Book of Revelation: The Prologue | [START HERE]

The Book of Revelations series starts here, with a deep dive into the New Testament’s most metal, chaotic and downright ridiculous final chapter. If you want to understand why this apocalyptic prophecy reads more like a Lovecraftian hallucination than holy scripture, this highly rated episode is your perfect entry point.
Join us as we skip past the first 65 books of the christian bible and go straight to the good stuff. In this fan- favourite premiere, we explore the prologue of the epilogue. Why did early church theologians include a volume of vengeful violence—complete with multi-headed dragon hybrids and human-faced locusts—in the final draft of the New Testament? We break down the three main ways historians unpack this text: as a literal future apocalyptic prophecy, a coded message of underground rebellion against the brutal Roman Empire, or first-century anti-Hellenistic propaganda.
Discover the true ancient Greek meaning of the word "apocalypse" (hint: it means an unveiling, not a V8-powered wasteland), learn why Emperor Nero is the prime candidate for the infamous "Beast," and find out how a 4th-century bishop named Eusebius essentially earned a blue checkmark for his questionable claims on Christian persecution.  Finally, we look at why the Jesus of Revelation looks less like a peaceful, socialist pacifist and more like a full-blown capitalist war pig steamrolling humanity.

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What's Next in the Series?

Ready for the next chapter of the final chapter? Don't let a short attention span stop you now. Keep the momentum rolling and dive straight into the first actual chapter of John's wild letter to see just how angry Jesus gets.
Listen to Episode 52: Book of Revelation 01 - First Chapter of the Final Chapter 

Transcript

In this episode we skip past the first 65 books of the Christian bible and go straight to the good stuff. The last book of the New Testament. The finest final chapter. The most metal maelstrom of mayhem and madness. The epilogue to end all epilogues. The volume of vengeful violence that is,

[BIG VOICE ANNOUNCER, ‘The Book of Revelation!’]

[SATAN, ‘And it has a dragon!’]

[CHILD, ‘Holy friretrucking shiatzu balls mum! It’s a dragon!’]

Upon reaching Revelation, first time readers of the New Testament are often heard asking,

[CHOIR OF ANGELS, ‘WTF? I mean seriously, what the actual…’]

Many apologists, theologians, academics, historians and scholars have pondered the inclusion of this Lovecraftian hallucination in the final draft of the Chri$tian Bible. We will look at the various theories as they come up but my own personal learned opinion on the matter is,

[SATAN, ‘Oh this will be good.’]

Someone realized they had really screwed the pooch with the whole resurrection thing. The plot of the gospels had reached an amazing crescendo. Picture the scene. The sky goes black, the ground shakes, the dead rise from their graves AND a window dressing in the temple is damaged. 

[RABBI, ‘Who tore the curtain?’

ISRAELITE, ‘Priorities Rabbi! There are zombies in the street!’

RABBI, ‘What? It was a nice curtain!’]

Our tortured hero raises his weary bleeding head from the cross, stares down the barrel of the camera and defiantly growls, 

[JESUS, ‘This ain’t over, bitches.’]

Roll credits! Audience wet their pants. Standing ovation, Palm D’or. 

[SFX APPLAUDING CROWD

WRITER, ‘Thank you. Thank you, I couldn't have done it without the mushrooms.’]

But instead of ending at the climax, the producers demanded a happy ending. So the writers just keep plodding along into a dribbling dismal puddle of disappointment and let down. Can you remember anything that happens after Je$u$ is resurrected, from any of the Bible stories you’ve heard in your whole life? Just name one thing that happens. Just one.  Imagine if those guys had produced Seven?

[BRAD, ‘What's in the box? What's in the box?’

MORGAN, ‘It's just a couple of jade eggs.’

BRAD, ‘Jade eggs? What would you even do with them?’

MORGAN, ‘I don’t know.’]

The Bible needed to end on a banger that would not only scare and entertain but also hammer home the idea, YOU are in the end days. 

[AD BREAK MERCH Rapture

BLUEY, ‘Hey cool Satan is my Superhero t shirt!’

BINGO, ‘Oh thanks, it’s my Rapture shirt.’

BLUEY, ‘Rapture shirt?’

BINGO, ‘Yeah, I always wear what I expect to become a pile of clothes that represents where I was taken up during the Rapture.’

BLUEY, ‘Why would you get raptured?’

BINGO, ‘Um, I’m awesome.’

BLUEY, ‘SIGH, How can I become as awesome as you?’

BINGO, ‘Check out the merch store at satanismysuperhero.com and you might become as awesome as me.’

