AI-generated image courtesy of the author.
For those outside the field of biblical studies, commentaries might be an unfamiliar genre.[1] They are chapter-by-chapter, section-by-section, verse-by-verse and, in some cases, word-by-word discussions of a specific text. Commentaries are, almost by definition, pedantic, linear, and overly structured, writing conventions many feminist and queer scholars resist since these forms evoke domination. Commentaries often give the impression that a singular reading of a text like Revelation is possible, even though feminist, womanist, and queer scholars challenge this idea, highlighting instead the multiplicity of meanings within any given narrative. Commentaries, as Gail R. O’Day and I note in the prologue to the Revelation Wisdom Commentary, imply books like Revelation require an expert at the interpretive helm or that specialized knowledge is necessary to unlock the book’s mysteries. In this way, the commentary genre feeds easily into hierarchical pedagogies and patriarchal ways of thinking. Given these concerns, I want to highlight a couple sites where I experienced a kind of creative tension as a feminist and queer person working within this genre.
As a feminist author, I felt the competing impulses to decenter my own voice, to avoid the impression of a singular authority, and to speak coherently and with forthrightness about Revelation. I don’t want people to get it twisted: I am confident in my knowledge of Revelation, especially in relation to the world of Roman Asia Minor. Like many women raised in the U.S., I have been socialized to second-guess myself or qualify my claims with phrases like “in my opinion” or “I think;” however, I have worked to unlearn these habits and speak and write with confidence. At the same time, feminist hermeneutics demand recognizing the historical and social limits of any one person’s perspective. The Wisdom Commentary series tries to mitigate the patriarchal leanings of the commentary genre by intentionally including the voices of others, especially those with backgrounds and experiences dissimilar to the lead authors, called “contributing voices.”[2] These “voices” sit next to the commentary, in shaded boxes with blurred borders and rounded corners, reminding the reader that there are other ways of hearing and interpreting the text. Still, the voice of the commentary’s author or authors predominates and could easily overpower the contributing voices. As Gail and I drew together the list of people we hoped would offer contributions, we expressed our intention to engage these voices in the main text as a way of signaling the importance of our colleagues’ perspectives.[3]
At the same time, just as feminist thinking recognizes the incompleteness of any one perspective, feminist standpoint theory maintains that people from historically marginalized groups, including women and those within the LGBTQ+ community, can identify and assess structures of power in ways inaccessible to those from more privileged positions. There are, in fact, places in the commentary where I examine power hierarchies within Revelation’s narrative, such as the book’s enslavement imagery, that others mostly overlook. I’m thankful to womanist scholars, such as Clarice J. Martin, and other feminist scholars, including Katherine Shaner, for their work on enslavement, which has helped me recognize Revelation’s troubling valorization of enslavement.[4]
Another site of tension I experienced as a queer scholar was the pull between past and present, as I try to imagine a future that embraces queerness.[5] Traditional scholarly commentaries privilege leading readers into the historical world surrounding biblical texts. People close to me know that I love historical inquiry and am passionate about thinking with the material remains of the ancient world. Imagining how the text emerged out of conversations from the first century and in relation to the ancient built environment helps us, modern readers, avoid the temptation to make the text all about our own perspectives and concerns. At the same time, attention to the text only as a historical artifact belies the fact that commentaries are tools typically used by congregational leaders, teachers, and others wanting to understand how biblical texts are meaningful in the present. In a time in which biblical texts, including Revelation, continue to be used to exclude and oppress those within the LGBTQIA+ community, one of my responsibilities as a queer Bible scholar is to highlight how those readings are not the only or best ways of interpreting the text.
Unlike traditional commentaries this one includes explicit references to situatedness, the moments in which I was writing. Honestly, that was not difficult to do when you are writing about Revelation, a book replete with images of plague and natural disasters, during a pandemic and unfolding climate change. The chapter on Rev 15-16, John’s vision of bowls of plague being poured on humanity, references the numbers of people who were dying from COVID-19. I updated this section multiple times as the number of deaths increased. Likewise, the connection I drew between the “great mountain burning with fire” (8:8) and the rampant wildfires in Australia and the U.S. West Coast in 2020 could have been updated multiple times, as Canada and other parts of the U.S. also experienced massive fires as result of climate change. Revelation’s connection to real-life events seemed especially present as I worked on this commentary.
