A Heavenly Chorus: The Dramatic Function of Revelation's Hymns

This study considers the extent to which Revelation's hymns bear formal and functional similarities with choral lyrics of ancient tragedy. The notion that Revelation's hymns can be considered in terms of ancient tragic choral lyrics is not a novel one. In fact, the dramatic function of Revelation's hymns in this regard has been widely acknowledged, most often with a variation of the claim that the hymns function as did Classical tragic choral lyrics insofar as they "comment upon" or "interpret" the surrounding narrative. The claim has attained near axiomatic status, despite the fact that neither a comprehensive study, nor even a single article, has ever been devoted to it.;The value of such a claim is minimal, as it simply does not go very far in explaining the function of Revelation's hymns, and immediately begs questions of the precisely ways in which Revelation's hymns comment upon and/or interpret the surrounding plot. Not surprisingly, the premise for such a claim, that tragic choruses function to comment upon and/or interpret the surrounding dramatic dialogue, is problematic. Such a premise not only fails to reflect the breadth and depth of choral functions in tragedy, but in many cases actually mischaracterizes the functions of choral lyrics.;This study thus aims to advance this line of inquiry by offering a comprehensive analysis of the forms and functions of ancient tragic choruses throughout the Classical, Hellenistic, and Roman periods, with the purpose of providing a comprehensive framework within which to evaluate Revelation's hymns in dramatic terms. By revealing the varieties and complexities of the forms and functions of ancient tragic choruses, I demonstrate that Revelation's hymns are not best evaluated in terms of choral lyrics generally, but in terms of dramatic hymns specifically. That is, the hymns in Revelation do not exhibit the wide variety of functions as reflected in tragic choral lyrics; rather, they replicate the functions of ancient tragic hymns insofar as they constitute mythological-theological reflections on the surrounding narrative, and function to situate the surrounding dramatic activity in a particular mythological-theological context.