ABSTRACT
Hesiod’s Theogony, as we argue in Chapter 1, known to and drawn from by the Genesis scribes, plays an even more central role behind Revelation. Hesiod’s opening episode in which the Muses describe how they eternally sing hymns of Zeus prefigure the choir of 24 in Revelation doing the same. More surprisingly, Revelation 12, in which a “woman” in a divine robe is about to give birth, while a dragon waits to devour her offspring clearly reworks Hesiod’s account of the birth of Zeus, with Kronos waiting to devour him. But Revelation also mixes in Typhoeus, so that where the Theogony has separate episodes of a war in heaven followed by a defeat of the cosmic dragon, Revelation makes the dragon the leader of the rebellious forces.
