The last book of the Christian scriptures - the Book of Revelation [also called the Apocalypse of John] is just one of many written "apocalypses." In addition to the Apocalypse of John, there are manuscripts containing "apocalypses" supposedly written in the name of Moses; Elijah; Adam; Isaiah; Peter; Paul; Enoch; and Baruch. There are many manuscripts featuring apocalypses outside of the Bible. It is just that the Apocalypse of John was the only apocalypse to be accepted into the Christian canon.
The Apocalypse of John was part of a literary genre; it was a certain kind of literature. Although, with its bizarre visions and symbolism difficult to interpret, the Apocalypse of John seems odd to many modern readers. it would not have seemed at all odd to ancient readers in that it shares many well-recognized literary conventions with other apocalypses and apocalyptic literature. As with any other literary gennre - any other type of literature - it is possible to study apocalyptic literature [including "John's" apocalypse] as a literary genre. The term, apocalypse, comes from the Greek word meaning an "unveiling" or a "revealing." The authors of the various aocalypses felt that God had revealed or had unveiled to them heavenly secrets that could explain earthly realities.
Apocalyptic literature is dualistic in its cosmological view in that it sees the Earth and the cosmos as battlegrounds for the forces of Good and Evil. Apocalyptic literature is also pessimistic because apocalypticists do not think that humans are capable of bringing the Kingdom of God into the world on their own. Apocalyptic literature features some sort of vindication due God's intervention in the affairs of the world. And lastly, apocalyptic literature features immanence in that, for apocalytic authors vindication was imminent - that is to say right around the corner, in the immediate future.
This last point is crucial. The apocalyptic authors were speaking solely and uniquely to people of their own day. These authors were not crystal-ball-gazing into eras thousands of years removed from them. These authors were addressing the immediate fears and concerns of the people living in their day and age. The apocalyptic authors decidedly did NOT have us - people living in the twenty-first century - in mind when they wrote their stories and recorded their visions.
It is indeed naive and erroneous on the part of people living in our era to believe that the Apoclypse of John, or the book of Daniel, or any other apocalypse, was written with a concern for our future. It is ridiculous and inane to believe that the Apocalypse of John concerns what will happen when, history as we know it, comes screeching to a halt and heavenly trumpets start to blare. Many people living in our twenty-first century harbor the pernicious, dangerous delusion that apocalyptic literature such as the book of Daniel and the Apocalyse of John were written with us explicitly in mind, as if all of history were somehow been progressing toward our era, as if we were somehow the climax - the grand finale - of all that has happened so far. What utter and vile nonsense; it's pure tripe. Apocalyptic literature contains no prophecy that will come true in the future. In fact, the only thing that it contains is failed prophecy that was not achieved in the past, as the so-called "prophets" had hoped and promised.
In the preceding paragraph, I was perhaps a little too hard on the many people of our twent-first century who believe that the Apocalypse of John as written with our era in mind. After all,it's true that people have always assumed that this book, and other apocalyptic literature, were referring to their own time. Every generation - from day one - which has read such literature has considered it as concerned with its respective era. For every generation, apocalyptic literature has served as foreshadowing of events to come.
As a final note, the writer supposedly named "John." who wrote the book of Revelations, is not the same writer who wrote the gospel of John. Leaving the obvious theological differences aside, there are also obvious philological or linguistic differences. In the original Greek, the two writers display clearly different styles of writing. Moreover, for the author of the gospel, Greek was evidently his native language in which he was fluent; whereas the Apocalypse is not particularly well written and is the work of someone whose native language is not Greek.
