Framework Introduction
Background to the construction and interpretation of the proposed macrostructure
This study follows in the steps of those seeking to understand the overall, unified structure (macrostructure) of the Book of Revelation as a basis for an interpretation of the text. There is continuing interest in the literature about this, but no consensus about the design (Mach, 2015: 23). This study is a spatio-temporal, literary-historical, exegetical analysis of the text and its aim is to provide and interpret a reproducible model for Revelation’s macrostructure. It is a type of model which considers the arrangement of verses for the whole book relative to one another (hence using the term ‘macrostructure’, rather than ‘structure’) – with units defined by their subject matter or literary features, and each verse is like a piece of a literary jigsaw puzzle.
This section provides background information for all the following sections. Throughout the study the proposed macrostructure was validated by comparing it with events described within the Gospels, specifically Lk. 17 and Lk. 21/ Mt. 24-25/ Mk. 13 (see Towards … 6). Further background information, such as how the proposed macrostructure was uncovered and its relationship to published macrostructures, is also discussed in the Towards … chapter. For thoughts on the identity of the author of Revelation, see the ‘Who was John?’ link below.
1.a) The cosmic spaces
The new macrostructure introduced in this study is based upon an understanding of the cosmos prevalent in the Roman Empire in the era of Revelation’s author (John), in the 60’s or mid 90’s A.D.[1]: heaven (up), below-the-earth (down), earth (sideways) and time passes as the narrative progresses. This study proposes that, within an apocalyptic-prophetic letter (i.e. a letter that contains prophesies that reveal hidden mysteries), the macrostructure of Revelation is controlled by the cosmic setting of the story described within it – and this is reflected in the verse order (book outline) and in the surface, literary structures. The letter begins with a prologue and introduction (1:1-3:22) and closes with confirmation of the vision’s credentials as a revelation from Jesus Christ and an epilogue (22:6-21). The cosmic spaces recognised in Revelation are illustrated in the proposed macrostructure: heaven’s throne-room; the heavenly space surrounding the throne-room (i.e. heaven’s environs); earth; and the earth/ below-the-earth boundary. There are two versions of earth in the story.
[1] If the vision occurred in A.D. 95-97, i.e. accepting as truth Irenaeus’ comment that Revelation was written towards the end of Domitian’s reign (Irenaeus, Against Heresies V.30.3) some of the first audiences may have experienced the fear of Nero’s cruelty and persecution (late A.D. 60’s), fled from the first Jewish-Roman war (A.D. 66-70), known the temple and Jerusalem had been destroyed (A.D. 70) and they were recovering from oppression under Domitian. If an earlier date is correct (A.D. 68-70; Hengel, 1989: 126-127), Nero’s persecutions would be a recent memory and Jerusalem was still standing, but under threat.
The first of the two versions of earth in the story (the ‘biblical earth’) describes earth’s history, as presented in the biblical meta-narrative[1] from Creation to the New Order. The second earth is a physical-spiritual dimension that begins in the vision after the Cross (the death, resurrection and ascension of Jesus Christ). The physical-spiritual earth is more tangible, like the conquest, war, famine and death of the first four seals; with the four horsemen themselves representing the spiritual dimension (6:2—8). John entwines these physical-spiritual images together. The nature of John’s experience (vision(s)/ dream(s)/ inspiration/ imagination) is considered in Framework 5B.
[1] John’s relationship to history and the surrounding culture is ambiguous. ‘History’ is used in a modern sense here; how Jews in the first century A.D. understood history is uncertain but Halbwachs distinguished it from collective memory, which is how the first Christians outside Palestine would have remembered Jerusalem and the temple and its traditions (rituals etc.) (Halbwachs, 1992: 222).
The modern equivalent of John’s understanding of the cosmos is the spacetime continuum, with all the cosmic spaces presented as if they were part of 3-dimensional space, plus time. This can be translated into spatio-temporal terms and the methodology used in this study is like an ‘hermeneutic of spacetime’. This follows a ‘spacetime rule’ that time moves in one direction only (into the future) in the cosmos (see Towards … 2 methodology). If the rule applies to Revelation, 1:2 follows 1:1 etc. Verses may move relative to each other within a space like beads on a piece of string but they must not jump over one another. If they do jump over one another, then the linear chronology is disrupted. This is a standard spatio-temporal rule and not devised for this study. Maintaining verse order is vital so any relationship between a relative chronology and the verses is preserved, and space and time remain in tension.
