This document is a transcription of The Open Scroll video published on 8/21/26  titled:
Announcing "The Woven Rings of Revelation" of Which There are Eighteen! (and why we should care)

Hey everybody, Bob of the Open Scroll here. I have an announcement to make about the Woven Rings of Revelation. This is a collection of studies that has to do with the literary structure of the biblical text. 

Now, with that said, odds are that your eyes are already starting to cross and glaze over, but hear me out for a minute. The book of Revelation is special in a way that impels us to put some effort into this kind of study. Within this book, special blessings are promised. 

Revelation 1.3, Blessed is he who reads and those who hear the words of the prophecy and heed the things which are written in it, for the time is near. Additionally, severe consequences are declared. Revelation 22.18-19. I testify to everyone who hears the words of the prophecy of this book. 

If anyone adds to them, God will add to him the plagues which are written in this book. And if anyone takes away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God will take away his part from the tree of life and from the holy city which are written in this book. It should be obvious that there is something special about this particular book. 

I believe we are being invited and further cautioned by the author to read it carefully in a way that gives respect to every word of it as written. Notice where those two passages are found in the book. One is at the very beginning, and the other is at the very end. 

Keep that in mind as it suggests an important pattern. The more familiar I become with the biblical text and a way of reading it that truly honors its highly organized structure, the more conviction I have that the structure of the book of Revelation deserves far more attention than we've given it. This is why I've been so heavily invested in the project even in this late hour of the season.

I've announced my work on this project before, while it was a rough work in progress, and I had first identified some of the inner rings and then some of the outer rings. Those rings that extend to the middle of the range took a while to sort out, but with much grace I'm satisfied with the result. So I'm submitting the project to you as complete. 

To God be the glory. There are, in this version that I find to be very compelling, a total of 18 woven rings. This is to say that there are 18 units that step out from the beginning and 18 that correspond as stepping back in to the end. 

As you may know, I call this the woven rings of Revelation because my particular approach differs from what others have referred to as the rings of Revelation. By referring to the rings as woven, I'm describing the way the narrative of the text flows from one structure to another, from chiasm to parallelism, for example. The series of words and phrases are like threads that are artfully and skillfully woven together to form the most grand royal tapestry. 

With all that said, I'd like to offer a practical demonstration that suggests something of the value of this work. We'll start in Revelation 5, 8 through 14, which presents us with a scene in heaven. This isn't fiction or a stylized theatrical drama presented merely to capture our attention.

It's the reality of another place in time. As we take a look at this, we're not going to get into too much detail on this one, but I just want to show you a little bit of how it unfolds. So, as I hover my mouse, this interactive highlighting shows where the companion texts are.

And when I hover over a line, it's a line that's highlighted and it's companion. And here, this is interesting. And we're going to come back to that. 

And as we hover over each line, it jumps around. So how do we follow that? How do we track that? Well, it's something that would take a lot more complex thinking than I'm capable of to just grasp it from a quick look. But when we do the line breaks and we do the analysis, we can find, yeah, it's highly structured and the organization is just fantastic. 

Here on this level, we have a simple alternation, right? A, B, A prime, B prime. Without getting too technical, you can see that these patterns repeat as the threads of the words and phrases weave through. I said, I'd come back to this.

And look at how beautiful this is. It's separated by three verses, several lines. And what do we have in verse nine? Worthy are you to take the book and to break its seals. 

Down in verse 12, worthy is the lamb. Yeah, we're talking about the lamb here, right? Elders fell down before the lamb and they're singing this new song and they're singing about the lamb. And what else is it about the lamb that we find? For you were slain. 

Down in verse 12, that was slain. These are obviously companions. It's very orderly. 

A simple structural relationship. There is a reason for this kind of structure that's so very compelling. I believe the author wants us to mind his structural design or architecture when we read this book. 

Let's go visit this other passage. And I saw a woman sitting on a scarlet beast full of blasphemous names, having seven heads and ten horns. The woman was clothed in purple and scarlet and adorned with gold and precious stones and pearls, having in her hand a gold cup full of abominations and of the unclean things of her immorality. 

And on her forehead, a name was written, a mystery, Babylon the Great, the mother of harlots and of the abominations of the earth. And I saw the woman drunk with the blood of the saints and with the blood of the witnesses of Jesus. When I saw her, I wondered greatly. 

