Episode 138: Dr. Scot McKnight on Revelation

Today we talk with Dr. Scot McKnight professor of New Testament at Northern Seminary about his recently released book Revelation for the Rest of Us: A Prophetic Call to Follow Jesus as a Dissident Disciple (Zondervan, 2023). We talk about his own background with Revelation as well as our mutual love for baseball. I hope you will enjoy this episode.

Timestamps:

6:33- John as a Discipleship Manual for Early Christians

12:16- The Rise and Fall of Dispensationalism

28:20- Reading the Book of Revelation

47:30- What Does it Mean to Be a Dissident?

Charles Kim 0:00

Hello and welcome to history of Christian theology. My name is Chad Kim. This week I'll be talking with Dr. Scott McKnight. Dr. McKnight has recently written a book called revelation for the rest of of us a prophetic call to follow Jesus as a dissident disciple with Zondervan press. It is CO written with Cody Matchett. And but my conversation today will focus on talking with Dr. McKnight about this book on Revelation and how Dr. McKnight sees a better way to understand this difficult book, which we both talk a little bit about our own backgrounds with reading this book. And so I hope that you'll appreciate this conversation, get to know Dr. McKnight a little bit better, as well as his kind of background, and what got him into thinking about Revelation specifically. We also talked about shared love for baseball and a few other things. So it was a delight to get to speak with Dr. McKnight. We have a few podcasts coming up. We will be talking with Matthew Lynch, about flood and fury and violence in the Old Testament. So we'll be doing a little bit more conversation over biblical books and biblical texts than we normally do. But I hope that's a welcome change. And finally, we also looking to, we're going to release an episode another episode with Paul Hickey, called between humanist philosophy and apocalyptic theology, a book he wrote about a guy called Samuel o su ski. So I'm looking forward to releasing all those conversations. We have had some recent reviews on iTunes that have been very kind. Philip says this had been an excellent podcast with great insight into theology, and the history of the early church, and how certain doctrine came about, and especially love the episodes with the three friends discussing their thoughts on the subject, very entertaining and thought provoking. And so I'm always appreciative of anybody who writes in gives us comments, gives us feedback, we are told that that helps people find the podcast. So appreciate all of you doing that. And we will be of course, recording more episodes, and hope to get some more episodes with Tom and Trevor, as their school years are winding down. But those will probably be coming out this summer. So sorry for the long intro. Thanks for listening. And here's my episode with Dr. Scott McKnight. And so yeah, so we are recording today on the history of Christian theology. I have with me Dr. Scott McKnight. Who is the Julius our Manti I don't know how to say the name for sure. Chair of New Testament at Northern seminary.

Scot McKnight 2:45

Well, thanks Chad for having me. And it's it's Julius Manti, although, and Julius Manti, you you should know this. But you're too young to know it. And that is, he wrote along with Dana, a historic syntactical grammar to New Testament Greek. Okay. It was it was in the old they were it was the old at Robertson kind of grammar. Yeah. So it's the old. nobody uses anymore eight cases. But I read it when I was in college. And then when I came to Northern, they made me the professor, the Julius our Manti professor of New Testament, though I don't use it. I don't use that name in my signature because he was an opponent of women in ministry. So then I'm very much a strong advocate.

Charles Kim 3:36

Okay. Good to know. I just pulled that off the northern seminary website so that

Scot McKnight 3:42

they still use it.

Charles Kim 3:46

Well, Dr. McKnight, among many books, is going to talk with us today about revelation for the rest of us a prophetic call to follow Jesus as a dissident disciple. And I, when I first got the book I had I was looking through it and it says with Cody match it, so I thought we should mention him as well. So who was Cody match, and he couldn't be here for the conversation today, but wanted to give him his due as well.

Scot McKnight 4:12

Cody came to Northern to study with me in New Testament. And he was so far along and gifted, that I made him my graduate or I asked him to be my graduate assistant. He's been working with me. And when I was writing the book, on this revelation, he started working with me and I said, we're gonna write this together, because he's, he's now doing a PhD at Ridley in Australia. Oh, yeah. So he's, he lives in Canada, and he's an exceptional young scholar, who will before too long people will know who he is.

Charles Kim 4:51

Well, that's, that's good to hear. And that and so the book is is a prophetic call to follow Jesus as a dissident decide APL, and I know we'll, we'll get into this a little bit more. But we do have the word dissident is, is one of the kind of is an important word for you throughout the book. So could you say a little bit about the book's thesis? And how does that relate to being a dissident and the message of Revelation?

