Review of: Rereading Revelation by Greg Carey

Carey, G. (2025). Rereading Revelation: Theology, ethics, and resistance. Eerdmans.

  • ISBN-13 (print): 978-0802878120
  • ISBN-10 (print): 0802878121
  • ISBN-13 (ebook): 978-1467470087

I approach this review as someone steeped in the Byzantine liturgical tradition. The Byzantine Churches have a unique relationship to the Book of Revelation. It is never proclaimed from the pulpit and is never used in the Divine Liturgy (except for one line in the burial service for a priest, if I remember correctly). The book was never well received by the Eastern Churches. John Chrysostom didn’t write on it, and Gregory of Nazianzus didn’t put it on his list of accepted Scripture. Gregory was the brother of Basil the Great, so an educated guess would be that Basil did not hold it in high esteem either, but I have not researched that. Chrysostom’s and Basil’s names are linked to the two most frequently used Divine Liturgies in the Byzantine tradition, and there are no quotes from Revelation included in those liturgies. 

These are some heavy hitters in Eastern Christianity, but others rejected Revelation. Eusebius left it out of his list of accepted canonical books. Others are Cyril of Jerusalem and Dionysius of Alexandria. Even St. Jerome, earlier in his career, argued against its inclusion in the accepted canon. 

Although each early Father had their reasons, the opposition can be simply divided into two categories: a lack of positive attribution to the Apostle John and the fact that it could be confusing. That is an understatement. My own unresearched theory is that it could also be read through an Arian lens. To be sure, there is also a lot of high Christology in the book, but, as the great philosophers Simon and Garfunkel say, “A man hears what he wants to hear and disregards the rest…”