BOOK REVIEWS 117

will judge the world’). These texts point to an apparently generally held early
Christian belief that the Twelve and/or all or some believers would be involved in an
earthly reign and judgment, the details of which, however, are far from clear. Whether
this belief was as clear as John’s thousand-year reign, or can cast real light on it, still
remains unclear.
The work has an author index, an index of extra-biblical texts, a scriptural index
and a very brief (21 headings) subject index.
In keeping his other writings, W. has in this work made a notable contribution to
the study of the Book of Revelation, on its original setting, and message and its
abiding message for believers today, as also in his dialogue with current literature on
the work and in his rich bibliography for further readings.

Milltown Institute, Dublin, Ireland Martin McNamara

Revelation: the Apocalypse of Jesus Christ (Blackwell Bible Commentaries). By Judith

Since the late eighteenth century biblical exegesis in the West, outside the Catholic
Church and for the past six decades or so within it, has concentrated on the sense
intended by the original author(s) and, presumably understood by the original readers
or audience. In more recent times some commentaries have passed beyond this to how
the original text was understood in later generations. A number of books on the
history of biblical interpretation have also appeared. ‘Reception history’, more or less
synonymous with Wirkungsgeschichte (‘history of effects’, or ‘history of influence’),
are now recognised disciplines within the field of biblical hermeneutics. Sean Kealy
has published volumes on the history of interpretation of each of the Gospels. In a
recent essay on the matter in Scripture Bulletin (January 2006) C. Rowland recalls that
the famous Evangelische-Katholische Kommentar series which pioneered Wirkungs-
geschichte as part of the commentary genre includes history of interpretation as
something very much secondary to detailed exegesis of the original meaning of the
text. (W. also notes that the great commentary in this EKK series is that by Ulrich Luz
on the Gospel of Matthew. Luz reflects on the implications of this work of his on
Matthew and the importance of Wirkungsgeschichte for biblical interpretation in his
later Studies on Matthew, Grand Rapids, Eerdmans, 2002, a work that has
profoundly influenced Rowland himself.)
This new series Blackwell Bible Commentaries breaks new ground in the history of
biblical interpretation, in that Wirkungsgeschichte is central to it. The series editors
are the two authors of the present work together with John Sawyer. In their preface to
the series the editors inform the reader that this series, the first to be devoted primarily
to reception history of the Bible, is based on the premise that how people have
interpreted, and been influenced by, a sacred text like the Bible is often as interesting
and historically important as what it originally meant. The series emphasizes the
influence of the Bible on literature, art, music, and film, its role in the solution of
religious beliefs and practices, and its impact on social and political developments.
Drawing on work in a variety of disciplines, it is designed to provide a convenient and
scholarly means of access to material until now hard to find, and a much-needed
resource for all those interested in the influence of the Bible on western culture. The
most important and distinctive feature of the Blackwell Commentaries is that they will
present readers with many different interpretations of each text, in such a way as to
heighten their awareness of what a text, especially a sacred text, can mean and what it
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can do, in the many contexts in which it operates. For the twentieth century, K. Barth
and the Marxist philosopher Ernst Bloch are instanced. ‘Rehabilitating the
perspectives of Joachim of Fiore [and others] Bloch aimed to rehabilitate the
millenarian, apocalyptic/utopian inheritance on the fringes of orthodox Christianity.
His mammoth book The Principle of Hope (1986) explores how longing for a future
age of perfection has coloured the whole range of culture in both East and West and
contributed to Marxism as well as to the Judaeo-Christian tradition’. There follows a
section on the power of the Apocalypse on modern liberationist interpretation, the
Apocalypse in liturgy and biblical lectionaries, the Apocalypse in music, and finally a
lengthy treatment on artistic representations of the Apocalypse, notably Spanish
manuscript illumination of the tenth through the thirteenth centuries of the
commentary of Beatus of Liebena (composed in 776).
The body of the work takes us through Revelation chapter by chapter for all twenty-
two of them, with Rev 2–3 combined as one. For each chapter we are given first a brief
treatment of the ancient literary context, followed by ‘The Interpretations’, under
headings as indicated by the content of each chapter, over the entire gamut set as aim
by the authors: ancient literary context, spiritual and hortatory readings, actualiza-
tions, influence in poetry and art. Throughout there is an abundant bibliographical
reference for the pieces of information given.
The work will be of interest to the general reader, while students of the history of
exegesis and other branches of learning (poetry, history of art, liberation movements,
etc.) will find much there on any of the many chapters and verses. With regard to the
sealed scroll of 5:1 we are reminded that Victorinus regarded the sealed book ‘written
within and without’ as the Old Testament; the opening of the seals is the revelation of
its true content through Christ’s death and resurrection. In the seven seals early Irish
tradition say the seven things prophesied of Christ: his birth, baptism, passion, burial,
resurrection, ascension, second coming; thus in the Apocalypse commentary in Das
Bibelwerk (‘the Reference Bible’), but already in Apringius (sixth century). The
number of the beast 666 in 13:18 is generally taken as indicating, through the
technique of gematria, Nero (in Hebrew NRWN QSR, with numerical value of the
Hebrew letters 50, 200, 6, 50, 100, 60, 200), or when read as NRW, with the loss of
N ¼ 50 the (Western) variant 616. Victorinus says that in Latin the number of the
beast is DICLUX (again 666 by gematria), a named carried through in medieval
commentaries. We are also reminded of the practice of gematria by Irenaeus who
notes three possible names for Antichrist, all names whose letters add up to 666:
Evanthus, Teitan and Lateinos. Gematria continued to be practised down through the
Middle Ages (De monagramma, about AD 600; Das Bibelwerk, about 750), with
Tietan (thus written) as one of the names for Antichrist. The authors note that John
Bale (1495–1563) thinks that 666 indicates a Greek word transliterated as ‘arnume’
meaning ‘I deny’. It is much older than Bale, found (as Tietan is) in both De
monogramma and Das Bibelwerk (edited by R. Gryson, in Corpus Christianorum SL
107, 2003). In the controversy between Pope Gregory IX and the Emperor Frederick
II in the thirteenth century both used the image of the beast of 13:1, and related
animals, for one another. Suspicion of the papacy and its practices by radical
Franciscans and Wycliffites had them apply the images of the beast, Babylon, the
whore of chapter 17 to the Popes, an application that became widespread with the
Reformation. The authors of this work give detailed consideration to the
identifications: specific identifications of Babylon and the Beast, especially with
Rome, the papacy and the Roman Catholic Church, and with others besides, down to
modern scientific exegesis where the identification is with ancient Rome. It is also
noted how modern feminist exegesis has difficulty with the negative presentation of
women in the Apocalypse more than with any other biblical book. We find ample
information on individual images of the Apocalypse by individuals and movements:
 BOOK REVIEWS 119

