Seven Bowls of Wrath: the ecological relevance of Revelation

Biblical Theology Bulletin, Summer, 2008 by Richard Woods

Abstract

Catastrophic effects of climate change invite comparisons with the "plagues" or wounds of the earth described in chapters 15 and 16 of the Book of Revelation. The seven Bowls of Wrath can be interpreted as an ecological parable for the decades ahead, as the impact of several centuries of human exploitation of natural resources and the effects of pollution threaten to result in a number of global calamities in the areas of human and animal health, environmental decline, habitat destruction, population displacement, and physical suffering caused by increasingly violent and frequent storms. Although symbolic admonitions, the "bowls of wrath" demonstrate an unusually sophisticated insight into the organic connection that exists among biologica) and geological systems and also the consequences of wantonly disrupting this balance through human greed, oppression, and malice. Finally, the compensating divine response to ecocatastrophe ends not in ultimate punishment, but the renewal of the cosmos and the healing of the nations. Revelation is a message of hope as well as warning and a summons to repent.

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From Ireland to Finland the summer of 2007 was the wettest in living memory. Swollen rivers flooded large areas of the English midlands, an unpallelled disaster that wreaked billions of pounds worth of damage. Similar floods devastated southern China, Northern India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh. In southern Europe, by contrast, more than 500 people died from extreme heat. Drought and wildfires raged in Greece, Crete, Spain, Portugal and in areas of the United States and Australia. Earlier in the year, two reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change detailed not only virtual scientific unanimity regarding global warming, but repeated predictions of severe disturbances in weather patterns, an effect of global warming that has been a major concern to climatologists for over a decade.

With increasing frequency one hears the present situation of global climate change and unprecedented natural disasters described as "apocalyptic," a term which while perhaps technically inaccurate captures the sense of catastrophic urgency that typifies much of the literature of the intertestamental period and early Christian writings. Generally for Christians, however, the word "apocalypse" and its cognates bring to mind the Book of Revelation (known for centuries by its Greek name, which of course simply means "revelation"). This is hardly surprising to anyone familiar with its contents, which detail the calamities that presage the end of the world (so it seems) with increasing urgency and violence.

Cataclysmic events on earth and in the heavens were stereotypically employed in ancient texts to convey the drastic consequences of humanity's rebellion against God. Comets, earthquakes, volcanic upheavals, flood, drought, infestations of locusts, other "natural" disasters, and disease, famine, strife, and war all figure in the metaphorical catalogue of apocalyptic writings. But such events were not mere metaphors. Natural disasters occurred with sufficient frequency for the mention of them to evoke a sense of apprehensive terror well into the modern era, as seen in the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79, the great plagues of 165, 541, and the Black Death of the fourteenth century. In the great Lisbon earthquake of November 1755 as many as 60,000 people perished, about two-thirds of the population, most within the first minutes of the earthquake. The Great Influenza of 1918 killed more people worldwide than the combined total of all the above. The global warfare of the twentieth century took more lives, both civilian and military, than all the wars of the preceding millennium.

Destructive events of the recent past, especially natural disasters, have sometimes called into question divine providence and benevolence much as they did for Voltaire following the Lisbon earthquake, as witnessed after the Great Tsunami of 2004, Hurricanes Katrina and Wilma (the strongest hurricane ever recorded to date) in 2005, as well as the 2007 summer floods and heat waves. Revelation, "the" Apocalypse for Christians and many others, is thus not only relevant to today's situation but has begun to attract increasing attention, and not only because of its toll of eco-disasters. Greg Carey, for instance, cites David Joy's 2001 study published in India which "appropriates Revelation to articulate 'a human based value system and eco-friendly trade and development' over against the postcolonial global economy" (Carey: 239). The most recent work I have seen on Revelation and its significance in regard to global climate change and environmental catastrophe is Megan McKenna's Harm Not the Earth (2007.)

The ecological and socio-economic meaning and implications of Revelation have been profoundly enriched by the publication of David Aune's exhaustive three-volume commentary (1998) and the equally prodigious one-volume encyclopedic commentary by G. K. Beale (1999). Astonishingly erudite, both works are meticulously researched and finely balanced. Both Wilfrid Harrington's compact commentary (1993) and that by Pablo Richard (1998) offer similar insights into the ecological significance of Revelation. The present article is indebted to all four authors.