ABSTRACT
It is a truth universally acknowledged that Revelation is the most bizarre, most difficult to interpret, and thus the most commonly misunderstood book in the New Testament. The last book in the New Testament belongs to a literary genre that takes its name from the first word in Revelation, apokalypsis, whence comes its alternate title, the Apocalypse. John introduces his account of the "revelation of Jesus Christ" with a sense of urgency: "the time is near". Premillennialists believe Revelation teaches that Christ will return before the beginning of the thousand-year period. Implicit in this view is the theological conviction that the corruption of the world is so deep that nothing short of God's intervention can turn things in the right direction. Postmillennialists maintain that Jesus will return after a thousand-year period in which the people of God gradually usher in the kingdom of God through an intentional effort at ethical reformation.
