Visionen von Gut und Böse: Studien zur Bildtheologie der Offenbarung des Johannes by Carsten Mumbauer (review)

This volume represents a revised dissertation submitted in 2019 to the University of Lucerne. Carsten Mumbauer here explores the role of pictorial figures, or picture-language, in the presentation of good and evil in the Book of Revelation. M.'s study is among the very few that have focused exclusively on the nature and function of pictorial images in the Seer's development of his theology.

Mumbauer considers Revelation to be a "salvation drama," with its foundation in the portrait of Christ in Revelation 1 and its climax in the description of God's dwelling with God's people in Revelation 21. The Seer's use of pictorial figures is required by his subject matter. God's presently hidden activity in the world and the eschatological end cannot be fully comprehended by humans who have experienced only the imminent historical process, and thus the readers can gain approximate knowledge of these transcendent realities only through pictorial language, with its ambiguity, suggestiveness, and layered multivalence. The Seer employs pictorial images that would have been familiar to his original audience, but modifies and transforms them by (1) including individual images that derive from more than one line of tradition (e.g., two or more OT passages, Greco-Roman literature, and Roman political propaganda); (2) relating these images to the cultural and religious situation of the intended audience; and (3) weaving these pictorial images into the literary program of his book.

The image theology of Revelation emphasizes the contrast between good and evil, which is expressed primarily in terms of the contrast between God and the Lamb versus the devil. M. insists that the Seer joins together God and Christ (which he presents especially through the imagery of the Lamb) not only functionally, in that they together promote goodness and life to those who choose to respond to their message with faith, but also ontologically; John presents the Lamb as fully divine ("Christ is God," p. 89), while still maintaining a thoroughgoing monotheism. This divine status of the crucified lamb thus challenges the claims to deity directed to the Roman emperors. M. contends also that the Seer develops the contrast between God/Lamb (and their devotees) and the devil (and those who attach themselves to him) dialectically; he employs the pictorial images in such a way as to create parallels between good and evil that contribute to his process of developing the utter differences between the two. All of this is ultimately paraenetic for the original intended readers; but the dynamic potential for fuller meaning in pictorial allusions means that it has significance also (in some measure) for other Christians, even those who come much later.

In the great central portion of the book M. presents the images of the good, followed by those of the evil. In his treatment of the good M. gives the lion's share of attention to visions pertaining to Christ, reflecting his conviction that Christ stands at the center of the book. Here M. deals with Revelation 1, 5, 14, and 19. But the presentation of the good includes also the two witnesses of Revelation 11, who are prophets that represent the faithful church as it proclaims the gospel to the entire world and will experience protection at the coming judgment, and the heavenly Jerusalem, the ultimate experience of communion with God/the Lamb at the eschaton.

Mumbauer gives less attention to the presentation of evil. Here he discusses the dragon (Revelation 12), the beast from the sea (13:1–10), and the beast from the earth (13:11–18). The dragon represents Satan, while the beasts represent the Roman empire and its propogandists, but by extension all powerful structures that oppose themselves to God.

Mumbauer concludes with a synthetic chapter that explores the image theology of Revelation. In the process M. discusses the ultimately narratological character of John's use of images and thus insists on...