Bible: Revelation

About the Author

According to the first chapter of Revelation, John was exiled on the island of Patmos, where a divine voice commissioned him to write the book of Revelation. The author calls himself John, and early Christians were inclined to equate him with the disciple John, perhaps the last living disciple of Jesus, who may have lived as an old man in Ephesus toward the end of the first century CE. More likely the name is a pseudonym, a symbolic name chosen by the anonymous author, since apocalyptic books usually were written by authors who used names from the distant past, when the works were supposedly written. Perhaps the author of Revelation choose John’s name because the disciple was a famous contemporary, or perhaps John was the author’s real name, since it was common. The events described by the author appear to refer to many historical events of the forty years previous to the writing of the book (the literary technique of predicting events after their occurrence).