EXPLOITED HOPE

A Hermeneutical Reading of Revelation 17–18 through Popular-Culturalist Biblical Criticism, with Puella Magi Madoka Magica as a Cultural Text

Abstract

Revelation 17-18 is generally read through historical-symbolic approaches focused on identifying Babylon with Rome or imperial power, so the ideological mechanisms that normalize suffering through the language of salvation, faithfulness, and sacrifice remain underanalyzed, while the critical sensibility of feminist hermeneutics toward the body and power relations is rarely applied directly to these two chapters. This study aims to formulate new hermeneutical categories for reading Revelation 17-18 as a critique of a salvation system that sustains itself through sacrifice, rather than as a legitimation of suffering for the sake of salvation. This study employs Fernando F. Segovia's Popular-Culturalist Biblical Criticism, positioning Puella Magi Madoka Magica as a cultural text participating in the interpretive process, through three stages: formulating categories from the anime's narrative structure, applying those categories to the exegesis of Revelation 17-18, and evaluating the results against the christology of the Lamb. This study argues that Babylon operates as a counterfeit soteriology that sustains itself through the systematic production of victims, rather than merely symbolizing political-economic power. The findings identify four categories, the salvation system as a victim-producing structure, hope as an ideological mechanism, agency within asymmetrical power relations, and the body as salvific infrastructure, which reveal that Babylon's collapse stems from its own internal contradiction, while the Lamb appears as an anti-salvation-system whose single sacrifice eliminates the need for further victims. This study concludes that popular culture can function as a legitimate locus of interpretation for constructing biblical hermeneutical categories.