The Book of Revelation
This brings us to The Book of Revelation (81 C.E.) the last book of the Bible. Wiki describes it as The Book of the Revelation of John, usually referred to simply as Revelation, is the last book of the New Testament. It is also called the Apocalypse of John and, by the Authorized King James Version, the Revelation of Saint John the Divine. It is the only book in the Canon that is wholly composed of apocalyptic literature. In its original version, the word “Revelation†was the Greek word for “apocalypseâ€, definitely a good source book for Kripke.
The book is actually a letter, containing 20 chapters (yeah….a very LONG letter) from John of Patmos to the seven ‘churches’ (the seven Christian city-states that existed at that time) describing a prophetic dream/vision he had. He talks about the trials and tribulations about to befall them in which their faith will be heavily tested. It was written at a time in history when there were massive persecutions of early Christians. (A time when most Christians would be having bad dreams I should think.)
In this book, John depicts Christ as the Second Coming in Heaven, and he is a really terrifying person.
“His head and his hairs were white like wool, as white as snow; and his eyes were as a flame of fire; And his feet like unto fine brass, as if they burned in a furnace; and his voice as the sound of many waters. And he had in his right hand seven stars: and out of his mouth went a sharp two-edged sword: and his countenance was as the sun shineth in his strength.â€
In Revelation, there are seven seals that are broken, the first and last are broken by Christ himself. After opening the first seal, the Horseman Conquest is released. Angels open five more seals, seals 2-4 releasing the other three horsemen War, Famine, and Death. The other two seals release many more nasty things (violent earthquakes, sun turns black, moon turns red, stars fall from the sky. sky disappears…) and then Christ (described as The Lamb) opens the last seal, and there is “silence in heaven about the space of half an hour.†Here he says of him, “I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end, the first and the last.â€
After all seven seals are broken, seven angels are given seven trumpets. When the first trumpet is sounded, one third of the land and plants are scorched. With the second trumpet, one third of the sea turns to blood and a third of the sea creatures are killed. The third trumpet sees a huge burning star crash down, and one third of the rivers and springs are polluted. “Wormwood” is the star’s name. The fourth trumpet causes one third of the sun, moon and stars to be plunged into darkness. (In case you haven’t notice, ‘seven’ and ‘a third’ are very symbolic in the piece.) The fifth trumpet releases the carnivorous locust, which eat all that do not bear God’s mark. The sixth trumpet causes “Release the four angels who are tied up on the banks of the great river Euphrates”. These angels then proceed to kill a third of the population of earth. (Remember… these are ANGELS!)
John continues his prophecy with the coming of two “witnesses†who are killed by evil men and then resurrected, after lying in the street for three and a half days because all refused to bury them. (never said why).
John also tells the story of the “woman clothed with the sun†who is threatened by a “great red dragon†(which is a minion of Satan). The woman gives birth to a child (assumed to be the Anti-Christ) who is saved by being taken to Heaven. This really riles Satan who attacks heaven in an attempt to get his son back. Of course, this doesn’t happen, and Satan in thrown back down to earth by Michael.
Now two other figures of Evil appear in the book, “the beasts†(assumed to be all the pagan gods), who are worshipped by the multitudes, and then the famous ‘Whore of Babylon’ (generally assumed to be pagan Rome) who is worshiped by the ‘kings of the earth’ while she persecutes and martyrs Christians. She eventually is destroyed, leaving one to think everything would be fine now, but nope…at this point, seven angels bring seven plagues which bring more disasters on the earth.
Now Christ rides out of heaven, and using his sword-tongue, beats up Satan, the Antichrist and pretty much all of the leaders left on earth. Satan and the Antichrist are thrown into “a lake of fire burning with brimstoneâ€. An angel grabs “the dragonâ€, and throws him into a “bottomless pit†with a “seal set on himâ€.
Christ then reigns in peace for a millennium, and then, for reason only know to him, decides to lets Satan free (yeah, really, go figure!) so the Devil can have a final war with the angels at our expense. (Now we are getting to season five). Satan gets the giants Gog and Magog (supernatural beings usually thought to be demons but can be humans), and a bunch of idiot humans and try to take Christ’s army by surprise. (Now if Christ let him out, how much of a surprise could it be?) Of course Satan is defeated, and cast into the Lake of Fire with the dragon, the Antichrist, Gog and Magog.
At this is point, the dead rise and are judged. After that, Christ gets married and everybody good lives happily forever. Everybody else goes into the Lake of Fire.