David Koresh and the Branch Davidians, Adventists, Jehovah Witnesses and others.
We have the identification of images, events and persons: the Woman clothed with the
sun – the Church, the Virgin Mary, and one of the most remarkable of all Joanna
Southcott’s (1750–1814) identification of herself with this Woman, the ‘New Eve’,
who, although over sixty, claimed to be pregnant with the messiah, Shilo. She died
shortly after her apparent pregnancy, but her prophecies were written down and
sealed (see Rev 22:10) and had an enormous impact on popular culture. The book
under review is particularly rich on the interpretation of the Apocalypse in the
sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Britain, where the material to work on is
abundant, and this well researched. (The authors draw especially on the work of R.
Bauckham and K. Firth.) The rich material of the final chapters 20–22 (the
millennium, the new heavens and the new earth, the New Jerusalem) receive equally
adequate treatment. The two authors give us a hermeneutical postscript on evaluating
the readings of the Apocalypse. Our centre should be the pattern of Jesus’ life, death
and resurrection as found in the gospels. Expositions leading to practice at odds with
this would be incompatible with the gospel. The work ends with reference to the role
of the Apocalypse in liberation theology. ‘The Apocalypse is the foundation text for
‘‘the principle of hope’’, to quote the title of Ernst Bloch’s major study (1986). Those
who look for the better world it promises find encouragement to engage in the task
that features so prominently in the Apocalypse: bearing witness’.
The book has a very useful section (12 pages) with ‘biographies and glossary’,
containing explanation of the chief persons, movements and terms in their work,
followed by a rich bibliography of primary sources, websites with information with
relevant information, especially for artistic representations and for primary texts not
readily available in book form, secondary sources. There is a list of Old Testament
references for the Apocalypse listed in the margins of Nestle-Aland’s 26th edition of
the Greek New Testament; a biblical index and a general index of subjects and
modern authors.
The long years of intense research really show through in this excellent work, which
will be read and used with interest and profit by members of the general public and
scholars of varied interests for many years to come, both for what this biblical book
may have meant to those for whom it was first intended and as evidence of how it
caught the imagination of believers and some non-believers down through the
centuries to our own day. The two authors deserve our gratitude for their labours.

Milltown Institute, Dublin, Ireland Martin McNamara

Didache and Judaism: Jewish Roots of an Ancient Christian-Jewish Work. By Marcello Del
Verme. Pp. xvi, 291, London, T & T Clark, 2004, $29.95.

The scope of this book is somewhat broader than the title may seem to indicate. While
the Didache is clearly of central importance, the Judaism from which Christianity
emerged, and within which it coexisted with numerous other forms, is under scrutiny,
as is the history of scholarship concerned therewith. A major objective is to make the
distinctive contribution of Italian scholarship known to Anglophone readers.
A significant portion of this book consists of a partially annotated bibliography. As
the comments are not evenly distributed, the usefulness of the annotations is limited,
but readers may nonetheless find the extensive bibliography, or scriptorium as the
author prefers to call it, useful.
The remainder of the book discusses four texts from the Didache in successive
chapters: 4:8, which, the author suggests, may reflect a custom of community of