REVELATION: FALL OF JUDEA, RISE OF THE CHURCH
The Book of Revelation has been interpreted many different ways. “Revelation: Fall of Judea, Rise of the Church” focuses on three concepts from Scripture: John the Baptist announced who the Messiah is; those who try to destroy the Messiah’s mission will themselves be destroyed (Judea ceased to exist as a nation from A.D. 135 until recent times); and Satan will be released after one thousand years to deceive the nations.
Unlike many popular interpretations of Revelation that predict a future rapture and tribulation, Williams proposes that many of the predictions happened during the early Church age as unbelievers tried to destroy Christ’s Church. Satan, as predicted, was released to deceive the nations approximately one thousand years after the Church was firmly established. As a result, the world today is filled with thousands of conflicting Christian sects and with non-Christian, occult, even anti-Christian movements that have propelled humans to as dangerous a rebellion against God as the one before the flood.
The author’s own praise should not impress anyone, but his website has links to nine professional reviews all of which speak highly of the book. The religious convictions of the reviewers are not known, but it is impressive that Williams was able to reach all of them without provoking any prejudicial reactions. The author’s Website contains much information about the book: descriptions, summaries, outlines, links to the professional reviews, even the ability to view the book chapter by chapter.
Williams got his inspiration from J. Massyngberde Ford who proposed that some visions of Revelation were originally preached by John the Baptist. John the Evangelist incorporated those visions when the Evangelist put the book of Revelation into writing near the end of his life. If this is correct, it provides a significant key to interpreting many of the visions in Revelation. There’s no compelling reason to doubt it. The Baptist certainly had much to say announcing Christ, but very little of what he said has been directly attributed to him in Scripture. To show that many of the predictions match first and second century events much better that twenty-first century events, Williams compares Scripture to historical documents throughout the book.
REVELATION: FALL OF JUDEA, RISE OF THE CHURCH, religion/general, Maurice A. Williams, published by iUniverse as a print-on-demand trade paperback, 6 by 9 inches, April 2008, $18.95, 236 pages, ISBN: 0-595-48429-8, available through Ingram Book Group, Baker & Taylor, iUniverse, Amazon, and bookstores everywhere.