariah chapters 2 to 4 into the 42, 1260 day, 3 ½ day parallel (see https://drive.google.com/file/d/1WpWPI ... sqTHo/view).

Do we see this type of writing, where a book is formed in opposite order of another book in the Hebrew Scriptures, yes we do. Genesis-Exodus is the text book example of two books forming a Chiasmus. So this is not a process that is out of the ordinary or a process that was invented by the author of Revelation.

The Third Draft, the Deuteronomy-Joshua Draft (DJD).
So far, we have a simple parallel, to form the first draft, and a chiasmus to form the second draft. So how was the third draft created? Just as a chiasmus, in the ZrD, is the opposite of a simple parallel in the EID, John next draft would be the opposite of the ZrD.
John took the last six chapters of Deuteronomy and the first six chapters of Joshua and inserted the material backwards into the Zechariah Draft. At one point in the process he stops and then goes forward. I have theorized that it was to fill up the blank space in the initial DJD process (see [url https://drive.google.com/file/d/1-CVjXj ... sp=sharing[/url]).
The selection of the Deuteronomy-Joshua material was to show a transition from Moses to Joshua / Jesus. All activities that Joshua did in the material, Jesus also did. This is where we also get the synonym of Lamb for the name of Jesus.

The Fourth Draft, the Exodus-Draft (ExD)

With all the major parallel formation tactics exhausted, John took the book of Exodus and used it to overlay a theological theme. This is similar to the Gospel of Matthew overlaying the life of Moses onto the life of Jesus. Pharaoh tried to kill Moses when he was an infant, Herod tried to kill Jesus when he was an infant. Moses gave us the law, Jesus was to fulfill the law. Moses wrote five books, Jesus gave five great talks. Where as in Revelation, God gives us his new name just like he gave Moses in Exodus 3:14 (Rev 1:9). Much of Exodus has to do with the creation of the tabernacle, and so much of Revelation has to do with Jesus servicing the tabernacle (see page 10 in https://drive.google.com/file/d/1QLNLg ... sp=sharing).

The Fifth Draft, the Daniel Draft (DnD)

The Daniel draft was to interject missing content into Revelation. Such as but not limited to: The Finishing Phase

Once finish the book there was lots of internal parallels done by the author, such as but not limited to: Conclusion

There is nothing in the mechanical process in the development of Revelation that differs. All passages found within Revelation, differing, or separated content, can be explained by this process. Furthermore, the process that was used to write Revelation is no different in the process in writing the myriad of books that proceeded it. All differences, separated content, conflicting content can be understood in the writing of Revelation as depicted in this short overview.

The selection of the passages that early Christians would have used as the proof texts for Jesus, in every stage of the process. Illustrates that the author intended from the very beginning as a Christian document. The process itself morphed the text, shifted the text, to what we have now. It is possible, that the author did not know how the book would end.

As Robert M. Price said about my work:
What Kim has done is to distinguish broken patterns in the text. That is, he zeroes in on all the allusions/quotations from any single Old Testament source text and is able to show how these verses look as if they were used by the author to create, e.g., a chiasm, a ABC-C’B’A’ pattern, an initial sequence of words and ideas counting down, then counting back up again. (This is a common stylistic device in the New Testament.) But it only works in Revelation once you isolate the relevant verses. And the fact that it does work implies it is no coincidence, and that the intervening material must have been a subsequent addition by the same author, expanding his book. He was willing to sacrifice his original structural flourishes to accommodate new Old Testament material appropriate to the context. This material, too, may have been laid out in new patterns. In a still subsequent stage of revision, the author will have again felt free to obscure his previous structures in favor of the intended content.
The illustrations provided in this post, is a subset of what I cover in my book, How John Wrote the Book of Revelation.
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Ben C. Smith
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Re: My Take on a Single Author for the Book of Revelation

