Revelation Road by Nick Page

What an interesting book! Part travelogue, part history lesson and part Biblical exegesis. Nick Page decided to research the background to the book of Revelation by travelling to the sites of the seven churches of the Apocalypse in modern day Turkey, and then to stay on the Greek island of Patmos (where Saint John saw the vision and wrote it down) to write his book. The result is an entertaining, informative and enlightening book.

I enjoyed Nick Page’s style. He is funny and entertaining. His accounts of  historical places, people and times are neither superficial nor too heavy, and his descriptions of the archaeological sites he visits gave me the sense of being there too. His text is accompanied by photos that he took during his visits. Unfortunately, the publishers chose to publish the paperback edition on cheap paper, which means that the photos are very poor quality greyscale. But Google Images came to my rescue. I could google the places and see beautiful colour photos of the places he visited, and view them not just from the angle he chose for his shot, but from every other possible angle as well.

The book is divided into two parts: Part One covers the sites of the seven churches and Part Two describes his time on and his exploration of Patmos. Throughout the book, Nick relates the results of his research about the people and places in ancient times to the images and descriptions in the book of Revelation. He ties the two together in ways that make sense (to me at least). Interestingly, his understanding of Revelation matches quite closely that of New Zealander Graeme Carlé who has so far written three books in a 5-book series on Revelation. (Hastings District Libraries have his books.) To sum up then, I found Nick Page’s book a perfect balance of entertaining armchair travel and historical study. Just a shame about the cheap print job.

Posted by JM

Catalogue link: Revelation Road