,.
‘I
EMD THE BIBLICAL ROOTS OF TWELVE MONKEYS:
r 1Iie atitli itit (lie lii11kiI Reveiition iden—
tiies liuasefl liv name at the outset:
“‘Cli’ revelittim ol .lestis Christ, vliicli God
uavc liiiii tii show to his servants thal must
SOUfl ta
:LtC; itid lie miiade it I(nO’Vfl lv
sending his arge to us servant lohn.” The
hook, he later reveas, was \vrttten while he
“was in the island called P;iirnos ‘in account
oft he \‘OiLI Id ( IlLI ii id (10 teSt iuiohiV o .Je—
sos” ( Rev. I: ) ). lob ii aplu;mremutlv had
been exiled Ii’ the island during a Roman
persecution ill (‘lirictiamus in Asia Minor.
I’lw must Ii <clv date or this vitild have
been dtmrini the reign d l)oniitian (\.mx l —
96). Since lie “as a mu eni per ir wluiu demand
ed to lie worshiped as a god and seems to
have persectited Christians. Church tradi
tion gives a date br John’s exile to Patmos:
the 14th year of lDoiuuitian’s reign, or aD. 95.
Patmos is a small island in the Aegean
Sea just till the coast of Turkey, located
about 37 nui les sottthvest of the ancient city
of Milettis. It is iii the general region of the
“seven elitirelies hit are in Asia”(Rev. ]:4)
named hi’ _lilnn l4hiestts, Snuvrna, l’erga—
n-turn. ilivatira, S;irchis. t’Luladelphia,
Laud icea ‘Cli is mist have been the area
-
where Jili n practiced Itis niinistrv.
Though the au I hor’s name is known, it is
not clear vli ich hIm he was, for this was a
,
con 111011 miii’ e in 1 IL’ ea rlv church, and
there are st-ye ra I nd iv idu a Is tiE that name
who could have written tIte book. Church
tradition prefers 0 ideiiti iv him as John the
son ol Zebedee. line of the 12 apostles, who
is also oltemu named as the writer of the
fourth Gospel and lie tiree letters of John.
However, this lemitir;cation is prolulematic
since John tiE I a tEilils does not refer to him —
sell as an apostle and even seems to speak of
the 12 in the past tense: “And the wall of the
city had twelve lou tidations, and on them
the twelve names il the twelve apostles of
SOURCE: WHO’S WHO IN THE BIBLE:
r -
the Lamb” (Rev. 21:14). It is quite probable,
therelore. that John of Patinos was a distinct
individtiai in the early church who is known
only throtigh his writing.
What kind of individual was John of Pat
-
mos? Since he calls his work a “prophecy”
(Rev. 1:3), he must have been one of those
earix’ Christian prophets who offered vari
ous forms ol inspired utterance in the name
of God or Jesus. Some, like Agabus, were
itinerant preachers; others, like the Chri31.
ian prophets in Corinth, were identified
with a specific locale. John appears to have
been an itinerant prophet, since he had p
parentlv visited all of the seven churches to
—
which he wrote. However, there is no Cvi.
dence that he had ever been a resident of
any of those communities.
John was an apocalyptist, one who Wrote
in a style quite popular in the centuries just
before and alter Jesus. Revelation is the Only
such book in the New Testament; Daniel i5
the best known Old Testament apocalyptic
book, 2 Esdras in the Apocrypha being an
and
other. Many other such books were Once
known and widely read by both Jews and
Christians. though they remained outside
the biblical canon. Apocalyptic literature
was a response to persecution and oppres
sion. These writings invariably presented
divinely inspired visions in which the evis
of the present Were explained in terms of
God’s plans for the end of the age—called
eschatology by theologians, from the Greek
‘void eschuros, for “last” or “end.” At that
time God would defeat evil, assert his lull
power and authority over the world, and re
lieve the righteous of their suffering and re
store them to their proper position of
hiessedness. In presentin9 this message, the
prophet. or seer, would utilize a rich tradi
tion of symbolic language. His purpose was
AN ILLUSTRATED BIOGRAPHICAL DICTIONARY
PATMOS, AUTHOR OF TflEQQK_QF REifl
to provide comfort to those who were in the
midst of suffering at the hands of a power
that was beyond their controL
John drew on this literary tradition to
give solace to the seven churches then suffer
ing severe persectition. He mentioned in the
letter to Pergamum that one of their number,
Antipas. had already died for the faith; oth
ers faced imprisonment as well as possible
death—in part, lIar their refusal to oiler a
sacrifice to the image of the emperor, a sim
ple act required of all good citizens. John
described a state of affairs in which the gov
ernment was “drunk with the blood of the
saints and the blood of the martyrs of Jesus’
