On The Perpetual Strangeness Of The Bible Michael Edwards by Michael Edwards; instant download after payment.

and mystery. He sees things beyond ideas, and what is revealed is

what he sees. Partial interpretations that he hears are precious

indications for our intelligence, but they are nevertheless not

designed to empty the images of their life. Hence the importance of

the moment when, having heard thunders speak, he is told for once

not to write what they said (10:4). In a book that presents itself as

prophecy and revelation, this single moment suffices, not only to

suggest that there are matters that God wills not to be made known

(as when the person whom Paul recalls in considering “visions and

revelations of the Lord” hears in paradise words that may not be

repeated—2 Corinthians 12:1, 4), but also to remind us that in what

is revealed throughout the book there is a further element not yet

told. The passage occurs, moreover, a few verses only before the

same angel announces that the mystery will be finished (10:10),

which finishing remains mysterious.

Reading the work is like watching a film, full of movement, of

characters, of abrupt changes of scene, and even more like

dreaming and seeing the discontinuous passage of surreal creatures

and happenings, with voices constantly intervening. The dream is

often a nightmare. We are at once in a dystopia of horrendous

beasts, a bottomless pit, and a lake of fire—and in a utopia of God,

of the Lamb, of the blessed around the throne, of the new

Jerusalem, the new heavens and the new earth. In a magnified,

clairvoyant view of the world we know.

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