Scot McKnight 5:21

Yeah, Chad. I mean, this is, this is jumping right to the heart of everything, I guess everything unfolds from it to I think the book of Revelation has been abused, and misused and misread for over 100 years among the circles in which I work, and have taught my entire life and grew up in dispensationalism. And I can I often describe their readings as speculation of who is doing what in the world today. That chorus who in the world today is doing what is described the book of Revelation. And I became convinced that this was a wrong reading a long, long time ago, and I really didn't like identifying people. And I, I tend to ridicule that type of interpretation, got myself in trouble. One time preaching a sermon in chapel in which our Dean's last name was Kaiser. And I said, you know, this is equivalent to the this is the German word for Caesar. I said, that's pretty close to 666. By me, Keiser thought it was hilarious. But some of the some of the professor's didn't think it was too cool. But I think the book is actually almost like a discipleship manual, okay, for Christians in Western Asia Minor, who were living under the thumb of the Roman Empire in the first century. And we're trying to figure out how to follow Jesus in a world that was hardly amenable to that for that form of life. So John, in a sense, provides for them patterns, ways of living, ethics, morals, whatever you want to call it, that would turn them into dissidents, against Babylon, the Roman Empire, in jot and Johannine theology, and it turns them into people who internally and externally resist the ways of Babylon. So it's for people who will discern corruption in political contexts and live against that corruption. So how's that?

Charles Kim 7:39

That's pretty good. And, and yeah, it just reminds me of like, so my primary like, academic research is in patristic theology. And you get right from the beginning, from, you know, Justin Martyr and others that sort of tried to sniff out that kind of corruption that they see in Rome and other places. And you can see how this book sort of fits nicely in the milieu of that, receiving the gospel and and then looking for, you know, or love, tried to live it out in such a way that resists the evil that they see around them.

Scot McKnight 8:15

I mean, there have been a lot of Miss readings of Revelation, including, I don't know where you are on this, Chad, but the a lot of people think that at one time they thought there was like, official widespread persecution against Christians. But from what I read of the early patristic scholars, early church, people, they would say that there was no official persecution at Wharton. Let's see policy that was actually implemented. But there were local, clearly local situations that led to people being killed.

Charles Kim 8:50

Yeah, I probably don't want to go as far as Candida moss does on some of them rejecting rejecting it, but But yeah, maybe not like, yeah, it's hard to figure out what the program was. And definitely there were times when it was greater and when it was lesser and these sorts of things. But it'd be hard to say that Perpetua and Felicity were making it up, or something like that, like, I'm not really willing to just say that they just sort of Yeah, made it up out of whole cloth. But but that maybe not as widespread as we thought. Yeah.

Scot McKnight 9:20

I see that Mark is Bach mule has just translated a little book with Baylor University Press on persecution in the early church. I don't know if you've seen this. It's a German book. I want to say the last guy's name is Rinker, but I'm sorry, I don't. I don't I have the book. But I haven't. I haven't. I haven't read it. So I haven't even looked at the author's name.

Charles Kim 9:43

Well, yeah, I don't know too much about it, but I'll have to look it up. I think I've met Marcus Bach mill once would in my seminary days, but it's been a while since I've read anything from him. Um, well, so part of this the second question you've already started to answer but sort of Euro I was asking about Your own background and coming to terms with what revelation means. And, you know, you talked a little bit in the beginning about your, you know, hearing these sort of dispensational views or these views trying to speculate about when the end time is going to come. Just personally, I often tell a story about changing bedrooms one night at my parents house, and I woke up in the middle of the night to a light shining in the room. And I wasn't used to sleeping in that bedroom. And it was the middle of the night, there's a light shining in the room, and I was like, Oh, the rapture is happening. And then immediately, I got really scared, because I was like, Well, I see the light, and I'm not moving. So I must not be a Christian. And I was convinced that the rest of it well, actually, I wasn't convinced my brother was. So I went into my parents bedroom, because I knew they had probably gone. You know, they were Christians. I don't know about my brother. But I would have my parents room, and they were still there. So I was like, Okay, wait a minute, what's going on? Well, turns out my mom just had a spotlight on her house. And I just didn't, I didn't think about that. And she had turned it off that night.

