Session 1: The Book of Revelation in Contemporary Culture
Amanda Dillon, Dublin City University, ‘A Place Prepared for Her: A Reception of Revelation 12:14 in Contemporary Bible Journaling’
This paper examines the reception and appropriation of Revelation 12:14 in a striking instance of contemporary Bible journaling produced by a woman in recovery from drug addiction. Drawing on multimodal analysis as its primary methodological framework, the paper offers a close reading of a journaled Bible page in which the journaler has woven together the printed biblical text, personal handwritten reflection, and collaged imagery into a sophisticated, multilayered theological narrative of liberation and personal transformation.
The paper argues that the journaler performs an act of genuine biblical reception, reading herself directly into the apocalyptic imagery of Revelation 12, with its figures of the woman, the serpent, and the providential wilderness. The ancient text’s themes of divine protection, liminality, and deliverance from evil find vivid contemporary expression in her creative interventions on the page. Attention is given to artistic compositional choices: colour, materials, placement, perspective, and the word-image relationship as motivated meaning-making decisions that negotiate the journaler’s past experience of addiction and her emergent identity as a recovered, spiritually renewed self. My proposition here is that Bible journaling represents a significant site of lay biblical reception, in this instance one that illuminates how apocalyptic texts continue to generate transformative meaning in contemporary lived experience.
Plus: Group Discussion on recent research on the reception of the Apocalypse in art, music and film.
Session 2: Joint Session with Ancient Judaism & Christianity
Veronica Moreno Arjona, University of Lorraine, ‘Pseudo-Ezekiel and the Book of Revelation: The Throne Vision, the Babylon Motif, and a Shared Prophetic Legacy’
Pseudo-Ezekiel is a fragmentary composition from the Dead Sea Scrolls, preserved in six manuscripts from Qumran Cave 4 (4Q385, 4Q385b, 4Q385c, 4Q386, 4Q388, and 4Q391). The title reflects the work’s character as rewritten Scripture within the Ezekiel tradition. Nevertheless, Pseudo-Ezekiel is more than just a rewriting; it is a polyphony of words and utterances that existed before and whose authoritative status and identity relevance seek to be perpetuated.
This study examines two literary parallels between Pseudo-Ezekiel and the Book of Revelation in the light of a shared prophetic legacy. Firstly, a comparison is made between the throne vision of 4Q385 6 and Revelation 4, with a focus on the four living creatures and, in particular, the “calf” variant in relation to Ezekiel 1:10. Secondly, the Babylon motif in 4Q386 1 iii and Revelation 17–18 is examined, with particular attention paid to the imagery of Babylon as a cup and a demonic dwelling place, against the background of Jeremiah 51 in both the MT and the LXX.
Jared W Hay, University of Edinburgh, ‘Clothed in white robes’: nuances of John the Seer’s garment language’
Students of Revelation need to pay close attention to its detail, because John uses words carefully. One such detail is the way in which John uses language describing the clothes of several of the characters, and the significance of these descriptions. That such a study is needed can be shown from the way in which translations and commentators have ‘flattened’ John’s range of Greek words in ways that make it impossible to perceive any difference in nuance and significance. Usually the Greek words – βύσσινος (x5), ἱμάτιον (x7), λίνον (x1), ποδήρη (x1), and στολὰς (x5) – are translated as ‘robe,’ ‘garment,’ or ‘linen’ and ‘fine linen’ with little regard as to who is wearing them and what they signify. The emphasis is usually on the colour ‘white’ or that they have been ‘washed in the blood of the Lamb.’ When the type of clothing, and who is wearing it, is examined, we gain a better understanding of the significance of the clothing for the narrative.
Albert-Beniamin Cucu, Romania, ‘The Intertextual Relationships between Revelation 18:4 and Genesis 19:15: An Overlooked Allusion’
This study investigates the intertextual relationships between Revelation 18:4 and Genesis 19:15, addressing a notable gap in biblical scholarship. While both passages share thematic and theological parallels, existing research has not explicitly identified Genesis 19:15 as an allusion to Revelation 18:4, nor provided a comprehensive intertextual analysis. Genesis 19:15 informs the interpretation of Revelation 18:4 by linking the fall of Babylon to the destruction of Sodom. Both texts call God’s people to “come out,” emphasizing separation from sin and divine judgment. This parallel enhances the understanding of Revelation 18:4, revealing a consistent divine pattern of judgment and redemption from Genesis to Revelation. The paper will also consider the reception-history of Gen 19 in Ancient Judaism.
To establish Genesis 19:15 as an allusion to Revelation 18:4, four criteria were applied: (1) textual availability— confirming John’s familiarity with Genesis; (2) linguistic parallels— identifying shared phrases; (3) thematic parallels— highlighting common motifs of separation and divine judgment; and (4) structural parallels— revealing similar narrative progression. Based on these criteria, the study concludes that Genesis 19:15 is a meaningful allusion to Revelation 18:4, providing valuable insights into the theological unity of Scripture.
Session 3: Open Session
Jammer Prayerson Andalangi, University of Cambridge, ‘From Pax Romana to Pax Christi: The Inauguratio of an Alter-Imperial Sacred Space in the Apocalypse of John’
This research investigates the architectonic and liturgical program of Revelation 21, proposing that the vision of the New Jerusalem functions as the formal inauguratio of an AlterImperial Sacred Space. Departing from traditional anti-imperial readings that emphasize the sheer destruction of the Roman order, this study employs an Alter-Imperial framework to argue that John of Patmos appropriates the technical legalism of Roman ius sacrum to articulate a superior, rival sovereignty. By synthesizing historical-grammatical exegesis with Imperial Cult studies and and postcolonial theory, the inquiry demonstrates that the narrative sequence of Revelation 21 meticulously mimics the tripartite Roman technical rites of inauguratio, consecratio, and dedicatio. This analysis establishes the “measuring” of the city as a formal designatio — the augural act of marking sacred boundaries (limitatio) to “release” (liberatio) the terrestrial plane into a divine templum. Within this procedural logic, the New Jerusalem emerges as a space rendered extra commercium, transfiguring the fractured stability of the Pax Romana into the perfected Pax Christi. The study concludes that the Johannine vision performs a liturgical and legal transfiguration of the Mediterranean world. Rather than a purely exclusionary polemic, the New Jerusalem represents the teleological fulfillment of both Jewish messianic expectation and the Roman quest for an auspicious, eternal order, signaling the displacement of Roman institutional stability by a legally perfected and inclusive Divine Space.