Revelation

John Christopher Thomas and Frank D. Macchia

William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company

Grand Rapids, Michigan

© 2016 John Christopher Thomas and Frank D. Macchia

All rights reserved

Published 2016 by

Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co.

2140 Oak Industrial Drive N.E., Grand Rapids, Michigan 49505

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Thomas, John Christopher, author. | Macchia, Frank D., 1952–

Title: Revelation / John Christopher Thomas, and Frank D. Macchia.

Description: Grand Rapids, Michigan: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2016. |

Series: The two horizons New Testament commentary

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2015034476 | ISBN 9780802825544 (paperback)

Subjects: LCSH: Bible. Revelation—Commentaries. |

BISAC: RELIGION / Biblical Commentary / New Testament.

Classification: LCC BS2825.53 .T46 2016 |

DDC 228/.07—dc23 LC record available at http://lccn.loc.gov/2015034476

www.eerdmans.com

The Two Horizons New Testament Commentary

Joel B. Green and Max Turner, General Editors

Two features distinguish The Two Horizons New Testament Commentary series: theological exegesis and theological reflection.

Exegesis since the Reformation era and especially in the past two hundred years emphasized careful attention to philology, grammar, syntax, and concerns of a historical nature. More recently, commentary has expanded to include social-scientific, political, or canonical questions and more.

Without slighting the significance of those sorts of questions, scholars in The Two Horizons New Testament Commentary locate their primary interests on theological readings of texts, past and present. The result is a paragraph-by-paragraph engagement with the text that is deliberately theological in focus.

Theological reflection in The Two Horizons New Testament Commentary takes many forms, including locating each New Testament book in relation to the whole of Scripture—asking what the biblical book contributes to biblical theology—and in conversation with constructive theology of today. How commentators engage in the work of theological reflection will differ from book to book, depending on their particular theological tradition and how they perceive the work of biblical theology and theological hermeneutics. This heterogeneity derives as well from the relative infancy of the project of theological interpretation of Scripture in modern times and from the challenge of grappling with a book’s message in Greco-Roman antiquity, in the canon of Scripture and history of interpretation, and for life in the admittedly diverse Western world at the beginning of the twenty-first century.

The Two Horizons New Testament Commentary is written primarily for students, pastors, and other Christian leaders seeking to engage in theological interpretation of Scripture.

This commentary is dedicated to our daughters—

Paige Diane Thomas Scaperoth

Lori Danielle Thomas Brown

Desiree Verena Macchia

Jasmine Xian Macchia