Patmos

Many people avoid reading the Book of Revelation. It just seems too frightening. It is filled with blaring thunder, strange beasts, mayhem and death. Indeed, Revelation describes a brutal adversary that is in utter rebellion against the good and seduces many to turn from the truth and embrace the darkness. But Fr. Antony Alaharasan shows that the book is full of love, hope, mercy and spectacular insight into the wonders of heaven. Indeed, Fr. Antony manages to convey a sense of the ecstasy that John was caught up in when he experienced the vision and gives us a hint of what God has in store for us who love him. John, the disciple whom Jesus loved, authored the fourth Gospel, two epistles and the Book of Revelation also known as the Apocalypse. Because St. John wrote Revelation from his exile on the island of Patmos, Fr. Antony visited Patmos to view first hand the cave where John was imprisoned and the magnificent monastery built ten centuries ago to honor of this great saint.

This monograph explores the significance accorded to John's island of Patmos (Rev. 1:9) within the wider reception history of the Apocalypse. In contrast to the relatively scant attention paid to John's island in modern commentaries, this reception-historical survey reveals both the greater prominence accorded to Patmos by earlier interpreters, and the richer diversity of readings the text has provoked. These include interest in the physical character of Patmos and its significance as an island; the date and reason for John's sojourn there; attempts to locate Patmos in a geography which is sometimes more mythical than literal; the meaning of the name 'Patmos' in the context of a biblical book which treats other place-names symbolically. This diversity is supported by a close reading of Rev. 1:9, which highlights the extent to which even its literal sense is highly ambiguous. Ian Boxall brings together for the first time in a coherent narrative a wide range of interpretations of Patmos, reflecting different chronological periods, cultural contexts, and Christian traditions. Boxall understands biblical interpretation broadly, to include interpretations in biographical traditions about John, sermons, liturgy, and visual art as well as biblical commentaries.He also considers popular and marginal readings alongside magisterial and centrist ones, and draws analogies between similar hermeneutical strategies across the centuries. In the final chapter Boxall explores the wider implications of his study for biblical scholarship, advocating an approach which encourages use of the imagination and reader participation, and which works with a broader concept of 'meaning' than traditional historical criticism.

One hundred billion years in the future, another empire discovers the Patmos, which is the complete history of humanity, good and bad. Upon the private viewing, the resident gods declare it too dangerous. The Patmos has within it material that, when viewed, could release the Knowledge of Evil, a concept that could, like a virus, destroy their universe. Likewise, this small Patmos ball is composed of complete atoms, as they could destroy millions of stars. Their governing council sends the Patmos through a series of wormholes to other dimensions. They also call back all their giant space worlds, as ships are a far-distant memory, if another Patmos was somehow dispatched. Life in the Patmos witnessed the chosen earthlings and viewed the earth as it passed through the Great Tribulation, where humanity is rendered extinct. They survived World War III in which the Eagle, Dragon, and Bear die, allowing a silent monster to recreate an old empire and rule the world. He begins his genocide, sparing Israel, which he gives a nice new temple, only to betray them. His empire suffers through twenty-one judgments, which leaves those with his mark doomed as he loses both the physical and spiritual last war and gets a kick from the archangel Michael for the bottomless pit, as the journey for the victors is only beginning.