148 - Crisis and Catharsis: The Power of the Apocalypse

Crisis and Catharsis:
The Power of the Apocalypse
By Adela Yarbro Collins
Philadelphia, Westminster, 1984. 179 pp. $11.95.

This book is a collection of articles and lectures which have already appeared in other publications. In an excellent introductory section, Collins discusses methodological problems of the interpretation of Revelation. "What this book attempts to do is to provide the occasion for a critical reading of the text of Revelation. Getting 'behind' the text with the help of history, sociology, anthropology, and especially psychology is a crucial element in a critical reading." This is the main concern of all five chapters, which deal with the problem of authorship, date of composition, the social situation of the readers, the social radicalism of the writer, and the effects of the book on the readers.

John is understood as an ascetic itinerant prophet who preached radical freedom from the world waiting for the imminent coming of the end. The Revelation is John's answer to the crisis and tension that is caused by his radical understanding of the Christian faith.

Collins provides interesting attempts to shed light upon the socio-historical conditions of Revelation, but does not escape the trap of many such investigations. Too much remains unprovable hypothesis, and more attention is paid to the assumed psychological and sociological forces behind the text than to the text itself and the writer's own understanding of his prophetic task.

Mathias Rissi
Union Theological Seminary
Richmond, Va.