A Slaughtered Lamb ― Revelation and the Apocalyptic Response to Evil and Suffering

Although often read as a book of esoteric visions about the end of time, the book of revelation is actually one of the most relevant books in the Bible for Christian faith in the twenty-first century. Evil and suffering are an unavoidable component of human experience and they generate a host of questions by those seeking to be faithful in the midst of such experiences. Why do Christians suffer? How are we to understand God's sovereignty in a world of injustice, violence, and opposition? What is the appropriate response of faith to such a world? In "A Slaughtered Lamb," Greg Stevenson argues that the book of Revelation addresses such questions and the tension that is created between our faith and our experiences of evil and suffering. Revelation is a book that reminds us that God is faithful to his creation, that challenges us to take up the call for faithful witness in a hostile world, and that reveals to us that God's primary response to evil and suffering is to meet us in the form of a slaughtered lamb. Ideal for use as a college textbook for undergraduate/graduate students, as a resource for pastors/ministry leaders, and as an introduction to revelation for interested lay persons.

GREGORY STEVENSON (PhD, Emory University) is a professor of New Testament at rochester College in Rochester Hills, Michigan. He is the author of "Power and Place: Temple and Identity in the Book of Revelation" and "Televised Morality: The Case of Buffy the Vampire Slayer." In addition he has published numerous essays and articles ranging in topics from intertextuality in Psalm 77 and golden crown imagery in Revelation to food as metaphor in Gilmore Girls and the influence of the book of Revelation on modern comic books.