Post by Ben C. Smith »

klewis wrote: Mon Dec 30, 2019 9:28 amAlmost everyone agrees that Revelation has the most allusions to the Hebrew Scriptures and there are works that show how Revelation uses Zechariah ( Marko Jauhiainen, The Use of Zechariah in Revelation, Mohr Sidbeck, 2005) and how Revelation uses Isaiah (Jan Fekkes, Isaiah and Prophetic Traditions in the book of Revelations). Those works are merely looking for the commonality between Revelation and its source.
Your overall theory, such as I understand it, focuses on the author of Revelation using entire, single books all at once from the Hebrew scriptures (Zechariah, Exodus, Ezekiel, and so on). What does it do about the myriad of smaller allusions to Jewish books? The seven angels of the presence, for example, almost certainly derive from the notion in Tobit and 1 Enoch and other works of there being seven (arch)angels who minister personally before the Lord. If there is a structural significance to the "major" systems of allusions to Ezekiel and the others, is there some kind of significance to the "minor" allusions which bespeckle the Apocalypse?
As Robert M. Price said about my work:
What Kim has done is to distinguish broken patterns in the text. That is, he zeroes in on all the allusions/quotations from any single Old Testament source text and is able to show how these verses look as if they were used by the author to create, e.g., a chiasm, a ABC-C’B’A’ pattern, an initial sequence of words and ideas counting down, then counting back up again. (This is a common stylistic device in the New Testament.) But it only works in Revelation once you isolate the relevant verses. And the fact that it does work implies it is no coincidence, and that the intervening material must have been a subsequent addition by the same author, expanding his book. He was willing to sacrifice his original structural flourishes to accommodate new Old Testament material appropriate to the context. This material, too, may have been laid out in new patterns. In a still subsequent stage of revision, the author will have again felt free to obscure his previous structures in favor of the intended content.
I have highlighted the part that I find psychologically dubious. If I had gone to the trouble of crafting a careful chiastic pattern out of my scriptural source materials, I would be quite reluctant to spoil that pattern for the sake of adding later material. I would have either (A) added the material in a way that would not spoil the existing structure or (B) blended it all together in a new structure which would make sense on its own merits. I would not have sacrificed my own work.
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klewis
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Re: My Take on a Single Author for the Book of Revelation

Post by klewis »

Ben C. Smith wrote: Mon Dec 30, 2019 9:39 am
klewis wrote: Mon Dec 30, 2019 9:28 amAlmost everyone agrees that Revelation has the most allusions to the Hebrew Scriptures and there are works that show how Revelation uses Zechariah ( Marko Jauhiainen, The Use of Zechariah in Revelation, Mohr Sidbeck, 2005) and how Revelation uses Isaiah (Jan Fekkes, Isaiah and Prophetic Traditions in the book of Revelations). Those works are merely looking for the commonality between Revelation and its source.
Your overall theory, such as I understand it, focuses on the author of Revelation using entire, single books all at once from the Hebrew scriptures (Zechariah, Exodus, Ezekiel, and so on). What does it do about the myriad of smaller allusions to Jewish books? The seven angels of the presence, for example, almost certainly derive from the notion in Tobit and 1 Enoch and other works of there being seven (arch)angels who minister personally before the Lord. If there is a structural significance to the "major" systems of allusions to Ezekiel and the others, is there some kind of significance to the "minor" allusions which bespeckle the Apocalypse?
As Robert M. Price said about my work:
What Kim has done is to distinguish broken patterns in the text. That is, he zeroes in on all the allusions/quotations from any single Old Testament source text and is able to show how these verses look as if they were used by the author to create, e.g., a chiasm, a ABC-C’B’A’ pattern, an initial sequence of words and ideas counting down, then counting back up again. (This is a common stylistic device in the New Testament.) But it only works in Revelation once you isolate the relevant verses. And the fact that it does work implies it is no coincidence, and that the intervening material must have been a subsequent addition by the same author, expanding his book. He was willing to sacrifice his original structural flourishes to accommodate new Old Testament material appropriate to the context. This material, too, may have been laid out in new patterns. In a still subsequent stage of revision, the author will have again felt free to obscure his previous structures in favor of the intended content.
I have highlighted the part that I find psychologically dubious. If I had gone to the trouble of crafting a careful chiastic pattern out of my scriptural source materials, I would be quite reluctant to spoil that pattern for the sake of adding later material. I would have either (A) added the material in a way that would not spoil the existing structure or (B) blended it all together in a new structure which would make sense on its own merits. I would not have sacrificed my own work.
There are lots of little things, but keep in mind, as Ezekiel copied from Exodus, and Isaiah 6 to 29 copied from Ezekiel. There was hundreds of others copying from everywhere else. Revelation 14 is 1 Enoch 100 backwards. So the author knew 1 Enoch and that I point out in my book.