Scot McKnight 11:10

Well, that happened to me when I was about fourth grade. It was a Wednesday night, I had been to like maybe baseball in the local park, and came home. And I was doing something in the driveway. And it got later and later and later. And I was just old enough to know some of this story about the rapture and some of this stuff. And I really became fearful that maybe my parents had been raptured. And I wasn't my sisters were with my parents so they could have all been raptured. And I was and our neighbor across the street who was in our church, I knew she would be raptured and they were gone as well. And you know, it was so I had that experience I grew up in that I imagined that's where you're gonna go. So I'll just say I grew up my first major purpose from my purchase from my paper route as a boy it was a Scofield Bible. And a leather, Morocco leather. I still have it. Beautiful soft leather. And I, I didn't really pay that much attention to the study notes, but they were there and occasionally I'd read them. When I got to high school when I really became a serious Bible student. I used that Bible quite a bit and I read through it in less than a year or the first, when I was a junior in high school and senior high school. I then I would see the notes. I just didn't know that these notes were filtering me into a certain reading of the Bible. It was instinctive instinctual for me to read those notes and for it to confirm what I had been taught. Our church was not heavy into dispensationalism clearly was not into speculation, but every now and then someone would come through in a revival service and really Barnstorm Barnstorm on the imminent Rapture. But it was in college that I began or, okay, when I was in high school was the days of hell, Lindsay's really Late Great Planet Earth, which I never read. I read Salem curve bands guide to survival and how Salem Kerbin was how Lindsay before how Lindsay became Lindsay, he and some people thought that hell it was kind of grabbing the approach of of Salem Kerbin. But he wrote this book on a guide to survival for people who didn't get raptured to understand what was going on. And I read the book and just sort of bought it hook line and sinker. But when I got to college, where I was thinking more for myself, I became a read Bob Gundry his book, The Church of the Tribulation became post trib. And that just sort of started knocking down all these principles. In dispensationalism. By the time I got to seminary, I didn't believe dispensationalism at all. And I was post trib. And then to my PhD days I became more preterist in my interpretation. And then when I was a young professor at Trinity, I taught a 70 ad understanding of Matthew 24. And I have some students irritated with me and I'd say Well, here it is. And then but there was Chad for me what I learned from my students at Trinity in those longer day long years ago, and I one of them was probably your father was that when they got to the churches, they had to be pre trib. If they weren't, they just had to stay away from that topic. And the new book by Daniel Hummel on the history of the rise and fall of dispensationalism shows that as professors Increasingly decreasingly became convinced, they became unconvinced of dispensationalism. It sort of flipped on the congregational side, they became more and more dispensational. So that's that was what I've experienced that right there most lay people have imbibed in the evangelical world, a very dispensational reading of Revelation, and eschatology.

Charles Kim 15:23

Well, that I have lots of questions or thoughts about that, but to try to return it to the book for a moment. So you, you clearly resist readings like this in your book. So how do you? How do you hope to draw people in into your reading? So if this is the case, that there are lots of these people out there? who kind of have this dispensational outlook? You know, what, what are you trying to do with the book to help them see this as Revelation? But but not that kind of Revelation? Right, not trying to reveal who is the next Antichrist or whatever, but rather a different vision for Christians relationship to the world,

Scot McKnight 16:04

and to the state. One of the most influential books in the history of dispensationalism is Charles Ryrie, his book called Disk dispensationalism, I think it's called Yeah. I can't think of if there's another word in the title, but that's what it seems to me to be. And what I read, I read his book, I, I got it when I was in college, I looked through it, because I didn't believe it. And then I always kept it on my shelf. And then I got rid of it one time I had to buy the newest edition. It was it's very readable and accessible. So I said to myself, if I want to help ordinary people understand the book of Revelation in a different way, I have to write something that's very accessible. So we worked really hard at making this accessible, catchy, and keep some Christian life principles up front and running through the whole book. So I hope that the accessibility of the pros, and the I want to keep a little bit of a polemic, a diatribe against dispensationalism. So that people would realize I'm not saying here's an alternative, let's say there's three different ways to read it. They're all good. I don't think the dispensational speculation approach is good. I think it's mistaken reading. I don't think it's consistent with apocalyptic literature. So I think I wanted I wanted to have a little bit of a constant poking of the other side, so that people would say I'm, I'm different. And I don't like that view and make a make a decision, the readers, but also draw them into CO political hermeneutics. So that they see that if we begin reading this book, toward the end, in Revelation 17, with the Division of Babylon, the Whore of Babylon, that they'll get some categories for understanding what Babylon is like corruption, political corruption is like and start making connections to our world, the United States. And I can't tell you the number of people who said to me, this is just like the United States. I mean, not the whole picture, of course. But there's a lot of like the United States, I say, Well, that's what we have to discern. And then we have to be dissidents in those very areas where we're seeing this show up in United States.

Charles Kim 18:33

Yeah. Is there? Is there a particular thing that they that people notice about a connection between revelation 17 and the American state that you're you have in mind or?

