A Small Matter Of Thirty Years, Part 3: Internal Evidence

Introduction

In the previous post, we looked at the external evidence for the dating of Revelation in Kenneth Gentry’s book Before Jerusalem Fell. I finished with Gentry’s conclusion of an early date, while opining to myself that it seemed to favor the late date, if only by a hair. It seemed as though several of the clear Domitianic (late date) supporting references must be reinterpreted obliquely to either cast doubt on a late date or have them support an early one. Really, though, I could see Gentry’s point, thus my concluding remarks that the bulk of the external evidence cancels each other out and does not lend to any clear victor.

Today, we look at the internal evidence, which I will say right in the intro has as clear a winner as Usain Bolt running at a middle school track meet. But before we get into the lengthy details, let’s talk about why Revelation is tricky.

Why Revelation Is Tricky

Revelation is not a primary reader. It is not a bunny hill – this is black diamond stuff. By far, it is the most difficult book to understand in the New Testament and likely the entire Bible, portions of Daniel and Ezekiel alone in competition.

David Chilton writes, “Many rush from their first profession of faith to the last book in the Bible, treating it as little more than a book of hallucinations, hastily disdaining a sober-minded attempt to allow the Bible to interpret itself – and finding, ultimately, only a reflection of their own prejudices.” If Revelation is not for well-intentioned novices to unravel with nothing but their wits, then it is certainly not for sensationalists looking for movie fodder. The visions of Revelation are exciting, mysterious, and it is much more interesting to speculate about the future than patiently studying the past, which is where we must go if we are to have any hope of making sense of the book.

There are over one thousand allusions, quotations, and images taken from the Old Testament in this short, ten-thousand-word letter. That means on average every one out of ten words is pulling an idea from a library of writings stretching back thousands of years from when the letter itself was written. So if we don’t have a two-handed grip on and a hearty respect for the Old Testament, we are bound for misinterpretation, speculation, and befuddlement.

Not only this, but we do not have any genre that even smells like apocalyptic literature in our modern times. This type of writing is replete with symbolism – a symbolism that the author and recipients of the letter shared. We do not share in their inside symbolic language in the twenty-first century. So when John tells his audience that the sun became black and the moon was filled with blood, we need to be invited into their shared symbolism and not interpose, rudely, our scientific understanding of outer space. Revelation is an ancient machine: we are unfamiliar with its principles, and the physics is quite different. Trying to make the machine work with modern inputs will only result in a psilocybin-fueled fever dream with as many possible interpretations as the unbounded future can hold.

Understanding this symbolic language is necessary for the letter to make any sense. But one problem is that the dating/symbolism questions are tautological: an early date interprets the symbols through the lens of the Old Testament as events taking place in John’s immediate future, which reinforces the early date view. Conversely, a late date presumption necessarily makes sense of the symbols through an admixture of semi-literal interpretations which lie far outside the context of near history, disqualifying them ad hoc from interpretation via pre-70 AD symbology. The two are inextricably linked. More on the interpretation of symbols will be discussed in the next series post.

No one is unbiased. We all take in information and filter it through our presuppositions. The glass is half full or half empty. The only way we can extract ourselves from our presuppositions is to obey the Golden Rule of reading: Do unto authors as you would have them do unto you. This means we must do the work to place ourselves in the author’s shoes and see the world through his eyes. Because a letter always has two ends – a sender and a receiver – we must also place ourselves in the sandals of the first-century Christians to whom it was addressed. What was their word like? What was common knowledge among the fishmongers and tent makers who had Moses’s writing read to them their whole lives? Courteously, patiently, humbly, we must thus read.

INTERNAL EVIDENCE

It wasn’t until the beginning of the 20th century that the internal evidence of Revelation was used to sue for a late date. Biblical scholar Milton S. Terry said, “No critic of any note has ever claimed that the later date [for Revelation] is required by any internal evidence.” Today, however, things are different, as evidenced by a plethora of teachers and preachers who use the text as a prophecy of our future, necessitating a late date. In truth, there are scholars of both schools, though in the minority, who do not see any conclusive internal evidence to date for or against their position.

Others are certain. Biblical scholar Sir John Alexander MacDonald sees historical data within the text of Revelation which clearly point to a specific dating: “it will be found that no book of the New Testament more abounds in passages which clearly have respect to the time when it was written.” Likewise, historian George Edmunson observes, “the Apocalypse is full of references to historical events of which the author had quite recently been himself an eyewitness at Rome, or which were fresh in the memories of the Roman Christians with whom he had been associating.” Given these glowing reviews, we ought to expect some pretty sexy information.

Gentry makes clear that the internal evidence is by far the strongest and ought to weigh the most heavy for our task of discovering the date of Revelation’s authorship, “Working from biblical presuppositions as to the nature and integrity of Scripture, the convictions of orthodox, conservative Christianity must recognize that the essential and determinative evidence ought to be drawn from the internal testimony of the scriptural record itself, when it is available” (emphasis mine).

The Theme
Let us start with the theme of the book. John makes clear right from the top the summons that will preside over his message:

Behold, he is coming with the clouds, and every eye will see him, even those who pierced him, and all tribes of the earth will wail on account of him. Even so. Amen.

Revelation 1:7

Even in light of the varied interpretations of Revelation, there seems to be a general consensus among scholars that this verse is John’s thematic thesis for the book. Jesus is coming, and he is coming on the clouds. Old Testament readers knew that when God was coming on the clouds, it was not a happy thing (Psalm 18:7-15; 104:3; Isaiah 19:1; Joel 2:1,2). It’s like when you just sassed your mother and your dad is on his way home from work, and all hell follows with him. Who is he coming in judgment on? Those who pierced him – the Jews. Jesus verifies this in Luke 11:50, when he said,

Therefore also the Wisdom of God said, ‘I will send them prophets and apostles, some of whom they will kill and persecute,’ so that the blood of all the prophets, shed from the foundation of the world, may be charged against this generation, from the blood of Abel to the blood of Zechariah, who perished between the altar and the sanctuary. Yes, I tell you, it will be required of this generation.

