Doomsday

Misunderstanding the Apocalypse

When presented with a text, a commentary on the text and a critique of various commentaries on the subject of the text, it is easy to blindly believe in what is written. However, when the subject in question is as controversial as the Apocalypse, the luxury of faith in others is withheld. While thorough exploration of more commentaries might help one create a solid argument, what is clear at the moment is that humanity has displayed a trend of exploring and misunderstanding the Apocalypse.

As Lee Quinby found out while writing Millennial Seduction, all that we do is tainted by our own bias. This means that with every translation, such as from Hebrew to Greek to Latin to English, brings minute changes to the text until eventually the text is transformed in a manner similar to a sentence used in a game of Telephone. Each translation also carries the cultural elements of the translator, which increases the changes made. In order to fully accept a text, one must also accept the possibility of misinterpretations as well as the eventuality of counter-interpretations.

Even if one’s ideas on the Apocalypse might be contested, one is in good company. The various theories that revolve around the Apocalypse are notable for their authors. As Frank Kermode explores in Sense of an Ending, contributions to the library of interpretations of the Apocalypse come from figures such as Newton, Shakespeare and Dante. They, amongst others, have tried to reach through time and space to predict the coming of the end. However, almost all who have tried to put a date to this glorious demise of humanity have been proven wrong and the rest remain unproven. Thus the trend of misinterpretation continues.

The cause of these incompatible views center on the Book of Revelation, and even that text is contested. The world at large fail to even agree on who wrote the text—whether it was Prochorus acting as scribe to St. John or John himself who wrote down the word of God. If the origins of the text cannot be ascertained, what hope is there to truly understand the text, and the culture that spawned it.

Perhaps vagueness is part of the beauty of the Bible. Perhaps confusion and uncertainty creates a fascination with the subject. Perhaps the planet will cease to spin when the meaning becomes clear. Perhaps mankind was meant to misunderstand the Apocalypse.