Scot McKnight 18:47

Well, you know, now you're asking about politics. But yes, I do think and that tells you something about my, my institution, where I teach, and the circles I move in, I think the opulence thing is very much connection to what we have. Do you know that 90% of the garages in the United States have 400 square feet of boxes of junk that can't fit in the house? That's pretty serious, opulent. I mean, we've got too much stuff. Yeah. And, you know, we we buy and Buy and buy now books are perfectly fine. We understand that. We both are surrounded by books here. On a consciousness of image, I think particularly under Donald Trump. Many of us saw that he wanted to make America great again. And at times, clearly, he wanted to make America great at the expense of other nations, the way he talked about other countries are militarism. I'm a pacifist. So this one is natural for me and pretty easy to see. But we have a pretty serious militaristic build up. We have many would say a lot of economic exploitation As a Christian, I think that there should be a greater distribution of the economy, there should be greater justice. Just like the mana story, and how Paul picks this up in Second Corinthians. So an arrogance, I mean, I, I grew up in a world where America was the greatest nation in the world. That's not so true anymore for most people who grew up in the United States, but I think that there are connections between Babylon in Revelation 17 And the United States. So I hope you agree with me and I like to tell my students if you don't, you can be wrong.

Charles Kim 20:35

I don't know that I have a I don't know. I, I it went against everything I normally do to ask you that question. Which is I don't normally at like, actually, you saw most of my questions. They weren't very much about the politics behind it. And so that, but I just I don't know, I just was curious. Yeah, no, I mean, I worry about simplicity and about the number of things that we have my kids get, you know, so many toys for every holiday. And, you know, I just think like, do we need that much more? I mean, even my books, you know, we have we have e readers now. Like, you know, should I should I have less of a stash of, you know, paper, or I like, I like hats. I've got a ridiculous collection of baseball hats. Do I need another baseball hat? But you know, yeah, it's a it is a tough one.

Scot McKnight 21:32

You know, the real question is, do you have a Cleveland guardians hat?

Charles Kim 21:36

I do not because I am a Cardinals fan. So I was actually raised in St. Louis. When I came back to do my PhD here. I got to come home. So well, my

Scot McKnight 21:45

father played in the St. Louis Browns organization. It was clay called a Class D ball in Southern Illinois. So I grew up a cardinal fan. And we went to a game every summer and I've seen Bob Gibson and Lou Brock and see the old timers and I've been to the original sportsman Park. Okay. I've been to the second ballpark, but I haven't been to the new one. And I'd like to. I'd like to go some time. But so hey,

Charles Kim 22:12

if you're ever in St. Louis, let me know. They actually offer I went the I went the other night, they offer a clergy pass. So if your clergy go for free,

Scot McKnight 22:23

is that right? Yeah. You have to wear that collar.

Charles Kim 22:29

You don't have to wear your collar. Now, I think I searched your name on Wikipedia just for the heck of it. Did I see that your son is connected to the Cubs?

Scot McKnight 22:38

Well, he played five years in the Cubs organization then worked 15 years in the front office. But he's now the senior scout for the Cleveland guardians. Guardian.

Charles Kim 22:49

Okay, because my so I cheer

Scot McKnight 22:51

for the Cardinals. I can actually.

Charles Kim 22:54

That's right. My wife is a Cubs fan. So she grew up in Chicago, because because her dad was going to Ted's and so they grew up going on the south side of Chicago to watch the Cubs at Wrigley Field. So we're a divided household. Okay. All right. Well, we're a little far afield, but I just, I appreciate you responding. And, and that is it is one of the difficult things, though, to come to terms with like, you know, you were interpreting it for the present day. But one of the issues of hermeneutics is, you know, how does Scripture still speak? How does God still speak? But you, you know, you rightfully work in this book, through the the political categories that were deployed in the original writing, so right, they weren't afraid? Well, actually, they were a little afraid to use, you know, to use them to baldly, which is part of what you try to help uncover is, you know, who is Babylon? Or what are these numbers? Right. So Christians are, you know, especially dispensationalists are concerned with that as as you are, but But you hope to give a correct reading for those sorts of things.

Scot McKnight 24:02

Well, the, you know, the Gospel reading text has let the reader understand, you know, that's a little clue that something's being said here that we understand, but I don't want to say it publicly. But in Revelation, you know, it says, The seventh city of seven hills, there's not many people wondering what that means. I guess there are people in Ephesus or layer to see who would know what that means, but I can't imagine many. And so I don't think John is quite as discreet as some people might, might suggest. But John comes out and says some pretty strong words, I think, and the Christian life that is that he advocates, clearly counters Rome enough that people would realize we're being pushed to do something contrary to the system at work.

