Ruben Zimmermann, «Nuptial Imagery in the Revelation of John», Vol. 84 (2003) 153-183
In this article is argued that the nuptial imagery of the Book of Revelation is not limited to chapters 19 and 21 but rather runs throughout the book. While the imagery is certainly most pronounced in the final part of the book, it also appears in the letters to the churches (bridal wreath in Rev 2,10; 3,11), in the scene depicting the 144,000 as virgins (Rev 14,4-5), and is encountered again in Rev 18,23 (silencing of the voice of bridegroom and bride) and Rev 22,17 (summons of the bride) at the end of the book. Thus the wedding metaphors can be seen as one of the structural patterns of Revelation as a whole directly in contrast to the metaphors of fornication.
kauxh/sewj). The bride described in Ezek 16 is not only "worthy to reign" (Ezek 16,13), but, more to the point, she also serves as a metaphor for Jerusalem. Further, in Cant 3,11 the crown is associated with marriage as the lover is compared to King Solomon, who was crowned by his mother on the day of his wedding. Simultaneously, it is in Cant 3,11 that for the first time an allegorization of Cant in the Judaic tradition (JHWH-Israel) can be demonstrated (see m. Taan 4,8). A symbolically meaningful motif of the bridal wreath within a wedding can also be found in the intertestamental Jewish scripture JosAs. According to JosAs 18,5-6 Aseneth is described, demonstrated also by the royal girdle (JosAs 18,6), as a royal bride setting a golden wreath on her head. Simultaneously, with her adornment as a bride a transformation from mourning to great joy takes place. Thus, the bridal garland becomes, together with the bridal jewelry, a symbol of heavenly transformation, depicted and promised in the image of the wedding. The intertextual parallel to Rev becomes obvious here5.
Lastly, a passage in the intertestamental Jewish document Liber Antiquitatum Biblicarum (LAB) should be referred to, for here the bridal wreath is mentioned in close connection to an upcoming death. Seila, the daughter of Jephta, laments her virginity, for, due to her father’s vow, she is to be sacrificed as a virgin:
I have not been satisfied on my bridal bed and was not granted the wreathes of my wedding (...). And over time the flowers of the wreath that my nurse has woven will wilt (LAB 49,6).
Although this scene can hardly be understood in a metaphorical sense, there appears here to be a certain parallel to a custom within the Greek wedding ritual which could be drawn upon as a donor field for the New Testament metaphor of the "wreath of life". Portrayed upon a lutrophora in Athens there is a young dead girl whose death crown is marked with spiky leaves. This crown is the same as that which is otherwise used at weddings. Salis and, following him, Baus therefore assumed that it was customary in Greece to adorn a woman who died as a virgin with a bridal wreath6. It has been unquestionably