Table of Contents

I. THE BEGINNING OF THE END. 1. Hey, Who's Been Messing with the End of My Bible? Read Any Good Book Lately? Where the Jukebox Plays Apocalyptic Bebop. Apocalyptic and Apodictic. Death, Despair, and Destruction-So Cheer Up! There's a Reason They Call It "Revelation". 2. Future Schlock? It's Only a Day Away. Hopeful and Fearless? Or Hopeless and Fearful? The Empire Strikes Back. Hearsay and Heresy. 3. A Drear John Letter. The Beginning of the End. The Revelation Salutation. Meet the Author. My Lord, How You've Changed! The Times They Have a'Changed. Same As It Ever Was. 4. Seven Churches Get a Performance Review. Fresh Churches: U Pick Your Own. The Church at Ephesus: I Got Those "Lost My First Love" Blues. The Church at Smyrna: Down but Never Out. The Church at Pergamum: In Need of Some Good Bouncers. The Church at Thyatira: Guild-Y of Too Much Tolerance? The Church at Sardis: Dead Church Walking! The Church at Philadelphia: Weak Enough to Be Strong. The Church at Laodicea: They Make Jesus Want to Puke! Why These Seven Churches? Back to the Future. II. THE STORM CLOUDS GATHER. 5. Scrolled, Sealed, Delivered. Knock, Knock, Knockin' on Heaven's Door. Who Are Those Guys? Scroll Call. Nothing Sheepish About This Lamb. The Heavenly Huddle. 6. Sealings, Nothing More Than Sealings. Our Lids Are Sealed. God's Housecleaning Seals of Disapproval. Are You Sure You Want to Go Through with This? White Clothes and Dark Skies. After Six Terrible Seals, 144,000 Good Ones. Tonight We're Going to Party Like It's When We Were Alive. 7. Horns of Plenty (of Trouble). The Calm Before the Storm. Torched by an Angel. Woe, Woe, Woe, Your Boat Sank at Trumpet #2. If You Thought the Locusts Were Bad, Take a Look at These Horses! Time for an Intermission in the Trumpet Recital. 8. Witness for the Persecution. A Mightier Angel, a Tinier Scroll. Got Any Good Recipes for Scroll? The Man of a Measure. The Power of Two. The Witness Rejection Program. Still Waiting for the Grand Finale. 9. A Beauty and Some Beasts. Who Plays Seventh Trumpet in Handel's Messiah? And You Think You Had a Hard Labor! The War Above the Worlds. You Go, Girl! (And Go Quickly!) A New "King of the Beasts". Two Beasts Are Far Worse Than One. And the Beast Goes On. 10. Where the Grapes of Wrath Are Stored. That's It! You're Grounded. A Thousand Gross Believers. Just Call Them Angels of the Mourning. It's Enough to Make You Sickle. A Topic We'd Wrath-er Avoid. 11. The Bowled and the Beautiful. Just the Blame Old Story. Last Is Hardly Least. Down to the Last Seven Super Bowls. A Call to Armageddon. Come Hail and High Richter. 12. The Elaborately Dressed, Blood-Drinking, Scarlet-Beast-Riding Prostitute. God May Not Be Quick to Judge-But We Are. Ride 'Em, Call Girl. Here It Is-The Full Explanation! The Bigger They Are... Aye, Captain, Thar She Blows...Up. Is That Angel Doing an End Zone Dance? III. HIGH NOON AT THE END TIMES CORRAL. 13. All Bad Things Must Come to an End. A Hallelujah Chorus. Look...Up in the Sky...It's a Horse!? Carrion, My Wayward Sons. Today's Forecast: 1,000 Years of Reign. After All These Centuries, the Devil Gets Fired. No Place to Run, No Place to Hide. 14. Imagine There's a Heaven. Above Us Only Sky? No "New"s Is Bad News. Urban Renewal. Talk About a Happy Meal! Pie in the Sky When We Die? 15. A Real Page-Turner Comes to a Close. Revelation: The Epilogue. Hold On, I'm Coming. Famous Last Words. IV. THEOLOGY MEETS OPTOMETRY. 16. Open to Interpretation? Call Me Confused. The Book of Revelation: Essential or Optional? Reviewing the Viewing. For What It's Worth... 17. It's the End of the World and We Missed It? When the Temple Topples... Revelation Through a Preterist Lens. Where's Jesus? Help from the Historians. Where Preterists Disagree. Going on a Bad Date? Case Closed? 18. Revelation Interpretations: Some Minority-Viewpoints. A Roadmap of Human History? (Historicism). Can't You Tell Symbolism When You See It? (Idealism). Other Perspectives. The Final Four. 19. Back to the Future. Anticipation, It's Making Me Wait. Revelation: Both Sensational and Dispensational? Here's One Way of Looking at It... Gone Today, Here Tomorrow. Good News, Bad News for Jews (So What's New?). What in the Millennium Is Going On Here? One More Issue to Get Crypt Up On. Authors' Disclaimers. 20. Putting the Elation Back in Revelation. Why Bother? What Do You Know? We Who Are About to Screw Up Salute You! Revelationmania vs. Revelationphobia. Now What? 21. Epilogue: Biding Your Time, or Timing-Your Goodbye? When Faith Becomes Fantastic (and Fatal) Fanaticism. Mr. Jones and Me Look into the Future. Gateway to Heaven? Predicting the Future on a Date-to-Date Basis. Hal Lindsey: In a Class of His Own. Some Day My Prince of Peace Will Come. A Few Rules of Thumb. V. APPENDIXES. Appendix A. Interpretation Methods. Appendix B. Additional Reading. Appendix C. A Few Web Links for Exploring. Index.

About the Author

James S. Bell Jr. received his B.A. from the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, Massachusetts, and his M.A. from University College, Dublin, Ireland. He is editorial director at a religious publishing house that includes Bibles in its product line. He is a former Director of Religious Publishing at Doubleday, Executive Director of Bridge Publishing, and a former consultant to the Bible publisher Thomas Nelson. As general manager of the Princeton Religion Research Center, he worked with George Gallup Jr. in polling Americans concerning their religious beliefs and practices. His own clients in this area include major denominations, parachurch organizations, political groups, and national television networks. He writes study guides for religious books, and has compiled, edited, and modernized with cover credit approximately 20 religious classics. His most rewarding "hobby" is daily Bible reading, and if he misses a day "life just isn't the same." He is a lay Scripture reader during the Anglican service at his local church. Mr. Bell is married with four children and lives in the western suburbs of Chicago. Stan Campbell is a student of communication (B.S., Middle Tennessee State University; M.A., Wheaton College) who enjoys taking complicated concepts and making them short and simple enough for someone like him to understand. After doing so in 20 years of youth ministry and 15 years in Christian publishing, he has been a full-time writer for more than 10 years. He is the author of more than 25 books, including the BibleLog Thru-the-Bible series and The Complete Idiot's Guide to the Bible. He and his wife, Pam, live in the suburbs of Chicago.