Following the outline of its literary structure, a list of textual details will be presented, illustrating further symmetry within the literary structure. After that, the literary structure of this “melody” will be outlined, thereby illuminating some significant symmetry within it. Jordan suggests in The Vindication of Jesus Christ that it might be best to think of Revelation as a “polyphonic musical composition, in which several melodies are moving simultaneously but with perfect harmony and interaction.” With Jordan’s suggestion in mind, the goal of this paper is to explore only one of Revelation’s apparent “melodies.” After this introduction, we will survey the trajectory of this “melody,” including some ways it will diverge from other reputable “melodies.” I will also explain briefly how that divergence affects our perception of Revelation’s unfolding drama. In light of its extraordinarily complex composition, James B. Rather, John seems to have placed numerous and varied structural markers throughout the book, each of which seem to have their own distinctive advantages for discerning the plot, but not necessarily the structure. A significant reason for such disagreement is that John does not seem to have used any singularly obvious structure, although many scholars have attempted to prove otherwise. The book of Revelation is acknowledged by many scholars to be a literary masterpiece, yet as Richard Bauckham explains in The Climax of Prophecy, it is also “an extraordinarily complex literary composition.” Consequently, there is very little agreement about the book’s literary structure both as a whole and in its apparent parts. For John, against higher Christologies that had already sprouted by the end of the first century, only on this basis did Christ become equal, and worthy of simultaneous praise, with his God who was formerly to be praised alone. God’s worthiness to be praised is, as elsewhere, related to his creation and mighty works, but Christ’s worthiness owes completely to his redemptive death. John teaches by means of modeling the truest possible worship-that which takes place in heaven, in God’s throne room, all the while countering competing claims to Lordship from contemporaneous “deities” or secular rulers. The opening “Holy, Holy, Holy” usurps a common prophetic scene and sets the stage for John’s “Worthy, Worthy, Worthy,” which constitutes his primary concern. The hymnic units of Revelation 4-5, though ostensibly detailing John’s visions upon ascending to heaven in the spirit, convey his essential theological and Christological doctrines. This study has sought to avoid these traps by being attuned to both stylistic and thematic elements of John’s earliest hymns, uncovering, for example, fresh observations about this Hebrew poet’s purposeful violation of Greek grammar in favor of a poetic doublet for the existence of God. Moreover, those interested in the hymns of Revelation easily recognize the poetic qualities of the book’s later hymns, passing over significant features appearing earlier. Scholars often note that the highly symbolic language of Revelation places it in a heightened poetic register, but this sense of saturation in a sea of imagery can detract from observing specific poetic features in the author’s composition. While a Jewish background is commonly posited as the background for understanding water imagery in Revelation and the Fourth Gospel, the Greco-Roman polytheistic cults are posited as the primary religious background for Gentile believers in the Asian congregations. In the final section, the Asian cultic practice of using water-the hydrophoros in the Artemis cult-is presented. A theological understanding of water imagery for Revelation and the gospel is proposed. Old Testament backgrounds for language are examined along with the intertextual relationship between texts in Revelation and John. The next section examines four pericopae in Revelation and in the Fourth Gospel where water imagery is prevalent. A fresh assessment is provided that includes an expanded lexical domain for water and notes its high frequency of usage in Revelation and John when compared to the rest of the New Testament. It first explores the attempt to tabulate examples of water terminology in the New Testament and how that tabulation has proven incomplete. ![]() This article is comprised of three separate yet related explorations regarding the image of water in Revelation and the Fourth Gospel.
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