Charles Kim 24:54

Well, I'm going to switch gears a little bit. I mentioned that I might read this and do Other Other readings of revelation abound, but I found the way that you explored revelation 19 particularly helpful and interesting, especially from a more pacifist angle. So I can actually kind of remember hearing revelation 19, in a sermon by Mark Driscoll, that's when I listened to that growing up, and we all know where that has gone. So he had a very different take on this. So I thought, and you know, and one of the things that I enjoyed about your book was it does give, you know, people who have kind of an aversion to dispensational, or other harsh readings of the text, you know, finding ways to, to read it with new eyes. But so I thought maybe this would be an interesting one. So, so the revelation 1911, the writer on the white horse, so the Gospels are the book, the Bible says, that I saw heaven open and there was a white horse, and it is a writer called Faithful and True. And in righteousness, He judges and make war. His eyes are like a flame of fire, and on his head are many Daya dims, and he's a name and scribe that no one knows but himself, and he's clothed in a robe dipped in blood, and His name is called The Word of God. And so then he has armies of heaven wearing fine linen, white, pure, white and pure, falling Him on white horses, and from his mouth comes a sharp sword, with which to strike down the nations and He will rule them with a rod of iron. And he will tread the wine press of the fury of the wrath of God Almighty. And on his robe, and on his thigh, he has a name inscribed KING OF KINGS AND LORD OF LORDS. So this is in RSV, but um, so you know, at least when I first look at this, it's hard not to see the kind of warring imagery, the robe dipped in blood, the and then the wrath of God. But you in the book, you kind of help us think through different ways to consider what what does the divine judgment look like? And maybe what the symbols that may on the face of it seemed like warring symbols may be otherwise?

Scot McKnight 27:03

Well, okay. It's difficult. I would say to begin with, these are visions. And I want to put this in the world of fiction more than literal prediction and description. So that's pretty good little pond right there fiction, rather than prediction, and description. And the big vision of the book of Revelation is that injustice and oppression and violence will end. Ironically, with the kind of violence that God pours out in the world, that ends violence, it's sort of the violence to end violence. And while this is a sword, nobody is encouraged to pick up a sword and fight Rome, or to go to battle. Rather, this is going to be an act of God that will end injustice in the world. And I would say that the victory is through the blood is the blood of martyrdom is death, rather than dipped in blood, because he's slayed so many people that as he walks through the battlefield, the King of Kings gets blood on his robe. I think that's a gross grotesque image that would not be characteristic. And I think that we have to learn not to read the book of Revelation, literally. But literarily. And as a result, we need to see this as a vision of victory over evil in warlike language, because that's how you won battles. And we don't we don't look at I think, I do think some people I remember hearing this, but maybe I'm just too old to be appreciated. You know, I've read Homer, and I've read Virgil, and I've read, Dante, I think those are three great stories, and writers. And then, and I think if we read fiction, like even like Lord of the Rings, would we see the battles I don't think we look at these as grotesque use of violence so much as the way you describe a victory over opponents in a battlefield. And same with the Chronicles of Narnia. So I, I tend to say, we need to see this in the realm of fiction, rather than description. And yes, it does connect language of the battle to God, and that can be problematic and it can be used to legitimate or justify the use of violence for some people. But I think the overall picture is that the fundamental image of Jesus in the book of Revelation is that he's a lamb who wins by being slaughtered and being raised by God. And the fundamental act of Jesus is that he is the true and genuine witness. And of course, you know, you teach Greek, Mark tooth, will become martyr in the embodiment of living consistently with what you believe. And his victory is to use the word of God rather than violence, it would be the violence is wrong in the militaristic violence is wrong. The the right is not more violence is not more militarism. So that that has been for me the irony of the book of Revelation that we have to deal with. And I just got a letter from some people, some women who are doing a Bible study and they're bothered by this thing. And I told him that I'm bothered by it as well. I think that sometimes that it's too easy to think that what you need to defeat violence is greater violence. I don't think that's what it's saying. But what I think, Chad, my main idea is that this needs to be seen in the world of fiction as defeat of evil, rather than description of a battlefield. I mean, like Armageddon, you know, I just got Bart airman's book called Armageddon. He's deconstructing evangelical eschatology now, which it deserves. But what I noticed is, he's against literal readings of the book of Revelation, but when he needs it, he uses literal readings in order to show that that evangelicalism is wrong. But if it's not literal readings, then you can't use literal readings against them. I mean, yes, they do read it that way. So if you turn it against them, that's fair. But if the book is not to be read literally like that, then we can't then turn it against those who use it that way. So