Luke 11:49-51

The judgment of all the deaths of all the prophets from Abel onward is about to fall on “this generation.” We should note here that when Jesus says the blood will be required of “this generation”, he is talking about the people he is looking at, the ones hearing his words – a recompense that was exacted when Jerusalem was destroyed. The Jews riled up the crowd, paid off false witnesses, demanded the release of Barabbas, sued for crucifixion when Pilate was about to let Jesus walk, lied about Jesus’ words and claims, preferred their traditions over God, and perpetrated the murder of the one and only Son of God. As Jesus’ parable made clear, the wicked tenants reasoned that after they killed the son of the landowner, then all the vineyard would be theirs (Matthew 21:23-33). Peter lays blame at the feet of the Jews (Acts 3:36) as does Stephen (Acts 7:52). This theme is the chorus of the personal communication to each of the seven churches – he is coming soon. John also closes his letter with the same declaration (Rev 22:7).

Of course, this leaves open the question of who the group is that makes up “all the tribes of the earth”? At first glance, this seems to apply to all people groups on planet Earth. The Greek word for “tribe” is phule, which the Theological Dictionary of the New Testament says “with few exceptions has [phule] become a freed term for the tribal system of Israel.” The International Standard Bible Encyclopedia agrees. “Earth” is ge, which means “earth, globe” or “land” as in “the good earth”, which in this context means “the land of the tribes of Israel.” I could belabor the point by citing more people who know Greek wicked good, but I won’t.

Not only is the judgment on the Jews for rejecting God, but it is also to establish the Church as the new kingdom. David Chilton summarizes the book the theme of Revelation as “[Revelation 1:7] announces the theme of the book, which is not the Second Coming of Christ, but rather the Coming of Christ in judgment upon Israel, in order to establish the Church as the new Kingdom.” Christ’s church being established as the new Kingdom is a huge theme in the early date view, but this point assumes what it would need to first prove, so I will leave it here.

SUMMARY OF THE POINT: Christ is coming in judgment on the Jews of that generation – those who pierced him. On them all the spilled blood of the prophets through the millennia will be exacted: they are the intended target of the judgement. This also means that the Jewish state still existed when this was written (ie, pre-70 AD).

Temporal Language
Second, the temporal verbiage of John’s writing on its face clearly points to a fulfillment in the immediate future. The expectation that these things will be happening quickly occurs three times in the opening chapter (1:1, 3, 19) and the book closes with four reminders of these visions immediacy (22: 6, 7, 12, 20) – seven times, a number that curiously shows up throughout the book and symbolized perfection or wholeness. Six of these references, found in the first chapter and in the last, use the word tachei. This word is used six other times in the New Testament, and it always, always, always means “right away.”

Just so we are not confused as to the timing, John uses other words in his vocabulary to make it clear these events are right around the corner. He says they are mellei genesthai – an emerging transition at the very point of action.

In order to avoid the clear and simple meaning of these seven references to immediacy, they are instead taken by late date advocates to mean that whenever these things start to happen, they will all happen quickly. ‘Soon’ starts when the first domino is tapped, but that tap may be a long time in coming. Another reinterpretation of ‘shortly be done’ is translated as more like a ‘what is necessary to do quickly.’ The idea here is that the action is a perpetual impending, and is more of a warning that one should be alert, because you don’t know when the hammer will fall.

But this is a dishonest interpretation. Not only do the Greek words not mean this, we don’t mean this. If I tell my wife I am going to the store and will be back soon, and I return two years later with a quart of milk and a Snickers, she is going to sit me down for a talk, and you can bet my definition of “soon” will be one of the topics addressed.

John is telling the seven churches that a judgement is about to happen, the axe is at the root of the tree, so hold onto your butts. If we believe John to be saying these events will be descending on some generation thousands of years in the future, the seven churches to whom it was read would have been beyond baffled and profited little, and likely unblessed by its words, which is one of the points of their reading it.

So why doesn’t a late date view just take the “soon” references at face value as referring to the immediate future of 95 AD? It is because the earth-shattering language finds no equivalent events in that time period. There is nothing so tectonic shifting in the history books that we could say was the fulfillment of John’s prophecies in the late first or early second century.

What about if John wrote in 65 AD? Do we find any historical events that are up to the task? You can be your sweet bippy, we do. The late 60s was an era so covenantally significant and dramatic for the Jews of that time that it could rightly be called “the coming of Christ”. The first century records show us a time when not only were hundreds, but thousands of Jews were slaughtered. Josephus, a first-century historian and a Jew, observes:

Whereas the war which the Jews made with the Romans hath been the greatest of all those, not only that have been in our times, but, in a manner, of those that ever were heard of both of those wherein cities have fought against cities, or nations against nations. . . . Accordingly it appears to me, that the misfortunes of all men, from the beginning of the world, if they be compared to these of the Jews, are not so considerable as they were.

Josephus, Jewish Wars

In this description, we hear the echoes of Jesus’s words to the disciples during his Olivet discourse, “For then there will be great tribulation, such as has not been from the beginning of the world until now, no, and never will be (Matthew 24:21).

In addition to the physical destruction, we have the rich covenantal significance of the Temple, the symbol of the Old Covenant, being destroyed and the establishment of a new kingdom, a new Jerusalem, that is not of this world.

Even in the secular world, the time period of the late 60s to early 70s was one of the most, if not the most tumultuous time in Roman history replete with civil wars, external invaders and a crumbling empire evidenced by four emperors in one year (Galba, Otho, Vitellius and Vespasian), which is known in history as The Year of The Four Emperors (68-69 AD). Nothing in the reign of Domitian had anything close to the covenantal, persecutive, or imperial collapse experienced under Nero.

Summary of the Point: Gentry concludes “the long view inventions associated with [soon] are very unnatural and seem to be without precedent, arising from necessity for it to have to mean in the future based on the presumption of the books proposed futurist interpretation”. It seems very clear that the re-translation of these temporal references is a backfill job necessitated by an a priori commitment to a late date. The cataclysmic visions find a very real and immediate fulfillment in the internal imperial strife and bloody Jewish wars of the late 60s, and only an oblique correlation if placed in the late 90s.

Identity of the Sixth King
One of the Biblical principles of interpretation is that we interpret the obscure passages in light of the clear. In Revelation 17, we have some very interesting buoys floating right on the top of the text that can help us interpret the deep and mysterious symbolism, giving us an anchor in history.

And he carried me away in the Spirit into a wilderness, and I saw a woman sitting on a scarlet beast that was full of blasphemous names, and it had seven heads and ten horns.

