The Use of Source Material

The book of Revelation is mostly derived from the Hebrew Scripture sources. Elements such as the four horsemen, the New Jerusalem, the wedding of the Lamb can all be found in the Hebrew Scriptures. Today, scholars refer to Revelation as the book in the Christian Scriptures that has the most allusions to the Hebrew Scriptures.

Although scholars debate which text in Revelation is derived from which Hebrew Scripture is done to a limited vocabulary of the term allusion and the not understanding of the process in which scripture is formed. The Biblical writers such as John composing Revelation did not quote a passage from memory and etched it into a wax tablet. He selected a passage from the Hebrew Scriptures that conveyed what he wanted to convey and then placed a wax tablet parallel to the passage on the scroll and copied the passage. Sometimes the copying process involved a straight copy with simple editorial changes while other times it was the reversed order of the source text in with all the points transformed into opposites of the text. This process is called parallel formation, and it is by far how most of the Hebrew and Christian Scriptures were written.