The seven angels, was a product of the Deuteronomy-Joshua Draft where the priests in Joshua are depicted as angels in Revelation. The imagery does not need to come from somewhere else. The seven spirits in Revelation 10:4-5 is a product of the EID and DJD, the content of the text comes from Ezekiel 3:12-14 (see p.42 in https://drive.google.com/file/d/12JZcor ... uSXCx/view and the seven angels from Joshua's march where one angel per one.

The part you find dubious, is that a theological interpretation based upon a religious ideology, or a belief in how the writers are thinking. Is it something you need to see more for your self. If so, I have provided many attachments illustrating this, and in my earlier post I showed the author of Ezekiel doing the same thing to Exodus. The writer of Ezekiel tweak Exodus into the story of that he wanted to convey. To say that he did not is to ignore the many similarities and the numerous items in that order. Am I wrong on this, please tell me.






Revelation 14 is 1 Enoch 100 backwards.
klewis
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Re: My Take on a Single Author for the Book of Revelation

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An example of the tweaking and changing in the Hebrew Scripture is to look at an earlier version of Genesis-Exodus. Below is a parallel formation between Genesis and Numbers depicting the first half of Genesis and how it is a parallel formation of a section in Numbers. What is important here is that this parallel shows a more primitive version of the Hebrew faith. Everything is centered around the tent of meeting which serves as the palace and temple. The priests are civil servants and Moses is everything.

Adam, a Snake, and a Tree (Gen 3:1-24) Moses the Bronze Serpent and Striking the Rock
  • Adam and Eve lived in a garden with everything provided (J) (Gen 3:1-3).
  • The snake was sent to cause Adam and Eve to sin (J) (Gen 3:1-4).
  • All who eat of the fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil were to be killed (J) (Gen 2:17; 3:3).
  • People in the wilderness without food or water complaining to God (E) (Num 21:5).
  • God sent venomous snakes to those who sinned against God (E) (Num 21:6).
  • All who looked upon the snake on a stick were healed (E) (Num 21:8-9).
  • Adam’s sin caused all subsequent generations to be exiled from the garden (3:23-4).
  • God places a cherubim, with a flaming sword, east of the garden of Eden to prevent Adam and Eve to enter it (J) (Gen 3:23).
  • Adam’s son’s offerings to God (J)(Gen 4:1-5).
  • Moses struck the rock without speaking to it denying Moses from entering the promise land (P) (Num 20:6-12).
  • The king of Edom denies entry into Edom by the sword (J) (Num 20:18-21).
  • Aaron dies and the priesthood is passed to his son (RP) (Num 20:22-29).
  • Cain in fear that he will be captive travels, away from Adam, east of Eden (J)(Gen 4:17).
  • Cain built a city (J)(Gen 4:17).
  • Lineage of Cain - Lamech slays someone and thinks he will be avenged (J) (Gen 4:23-24).
  • The Canaanite king of Arad travels to the Israelites and took some of them captive (P) (Num 21:1).
  • The Israelites utterly destroyed the Canaanite cities (J) (Num 21:2-3)
  • King Sihon was killed by an Israelite’s sword and lived in all of his cities (J)(Num 21:23- 35).
The Yahwist Version of Noah’s Ark (Gen 6:1-8; 7:1-5, 7, 16-20, 22-23; 8:2-3, 9-13, 20-22; 9:18-27; 10:1-32). The Story of Phinehas (Num 22:1 - 26:65 )
  • Son’s of God mixed with the daughters of the Men (J)(Gen 6:2).
  • Yahweh closes the door of the Ark so that the wicked does not enter (J)(Gen 7:7, 16).
  • The whole world was flooded -- all flesh drowned (J)(Gen 7:22).
  • Yahweh makes an everlasting covenant with Noah (J)(Gen 9:11-16).
  • Genealogy of Noah’s sons (J)(Gen 10:1-32).
  • The men of the Israelites had sex with daughters of Moab (J)(Num 25:1).
  • Phinehas at the door of the Tent of Meeting, kept wickedness out (P)(Num 25:6-11).
  • 24,000 died of plague (P) (Num 25:9).
  • Yahweh makes an everlasting covenant with Phinehas (P)(Num 25:13).
  • The census of the children of Israel (P)(Num 26:1-65).

