Genesis and Revelation

1750 words, 8 minute read

The canonical Christian Bible, finalized during the first centuries C.E., is beautifully constructed. Genesis and Revelation are its bookends and, like all good bookends, they are symmetrical. Like Peter Pan, Genesis takes us from void through the light and onto the created world while Revelation takes us from the created world through void onto Parousia.

That said, do not expect the Apocalypse to look like a film of Creation run backwards. The processes are congruent but not mirror images. Check it out:

Genesis: Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and wind sweeping over waters, and God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light! God saw that the light was good, and he separated the light from the darkness. God called the light “day,” and the darkness he called “night.” And there was evening, and there was morning—the first day.

Revelation: I watched as the Lamb opened the first seal of seven. Then I heard one of the four living creatures say in a voice like thunder, “Come!” I looked, and there before me was a white horse! Its rider held a bow, and he was given a crown, and he rode out as a conqueror bent on conquest.

Aletheia: Light ↔ white. Light is vectored (bow); it stands at the head of the created world (crown) and it is the prerequisite of all that follows (conquest).

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Genesis: And God said, “Let there be a vault between the waters to separate water from water.” So God made the vault and separated the water under the vault from the water above it. And it was so. God called the vault “sky.” And there was evening, and there was morning—the second day.

Revelation: When the Lamb opened the second seal, I heard the second living creature say, “Come!” Then another horse came out, a fiery red one. Its rider was given power to take peace from the earth and to make people kill each other. To him was given a large sword.

Aletheia: Separation ↔ sword. The sword is agent of division, as instrument of death; appropriately, it’s color is fire engine red.

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Genesis: And God said, “Let the water under the sky be gathered to one place, and let dry ground appear.” And it was so. God called the dry ground “land,” and the gathered waters he called “seas.” And God saw that it was good. Then God said, “Let the land produce vegetation: seed-bearing plants and trees on the land that bear fruit with seed in it, according to their various kinds.” And it was so. The land produced vegetation: plants bearing seed according to their kinds and trees bearing fruit with seed in it according to their kinds. And God saw that it was good. And there was evening, and there was morning—the third day.

Revelation: When the Lamb opened the third seal, I heard the third living creature say, “Come!” I looked, and there before me was a black horse! Its rider was holding a pair of scales in his hand. Then I heard what sounded like a voice among the four living creatures, saying, “Two pounds[a] of wheat for a day’s wages, and six pounds of barley for a day’s wages, and do not damage the oil and the wine!”

Aletheia: Gatherer economy ↔ distributive justice. Black ↔ (justice is) blind.

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Genesis: And God said, “Let there be lights in the vault of the sky to separate the day from the night, and let them serve as signs to mark sacred times, and days and years, and let them be lights in the vault of the sky to give light on the earth.” And it was so. God made two great lights—the greater light to govern the day and the lesser light to govern the night. He also made the stars. God set them in the vault of the sky to give light on the earth, to govern the day and the night, and to separate light from darkness. And God saw that it was good. And there was evening, and there was morning—the fourth day.

Revelation: When the Lamb opened the fourth seal, I heard the voice of the fourth living creature say, “Come!” I looked, and there before me was a pale horse! Its rider was named Death, and Hades was following close behind him. They were given power over a fourth of the earth to kill by sword, famine and plague, and by the wild beasts of the earth.

Aletheia: Time ↔ death (entropy, mortality). Death (Hades) entails the loss of defining qualia, e.g. the ‘shades’ in Homer’s underworld (Odyssey); ergo, “pale.”

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Genesis: And God said, “Let the water teem with living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth across the vault of the sky.” So God created the great creatures of the sea and every living thing with which the water teems and that moves about in it, according to their kinds, and every winged bird according to its kind. And God saw that it was good. God blessed them and said, “Be fruitful and increase in number and fill the water in the seas, and let the birds increase on the earth.” And there was evening, and there was morning—the fifth day.

Revelation: When he opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of those who had been slain because of the word of God and the testimony they had maintained. They called out in a loud voice, “How long, Sovereign Lord, holy and true, until you judge the inhabitants of the earth and avenge our blood?” Then each of them was given a white robe, and they were told to wait a little longer, until the full number of their fellow servants, their brothers and sisters, were killed just as they had been.

Aletheia: Hunting ↔ martyrdom. The evolution of animalia opens up the possibility of expanding the gatherer economy to include hunting. The perverse analogue of hunting is martyrdom (we are the hunted).

Question: Is there a vegetarian/vegan message embedded here? I will leave that to the reader.

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Genesis: And God said, “Let the land produce living creatures according to their kinds: the livestock, the creatures that move along the ground, and the wild animals, each according to its kind.” And it was so. God made the wild animals according to their kinds, the livestock according to their kinds, and all the creatures that move along the ground according to their kinds. And God saw that it was good. Then God said, “Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.”

So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them. God blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky and over every living creature that moves on the ground.”

Then God said, “I give you every seed-bearing plant on the face of the whole earth and every tree that has fruit with seed in it. They will be yours for food. And to all the beasts of the earth and all the birds in the sky and all the creatures that move along the ground—everything that has the breath of life in it—I give every green plant for food.” And it was so. God saw all that he had made, and it was very good. And there was evening, and there was morning—the sixth day.

Revelation: I watched as he opened the sixth seal. There was a great earthquake. The sun turned black like sackcloth made of goat hair, the whole moon turned blood red, and the stars in the sky fell to earth, as figs drop from a fig tree when shaken by a strong wind. The heavens receded like a scroll being rolled up, and every mountain and island was removed from its place.

Then the kings of the earth, the princes, the generals, the rich, the mighty, and everyone else, both slave and free, hid in caves and among the rocks of the mountains. They called to the mountains and the rocks, “Fall on us and hide us from the face of him who sits on the throne and from the wrath of the Lamb! For the great day of their wrath has come, and who can withstand it?”

Aletheia: Mankind (sic) ↔ apocalypse. ‘Nuf sed! As Adam and Eve hid from God in Eden, so now we call upon Nature to conceal us from God’s scrutiny and to protect us from his wrath.

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Genesis: Thus the heavens and the earth were completed in all their vast array. By the seventh day God had finished the work he had been doing; so on the seventh day he rested from all his work. Then God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it he rested from all the work of creating that he had done.

Revelation: When he opened the seventh seal, there was silence in heaven for about half an hour.

Aletheia: Rest ↔ silence. God’s creative process (Genesis) and his redemptive process (Revelation) are separated from the created world by a Markov Blanket: rest/silence. Ordinary spacetime begins with the dawn of ‘the seventh day’ and ends with the opening of ‘the seventh seal’.

The world was created in the image of God, but the image is not the figure, the map is not the territory. There is an ontological ‘gap’ between God and World that protects the integrity of God’s process and the independence of his product.

Question: Did John of Patmos, titular author of Revelation, intentionally recapitulate Genesis or did the subject matter itself dictate its presentation? Again, I defer to you, dear reader.