Feminist readings of Revelation’s violent and misogynistic images must balance acknowledging these parts of the text and their aftereffects in ways that make sense of their meaning but aren’t apologetic.[6] It’s like being stuck between the proverbial rock and a hard place. For example, how do you show that Revelation’s use of sex-work imagery parallels other Roman writings (Juvenal’s Sixth Satire, anyone?) and makes some sense as imperial critique, while recognizing how it contributed to centuries of continued hatred, violence, and vitriol? I hope I find that balance. Much of my work over the years has tried to balance understanding the book and its impact without apologizing for it or for my insistence that it is an important text for feminists to consider.
Finally, as a queer scholar I experienced the creative tension embodied in the idea that the personal is political. As a queer author writing within a feminist series published by a Catholic press, I wondered at times just how much I could foreground explicitly queer interpretation. Thankfully, however, my editors and the press never questioned any of my content, and, if you have a chance to look at the commentary, you’ll see that I didn’t hold back too much. I’m particularly proud of the chapters in which I discuss Revelation’s image of the slaughtered Lamb, a metaphor for Christ, as a genderqueer figure. This is probably the only biblical commentary to mention chest binders, the fear associated with wearing white pants while menstruating, and the Bravo TV network’s Housewives franchise. I anticipate that references like these might lead some other scholars to dismiss the commentary as idiosyncratic or trivial. However, these kinds of references, which sit side-by-side with discussions of the Sebasteion at Aphrodisias and markets in ancient Asia Minor, engage my lived experience and the experiences and realities of many, including my students and friends. I hope these allusions and connections invite others, especially those who are non-experts or who are often not included in conversations about the Bible, to draw their own parallels and find their own meaning in Revelation. I hope these types of references are read as democratizing.
Finally, as I’ve told many people over the years and as I articulate in the prologue, I was raised in an evangelical Christian tradition that was shaped by apocalyptic thinking. I grew up in a world where Revelation’s supposed predictions were imminent, and I was led to believe that Christ might return in the fall of 1988, my first year in college. I was fearful because I was uncertain if I would be raptured with faithful. This uncertainty was not related to my sexuality, since I wouldn’t acknowledge being gay until much later in life, but I was questioning things like hell, heaven, judgment, and even the idea of God. Honestly, at that time I couldn’t even explore the possibility of being gay because of how the people around me read and used Revelation’s images of judgement and exclusion. I believe that I would have experienced the world very differently had I heard Revelation interpreted in feminist and queer ways. I think I would have lived with less fear and shame. Thus, in many ways, this commentary is a kind of gift to my past self and I’m thankful to have had the opportunity to write it.
And as a final note, I don’t want to rehash the book’s acknowledgements, but I must mention that this project came into being with my collaborator, mentor and good friend, Gail O’Day. When we first signed the contract for the commentary we couldn’t start writing right away because she had other outstanding projects. When those were completed, however, Gail was diagnosed with brain cancer. Despite this, we optimistically talked about ideas we wanted to thread through the book, such as the ways that Revelation’s imagery resists straightforward interpretation, and we outlined which chapters each of us would write. Gail, for instance, wanted to write on the imagery of the two witnesses in Revelation 11. I started drafting the prologue and parts of the introduction before Gail passed away, but the rest of the project was written with memories of her.
[1] I want to thank Brian K. Pennington, director of Elon University’s Center for the Study of Religion, Culture, and Society, for organizing the panel where these comments were offered. I also want to extend my deepest gratitude to the panelists or their time and generous comments.
[2] Barbara E. Reid, “Editor’s Introduction to Wisdom Commentary: ‘She Is a Breath of the Power of God’ (Wis 7:25),” in Revelation, Wisdom Commentary 58 (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 2023), xxiv.
[3] Contributing voices in the commentary include the late Lynne St. Claire Darden, Elizabeth O’Donnell Gandolfo, Rhiannon Graybill, Jacqueline M. Hidalgo, Barbara R. Rossing, Shanell T. Smith, Hanna Stenström, and Eric A. Thomas.
[4] 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 Press, 2005), 82–109; Katherine A. Shaner, Enslaved Leadership in Early Christianity (New York: Oxford University Press, 2018).
[5] This queer affect is described by Heather Love, Feeling Backward: Loss and the Politics of Queer History (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2007).
[6] An example of how this is done is Shanell T. Smith, The Woman Babylon and the Marks of Empire: Reading Revelation with a Postcolonial Womanist Hermeneutics of Ambiveilence (Minneapolis, MN: Augsburg Fortress Publishers, 2014).
Lynn R. Huber is the Maude Sharpe Powell Professor of Religious Studies at Elon University. Her research focuses on the Book of Revelation, especially its use of gendered imagery. She is also interested in queer biblical interpretation and depictions of Revelation in the visual arts. For more information about Lynn, please go to www.lynnrhuber.com.