BLUEY, ‘Are we finished?’

BINGO, ‘Yep.’]

Let’s start with the title. Like many of the so-called books of the Bible, Revelation is actually a letter.

[CONGREGANT, ‘Hi John, just received your letter. Quick question, are you okay?’]

This letter was written to the seven churches in what is now Turkey. The author would not have given it a title as one would a real book. We get the title from the very first word in the letter, ‘Apocalypse’.

[PANICKER, ‘We’re all gonna die! We’re all gonna die! I should’ve bought that tactical bath!’]

This is as good a time as any to mention our first and according to Hollywood, most popular interpretation of,

[BIG VOICE ANNOUNCER, ‘The Book of Revelation!’]

It’s a prediction of how YHWH will destroy humanity, again. 

[MICHAEL, ‘Okay the boss wants a work up on Human Genocide 2.0. What have we got?’

ANGEL, ‘An army of locusts with human faces, lion’s teeth and scorpion tails coming out of the pit of Hell!’

SERAPHIM, ‘Followed by two hundred thousand horsemen wearing flaming breastplates. Riding horses with lions heads, sans the teeth, I shouldn’t have to explain why, breathing fire! And their tails are serpents with multiple heads.’

MICHAEL, ‘Riiight, do you know what the boss loved the most about the great flood?’

ANGEL, ‘The cruelty.’

SERAPHIM, ‘The UNNECESSARY cruelty.’

MICHAEL, ‘No. The simplicity. He loved the simplicity. It was simple.’

ANGEL AND SERAPHIM, ‘Ahhh.’

ANGEL, ‘Of course the simplicity!’

SERAPHIM, ‘Yeah simplicity, that was gonna be my next guess.’

MICHAEL, ‘The cruelty was just a bonus.’]

In its original ancient Greek form, ‘apocalypse’ did not mean the total devastation of civilisation, the end of the world as we know it and what survivors are left eking out an existence in the barren wastelands constantly searching for human flesh and petroleum products to fuel their V8 powered death machines.

[NIGHTRIDER, ‘I am the Nightrider! I am the chosen one. The mighty hand of vengeance, sent down to strike the unroadworthy!’]

Apocalypse actually meant to uncover or unveil something. 

[CHOIR OF ANGELS, ‘How disappointing.’]

The equivalent word in Latin is Revelation and so it became,

[BIG VOICE ANNOUNCER, ‘The Book of Revelation!’]

The author names himself as John. Don’t forget this is the Holy Bible. The indisputable word of our lord and father who art in heaven, Jesus Chri$t amen. So! Every single ‘fact’, 

[CHOIR OF ANGELS, ‘Air quotes.’]

is disputed by every single person who’s ever read it. Don’t at me with any, 

[NERD, ‘Well actually.’]

Because there isn’t a single, ‘actually’ in any of this and that even includes who wrote it and when. I'm not joking. 

[PRIEST, ‘How do we know this is really from John?’

DEACON, ‘It has a blue check mark.’

PRIEST, ‘That carries no value whatsoever. It just means he's a Nazi.’]

So anyway, ‘most’, 

[CHOIR OF ANGELS, ‘Air quotes.’]

experts agree, someone called John is probably the author. John claims to be writing from the Greek Island of Patmos Aegean Sea. These days the island is a popular tourist destination. In 2009 Forbes Magazine named Patmos,

[FORBES, ‘Europe's most idyllic place to live.’]

John doesn’t agree and implies he is on the island with its beautiful beaches and mild weather against his will.

[JOHN, ‘Dear mum, conditions here are intolerable. They close the breakfast buffet at 10.30 but I like sleep in!’]

John is probably writing sometime during the reign of the Roman Emperor Domitian, between the years 81 and 96 of the Common Era. Who was on the throne at the time is an important factor in the next popular interpretation of this book. It’s a coded message of rebellion distributed amongst the early Chri$tian freedom fighters.

[LEIA, ‘Help me Obi Wan. You're my only hope.’]

Chri$tian tradition claims Domitian singled out and persecuted the Chri$tians. Domitian is very unlikely to have even ever heard of the Chri$tians. 

[CHOIR OF ANGELS, ‘Persecution complex.’]

Domitian’s father Vespasian and older brother Titus had led the Romans in the first Jewish Roman War. Domitian definitely knew who the Jews were and with good reason his family was not liked by them. 

[DOMITION, ‘I was only following orders!’]

To be fair Domition hardly gets a mention among conspiracy circles. But he is connected to the most likely candidate for the Beast.

