Reading Revelation with Ghosts in a Feminist Mosh Pit

Congratulations are due from the very first sentence in this review. Not only is this a magnificent book, useful commentary, an erudite piece of scholarship, and an exquisite exemplar of feminist biblical interpretation, Lynn Huber has also completed something that to me is immeasurable and beyond clear logic (much like the imagery at times in Revelation itself). She wrote a book with another, absent yet very present one, Gail O’Day, as her guide.[1] Whether O’Day was angelic or devilish as a guide (probably both), continuing to write, continuing to craft this commentary as a co-authored work through the grief of her illness and death is something that we don’t necessarily know how to acknowledge in our scholarly publication world. And so, I want to acknowledge this accomplishment clearly and with admiration.

This volume embraces the haunting work of generational feminist grit, grace, and gratitude. Few feminist biblical scholars in this current generation can claim to do our work without standing on the shoulders of our mothers in scholarship. But O’Day would, of course, have rolled her eyes at the “mother” language! She often reminded me—in a way that felt liberating—that I was nobody’s mother and neither was she. She was a mentor, though, with her own grit and grace—and I’m grateful for that. Our feminist mentors, however, are more than mentors. They were also pavers and foundation builders for the scholarly conversation that we continue to elaborate. Without their wild, brave, fierce courage to face the kyriarchy[2] and persist, we wouldn’t be here tonight. And while this commentary draws on and beautifully weaves in the voices of scholars whose work has shaped my own perspectives on Revelation—Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza, Bernadette Brooten, Amy-Jill Levine, Adele Yarboro Collins, Clarice Martin—Gail O’Day’s intellectual voice and spirit permeates this volume—maybe especially in the places where eye-rolls and sarcasm would have been her response!

But let me move to the work itself. This commentary does something that is not standard in the literary genre of commentary; it espouses multi-faceted interpretation as its goal rather than its nemesis or foil. The work of Huber and O’Day draws the reader into the messy world of Revelation in order to see multiple interpretive frameworks, possibilities, theologies, ethics that emerge within, from, and alongside the text. Revelation is famously difficult to read, in part because its visual world doesn’t make sense without a wild imagination. Yet, Huber and O’Day use their wild imagination to great effect. Instead of offering an exhaustive list of perspectives which will then be systematically dispelled to get to the single “right” interpretation, this commentary weaves insights from the ancient material and textual world together with contemporary images and tropes in order to spark the imagination of the reader. Huber and O’Day illuminate and embrace the ambiguity that the text itself invites.

Let me give just one example: In Revelation 14:1–5, John the Seer, our narrator for most of the vision, looks up and sees the victorious Lamb who was slain standing on Mt. Zion, the place where heaven and earth meet each other. Surrounding the lamb are 144,000 who bear the name of the Lamb and follow him wherever he goes. Of course, in my churchy-girl head, this image is of choir cherubs or clergy, vested for the high feast. And that image is fair enough for one steeped in the imperial Protestantism of mainline American church life. Huber, instead, caught me off-guard by contextualizing these 144,000 as rock-star groupies. They are concert-goers whose fandom converges to create an atmosphere of ecstasy and anxiety, uncontrolled communal joy, and the fear that comes with loss of control. Huber writes: “As a reader of Revelation, I want to be present to participate in the communal admiration of the gender-bending Lamb” (Huber and O’Day, 206).[3] This surprising image illuminated new dynamicisms within the text for me. I’d never pictured those gathered around the Lamb with such movement, such joy, such fear, too. Huber captures the ambiguity of the scene in a way that destroyed my static imperial conceptions and give the text new life—and all while amplifying the ambiguity that this image invites in the first place. Huber still leaves room to imagine this scene as an ancient spectacle, as Frilingos does,[4] as imperial worship as Aune does,[5] or as political rally as Friesen does.[6] This move—allowing, even amplifying the ambiguity of the text—is so unusual in a commentary that I found myself holding my breath while reading about the ironic mosh pit of Revelation 14. Huber’s work redefines biblical commentary, even feminist biblical commentary, in a way that bends the genre without breaking it. Huber eschews the “right” interpretation, preferring instead to capture of the emotional response as interpretation. She helps readers experience commentary. What a breath of fresh air! In a genre that takes itself so seriously, one rarely gets away from the “expert” analyst voice. It is a refreshing discovery to hear exploration rather than instruction for the uninitiated (even the fully initiated but ignorant) as to what the “right” interpretation should be.

Huber, even more powerfully, moves beyond this image to an analysis of the 144,000 who have the name of God and the Lamb written on their foreheads (Rev. 14:1). They rightly see this practice of marking one’s property with the enslaver’s name as a long-standing practice within Roman slavery. I, of course, recognized this trope from my own work on enslavement in early Christianity and was glad to see Huber take this metaphor head-on rather than as simply a passing reference. Huber notes that this “sealing” of the 144,000 with the name of God and the Lamb marks them as (metaphorical) slaves of God, in the same way that the mark of the beast in Rev 13:16–18 marks the merchants and other participants in the marketplace as (metaphorical) slaves of the exploitative regime (Huber 201–202). Huber explicates the practices of ancient slavery that allow bodily and psychological torture and oppression to be the rule rather than the exception—even noting the connection with the fierce animal spectacles of Roman entertainment. But Huber’s work here also made me ask a new question: Is this seal with the name of God and the Lamb justification for torture (maybe even divine torture)? While I started studying Revelation 20 years ago in Barbara Rossing’s graduate seminar at Lutheran School of Theology in Chicago, reading Huber’s commentary is first time I’ve encountered the connection between this scene and Roman jurisprudence. In the Roman court system, an enslaved witness’ testimonies are only admissible if gathered under torture. Now I wonder: if the seal on the heads of the 144,000 is the mark of their enslavement to God, does their bodily suffering, their torture, their martyrdom ensure their truthful testimony to the power of that same God? Huber clearly states metaphors for divine violence need cautious analysis because they too easily become prescriptions for abuse, exploitation, and harm. At the same time, this new glimpse into the 144,000 slave-marked martyrs raises a need in the interpretive community to interrogate the metaphor to expose its vileness. (As a side note, I think we need to do this with other texts and slavery metaphors, too…stay tuned for more from both of us!)

