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Revelation Unveiled

Revelation Unveiled

List Price: $15.99
Your Price: $10.87
Product Info Reviews

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Rating: 2 stars
Summary: Sincere, but sincerely wrong
Review: Revelation Unveiled is the revised and updated edition of Revelation - illustrated and made plain (1973). The plot is simple, by Rev 4:2 the church has been raptured and those left behind go through the tribulation. Thus Revelation chapters 4 -19 are made totally irrelevant to the church who will be in heaven. LaHaye's interpretation is a distinctly dispensational view and is at odds with the other modern mainstream commentaries on Revelation. His commentary is also one of the few that indulges in Catholic bashing.

His interpretation relies on a very shaky interpretation of the letter to the church in Philadelphia especially in Rev 3:10 (p 81). And an even more shaky interpretation of Rev 4:1-2 in which John is summoned in the spirit to heaven (p 99). John is in heaven in the spirit, it is not a bodily rapture because his body remained firmly in Patmos and we cannot therefore take this event to symbolise the bodily rapture of the church. LaHaye notes that the absence of the word 'church' in the rest of Revelation indicates that it is not on earth during the tribulation (p 100). This is a poor argument because 'Israel' is not mentioned after Rev 7:4 until Rev 21:12, are we to assume that Israel is raptured after Rev 7:4? While the word 'church' is not found after Rev 3:22 until Rev 22:16 we do find 'saints' mentioned 12 times after Rev 3:22, 'servants' 11 times, 'prophets' eight times and 'brothers' four times. Not all of these references are to those on the earth but some are, see Rev 13:7 and 10 for example. He also states that the extensive use of OT language in Ch 4-18 indicates Israel not the church, however the whole of Revelation from Ch 1 - 22 has allusions to the OT.

He holds that the seven churches represent the seven ages of church history, which was popular when I was a young Christian at college. However the problem is that the seventh and last church (Laodicea see Rev 3:14) is the lukewarm church that Christ is about to spew out of his mouth. Now we all like to think that we live in the last days, but according to the church age view we are lukewarm. This is no problem to LaHaye, he says that the first three church ages are consecutive but the last four are parallel, all ending with the rapture (Philadelphia) or tribulation, the Laodiceans get left behind (p 24 and 84).

He claims that this book represents the theology used for the 'Left Behind' fiction series, but he gets his theology wrong. By all means buy his "Left Behind" books and 'Revelation Unveiled' and enjoy them as fiction. Don't just take my word for it, read a few other commentaries on Revelation and judge for yourself. For a more balanced interpretation of Revelation get Hendriksen, for the layman try Ladd, students try Krodel and for the young Christian try Barton (all available from Amazon).

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Talk about overkill...
Review: Revelation Unveiled... Rapture Under Attack... Are We Living In The End Times?... Understanding The Last Days... Bible Prophecy: What You Need To Know... Exactly how many new books by one author on one subject are needed? Toss in his six fantasies about the tribulation already in print, and <gulp> the other six yet to come, and it becomes obvious that LaHaye has become a one man "[pre]Tribulation Force" during the past couple of years. Such output is probably indicative of his personal efforts to bring back those leaving the pretrib position of late.

Philosophically speaking, it's easy to write so many nearly identical books when the eschatology being preached, namely the Dispensational, Pre-Tribulational, Newspaper-Headline-Exegetical brand, changes from year to year. Read Tim thoroughly. Read Hal Lindsey. Jack Van Impe. Read all their stuff chronologically. You'll see the changes, most of which go without a mention. The Tim LaHaye of the past said the prophecy clock started ticking in 1917. Then he said it was 1948. I predict that soon he will change it to 1967, without acknowledging his previously erring hype.

And yet his eschatological works are dogmatic to a fault. If you are post-trib, pre-wrath, post-millenial, amillenial, mid-trib, historicist, preterist, or idealist, he writes in an attempt to demonize you as stupid, liberal, non-literal, etc. He doesn't try to understand you, nor to dialogue with you, nor to embellish positive points you make, nor to congratulate you on the general and historic adequacy of your position. It's Tim's prophetic way or the highway. Don't you find that unfortunate?