REPLAY SITW: [LIL TRUMP, ‘I am the chosen one.’]

Domition’s father, Vespasian had seized the throne during the turmoil created by Nero’s unexpected and messy exit from the scene. 

[ERIC SON OF A DUSTMAN, ‘Later bitches.’]

Nero feared is enemies were, ironically going to crucify him. I don’t mean they were going to ‘ironically’ crucify him. They were going to ACTUALLY crucify him. I mean it’s ironic because Nero had crucified so many people.

[NERO, ‘Be honest with me Epaphroditus, on a scale of one to ten. One being tickling me until I pee and ten being injecting bull ants into my scrotum. How bad’s it gonna be when they catch me?’

EPAPHRODITUS, ’17.’]

Rather than dying a horrible painful slow death Nero wanted to go out on his own terms. According to legend, understandably he was unable to perform the deed himself and convinced a servant to take care of the matter.

[NERO, ‘Now Epaphroditus I've got something very important to ask you and as much as I know you'll resist, I don't want you to argue with me.’

EPAPHRODITUS, ‘Okay.’

NERO, ‘I need you to run me through with this sword.’

SFX SWORD PLUNGINGING INTO FLESH

NERO, ‘Arrrgggh.’

(BEAT)

NERO, ‘Really Epaphroditus? You didn’t even think about it!’

EPAPHRODITUS, ‘No.’

NERO, ‘Oh, what an artist dies in me!’

EPAPHRODITUS, ‘Is there someone else dying today?’

NERO, ‘No you fool! I mean me. I’m the artist.’

EPAPHRODITUS, ‘Really?’

NERO, ‘Yes! Remember all those times I sang in the Colosseum?’

EPAPHRODITUS, ‘That was singing?’]

At the time this book was being written, one of the popular conspiracy theories going around was,

[FLERF, ‘Elvis is still alive! I mean Nero! Nero is still alive.’]

So there was an idea Nero might come back either from death or just from hiding and bring about the end of the world.

[NERO, ‘Bet you missed me bitches!’]

At the time this document was written there had been 4 emperors almost in a row that could qualify as the beast. Even more if you count Caligula, who will also come up at some point.

[HORSE, ‘Neigh!’]

But it’s important to note, no contemporary writers speak of Chri$tian persecution during this period. No contemporary writers speak of Chri$tians during this period. NO ONE writes about Jesus or his followers for the first 40 years after the alleged crucifixion. And maybe THAT'S what really hurts.

[CHILD, ‘You saw a dude walk on water and you're only just telling us about it now Grandpa?’]

There are claims 1st century Jewish freedom fighter turned Roman collaborator historian Josephus, mentioned Jesus and or his followers. This claim was first made by Chri$tian Bishop and writer Eusebius in the 4th century. He quotes a line from Josephus that no one else had seen before, stating,

[EUSEBIUS, ‘These things happened to the Jews to avenge James the Just, who was a brother of Jesus, that is called the Christ. For the Jews slew him, although he was a most just man.’]

[TTS, ‘Odd that the former Jewish freedom fighter would make such an anti-Semitic statement?’]

Apart from the fact Eusebius has certainly EARNED his blue checkmark on Twitter and shouldn’t have to pay for it, I think we can all agree Eusebius is not a reliable source.

[HOOTS OF JOY, ‘Baby I’m a liar. Truth becomes a funeral pyre. Baby I’m a liar. Can’t you smell my pants on fire.’] 

Interestingly it is not until two hundred years after the alleged events that we start getting written accounts of so called Chri$tian persecution in the Roman Empire. 

[VALLEY GIRL, ‘We get persecuted because people are jealous of how awesome we are. And it’s our humility. I'm like the most humble person I know. Praise Jesus, amen. Everyone else can burn in hell.’]

And who gave us those original accounts of Chri$tian persecution? Chri$tian Bishop and writer Eusebius in the 4th century. Remember him?

[HOOTS OF JOY, ‘Baby I’m a liar. Truth becomes a funeral pyre. Baby I’m a liar. Can’t you smell my pants on fire.’] 

I’m not saying the industrial oppression complex that is the Roman Empire didn’t persecute Chri$tians. Rome very definitely carried out a bloody and devastating war against the Jews while this book was being written. Of course the early Chri$tians would have been caught up in that. 

[CROWD, ‘Crucify the Jew! Crucify the Jew! Crucify the Jew!’

CHRI$TIAN, ‘There’s been some kind of mix up. I’m a Chri$tian!’

