appearance marks the beginning of the end of the end of things, is explic-
itly an imperial figure, having written on his garment (as the hippest label)
and on his thigh (as the sexiest tattoo) the title, “King of kings and Lord
of lords” (for “king of kings” as part of ancient imperial speech, see Rud-
berg 1911). Previously in Revelation 17:14, the same title, “Lord of lords
and King of kings,” belonged to the Lamb, which fights the ten kings or
horns of the beast that carries the Great Whore that is Babylon or Rome.
This Lamb is the same one that, in Revelation 5:8–14, was acclaimed and
invested from on high with all the attributes of total hegemony. The hori-
zon of redemption in Revelation is a coup d’état:one emperor replaces
another.
Revealing in this regard are the textual variants for the final phrase in
Revelation 5:10. While a good variety of manuscripts state that those whom
the Lamb has made a “basileianandhiereisfor our God...shall rule [basileu-
sousin—notably, still] on the earth,” a second group of manuscripts asserts
that it is “we” who shall do this (basileusomen). Another set of variants
claims that the former group of persons already rule in the present tense
(basileuousin). Obviously, there was some interest in the details of the pro-
jected takeover.
Also notable in this regard is the fact that the new Jerusalem serves,
in the end, to replace the hated imperial city of Babylon or Rome. Though
certainly different from it in many respects, the heavenly city nonetheless
comes to occupy the very space that the latter once had filled.
Most telling, however, is, in my opinion, the literary style of the seven
letters to the seven churches in Revelation 2:1–3:22. For the voice that
speaks here is explicitly one of imperial authority. Already in 1911 Gunnar
Rudberg explored the formal correspondence that exists between these
celestialcommuniquésand “the well-known stone copy of a letter or rescript
of King Darius I to his Asia Minor official (governor) Gadatas” (1911, 171f.).
The inscription was found in 1886 in a village of Magnesia on the Maean-
der. Especially significant for Rudberg is the similar use, in both cases, of
the opening formula tade legei,together with a description of the imperial
subject who speaks and the specified reference to the intended recipient.
Rudberg also notes the similar juxtaposition of praise and censure in both
writings (1911, 172–73; for the tade legeiformula, see also Stauffer 1955,
181; Lähnemann 1978, 200). Rudberg reviewed biblical and other ancient
evidence for such phraseology and found it to be specifically the language
of high (political) authority (1911, 173–78). At the same time, Rudberg
tried to explain the minor internal differences between these traditions.
Finally, after briefly discussing a few other inscriptions, Rudberg specu-
nora
(Nora)
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