The Apocalypse, or book of Revelation, is a puzzle to most people who take the time to read it. Filled with strange visions, blood and smoke, terrifying warfare, fearsome beasts, and evil rulers, it reads like a nightmare of the worst kind. It was set down by a man named John as a result of his extraordinary experiences on the Roman prison island of Patmos, near the coast of what is today western Turkey.

The Greek term apokalypsis, from which the book’s titles come, means "the revealing" or "the unveiling"—in this case, of things to come. Yet most people’s reactions suggest that, far from uncovering the future, the book’s contents remain little understood. The one exception concerns the massive confrontation between God and unrepentant humanity near the close of "the present age." Thus apocalypse has developed the variant meanings of "overwhelming catastrophe," "cataclysm," or even "Armageddon."

Perhaps there’s a good reason for this general lack of clarity—something to discuss as we proceed.

In the preface to early editions of Martin Luther’s New Testament translation, the reformer famously said of Revelation, "Let everyone think of it as his own spirit leads him." He judged the record of John’s visions to be "neither apostolic nor prophetic" (though over time he came to a different view). English Bible scholar J.B. Phillips expressed similar misgivings. He wrote in the introduction to his 20th-century version, "I was naturally tempted to omit this book altogether from my translational work." He noted that this was the course John Calvin had chosen in his New Testament commentary (see "Future Imperfect?").

Not everyone has felt that way. According to Judith Kovacs and Christopher Rowland, who have studied the book’s "reception history" over the past 2,000 years, people who tried to understand Revelation took one of two approaches. They viewed it either as a coded message about the working out of history in humanity’s final days (in which they believed they were living), or as a series of exhortations to live a moral life at the political, ecclesiastical or personal level. There have also been those who saw the book as simply interesting from a historical perspective. We’ll consider all three approaches in the next series of articles that follow.