House of Roots and Bones: Revelation

BMCB BCH 701 — Revelation I: Learning to Read John’s Signs
This course introduces Revelation by teaching students how apocalyptic symbolism actually works. Beasts, lampstands, seals, scrolls, numbers, angels, elders, trumpets, bowls, colors, cities, and cosmic images are read through the Old Testament imagery John repeatedly invokes. Students learn not to convert every modern politician, technology, disaster, or news event automatically into a fulfillment of whichever symbol looks convenient. Historical context and literary structure provide the foundation for spiritual interpretation. The course trains students to read Revelation’s signs before attempting to work with its language.
BMCB BCH 702 — Revelation II: Beasts, Babylon & the Machinery of Oppression
This course examines beasts, empire, Babylon, economic control, violence, seduction, propaganda, persecution, and systems that demand allegiance. Students study Revelation as resistance literature spoken to communities living under imperial power. Black American readings of Babylon, oppression, judgment, and deliverance are considered within the history of slavery and racial domination. Students learn to distinguish systemic opposition from the habit of labeling every personal enemy a beast or Babylon. The course provides a powerful Biblical language for understanding oppression without surrendering interpretive discipline.
BMCB BCH 703 — Revelation III: Judgment, Ancestors, Victory & the New Jerusalem
This course completes Revelation through martyrs, remembered dead, judgment, resurrection, victory, healing, the river of life, the tree of life, and the New Jerusalem. Students examine the voices beneath the altar and the remembered faithful without collapsing Christian eschatology into ancestral veneration. The fall of oppressive systems is studied alongside the creation of a world in which death, mourning, and suffering no longer rule. Students examine Revelation not simply as a book about destruction but as a book that asks what comes after the old order falls. The Biblical survey closes with an image of restoration: a city, a river, a tree, healed nations, remembered dead, and a people finally home.