After the Thousand Years

Book excerpt: A fresh and highly illuminating approach to what is perhaps the most difficult chapter in the most difficult book of the New Testament. Mealy employs a carefully developed methodology which draws fully on the special literary techniques of Revelation, particularly its extensive use of internal cross-references, multivalent images and symbols, and complex Old Testament reminiscences. With its central thesis that Revelation 20.7-10 and 20.11-15 offer parallel representations of the resurrection and final judgment of the unrepentant, this study is destined to become a benchmark for future discussions not only of the millennium, but of the literary workings of Revelation as a whole.