Eh, I read Kenneth Gentries’ book on dating Revelation to before 70 AD but I didn’t find it convincing. The Nero Redivivus myth is clearly found in the text and for that to happen Nero would have been as dead as doornail already, and the part of the book adressing this was rather weak. Likewise, the city of Rome fits Babylon the Great in my eyes much better than Jeruselum, and Nero’s persecution didn’t really leave the city of Rome for people in Asia Minor to have to endure it.
As for prophecying things that have already come to pass, there was a technique in prophecy and apocalyptic literature called prophecy ex eventu in which the guy doing the prophecy was living at the time these events took place but frames his work as prophecying these events to theologically show to the audience that God has been in control of things the whole time.
Interestingly i’ve seen scholars say this where the seven heads representing seven kings, one having a fatal head wound and the eighth that is among the seven but will return and is going to his destruction, places Vespasian as the “one who is” in the book (because he discounts the three emperors before him that reigned during the year of four emperors because their reigns are so short), and Domition as the eighth king who is cast as Nero come back from the dead to persecute Christians again. However, Domition is actually the emperor at the time, so the prophecy is being framed as if its written under Vespasian but is forcasting what would happen under Domition.
There looks to be a decade of serious reading in the bibliography for the Britannica article: eschatology | Britannica. Perhaps some things of interest there.
“Telling about the future” has to be viewed in how the NT writers viewed prophecy: they cite as fulfillment of prophecy verses which were never given as prophecy. That points to a “this matches that” view where specific predictions aren’t to be expected – after all, no one took “Out of Egypt I have called my son” to be more than a historical statement until Matthew made that connection.
It’s too bad we don’t have a bunch of writings about Revelation from the people who back then saw it happening around them! All we really know is that observation, not so much what text they connected with what events.
And at the other end of the spectrum there are churches who think that going to seminary is somehow the Devil’s work.
The earliest view of the NT priesthood I’ve found was that the priest is really nothing more than the mouth and hands of Jesus Who is presiding again/anew at the one Table, so that there has only ever been one Lord’s Supper at a Table that extends not just in space but in time. Somewhere along the line it the idea somehow got introduced that the priest is more than just an instrument but has some special power (Rome went off the deep end with this idea).
A note about the “memorialist” view: in context of the OT writings, that has it exactly backwards. The “memorial sacrifice” which was denoted in the same way that Jesus uses wasn’t about the people remembering, it was about the people reminding God of His promises. That was the earliest sense in which the church called the Eucharist a sacrifice, though it was also seen early on that since the bread and wine were by Christ’s declaration the same body and blood as were shed on the Cross then it was also a sacrifice in blood – yet not a new sacrifice, just the very same one as the Cross, distributed in time and space to those who were not present at the first Eucharist in terms of the timeline. So each new celebration of the Eucharist is not a new sacrifice, it is a distribution of the original sacrifice.
May is ask that you explain to me Pauls statement in Galations Chapter 1
15But when God, who set me apart from my mother’s womb and called me by His grace, was pleased 16to reveal His Son in me so that I might preach Him among the Gentiles, I did not rush to consult with flesh and blood, 17nor did I go up to Jerusalem to the apostles who came before me, but I went into Arabia and later returned to Damascus.
Also consider Pauls statement in Galations with his conversion earlier in Acts 8 and 9
1And Saul was there, giving approval to Stephen’s death.
On that day a great persecution broke out against the church in Jerusalem, and all except the apostles were scattered throughout Judea and Samaria. 2God-fearing men buried Stephen and mourned deeply over him. 3But Saul began to destroy the church. Going from house to house, he dragged off men and women and put them in prison.
1Meanwhile, Saul was still breathing out murderous threats against the disciples of the Lord. He approached the high priest 2and requested letters to the synagogues in Damascus, so that if he found any men or women belonging to the Way, he could bring them as prisoners to Jerusalem.
3As Saul drew near to Damascus on his journey, suddenly a light from heaven flashed around him. 4He fell to the ground and heard a voice say to him, “Saul, Saul, why do you persecute Me?”
“I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting,” He replied.a6“Now get up and go into the city, and you will be told what you must do.”
7The men traveling with Saul stood there speechless. They heard the voice but did not see anyone.8Saul got up from the ground, but when he opened his eyes he could not see a thing.b So they led him by the hand into Damascus. 9For three days he was without sight, and he did not eat or drink anything.
