Interpretive Issues :

• What are the apocalyptic elements in this selection of the text?  What, if any, are distinctly non-apocalyptic elements?
• What are the major rhetorical elements being employed by John in this selection of the text?  What is their function?
• What pattern to chapters 12-20 does Koester (p. 116) find in the actions of the dragon, beasts, and harlot?
• Questions for Revelation 12: Who is the woman in Revelation 12?  What is the meaning of the symbols surrounding her?  Who is the dragon in Revelation 12?  What is the meaning of the symbols used to describe it?  What are the stars that he sweeps down from heaven?  Who is the child that is born?  What is the meaning of the symbols surrounding him?  When did this event occur?  What is meant by the woman’s flight into the wilderness?  What is the meaning of the symbols surrounding her flight, the dragon’s pursuit of her, and her escape?  Be able to compare this whole scene to the parallel references in 1 Enoch, Daniel, and the ancient combat myth.  What was Satan’s function in heaven?  Compare the references in Revelation to Job 1:6-12, 2:1-8 and Zechariah 3:1-2.  When was Satan cast out of heaven?
• Questions for Revelation 13: Who is the beast from the sea?  Compare its imagery (1) to that of the dragon, (2) to the images of the beasts in Daniel 7, and (3) to imagery of the Roman Empire.  What is the relationship between the dragon and the beast from the sea?  What is meant by the head that was “as if slaughtered to death, and its plague of death was healed” (13:3)?  What is the reaction of the “whole earth” to the dragon and the beast?  Why?  How would most people answer the questions asked in 13:4?  How has John prepared the reader to answer them?  In what ways is this beast a mockery of Christ?   What do 13:7 and 13:10 tell us about the fate of the worshippers of God?  What is the function of John revealing that the non-worshipers of the beast had their names written in the book of life since the foundation of the world?  Who is the beast from the earth?  What is the meaning of the symbolism associated with this beast?  What is the function of this beast?  What is the meaning of the mark of the beast?  What does the number 666 mean?
• Questions for Revelation 14: Who are the 144,000 in Rev 14?  Are they the same 144,000 as in Rev 7?  What does it mean that they have not defiled themselves with women?  What are the messages of warning, judgment, and promise proclaimed by the three angels and the voice from heaven in Rev 14?  That is, what is being communicated to the reader?  Who is the “one like a son of man” in Rev 14?  Where does this imagery come from?  What is the meaning of the “reaping” / harvest of the earth?  Are the reaping and the treading on the winepress the same thing?

Theological Issues :

• According to John, what is the proper attitude of a Christian toward the government?  What is the proper attitude of a Christian with respect to violence?