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The Revelation to John is indeed an unusual critter because it is written mostly in code. The early Christians were fearful that their letters and other writings would be captured by the Romans, leading to many deaths, so works such as this one were written in code. An example is the word "Babylon" -- this is the code word for "Rome." Like much Jewish literature of the time, it also makes use of gematria/numerology, and you must understand that code, too, to decipher the meaning of the messages. In the Gospels, take a look at the miracle of the multiplication of the loaves in Matthew 14 and 15 (also Mark 6, Luke 9, and John 6). In the first, there are five loaves and two fish, in the second version, there are seven loaves and a few fish; also, there are 12 baskets of leftover in the first and 7 in the second. In the first story Jesus feeds 5,000 people and in the second version 4,000 people. One interpretation I have read is that the seven loaves represents the traditional number of gentile nations while 12 represents the number of Jewish tribes. In one story, the gentiles must become Jewish to become Christian, while in the other story, the meaning is that the gentiles will become Christian yet remain gentiles. In John 21:11, Peter, at the behest of Jesus, pulls in 153 large fish. There has been much speculation about the meaning of this number. Jerome claims that the Greeks catalogued 153 different species of fish, so the catch is meant to symbolize all the nations of the world. Or 153 is the sum of numbers from 1 to 17.
