Weyland {Omwa-hiiuji en compUatie -hypotheeen toctjepast op de Apoailypse tan Johannes, 1888) elaborated Vischer's theory by supposing two Jewish sources. The oldest (:) con- tained (omitting slight and obvious Christian words or phrases) 10.11'U 12.13. 14«11 152-« 16. (part, esp. 1» ") 19112120. 211 », i.e. the little book, Jerusalem and tne two witnesses, i^;& appearance of the dragon and beasts and their final overthrow the last judgment and the new world. The later source (N) contained 110.12.17.19 4. 51.7 6. 7'*n' (part) 8.9. liu-i» 14^3 165 lolTb .20 1411 20 17. 18. i9l.« 21927 22111, i_e. the seven seals and trumpets, the fall of Babylon (Rome), and the new Jerusalem. These were united by a Christian redactor who additi (hesides occasional phraaes) lie. i».2u 2. 8. 14i-'> I6II''
19,--1U '>-r,^ li li, 1S-.-2.
Weizsacker in his Apostolic Age rejected these and similar efforts at analysis, and held to his original suggestion that the hook is a unity ; but its author has made use of various older materials, apocal^-ptical visions, fragmentary in character, and has introduced these in such a way as often to interrupt his plan. Such pieces are 71«-9 17 111-13 121-11. 12-17 13. 17.
Sahatier (.Ren. de Th/ol. et de Phil. 1887, and Les oriijinrs iitteraire ft la compointion de I'apoc. de St. Jean, 18S8) defends a similar view. The Christian writer introduced foreign oracles bito his work, viz. : Ill's 121-1313 W-^ I6ia-16 171-1«2 (IS'^n 1911-201*1 219-225.
Very similar is the view of 8choen (L'origine de VApoc. 1887X
This \'iew of the composition of Rev., which does jnstice both to its general unity of pl.tn and .stj-le and to the brealcs in its phui and the coiitra.sts in its thought, and does not attempt the impossible task of reconstnicting complete lost books, has gained the adherence of an increasin" number of competent critics. It is the view of JUliclier (Einhitung in d. NT, 1894). It is also the view of (junkel and of I5ous.set, though these two scholars have carried the problem of the interpretation of Rev. on to a new phase.
On the other hand Spitta (Offenb. JohnnnU, 1889), who had reached his main conclusions in- de[>endently before the appearance of Volter's work, attempts an elaborate analjsis in which every verse and word is ascribed to its source.
The basis of our present book is held by Spitta to be a primitive Christian a|)Ocalvp9e, containing the letters and the teals (14*919 2-3. (omitting the conclusion of each letter, 2', •tc.) 4-6. 81 7»-l' I99i>- 1» 22a- 10-13- 16-18.. aob.2l). He believes that thiiM-aa written by John Mark, about 60 a. D. To this a later Christian adde<l two older Jewish apocaI>ikse8 ; one is from the time of Caligula (133- 14 refers to an illness from which he noovered ; 616 (lalsj = r.;»< K»7»»*), occasioned by his effort to et»ct his image in the temple (13M. I2ir.). it contains (a) ri-» 8", ((1)81-921, (c) (915) 101', (rf) 11(15) ID 121-17 1218-13KI 141 11 1S1>.«>, (,) iQii_2ii.s. iU. The other Jewish source is put back to the time of Pompey (Israel's first conflict with Rome, and the danger of the temple). It is composed of (a) iQlb. 2m».«b^il
(6) llllll5.1M»_ (c)14H.» 162-I, (rf^ 154.1814. (7. 21, («) 171*81.
181-19S, CO 2i»-22»^ 15. All other parU are from the bond of CAe reviser.
Spitta's work contains much that is of great value, but scholars generally agree that such minute analysis is impossible, that the book liaa a greater unity than this theory admits, and that in particular to ascribe the seven seals, trumpets, and bowls to three ditferent hands is to over-
look one of the unmistakable characteristics of the final writer. Yet Briggs (Messiah of Apustlcs, 1895, chs. 9-15) goes even further in this direc- tion. His analysis but not his view as to author- ship [epistles, seals, bowls, and probablj' trumpets being attributed by Briggs to one author, the Apostle Jolin (pp. 303, 369)] is followed by Barton (AJTh, 189S).
It is not to be concluded that the many laborious and ingenious ellorts at literary analysis have been without value, even though they have led to no agreeing result. There has been increasing agreement as to certain general points. The book, though probably the work of one writer, is not the original product of one mind or one occasion. It contains sections which appear to be foreign to the rest, and may well be of Jewish origin, though the line between Jewish and Jewish-Christian is one impossible to determine. 7'"'* 11'"'* 12. 13. 17 quite certainly belong to this category, and there are other sections which may have been taken by the writer in practically finished form from apocalyptical tradition (e.g. 18. 20. 219-22'). This result, however, important as are its bearings on the interpretation of the book, since it relieves us of the necessity of finding one type of religious thought or one historical situation in all parts, bj' no means solves all or even the more important problems of historical exegesis.
Guiikel (Sclio))fung unci Chaos in Urzeit und EnUzeil : Eine religionsgeschichtliclie Unterauchung uher Gen. 1 und Apoc. Joh. 12 (1895)) sharply formulated one of these outstanding problems — that concerning the ultimate origin, the first meaning, and subsequent history of that tradi- tional material from which apocalyptical writers drew. He criticized both the methods in which critical scholars had treated the book — that which looks everywhere for figiuative references to his- torical events of the writer's time, and that which devotes itself to literary analysis as an end. Ac- knowledging that some of the apocalyptical figures are allegories of current events (Dn 7. 8, Enoch 85 II'., 4 Ezr 11 f.. Rev 13. 17), and also that criticism must separate some sections from their setting, he yet urges that tradition largely fixes the form of the figures, and that the apocalyptical writer uses them not with freedom, Ijut with reverence ; not creating them as a poetical embodiment of well- known persons and events, but seeking in them for the clue to the mjstery of the present and future. The history of tradition is therefore more important than the historj'of literary composition. Tradition i.s, in fact, the real author of an apoca- lypse, and it is this fact that gives the writer his deep conviction of the truth of his predictions. Except where it is expressly indicated, it is not to be assumed that references to historical persons and events are hidilcn behind the apocalyptical imagerj'. With reftrence to most of such images (e.g. 9'-" 9'»--a IP-'' IG'^'^i" ti"-" (cf. 4 Ezr 4«) 11'- » 6'-' 16.6'=-"), Gunkel decl.ares the contem- porary-historical method bankrupt. Even in ch. 13, where the first beast is the Roman empire, and in ch. 17, where the woman is the city (Rome), many details are not to be explained historically. Here Gunkel carries his opposition to the ruling method so far as to deny the almost universal opinion of critics that Nero is indicated by the beast and its' number (pp. 21011., .3:«ifi'.). Of Gunkel's specific argument, which is to illustrate and vindicate his method, viz. that Rev 12 is ulti- mately an otherwise lost Bab.vlonian myth of the birth of Marduk, the conqueror of the Dragon, more will be said below. Other elements tai<cn from l!al)yloniaii mythology (Junkel found, especi- ally in chs. 13 and 17, but also in the seven angels, stars, candlesticks, eyes (p. 294 IT.), the twenty-i'oui