Gordon Fee’s newest commentary, and the newest one in the New Covenant Commentary Series, is on the Book of Revelation: Revelation (New Covenant Commentary). Anyone who opens with the following statement has my attention:
The unfortunate reality is that almost all of the popular stuff on the Revelation, which tends to be well known by many of these [his] students, has scarcely a shred of exegetical basis to it.
And Fee knows Revelation uses prophetic images in the Bible and from the Jewish world, but the genius of apocalyptic literature and prophetic language is the re-use of old language to say (and see) new things. Some images are constant and stock — beasts are empires; some are fluid and some are very specific — and we are called to focus through the lens of how John interprets images.
Like Son of man, golden lampstands, seven stars, a numberless multitude, the great dragon, seven heads of the beast, and the great harlot. John interprets these and sketches the landscape in clarity for us by doing so.
Here are some of the inside secrets to this new series: responsible; done by excellent scholars; exegetically grounded and theologically sensitive; accessible, accessible, accessible.
If I were teaching a course on Revelation, this is the book I’d use.
The problem any reader of Revelation faces today is the utter nonsense that has filled the minds with many Christians today. I’ll stop right there.
Hmm…may have to get this one. Love what Fee did in his “How to Read the Bible” series concerning Revelation and prophecy and apocalyptic literature.
May have to be sure that Karen sees this … maybe she can do a book review in her blog series :^)
McKnight,
Fee has a video talking about dispensationalism in general, going as far to say that it grieves God. At least that was my take.
MM
The video was regarding his new book that is.
How would you say it compares to Richard Bauckham’s commentary?
Jason, I’m not aware that Bauckham has a commentary on Revelation.
Looks great! Will get it!
Fee is an awesome scholar. His First Corinthians commentary is excellent (though not brief)
Another very good evangelical scholar who agrees with him (Sounds like from this brief intro) is Robt Mounce, whose New International Commentary starts w saying Revelation will feed you in many ways — as long as you avoid thinking you can understand it all and sort it all out — just decode and categorize.
thanks for this posting.
I hope Fee at least gets the dating of Revelation correct. That has been a lost art this past century. Along with that goes the proper application to the period of the faithful Christians in the middle of the first Century AD instead of every other application imaginable including the modern fashion of the Left Behind movement.
Revelation is the consummating view of the enthronement of the New Covenant illustrating the waxing of the Old Temple constituent elements being replaced with the New Temple of Christ and His Body (of believers). The Temple of the Lord is about to be firmly established and confirmed.
Ezekiel prophesied it to come and John recognized its establishment was soon at hand.
Eze 48:35 The circumference of the city shall be 18,000 cubits. And the name of the city from that time on shall be, The LORD Is There.”
Rev 21:2-3 And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. (3) And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God.
22 And I SAW NO TEMPLE in the city, for ITS TEMPLE IS THE LORD GOD THE ALMIGHTY AND THE LAMB.
Rev 22:12 “Behold, I AM COMING SOON, bringing my recompense with me, to repay everyone for what he has done.
Jesus didn’t say he was coming a long time off He was coming soon to fulfill His prophecy by bringing judgment upon the Old Covenant system and that required the removal of Old Temple Judaism worship and priestly sacrifices. The Jews understood from the judgment against the First Temple what a destruction of the Second Temple illustrated.
If one is interested and willing to learn Revelation, Ezekiel and Daniel and how to read Hebrew imagery then one has a leg up on understanding eventually Genesis and its imagery. In fact it is near impossible to correctly understand Genesis without knowing biblical apocalyptic symbolism.
Mat 24:1-2 Jesus left the temple and was going away, when his disciples came to point out to him the buildings of the temple. (2) But he answered them, “You see all these, do you not? Truly, I say to you, there will not be left here one stone upon another that will not be thrown down.”
Mat 24:34 Truly, I say to you, this generation will not pass away until all these things take place.
Rev 22:20 He who testifies to these things says, “Surely I am coming soon.” Amen. Come, Lord Jesus!
Michael (#2),
In regards to what Fee says, you recalled incorrectly. Here is the relevant quote:
“I know I sound very confident, positive, but I lived with this book for years, and I just experience enormous pain when I hear it used in a dispensationalist way… because, frankly they almost know nothing about the book as John intended.”