And the angel said to me, why do you wonder? I will tell you the mystery of the woman and of the beast that carries her, which has the seven heads and the ten horns. I'm going to compare some sections here. So we have one line compared to four lines down below. 

But very simply, we have a one-to-one relationship with the next three. It's a four plus four parallelism. Goes in order, right? So sitting on a scarlet beast full of blasphemous names matches and of the beast that carries her.

Pretty obvious matchup, right? Having seven heads, which has the seven heads and ten horns and the ten horns. Pretty obvious, right? So down in this next section, we have some more matchups that are similar, but comparing in an interesting way. Four A, the woman was clothed in purple and scarlet. 

Six A, and I saw the woman, the same woman there, what she looks like and what he sees her in her condition, clothed in purple and scarlet, drunk with the blood of the saints. Okay, there's a similarity there. They clearly match and adorned with gold and precious stones and pearls and with the blood of the witnesses of Jesus. 

So this extends how the woman is clothed and adorned and then how the woman is with the blood of the saints. She's drunk and also with the blood of witnesses of Jesus. Now, how do they compare and whose perspective really does this inform us about? So, yeah, very interesting. 

Well, there's metaphorical symbolic language, right? And there's some literal information in there as well. When the woman is drunk with the blood of the saints, well, we know she martyrs the saints like Jezebel in the Old Testament. And so the blood of the she's drunk with it. 

And maybe there's literal blood drinking and there probably is, but it's also a figure because being drunk is an excess, right? Excessive alcoholic beverage of wine, which blood is often compared to. So the wine drunk has made her drunk and it's the blood of the saints and with the blood of the witnesses of Jesus. And how does that really compare? Well, being drunk with the blood, these are valuable things, right? Clothed in purple and scarlet. 

It's an indication of royalty. In another verse, she says she sits as a queen. So purple and scarlet. 

Now scarlet is a color of blood, is it not? And also purple, it goes through without oxygen, it's blue and then purple and scarlet. So this suggests the blood. There's a connection there as well. 

And the blood of the saints is valuable and we should take that away. It's really qualification for royalty because these will be kings and priests and rulers in the earth. So with the gold and precious stones and pearls, this compares to the blood of the witnesses of Jesus, which is closely related to the purple and scarlet blood of the saints, right? But here, the gold, this is high value, right? Extremely precious and precious stones and pearls.

Yeah, this is ornamentation and the blood of the witnesses of Jesus. This is beyond just the blood of the saints. This is valuable in God's sight. 

And it's an interesting metaphor and symbol and this teaches us about the true value in God's view. And I'm going to refer back to what we saw in Revelation 5. Here in verse 8, we find something that's instructive. When he had taken the book, the four living creatures and the 24 elders fell down before the lamb, each one holding a harp. 

Music, right? And golden bowls full of incense. What does that mean, golden bowls full of incense? Which are the prayers of the saints. Aha, prayers is golden bowls full of incense. 

Yeah, the prayers go up like the smoke of incense to God, right? It's fragrant. It's attractive. It's a wonderful thing. 

The golden bowls full of incense, which are the prayers of the saints. And when we grasp the symbol and metaphor, and we come back into this passage in chapter 17. Here she's got a gold cup, this mystery babble on the grate.

And we have to associate these things with the metaphors. The blood, right? The blood of the saints and the blood of the witnesses of Jesus. Blood like wine. 

And when we put these things together, we can see a value in having structure. Because we're really only given to compare these with a high level of interest when we see the structure. But the structure, when we've analyzed it, and we're aware, it helps us to make the kinds of associations, links, if you will, to extend and examine the kinds of metaphors that we really should to make sense of these things. 

Now, is the structure absolutely required? Well, no. If you have insight that the Holy Spirit gives you, well, that's enough. And even when you have the structure, you need the insight that the Holy Spirit gives.

But this will be a path for us, a guide for us, to help explore what the author himself has paired, what he's companioned, what he's linked. And that's what we want to know. And I'll talk more about this and explore this in another video. 

But in the meantime, I hope you get on the Woven Rings of Revelation studies, and find your favorite sections, and go there and explore what you find. And praise the Lord for the insight that you receive. 

God bless you, everybody. Bye-bye.