Cover -- Contents -- Foreword -- Acknowledgements -- 1 Introduction -- 1.1 The point of departure -- 1.2 The suspicion of literary openness -- 1.2.1 Revelation as "the open work" in other authors' views -- 1.3 The literary transmission of meaning -- 1.3.1 Author, text, context, reader -- 1.3.1.1 Meaning and significances? -- 1.3.2 Our accepted interpretative approach -- 1.3.3 The literary view of texts -- 1.3.4 Literary criticism in biblical studies -- 1.3.4.1 On the (potentially) negative side -- 1.4 Eco's theory of the open work among other interpretative approaches -- 1.4.1 The basis: The transmission of meaning -- 1.4.2 Our selective use of Eco's theory -- 1.5 General openness versus specific openness of literary texts -- 1.5.1 The poetic field of meaning in literary texts -- 1.5.2 Clarifying the wider terminology of 'openness' -- 1.5.3 The result of deliberate opening: specific ambiguity -- 1.6 The nature of the open work -- 1.6.1 The nature of the open work as defined by Umberto Eco -- 1.6.1.1 Specific poetic language -- 1.6.1.2 The open network of interrelations -- 1.6.1.3 Eco's definition -- 1.6.1.4 The role of intertextuality -- 1.6.2 Order versus disorder: The arrangement of the open work -- 1.6.2.1 Information and interpretative uncertainty -- 1.6.2.2 Information and order -- 1.7 Biblical examples of opening strategies -- 1.7.1 The newer literary view of metaphor -- 1.7.2 The recent literary view of parables -- 1.7.3 Series of literary units in 'open' mutual relationships -- 1.7.4 Specific dimensions of narrative language -- 1.8 Introduction proper -- 2 Genre Analysis -- 2.1 The purpose and legitimacy of a fresh discussion -- 2.2 Revelation as Apocalyptic -- 2.2.1 The former situation in the field -- 2.2.2 Some preliminary cautions.

2.2.3 The SBL Genres Project and the paradigmatic definition -- 2.2.3.1 The Apocalypse Group and their paradigmatic approach -- 2.2.3.2 Important criticism -- 2.2.3.3 The resultant applicability of the master-paradigm -- 2.2.4 Important supplements to the paradigmatic definition -- 2.2.5 The Apocalypse among other apocalypses: The persistent difficulties -- 2.2.5.1 The term "ἀποкάλυψις" and the book's prophetic aspect -- 2.2.5.1.1 Morton Smith on the occurrence of the terms "ἀποкάλύπτω" and "ἀποкάλυψις" -- 2.2.5.1.2 Fiorenza: Apokalypsis Iēsou Christou and prophecy in the Pauline context -- 2.2.5.2 The Apocalypse of John versus the paradigmatic definition -- 2.2.5.2.1 The old classic: Pseudonymity and pseudoprophecy -- 2.2.5.2.2 Other remarkable differences between Revelation and other apocalypses -- 2.2.5.2.3 Important similarities -- 2.2.5.2.4 John's Apocalypse as a generic paradigm? -- 2.2.6 The limitations of genre classification: important methodological restrictions -- 2.2.7 A reader-oriented view of the Apocalypse's genre -- 2.2.7.1 Numerous literary forms and their unusual sequence in Revelation -- 2.2.7.2 Linton and the limitations of the genre definition -- 2.2.7.2.1 The apocalyptic genre: a highly limited concept? -- 2.2.7.2.2 Revelation: A text difficult to classify? -- 2.2.7.2.3 The problem of selecting the texts and its implications -- 2.2.8 Conclusions -- 2.3 Revelation as prophecy -- 2.3.1 The biblical-prophetic roots of apocalypticism -- 2.3.2 Apocalyptic or/and classical-prophetic? -- 2.3.3 Fiorenza: Revelation and early Christian prophecy -- 2.3.4 The answer: Between prophetic and apocalyptic -- 2.4 Revelation as letter -- 2.4.1 The wider literary context -- 2.4.2 The presence of the letter form in the book -- 2.4.3 Imitation of Paul? -- 2.4.4 Conclusions.

2.5 Three major genres and the implied field of communication -- 2.5.1 Contextual studies: John's referential power -- 2.5.2 The indicated extent of communication -- 2.6 The hidden Wisdom in Revelation -- 2.6.1 Tracing the Wisdom tradition in apocalyptic writings -- 2.6.1.1 An example: "He who has an ear..." -- 2.6.2 Adler and the apocalyptic esotericism -- 2.6.3 Aune and "The Reveal/Conceal Dialectic" -- 2.6.4 The revelatory experience of the reader and the arrangement of the text -- 2.6.5 Conclusions -- 2.7 The myth genre in Revelation -- 2.7.1 The Greek mythos and its specific communication -- 2.7.2 Prophetic roots, mythological components? -- 2.7.3 The language of apocalypses: An important shift in scholarly approach -- 2.7.4 The views of the resultant communication -- 2.7.5 The type of myth present in Revelation -- 2.7.6 The repetitive arrangement of mutually corresponding visions -- 2.8 Revelation as narrative -- 2.8.1 A dimension to be further explored -- 2.8.2 Repeated narratives in the Apocalypse -- 2.8.3 The narratives and the progression -- 2.8.4 Conclusions -- 2.9 Other influences: the literary context of John's writing -- 2.9.1 The NT pictures of the future: Revelation and parables -- 2.9.2 Ancient authors could write: Paratactic literature -- 2.9.3 Ancient audience could understand: Greek oratory -- 2.9.3.1 The rhetorical level of John's day -- 2.9.3.2 The major types of classical oratory -- 2.9.3.3 The structure of epideictic rhetoric -- 2.9.3.4 Conclusions -- 2.9.4 Liturgy and ritual -- 2.9.4.1 The liturgical dimension -- 2.9.4.2 The ritual liminality -- 2.9.4.3 Conclusions -- 2.9.5 Greek drama -- 2.9.5.1 A view largely abandoned -- 2.9.5.2 The points of contact -- 2.10 The major implications of the genre analysis -- 2.10.1 The complexity of genre in general: A mixtum compositum?.

