The wait is over. At a meeting of the Reading the Apocalypse Seminar of the Society of Biblical Literature in San Francisco, November, 1997, Aune joked that he had written the last 19th Century commentary. What I believe he meant is that the trend today is away from rigorous, historical-critical analysis of the Apocalypse in the direction of impressionistic readings of the book. Narrative readings, feminist readings, literary-critical readings, even sexual desire readings of the book of Revelation are all the rage. While this makes things fun and interesting, one wonders at times if this is anything more than an exercise in self-expression.
What one finds instead in Aune's commentary is the kind of patient, detailed, rigorous, and thorough grunt work that fewer and fewer Biblical scholars take time for anymore. The reader will find truly exhaustive bibliographies of previous research, categorized for specialized investigation. There is a detailed analysis of the issues related to authorship and date. The section related to the unique Greek grammar and vocabulary of the Apocalypse is worth the price of volume one all by itself! There is a remarkable amount of analysis of the issues relating to the manuscripts and versions of the Greek text of Revelation. And whether one agrees with Aune or not, a careful reading of his lengthy argument for stages in the development of the book of Revelation is an extremely fruitful sources of fresh insight into the realities of the Greek text as we have it.
In the verse-by-verse portion of the commentary one finds detailed analyses of text-critical issues, suggestions for the macro and micro-structure of portions of the book, and literary-critical insights. Within discussions of specific verses one repeatedly finds thorough surveys of the philology and etymology of various words, discussions of various options with regard to the impact of the environment and its historical and literary development, and insights from geography, archaeology, and ancient literary works. Taken as a whole Aune=s commentary is truly a monument and a legacy to his talent and painstaking effort. I consider it safe to say that this commentary will be of major significance, not only in our generation, but for many generations to come. It was well worth the wait!
This very wealth of detailed information is also, however, the greatest weakness of the book. The repetitive format of the Word Commentary series combined with the huge size and the comprehensive scope of Aune's research results in a large amount of repetition in different settings. This makes the commentary difficult cover-to-cover reading. It is focused directly on the individual trees that make up the Apocalypse, one rarely gets a glimpse of the forest as a whole. I suspect, therefore, that most purchasers of the commentary will use it as reference for specific research rather than attempting to devour the whole. I believe it would be worthwhile for Aune to consider producing a condensed version of the commentary, which would focus on the big picture that results from the conclusions of his detailed research. The brief Explanation sections of the Word commentary could provide the starting point for such a short, big-picture commentary of, perhaps, 200 pages.
The specific focus of this review is the way Aune handles the issue of John's use of the OT in Revelation. With the exception of some introductory comments regarding Semitic influence on the Greek grammar and syntax of Revelation, Aune does not address the issue directly in volume one. To approach this topic, then, required the drawing of inferences from the occasional remarks about John's use of the OT made in the text of the commentary itself. These occasional remarks come in two varieties. Most notable, first of all, are the brief surveys and more extensive excurses related to the OT background to specific terms and concepts. These provide a subtext for Aune's attempts to unpack John's intention in writing the Apocalypse or, at times, earlier versions of the same. Second, there are brief comments regarding the likelihood of specific and intentional allusion to various texts and contexts within the OT. The latter issue will be the focus of the rest of this brief article.
For my dissertation work I examined ten major commentaries and critical margins produced over the last 100 years to determine what OT passages have been thought to have influenced the author of Revelation in the writing of his apocalypse. I then placed the results in a matrix, which revealed serious irregularities in judgment among the ten sources .
I have since extended this research to the entire book of Revelation. In Revelation chapters one to five there are many hundreds of suggested allusions to the OT in the ten sources examined. But only three suggestions have the unquestioned support of all ten commentators and only twelve are mentioned by all ten (see TABLE 1 at the end of this article). Interestingly, among potential allusions listed by nine of the commentators, six different writers turned out to be holdouts in at least one case! In any event, it appears that there has been a certain lack of systematic method in the listing of allusions to the OT over the years.
But this research has, nevertheless, been valuable because I have found a clear correlation between the number of commentators that mention a particular allusion and the validity of that allusion when scientifically examined (see TABLES). In every case where nine or ten commentators mention an allusion it has proven to be solid, where only 3-5 mention an allusion, the levels of validity are much more mixed. So I hope to publish a listing based on the weight of citation throughout the book of Revelation. Although these commentators cover a period of about 100 years and wrote in three different languages, such a listing would tabulate an unspoken historical consensus regarding the use of the OT in the Apocalypse. Instances where the weight of citation is 8.5 or above, I plan to designate the allusion certain. Where the weight is 5.5 to 8.0, the allusion will be designated probable. Where the weight is 2.5 to 5.0 the allusion will be designated possible.