Charles Kim 31:58

yeah, well, that's that's one of the difficult things about calling it literal, right? Because and you kind of deal with this in the beginning talk and you've already used this word, but speculation. You know, one of the interesting things about sort of dispensational kind of readings is there's a kind of literalism but it's a literalism that also is willing to be at least somewhat, you know, as you would say, speculative, right? So it's not dealing with the letter of the text, because the letter of the text as an odd lythrum, right, literally, like literal, would probably be a preterist reading. And then it's not clear exactly, you know, what significance it has for the present day? No, that would be one way to sort of resist this. But then you might say, with, actually with other earlier Christians, I don't even know why this we, you know, that wasn't offered early on, it wasn't listed in the included, you know, Canon. So, yeah.

Scot McKnight 32:53

Now, there was some, there's some tension over Canada, and we avoided that discussion. So I'm not really prepared to try it out in that much argument about about the Canon issue, but it was accepted in the early church. apocalyptic literature was peculiar. It's so it's so apocalyptic that it's unlike anything in the New Testament. And because it has so much imagery, it therefore partakes in the fiction, of apocalyptic. It's open to all kinds of misinterpretations. I mean, remember, the King of Kings is called, in that very passage, the word of God, the logos, this sword, that is the is the sword that comes out of the word. And it's really clever that in English, its sword, and word is a part of sword. But that has nothing to do with Greek. But I really, I really do think that to read that literally, and Mark Driscoll would be one who had like that he loves the bloodshed type stuff. He thinks it's manual man, manly and masculine. I think it's a misreading of Revelation. Yeah.

Charles Kim 34:07

Yeah. Well, and so the book is full of interesting kinds of ways of exploring the text. One of them, you know, so a lot of the a lot of the early Christian readers recognize the connection to Daniel, but some of the stuff that you bring out our connections to the prophets to Exodus to the broader Old Testament canon. So can you just say something about how the Old Testament can help us read Revelation? Well,

Scot McKnight 34:38

no. Well, this is a complex one. And you know, this, you know, this. I would put it this way, John, John's book is record at some level of visions that he has. All right, but he has to describe these visions. because he takes it from what he saw, to something that he writes down. When he writes it down, the language he chooses, is going to interpret what he saw. Right? It's pretty simple, but it's pretty profound as well. John is so steeped in Old Testament, prophetic writings, that the language that he uses to describe what he saw sounds like Daniel, and Ezekiel, and Isaiah, Zachariah, without very often even quoting those books, which is astounding, because I think Greg Beal, who's sort of a guru about this, I think he says, there are some 600 allusions to the Old Testament, and how many actual quotations hardly any. So John, I like to look at it this way jazz, he, he sees something. As he writes it down. He sees his history of reading the Old Testament. And he begins to write things out that sound like the Old Testament, not because he necessarily thought that these were predictions of the Old Testament being fulfilled, but that what he saw is similar to what they saw. And therefore he describes it in similar language. It's a sort of revelation has analogy to Ezekiel into Daniel into Isaiah and Zechariah. So I'm, I believe that the interpretive level of John use language that sounded like the Old Testament prophets, not because he thought they were predictions, but because he could not see those things that he saw without using that language to describe it.

Charles Kim 36:58

Yeah, well, and you one of the phrases, that comes up a lot for you, and you've used it a couple of times here, well, as well as imagination, right. So we have to think about this in kind of a broader way. So and we might say that, yeah, that John's imagination is so infused with the Old Testament. And with that story that of course, the language that he reaches for is language that fits within nominal use the what is it? The what are the cultural imaginary, Charles Taylor, right. So it's just part social, imaginary.

Imaginary. There we go. Yeah. And, yeah, so anyway, you maybe John is just so so engrossed in that, that that's kind of the only place that he could go to try to put words to paper.

