The Apocalypse

In this commentary, Pentecostal biblical scholar John Christopher Thomas offers a fresh reading of the Apocalypse informed by three decades of research and writing devoted to the Johannine literature. While engaging the best of critical scholarship he avoids simply recounting the views of other scholars on a variety of interpretive issues. Rather, he gives priority to the world of the text by means of literary, intertextual, and theological analyses, as he seeks to discern the effect of this visionary experience upon the hearers (both implied and actual) of this text. The most extensive reading of the Apocalypse offered by a Pentecostal scholar to date, this commentary is shaped by the Pentecostal and wider communities via times of engagement with local worshipping communities, scholarly audiences at academic conferences, and academic settings at a variety institutions around the globe. Thomas' distinctive literary and theological hearing of the Apocalypse, which adheres closely to the final form of the text and reflects the heart of Pentecostal theology and spirituality, marks a major transition in Pentecostal approaches to the Apocalypse and may well assist, along with others, in the reclamation of this canonical book for the Pentecostal community and beyond.