Revelation 2025

Some people say it is hard to understand the symbolism of the book of Revelation, but that is primarily because we live in a social and historical context so removed from the original. Take the below and see if you can figure it out.

And I saw a beast with two heads arise from the swamp. And it said that it would empty the swamp, but it loved the swamp. On one head, the beast wore a crown of the people, but the other was crownless. And half of the beast was phosphorus, glowing orange, and the other was encrusted in diamonds. And the beast waged war on the eagle. The heads of the beast spat upon the eagle and its scripture, they desecrated the eagles declaration. One head wielded a pen. And with it he cut down the children of the rainbow. He crushed them and cared not of their cries. The other had no pen, but he stole bread from the mouths of babes around the world.

Now there came forth two beast tamers, one the stronger and one the weaker, one with a face like a donkey and one with a face like an elephant. And the weaker would have muzzled the beast and forced it back into its cage. But it had no power. And the stronger was drunk on its power and did not mind the beast because it thought it could control it. And when it leashed the beast it was the beast that was in control, not the tamer. And in time the tamer became tamed, mewling and subservient to the beast.

Give that passage 2000 years and readers would likely be bewildered by it. People might even try to take it and apply it to their own setting because they find it simultaneously vague and universal. But, of course, that would be a silly thing to do. Its meaning is utterly clear in context. The prose is hardly even really obscuring anything. This is very much what it would have been like to read much of the book of Revelation, or any other similar apocalyptic work in the ancient world.