For the true believer however, the failure of the world to end on time is explainable without treating Revelations as mere allegory (Kirsch, 122). Those who are convinced that divine secrets lay within the text of Revelations (and surely the wording is convincing of there being such a hidden secret), will do anything to break the code. Each and every fundamentalist reader of such a Biblical work, proclaims that he/she is the “chosen one” and has finally unlocked the SECRET (Here it is apt to mention the book by that very same title, a book which I have come to regard as a sort of psychological work of revelation; One which, without the authority of the Christian church behind it, is unable to disguise itself from its nature as a work of pure hocus-pocus). Time and time again, those that have miscalculated return to the drawing board to tirelessly crack out new number sequences and meanings from a book that John the Revelator himself said, was not meant to be decoded—for the secrets contained within, were meant for God the father alone. Despite the church’s best efforts to play down the imagery of the revelation, and John’s own heed meant for the same purpose notwithstanding, there continue to be those who are determined to see in Revelations the treasure map to the mythical world of doomsday and Armageddon, and its position in the Holy writ of God makes it all the harder to disregard as pure babble.
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Doomsday 2010
Tuesdays, 4:15-6:40 PM
Macaulay Honors College, CUNYProfessor Lee Quinby
leequinby (at) aol.com
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I particularly enjoyed the Ayn Rand reference – it’s somewhat refreshing to see an objectivist take on Kirsch’s work as a whole, but even more so on the doomsday issue with regards to Revelation specifically. Kudos. But, do you truly believe the work to be babble?
No, No i meant that the canonization of the Book of Revelations has made it harder for the general audience (or rather, general religious audience) to disregard it (as babble), not that i particularly thought it was babble…
Do we have another objectivist in the house? I didn’t think anyone would pick up on the minute Rand reference….
Does empiricism have anything to do with objectivism? Based on a cursory glance, the two seem to coexist. Just wondering, because the concept is intriguing to me. I do think that the canonization of Revelation inevitably changed its impact as a text. I keep coming back to the perplexing nature of “canon” in religion because texts like Revelation are so incredibly difficult to standardize or interpret collectively. I suppose in some ways, a group of people agreeing completely on a book’s intention and meaning is quite dangerous – in the instance of the Branch Davidians, for example, who seemed to be in a quite steadfast agreement on the text. Engaging in discourse is a much healthier route to pursue that joining a cult, in my opinion.