Running head: BOOK OF REVELATIONS
The Book of Revelations: an Interpretive Analysis
Michael C Cleaves
Regent University
New Testament
Dr. Rolen
December 1, 2014
BOOK OF REVELATIONS 2
The Book of Revelations: an Interpretive Analysis
The Book of Revelation has been interpreted in more ways than it has verses. Many of
the vast number of interpretations, however, have commonalities that make a general
examination of interpretations of the book possible. These commonalities filter the
interpretations into four main methods: historicism, futurism, idealism, and preterism. This
paper will provide a general exposition/evaluation of each.
Historicism
Historicism seeks to understand works within the context of the author’s time. It holds
that Revelation, Apocalyptic literature as whole, the Bible, and all religious works can only be
understood keeping redolent the historical period, politics and theology of both the author and
that of those s/he is criticizing, and the style and message the author intends to convey. Christian
historicism, while maintaining much of the intellectuality of secular historicism, views
Revelation from behind a lens of faith.
Christian historicism (henceforth shortened to historicism) views Revelation as symbolic
of events during both the prophet’s time and beyond. Examples of such historicists are Martin
Luther, John Calvin, John Wycliffe, Thomas Cranmer and Cotton Mather. Historicist interpreters
have posited that events such as the Protestant Reformation, the French Revolution, the
ordination of select popes, et cetera have been instances of John of Patmos’ prophecy manifest.
To historicists, the breaking of the seals (Rev 4-7) symbolize the fall of Rome, while the bowl
judgments (Rev 14-16) represent the fall of the Church.
The historicist approach was and is largely a protestant view, and it would be a pity to
neglect mentioning, if in passing, the irony of the conditions in which this view was born–
conditions akin to that in which all apocalyptic literature is also born: in reaction to a tyrannical
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power. In the case of the Historicists, the Church would be that power, and the reaction would be
the demonization of the papacy. A common element of hope between historicism and
apocalyptic literature is also present in that promises of punishment of the collective tyrant and
deliverance from it is central to both.
Perhaps the most prominent criticism of historicism is that the interpretation is often far
too ambiguous to maintain consistency from beholder to beholder. This is especially apparent as
the approach ages as adherents somewhat ironically tend to interpret the events in context
contemporary to their own time, not the texts’. John Walvoord (1966) voices this concern by
writing, “As many as fifty different interpretations of the book of Revelation therefore evolve,
depending on the time and circumstances of the expositor.” The view has become less and less
