Post-Colonial Interpretation of the Book of Revelation

After a providing a general orientation to the post-colonial interpretation of the book of Revelation, this chapter treats the term post-colonial as a chronological and hermeneutical description. The chapter defines the terms postmillennialism and premillennialism, and then uses them to describe the uses of Revelation to celebrate the reach of imperial dominion in the Constantinian era, to chart the uses of the Apocalypse in interpreting the discovery and settlement of America, and its deployment by Indigenous peoples in the South Pacific and North America to resist colonization. It identifies uses of imperial language in the book of Revelation and describes the book’s relationship to the Roman Empire as one of entanglement rather than opposition. This leads to an exploration of Revelation using the post-colonial hermeneutical concepts of catachresis, mimicry, and hybridity. The Apocalypse reflects a hybrid Roman colonial location that imitates imperial discourse in paradoxical ways to promote political resistance and to exhort its audience to faithfulness.