This sound cynical, I know, but the Book of Revelation is all about revenge, about Christ and the angels winning, and about God watching it all happen. God and his angels are NOT sweet, forgiving, loving, compassionate creatures. They are REALLY bad-asses, making Satan and his minions look like cupcakes. There is no ‘turning of the other cheek’ with them. All the death and destruction on earth is caused by Christ and his Heavenly Host. All Satan, and his followers, do is entice people to do dumb things, annoy decent folk, and join Satan in hell.
Okay, now, let’s see how this correlates to Supernatural. I’m sure you can already see where ideas for some of the episodes have come from. We’ve had seals set on Satan. In the Book of Revelation, seven seals were set after his first fall and one after his second fall. Dean’s breaking of the first seal (which is actually done by Christ) started a domino effect breaking the other 64 seals. Sam breaks the final seal (which is also done by Christ) by killing Lilith, “the first demonâ€, who was described in The Book of Enoch, as Adam’s first wife. However she doesn’t appear in either of the two source books. She, like Eve, was also tempted to sin by Satan.
The sounding of the third trumpet in Revelation brings down the star “Wormwood’ which crashes into rivers and pollutes everything. In Supernatural’s Good God, Y’ All (5.02), Sam and Dean travel to River Pass, Colorado at the request of Rufus. As shooting star, fell into the river there, pollutes the drinking water, and causes the entire town to think everyone else was a demon….that and a little old Horseman named War. He is the first horseman to make an appearance in the series, but the second in Revelation. Conquest was actually the first, and he appeared after the first seal was broken, not after the last.
In Are You There, God? It’s Me, Dean Winchester (4.02) we had the appearance of many witnesses, but only two were mentioned in Revelation. Both Dean and Sam died (Lucifer Rising (4.01), and All Hell Breaks Loose part II (2.22) and were resurrected, so they could be considered the two witnesses, although back in season 2, no one ever dreamed of a season 4 and 5.
We have also seen Supernatural’s version of the Anti-Christ, in I Believe the Children Are Our Future (5.05). Jesse isn’t saved by God though, he’s saved by Sam and Dean, and he’s not Satan’s child. He has a demon father though which gives him really awesome powers, needless to say the evil forces definitely want him back. But at least the writers didn’t have a war start over Jesse in this episode, but I suspect he’ll be in a war before the season is over.
Christ’s comment in Revelation, “I am the Alpha and Omega, the first and the last.â€, maybe the basis for the concept that only Dean can stop Lucifer, as whoever breaks the first seal, according to the story of Revelation, needs to be the one who also ends it.
In both books, Satan is never killed. He can’t be….to have good, you have to have evil, and since Satan first began the wars, he will be forced to continue them for all time. Satan will have to be cast down again though, and as Michael was instrumental in defeating Lucifer the first two times, it’s logical, in the Supernatural Canon, that Michael, and his sword, do it again.
No place in Paradise Lost or the Book of Revelation, or any other book for that matter, was there any mention of religious vessels for Lucifer or Michael. However when Michael came to drive Eve and Adam from paradise, he didn’t do it as an angel, but in the form of a man, carrying his sword in one hand and his spear in the other. Maybe that’s where the idea of the vessels came from, and this time that man is supposed to be Dean. And if Dean is going to be Michael, Sam would need to be Lucifer. I’m wondering if this idea came in when it was decided to make the Winchester characters actual participants of the fight, as opposed to just trying to stop Lucifer and Michael from dueling it out on earth.
There is also no concept of mortal brothers being required to complete the apocalypse. However, Gog and Magog, strong allies of Satan, have been depicted as being humans with supernatural abilities, which maybe the basic idea for Sam’s powers, and it has been implied that he will side with Satan in Detroit. ( I still don’t believe that!)
Nowhere is there any indication that Lucifer is Michael’s younger brother either. In fact, in Paradise Lost, God says all the archangels were created equal and at the same time. Christ was created after them, so, in a way, they are older brothers to Him. In Paradise Lost, seven angels have seen the face of God, one of them Uriel. In Supernatural, it’s only four and Uriel isn’t one of them. Of seven archangels in the angelology of post-Exilic Judaism, only Michael, as an archangel, and Gabriel are mentioned by name in the accepted Christians scriptures. Raphael is mentioned by name in the Book of Tobit, which is accepted as canonical by Catholics and Orthodox. Four others, however, are named in the Book of Enoch: Uriel, Raguel, Sariel, and Jarahmeel. Lucifer was also an archangel.
