Book excerpt: Edmondo Lupieri's main goal in A Commentary on the Apocalypse of John is to introduce readers to the mental and spiritual world of John as both a first-century Jew and a follower of Jesus. The fruit of over ten years of research, a constructive response to postmodern criticism, and an academic best-seller in its Italian edition, Lupieri's commentary offers both new proposals and traditional interpretations to shed light on this complex coda to the biblical message. In an illuminating preface Lupieri discusses the strange world of the Apocalypse and promises an open commentary, full of original treatments of knotty interpretive problems. Maintaining a strong historical perspective throughout, he examines the text of the Apocalypse line by line, paying careful attention to the Greek text, offering a new translation, making wide use of apocryphal, pseudepigraphal, and Qumran literature, and often analyzing John's Apocalypse as compared to other Jewish apocalypses. Thoughtful, thorough, and nonsectarian, Lupieri's Commentary on the Apocalypse of John will appeal to anyone with a serious interest in the meaning of the biblical text.