RT Article
T1 The Nature of the Beast
JF Review and expositor
VO 106
IS 1
SP 67
OP 82
A1 Shoopman, James
LA English
PB Sage
YR 2009
UL https://ixtheo.de/Record/1775478343
AB Both the popular interpretation (some future leader) and scholarly understandings (an anti-Christian power from the past) of “the beast” mentioned in Revelation 13 are short-sighted, but on the trail of something useful. Rather, Revelation's beast is one representation and possibly the final New Testament twist in an evolving early Christian doctrine of the antichrist. This doctrine relates more to the ongoing state of the world than to its end. It calls for every generation to take sides in an ongoing conflict that will not end until human history draws to a close.
DO 10.1177/003463730910600108