1.d) Time-lines and time-parallels
What happens in each cosmic space as time passes is its time-line. Contemporaneous events are highlighted by time-markers or ‘time-parallels’ linking the two dramas. Time-parallels are like text parallels, but with a chronological component and they enable characters and events in the time-line of one space to be interpreted through the lens of its corresponding space(s). The first of eighteen time-parallels is found in the first section: the Cross, which impacts the whole cosmos (5:5-6:1, 12:9-12, 12:17; Framework 1). Two other universal events define the macrostructure: the fall of Babylon (time-parallel 10, Framework 4) and the Final Judgement (time-parallel 18, Framework 5). The Cross is the keystone for Revelation and these three time-parallels define the proposed macrostructure. The other time-parallels, including the Great Battle, have a more limited spatial distribution.[1]
This is a form of parallel progression (a one-to-one correlation in which events in one space (14:1-20, on the biblical earth) outline events and the other spaces infill the details (16:12-19:21) (see Framework 4 and 5) – the links between the spaces are the time-parallels.
[1] The Great Battle does not impact the throne-room itself and it is not considered as one of the defining time-parallels in this study. The wedding of the Lamb is underway when the Rider appears in heaven (19:15, time-parallel 15), and the Rider will tread the wine-press on earth.
1.e) Time-scales and classic interpretations
The Cross is the only fixed, absolute point in the proposed macrostructure model so although this study anchors the vision to an earthly time-scale, the time-scale is relative. This study proposes an eclectic (diverse or mixed) interpretation using the classic approaches to the story (Pate, 2009: 7); for example events illustrated by Figure 1 (Framework 1) and the first part of Figure 2 (Framework 2) are Preterist, i.e. the prophecies were fulfilled in the past (first century A.D.) and the second part of Framework 2 onwards is Futurist, i.e. the prophecies are as yet unfulfilled.
The period of separation between the two eras is the silence of the seventh seal (8:1), which may correspond to the ‘times of the Gentiles’ (Lk. 21:24) (see Towards …6). It is likely that most readers of Revelation today are located in this in-between period. This study is not an Historicist (church history) or Idealist (timeless truths) theological interpretation. Who or what most of Revelation’s characters may represent is even more uncertain, so no attempt is made in this study to put modern names to the characters or events.
1.f) The proposed macrostructure model
The structural diagrams on this website follow the Macrostructure Model, and their numbers do not restart in each section. For example, the first section is illustrated in Figure 1 (Framework 1); the next is Figure 2 (Framework 2) etc. In each diagram, the x axis is location and the y axis is relative time. The dashed and dotted arrows show the narrative paths of the two dramas and when John describes an event that happened in the story’s relative past, the narrative arrows point up the page instead of down into the future. Each section has a Construction (how the model was deduced) and an Interpretation (including thoughts on the implications of the model). The Interpretations concentrate on additional insights gleaned from the proposed macrostructure and it is not a comprehensive commentary on events in each section. The chosen topics within each section are listed in the Contents page on the Home page.
1.g) Classic literary patterns and the proposed macrostructure
The three septets (seals, trumpets, bowls) are very frequently used in the literature to determine the structure of Revelation, in four classic patterns: a) linear; b) recapitulation, repeated or patterned repetitions; c) telescopic, developed or encompassed; d) chiasms. A summary of the spatio-temporal analysis of these classic patterns is described in Towards … 3). Briefly, using this spatio-temporal analysis:
a) Linear plot progression in Revelation is recognisable (Resseguie, 2009: 59), but not as the overall macrostructure in this study because of the steps back in relative time in the story at 4:2, 12:1, 12:13 and 15:1. Without these relocations, there are no time-parallels in this pattern;
b) There is no major recapitulation in the proposed macrostructure because every time-line has its own story and some events are viewed from different perspectives but they are not repeated within a time-line. It would require three earth and two heaven’s throne-room time-lines to avoid most of the spatio-temporal paradoxes recapitulation creates. Despite such modification, the beast would rise before the abyss opens and the heavenly sanctuary opens twice in this option;
c) There is some telescoping (a one-to-many correlation) in the proposed macrostructure. For example, while everybody is marked on the biblical earth (13:16-18), John interacts with the ‘mighty angel’ and he measures the temple, he sees the two witnesses, hears the seventh trumpet and sees the heavenly sanctuary open, on the physical-spiritual earth (10:1-11:19) (see Framework 3).
Telescoping within the sixth seal implies that the sixth seal heralds the true Day of God’s Wrath (6:12-17) and it also requires three earth time-lines to avoid paradoxes.
Telescoping the trumpets and bowls within the seventh seal creates a temporal paradox because the text indicates the trumpet and bowl preparations (from 8:2) occur after the silence of the seventh seal ends (8:1); this paradox can be avoided by introducing a second heavenly throne-room space.
Seventh trumpet/ bowls telescoping is technically viable if the Lamb appears on the physical-spiritual earth after the trumpets, and the bowls empty onto the biblical earth; this will be considered when the Lamb appears on Mt Zion (14:1) in Framework 4;
d) a chiasm is a symmetrical repetition of phrases and the many small chiasms in the text are surface, literary features which often highlight structures in the text, such as changes in subject matter or spatial or temporal relocations (see Towards … 3a). Extensive chiasms lose their structural integrity during this spatio-temporal analysis.