Scot McKnight 37:47

Yeah, I like you're using the word social imaginary there. Because I, we actually, I don't think I talked to Cody even about this, but I thought about doing that. And I thought, Oh, my, this is just another level of language that I'm gonna have to try to explain. But you can't. Alright. You know, when we read the Lord of the Rings, and we see Tom Bombadil bomba, you know, bopping along, we don't think, Who Who is he predicting? Alright? We see him as a character. When we see Gandalf when we see your all the other characters and in The Lord of the Rings, or the, you know, Peter and Lucy, or Reepicheep, you know, we don't think of who are they predicting, we see them as characters in a narrative, but they, they fill our minds as characters as we read them. They fill our minds up, and the book of Revelation is filled with these characters. You can't look at Revelation, listen to Revelation 12 being read. These were people who didn't sit and read the book. They listened to it. And it starts out and it sounds like Israel with 12 stars, the 12, you know, for a first century Jews, Israel, it could be the apostles, but probably Israel, and then all of a sudden, it sounds like Mary, it has to be Mary, because this woman gives birth to Jesus. Well, only Protestants don't see that as Mary. In fact, one of my, one of my friends wrote a commentary on Revelation. And I said, Did you see Mary and Revelation 12? He said, No, I don't think anybody sees that. I said, just try read the Catholics and the Orthodox. They all see Mary here, and then all of a sudden, that woman seems to become the church. So it takes imagination, rather than some kind of flat footed literalism to say, well, which which woman is it can only be one. Well, why can't the image morph the way the lion morphs to a lamb? The way this woman morphs to Morton times, you have to have imagination to see that you have to see a man have imagination to connect the woman of revelation 12, with the woman of revelation 17, you have to have imagination, to see the vision of God with all these things surrounding them. Those are images that make us think of stuff. And if we let those images take us where they take us, the book will do what it's supposed to do to us. Now we, as 21st century, Westerners, white guys, with not much hair, you have more than I have we, we need help, because we're not first century Jews. So we have to baptize ourselves into apocalyptic literature to catch some of this stuff, or into prophetic literature, which is just as valuable many times in Revelation, if not more, but it will stimulate our imaginations. And that's what it's supposed to do. And I often tell my students, I want to read this aloud. And I want you to put your bibles down, and I don't want you to look at your texts. I just want you to listen to this being read and what happens to you. What did you see? What did you hear? What did you smell? What did you feel? That's what happened in the first century. And that's what John was trying to evoke. When he wrote the letter. It takes imagination to read the book of Revelation. And when you see it as speculation and prediction, you ruin the imagery.

Charles Kim 41:37

Yeah. Well, then you you brought up the word prophecy. We've talked about the prophets a little bit, but just there, you said prediction. So I wonder if you might like, we haven't really talked about this much on the podcast. But like the difference between sort of prophetic as in like, the prophetic literature, which tends to often, you know, talk about the unjust structures of society versus prophecy as what is the next event that's supposed to be coming in the future, because that might also trip some people up, you just said prophecy. But this isn't prophecy in the sense of trying to tell you, you know, foretell what what the next events are?

Scot McKnight 42:19

Well, I like to, I've been teaching this for so many years, even know what language I use anymore. I taught for 17 years, two or three times a year prophetic, A prophet is fundamentally a social critic. That's the category I used to tell my students when I was teaching undergrad students that they were like a New York Times newspaper columnist, or, you know, if you're, if you read other papers, that's fine, too. But their social critics, they they basically have a passion from God. This is Heschel in his great book, on, on the prophets, they have the passion of God, to speak to the people of God, a word of God, from God, about the current situation, that if they don't respond to the ways of God, that they're going to experience the judgment of God. And attach to that social critic. Prophet is prediction of what will happen if they respond well, and what will happen if they respond in disobedience. So the Prophet was not primarily a predictor, but a revealer of the way of the message of God, the will of God, the truth of God about their situation in the present with implications for the future, so, and Revelation partakes in prophecy, John says it's a prophecy, the end of the book. But prophecy is not just prediction, and this is what this this is constant jazz is constant. Did I have to deal with this this question? I mean, it's not the question. So much that you've asked is that, well, if it's prophecy, it's got to be about the future? No. If it's prophecy, it must be about the present first. It's meaningless if it's not about the present. So prophetic, the prophet speaks the message of God, to the people of God about the present in order to tell them what the future will be in light of their response.

Charles Kim 44:39

That's very, very helpful. So as a kind of like, question that I often asked my guests, just to sort of switch gears do something that's not it doesn't have to be related to the book, but it can be. I often say I often ask this question, what is one thing you once thought was true that you now think is false, or one thing you want? thought was false. And now think is true. So one one big shift in your own thinking, sometimes people will talk about the research that they've done for the book. So like research can lead you to change your mind, which I think is some of the fun of research, also frustration, but also just the in life, you know, sometimes we, you know, we, we have these big moments that change our way of thinking, and those can be interesting to me.