Castiel and Zachariah are not mentioned by name in either story, but there were plenty of angels who could play the part. I could easily see Abdiel as an inspiration for Castiel. Azazel is mentioned in Paradise Lost as being at Satan’s counsel, described as “at his right, a Cherub tall…â€, the standard-bearer of the rebel angels, but not the horrific creature we saw in Supernatural. However, Azazel in The Book of Enoch is a different story. Azazel is one of the chiefs of the 200 fallen angels (The Book of Revelation speaks of one-third of the heavenly host being involved in the fall). According to Islamic lore, when God commanded the angels to worship Adam, Azazel refused, contending “Why should a son of fire (an angel) fall down before a son of clay (a mortal)?” He is the leader of the Watchers who supposedly taught men the art of war, and women the art of deception. He is also credited with teaching witchcraft. Eventually God commanded he be bound by Archangel Raphael and chained to rocks in the Duduael desert until Judgment Day, where he is cast into the Lake of Fire along with all the other baddies. He is also mentioned in the Zohar, the Apocalypse of Abraham, and the Koran as being an evil entity. (Yep…that’s the Azazel that doesn’t like us!)
Meg is a puzzle. She was first introduced as Azazel’s daughter, a demon who first possessed Meg Masters in the first season (Scarecrow, Shadow, Salvation,) and was exorcised and sent back to Hell by Sam (Devils Trap). Now in season 5 she is back as Lucifer’s daughter Abandon All Hope (5.11), who is mentioned in Paradise Lost as Sin, which is probably why she is seen with hellhounds in the episode.
One of the biggest issues of both books is the totally unsympathetic nature of the ‘good guys’.
God’s self-righteousness in Milton’s poem is enormously surreal. In neither book did God ‘leave the building’, in fact he happily watched, and in some ways helped to orchestrate the fall of Adam and Eve…which seems to be what Zachariah, and his rebel angels, are doing in Supernatural. Christ is somewhat nicer in Paradise Lost, but really a nondescript, 2 dimensional character whose only reason for living is adoration of his father. He even readily agrees to suffer and die, if it pleased his dad. And as for the Christ of Revelation, not something you would ever want to meet in your worst nightmare.
Michael also comes across as being pretty flat, and seems to do whatever God wants, and that has lead to the comparison between Dean and John, and Michael and God.
In both book, humans are depicted as more pawns than anything else, nameless preys and onlookers. Dean and Sam appear to be two of the major board pieces, with Castiel, Anna, and Zachariah as others. In Paradise Lost Eve is depicted as practical, but is also mainly Adam’s property, not a person. Adam is an ass kisser not only to God but all the angels as well, and the story happens mainly outside their garden, even off their planet.
I can see how people would feel sympathetic for Lucifer (Sympathy for the Devil 5.01). He does come across as a poor soul, who basically gets dumped on. More than once, he lamented about his loss of heaven, but after he realizes he would have to give up all free will to stay there, he chooses his path of war….one of the basic themes in season 5. (But I wouldn’t go as far as saying he’s romantic…comments I have heard from others.) God continually claims he is a loving and merciful being, but that is totally dependent on your continuous worship and adoration of him. That makes it easier to sympathize with Lucifer especially when you have “good guys†like Uriel, Raphael and Gabriel, all of whom came across as smug and arrogant. But Satan is not good guy either. He choose free will, but couldn’t accept the consequences. So then he chose his path of revenge, and what he gets he deserves.
So, with these two books, you can find a lot of background for Supernatural’s myth arc, and it’s interesting to postulate where they will go from here. The writers are not telling a religion with their story just a story about two brothers, and according to Sara Gamble, “…trying to make it difficult for the Winchester boysâ€. That I’d say is a success! They are telling their own story, in their own way, at their own speed, and we are just along for the ride. So let’s buckle up, and be prepared for the rest of the roller coaster episodes that will make up the Winchester Gospel!
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Whew! It’s been years since I’ve read Paradise Lost (and I must respectfully disagree with Donald Sutherland’s character in Animal House that Milton is boring, but the herb is alright. 😀 ).
I don’t think that Lucifer, looking at him as clinically as possible, is romantic, and the writers haven’t portrayed him as such, but he IS the ultimate rebel, thus quite Romantic, big R, and let’s face it, though one can argue he deserves his just desserts, the Big Cheese really is a Grade A dick. Whether the Supernatural version is as such, that remains to be seen, though if he is actually floating midst the cosmic seas, maybe he’s simply a manic-depressive.
I’d love to see the writers work in something about the mysterious survivor of an otherwise fatal head wound from Rev 13, though that was from a beasty. Perhaps such a theme has already been transferred to Bobby, that he’ll walk again.
Awesome stuff, Sablegreen.
Awesome Sablegreen. Haven’t read Paradise Lost for a while either, glad to read your review. Seems like we should see a lot of action soon. Thanks
That was fascinating.
God and his angels really do seem to be dicks as both Dean and Sam accuse them of being.
If going by these two sources, I hope Kripke tweaks it a bit so there will be some hope for the future out there.
