The Future in Six Acts: The literary structure of the Book of Revelation
Channel: Galen Currah
Date: 2017-09-15

The Future in Six Acts: The literary structure of the Book of Revelation
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Music by Natrix
Please view the sequel: https://youtu.be/ZyhwZCNlsX0

Each one does with the Book of Revelation whatever he would like.
Some take if for a set of fantastic symbols of historical Christian hope.
Others make it a sequential calendar of end-time events.
Still others make use of the Book to teach their theology or to advance their political theory.
Whatever be our interpretive hermeneutic, the book is organised around an underlying structure that supports its overall narrative.

The author of the Book of Revelation chose to lay out his material in the form of a Greek tragedy or drama, a widely-popular form of entertainment throughout the Roman empire.
The Greek tragedy portrayed the career and fall of the proud, usually in five movements: 

Prologue (προλογος): one of the characters explains the background
Parodos (παροδος): the main characters and groups are introduced
Episodes (επισοδα): the drama unfolds in three or more acts
Interludes (στάσιμa): a choir explains or comments on the situation
Exodus (εξοδος): the drama is brought to a close

Interpreters recognize the episodes of the Book of Revelation, that is, its literary units and paragraphs, by noting their linguistic markers.
These linguistic markers include presence or absence of various Greek conjunctions, grammatical subject, change of scene between heaven and earth, interludes, shift of vocabulary, temporal aspect, and words belonging to a same semantic domain.
Thus, it proves possible to elaborate a tentative outline of the Book of Revelation along lines of the following rubrics (and interludes).

PROLOGUE (προλογος) Jesus reveals things to come. 1:1-3 (1.3 “Blessed”)
PARODOS (παροδος) Jesus reigns from Heaven. 1:4-8 (1.8 “I AM”)
EPISODES (επισοδα)
1. Jesus dwells amongst churches on earth. 1:9 – 3:22 (3:20-21 “Behold”)
2. Jesus initiates end-time events. 4:1 – 7:17 (7:15-17 “Therefore”)
3. Jesus completes end-time events. 8:1 – 11:18 (11:16-18 “Thanks”)
4. Jesus reigns over all of history, saving his own. 11:19 – 15:4 (15:3-4 “Great”)
5. Jesus identifies his enemies, and he warns them. 15:5 – 19:10 (19:9-10 “Blessed”)
6. Jesus destroys his enemies, and he reigns forever. 19:11 – 22:7 (22:7 “Blessed”) 
EXODUS (εξοδος) Jesus rewards his own. 22:8-21

The Book of Revelation foresees several end-time events happening during a period of a time, times and a half time, that is, three and a half years, 42 months, or 1,260 days. The several episodes overlap, and each episode occurs on all or a part of this calendar.

From this structure of the Book of Revelation, we can draw several hypotheses for its interpretation.
1. The Book forms an integrated whole of several episodes.
2. Episodes begin in Heaven, move to earth and end with an interlude of praise.
3. Heavenly scenes are described symbolically, and earthly scenes literally.
4. Episodes overlap, such that all end-time events will occur during a same period of three and a half years.
5. John described same end-time personages and events in different ways: militarily, politically and spiritually.
6. Jesus’ faithful followers will have to endure some of the end-time difficulties.
7. Jesus saves eternally those who remain faithful to him.
8. Jesus will remove all his believers from earth before God pours out his furious wrath on the non-repentant. 
9. Jesus will one day triumph over all of his enemies, and he will reign over heaven and earth forever.

“Behold, he is coming with the clouds, and every eye will see him, even those who pierced him, and all tribes of the earth will wail on account of him. Even so. Amen.” Revelation 1:7