Full of biblical references
One key to understanding the book of Revelation is to interpret it through the Bible itself, as this book is full of references to the rest of the Bible. But is this really true, and would the original readers have understood it?
Compressed references
As we will see in many parts of the book, there are a lot of biblical references behind it, most of which are not simply referenced, but combined, reversed, or put into a new context.
But would the early reader be able to comprehend such condensed information?
The early readers
The early readers were able to grasp this information very well because
- The churches in Asia Minor, where all these are located, where the church consisted of Jewish believers and gentiles who also had close contact with the synagogues, you can see in the book of Acts.
- The churches in Smyrna and Philadelphia, in particular, were in close contact with synagogues that assumed a deep knowledge of the Old Testament. This is also the case when many Jews become Christians which assumes that the believers there are able to show that Jesus is the fulfillment of Old Testament prophecies.
- The reference to false prophets with the Old Testament reference Jezebel shows that (known) New and Old Testament references were twisted in these churches
- It would be very strange if John covered the letters to the churches with Old Testament references that they didn’t get, such as manna, Jezebel, temple, New Jerusalem, or Balaam.
- John saw himself as a prophet, which was probably accepted by the church, and therefore he was probably also a teacher and would have taught them the Old Testament, which also shows the exposure of false (known) teachings in the churches.
- We know from the book of Acts and other passages in the New Testament that Jews and gentiles were teached with the Old Testament (the Bible of the early Christians) in Berea, Ephesus, to with Timothy as a teacher and with Paul’s emphasis on the importance of the whole Bible.