And I saw the woman, drunk with the blood of the saints, the blood of the martyrs of Jesus. When I saw her, I marveled greatly. But the angel said to me, “Why do you marvel? I will tell you the mystery of the woman, and of the beast with seven heads and ten horns that carries her. The beast that you saw was, and is not, and is about to rise from the bottomless pit and go to destruction. And the dwellers on earth whose names have not been written in the book of life from the foundation of the world will marvel to see the beast, because it was and is not and is to come. This calls for a mind with wisdom: the seven heads are seven mountains on which the woman is seated; they are also seven kings, five of whom have fallen, one is, the other has not yet come, and when he does come he must remain only a little while. As for the beast that was and is not, it is an eighth but it belongs to the seven, and it goes to destruction. And the ten horns that you saw are ten kings who have not yet received royal power, but they are to receive authority as kings for one hour, together with the beast. These are of one mind, and they hand over their power and authority to the beast.

Revelation 17:3, 6-13

John sees a very strange vision indeed, and his response is that he, literally, “wonders with great wonder.” The vision is odd enough that it “calls for wisdom.” Some take this to mean that the interpretation requires connecting newspaper headlines with red strings, the truth emerging only when the 4-D puzzle is complete and you hold your face just right. But we don’t need to go to such lengths, because the angel said he was going to tell John what this strange sight means. Follow the angelic interpretation, and you will have the prerequisite wisdom.

“The seven heads are mountains.’ This is about as clear a verse as we will find in Revelation. Gentry observes, “Rome is the one city in history that has been distinguished for and universally recognizable by its seven hills. The famous seven hills are the Palatine, Aventine, Caelian, Esquiline, Viminal, Quirinal, and Capitoline hills.” Nearly all scholars agree on this, even dispensationalists. This locates us positionally, geographically, in Rome. The next portion will place us chronologically.

But the seven heads are also seven kings. The angle tells John that five of these kings have come and gone, a sixth king is currently reigning, and the seventh is on his way, but he is only going to last a little while. The kings are the emperors of Rome. The five who were referred to Julius Caesar, Augustus, Tiberias, Caligula, Claudias; the sixth one, who is Nero, the sitting emperor at the presumed time of this writing; the seventh and brief king would be Galba, who, after Nero, reigned three months before he was assassinated. John places us in time and space with this vision and the angelic interpretation of it.

Some take issue with the seven kings, as the Roman Empire was officially started with Augustus, but there is ample historical evidence that the common man clearly saw Julius as the first emperor, not least of which is that he took the title imperator. Suetonius, a Roman historian, lists Julius as the first of the Caesar dynasty. Most importantly, Josephus, who overlapped with John’s life, and representing a Jewish view, called Augustus the second emperor and Tiberius the third. This is clearly a time stamp dating the writing of this book in or before 68 AD, the year of Nero’s death.

Counter arguments to this view include that an emperor reigning for only three months would not register in the vast Roman Empire since news didn’t travel as fast as it does today. However, Suetonius records Galba on his list of emperors, and Ephesus was one of the hubs for emperor worship in Asia. Some scholars also presume these “sevens” are symbolic, since there are a great many other symbolic numbers in Revelation. Agreed, there are symbolic numbers in Revelation, but it does not then follow that all numbers are symbolic, or that the symbolism doesn’t have a literal and figurative meaning. (This brings up the question of how we view the symbols of Revelation, which I will address in the next post.)

Still others see the seven hills and seven kings as manifestations of world powers throughout history, like successive world powers like Rome. However, the word we have here is “kings” and not “kingdoms”. Also, there is a clear allusion to Rome in the “seven hills”, and if John is not referring to Rome here, it is almost certain that this is how his intended audience would have taken it and would consequently have caused incredible confusion.

Summary of the point: Gentry concludes, “It seems indisputably clear that the book of Revelation must be dated in the reign of Nero Caesar, and consequently before his death in June, A.D. 68. He is the sixth king; the short-lived rule of the seventh king (Galba) “has not yet come.”” I believe one of the main reasons the early date is largely unknown in our day, and specifically to the American church, is that we do not know history. We do not know it because we are not taught it. We tend to err towards not only ethnocentrism, only considering interpretations which align with American and scientific (literal) sensibilities, but also chronocentrism, believing that a distance of two thousand years somehow puts us at a better chance of understanding the visions than the audience to which the letter was addressed. As a point of fact, the average American would have to have three phDs in ancient history to be able to speculate on what a fishmonger’s wife in the first century knew as certainty.

Integrity of the Temple
The destruction of the Temple in 70 AD was the most cataclysmic event in Jewish life in over 600 years, since the destruction of Solomon’s Temple by Nebuchadnezzar in 586 BC. Given the theme of Revelation stated above, that this book is a judgement on the Jews of that generation, had the book been written in the mid-90s, we most certainly would have heard of the Temple’s destruction. As it is, not only do we have no mention of this event in Revelation, but we see the Temple actually intact.

Then I was given a measuring rod like a staff, and I was told, “Rise and measure the temple of God and the altar and those who worship there, but do not measure the court outside the temple; leave that out, for it is given over to the nations, and they will trample the holy city for forty-two months.

Revelation 11:1-2

Notice here we have mention of both the Temple and the holy city, which are intact, and as of yet “untrampled.” Many scholars see this as nothing but a crystal clear indicator of the book’s pre-70 AD writing. Indeed, so clear is this indicator that it is difficult to misunderstand it.

Scholar Friedrich Dusterdieck says, “It is sufficient for chronological interest that prophecy depends upon the presupposition that the destruction of the Holy City had not yet occurred. This is derived with the greatest evidence from the text, since it is said, ver. 2, that the Holy City, i.e., Jerusalem, is to be trodden down by the Gentiles.” Bernard Weiss agrees, “The time of the Apocalypse is also definitely fixed by the fact that according to the prophecy in chapter 11 it was manifestly written before the destruction of Jerusalem, which in chapter 11:1 is only anticipated.”

Author Robinson goes further and sees the omission of any mention of the destruction of the Temple anywhere in the New Testament as solid grounds for dating all of its canon before its occurrence.

It was at this point that I began to ask myself just why any of the books of the New Testament needed to be put after the fall of Jerusalem in 70 AD. As one began to look at them, and in particular the epistle to theHebrews, Acts and the Apocalypse, was it not strange that this cataclysmic event was never once mentioned or apparently hinted at [i.e., as a past fact]?

One of the oddest facts about the New Testament is that what on any showing would appear to be the single most datable and climactic event of the period — the fall of Jerusalem in A.D. 70 — is never once mentioned as a past fact. . . . The silence is nevertheless as significant as the silence for Sherlock Holmes of the dog that did not bark.

