Conversations with Scripture

Book excerpt: Roadmap, myth, or history? An accessible review of The Book of Revelation for today’s audience. Conversations with Scripture: Revelation is the first book in the Anglican Association of Biblical Scholar Study Series. Written in accessible language and sensitive to those who have little or no experience in reading the bible, each book in the series focuses on exploring the historical and critical background, as well as how the biblical texts written centuries ago can still speak to readers today. Frederick W. Schmidt, also the series editor, explores the approaches that have dominated the interpretation of John's Apocalypse and offers the reader an accessible means of understanding and evaluating them. With this grounding in hand, Schmidt explores how Revelation can shape our understanding of God, and nurture our spiritual lives in unexpected ways. Leaving behind left-behind theology, Schmidt offers instead an approach that allows this obscure, almost opaque text to speak to us anew about God, faith, hope, and justice.