Scary to think of the poor humans stuck in the middle of all that. 😮
Been a while Sablegreen since I read any of your comments. Really enjoy your articles. Glad to see you back. Write again soon.
Well they don’t seem to be on our side! Looks like it’s us against both heaven and hell. Nothing like being stuck in the middle! Thanks Sablegreen. Loved it!
Great article =) I really enjoyed reading it. I’m gonna go read Paradise Lost now 🙂
Sablegreen, great research piece! Wow!
The writers obviously draw on many sources. When I was researching Lucifer’s history for my article about him, I did not find any connection between Lucifer and Michael,either, except that they are angels. It might be that they are referring to the idea of being brothers in arms or simply brothers (as angels).
And Paradise Lost is, indeed, one of the most influential pieces of work. It has inspired many novels and films (for instance Se7en has a lot of references to it, but also to the Canterbury Tales). And it is – simply- a piece of great art. Don’t you just love the classics!
Thank you for this, great read! Jas
Wow, Sablegreen, my head is spinning. Kudos to you, this must have been a heavy piece to write!
While watching Supernatural I inevitably look for parts from Revelations, but usually think: ´Now look at this! These writers are crazy geniuses!´ Of course, Supernatural is and will never be a precise copy of any apocalypse story. Only with what you described here, it´s obviously impracticable. The thing is, our Supernatural-Wal-Mart-apocalypse is one of the most interesting and thrilling stories ever. Isn´t this awsome? I always knew those writers were geniuses 🙂
Thank you for writing this!
Lara
WOW… This is a wonderful read! Thank you so much!!
Hey everyone thanks for reading! This was longer than I usually write, but there was so much info. Thanks for sticking it out..and for LIKING it!
Randal, I would LOVE to have that ‘beasty’ be symbolic of Bobby. Would like nothing better than to have him come out of this walking again.
Gentlesoul, Paradise Lost is an excellent reading experience. As Jas said, there is nothing better than the classics.
Jas, Paradise Lost has inspired so many movies, just none seem to do the poem justice.
Interesting side note, Milton wrote both poems after going completely blind. Amazing
Thanks again all.
Yep…the writers are going to make it very difficult for our boys, but aren’t we glad they are on our side? 😀
I’m guessing Amazon would have some version of it. I’ve had my copy for about 20 years. 😎
I guess you can get Paradise Lost pretty much anywhere. I mean, it’s kind of THE classic. Amazon certainly is a good choice, they might even have nice editions, if you care about that sort of thing
;-)Jas
Dany, I’ve got the Modern Library’s Complete Poetry and Essential Prose (hardcover and only around $30-40 at Amazon I believe) with some nice, informative essays. IMO, completely worth the expenditure. Though I can also support patronizing your local library. 😎
I found mine in an antiquarian bookshop in London. Alas, I can’t find it right now in all those boxes still standing around from my move – how could I unpack them, when I’m working and visiting this site? I’m a gypsy,…
Gosh, that sounds preposterous. I wish my edition was as old as it sounds, but it’s only from the 1910s… Someday, when I’ll have written my first beststeller and gain ridiculous money, I will invest in a first edition…. Sigh 😮 Jas
Pas de problème, Dany, but NO extras? Was this planned or a colossal factory error? I know that used to happen occasionally with movies here (no extras), though usually it was an almost-bare bones single disc, then a few months later, the 2/3/4 disc versions. Though I’ll admit I didn’t wait for the super-loaded versions of the LOTR flicks. 😎
Jas, just remember to do a book tour of the states!
WOW nice tip Randal. My book already has his complete works, but that’s a nice book for anyone who wants to read the poem. Should have asked you about this first. …could have included it in the article. 😎 My bad!!
Sablegreen, if I remember (always an iffy prospect) I’ll check to see if there are any good nuggets that might further illuminate what you have here, though if I recall, it was mostly about his particular brand of Christianity and compositional issues (you know, that whole I’m Going Blind thing.) 😎
Dany, ugh, you guys get saddled with that multiple part crap? Is region one the only region that gets full box sets? Sure seems that way sometimes. Though this makes up for Japan always getting album bonus tracks, those wankers. At least you won’t have to spend any more!
Hi Sablegreen
Thank-you for this, it was fantastic. I’m afraid I’m not up on all the mythology and I have never read any of these references, so this was a real learning experience.
Really cool article, Sablegreen. I hate to admit it, but I’ve never read either Paradise Lost or The Book of Revelation, so this was a great crash course for me!
Thanks..Karen and Ardeospina. It isn’t necessary to read either for SPN, but as an art form, both are fascinating.
Thanks for reading!
Sablegreen, this was great! Thanks so much for putting it together