Giancarlo Biguzzi, «Is the Babylon of Revelation Rome or Jerusalem?», Vol. 87 (2006) 371-386
The Babylon of Revelation 17–18 has been interpreted as imperial Rome since
antiquity, but some twenty interpreters have rejected such a solution in recent
centuries and have held that Babylon instead should be Jerusalem. This is not a
minor question since it changes the interpretation of the whole book, because Rev
would become all of a sudden an anti-Jewish libel, after having been an anti-
Roman one. This article discusses the pros and cons of the two interpretations and
concludes that the traditional one matches both the details and the plot of the book
much more than any other.
Is the Babylon of Revelation Rome or Jerusalem? 383
who will trample over the holy city (v. 2) and rejoice for the murder of
the two Witnesses (vv. 9-10). As a consequence Jerusalem in Rev 11 is
a symbol partly of the Christians (42) and partly of the nations, but never
and nowhere of the Jews. — Secondly, the city trampled on by the
pagans, and scenario of the story of the two Witnesses, oscillates from
urban (vv. 1-2) to universal dimension (“men from the peoples and
tribes and tongues and nations gaze etc.â€, v. 9; “all the inhabitants of
the earth rejoice etc.â€, v. 10bis), and back again to urban (v. 13). All this
entails that the Jerusalem of Rev 11 is a symbol of the whole world,
where the messianic and anti-messianic forces come to collide (43).
b) Evaluation of the anti-Roman hypothesis
If so many difficulties oppose the anti-Jewish interpretation, it
remains, then, to prove, or disprove, the soundness of the traditional,
anti-Roman interpretation.
Some proofs have already been presented along with the criticism
of the anti-Jewish interpretation.
(1) The physical and political geography supposed by Rev fits
Rome and its empire more than Jerusalem.
(42) Cf. H. RONGY, “Le seconde septénaire de l’Apocalypse ou les sept
trompettesâ€, Revue Eccl. de Liège 23 (1931-1932) 365, who writes: “Le temple,
c’est l’église. (…) Puisque le temple de Jérusalem a été choisi comme premier
symbole, la scène sera censée se passer à Jérusalemâ€. — Since the temple was
never in Christian hands and Rev 11,1-2 refers to Christians, really Jerusalem in
Rev 11 is purely a symbol, and not the historical Jewish Jerusalem which one may
have assumed.
(43) The Jerusalem of Rev 11 is interpreted as the whole world by
commentators like M. Kiddle, M. Bachmann, G.K. Beale, E.-B. Allo and J.
Roloff. M. KIDDLE, The Revelation of St. John (London 11940, republished 1947)
184-185: “The great City is neither Jerusalem nor Rome — and yet, in a sense it
is both Jerusalem and Rome. It is the city of this world order, the Earthly City,
which included all peoples and tribes and tongues and nations. It is (…) the city
utterly alien to the will of Godâ€; M. BACHMANN, “Himmlisch: der ‘Tempel
Gottes’ von Apk 11,1â€, NTS 40 (1994) 477: “Die ‘heilige Stadt’ (v. 2) bzw. ‘die
große Stadt’, (…) wo auch ihr Herr gekreuzigt wurde (v. 8), irgendwie auf die
ganze Erde (s. bes. v. 6) und ihre Bevölkerung (s. bes. vv. 9-10) bezogen istâ€;
BEALE, The Book of Revelation, 591: “… the ungodly worldâ€. But cf. especially
ALLO, L’Apocalypse, 135: “Jérusalem représente le monde entier. (…) Toute la
terre est en quelque sorte la Cité de Dieu, corrompue et profanée par les ennemis
du ciel, le paganisme persécuteurâ€; and J. ROLOFF, Die Offenbarung des Johannes
(Zürich 1984) 117: “Hier wird also gleichsam [as for “Sodoma†and “Egyptâ€]
Jerusalem über das rein Geographische hinaus ausgeweitet zum Bild der
gottfeindlichen Welt, ja letztlich verschwimmt das Bild Jerusalems hier geradezu
mit dem Bild Roms! Dieser Ineinanderfließen der Konturen setzt voraus etc.â€.
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