A Monthly Seminar Series, Hosted by Stewart Brand. + About this Series | Subscribe to the Podcast
The Long Now Foundation's monthly Seminars were started in 02003 to build a compelling body of ideas about long-term thinking; to help nudge civilization toward our goal of making long-term thinking automatic and common instead of difficult and rare.
Revelations about the Book of Revelation
Probably the most consequential vision of the future ever written is the Bible’s Book of Revelation. If God didn’t write it (through the sainted instrument of someone named John), then who did, and why?
Elaine Pagels has a persuasive answer, spectacularly illustrated. The author of The Gnostic Gospels; Beyond Belief; and Revelations: Visions, Prophecy, and Politics in the Book of Revelation, Pagels analyzes other revelations of the time (they were common) and examines how John’s particular version of apocalypse made it into the world’s most popular book. John had his own agenda. It wasn’t Christian.
This talk was given at Cowell Theatre in Fort Mason Center in San Francisco, California on Monday August 20, 02012
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"The Book of Revelation is war literature," Pagels explained. John of Patmos was a war refugee, writing sixty years after the death of Jesus and twenty years after 60,000 Roman troops crushed the Jewish rebellion in Judea and destroyed Jerusalem.
In the nightmarish visions of John’s prophecy, Rome is Babylon, the embodiment of monstrous power and decadence. That power was expressed by Rome as religious. John would have seen in nearby Ephesus massive propaganda sculptures depicting the contemporary emperors as gods slaughtering female slaves identified as Rome’s subject nations. And so in the prophecy the ascending violence reaches a crescendo of war in heaven. Finally, summarized Pagels, "Jesus judges the whole world; and all who have worshipped other gods, committed murder, magic, or illicit sexual acts are thrown down to be tormented forever in a lake of fire, while God’s faithful are invited to enter a new city of Jerusalem that descends from heaven, where Christ and his people reign in triumph for 1000 years."
Just one among the dozens of revelations of the time (Ezra’s, Zostrianos’, Peter’s, a different John’s), the vision of John of Patmos became popular among the oppressed of Rome. Three centuries later, in 367CE, Bishop Athanasius of Alexandria confirmed it as the concluding book in the Christian canon that became the New Testament.
As a tale of conflict where one side is wholly righteous and the other wholly evil, the Book of Revelation keeps being evoked century after century. Martin Luther declared the Pope to be the Whore of Babylon. Both sides of the American Civil War declared the opposing cause to be Bestial, though the North had the better music---"He hath loosed the fateful lightning of His terrible swift sword." African-American slaves echoed John’s lament: "How long before you judge and avenge our blood on the inhabitants of the earth?"
But like many Christians through the years, Pagels wishes that John’s divisive vision had not become part of the Biblical canon. Among the better choices from that time, she quoted from the so-called "Secret Revelation of John": "Jesus says to John, ‘The souls of everyone will live in the pure light, because if you did not have God’s spirit, you could not even stand up.’
"The other revelations are universal, instead of being about the saved versus the damned."
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• 10 months ago
I'm surprised, not necessarily pleasantly, by the theme of this seminar. While Dr. Pagels' talk will doubtless be of theological interest, it is difficult for me to imagine how this subject fits with the broader missions of the series ("to build a compelling body of ideas about long-term thinking…").
As secular person, I question the value of this subject. From what I know of other members, I suspect I'm not alone. It certainly falls outside the seminar themes that attracted me to Long Now in the first place.
I learned from a web search that Mr. Brand and Dr. Pagels were both members of the spiritually focused Lindisfarne Association, though I do not know whether they were contemporaries; I wonder whether that played a role in her selection. I hope that the choice of Dr. Pagels as a speaker does not reflect a change in emphasis that will influence the subjects of future seminars in a similar direction.
As a skeptic, however, I'm also willing to reserve judgment. Perhaps I'll learn something; perhaps I will be surprised pleasantly. I'll be looking forward to Mr. Brand's introduction of Dr. Pagels, and to hearing his thoughts about the connections between this topic and the broader SALT series.
• 9 months ago
What was the name of the text that was an early Christian version of meditative thinking, or something along those lines?
• 9 months ago
Is there going to be a podcast for this seminar???? I couldn't make it in person!! DEVASTATED!! Almost left my wife and children to fend for themselves so that I could see *this* show (almost, but didn't).. When will I be able to listen to the Podcast??