In the interests of Full Disclosure, I must say right up-front that I sought-out this book, and was graciously given a copy in exchange for one of my own books. I should also mention that that latter book of mine contains some material on REVELATION, and so, I am neither new to that work, nor objective about it -- if such a thing is possible at-all.
That said, let me say that I found this book very provocative of new thought about REVELATION, and I believe that it would be so for most other readers, except perhaps specialists. The problem, addressed in other LT Reviews, is that the book's concept and structure, while daring and complex, are ultimately a wall, not a gate. Before attempting to scale that wall, I want to emphasize that the partial title HOW IT HAPPENED should have been paired with, or replaced by, a more modest and accurate one, to wit WHAT IT MEANT TO ITS FIRST READERS. Harmon's tactic is to present REVELATION in terms of a talk between a father and son living in Ephesus in the years after (at-least) the final roman Conquest of Jerusalem and (significantly) the eruption of Vesuvius. The old(er) man, Samuel, is a pious Jew and a member of a Jesus-believing community, as were many in hose days before what we now call "the church" was even identified as such by its members or outsiders. His son Matthew has just achieved the age of bar-mitzvah and he has been receiving a serious religious education from his Father's friends. But he's still an adolescent with all the energy, goofiness and distractablity of that species. He listens to his widowed father tell about the letter which has been received from John. Right away it is uncertain how the contents of the letter were distributed to the believers -- we just have to accept that they were. Then Samuel proceeds to relate the letter, in paraphrase, to his son, and to explain what he thinks it really means, in terms of the young man's understanding of life.
OK. This is an interesting narrative concept. But the father/son business is regularly inter-cut with the REVELATION text (in one of the many latter-day translations), AND with comments on that text AND with comments on the father-son conversation, AND with footnotes to everything. Even the best juggler can only keep a few oranges in the air at one time, and frankly, I think this Author has let a couple of them fall on his head.
As to Harmon's interpretation, it is of the school often called "preterist", meaning (forgive the crude summary), that REVELATION is to be considered primarily a comment on contemporary events, rather than say, a prophecy, or a poetic statement of broad aspects of faith. That interpretive position is surely a defensible one, though Harmon never addresses -- assuming he's thought of it -- why the text is so densely packed in imagery -- "encrypted" wouldn't be too strong a word -- when the facts were (or should have been) widely known among the communities of believers in the East Mediterranean. Among his more interesting claims -- and I haven't yet had the chance to look into this -- is for the significant role of the Romanized Jewish historian Flavius Josephus, not simply as a source for much of the material, but even as an actor, in some senses, in the events described by John -- whoever he was.
And here we get to one of the downright maddening aspects of the work. At one point the Author glibly turns away from the question of John the Evangelist vis-à-vis John "the Revelator", thus cutting himself off from centuries of serious research in sorting-out those two shadowy figures. Related to this is another claim he makes in passing, as if it shouldn't be central both to our understanding and to the perspective of his fictional father and son, namely that belief in the resurrection was by no means thorough and consolidated among the young faith-communities of the day. It is a commonplace that REVELATION owes much to THE BOOK OF DANIEL, but as to other Biblical sources, Harmon will doubtless startle many readers with his proposition that REVELATION precedes the writing, or at-least distribution, of any of the Gospels possibly excepting MARK.
These are just a few of the tantalizing bits, and if I have seemed to emphasize the vexing ones, I must rush now to say that there are many shrewd observations and factual bits drawn from extra-Scriptural sources, plus a praiseworthy ability to make the reader re-think how REVELATION must have sounded two millennia ago. We do, in a sense, become the fictional Samuel and Matthew, and that is no small achievement, despite the Author's dizzy oscillation between purple prose and cutesy slang like "wannabe".
If the exhausted reader makes it to the end, he is rewarded by Harmon's simple but compelling explanation of his own faith-path, and by his re-iteration of a question which can never be asked too often, namely what does it mean for our understanding of REVELATION specifically and of Christianity generally, that REVELATION has been passed down quite literally as the last word?
I note with interest that Lee Harmon has written another book on the GOSPEL OF JOHN, also sub-titled HOW IT HAPPENED. Despite my exasperation with aspects of the REVELATION study, I look forward to reading and contemplating this other work. As a practical matter, I don't know how Harmon's books are distriubuted, but he is a LibraryThing participant, and can certainly be reached via this site. ( )

for a Fictional story, this is a great study, I thought he has put a lot of information about a really tough book in the Bible to study.
Very informative, Lee has done a great job giving very detailed information and made it easy to read and study, I am very impressed with his Biblical knowledge and look forward to reading more of his writing. ( )

Lee Harmon in his book, Revelation : the way it happened uses fiction to explain a most complex Biblical book. Samuel, who lives in the first century, explains John’s revelations to his son Matthew. Interspersed into the narrative are sections of commentary by the author along fictional accounts of the Apostle John’s experiences and a section on the fall of Jerusalem. The author used this same technique in his book on John’s Gospel and it also works well here. Each section is in a different font so it’s really easy to tell if you are reading fiction, commentary or the Book of Revelation itself. He includes John’s timeline of events which makes the reading of Revelation easier and also a bibliography of further reading, although without full bibliographic information. (Being a librarian, I like to know the publisher’s name to give me hints as to the religious slant of the book and I also want to know the date of publication.) His discussion of authorship and date of Revelation contained in an appendix are interesting and can be the start of a serious study.

Harmon uses the premise that this book was written for the early Christians who knew the symbolism involved. They felt that the events depicted had already happened and they were waiting for the final days. They knew to whom the writer referred when he wrote in a veiled manner. This is a view I never considered; I had discarded the typical fundamentalist teachings a long time ago so this explanation made sense to me. And the reason he postulates for the exile on Patmos also made sense.

This book is written in a style accessible to most readers. I found that one reading was not enough and I had to re-read several sections to better understand the symbolism. I also read some of the author’s Biblical references to Old Testament apocalypse for a greater understanding of this material. The book is not a quick read. If you want a scholarly look at Revelation, use one of the books listed in the bibliography. But, if you are a layperson who wants to understand the book, Lee Harmon will guide you and make you think. ( )

Pretty standard fare. Nothing great, nothing bad though. He mixes narrative and informative and doesn't do too great a job at it. Meh. ( )

Lee Harmon has tackled an extremely difficult challenge, an analysis of the book of Revelations, and made it doubly difficult by writing it as a story. His effort is to be commended and encouraged, as he has produced an eminently readable book. All that stands in the way of a 5-star rating is the interruptions in the story that the thorough analysis requires. I look forward to reading more from Lee Harmon. ( )