Seven Bowls of Wrath: the ecological relevance of Revelation

Biblical Theology Bulletin, Summer, 2008 by Richard Woods

In it I intend to focus primarily on the imagery of the natural world that the author employs in regard to the eschatological distress that precedes the final assault on the People of God by the forces of evil and the triumph of the Lamb of God. I will address the fall of Babylon/Rome only obliquely. I believe that while the planetary wounds (plegai) from the "seven bowls of wrath" function as symbolic admonitions, they evince a sophisticated insight into the organic connection that exists among biological and geological systems, the consequences of disrupting this balance through human greed, oppression, and malice, and, finally, the compensating divine response to ecocatastrophe. From this perspective, the Seven Bowls of Wrath comprise, in effect, a powerful ecological parable for the twenty-first century. (While it does not fundamentally affect my thesis, I also believe that the events depicted in Revelation have less to do with "the end of the world" than the ultimate and inevitable conflict between the Kingdom of God and imperialistic forces of economic, religious, and political oppression, as well as the destructive impact such sinfulness has on the earth and all its living creatures.)

Ancient Ecocatastrophe: The Seven Bowls of Wrath

Over the centuries, the Book of Revelation has gained as much as or possibly more attention than any work in the New Testament canon, except perhaps the Epistle to the Romans. Much of it was unwarranted, some of it unwanted, for example the commentaries by radical apocalypticist reformers in the Middle Ages such as Gerard of Borgo San Donnino, Peter John Olivi, and later Reformation-era polemicists. Revelation appeals to a wide range of readers for all sorts of reasons. So far as I know, the only scriptural commentary by D. H. Lawrence (1995) was on Revelation. While Lawrence was both fascinated and appalled by Revelation, it may safely be said that he failed to understand much of the work. Nevertheless, some of his insights are predictably incisive.

The Text, its Structure, and Its Meaning

Following the introductory sections from the beginning to the end of chapter 3, the major part of Revelation, 4:1 to 22:9, consists of a long section unified structurally by the recurring pattern of sevens: the seven seals, the seven trumpets, and the seven bowls of wrath (4:1 to 16:21) and a shorter, concluding portion which consists of two explanatory revelations, 17:1-19:10--a more detailed and highly dramatised account of the fall of the Great City in the person of the Great Whore--and the account of the final confrontation between Christ and the forces of Satan (19:11-21:8). The entire work concludes with the astonishingly beautiful description of the New Jerusalem, the epilogue, and final benediction (21:9-22:21).

Between the seven trumpets and the seven bowls of wrath, the author inserts three textual units that introduce the dramatis personae of his saga: the Woman, her Child, and the Dragon (chapter 12), the Beasts from the sea and the land (chapter 13), and, at the heart of the work, the Lamb of God, his virginal army, and the angels of the harvest (chapter 14). Significantly, at the very apex of chapter 14, an angel announces proleptically that Babylon the Great has already fallen (14:8). Everything that follows details the working out of what has been eternally decreed.