Elisabeth Schussler Fiorenza's pioneering and widely acclaimed volume, now reissued with a new Preface and Epilogue, has served to reorient interpretations of this controversial book. Rather than finding an individual Christian vision of a fiery endtime, Schussler Fiorenza writes of Christian communities living in the shadow of imperial power, fearing denunciation by their neighbors, yet envisioning the eventual effect of Jesus Christ's resurrection and enthronement on the whole social order. In Schssler Fiorenza's theological-historical analyses, the Book of Revelation is a literary product of early Christian prophecy, and her interpretation leads to distinctive notions of the book's composition, social intent, relation to the Gospel of John, and visionary rhetoric of apocalypse and justice.
Elisabeth Schussler Fiorenza is Krister Stendahl Professor at Harvard Divinity School, a founding co-editor of the Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion, past president of the Society of Biblical Literature, and author of many important and influential works, among them In Memory of Her (1984), Bread Not Stone (1985), Jesus: Miriam"s Child, Sophia"s Prophet (1995), Rhetoric and Ethic: The Politics of Biblical Studies (1999), The Power of the Word: Scripture and the Rhetoric of Empire (2007), and Democratizing Biblical Studies: Toward an Emancipatory Educational Space (2009). Empowering Memory and Movement is the third volume in her collected essays from Fortress Press, including Transforming Vision: Explorations in Feminist The*logy (2011) and Changing Horizons: Explorations in Feminist Interpretation (2013). She is editor of Searching the Scriptures (two volumes, 1993, 1994), a feminist introduction and commentary.
Table of Contents Preface to Second Edition Preface to First Edition Acknowledgements Prologue Introduction: Research Perspectives on the Book of Revelation PART ONE: THEOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVES AND FRAMEWORKS Chapter 1 -- History and Eschatology in Revelation Chapter 2 -- Redemption as Liberation (Rev. 1:5-6 and 5:9-10) PART TWO: REVELATION IN THE CONTEXT OF EARLY CHRISTIANITY IN ASIA MINOR Chapter 3 -- The Quest for the Johannine School: The Book of Revelation and the Fourth Gospel Chapter 4 -- Apocalyptic and Gnosis in Revelation and in Paul Chapter 5 -- Apokalypsis and Propheteia: Revelation in the Context of Early Christian Prophecy PART THREE: LITERACY VISION AND COMPOSITION Chapter 6 -- The Composition and Structure of Revelation Chapter 7 -- Visionary Rhetoric and Social-Political Situation Epilogue: The Rhetoricality of Apocalypse and the Politics of Interpretation