John A.T. Robinson, Redating the New Testament

Importantly, works dated post 70 AD, but still first century, such as the Epistle of Barnabas, do, in fact, mention the Temple’s destruction. Ignatius mentions it in the early 100s, as does Justin Martyr (150s), the Book of Esdras (100s), 2 Baruch (120s), the Sibylline Oracles (late 90s), and the Apocalypse of Abraham (late 90s).

There are several counterpoints to this view. One is that the Temple mentioned here is symbolic of the Church – that it will be the church which is to be trampled, either happening in our future or the persecution of the saints which has happened successively through history. There are several reasons why this is not the case. First, the Temple here is located in “the holy city” (v. 2), which is clearly Jerusalem, as no other city in history or in the Bible has this descriptor. Secondly, we know the judgement of Christ is coming on the Jews for the final sin of rejecting him, and this judgement, Jesus tells us in Matthew 24, will be the destruction of the Temple (ie, not one stone left on another). It is not difficult to see how these two prophecies are envisioning the same occurrence. Indeed, John uses the same phrase as Jesus: Compare Jesus’s, “Jerusalem will be trampled underfoot by the Gentiles,” and John’s, “[the holy city] has been given to the nations and they will tread underfoot.” We also know the physical Temple and Jerusalem were “given to the nations” (Rome) to be trampled, a historical and uncontroversial fact.

Secondly, the existence of the Temple is not necessary to have a vision of it. Ezekiel’s vision of the Temple (Ezekiel 40-42), which is extensive and detailed, was written after the first destruction of the Temple. Daniel (Daniel 9:24-27) also envisioned a Temple and was writing after the Babylonian exile and Temple destruction. The presumption here, mostly from Dispensational adherents, is that this is pointing to a time in the future when the Temple will be rebuilt, or at least John’s vision of a Temple does not necessitate its still standing.

These counterpoints are offset by some of what was already said above – the Temple being set in the holy city. Secondly, some of this is self-referential: a late date advocate would see the passages of Daniel in light of their presuppositions, and an early date advocate would do the same. Which one of these is accurate is dependent upon the interpretation of Revelation illuminating Daniel and vice versa. Each side has its semantic scaffolding. The boon for the early date view is that we have hard data of a Temple standing in 65 AD and non-existent in 95 AD, where the late date advocates (at least some ie: Dispensationalists) must presume the building of a third Temple so that it can then be trampled, or be diluted among the various church persecutions of history.

As a last rebuttal, this vision of the trampling of the Temple is given a specified length: forty-two months. Late date advocates place this during the three and a half year tribulation (there is a significant variety of interpretations of the tribulation, rapture, etc, among these views) where the church will be persecuted. However, we have a similar time frame known to history where Nero’s persecution of the church started in the spring of 67 AD, lasting through the summer of 70 AD – a period of 42 months, or three and a half years. This point will be expanded on below.

Summary of the point: The destruction of the Temple is one of the most datable occurrences in history. The mention of the Temple in tact is the most clear, and straightforward way to take Revelation 11, pointing to an authorship prior to its destruction, pre-70 AD. Christian sources known to be written after the Temple’s destruction bewail the fact, making the absence of this event in the canon more certain it was extant. Furthermore, the period of trampling of the Temple corresponds to the exact and known forty-two-month time period of the Romans’ scouring Israel ending in the destruction of the Temple.

Mark of the Beast, 666, and Nero
Not only are the temporal indicators which place the writing of Revelation on the event horizon of the Roman persecution under Nero, but we also have Nero being named specifically, though cryptically, named. And this is the most ubiquitously known image of the entire book: 666.

What is this infamous number? Is it a UPC code? Social security number? Implantable microchip? Musk’s Neurolink? Covid jab? All of these things and more have been suggested. Indeed, identifying the “mark of the beast” seems like one of America’s favorite pastimes. However, the proposed meaning for an early date is much less speculative and again illuminates shadowy visions with the light of historical context – the number clearly names Nero himself.

English language uses two different systems for our language and numbers, with a Latin alphabet and Arabic numerals. The Hebrew, Latin, and Greek alphabets, however, were dual-purpose in that the letters had both phonetic and numerical usage. We have some familiarity with the vestiges of this when we learn Roman numerals. The letters M,D,C,L,V,X, and I have associated numerical values that “add up” to a certain number: you live in the year MMXXIII – 2023. The Hebrew equivalent of this mathematical game is called gamatria, where the numerical value is used as a sort of simple cryptogram as a stand-in for a name. Archaeologists have found common usages in the Greek as well. In the ancient city of Pompeii, an inscription was found by some young teenage lovers graffitied as “I love her whose number is 545”. Cute.

Using the gamatria game in Hebrew, and the Hebrew spelling of Nero Caesar (though not the most common), “Nrwn Qsr”, the letters add up to precisely 666. Though the entire weight of the early date cannot hinge on this piece of evidence, any unbiased observer should be able to see the “strange coincidence” of a name cryptically hidden, which clearly corresponds to the incumbent Roman ruler who was a portent of persecution and a scourge to humanity.

A couple of things to note here are that the Neronian interpretation of 666 meets several criteria. First, it is the number of a man, not a place, injection, medicine, or brain implant. Nero was a man. Also, given that there are many, many names whose numbers could add up to 666, the fact that Nero is also applicable to the readers of the letters (presuming an early date) means the numbers had specificity. The name had to be relevant to the first century. It would do no good if the early church, after calculating the number, quizzically asked, “Who is this Barack Obama fella?”

Further juicing the intrigue, there are a few textual variants where the number is 616, which, interestingly, is the numerical value of Nero Caesar when spelled in Hebrew by transliterating it from its Latin spelling.

This is not the first time we have Nero being cryptically referred to in this way. Suetonius also records another code circulating just after Rome burned under Nero’s watch: “A calculation new. Nero his mother slew,” where the letters of the rest of the sentence equal the number of Nero’s name, implying “Nero = one who slays his own mother.” Two other examples of this math game indicating Nero are found in the Sibylline Oracles. As a point of interest, Jesus, “lesous” in Greek, adds up to 888.

So the gamatria that John uses here in Revelation is not some innovation of his own, but was a common game that was used at the time in a variety of languages and was a very familiar concept. Most of the first-century Christians were of Hebrew extraction.

Leading the counterarguments to this understanding of Nero as 666 are the fact that none of the early church fathers seem to know what the number meant, as though the number was still shrouded in mystery. Irenaeus actually suggests a few names that match the gamatria, and Nero isn’t one of them, but he never offers any workable alternative, instead expressing the hopelessness of ever figuring it out.

