Prigent, P: Commentary on the Apocalypse of St. John

In this work, published 20 years after his first commentary on the Apocalypse, Pierre Prigent deals once again with the Apocalypse, but this time with the numerous exegetical, historical and sociological studies which were published during the last 20 years and are significant for research in this field, in particular for methodology and Jewish literature. Pierre Prigent focuses on the historical and the religious contexts. In the historical context, he describes how in the first century it was revealed to the churches in Asia Minor that the highest reality of living things and objects was given its justification through the work of God in Jesus Christ. This revelation shook the history of the church and of the world. In the religious context, the author deals with the eschatological revelations against the backdrop of Judaism.Faced with the mass of information which needed to be taken into account, he resolved to proceed in two directions: Everything that concerns the exegesis of specific texts has been introduced at the appropriate places in the commentary, which has resulted in a great number of additions and corrections and considerable elimination. Often the work of biblical scholars has taken a more synthetic turn. Their conclusions, which are then of interest for the interpretation of several passages or even of the entire book, would be out of place in the flow of the commentary. It so happens that the questions addressed are often of primary importance and sometimes are the object of hot debate. Therefore the author decided to give an overview of the current state of research on the questions leading to such conclusions to give an adequate account of these synthetic analyses.