UTN uW Translation Notes:

Revelation 1 General Notes

Structure and Formatting

This chapter explains how the book of Revelation records the vision that John received on the island of Patmos.- Prologue (1:1-8) Preface (1:1-3) Address and Doxology (1:4-6) Theme (1:7-8)- John’s Vision of Christ (1:9-20)Some translations set quotations from the Old Testament farther to the right on the page to make them easier to read. The ULT does this with the words quoted in verse 7.

Special Concepts in this Chapter

Language that would be figurative in other contexts

To describe the way he saw Jesus in the opening vision that this chapter relates, John uses much language that would be treated as figurative in other contexts. For example, John says in verse 16 that Jesus had “a sharp, double-edged sword coming out of his mouth,” and yet Jesus was still able to speak. Since Hebrews 4:12 describes the word of God as like a double-edged sword, we might therefore think that this image actually indicates that Jesus speaks the very words of God because he is God himself. But as the General Introduction to Revelation discusses, it would not be appropriate to use literal language like that in your translation to explain the meaning of what John saw. John is describing what he actually saw and heard in his visions, and you should simply translate his descriptions rather than interpreting them.

Seven churches

John wrote this book to seven actual churches in the Roman province of Asia. That province was located in the western part of what is now the country of Turkey. The churches themselves would be found in the southwestern area of Turkey. The list of the churches in verse 11 follows a particular order. The list begins with Ephesus, the most important city at the time, and moves clockwise around the cities, ending with Laodicea, which was the southernmost city. The letters in chapters 2 and 3 follow this same order.