Jerusalem, Advent 2009

Thank you for visiting our site, which has been slowly taking shape since 2003. What started out as a means for promoting our book “The Apocalypse in the Light of the Temple” has now become the platform for a variety of writings, which expand and deepen the new interpretation presented in that book. These writings include a series of academic articles, a commentary (work in progress), a new translation and a number of essays from the past 25 years of study and reflection on the Book of Revelation. The book itself is now freely available on the site, for those who are unable to obtain it from other sources. We are also very grateful to the Liturgical Press, San Francisco, for permitting us to reproduce on this site a valuable resource hitherto unavailable on the internet: the essay "Casta Meretrix" by the Catholic theologian Hans Urs von Balthasar. In the future we hope to develop the section dealing with the final step in interpretation: articles, notes or simply observations indicating the relevance of the prophecy to the present situation in the Middle East and elsewhere.

We are not priests or professors, but simple laymen in matters of Bible exegesis, so some personal background is probably needed. Our attention was drawn to the Book of Revelation by a private revelation some thirty years ago. Without going into any details, it is enough to say that this private revelation has given us great love for, and trust in, “the words of the prophecy of this book” (Rev 1,3; 22,7.9-10), as well as a valuable insight into its literal sense. As the starting point of our research, we should tell you about this insight: it is, quite simply, that the two witnesses, or prophets, described in Rev 11,3-13 are real people with a particular mission to perform. With the help of divine grace, the whole interpretation of the Apocalypse “in the Light of the Temple” has grown from this simple insight.

You may be wondering why we chose to call the site “new Torah”. As you probably know, ‘Torah’ is a Hebrew word meaning ‘instruction’. In the Jewish tradition, therefore, this is the name given to the divine instruction revealed to Moses and recorded in the first five books of the Bible (Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy), where it is presented as the basis of the Old Covenant between God and the people of Israel.

In the Christian tradition, the confession of Jesus as the Messiah and the representation of the Christian life as a new exodus leading to the formation of a new Israel by means of a new Covenant, all contributed to the expectation of a ‘new Torah’. Some scholars have argued that this expectation was fulfilled in the person of Jesus, or in the giving of his Spirit, but neither of these proposals agrees with the written character of what came to be known as ‘the Torah’.

According to 'The Apocalypse in the light of the Temple’, however, the Book of Revelation itself can be identified as ‘the new Torah’, and its author, St. John, as ‘the prophet like Moses’ expected by the Jews during the Second Temple Period. As a name for the website, ‘new Torah’ draws attention to these previously neglected and highly significant features of the text of St. John’s Revelation. For further details please read ch. 2 in Pt. II of the book ‘The Apocalypse in the Light of the Temple,’ available on this site.

If you are interested in the contents of the site, and wish make a comment or ask a question, then please contact us by clicking here.