Here is one example from this book. Early on, LaHaye accuses preterists of being FORCED to accept a pre-70 A.D. authorship of Revelation in order to justify their supposedly unwarranted and allegedly insatiable desire to interpret the book in a spiritual, alleghorical manner. He claims there is no evidence for a pre-70 A.D. authorship. Then, he leaves the subject. Unfortunately, the evidence for a pre-70 A.D. authorship does exist, and it's not exactly whimsical. THE book on the subject, Ken Gentry's "Before Jerusalem Fell," is filled with these evidences. BJF is not fluff -- it is Gentry's graduate thesis. In this regard, LaHaye's book cannot compare to the more strict demand for accurate historical documentation required in Gentry's.

If you want to hold to the same pretrib, dispy, premill position that LaHaye holds, good for you. That's fine with me. But don't attack what you don't know. I hate to ask, but If LaHaye was not aware of the pre-70 A.D. evidences, what does that say for his expertise on Revelation? If he was aware, what does that say <gulp> for his honesty?

In conclusion, do you really need yet another late-1990s Tim LaHaye prophecy book? Put your money into books from a different perspective, and discover for yourself the wonderful array of prophetic interpretation. And, you just might learn something interesting or new about Revelation in the process. Or do Tim a favor and buy one of his many other non-eschatological books.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: I think I've seen this show before
Review: The FUNDAMENTAL problem for any effort to argue that Revelation "predicts the future" derives from the fact that this ancient rant depicts a very primitive world: In Revelation, people are ruled by kings, practice slavery, ride horses, fight with swords, get attacked by mythological creatures, keep records on scrolls and are oppressed by "spiritual" forces (whatever that means).

In other words, Revelation sounds more like the world of _Xena: Warrior Princess_ than the kind of world we live in.

And the attempt to allegorize these embarrassments away faces the double-standards problem: LaHaye and similar bible-prophecy cranks want to argue that the parts of Revelation that are too weird to take literally must have some deeper "spiritual" meaning, but they want a literal "Jesus" to fall to Earth (Revelation 19:11-15) with a sword sticking out of his mouth, wearing a robe dipped in blood and riding a flying horse -- like a Valkyrie, I suppose. (Western civilization gave up pagan mythology for this?)

I find it especially amusing that LaHaye, when he wears his conservative hat, preaches a message of this-worldly self-reliance, rugged individualism and the pursuit of happiness (e.g., refer to his books on sexual fulfillment in marriage and fighting depression) -- but when he wears his preacher hat, he preaches secular despair and the call for a supernatural welfare program (Revelation 21) to solve our problems.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: In response to the viewer that says Thuyen is wrong
Review: The kings listed in order according to ancient historians of Roman times were: Julius Caesar, then Augustus, then Tiberius, then Caligula, then Claudius, then Nero, the sixth. Even if one don't count Julius as king and start with Augustus, one would still have about five more emperors on the throne before one gets to Domitian and another 30 years to go at it. The person who says Thuyen must learn Roman history from 3rd grade apparently reads his preconceived notion that Revelation must have beenw written in 95 AD at the time of Domintian to even make that charge and even so it still does change the facts that Domitian lived way after the sixth emperor, be it Nero or the one who ruled after him, for a year. It does not change the fact like Lahaye tells us that six emperors have ruled Rome up to time of 95 AD, with the emperor that year being the sixth, and thus both Lahaye and the person who defends him needs to get their facts correct. In either case, Lahaye distorted Roman history by claiming the sixth emperor to rule the Roman empire was Domitian. And in any event, the dating of Revelation is under dispute as to it being in 60 or 95, and nonpreterists like FF Bruce holds to the dating closer to 60s! And it is not like this is the only time Lahaye's facts are ever under dispute. His misrepresentations of other views like postmils are found in his books in general such as they deny future salvation of Jews (not true, since all postmils hold to the salvation of all national Israel in future), that they hold to goodness of human nature (not true since most of them were Calvinists), and that they hold to replacement theology (not true since they hold to the Church coming from national Israel as subset and grew out of that as spiritual Israel, or saved Jews with gentiles joining them as fellow citizens).

