THE BOOK OF REVELATION by S. B. Whitney

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Feb 1, 1877

THE BOOK OF REVELATION.

By S. B. Whitney

ATTEMPTS are sometimes made to invalidate the claims of this book to confidence by reflecting disparagingly upon its character and questioning its genuineness. The following extracts from the History of the Books of the Bible, by Prof. Stowe, may be of interest to the reader:—

“The testimony of the early and contemporary witnesses is unanimous and uncontradicted in favor of the book. Though well known and extensively used in the churches, not a breath of suspicion was ever blown upon its reputation, until nearly one hundred and fifty years after the death of the apostle to whom it is ascribed; and then not confidently, but doubtingly; not any critical grounds alleged or pretended, but solely on account of the supposed difficulty of its interpretation, the bad use which had been made of it, and a dislike to the doctrines which it was imagined to contain.”

After stating that its genuineness was first questioned in connection with a controversy that arose in the third century, he speaks of Dionysius of Alexandria, who was engaged in that controversy, thus:—

“This was the first open attack ever made on the genuineness of the Apocalypse; and it is plain from the above extracts that Dionysius could sustain himself by no respectable authority, otherwise he would have produced it. It is also plain that he had no historical ground for his conjectures and suggestions, but that the testimony was all against him; that he was not himself at all confident in his own opinion; and that his wish to get rid of the authority of this book arose entirely from his apprehension of its obscurity, and its influence on the millennium controversy.” He attributes the “same anxiety” to others engaged in that controversy, and then adds, “And all who have rejected the book have been induced to reject it, not on historical testimony against it, or the want of such testimony in its favor, but simply on doctrinal grounds.”

The utter fallacy of this position is apparent when we consider that if one part of the Bible is rejected on such grounds another may be, and so on until it is all thrown out.

From his considerations of the objections raised against the book we take the following, as having a bearing not only on the point in question, but also on the chronology of the book, as it relates to John’s use of the term Lord’s day, &c.:—

“It is objected that the Greek of the Apocalypse is much less pure and more largely tinctured with Hebrew idioms than that of the gospels or epistles. This is true, and for the best of reasons. The Apocalypse was written earlier than the Gospels or Epistles, and before the writer had become so familiar with the Greek language as he was afterwards.” Our author closes his argument on this point with the following forcible words: “But the great, and in fact, the only objection against the Revelation which has had any real importance, has always been that which was at first stated by Dionysius; namely, that it was very obscure, without sense and reason, as Dionysius says, exceedingly difficult to be interpreted; and the great store-house from which heretics and fanatics have drawn their materials to trouble the church with.

“The want of sense and reason belongs to the interpreters and not to the book. Obscurity, to a certain extent, is an attribute of all prophecy, and heretics and fanatics always lay hold on the most highly figurative language, because this is the most easily perverted. Even allowing the objection to be just as it is stated, it has but little to do with the question of authorship, which is a question of fact, to be settled by the appropriate evidence; and no one has ever shown, or done anything towards showing, that there is anything in the Revelation so repugnant to the known character of John, that he cannot reasonably be supposed to be the author of it.

“A writer is not accountable for the stupidity of his commentators, nor for the ignorance or willful abuse which weak men and bad men may make of his writings. I hope it will be seen that the darkness, the absurdities, the mysticism and fanaticism, which have been attributed to the Apocalypse, no more belong to it than dinginess belongs to the clear blue sky when it happens to be observed through a dingy glass.”

S. B. WHITNEY.