Customer Reviews

Of Angels, Beasts, and Plagues: The Message of Revelation for a New Millennium

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In this book, Maahs does an excellent job of exploring the intricate details of John's Revelation. Specifically, he links the imagery used in John's apocalyptic writing to the imagery in the apocalyptic writings of the `Old Testament,' e.g. Daniel. This enables readers to anchor John's symbolic, and often confusing, language within his own tradition, i.e. the tradition of a first century Jew. Furthermore, Maahs's provides provocative insights about how said linguistic symbols refer to specific social-historical issues, such as the Roman Emperors and/or Roman cultic practices.

He begins his commentary by analyzing the seven churches. In this analysis, he exposes why each church, in its `uniqueness,' is a targets of John's letter/s. After introducing the churches themselves, he allows his commentary to follow the text, verse by verse, exploring the strengths and weakness of these seven early churches, while equally addressing how these strengths and weakness are directly related to the churches' involvement in the broader Roman community.

Finally, Maahs uses his analysis of these first century churches to expose weaknesses within the modern day church. By doing so, he shows us how the prophetic nature of John's letter is most firmly anchored in its ability to address the church's failure to live out God's call throughout history, whether that be in first century Rome or modern day America.

I have read a number of commentaries on the Book of Revelation. This is by far the best of them all. It offers a clear elucidation of the text that is helpful for anyone trying to better under this important message from the Lord. I wish all of the premillenialists would consider its logical presentation and thereby gain greater insight in to a book they have so woefully misunderstood.

More than just a simple once over but less than an exhausting word by word commentary on the Revelation, this volume seeks to help the modern student of the book understand its background, historical setting and genre. In addition, this teaching-commentary is meant to represent a model for presenting John's Apocalypse in a class situation, whether that be a church Bible program or a college course. Special attention has been paid to those aspects of Revelation's message which challenge the spiritual vision of the modern Christian community and call it to live out its vocation as the community of the Menorah (John's seven churches are viewed through the image of the seven-branched candelabra of ancient Israel). Useful to layman and scholar.