This question of how to work with the metaphors (or even realities) of enslavement and ancient enslaving ideologies, leads me to a second question that connects Rev. 14:1–5 with Rev. 17:1–8 where the woman Babylon appears with her own insult-filled name written on her forehead and with Rev 18:9–13 where John the Seer recites the cargo lists of lost goods for which the kings of the earth grieve. Having already connected the sealing of the 144,000 and those who bear the mark of the beast as metaphors of enslavement, Huber rightly, along with Clarice Martin,[7] points out that in Rev. 18:13 lists slaves (somata), human souls (psychai), as part of the cargo that was laid waste by the woman-city’s destruction (Huber and O’Day, 276).

This juxtaposition of metaphors raises another new question for me: In the metaphor’s dichotomy between enslavement to God and enslavement to the exploitative empire, is there a judgement that one “master” is “better” than the other? Is there such a thing as enslavement to a “better” master? Drawing on the depiction of the 144,000 as enslaved to God in Rev 14:1–5 (Huber and O’Day, 102) and the somata of Rev 18:13, whose souls are human, I wonder about the ambivalence of enslavement throughout Revelation. Is it ok for souls to be enslaved to God? Even when John reminds us that the rhetoric of the Roman imperial regime abrogates slavery by calling slaves “ensouled” people? Is it a matter of trading masters or might the slavery metaphor reinscribe unjust relationships regardless of the “master”?

These questions bring out another fundamental aspect of feminist biblical interpretation that Huber and O’Day’s commentary exemplifies. They constantly foreground the ethics of interpretation, understanding that the way the text is used is as important as its “original” meaning. Communities for which, in which, and of which one interprets come into focus for the reader. That is one of the key assets of this volume. Huber and O’Day challenge readers to use their own subjectivity and their communities’ subjectivity as a morally necessary component for interpretation. The way one interprets the ambiguities and multivalencies of Revelation necessitates this kind of clear engagement. Huber and O’Day’s commentary insists that reading Revelation requires a paradoxically razor-sharp sense of what will be heard rather than what is said. In other words, the ethical reverberations of interpretation must be considered whenever one offers a definitive conclusion. At times Huber and O’Day do offer this definitiveness—and the example is welcome. At times such clear ethics of interpretation are correctly left to the reader and their purposes in seeking out feminist interpretation. This commentary leads readers on both paths (decisiveness and exploration) with both expertise and a sense of wonder.

To draw these contemplations to a close, let me say that for me the best work of feminist biblical interpretation embodies an ethos of pedagogy, proclamation, and radicalism. This commentary is imaginative and playful, giving license to draw out the terrifying, the sublime, the ridiculous, the queer, and the sexy that the text invokes and evokes. It is by turns serious, straight-forwardly graphic, and bluntly opinionated (and in these places, I hear O’Day loud and clear). This commentary will be required reading next time I teach Revelation. It will infiltrate my preaching (O’Day and I shared a delight in feminist preachers willing to proclaim this text from pulpits large and small). This commentary also calls me to new heights of scholarly imagination and courage. For that, I must simply say: I am grateful. I am grateful to Lynn Huber and to Gail O’Day for sharing their brilliance. I am grateful that this work exists in the world.

[1] Gail R. O’Day was the dean who hired me to the tenure-track at Wake Forest University School of Divinity. She also encouraged me to teach a course on Revelation in my second year in this position—despite my trepidation and protests to the effect that she had already put her own mark on the course at Wake Forest.

[2] This is a term coined by one of my mentors, Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza, as a way to signal the multiple layers of hierarchy and domination that exist in a society in addition to the singular gendered domination of patriarchy. See Huber’s explanation on p. lxxi.

[3] I note here that it is clear to the reader who knew O’Day and those who know Huber that this section of the commentary is Huber’s. It would have garnered an eye-roll from O’Day at first—until she undoubtedly recognized Huber’s brilliant analysis. 

[4] Christopher A. Frilingos, Spectacles of Empire: Monsters, Martyrs, and the Book of Revelation (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2004).

[5] David E. Aune, Revelation 6-16 (Word Biblical Commentary 52B; Nashville: Thomas Nelson).

[6] Steven J. Friesen, Imperial Cults and the Apocalypse of John: Reading Revelation in the Ruins (New York: Oxford University Press 2004).

[7] Clarice J. Martin, “Polishing the Unclouded Mirror: A Womanist Reading of Revelation 18:13,” in From Every People and Nation: The Book of Revelation in Intercultural Perspective (edited by David Rhoads; Minneapolis: Fortress, 2005), 82–109.

Katherine A. Shaner is Associate Professor of New Testament at Wake Forest University School of Divinity in Winston-Salem, NC. She holds a B.A. from Luther College, an M.Div. and Th.D. from Harvard University Divinity School in New Testament and Early Christian History. She is the author of Enslaved Leadership in Early Christianity (Oxford University Press, 2018) and the co-editor with Christy Cobb of Ancient Slavery and New Testament Contexts (Eerdmans, 2025). She lives in Winston-Salem, NC with her family and her mildly-Facebook-famous schnauzer, Karl Bark.