Why was Revelation included in the bible?

[Old_Scratch]

It just seems odd really. Here you have the gospels and the writings of Paul and the apostles, and then all of a sudden there is this bizarre story about how almost everyone is going to die in unusual ways and how there will be a new Jerusalem delivered to the Earth. It just seems like it doesn't belong there.

I understand that it was symbolically written about events contemporary to the author(s), John of Patmos. It's in a very similar style to the visions described, and explained, in Daniel 7 and 8. Unlike Daniel though there is no interpretation of the vision in the book so it leaves it open to all sorts of crazy end of the world theories that we still see today. Its relevance seems to have been the subject of debate among early Christians too.

It just seems like something that should have been put in the Apocrypha right next to the books of Enoch.

[Chaigidel]

it was evocative and memorable?

[MaximiIian]

It's like Neon Genesis Evangelion. The whole story is weird, but the last bit just stands out, because it's a total shift into an even newer realm of the surreal and batst crazy. Mostly due to the director being psychologically depressed and quite off his rocker at the time (or shortly before). But people love it anyway, so it's considered as part of the canon of Essential Stuff.

In a way, it's the same situation here. The guy that wrote it (who may or may not have actually been the guy they claim wrote it) was possibly a bit smacked off his tits, to say the least. He probably meant it as an allegorical tale, but his target audience completely missed the point.
So his book became ridiculously popular; the critics loved it, the people loved it, and the thinkers loved it, for various reasons. Since there wasn't really any ecumenical council that actually stated what books were in the bible until much later, it just got stuck in the biblical canon gradually. It soon became useful as a convenient way to explain away the dissonance between Jesus' obviously apocalyptic tone and the fact that everything was still, you know, around. So when the popularly-accepted canon was finally confirmed in the early 400's, Revelation was already entrenched anyway by the theologians and bishops privately agreed canons. So, there really wasn't a lot of executive meddling. Despite the fact that most people, Christian and non-Christian alike, agree that the actual events of the book are completely insane.