Also, some use a similar argument from symbology mentioned in the previous section, that the number was meant to be symbolic. The symbolism of the number 666 stands for a falling short of perfection (777) and a Christless civilization that is under the dominion of the devil.

To rebut the first argument, it is possible, assuming an early date, that the knowledge was lost as Irenaeus was writing some 120+ years after John’s mystery number. Had he supplied a viable alternative, this argument would be weightier. As it is, it may be that the name was only recognizable to John’s most intimate friends in the seven churches. And the use of the gamatria oughtn’t surprise us: John’s audience was mostly comprised of Hebrews, as Galatians 2:9 tells us, who were represented everywhere in the empire. Also, Revelation is the most Hebrew book in the New Testament with over a thousand references, quotes, or parallels to the Old Testament. While John writes in Greek, he thinks in Hebrew, with several other straight-up Hebrew words tossed into Revelation (ie, Abbadon, Armageddon).

In regard to the second counterpoint, and also mentioned above, there is no rule that a thing cannot be both symbolic and specific. If Nero is 666, he also most certainly stood as the head of a civilization that hated Christ and wanted none of him.

My take on it is that John uses Nero’s name for both. Wanting to symbolize the “perfect imperfection” of the beast, he wants to use 666 and picks a well-understood Hebrew name for Nero and buries it in gamatria. Writing before Nero went nuts, he is warning people not to get in deep with this guy because he is coming for you.

If we are to take a more literal tack on this, Nero was, to be blunt, a beast. There is universal agreement upon this fact. Already mentioned above, he was called the “poison of humanity”. He acted with “horrible viciousness as regards men and women.” According to Suetonius, Nero “compelled four hundred senators and six hundred Roman knights, some of whom were well to do and of unblemished reputation, to fight in the arena.” He was a sodomist, delighting in homosexual rape. He castrated a young boy who looked like his wife, whom he kicked to death while pregnant, and married him. He dressed up as a bride and married a man. He killed his parents, brother, wife, aunt, and many others close to him. He even “so prostituted his own chastity that after defiling almost every part of his body, he at last devised a kind of game, in which, covered with the skin of some wild animal, he was let loose from a cage and attacked the private parts of men and women, who were bound to stakes.” Beastly.

A contemporary of Nero’s, Apollonius of Tyana, describes Nero and his behavior as specifically bestial in nature:

In my travels…I have seen many wild beasts of Arabia and India; but this beast, that is commonly called a Tyrant, I know not how many heads it has, nor if it be crooked of claw, and armed with horrible fangs…. And of wild beasts you cannot say that they were ever known to eat their own mother, but Nero gorged himself on this diet.

Summary of the point: Gentry concludes, “Surely Nero’s specter haunts the pages of Revelation. That being the case, we have a sure terminus for the book’s time of writing: June A.D. 68, the date of Nero’s death. This comports well with all the other avenues explored thus far.” In regard to the alignment of Nero’s cryptic name synergized with the symbolism of the perfect imperfection of a Christless 666, I feel compelled to quote our president, Joseph R. Biden, by saying, “C’mon, man!” Either this is one of the greatest coincidences in history, or John is telling his audience with thinly veiled cryptography the identity of the beast.

VERSES CORRELATING TO EARLY DATE

Here we will look at specific verses in Revelation which fit with cogwheel precision into an early date.

Much of the horrific imagery of Revelation is easily spliced into the bloody Jewish Wars of 66-70 AD, which should at least warrant curiosity about the possibility of an early date. Similarities abound, too many to dismiss out of hand. So uncanny are these similarities that it evoked this certitude from historian Frederic Farrar

The reason why the early date and mainly contemporary explanation of the book is daily winning fresh adherents among unbiased thinkers of every Church and school, is partly because it rests on so simple and secure a basis, and partly because no other can compete with it. It is indeed the only system which is built on the plain and repeated statements and indications of the Seer himself and the corresponding events are so closely accordant with the symbols as to make it certain that this scheme of interpretation is the only one that can survive.

Frederic W. Farrar, The Early Days of Christianity

Generally speaking, the time of the 60s was orders of magnitude more tumultuous than the 90s, both for the Church, the Jews, and Rome itself. The first and most horrific Christian persecution was initiated by Nero in 64 AD. The Jewish wars ravaged Israel from 66-70 AD. The Roman Empire nearly collapsed under the internal turmoil of the civil wars from 68-69 AD, the emperorship changing hands four times in one year.

The Riders
We can find very clear correlations between, for example, the riders on the horses and events in this brief period.

When he opened the second seal, I heard the second living creature say, “Come!” And out came another horse, bright red. Its rider was permitted to take peace from the earth [lit. “land”], so that people should slay one another, and he was given a great sword.

When he opened the third seal, I heard the third living creature say, “Come!” And I looked, and behold, a black horse! And its rider had a pair of scales in his hand. And I heard what seemed to be a voice in the midst of the four living creatures, saying, “A quart of wheat for a denarius, and three quarts of barley for a denarius, and do not harm the oil and wine!”

When he opened the fourth seal, I heard the voice of the fourth living creature say, “Come!” And I looked, and behold, a pale horse! And its rider’s name was Death, and Hades followed him. And they were given authority over a fourth of the earth, to kill with sword and with famine and with pestilence and by wild beasts of the earth

Revelation 6:3-8

First, the Rider of the red horse takes peace from the earth (Rev 6:3-4). The Pax Romana had presided over the Empire since instituted by Augustus in 17 BC. Nero ruptured this peace by instigating the great fire that burned Rome and fighting the Jewish wars in Palestine, both of which rankled the Pax until Vespasian brought order in 69/70 AD. This also coincides with the Lord’s teaching of “wars and rumors of wars” in Matthew 24.

Revelation also speaks of war in the land where men may slay one another, indicating civil war. Jewish historian Josephus, an eyewitness to the calamity, insists that the bulk of the slaughter and turmoil in Israel the Jews brought upon themselves by infighting.

There were, besides, disorders and civil wars in every city; and all those that were at quiet from the Remans turned their hands one against another. There was also a bitter contest between those that were fond of war, and those that were desirous of peace. . . . [I]nsomuch that for barbarity and iniquity those of the same nation did no way differ from the Romans; nay, it seemed to be a much lighter thing to be ruined by the Remans than by themselves.

