i) Commentators on Revelation typically assume that Revelation is a tapestry of OT quotations and allusion. They carefully trace out the subtext, using that as an interpretive frame of reference. This doesn't select for any particular school of interpretation. Amils, premils, preterists, idealists, et al. share this underlying assumption.
This view implies a wider gap between John's experience as a visionary and his activity as a writer. On this view, after John had whatever visions and auditions God gave him, in committing that experience to writing, he also incorporated many OT quotations and allusions into the overall product. The original visionary experience was augmented by extensive editorial activity on John's part to work in the OT quotations and allusions. It's a two-stage process, where there's a greater contrast between the raw experience and the final product.
That, in turn, would account for verbal parallels between Revelation and OT counterparts. And that may be a correct reconstruction of the process.
ii) However, there's another, neglected, explanation. What if Revelation reproduces the same kind of experience which generated certain OT texts? What if the commonalities are due, not to John's literary dependence on the OT, but common dependence on the same underlying experience, which gave rise to both?
We can take the question back a step. Instead of asking why Revelation resembles some OT passages, we might ask why some OT passages are they way they are. Because that's how God revealed himself to the OT seers in question. And if God revealed himself in certain ways to seers like Daniel, Ezekiel, and Zechariah, then he can reveal himself in the same or similar ways to John. The same types of imagery. Instead of John modeling his material on OT exemplars, the primary cause models their collective experience.
On that reconstruction, Revelation is more of a direct transcription or description of what John saw and heard. John is reporting his experience. Simply writing it down, with minimal modifications. It evokes many OT passages because John and his OT counterparts both evoke a common originating experience. It could still tie into OT history at various points, but that's because God is controlling John's experience. The tie-in would come straight from the source, rather than indirectly through John's subsequent editorial reflections.
Your explanation is the simpler and more likely one. That it is a neglected explanation is puzzling and lamentable.
ReplyDeleteI would only add a nuance to what you've said. Because John was likely familiar with and even steeped in the Scriptures of Israel's prophets, it is quite understandable that their words would have made their way into his worldview and even his working vocabulary, making it all the more likely that he would use those words when he saw similar things.