Margaret Barker

Margaret Barker bases her study on a fresh reading of the primary sources. As an Old Testament scholar, she can read Revelation as Old Testament prophecy - ancient Temple oracles that inspired Jesus and his own prophecies, and influenced the whole Jerusalem church. Jerusalem was waiting for the Great High Priest to return and complete the atonement at the end of the tenth Jubilee. This expectation fuelled the revolt against Rome. Josephus, who deserted to Rome, was the false prophet. John, who escaped to Patmos, compiled Revelation as a record of the first generation. In the future, he taught, the Lord would return to his people in the Eucharist.

This work illuminates the formative years of Christianity in the social, religious and political situation of mid-first century Palestine, in a quite remarkable way. It will have profound implications for the understanding of Christian origins and the development of Christian liturgy.

} This is a very exciting and suggestive book. Margaret Barker strips off the varnish applied to the portrait of Jesus Christ by generations of desk bound scholars. She reveals a fresh and startling Christ, but one who is entirely believable in the diversity of first century Judaism which she has so dramatically illuminated.~ The Rt Revd and Rt Hon Richard Chartres, Bishop of London.