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: How many rulers over Roman empire existed as kings up to
Review: the time of John? If that refers to before John lived, then Julius Caesar and possibly Augustus. If it refers up to time even of 95 AD, then there would be like over 10 emperors by then, not counting Julius Caesar who may have been seen as king in his day but not officially emperor. In any event, if Lahaye refers to six kings up to time of John as existing right up to his lifetime as at time of his birth, then he is stuck with only one king and would still have his facts wrong. If he refers kings right up to 95 AD when John alleged wrote Revelation, then he would still be off by five or six kings. If he refers that to six kings before and right up to the sixth king during John's lifetime, he would still be wrong since the sixth was Nero, and there would be many in between as well as many years before Domitian took over the throne.

How can anyone with any knowledge of history defend Lahaye's twist on history and then bash others who point out the obvious nonsense of history Lahaye made out of it?

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: For a great fictional look at these ideas, check out . . .
Review: There are some very well presented ideas in this book. You can argue whether they are correct interpretations of scripture, but no matter what, they really give you something to think about. I'm sure people who are interested in Revelation Unveiled have either already or are going to try and explore those ideas even more fully in the hugely popular Left Behind Series. To those people, I would recomend trying a vastly superior work called We All Fall Down, writen by a man named Brian Caldwell.

We All Fall Down is a deeply moving, intellectually challanging piece of fiction that really encourages its readers to think about their own religion. More than any other novel about the End Times, it explores what exactly it is that is inherent in mankind's makeup that causes something like Revelation to be necessary. After all, thinking about Revelation should not simply be an exercise in voyerism, but should be an exercise in looking at one's self and how to become closer to God. Caldwell's novel helps in that spectacularly. It's one of the the best novels I've ever read and certainly the best novel on the End Times ever writen. If you want to explore what might be keeping you from becoming closer to God than you already are, or if you're just looking for a great read, I'd strongly recomend it.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: imaginative but wrong
Review: This book contains many anti-catholic errors which seriously detract from the authors credibility. For an authentic and refreshing interpretation of the book of Revelation, I would recommmend any reader to read "The Lamb's Supper" by Scott Hahn. To you Evangelicals out there I say, you'll never see the Book of Revelation in the same way again!

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: bias in place of facts and good sense
Review: This book is so colored by its vehement anti-Catholicism that in many places LaHaye completely digresses from the topic of Revelation and the End Times. LaHaye compares the shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe with the ancient cults of Babylon, and supports his comparison using an apocryphal story about Nimrod--quite a leap for someone who claims to base his beliefs on the "Bible alone!" Of course he has every right to interpret the Bible however he sees fit (or however makes him the most profit), but know that almost every "fact" he gives about Catholics is an unsubstantiated lie.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Respectfully sound and biblically sound
Review: this book is very insightful and accurate, all you catholics who left bad reviews I ask God to forgive you for you do not know what you do Jesus only those whose names are written in the lambs book of life will understand others will be dumbfounded and refuse to believe cause they want there way and have never followed the true way. Jesus never wanted denomantions we should all be one as Christ is one with God and the holy spirit. I have seen some disrespectful reviews. Respect your elders you dont know everthing and neither do i but i know i have have found true faith in Christ Jesus our Lord. Repent and believe in Christ the way you should the way God told Paul to preach to the Gentiles. Love your neighbor as yourself. Gods peace be with you all. And may this book bring insight and blessing unto all true believers in Christ

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: A Wonderful riviting book
Review: This book was great! If you are wondering where the writers got their scriptural bases for the "Left Behind" series this is it. I read it and it really makes Revelations even more clear.


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