Apocalypse is a class of Jewish (and Christian) writing that appeared from about 200 B.C to A.D. 350. These were writings of revelation about the ultimate divine purpose. A common feature of these writings is the claim that its contents were based on visions. Often, the author was in conversation with angels. The authors, faced with supernatural events and subtleties, resorted to using symbolic language; as literal language, for the most part, proved to be inadequate.

And so it is with the apocalyptic book of Revelation. The style was chosen because of the popularity of apocalyptic books at the time; books like 1 and 2 Enoch, 4 Ezra, and 2 Baruch. In other words, God, as is His style, met with and communicated with the Apostle John, the human writer, and the original readers of Revelation where they were. The people of John’s time understood the symbolic scenes and language because it was a natural and big part of their vocabulary.

Again, the choice of symbolism and figurative language is of God’s choosing. But John sometimes added his own. Like the writers of other apocalyptic works, when he couldn’t come up with an adequate, descriptive human word, he used “like” and “as.” Another key point is that most of the imagery and symbolism in the visions come almost entirely from the Old Testament. Out of Revelation’s 404 verses, 278 have allusions or references from the Old Testament.

What all this means is that in order to understand and interpret the book of Revelation for today, one should try to find out how the readers of John’s time understood the book. The best way to do that is to look for and study similar events and language in the Old Testament (the book of Daniel is extremely important). That way, one can then use the contexts in John’s writing to make the proper adjustments. To a lesser extent, the New Testament also plays a part, as some of its theological themes are paralleled in Revelation.

The bottom line is that when it comes to the book of Revelation, the best source for understanding it is the Bible. As usual, the Bible interprets itself.