# Why Calvin/Luther:Why no commentary on Revelation?



## Javilo

Also, did anyone from the Reformation write a good commentary on
Revelation that is still available? Would be interesting to compare to
today's views.


----------



## Wayne

I went to search on possibilities ["reformation era commentaries on revelation"], and Joe's post is already up on Google as a return, less than an hour after posting! 

That search did turn up the following work, which looks interesting:

_Reformation Readings of the Apocalypse: Geneva, Zurich, and Wittenberg_. By Irena Backus. Oxford Studies in Historical Theology. (New York: Oxford University Press, 2000. pp. xx, 182. $45.00.)


----------



## NaphtaliPress

I think Google's spiders hang out here because I've seen hits on threads not at all long after posting.


----------



## Wayne

This must be a happenin' place!


----------



## Archlute

I remember having read years back through some good sermons/lectures on Revelation in the collected works of one of the Thomases - take your pick: Boston, Goodwin, Manton. You'll find them in one those collections.


----------



## Wayne

If sermons are acceptable, as opposed to commentaries, then here is a list of published works:

PCA Historical Center: Textual Index of Puritan & Reformed Sermons - Revelation

And judging from that list, all the Thomases joined in.


----------



## OPC'n

He's not from the Reformation times but have you read _Triumph of the Lamb_ by Dennis E. Johnson?


----------



## DMcFadden

You mean there is something out there besides Tim LaHay's *Revelation: Illustrated and Made Plain *revised (Zondervan, 1975 {first printing 1973})??? 

If you want to look at the contemporary era . . .

G K Beale,* The Book of Revelation: A Commentary on the Greek Text *(New international Greek Testament Commentary (Grand Rapids, Mich.) 1999.) 1408 pp. Synopsis This is a massive and detailed work suitable for the scholar and student already familiar with Revelation. The interpretative approach is eclecticism or a Redemptive-Historical form of modified idealism that fits most within the overall interpretative framework of such past commentators as Caird, Johnson, Sweet, and above all Hendriksen and Wilcock, he found Mounce and Bauckham useful. 

William Hendriksen, *More than Conquerors*, Baker Book House, 1962. Evangelical and scholarly, a classic of the idealist school (216 pp). He writes on a passage rather than a verse and therefore he is more useful to the layman than the student.Amazon Still popular after 60 years, and rightly so. 

Dennis E. Johnson *Triumph of the Lamb: A Commentary on Revelation* P & R Press; (August 2001) 384 pages, very good, Amill approach (326pp) 

Or put another way,

Scholarly: Beale, Osborne, Smalley, Mounce, Thomas, Chilton 
Students and teachers: Osborne, Mounce, Johnson, Bauckham 
Preachers: Krodel, Keener, Michaels, Brighton 
Student starter: Ladd, Morris, Newport 
Layman: Hendiksen, Koester, Newport, Barton 

Revelation commentary reviews


----------



## PuritanCovenanter

I just read A Theological Guide to the Institutes. In it one of the authors said Calvin probably ran out of time in life to do the Apocolypse of John. He did do the book of Daniel which had much to do with Apocolyptic Revelation.


----------



## Blue Tick

> You mean there is something out there besides Tim LaHay's Revelation: Illustrated and Made Plain revised (Zondervan, 1975 {first printing 1973})???


----------



## bug

For Calvin I would suggest it was because he died before he got there.


----------



## Marrow Man

I've heard more than once some say that Calvin didn't write a commentary on Revelation because "he didn't understand it" (or something along those lines). That seems far-fetched, and considering he also didn't write commentaries on a couple of NT epistles and some of the OT historical books, singling out Revelation would seem even more unlikely.

Does anyone know about this or have a source? If it's an accurate quote, please let me know.


----------



## CalvinandHodges

Greetings:

Luther did not believe that Revelation belonged in the inspired canon. Calvin did not have the time to write a commentary.

Blessings,

Rob


----------

