ABSTRACT
According to Collins, "The historical-critical approach has evoked two major reactions. One is the aesthetic literary mode of interpretation that emphasizes the qualities of Revelation that characterize it as a work of art and imagination. The other is the fundamentalist approach that insists on the literal truth of Revelation's images, usually as predictions of future events." In the United States, Christian fundamentalists are among the strongest supporters of Israel. The city of Jerusalem comes down from heaven and the city is built of gold, and adorned with jewels. As Gabriel A. Almond, R. Scott Appleby, and Emmanuel Sivan argue, American fundamentalists view the Middle East and the Holy Land as the center of "the war theater of the Apocalypse." The prophetic landscape predicted in the Books of Ezekiel, Daniel, and Revelation saw its veracity confirmed by the strategic role of the Middle East in the international arena over the last quarter century.