Josephus, Jewish Wars

Next, the Black Rider brings famine. The Roman siege led to the most abysmal famine of all. Within the city of Jerusalem were different factions. The Zealots wanted to fight the Romans, convinced God was on their side. Less pugnacious factions wanted to wait out the siege and ration out the two years’ worth of food they had stored. To force the moderate’s hand, the Zealots burnt the food so to force the hand of the moderates. As the hunger gnawed, people ate leather belts, shoes, strips off of shields, and ate refuse that even animals would have passed over. Josephus tells us of children pulling food out of their father’s mouths, mothers doing the same to their children. Most horrific by far is the story of a woman who ate her baby “…she killed her son, roasted the body, swallowed half of it, and stored the rest in a safe place.” The fact that the oil and wine were spared indicates this was a fabricated famine, not a natural one.

Lastly, the pale horse and Death. The land of Israel was covered in death. Details cited from Josephus are listed below in a passage from Revelation 14. The Jordan was clogged with corpses, Galilee was polluted with bloated bodies, and blood ran in swift red streams down the alleyways and streets.

Sealing of the Saints
John sees 144,000 saints sealed and protected, Revelation 7. This is a symbolic number
(12 x 12 x 1000) meaning the multitude of the chosen. As Vespasian was marching on Jerusalem, all the Jews and Christians were huddled behind its walls. The armies surrounded Jerusalem. For reasons lost to history, after a six-day siege, the armies returned to the north. It was at this time, Eusebius tells us, that the Christians fled the city and made for the cities of Peres and Pella. The Roman army quickly returned and laid siege to Jerusalem, which ended in its destruction and the slaughter of those inside. The Christians were safe. This echoes Jesus’s warning to his disciples in Matthew 24, “When you see Jerusalem surrounded by armies, flee to the hills.” Here in Revelation 7, we see the Christians’ obedience to Jesus’ warning in Matthew 24, the sealing of the 144,000.

Unmitigated Slaughter
The descriptions of blood and death in Revelation are well known, particularly here, in chapter 14.

“And the angel swung his sickle to the earth,
and gathered the clusters from the vine of the earth, and threw them
into the great wine press of the wrath of God. And the wine press
was trodden outside the city, and blood came out from the wine
press, up to the horses’ bridles, for a distance of two hundred miles.”

Revelation 14:19-20

Does history bear witness to such slaughter? Yes. Yes, it does.

Josephus describes the rampant and total death he saw as he made his way through Israel, north to south, during the Jewish Wars. To keep things brief, here are a few experts from his observations.

one might then see the lake all bloody, and full of dead bodies, for not one of them escaped. And a terrible stink, and a very sad sight there was on the following days over that country; for as for the shores, they were full of shipwrecks, and of dead bodies all swelled. . .

At which fight, hand to hand, fifteen thousand of them were slain, while the number of those that were unwillingly forced to leap into Jordan was prodigious. There were besides, two thousand and two hundred taken prisoners. . . . Now this destruction that fell upon the Jews, as it was not inferior to any of the rest in itself, so did it still appear greater than it really was; and this, because not only the whole of the country through which they had fled was filled with slaughter, and Jordan could not be passed over, by reason of the dead bodies that were in it, but because the lake Asphaltitis was also full of dead bodies, that were carried down into it by the river. . . .

[I]n Jerusalem [the dead] obstructed the very lanes with their dead bodies, and made the whole city run down with blood to such a degree indeed that the fire of many of the houses was quenched with these men’s blood.

Josephus, Jewish Wars

Sea of Galilee littered with bloated corpses, the Jordan clogged with dead bodies, the city running with blood so that it puts out house fires – the desolation of the Jewish Wars is a gruesome but perfect fulfillment for the predictions of John.

Hailstones
John sees huge hailstones weighing one talent (100 lbs) falling from the sky

And great hailstones, about one hundred pounds^d each, fell from heaven on people; and they cursed God for the plague of the hail, because the plague was so severe.

Revelation 16:21

There is no known meteorological phenomenon that can produce hailstones close to this size. However, we do have a matching description, again from Josephus.

The engines [i.e., catapults], that all the legions had ready prepared for them, were admirably contrived; but still more extraordinary ones belonged to the tenth legion: those that threw darts and those that threw stones, were more forcible and larger than the rest, by which they not only repelled the excursions of the Jews, but drove those away that were upon the walls also. Now, the stones that were cast, were of the weight of a talent, and were carried two furlongs and further. The blow they gave was no way to be sustained, not only by those that stood first in the way, but by those that were beyond them for a great space. As for the Jews, they at first watched the coming of the stone, for it was a white colour.Josephus, Jewish Wars

Josephus says that the stones catapulted over the walls of Jerusalem during the Roman siege were white, the color of hailstones, and weighed 1 talent.

Trampling of the Temple and the Blasphemer

Then I was given a measuring rod like a staff, and I was told, “Rise and measure the temple of God and the altar and those who worship there, 2but do not measure the court outside the temple; leave that out, for it is given over to the nations, and they will trample the holy city for forty-two months. 3And I will grant authority to my two witnesses, and they will prophesy for 1,260 days, clothed in sackcloth.”

Revelation 11:1-2

The period of time the temple will be trampled was mentioned above, forty-two months, which coincides with the forty-two-month war on the Jews begun by Nero through Vespasian, ending with the Temple destruction. The next verse uses 1260 days, the same amount of time, and both are 3 1/2 years, which carries the symbolic meaning of a “broken seven”.

We have another 42 months, this time not against the holy city, but against the saints.

And there was given to him a mouth speaking arrogant words and blasphemies; and authority to act for forty-two months was given. And he opened his mouth in blasphemies against God, to blaspheme His name and His tabernacle, that is, those who dwell in heaven. And it was given to him to make war with the saints and to overcome them; and authority over every tribe and people and tongue and nation was given to him.Revelation 13:5-7

Revelation 13:5-7

Rome and Nero as the beast have already been established above. Here we have the beast waging war against the saints – Christians – with a persecution lasting forty-two months. Again, we have a one-for-one with historical dates. Nero’s persecution of the Christians started in November 64 AD and ended when he died in June 68 AD. The 42-month period would expire at the end of May, and Nero died beginning of June.

