John of Patmos

• ANCIENT SOURCES: see John of Patmos (sources)
• LIST OF SCHOLARLY AND FICTIONAL WORKS: see Category:John of Patmos (subject)

John of Patmos is the author of Revelation.

Overview

John of Patmos is traditionally identified with "the Beloved disciple" of the Fourth Gospel and Jesus' disciple "John son of Zebedee". However, there is no reliable corroboration of these notions from ancient sources. More likely, it seems, is the belief that the Gospel and the Epistles and the Revelation all flow from a 'Johannine School' of theology. R. Alan Culpepepper is perhaps the best known representative of this line of thought.

John of Patmos in Scholarship

In the New Interpreters Dictionary of the Bible (s.v. 'Patmos'), Christopher Rowland writes

Patmos is the AEGEAN island where the visionary called John received and recorded his vision, the book of Revelation (Rev 1:9). Patmos was probably not the backwater that is often assumed, with local cults to Apollo and Artemis. The text does not allow us to know whether John was on the island voluntarily, impelled there by a divine impulse, or banished for his prophetic activity. In later legend he was banished there by the Roman emperor himself. John writes that he is on Patmos “because of the word.” This preposition construction is used elsewhere to indicate the outcome rather than the purpose of an action (e.g., Rev 2:3; 4:11), suggesting that John may have come here to hear the word rather than as the consequence of having preached the word. If, however, it is a consequence of his activity, it is most likely because some local official sent him as a result of his activities on the mainland. Patmos is the context for his trance experience (Rev 1:10), where, like Ezekiel in exile in Babylon (Ezek 1), John is enabled to understand divine mysteries about the future of the world and its political powers.

This sentiment prevails in much New Testament scholarship. Nevertheless, at this precise point opinions diverge with some taking John's words as addressing the contemporary situation while others see the book in its entirety as a 'prediction' of the future. In fairness, it must be noted that most NT scholars belong in the former camp with only a minority on the margins of scholarship adhering to the latter.

John of Patmos in Fiction

In 1996 a video titled St. John in Exile was produced, starring Dean Jones. In the same year, a musical CD titled In the Isle of Patmos, by Stamatis Spanoudakis, was also released. In 2010 St. John at Patmos: A Sacred Poem by William Eaton Rusher was published.

Aside from these artistic 'readings' of the figure of John of Patmos, there have been no shortage of fictional renderings in book form. Most famously, Studies in the Apocalypse of John of Patmos A Non-Interpretive and Literary Approach to the Last Book of the New Testament by Edyth Hoyt (Hardcover - 1950). This volume has gone through a series of iterations and all of them not of a scholarly nature.

Related categories

• John / Beloved Disciple

External links

• Wikipedia