1.h) The Creation to New Order story-line
This study proposes that Revelation tells a single story, from Creation to the New Order, that reflects the biblical meta-narrative but its chronology is not linear because the story-line steps back in relative time at 4:2, 12:1, 12:13 and 15:1, and John sees again events that he has already witnessed, but from different perspectives (see Towards … 4b). The story is told in two interlinked chronologically-linear dramas (4:1-11:19 and 12:1-22:20a). Both dramas focus on the consequences of the Cross but the one does not recapitulate the other because each space tells its own story.
A surface literary spiral overlies the dramas (16:12-21:9) (see the Macrostructure Model, Figures 4 and 5) because the narrative path does not always reflect John’s movement between the cosmic spaces; sometimes it may follow the path of his eyes as he witnesses events from several visionary vantage points (see Repetitions … 5c for more detail). The spiral is created when John describes events that unfold in more than one cosmic space in a few consecutive verses. The spiral is like an eddy in the overall linear flow of the vision’s structure but there are no temporal paradoxes because the two dramas and the spiral do not violate the spacetime rule.
1.i) Who was John?
There are hundreds of references (over 400, or even 600, has been mentioned by scholars) to the Hebrew Bible in Revelation, the exact number is uncertain because some are allusions or echoes and none use formal ‘quotation formulas’ of Scripture (Beale, 1998: 60-61, 68). It seems likely that John’s biblical allusions reflect his deep grounding in the Scriptures and Elizabeth Schüssler Fiorenza suggests John uses the Hebrew Bible like a ‘language arsenal’ to express his own prophetic vision (Fiorenza, 1998: 135) and Roman Mach describes the myriad allusions used as indicating that John’s use of Scripture was intentional and exegetical (Mach, 2015: 175). This study references some of the allusions, particularly to Daniel and Isaiah, and it would be interesting to compare how John used biblical references in the two earth time-lines, but that is outside the scope of this study.
John’s identity is unknown; some think he was the disciple John, who wrote the Fourth Gospel, others think he was John the Elder, who wrote two of the Johannine letters, or he was an otherwise unknown elder and/ or prophet who lived in Ephesus (see the ‘Who was John?’ link below).
1) Summary and conclusions
This study proposes that, within an apocalyptic-prophetic letter, the macrostructure of Revelation is controlled by the author (John’s) understanding of the cosmic setting of the visionary story described within it. However, after an introduction (1:1-3:22), there are two versions of earth in the story: one describes earth’s history, as presented in the biblical meta-narrative; the second one is a physical-spiritual space in which John entwines the physical images (such as conquest, war, famine and death) with the spiritual images (such as the four horsemen) within one story-line.
The presence of the two earths results in two chronologically-linear inter-linked dramas in the story (4:1-11:19 and 12:1-22:20a) – inter-linked because the text indicates the story-line steps back in relative time at 4:2, 12:1, 12:13 and 15:1. Both dramas begin at Creation (implied in 4:11 and 12:5) and end in the New Order. Both dramas focus on the consequences of the Cross (crucifixion, resurrection and ascension of Jesus), but the one does not recapitulate the other because each space tells its own story. From events surrounding the fall of Babylon onwards, a literary spiral is created when John describes events that unfold in more than one cosmic space in a few consecutive verses (16:12-21:9).
The modern equivalent of John’s understanding of the cosmos is the spacetime continuum, which follows a ‘spacetime rule’ that time moves in one direction only (into the future) in the cosmos – unless the text indicates the linear chronology is disrupted, such as when the story-line steps back in relative time and the literary spiral. Verses may move relative to each other within a space but they must not ‘jump over’ each other. Contemporaneous events in the two dramas are linked by time-markers or ‘time-parallels’. Time-parallels are like text parallels, but with a chronological component and they enable characters and events in the time-line of one space to be interpreted through the lens of its corresponding space(s). There are eighteen time-parallels in the proposed macrostructure. Background details of the methodology and macrostructure are found in Towards … 2 and 3.
In conclusion, this study aims to be objective (i.e. independent, reproducible) and consistent with Scripture, and it introduces what is probably the simplest structural model available. The new macrostructure of Revelation illustrates John’s unified story and the inherently straightforward structure of the book. It accommodates John’s literary patterns, apparent repetitions, abrupt transitions and multiple view-points, which are superimposed upon the linear Creation to New Order story-line.
The underlying linear chronology means that this study is an eclectic (diverse or mixed) interpretation, i.e. both Preterist (John’s prophecies were fulfilled in the past, for example Creation and the Cross) and Futurist (prophecies are as yet unfulfilled, for example the Final Judgement); this is not an Idealist or Historicist study.
The Cross is the only fixed, absolute point in the story-line so whereabouts every generation is placed within it is unknown. No attempt is made to put modern names to the characters or events because Revelation is truly era-neutral and the proposed spatio-temporal approach to its structure is appropriate for both John’s era and today. It is hoped others will wish to use the proposed macrostructure for their own interpretations of Revelation’s text.
Page updated 26 November 2025