Revelation

Thompson's Revelation (ANTC, 1998) is a compact, student-oriented commentary whose sociological and comparative-religion methodology produces several significant problems. Its most controversial thesis — that Asian Christians lived "quietly, peacefully, and prosperously" with no widespread persecution — is both historically questionable and internally inconsistent: Thompson never reconciles it with the text's own depictions of martyrdom, poverty, and imprisonment (2:9–10; 6:9; 11:7–8). The commentary also exhibits what Sandmel called parallelomania: at virtually every significant image Thompson reaches first for Hellenistic, Egyptian, or Greco-Roman parallels — the Mithras Liturgy alone is cited repeatedly — consistently subordinating the OT prophetic tradition to pagan comparanda and reversing the methodological priorities most other scholars consider primary; Beale's meticulous demonstration that John's imagery derives overwhelmingly from Daniel, Ezekiel, Isaiah, and Zechariah stands as the decisive corrective here. More troubling, Thompson applies derogatory language to God's judicial acts, describing divine vengeance as involving "personal spite and vindictiveness" (on 6:10–11), the two witnesses' God-authorised judgments as "an excess of vengeance and gore," and the Messiah's career in ch. 12 as "aborted" — language unwarranted by the Greek and found in none of the other major commentaries. Several exegetical positions are idiosyncratic and thinly argued, including the denial that the "one like a human" in 14:14 is Christ (against Beale, Mounce, Aune, Koester, and Fanning). Thompson's introductory sketch of civic life in Asia Minor has genuine student value, but the commentary as a whole should be read with significant caution and alongside Beale, Koester, or Aune as necessary correctives.