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In the New Testament, the female figure who is depicted in a solely negative light is the so-called “whore of Babylon.” While not a human woman in the literal sense, this character can be best understood when read with attention to the gendered lens that the text uses to describe her.
Revelation’s vivid scenes of God’s final judgment of the world were revealed to someone who calls himself John. Scholars agree that this John is neither a character from the gospels, nor the writer of the Gospel of John or the epistles of John. He writes down these visions to share them with “the seven churches that are in Asia” (Rev 1:4), whom he seems to know personally.
The “great whore,” as the text calls her, appears in chapter 17. John tells his audience, “I saw a woman sitting on a scarlet beast that was full of blasphemous names, and it had seven heads and ten horns… and on her forehead was written a name, a mystery: ‘Babylon the great, mother of whores and of earth’s abominations’” (Rev 17:3, 5).
The character never has the opportunity to speak for herself. Based on John’s description and the explanation from his angelic guide, she is irredeemable, so there is no need to hear her side of the story. The kings of the earth have committed fornication with her, and the inhabitants of the earth have become drunk with the wine of her fornication (Rev 17:2). “Her sins are heaped high as heaven” (Rev 18:5).
The angel explains to John that this woman Babylon is a personification of the city of Rome, though the angel does not use the word “Rome.” John may have used the symbolism of the “great whore” so as not to get in (more) trouble with Roman authorities. With the city as a woman, the author can make his argument in code. She has fornicated and lived in luxury with all the kings of the earth. The text is clear: we should desire her obliteration.
The angel says, “The seven heads [of the beast] are seven mountains on which the woman is seated” (Rev 17:9). Readers at the time would have…