2.10.2 Specific generic complexity: Cumulative indications of literary openness -- 3 Other dimensions of literary openness in Revelation -- 3.1 The intertextual dimension -- 3.1.1 The types of John's use of the OT -- 3.1.2 The Nature and Extent of John's Intertextuality -- 3.1.2.1 The extent of John's allusions -- 3.1.2.2 The nature of John's allusions -- 3.1.2.3 Beale and the issue of intentionality -- 3.1.2.4 John's Specific OT Sources -- 3.1.2.5 John's OT source texts: Hebrew and Aramaic, or the LXX? -- 3.1.2.6 Fekkes on John's methods of interpretation -- 3.1.2.7 Mythological allusions -- 3.1.2.8 Conclusions -- 3.1.3 The function of John's OT allusions -- 3.1.3.1 The important progress of the recent decades -- 3.1.3.2 Is John's intertextual language primarily poetic? -- 3.1.3.3 The context: Allusive intertextuality in other relevant writings -- 3.1.3.3.1 Dimant on the use of the OT in Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha -- 3.1.3.3.2 Rusam on imitation of the OT in Luke -- 3.1.3.4 Moyise's approach: The dialogical intertextuality -- 3.1.3.5 Moyise and the dialogical tension in Revelation: the evidence -- 3.1.3.6 Is the dialogical tension deliberate? -- 3.1.3.6.1 Dialogical intertextuality elsewhere: Hays and the echo in Paul -- 3.1.4 Summary and conclusions -- 3.1.4.1 An important dimension of the book's literary openness -- 3.1.4.2 An example of intertextual (and contextual) openness: The response of the enemies in Rev 11:13 -- 3.1.4.3 The corollaries for reading summarised -- 3.2 The language dimension: OT allusions and the anomalies in John's Greek -- 3.2.1 The basic interconnection -- 3.2.2 Beale: Solecisms as John's Stylistic Use of the OT Language -- 3.2.3 Beale: Solecisms as Signals of Old Testament Allusions -- 3.2.4 The intentionality of solecisms and their link with the OT as discussed by other authors.

3.2.5 Conclusions -- 3.2.5.1 The intentionality of John's grammatical anomalies: "Grammatical openness"? -- 3.2.5.2 John's "Figurative and Narrative Grammar" -- 3.3 The field of communication -- 3.3.1 The literary-functional field of Revelation -- 3.3.1.1 The oral context of the Apocalypse -- 3.3.1.2 The resultant communication -- 3.3.2 The social setting and function of Revelation -- 3.3.2.1 Written in a crisis: real or perceived? -- 3.3.2.1.1 A prominent example of the "real crisis" view: Fiorenza -- 3.3.2.1.2 Yarbro Collins and the "perceived crisis" view -- 3.3.2.1.3 Thompson and the official persecution under Domitian: An important change of view -- 3.3.2.2 Conclusion: The resultant balance -- 3.3.3 Fiorenza and two levels of communication in Revelation -- 3.3.3.1 Poetic ambiguity reduced to a rhetorical meaning? -- 3.3.3.2 Two ways of communication: Poetry and rhetoric only? -- 3.3.4 Who wrote that way? -- 3.3.4.1 Learned authors -- 3.3.5 Who read that way? -- 3.3.5.1 Two types of audience and setting: Is it legitimate? -- 3.3.5.2 Bauckham: elaborate referentiality indicates its readers -- 3.3.5.3 Early Christian prophets as learned and inspired interpreters -- 3.3.6 Conclusion: The openness of communication -- 3.4 Summary: Literary openness and its implications for literary arrangement -- 3.4.1 Literary openness indicated on each of the observed levels -- 3.4.2 Literary openness and the implied literary arrangement -- 3.4.2.1 Open texts, their structure, readers and interpretation -- 3.4.2.2 Closed texts, their rules, readers and interpretation -- 3.4.3 The structural signposts: What are we looking for? -- 3.4.4 What type of labyrinth are we going to go through? -- 4 The existing approaches to the macrostructure of the Apocalypse -- 4.1 Introduction.

4.2 Intertextuality and the book's literary structure.