The Woven Rings of Revelation: Intro

An Interactive Presentation of Thematic Symmetry (Chiasm / Parallelism)

The book of Revelation is like a palindrome, a word that spells the same forwards and backwards. You could say that the entire book folds back on itself. In the lingo of literary structure, it's a chiasmus, or chiasm. The "crossing over" feature appears in how the first unit of structure in the book matches the last, the second matches the second from the last, and so on, until we get to the middle where the structure pivots like at the crossing point of the letter X.

I can describe this design in another way. What is written in Revelation 1:1 through 12:9 is repeated in 12:10 through 22:21 in reverse order. The text hinges between verses 9 and 10 of chapter 12.

You can picture the pairs of texts that are formed as the narrative flows out and back like the concentric rings that appear when a pebble is tossed into a pond. When I refer to the rings as "woven," I'm describing the way each unit is constructed, with layers of patterns that are woven together in a majestic tapestry.

This work isn't intended to answer questions directly but rather to provide a reliable framework for a deeper investigation into the meaning of the cryptic messages of the book.

It would be presumptuous of me to identify this as the only possible version of the structure of the book. I'm confident that the Author will unveil its greater depths in ages to come.

What's proposed here is a snapshot of the highly ordered text that looks like a single set of concentric rings. This perspective is legitimate, but we should be mindful of the other threads that weave through the biblical text and intersect with the content of these rings. Instead of a rather simplistic view of the book exhibiting as a single set of rings, I believe the reality is better pictured like when drops of rain begin to fall and the surface of the pool of water displays multiple sets of concentric rings around different points, with interference patterns, etc.

This initial proposal presents the book's structure as 1325 lines of text expressing as 18 rings.

If you scan down through the lines of this interactive outline from top to bottom you'll discover that the entire book is represented, from 1:1 through 22:21.

Here are the links to The Woven Rings of Revelation, in ten studies.

Revelation Chapters 1 and 22 - Ring One: The Outermost Ring * 132 lines
Revelation Chapters 2-3 and 21 - Ring Two * 279 lines
Revelation Chapters 4-5 and 20 - Ring Three * 133 lines
Revelation Chapters 6 and 19 - Ring Four * 93 lines
Revelation 7:1-8 and Chapter 18 - Ring Five * 99 lines
Revelation 7:9-17 and 17:3b-18 - Ring Six * 78 lines
Revelation Chapters 8-9 and 16:2-17:3a - Rings Seven and Eight * 165 lines
Revelation 10:1-7 and 15:1-16:1 - Ring Nine * 68 lines
Revelation 10:8-11:19 and Chapter 14 - Rings Ten through Twelve * 166 lines
Revelation Chapters 12-13 (The Innermost) Rings Thirteen through Eighteen * 112 lines

Ring by Ring

Ring One (the outermost) opens with chapter 1 and closes with chapter 22 (57 lines and 75 lines)
Ring Two opens with chapters 2-3 and closes with chapter 21 (174 lines and 105 lines)
Ring Three opens with chapters 4-5 and closes with 20 (75 lines and 58 lines)
Ring Four opens with chapter 6 and closes with chapter 19 (36 lines and 57 lines)
Ring Five opens with chapter 7:1-8 and closes with chapter 18 (25 lines and 74 lines)
Ring Six opens with 7:9-17 and closes with 17:3b-18 (27 lines and 51 lines)
Ring Seven opens with 8:1-6 and closes with 16:17-17:3a. (13 lines and 26 lines)
Ring Eight opens with 8:7-9:21 and closes with 16:2-16. (84 lines and 42 lines)
Ring Nine opens with 10:1-7 and closes with 15:1-16:1 (35 lines and 33 lines)
Ring Ten opens with 10:8-11:6 and closes with 14:14-20. (42 lines and 23 lines)
Ring Eleven opens with 11:7-14 and closes with 14:6-13. (31 lines and 33 lines)
Ring Twelve opens with 11:15-19 and closes with 14:1-5. (18 lines and 19 lines)
Ring Thirteen opens with Revelation 12:1-4a and closes with Revelation 13:1b-18. (13 lines and 55 lines)
Ring Fourteen opens with Revelation 12:4b and closes with Revelation 13:1a. (1 line and 1 line)
Ring Fifteen opens with Revelation 12:4c-d and closes with Revelation 12:17. (1 line and 1 line)
Ring Sixteen opens with Revelation 12:4e and closes with Revelation 12:15-16. (1 line and 6 lines)
Ring Seventeen opens with Revelation 12:5-6 and closes with Revelation 12:13-14. (5 lines and 5 lines)
Ring Eighteen, (the innermost!) opens with Revelation 12:7-9 and closes with Revelation 12:10-12. (11 lines and 12 lines)

Generated with the Chiasmatron 2000

For more explanation, see: About These Thematic Patterns

For more examples, see: Interactive Content