The important thing to note, was at some time, some Hebrew or group of Hebrews wanted to change things up a bit. So the text, which belonged in Exodus was moved to Numbers. The tabernacle was born and a new story of Noah's ark was created (P material). The result was the tweaking of the text to a whole new level.

Now that shows that the earlier writers had no problem changing, but it does not show that in the time of John. That is what my work shows in literally hundreds of examples.
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Re: My Take on a Single Author for the Book of Revelation

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klewis wrote: Mon Dec 30, 2019 10:25 amThe part you find dubious, is that a theological interpretation based upon a religious ideology, or a belief in how the writers are thinking. Is it something you need to see more for your self. If so, I have provided many attachments illustrating this, and in my earlier post I showed the author of Ezekiel doing the same thing to Exodus. The writer of Ezekiel tweak Exodus into the story of that he wanted to convey. To say that he did not is to ignore the many similarities and the numerous items in that order. Am I wrong on this, please tell me.
It is not theological at all; nor is it based on religious ideology. As I said, it is psychological. I find it hard to believe that an author would sabotage his own carefully wrought structure. It is not impossible, but it strikes me as improbable.

But another author either not noticing or not caring about the original structure? That happens all the time.
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Re: My Take on a Single Author for the Book of Revelation

Post by lsayre »

The old adage that correlation does not imply causation always comes to mind when I see comparisons such as these.
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Re: My Take on a Single Author for the Book of Revelation

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Ben C. Smith wrote: Mon Dec 30, 2019 11:11 am
It is not theological at all; nor is it based on religious ideology. As I said, it is psychological. I find it hard to believe that an author would sabotage his own carefully wrought structure. It is not impossible, but it strikes me as improbable.

But another author either not noticing or not caring about the original structure? That happens all the time.
Apologies for suggesting, the Book of Revelation has more interpretations than people interpreting it.

John followed a specific process in each of the drafts. That says a lot about his personality. One can think of John as looking at what is happening and taking the scriptures that matches what he is seeing. Sort of a Pesher process to reveal the hidden message of scriptures by aligning the texts in a certain way. As the story developed, new insights brought in new scriptures. The problem with this is that he is organizing it into its own story. Who knows if John thought of it as a problem. There were definitely structural flaws to the story line that are never worked out. From my perspective, those flaws were the key to me developing my own story line on how it was written.

Revelation is an enigma in that everyone sees John as a lousy writer but for some reason thinks that he is a superior organizer. Thus, the flaws in his organization must be as a result of someone tampering with it. I see the process has its merits and drawbacks. For content creation, it is the fastest way to go. Take an existing story and copy the content and with a few tweaks, a new story is born. The drawback, is when the story grows and the content becomes unwieldy, new parallels are formed which break old parallels, source material changes radically, plot lines become difficult to resolve, and duplication of stories. For example there are two eyewitness accounts that John have concerning the New Jerusalem descending (see pages 62-63 in https://drive.google.com/file/d/12JZcor ... uSXCx/view). One is from Ezekiel and the other is from Isaiah. The two stories are two different accounts by the same person. John could have conflated the two (like he did with Ezekiel 1 & Isaiah 6, see pages 38-39, or Gog and Magog on page 61) but he formed other parallels with each of the accounts. Therefore, his observance to the practice he followed did not allow him psychologically to toss them out. This is what happens when the process causes one to paint himself into a corner.
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Re: My Take on a Single Author for the Book of Revelation

