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*Includes pictures *Includes a bibliography for further reading "And I saw, and behold a white horse: and he that sat on him had a bow; and a crown was given unto him: and he went forth conquering, and to conquer." - The Book of Revelation 6:2 About 2,000 years ago, a prophet named John wrote a book about his strange visions while he was in Patmos, a small Greek island in the Aegean Sea. This John, the Seer, the Revelator, was long believed to be one of Jesus's apostles, but recent historians have determined that he was a second-generation disciple. In fact, he was likely a political exile, writing for Christians under the threat of persecution by the Roman Empire, and his book, the Book of Revelation, was controversial, obscure, and rejected by many local churches as early as the 2nd century CE. Even after it managed to slip into the Bible as the last book of the canon, for years many doubted its authenticity, and others later branded it as the heretical hallucinations of a madman. Despite those controversial origins, the Apocalypse or Revelation of John remains firmly embedded in the Bible as the final chapter of the great saga that opens with Genesis, the beginning of everything. As a bookend to Genesis, Revelation provides a narrative of the end times, the completion of history, and the end of the world. Genesis and Revelation thus constitute the Alpha and the Omega, a surprising expression that the Book of Revelation applies to the divinity. In the opening verses of the Book of Revelation, God says to John, "I am the Alpha and the Omega - the beginning and the end. I am the one who is, who always was, and who is still to come." John proclaims, "On the Lord's Day I was in the Spirit, and I heard behind me a loud voice like a trumpet, which said: `Write on a scroll what you see.'" His esoteric narrative, impenetrable to most of his readers, is full of symbols, keys, and metaphors, abounds in strange visions and prophecies, monsters, natural catas