ItвЂ™s extraordinary imagery, but itвЂ™s very open-ended. ItвЂ™s one thing to read it when youвЂ™re in a war, but how do people keep reading it forever? First of all, the images are the kinds that come out of a childвЂ™s dream: monsters, dragons, beasts with eyes all over their bodies, an angel with a rainbow standing between the sea and the sky. Why is Revelation so perennially popular and adaptable? You know that the people hearing this lived in a time in which the destruction of entire populations was something familiar. It is such a strange book, with these terrifying images of the First Horseman of the Apocalypse who emerges and is given power from God to kill a fourth of the inhabitants of the earth by the sword.

You say in the book that we can begin to understand what John wrote only when we interpret his visions as вЂњwartime literatureвЂќ in the struggle against Rome. It helps us understand how religion appeals to people even when it doesnвЂ™t seem to make rational sense. The Book of Revelation is a beautiful case in point, because thereвЂ™s nothing in it but visions and dreams and nightmares. But I had the sense that it not only involves practice, but also emotion and levels of our experience that are almost precognitive. So often religion is identified in terms coined by Christianity as sets of belief.

Another part was the question of what is religion. But then I found I was thinking about a number of themes, one of which has to do with politics and religion. ItвЂ™s so dense itвЂ™s so complex and puzzling. I never thought I would write about the Book of Revelation.

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