(Rev. 17:6) and called for endurance, as
suring Christians that “blessed are the dead
that die in the Lord” (Rev. 14:13). LIlti
mately, he presented a vision that the evil
government would come to an end and that
God would triumph by creating a new heav
en and a new earth.
The persecution of Domitian did eventu
ally come to an end. httt the fate of John is
unknown. According to some traditions, lIe
was released frtitn e*ile and continued for
some time as a leader of the church in Eph
esus. Whatever his fate, his book survives as
a testimony to a faith that can endure no
matter how catastrophic the circumstances.
On i,ii ,sla,,t of e.ik, job.:
ofPat:no crcce,,e the,: iiou,s
that hrs;nre:i the book of
Revelation; a i’ainli,ig
by
Hans Mending (c. 1430-149 5).
 EMD O THE OIBLICAL ROOTS OF LWELS
MONKEYS: OF PATMOS, AUTHOR OF THQ1LOF
.jali
The seven bowls of plagues
5 After this, in my vision, the sanctuary, the Tent of
6 the Testimony, opened
in heaven, -and out came the seven angels with the seven plagues, wearing pure
7 white linen , fastened arou nd their waists with gold en girdles. ‘One of the four
animals gave the seven angels seven gold en bowls filled with the anger of God
8 who lives for ever and ever, ‘The s,noke from the
glory and the power of God
filled the temple so that no one could go into it
until the seven plagues of the
seven angels were completed.
Then I heard a voice from the sanc tuary shou ting to the seven angels,
“Go, and empty the seven bowls of God anger over ’s the earth.”
The first angel went and emp tied his bowl over the earth; at once, on all the
people who had been branded with the mark
of the beast and had worshiped
its statue, there came disgusting and virulent sores.
3 The seco nd angel emp tied his bowl over the sea, and it turned to blood, like
the blood of a corpse, and every living creat ure
4 in the sea died.
The third angel emptied his bowl into the rivers and
turned into blood. ‘Then water springs and they
I hear d the angel of wate r say, “You are the holy
6 He-Is-and-He-Was, the lost One, and this
is a just puni shment: ‘they spilled the
blood of the saints and the prop hets, and bloo d is what you have given them
to drink; it is what they dese rve.” ‘And I hear d the altar itself say, “Truly, Lord
God Almighty, the punishments you give are
true and just.”
The fourth angel emp tied his bowl over the sun and it was made
9 people with its flames; -but though people were scorc to scorch
hed by the fierce heat of it,
they cursed the name of God who had the power to caus such
e plagues, and
they wou ld not repent and prais e him.
10 The filth angel emptied his bow l over the thron e of the beas t and its whole
empire was plun ged into dark ness . Men were bitin g their tong
ii ues for pain.
but instead of repenting for what they had done, they cursed the God
of heaven
because of their pains and sores.
12 The sixth angel emptied his bowl over the great river Euphrates
13 ; all the water
dried up so that a way was mad e for the kings of the East to com e in. ‘Then
from the jaws of dragon and beast and false prophet I saw three foul spiri
14 ts come;
they looked like frogs -and in fact were dem on spiri ts, able to work miracles,
going out to all the kings of the world to call them toge ther for the war of the
15 Great Day of God the Almighty.—’This is how it will be:
I shall come like
ajjçffl4pg y.JsJ he_ has
16 sojjje doa_nQL
o_guLaaked and expose his shame.—’ ey cal1rtEi
kings together at the place calle d, fieb rew
I?
in Tig ildo n.
The seventh angel emptied his bowl into the air, and a voice shou
18 ted from
the sanctuary , “The end has com e.” -Titen there were flashes of
peals of thunder and the most violent earth uake that anyone has ever 1jAfl1pJ and
19 seen since 7
there aye em men on the earth.C qme Grea t Qjyw as siiTn E6T hrec parts
aodtl1ejUetoLJh.w,QLltSnhiP5!d Babylon the GiëifaflO
rfvTgOtten:
20 God made her drink the full wine cup of his ange r. -Eve ry island vani
21 the mountains disappeared; -and hail, with great hailstones weighing shed and
a talent
each, fell from the sky on the people. They cursed God for send
ing a plague
of hail; it was the most terrible plague-
SOURCE: WliQZ$iNUi2.JN_IH?i8LE: AN ILLUSTRIED BIOGRAPHICAL
DTQTIQNARY
L .
j
 PARALLEL VISIONS: BIBLICAL AND CINEMATiC PRESENTATIONS OF APOCALYPSE
(A post-viewing summary sheet)

The Sock of Revelation Twelve Monkeys

(Written in 95 AD) (Produced in 1995 AD)

--author—John of Patmos --protagonist--James Cole

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