The Apocalypse of John, more widely known now as the Book of Revelation, holds a special and difficult place in the Christian tradition and faith. While it details events to come in the future, it also addresses events that transpired before Genesis and contemporary issues faced by the Church in its earliest years. The Apocalypse’s highly esoteric and symbolic imagery and language make it a point of contention for many Christians. Some try to interpret the Apocalypse by addressing its verses without reference to any other book of the Bible. Others try to compare it to the second most apocalyptic book of the Bible, the Book of Daniel. Some Christians, both now and in the Middle Ages, tried to ignore it entirely. The fact that so many copies of the Apocalypse exist that seem to stand unto themselves bears testament to how intriguing this difficult text was then and continues to be.
Lewis, Suzanne, Reading Images: Narrative Discourse and Reception in the Thirteenth-Century Illuminated Apocalypse (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995)
McKitterick, David. The Trinity Apocalypse (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2005)
Morgan, Nigel. The Douce Apocalypse: Picturing the End of the World (Oxford: Bodelian Library, 2006)
The Apocalypse in the Middle Ages, eds. Richard K. Emmerson, Bernard McGuinn (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1992)
Williams, John. The Illustrated Beatus: A Corpus of the Illustrations of the Commentary on the Apocalypse (London: Harvey Miller, 1994)