Recalll the importance of the biblical book of Revelation for the Manhunter analysis; Emanuel Swedenborg gives an interesting interpretation of this book. Among other things, he believes that the New Jerusalem depicted in Revelation actually represents a "New Church." The below material is from Swedenborg's Apocalypse Revealed ('A.R.') and The New Jerusalem and Its Heavenly Doctrine ('H.D.'):
In Revelation it does not treat of the successive states of the church, still less of the successive states of kingdoms, as some have hitherto believed, but there from beginning to end it treats of the last state of the church in the heavens and on the earth; and then concerning the Last Judgment; and after this of the New Church, which is the New Jerusalem. That this New Church is the end of this work, is evident, wherefore those things which precede refer to the state of the church, as to its quality just before it. (-- from A.R. n. 2.)
It is written in the Apocalypse: "I saw a New Heaven and a New Earth; for the first heaven and the first earth were passed away. And I saw the holy city, New Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven, prepared as a bride before her husband..." The man who reads these things, understands them only according to the sense of the letter; namely, that the visible heaven and earth will perish, and a new heaven will exist, and that the holy city Jerusalem, answering to the measures above described, will descend upon the new earth; but the angels understand these things altogether differently; namely, what man understands naturally, they understand spiritually; and as the angels understand, so they signify; and this is the internal or spiritual sense of the Word. In the internal or spiritual sense, "a New Heaven and a New Earth" means a New Church, both in the heavens and on the earth..."The city Jerusalem coming down from God out of heaven" signifies its heavenly doctrine. (-- from H.D. n. 1.)
"Things which must shortly come to pass" (Rev 1:1) signifies that they will certainly be, lest the church perish. By coming to pass shortly, is not meant that the things which are foretold in Revelation, will happen immediately and speedily, but certainly; and that unless they do happen the church must perish. (--from A.R. n. 4.)
To skip over the remainder of the Swedenborgian analysis of the Hannibal Lecter movies, click here.
The works of Emanuel Swedenborg from the Internet Sacred Texts Archive
Apocalypse Revealed, by Emanuel Swedenborg, [1766], tr. by John Whitehead [1912], at sacred-texts.com. Web. 31 May 2010.
The New Jerusalem and its Heavenly Doctrine, by Emanuel Swedenborg, [1758], tr. by John Whitehead [1892] at sacred-texts.com. Web. 31 May 2010.
