The Book of Revelation -- Is it really what we think it is?

My thoughts on the book of Revelation have always been cloudy and the only thing I think John Calvin did that was truly smart was he never wrote a commentary on it. Perhaps a lesson to the rest of us, but here I go making a series of posts on the subject of Revelation. I remember sitting in Sunday School as a teen when they taught about the end times (eschatology is the technical term) and asking the question of -- what if everyone is wrong? It is not an inconceivable option and as I went through my education I realized a few things:

1. The doctrine of the Rapture as most evangelicals have come to know it has only been around since the 19th century.

2. The doctrine of the Great Tribulation hinges on a single passage in Daniel that could be interpreted as fulfilled already in the fall of Jerusalem in 70AD. See Daniel 9:24-27 for details.

3. The seven year tribulation timeline that is superimposed on the book of Revelation has its origins in both western thoughts of time and is only a recent phenom as it also has its origins in the 19th century.

4. "Seven" is put against many things in Revelation -- horns, trumpets, vials, seals, etc. One thing it is not put against is 'years'. Yep, for all the talk about a seven year tribulation, there is never a time in the Bible where the concept of a seven year time period and a great tribulation are linked.

5. Now, I also have different ideas on how the God of the Bible relates to time (aka as open theism) and I am wondering how that might affect my interpretation of the book of Revelation? I also wonder if all I had was the book of Revelation, how would I interpret it without referencing other books of the Bible?

So discarding the one wise thing John Calvin did (hey, I have already discarded everything else he did, so I might as well throw the last thing out), here I go into the wonderful world of Revelation and the great effort in this series, which may take a quite a while, is to let the book speak for itself. Onward and Upward.