CENTURION, ‘Oh? Oh sorry about that mate, my mistake.’

CHRI$TIAN, ‘Oh that’s perfectly understandable. It happens all the time actually.’

CENTRURION, ‘Crucify the Chri$tian!’

CROWD, ‘Crucify the Chri$tian! Crucify the Chri$tian! Crucify the Chri$tian!’]

The last popular interpretation of Revelation is that it’s not prophecy or coded poetry but racist propaganda. The core message to its 1st century members of a Jewish offshoot is, stop Hellenising!

[CHRI$TIAN, ‘Hey John, one small problem with your letter telling us to not get swept up in Greco-Roman culture. You wrote it in Greek. Dickhead!’]

We will keep an eye on the three main ways Revelation is interpreted throughout the series, and any other interpretations that pop up. We might conclusively prove one of them correct or we might prove my Hollywood ending theory correct. Who knows?

[TTS, ‘It won't be the Hollywood theory.’]

The book itself has never been universally accepted as canon. But you could probably say that about every book in the Bible. Let’s just say Revelation has been MORE not universally accepted than most. 

[RANDO, ‘Reading it gave me acid flashblacks!’]

[BIG VOICE ANNOUNCER, ‘The Book of Revelation!’]

doesn’t really fit with the rest of the New Testament. It’s stylistically very different. Jesus is very different. Chri$t is not entirely consistent throughout the other books but in this one he is nothing like the socialist pacifist who encouraged loving thy enemy and turning the other cheek.

[SFX SLAP

CHRI$TIAN, ‘Ow! What’s wrong with you?’

ATHEIST, ‘It’s a test.’

CHRI$TIAN, ‘Did I pass?’

SFX SLAP

CHRI$TIAN, ‘Ow!’]

ATHEIST, ‘You did now.’]

In Revelation Jesus is a full blown capitalist war pig steamrolling humanity under his foot at the head of an Armageddon orgy. 

[THE GENUINE HOOTS OF JOY, ‘Jesus is coming back angry and he has had some modifications done betheren and sisteren. He has had his left arm removed and a big arse rocket launcher put in its place. Across his oh so perfect chest there are two golden bandoliers of ammunition and strapped to his back the god damned Ark of the Covenant, you know it is true. Jesus is coming back looking just a little bit like Arnold Schwarzenegger in Terminator 2 and the reason for that is that Arnie is going to be his first disciple because Jesus will be driving a Hummer. Oh praise be! And on the roof of that Hummer will be the flame thrower of the lord with which he shall lay waste to the miserable sinners. He is going straight to Snoop Dog’s birthday party and people when he…’]

Many theologians have found Revelation Jesus to be,

[PAT AD Problematic

CHOIR OF ANGELS, ‘Problematic.’

ADDY, ‘Are you problematic? Have you been called rude? Obnoxious? Arrogant? Are you afraid these minor social infractions might count against you on the cosmic ledger? Did that one time you told Nan what you really thought about her Christmas present just dam you to the eternal fire pits of Hell?

(BEAT)

ADDY, ‘Well worry no more dirtbag! Sign up at Patreon/SatanIsMySuperhero.com today and Judas will serve out all the time in Hell for your minor sins.’

(BEAT)

ADDY, ‘Become a patron today and continue being a bit of a douche, worry free.’]

So that’s our introduction to hands down the very best part of the New Testament. It’s dirty, it’s chaotic and it’s filled with violence! 

[HOOTS OF JOY GENERAL LEE INTRO,’ Whoo hoo!’]

In our next episode we’ll tackle the first chapter of this last chapter of the Bible then after that like our Origin Series, or our Prosperity Gospel series we’ll irregularly dip in and cover more chapters every now and then.

[TTS, ‘Because your host has a…’]

[CHOIR, ‘Short attention span.’]

Remember how I said Revelation is ‘probably’,

[CHOIR OF ANGELS, ‘Air quotes.’]

written by John of Patmos? Well English author D.H. Lawrence, he of Lady Chatterley’s Lover fame,

[SATAN, ‘Ooh saucy!’]

Came up with the term, Patmosser to describe a particular type of Chri$tian I think we all recognise. In his last book,

[TTS, ‘Apocalypse and the Writings on Revelation’]

published after his death in 1931, Lawrence wrote,

[LAWRENCE, ‘Brilliant glorious eternal heaven above: and brilliant sulphureous torture-lake away below. This is the vision of eternity of all Patmossers. They could not be happy in heaven unless they knew their enemies were unhappy in hell.’]

And that’s why Satan is my superhero.