About the Author
Alumnus now a devotional not just academic writer
Daniel Reynaud retired as professor of history at Avondale University this past year. He is an expert in Australian war history. He continues to contribute as Visiting Historian at the Anzac Memorial in Sydney’s Hyde Park but has now also published a devotional study of the book of Revelation, co-authored with fellow alumnus and friend Pr Ian Howie. We asked Daniel about Jesus, Not Beasts.
What is the genesis of this new book?
It came from our home church study. Typically, we read a book of the Bible, one or two chapters per week. Someone suggested Revelation, which about half the group greeted with dismay. Too hard, too scary, too negative. But we decided to go ahead, and Ian and I were the two fools willing to lead. Once we got going, the group’s response changed. Revelation made sense, wasn’t scary and wasn’t negative. Ian and I were asked to write about what we were presenting so others could share the same experience.
Books about Revelation abound. Why another one?
While Ian and I owe a lot to scholars who have written about Revelation, we tried to take a common-sense approach based on a few key principles: that the opening line governed what we should find, meaning it’s about Jesus first and foremost; that the book is almost all figurative language so is not to be taken literally; and that the figurative language is drawn from the rest of the Bible, which is key to understanding the language. As a historian, I’m painfully aware of the multiple predictions confidently asserted by preachers over the centuries, which turned out to be utterly false. I found these interpretations distressing. They damage faith in God’s Word and hurt His reputation. So, I wanted to see if we could understand Revelation without delving into speculative predictions.
Why write in collaboration with Ian?
Bouncing ideas off each other helped untangle difficult passages. It created more of a stereo vision that made Revelation spring to life in 3-D. I know Jesus, Not Beasts would be significantly poorer without Ian’s insight and knowledge.
What do you bring to the project from your Bible as Literature classroom—a unit you taught at Avondale?
One of the suggestions we make is printing out the text minus chapter and verse headings and in a single column of text, like a regular book, then re-reading multiple times looking for repetitions of words and ideas. This came from my years teaching Bible as Literature, recognising the writing conventions of the Bible are often almost the exact opposite of the ones we use now. When we free ourselves from modern Western reading habits and look at the text with some of the perspectives of its original writers, we see things differently.
Is Jesus, Not Beasts a criticism of the ways in which others have read Revelation?
As we say in the introduction, Revelation’s use of imagery encourages multiple interpretations. No good teacher of literature would endorse a “definitive” reading of a text so full of imagery. The ancients didn’t think like us and were more tolerant of ambiguity than we are. We do the Bible an injury when we force it into our ways of thinking. Revelation should be read imaginatively. That doesn’t mean any old interpretation is fine; rather, the interpretations should be coherent with the imagery used and the stated purpose of the text, in this case clearly spelt out in the opening line.
What do you hope a reader takes away from your book?
A deepened love of Jesus, a sense of calm assurance in the future that we don’t know but He does, a loss of fear because perfect love casts out fear.
Jesus, Not Beasts
Jesus, Not Beasts is available from Seventh-day Adventist bookshops in Australia and New Zealand.
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