Any astute observer would recognize significant gaps here in the passages cited. Is that all? One could be accused of cherry picking the data that lines up and glossing over the contradictory portions. That is a legitimate concern. However, these points that Gentry highlights are the ones that are more “obvious” and help to settle the entire story of Revelation in a pre-70 AD tumultuous world. See them as tempting invitations to consider a broad and early date interpretation. Once inside this rubric, one can then look and see all the spectacular images that take shape through the Old Testament symbolism properly understood. Another way to say this is that these choice morsels are the SWAG to entice you to consider the visions as layers of metaphor John weaves together using the shared bank of symbols in the Old Testament.

Summary of the points: There is an uncanny resemblance between what is known as historical fact and the oracles set down by John in Revelation. If written in the mid-60s AD, this comports perfectly with events “that will soon take place.” This is only a smattering of the most interesting; there are many others. In my opinion, the main reason the early date is unconvincing to most is that they are unfamiliar with first-century history.

Evidence from the Churches
Revelation opens with seven brief letters to seven churches in Asia Minor. These churches are arranged in a horseshoe along the western coast of what is now Turkey. This letter from John would have been read along a circuit, reaching each of the churches, and included a little blurb to each. Some find evidence in these letters necessitating a late date. But after closer inspection, they do not.

To the church in Laodicea, John writes

For you say, I am rich, I have prospered, and I need nothing, not realizing that you are wretched, pitiable, poor, blind, and naked.

Revelation 3:17

Laodicea was a very rich city, but was devastated by an earthquake in 60 AD. The presumption is that the city could not have been prosperous and rich if John had written this letter a mere 5 years after the earthquake, needing the span of decades to achieve its former opulence. If John wrote to this church in 95 AD, it would make much more sense as the city would have had time to recover.

However, earthquakes were common in the area, and likely this was not the first time some of these cities had had to rebuild. Apparently, they were very good at putting themselves back together, swift even, since we have a statement from Tacitus about the city saying Laodicea “arose from the ruins by the strength of her own resources, and with no help from us.” There was no petition from the empire for funds to rebuild, clearly implying they had oodles of money to pull themselves back together without imperial subsidy. Also, it does not follow that just because the city was wrecked that the much smaller church within the city, that group of individuals, were also economically ruined. The letter is written to the church within the city, not the entire city.

Given the external evidence of Laodicea’s swift and self-sufficient recovery, the late date claim that the city needed decades to recover to warrant Jesus’s chastisement in 65 AD fails to persuade. Too, several renowned late date scholars do not even use Laodicea as an argument for their position.

The existence of the Church at Smyrna is also claimed as evidence for a 95 AD date. Polycarp (69-155), a bishop at Smyrna, writes, “But I have not found any such thing in you [i.e., the church at Philippi], neither have I heard thereof among whom the blessed Paul labored, who were his letters in the beginning. For he boasteth of you in all those churches which alone at that time knew God; for we knew him not as yet.” Paul was executed by Nero somewhere around 67 AD. This statement by Polycarp seems to presume that the Smyrna church had not yet been planted until after Paul’s death, meaning the was no church in Smyrna to write to in 65 AD.

Among the late date arguments found in the church letters, this one seems to be the weightiest. But as you would suppose, there are different takes on Polycarp’s meaning. John AT Robinson rebuts this bit of evidence the best:

One objection however can be dismissed, which is constantly repeated from one writer to another. This is that Polycarp in his epistle to thePhilippians (11 .3) states that his own church at Smyrna had not been founded till after the death of Paul – so that it could not therefore be addressed as it is in Rev. 2.8-11 as early as the late 60s. But, as Lightfoot observed long ago, all that Polycarp actually says is that“the Philippians were converted to the Gospel before the Smyrnaens – a statement which entirely accords with the notices of the two churches in the New Testament.” It is astonishing that so much has continued to be built on so little.

John A.T. Robinson, Redating the New Testament

Likely, Smyrna was evangelized shortly after Ephesus, as Acts 19 tells us “all who lived in Asia hear the word of the Lord Jesus” (Acts 19:10). Smyrna is less than 50 miles north of Ephesus and was a major port city.

Another argument for a late date found in the letters is the noted decline in spiritual fervor, a decline that is presumed to necessitate decades to reach the levels that John admonishes against. The church of Sardis has “a reputation of being dead” (Revelation 3:1), Ephesus had abandoned their first love (Revelation 2:4), Pergamum holds to the teachings of Balaam and practices sexual immorality (Revelation 2:14), and Thyatira “tolerates Jezebel”. Surely such a decline in churches could not have happened so quickly, within years of their founding.

But this decline ought not surprise us, nor stand as any significant deterrent for an early date. Paul’s letters to the Galatians contain similar warnings where Paul is aghast at how quickly they had deserted the one who saved them for another gospel (Galatians 1:6). And Paul sent Timothy to the Corinthians to deal with nutty sexual licentiousness that was burning through Corinth. If they happened in these churches very quickly, certainly it doesn’t necessitate decades for the decline to have happened in the churches of Revelation.

Lastly, it is often cited that these seven churches are symbolic of the church ages, and we, clearly, are the fat and lazy Laodiceans, drowning in our opulence. But this is very ethnocentric. I can imagine poor but vibrant churches in other countries would respond to the claim that they are fat with, “Hey, speak for yourself.” We ought not take the church/age view and think that just because Americans are rich and wandering from God, they are the sole representatives of Christ’s bride on earth to the exclusion of the myriad, thriving churches in other countries.

Summary of the point: Gentry concludes, “Not one of the arguments considered individually, nor all of them considered collectively, compel acceptance of the Domitianic date of Revelation.” In my opinion, there is no reason, other than ethnocentrism, to think the Church, when taken as a whole, is as porky as the American church is. Indeed, countries where the gospel is exploding may very well see themselves in Christ’s word to the Philadelphians and be heartened by his encouragement to patient endurance.

Domitianic Evidences

Modern scholars cite many bits of internal evidence for why they believe the book was written under Domitian. These will then be compared with the time of Nero to see which time frame better explains the evidence.

Emperor Worship
Clear evidences of emperor worship are found in Revelation, and it is believed that the emperor cult was not in existence until Domitian. To be sure, Domitian was a megalomaniac stemming from what seems to be a childhood of being insignificant. His father, Vespasian, a general and conqueror of the Jewish Wars, became emperor in 70 AD. His elder brother by a decade, Titus, presided over the destruction of Jerusalem and also was emperor after his father. Poor little Dom was left at home and had lots of daddy issues. It is not hard to see how he would have siphoned glory for his name through bulking up the emperor worship. And this really is what he did.