Post by klewis »

Ben,

One of the quirks that John used in writing Revelation was what I call an Author's notation, which is a repeating phrase showing where the source material was separated. The mighty angel is one such author's notation (see https://drive.google.com/file/d/1eC1GQr ... l_RJ1/view in which at one time it was in a single spot derived from Ezekiel 2:10 to 3:3. Later in the Zechariah draft it was split to become part of the flying scroll passage from Zechariah 5:3-4. It was split again to Revelation 18:23-24. Sometime in the process, John added Jeremiah 51:49, 63 into the passage because the context had a scroll in it. However, the scroll text was removed when it was moved to Revelation 18. This is one place in which John inserted one of those small passages into the book of Revelation. The insertion, represents his knowledge of Hebrew Scripture and it also represents his adherence to a process. I cover a few of these types of additions in the book but in no way I am exhaustive.
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Re: My Take on a Single Author for the Book of Revelation

Post by klewis »

Ben C. Smith wrote: Mon Dec 30, 2019 9:39 am
I have highlighted the part that I find psychologically dubious. If I had gone to the trouble of crafting a careful chiastic pattern out of my scriptural source materials, I would be quite reluctant to spoil that pattern for the sake of adding later material. I would have either (A) added the material in a way that would not spoil the existing structure or (B) blended it all together in a new structure which would make sense on its own merits. I would not have sacrificed my own work.
Can I ask, what kind of examples would you like to see illustrating this? I am just curious.

Dr. Robert M. Price spent a good deal of time reading my book. Much of the time was looking at and verifying the hundreds of examples provided. As a practice, he does not give out 5 star reviews on Amazon (https://www.amazon.com/gp/profile/amzn1 ... tr?ie=UTF8). He is a prolific author (http://www.robertmprice.mindvendor.com/) and to him, I was a nobody, he had nothing to gain from such a nice review, but he saw merit in the book.
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Re: My Take on a Single Author for the Book of Revelation

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klewis wrote: Thu Jan 02, 2020 7:50 am
Ben C. Smith wrote: Mon Dec 30, 2019 9:39 am
I have highlighted the part that I find psychologically dubious. If I had gone to the trouble of crafting a careful chiastic pattern out of my scriptural source materials, I would be quite reluctant to spoil that pattern for the sake of adding later material. I would have either (A) added the material in a way that would not spoil the existing structure or (B) blended it all together in a new structure which would make sense on its own merits. I would not have sacrificed my own work.
Can I ask, what kind of examples would you like to see illustrating this? I am just curious.
Well, the best sort of examples would be cases from antiquity in which we are already pretty sure that a single author him/herself published the two or more versions of the work known to us, and in which certain clear structures from the first edition have been mangled in the second.

That may be asking a lot, since our evidence from antiquity is sparse to begin with, and our evidence for multiple editions probably authored by the same person is even sparser. So examples from other eras (medieval and modern, for example) would at least help by way of analogy.
Dr. Robert M. Price spent a good deal of time reading my book. Much of the time was looking at and verifying the hundreds of examples provided. As a practice, he does not give out 5 star reviews on Amazon (https://www.amazon.com/gp/profile/amzn1 ... tr?ie=UTF8). He is a prolific author (http://www.robertmprice.mindvendor.com/) and to him, I was a nobody, he had nothing to gain from such a nice review, but he saw merit in the book.
Close detective work like this can, with some degree of success, establish that patterns have been interrupted. I am not sure how it could, on its own, establish the common authorship of both parts (the original parts and the interrupting parts). Can you clarify?
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