LION AS SLAIN LAMB - ON READING REVELATION RECURSIVELY

Because of their communities' experiences and tendencies, New Testamen t writers such as Paul and Mark stress the death and resurrection of J esus as the source and model of the Christian life. In the Book of Rev elation, John's version of this is that the lion of the tribe of Judah indeed ''conquers'' but does so as the Lamb who was slain; the Christ ian witnessing that leads to the victory of Christ's followers may als o entail their death. Yet the seer associates the Lamb imagery with th at of ancient near eastern and classical versions of the conquest myth . Does John risk subverting his own purposes? The paper examines his p resentation of the Lamb and suggests that he does indeed run such a ri sk, at least for the inattentive reader, but this does not justify neg lect of such a creative and imaginative soteriology in which evil is o vercome by the word of God.