However, he did not instigate the emperor cult. In reality, emperor worship goes back a long way, finding its origin in Julius. Caligula put his head on a statue of Jupiter and attempted to have it erected in the temple of Jerusalem. Nero claimed the title “son of Apollo.” Inscriptions in Ephesus have been found calling Nero “Almighty God and Savior.” Furthermore, Nero’s persecution was specifically against Christian as Christians, unlike Domitian’s, which, apart from being much, much less severe, was not focused on one single group but on individuals. Indeed, even the evidence that such persecution existed plagues late date advocates like George Ladd, as he “the problem with this theory is that there is no evidence that during the last decade of the first century there occurred any open and systematic persecution of the church.”

Even though internal evidence is preferable, we have only one, obscure external piece of evidence that there was any persecution against Christians under Domitian. By contrast, the sheer quantity of evidence that Nero specifically persecuted the church is not only replete but also mentioned by many secular and Christian sources at the time. To spare you the glut of sources, I will only cite two, one from Tacitus and the other from Orosius (385-420):

But by no human contrivance, whether lavish distributions of money or of offerings to appease the gods, could Nero rid himself of the ugly rumor that the fire was due to his orders. So to dispel the report, he substituted as the guilty persons and inflicted unheard-of punishments on those who, detested for their abominable crimes, were vulgarly called Christians. . . .So those who first confessed were hurried to the trial, and then, on their showing, an immense number were involved in the same fate, not so much on the charge of incendiaries as from hatred of the human race. And their death was aggravated with mockeries, insomuch that, wrapped in the hides of wild beasts, they were torn to pieces by dogs, fastened to crosses to be set on fire, that when the darkness fell they might be burned to illuminate the night. Nero had offered his own gardens for the spectacle, and exhibited a circus show, mingling with the crowd, himself dressed as a charioteer or riding in a chariot. Whence it came about that, though the victims were guilty and deserved the most exemplary punishment, a sense of pity was aroused by the feeling that they were sacrificed not on the altar of public interest, but to satisfy the cruelty of one man.

Tacitus, Annals

[Nero] was the first at Rome to torture and inflict the penalty of death upon Christians, and he ordered them throughout all the provinces to be afflicted with like persecution; and in his attempt to wipe out the very name, he killed the most blessed apostles of Christ, Peter and Paul.

Orosius, The Seven Books of History Against the Pagans

Summary of the point: Gentry concludes, “It is indisputably the case that Christianity was persecuted by Nero Caesar. The evidence for a Domitianic persecution is immeasurably weaker, and thus the argument for a Domitianic setting for Revelation is also weaker.” The difference between Domitian and Nero, from what I have read, is the difference between an entitled lesser son and a demon-possessed lunatic. The former elevated himself from a need for greatness, and the Christians were one group of many who were goaded to bend the knee; the latter became unhinged, drunk with power and inhabited by a lust to do evil for evil’s sake, targeting Christians alone as a group with extreme prejudice and cruelty.

Conclusion

There are many other arguments Gentry cites as either direct evidence for an early date or as rebuttals to late date claims, such as the Jewishness of the Christianity in Revelation, the Nero redivivus myth, and other specific verses correlated to the persecution under Nero. Indeed, the entire book, when seen through an early date perspective, is illuminated by history, and many things fall into place. I highly commend the book.

On the whole, the internal evidence, in my opinion, tips the scale significantly in the early date direction. I agree with Gentry that the internal evidence, particularly when the Bible is concerned, ought to have more gravitas. Because of this weight, I believe the early date for the external evidence, though by itself slightly less convincing than for a late date, ought to be seen in light of this clarity and interpreted accordingly. However, I do not think either side has a case so certain that it calls for incredulity towards opposing views, or so hopelessly deadlocked it that cripples confident decision. I believe there is a clear winner. My purpose for these posts is to introduce the reader to what was for me a wholly new concept – that Revelation describes events in John’s immediate future and our distant past – a perspective of such monumental significance that its absence from evangelical sermons borders on negligence.

Reasons to hold an early date extend beyond both internal and external evidence, which I plan to make clear in the next post in this series. One must not only look at the letter itself and the surrounding historical context, but also at the last chapter in the story of the coming of the kingdom of God – the story of history. Taking the book apart from the corpus of the Bible and expecting to have a working understanding of its purpose is like vivisecting a liver and evaluating it by itself. Only when understood in situ do we see the ligaments, sinews, and vessels that connect to the rest of the body and how it feeds and is fed by the whole.

I will leave you with an extended quote from Gentry, which summarizes his understanding of why this issue of Revelations date is so important.

The resolution of the question of the dating of Revelation has far-reaching practical implications for the average Christian. As noted in our opening comments, fascination with Revelation is an extremely widespread phenomenon in American Christianity. Almost certainly this fascination will continue. The importance of Revelation for eschatological inquiry lends it an especially influential role in the development and implementation of a Christian worldview. Hence, it is of grave ethical and cultural significance in that it impacts on the Christian’s view of history.

On the one hand, if Christianity’s eschatological expectation is that of an imminently portending and dismally precipitous decline and extinction of Christian influence in our day, as much of current Christian literature suggests, then our Christian endeavor will be powerfully bent in one direction. And it must necessarily be turned away from the implementation of long-term Christian cultural progress and dominion. If Revelation’s judgments are yet to occur and lie in our future, then we must expect and prepare for the worst.

On the other hand, if the expectation held by the Christian community is of a sure hope for progress and victory, then the focus of Christian enterprise will be of a constructive and future-oriented nature. Our cultural endeavor will not be in despite of our eschatology, but in light of it. In this regard, if Revelation’s judgments lie in the past and punctuate the close of the old order in preparation for a divinely wrought novus ordo seclorum in which God will be engaged in “reconciling the world to Himself” (2 Cor. 5:19) and “drawing all men” to Christ (’John12:31), then the Church can confidently seek to bring “every thought captive to the obedience of Christ” (2 Cor.10:5).

We also noted in the beginning of our inquiry that a serious confusion as to the nature and message of Revelation is partly responsible for the cultural defeatism and retreatist pietism so influential in twentieth century Christianity. There we observed that one reason for confusion as to the Church’s future is due to a radical misunderstanding of the date of the writing of Revelation. If Revelation is inadvertently dated after the events it prophesies as future, the way is opened to a radical misconstruing of its message. Indeed, not only has the message been misread in such circumstances, but it has been wholly inverted, placing in our future what really lies in our past. Hence, the significance of the date of Revelation.

Kenneth Gentry, Before Jerusalem Fell