I have often seen it claimed (even on this website) that TLB is an allegory of The Revelation of John or at least inspired by it. But if you actually compare the two there is little similarity at all.
In TLB there are no Four Horsemen, no angels with seven trumpets or bowls holding the seven last plagues to be poured out on the earth. I suppose Tash, Puzzle and Shift could be considered the Narnian equivalent of the diabolical trinity of Dragon, Beast and False Prophet in Revelations. Except that in Revelations all three are cast into the lake of fire to be tormented forever, while in TLB the Dragon figure (Tash) devours the False Prophet figure (Shift) before being banished to parts unknown, while the Beast figure (Puzzle) ends up among the redeemed in Aslan's Country!
Even the central image of Judgement in TLB is clearly inspired, not by anything from Revelations, but by the parable of the Sheep and the Goats in The Gospel of Matthew. Even then Lewis puts his own spin on it, in that the Narnians are judged not so much by Aslan as by themselves, depending on whether they love or hate Aslan.
I can't help wondering if the people who make this claim have ever read Revelations, or even if they've ever read TLB properly.
I've never actually read any claims that LB is based on Revelation (it is correctly called "Revelation", "The Revelation of St John the Divine", or else "The Apocalypse", not "Revelations"), but I totally agree, any close comparisons show that idea to be way off the mark, as you've set out, @hermit.
To me it just further goes to show that the Chronicles of Narnia are not allegorical and are not intended to be read as such. Lewis himself explained this many times. They are based on Christian themes and ideas, but there is nothing like a one-to-one correspondence between elements of these stories and elements of Biblical narratives or the history of Christianity. And yet people still try to read such things into them, or claim that is how they "should" be understood. And that's wrong.
"Now you are a lioness," said Aslan. "And now all Narnia will be renewed."
(Prince Caspian)
Even though The Last Battle is about the last days of Narnia, I wouldn’t necessarily compare it to Revelation (though some of the concept is kind of there) or even any other apocalyptic fiction out there (and believe me, there’s actually a lot of those).
I’ve attended a Bible Study this last year, and we were going through the Book of Revelation. Since there are various opinions about how the end times is going to be played out, the focus was on God and the hope Christians have.
The Last Battle kind approaches this the same way. Instead of spending a lot of time on the symbolisms, it centers around the hope that prevails even in the midst of uncertainty.
"And this is the marvel of marvels, that he called me beloved."
(Emeth, The Last Battle)
@hermit I suppose Tash, Puzzle and Shift could be considered the Narnian equivalent of the diabolical trinity of Dragon, Beast and False Prophet in Revelations.
Interesting point about Narnia, you have made. But in Revelation (yes Courtney is right, since it was St John's Revelation), as far as I have ever read either in Revelation or in other literature, those emblems of Dragon, Beast & False Prophet, have all been seen as symbols of three Anti-Christs. I've even heard that one of these Anti-Christs in the early church might have been Domitian, the younger son of the Emperor Vespasian, who, after the Emperor Nero died in AD 68, was the 4th Emperor to succeed him in AD 69.
C.S. Lewis wrote the Narnia series as a supposal of how Christ's Redemption might look like in another world, in which humans & their descendants weren't necessarily meant to be native to that world, unlike Puzzle, Shift, and maybe also Tash. However, in his LB description about the ending of Narnia, there is not only a resemblance to what we see happening in C.S. Lewis' Charn, in MN, but also what has actually been described of how the Sun might really end, in scientific magazines, which I also have read from time to time. That is to say the Sun going red, larger & dimmer, before it explodes into a red dwarf sun or a supernova not sure which. C.S. Lewis' evocative imagery certainly scared the daylights out of me when our Sun turned red just like even his Charn description, because of 2019-2020 bushfire smoke enclosing Sydney. Not for nothing, Revelation is also called "The Apocalypse".
There is a 19th century hymn called "All is well with my soul", in which one of the lines refers to "When the Trump Sounds", a line that seems to recur during the 19th century Evangelical revival that started in USA, I think, & spread into Van Diemen's Land, about 1820 onwards, when finally, the then Anglican minister, Rev Robert Knopwood, sent originally with David Collins to found Hobart on 20/2/1804, got his replacement, as well as a few ministers of other denominations. It is only your post, @hermit , which reminded me that there were supposed to be 7 angels with 7 trumpets, not just one "Trump" sounding off. But in Narnia, there was Father Time, another poetic description, blowing a faraway horn. Maybe like Queen Susan's horn? 🎺🎷
Our local minister preached a year or so ago, about the Prophet Daniel, who in Chapter 7 had visions of different monsters, which also recurred in a following chapter, and these monsters, the minister said, were the empires that followed on from Nebuchadnezzar's Babylon, such as the Medes & Persians, the Hellenistic empires of Alexander the Great, and finally the Roman Empire, which lasted from Caesar Augustus to 475 AD, in the West, but from 393 AD, continued as the Byzantine Empire in the East until 29th May, 1453, when Constantinople fell to the Ottoman Empire, to become today's Istanbul. For all I know, this Apocalyptic vision of St John of Patmos, with the Dragon, Beast & False Prophet, might refer to empires, just like the Book of Daniel.
C S Lewis said in a number of places that he did not consider Narnia to be an allegory (for more info on this, see:
Religion in The Chronicles of Narnia or why narnia isn't allegorical)
C. S. Lewis did indicate that there is some relation between 'The Last Battle' and 'The Revelation of Jesus Christ' (or whatever title is given to the final book of the biblical canon). He commented:
“Since Narnia is a world of Talking Beasts, I thought He would become a Talking Beast there, as He became a man here. I pictured Him becoming a lion there because (a) the lion is supposed to be the king of beasts; (b) Christ is called "The Lion of Judah" in the Bible; (c) I'd been having strange dreams about lions when I began writing the work. The whole series works out like this.
- The Magician's Nephew tells the Creation and how evil entered Narnia.
- The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe the Crucifixion and Resurrection.
- Prince Caspian restoration of the true religion after corruption.
- The Horse and His Boy the calling and conversion of a heathen.
- The Voyage of the "Dawn Treader" the spiritual life (specially in Reepicheep).
- The Silver Chair the continuing war with the powers of darkness.
- The Last Battle the coming of the Antichrist (the Ape), the end of the world and the Last Judgement.”
(Bold emphasis added).
I would agree that C S Lewis is not writing The Last Battle as a beat-for-beat allegorical replay of the Apocalypse. I think the final chapters do have Lewis' suggestion for a picture of joy that will be experienced in 'The new heavens and the new earth'. Beyond that, I think C S Lewis' is continuing his 'supposal' of how the Narnian world would play out if Jesus had incarnated as a Lion there.
The term is over: the holidays have begun.
The dream is ended: this is the morning
C.S. Lewis' evocative imagery certainly scared the daylights out of me when our Sun turned red just like even his Charn description, because of 2019-2020 bushfire smoke enclosing Sydney. Not for nothing, Revelation is also called "The Apocalypse".
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Just to clarify here, the Book of Revelation is also called "The Apocalypse" because that is its title in the Koine Greek it was written in. "Apokalypsis" is simply the Greek word for "revelation" — both words ("revelation" comes from Latin) pretty much literally mean "uncovering" (of something that was hidden or secret).
It's because the Biblical book originally called "The Apocalypse" is full of world-ending destruction and disaster that the word "apocalypse" has come, in modern English, to mean a world-ending disaster. Not the other way around.
"Now you are a lioness," said Aslan. "And now all Narnia will be renewed."
(Prince Caspian)