Although Aune does not generally use the typical terms certain, probable and possible, he seems to utilize the same three categories in his comments regarding specific allusions to the OT. In some instances he speaks of clear allusions, or he may say assuredly this phrase is "derived from," "depends on," or "refers to" such and such a text in the OT. These types of comments seem to reflect his opinion that these are certain allusions. In other cases Aune uses language such as this phrase may "allude to," "derive from," or "depend on" an OT text, or he may indicate that a word or phrase in Revelation is ultimately derived from an OT text, suggesting an element of uncertainty regarding the author's consciousness of the parallel. These comments seem equivalent to the designation probable allusions. In yet other instances there is no mention of allusion at all, but Aune speaks of related language and themes, which would fall short of probability but may indicate some influence of the OT on the language or ideas of that passage in Revelation. Such usage seems equivalent to the designation possible allusions. In this way I have distinguished three categories of probability in the way Aune cites allusions to the OT in the course of his detailed comments.
I elected to compare the results of my research into previous commentators on Rev 1-5 with what I discovered reading Aune=s commentary. I chose to sample a section of introduction (Rev 1:4-8), one of the churches (Rev 2:12-17) and a portion of the throne-vision in Rev 4-5 (4:8-11). These passages were chosen fairly randomly except that I made sure that each selected passage contained a good mix of proposed allusions to the OT. I then compared the combined weight of the ten sources with the suggestions on those passages in the commentary.
As TABLE 2 indicates, within these test passages the number of OT text citations in the ten earlier commentators that I examined ranged from 20 to 86 and the average was 41.0. When I examined Aune=s work along the lines indicated previously, I found 25 potential allusions mentioned within these passages. This would place Aune near the conservative end of judgment, ahead of Mounce and Kraft, but considerably behind such venerable sources as Charles, UBS 3 and Nestle-Aland 26.
When I tallied the combined weight of citation (based on the scoring system outlined above) for the ten commentators in these passages I found 42 total citations: 8 certain allusions, 7 probable allusions, and 27 possible allusions to the OT. When I carefully examined Aune's reading of the test passages along the lines indicated previously I found 5 certain allusions, 5 probable allusions and 15 possible allusions. So at least 17 of the allusions widely noted by previous scholars are not mentioned by Aune as allusions (the OT passages may turn up in passing as he discusses themes and backgrounds). This initial observation, if typical, suggests that Aune utilized a fairly minimalist philosophy of citation in comparison with those who produced the commentaries and margins with which I am comparing him. This conservative or minimalist approach is further underlined by comparing Aune's judgments with the combined weight of citation where all ten commentators agreed that an allusion was present. While Aune agrees in seven of the twelve cases, he is less certain in four and does not even mention the remaining case (TABLE 1).
In spite of this minimalism, however, one of Aune's probable allusions and three of his possible allusions in these test passages are not mentioned by any of the ten representative commentators. Four other of his possible allusions did not merit enough weight to be listed as even possible allusions in the weighting system. So there is more than just conservatism or minimalism in operation here, Aune is seeing a number of different things in John's relationship to the OT than earlier commentators did.
It is clear from the above, and also from careful detailed comparison which cannot be discussed in this brief review, that Aune was not following any one of the ten representative commentators as a primary source for his own citations. Either he is following a different source, a combination of sources, or he did most of his own work in the concordances. The problem is that I did not find any explanation of the basis for collecting and evaluating OT allusions. A weakness of Aune's approach, therefore (and I hesitate to even bring this up, considering the size of the commentary as it currently exists), is that there seems to be no consistent system for including the reader in the process by which he decided what level of allusion was present in any given instance. In some cases, as for example the allusions to Dan 7:13 and Zech 12:10-14 in Rev 1:7, copious listings of parallels, charts and arguments are given to support the assertion of authorial intention. In most cases, however, the relationship between a text in Revelation and another in the OT is merely asserted, no parallels of word, theme or structure are offered as evidence. Although Aune seems to diverge widely from earlier commentators on the Apocalypse, we are not included in the process by which he made his judgments, nor is the evidence available in most cases. The operative mode seems to be, "Trust me, I know what I'm doing."
In conclusion, I believe that this monumental commentary offers a major contribution to our available resources with respect to the general environment in which Revelation was written, its text, grammar, and syntax. No one studying the book of Revelation from now on should be taken seriously unless they have consulted Aune's work. Aune's examination of John's use of the OT, however, seems to be an area of relative weakness. I find these respective levels of attention quite forgivable, however. Aune has given us the most in the areas where Revelation scholarship has been the weakest. In particular, Aune has not disappointed us in his copious treatment of the Greco-Roman environment of the Apocalypse, a sorely needed supplement to Revelation scholarship. If he had to skimp somewhere (and 2000 pages suggests that he had to) John=s use of the OT was a good place to skimp. Many other commentators, including Greg Beale in his upcoming (as of this writing) 1600-page work in the NIGTC series, have majored in the area of OT use. I plan to publish further in this area as well.
I believe that anyone spending serious time with David Aune=s new commentary on the Book of Revelation will find it time well spent. None of the criticisms I have offered here in any way diminishes the overwhelming achievement that this work represents. This work is must reading for anyone interested in going below the surface of the Apocalypse.
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Dittmar Hühn Kraft Massyngberde Ford Mounce Nestle-Alan Prigent UBS Westcott |
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