Tim LaHaye and Timothy E. Parker. The Book of Revelation Made Clear: A Down-to-Earth Guide to Understanding the Most Mysterious Book of the Bible. Nashville: Nelson Books (An Imprint of Thomas Nelson), 2014.
Tim LaHaye is a Christian author. Timothy Parker is renowned in the
field of puzzles. I don’t think that Parker was consulted for this
project out of the hope that his expertise with puzzles would help to
decode the Book of Revelation. In terms of its content about
eschatology, the book largely reflects Tim LaHaye’s belief in a
pretribulational rapture and Christ’s premillennial second advent. My
hunch is that Parker’s contribution is the format of the book. Each
quotation of the Book of Revelation and commentary on the text are
preceded by a multiple-choice quiz about the coming text. The idea
seems to be that, if we try to answer a question and later encounter the
answer in the course of our reading, we will retain the information
better. That makes some sense. And I have to give credit to the
quizzes: they were not ideologically loaded, but they focus on the text
of the Book of Revelation itself. You won’t answer wrongly if you
believe in a post-tribulational rapture or hold to amillennialism, even
though LaHaye defends contrary viewpoints in the commentary.
The book was pretty good when it addressed details of the text—-such
as why Jesus’ feet are like brass, why the heavenly sea is of glass, or
why the first horseman appears to have a bow without an arrow. LaHaye’s
explanations made a degree of sense to me, even though he mostly
asserted them rather than supporting them. LaHaye’s defense of the
pretribulational rapture was all-right, too: it’s remarkable that there
are people in heaven praising God throughout the course of the book.
Could at least some of them be the church? My problem was that LaHaye
did not attempt to clarify the details of the Book of Revelation
enough. What does 666 mean? What is the hidden manna that Jesus talks
about? And what is the relationship between Jesus’ addresses to the
first century churches in Asia and the rest of the Book of Revelation?
So much was unaddressed in this book. Sure, it’s probably intended to
be introductory, but, if I were a new learner, I would like to read more
details.
Note: I received a complimentary review copy of this book through the BookLook Bloggers (http://booklookbloggers.com/)
book review bloggers program. The program does not require for my
review to be positive, and my review reflects my honest reaction to the
book.