Scot McKnight 45:29

Well, this is something that's kind of percolating in my mind right now. So I'll put it this way. And that is, I think the people today in the church, who are on the margins of the church who are going through what they like to call as deconstruction, which is not technically what the French deconstructionist were talking about, but doesn't matter. I think that they have developed a prophetic voice to the church. At times when I first heard him talking about that, they're just cynical, you know. But the more I listened to him, the more I realized that they are developing, and I don't think that always that they have a clear sight of where they're headed. They're developing a very serious critique of the church based upon how the church has systematized and become systemic. In its, let's say, lackadaisical, we'll call it layup to see and piety. So, I've changed my mind on that at first, I thought maybe it was just kitschy and trendy to be a deconstructionist. But as I've listened to more and more of them, I think that they have some, they're, they're drilling down on some very important things the church needs to hear. And what I see them saying is, we've got to get back to Jesus. And we got to, we got to, in a sense, toss out the rubble, connected to all this church, Enos. And, you know, a lot of my students are just sick and tired of mega churches, performance, platforms, celebrities, they want to have someone who follows Jesus and cares about the poor. And they're, they're tired of the other stuff. So I, I've learned a lot from them.

Charles Kim 47:30

Oh, that that's helpful. Yeah, that was not what I expected you to say. But

Scot McKnight 47:36

well, I mean, I could talk about the revelation, but that's what I talk about.

Charles Kim 47:39

Yeah, no, no, it's good. I appreciate it. I was not where I thought you'd go with that one. Um, well, one thing that just as I was reading, I was a little surprised by, I didn't put this down. I hope this is okay. But you were talking about the dissidents. And you listed a whole bunch of people, some of whom have like, closer connections to the Christian story. And some of them have less of a connection to the Christian story. So how is it that? Can you talk a little bit about the category of dissident and what does it mean? You know, some of these people wouldn't have read Revelation, but they still might be a helpful image of being a dissident or I don't know, maybe is that I sort of think Well, yeah, do they fit?

Scot McKnight 48:26

Well, no, I I chose people because of their courage to stand up to systemic corruptions, and abuse. Yes. Gandhi clearly was not a Christian. Yeah, I had a public discussion with Tom Wright about this one time, not that he thought he was a Christian. So I think that those people in their resistance, some of whom, clearly Mandela, Martin Luther King had connections to the church. We're expressing the kind of dissidents that Christians need to take on in our world today. And I don't think we should be embarrassed by connecting ourselves to people who had the courage to do the right thing in a world where it costs them deeply, to do the right thing and to speak up and speak out. So I use those as the examples. And I don't know the full stories of each of you know, I'm not a specialist on on, on Saints week, he who was under arrest for her resistance and fight for freedom and Burma. I have read her story, you know, a small story but yeah, so and I, I've only read a little bit of Vaclav huvelle And I'd like to, I should read more philosopher, social critic, but these people had prophetic powers to speak. And I think that that God can speak to our world through more than just ordained ministers who were callers

Charles Kim 50:01

Point Taken Point taken. I'm reading a book. It just the the Vaclav Havel reminded me of this, I'm going to do an interview with a theologian called Paul hin licky. And he just wrote a book about a Slavic resistor to sort of a kind of fascism in, in, in Slovenia. But he's a let's see, Samuel, Stefan Oh, Sue ski, and just to not just another name, but actually one of the interesting things is I so I've been preparing for the interview with you and the the interview with Paul in licky. And in the 1940s, as he was concerned about the rise of Nazism, in in his country, he wrote a commentary on Revelation. And it was sort of it was actually revelation that was giving him the courage to speak up. What he felt like was the corruption of his age. And he ended up also so they they fell under the Soviet bloc. So he also he was in prison for 20 years, I think, or at least put into exile, for being a resistor of the hint like he calls it Marxist Leninist Marxist, Leninism. He doesn't call it communism all the way through, but anyway, but he faced political persecution for his theological beliefs, including those of from Revelation.

Scot McKnight 51:29

Well, Alain de Sacher, I think that's how you pronounce his name, both sec. From South Africa did the same thing. He has a little book on Revelation. And he was fighting apartheid, because of the courage and I think that's what this book should do. Give people courage to resist the systems of corruption.

Charles Kim 51:48

Yeah, well, I guess that's just, you know, one more piece of evidence, or goes in your favor of the reading, right. There are lots of people carrying revelation. And, well, I don't want to keep you too long. But it has been a pleasure to talk with you. And I wasn't sure exactly where the conversation was going to go. So we got a little baseball in there. We got a little bit of history of dispensationalism. Yeah, well, anyway. So the book is a revelation for the rest of us a prophetic call to follow Jesus as a dissident disciple with Zondervan press. And so just want to say thank you to Scott McKnight for being on a history of Christian theology.

Scot McKnight 52:34

Well, thank you chairs and you give your father a greeting for me. And tell him I remember all his papers. Even though I don't

Charles Kim 52:45

well, and it's not that big of a deal. Is my father in law actually my wife Yeah. My dad's a banker, so he you know, he doesn't

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