I experience pain when I hear this interpretation as well, but I would caution us by saying it’s not “the dispensationalist” reading. It’s one particular kind of dispensationalist reading, & it’s dying very quick. We either need to come up with a new word for it or call the good dispensationalist scholars who don’t subscribe to this bologna (e.g Darrell Bock & many others at Dallas Seminary) something else.
@Scot (#5), I assume Jason (#4) is thinking of Richard’s book The Theology of the Book of Revelation – indeed not a commentary, but a worthy companion.
Dave, I suspect you are right too.
Thanks so much for mentioning Fee’s new commentary on Revelation. It’s on my short list of purchases as soon as I can afford it. His 1st Cor. is magnificent and I suspect I’ll be equally impressed with this one. And I agree with Fee about how badly the text of Revelation has been mangled in popular Christian circles. Having worked six years in Christian book retail, I can sadly attest to all of the utter crap that’s put out and accepted uncritically by millions.
I did my ThM thesis on a discourse analysis (text-linguistics) of Revelation (see http://darev.christian.net). I didn’t have Fee’s book at that time, so I’d be happy to take a look at it and see how my interpretation compares with his.
Here’s a corrected URL for Erwin @13.:
http://darev.christian.net/
@Scot, So .. restating #4, how would you say it compares to Bauckham’s book (cited in #10)? Or, simply put, what’s your opinion of it?
Bauckham’s perception of the apocalyptic-shaped and Jewish-sourced context of Revelation is unsurpassed; plus, he’s approach to eschatology is so wide in scope that it avoids the nonsense. Fee’s rooted in that approach and writes a commentary out of it, though Fee works more with the text of Revelation as a text — after all, he’s writing a commentary. I wouldn’t want to work on any text in Revelation without both of them.
Fee recently appeared for the final time, in a public function, at Regent College when he offered a prayer for Rikk Watts, who was being installed as a full Professor of New Testament. This commentary may be one of his final works of labor to be published.
I teach at a small Mennonite college in Ohio and Fee’s book was the one I was planning to use for my course during the winter term. Glad to hear you are recommending it, I know it was the right choice now. I would also recommend Michael Gorman’s new book on Revelation called Reading Revelation Responsibly.
$39 seems a bit steep. What do you know about Michael Gorman’s new book Reading Revelation Responsibly?
Gordon, $39 is not steep for a good commentary. I’ve not read Gorman’s book.
Fee loves Bauckham’s book on Revelation. He suggests that everyone should read it somewhere in the lectures found here and here. (Which should in turn both be listened to by everyone). He has some seriously harsh things to say about ‘Darbyism’ (his words).
He also highly praised Grant Osborn’s commentary on Revelation that came out a couple years ago for the Baker Exegetical series, which I personally love.
I have plans to get this commentary. I recently uploaded a video of his discussion on Revelation
on my blog. His views on the Revelation are refreshing and concise in a time when pessimistic worldviews seem to prevail among many Christians who look at Revelation with the “Left Behind” beliefs lingering in the back of their minds. My hope is that every Christian who has been influenced by those bleak portrayals of End Times would give Dr. Fee a hearing.
Well I listened to Fee and I have to appreciate his moving the target back at least to the Roman Empire however IMO he is still missing the classical first Century application. There was not just one Beast that was defeated but two (The Beast of the Sea (Gentile Rome) and Beast of the Land (apostate Judaism). This matches up with Dan 2 in the crushing of the statue by the Stone (Christ) not made with hands and of the combined nations and the mixed feet of clay symbolizing physical Israel also. Revelation is dealing with Israel and the Nations and in the physical destruction of the Temple the consummation of the Spiritual will have triumphed over the physical including both the Nations and physical Israel. There was no need to wait for Rome’s physical demise 200 years later as judgment was finalized at AD70 as the Spiritual replaced the physical kingdoms of this world. Otherwise every new Roman Empire from then until now will need to be crushed. It’s a moot point when we realize the new kingdom is spiritual and exempt from armies and Nations ruling over Gods’ people.
so what about beale in all this discussion… i’ve always appreciated his commentary…
Scot, would you be willing to pull together a post (or offer a student extra credit to compile it
) that would point folks toward some quality reads on eschatology and Revelation specifically?
I think the video by Fee on dispensationalism is “Millennial Madness”. I’ve seen it referred to online, but can’t find it to view it. Does anyone have a clue as to where to find it? Thanks.