Lately, I have found myself turning to the
Book of Revelation, written by the Apostle John and transmitted to the world in the first century A.D. Everyone is familiar with the vision of the four horsemen in Rev. 6:1-8, where they appear with the opening of the first four of the seven seals that bring forth the cataclysm of the end times.
The first horseman, armed with a bow and crown, rides a white horse, which scholars sometimes interpret to symbolize Christ (which seems rather bizarre). The second horseman rides a red horse and wields “a great sword…to take peace from the earth.” The third rides a black horse and carries a “pair of balances,” apparently heralding famine but equally likely, as it seems to me, justice. The fourth horseman rides a pale horse and is identified as Death, “and Hell followed with him.”