You know it isn’t, can’t be, true. But perhaps, just perhaps. The cave of the Greek island of Patmos where St John is said to have written the Book of Revelation, which in Greek is called the Apocalypse, is a mysterious, even spooky place. Did John really write a chunk of the Bible there?The cave is dark, deep, forbidding even, with a tiny chapel at its rear, a world away from Greece’s own contemporary catastrophe. John had arrived in Patmos after being exiled by the Romans from Ephesus, now a four- hour boat ride away on the Turkish coast. There is a ledge where his amanuensis rested the parchment while the elderly evangelist, who had been a teenager at the time of Christ’s death, dictated the holy book. There is even a small hole in the rock where he suppos
16 July 2015, The Tablet
Between a rock and a hard place
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