What are the most widely-accepted scholarly interpretations of Rev 1:7 and Rev 1:12-16 and what actual arguments have been made to defend those interpretations?
I have been investigating this for awhile, but am still dumbfounded as to why few if any scholars read these verses in what seems to me to be the most simple and straightforward way. And I haven't been able to locate any attempts to defend the more traditional interpretations.
In Revelation 1:7, the figure is pierced and tribes of the earth are mourning for him. This seems to me like a quite strong reason to think that the author of this part of Revelation intends for us to understand the figure in the clouds as dead. Not merely previously dead and previously resurrected, but actually dead and not yet resurrected at the time he's seen in the clouds.
I've read one commentary that said the tribes are mourning for themselves, out of fear of coming judgement. What in the context of Revelation itself, or in any of the Hebrew sources Revelation alludes to, would lead anyone to think that? To me "for themselves" looks a silly apologetical response just to avoid difficulties the verse potentially poses (since the gospels don't have Jesus killed in the sky). In the OT people mourning for someone seems to always indicate that said person has died. Since, Revelation appears to be built from allusions to the OT, I would think that important here. Also, that John is using the tribes mourning to indicate that the figure in the clouds is dead comes from how Rev 1:7 quotes Zechariah 12:10-12 wherein we see mention of mourning over the death of Josiah; to take the mourning to have a different function in Revelation from what it does in Zechariah just seems weird to me.
Have any scholars offered any explanations for why the figure in Rev 1:12-16 glows step-by-step brighter and brighter before John's visionary eyes?
The progression starts with "hair as wool" revised midsentence to "as snow". Then the eyes glow like a flame, followed by the feet glowing like dripping bronze bright white in a furnace. And finally the vision ends with his whole appearance shining like the sun in full power.
To me, the most simple and obvious explanation for the progressively increasing glowing is that John is supposedly seeing the figure actively being resurrected, transfigured, and/or otherwise transformed. Note that verse 15 changes "sound of a multitude" (found in the source passages in Daniel), into "sound of many waters" (used in Ezekiel in a different way), most likely because in Revelation water repeatedly symbolizes life. Verse 16 has the sword that pierced him ejected out of his mouth (similar to how frogs are ejected from the mouths of the dragon, beast, and false prophet later in Rev 16:13.) And, Rev 1:17-18 looks to me as intended to explain what John had just seen in Rev 1:7,12-16, the key part being "I died, and behold I am alive forevermore." It all fits with a resurrection.
But I don't think this is how scholars normally read these verses.
So again, what are the currently most widely-accepted scholarly interpretations of Rev 1:7 and Rev 1:12-16? What arguments have been presented to defend those interpretations?