The significance of the above becomes obvious when one reads Acts 7
55But Stephen, full of the Holy Spirit, looked intently into heaven and saw the glory of God and Jesus standing at the right hand of God. 56“Look,” he said, “I see heaven open and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God.”
Are you claiming still that the apostle Luke is not dealing with visions and dreams in Acts 7 given what also happened to the apostle Saul not long after Stephens death or;
are you claiming that Stephen, against all modern scientific evidence,
actually developed the ability through evolution in his short 30 year life to be able to look through our atmosphere and into space in the middle of the day and,
had such fantastic eyesight that he saw the Father and the Son sitting on a throne in the distant universe or, in another dimension?
Wouldnt you agree that its more rational to accept that Stephen saw all this in vision at that moment?
I agree that the Roman Catholic Church went off the deep end with this idea, however, just because a church does this does not mean its actually biblical! That is the entire reason why Christianity spent hundreds of years going through the reformation, starting with Martin Luthers rejection of the churches unbiblical practices
On 31 October 1517, Luther wrote to his bishop, Albrecht von Brandenburg, protesting against the sale of indulgences. He enclosed in his letter a copy of his “Disputation on the Power and Efficacy of Indulgences”,[a] which came to be known as the Ninety-five Theses .
Luther’s boldest assertion in the debate was that Matthew 16:18 does not confer on popes the exclusive right to interpret scripture,
The really funny thing about all of the above is this, the secular/church council that was formed to enforce the excommunication of Luther was calledDiet of Worms. The emperor presented the final draft of the Edict of Worms on 25 May 1521, declaring Luther an outlaw, banning his literature, and requiring his arrest: "We want him to be apprehended and punished as a notorious heretic.
I should add, my wife, who just seems to innately breathe a knowledge of English literature that I’m regularly humbled by, tells me the correct pronunciation of the word “Worms” in the above example is “warms”. However, given the modern English translation spelling, I find it funny nevertheless.
Finally,
The purgatory indulgence motto at the time of the 95 theses became
“As soon as the coin in the coffer rings, the soul from purgatory (also attested as ‘into heaven’) springs.”[50]
Well-stated! If the choice is between recognizing (or at least allowing for) some elasticity of interpretation / application or imposing a brittle and calcified (for all time) meaning, the latter does not seem to me like any kind of way to honor a living text. Nor does it (the latter way) appear to be the way that Christ or the early church apostles interacted with the text.
That said, it still seems to me that there are ways of handling the text that can (or should be) ruled out for all time. Such as abusing the text to contort it into the service of power and domination of some over others.
For me, in this matter - I’m finding my basis for trust to be more in people than in sets of texts / systematic theologies. I.e. I attend to some people (whether past or present) more than others just because of what I have seen in their character, and the entire body of things they’ve already pubicly committed to, and more importantly: lived out. Once that is established, it takes a lot for me to break off that trust. I’m willing to give them considerable benefit of the doubt when they say disagreeable things, and to wrestle with what they’ve said - searching for any new understandings or ‘elasticity’ of meaning if you will. So my world-view has become more Person-based than systematic theology-based.
I just now read this, and I think it’s related to what we wrote above as well.
From Richard Rohr: “Breathing Under Water” (first printing 2011)
…I think the heart space is often opened by “right brain” activities such as music, art, dance, nature, fasting, poetry, games, life-affirming sexuality, and, of course, the art of relationship itself. Mass murderers are invariably loners who participate in none of these things, but merely ruminate and retreat into their heads and their explanations.
If that doesn’t serve as an adequately dire warning not to keep stewing in my own head, I’m not sure what else could serve.
i do agree that we shall know individuals by their fruits…
Matthew 7:16 By their fruit you will recognize them. Do people pick grapes from thornbushes, or figs from thistles?
And we know from the New Testament historical account that Christ said to Peter in a moment of frustration…
Matthew 16:23 Jesus turned and said to Peter, “Get behind me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to me; you do not have in mind the concerns of God, but merely human concerns.”
However, if the Old Testament serves as an example to the New, how do we in the modern age reconcile the above with the following:
Psalms 146:3. “Do not put your trust in princes, nor in a son of man who cannot bring salvation”. :4. “His spirit goes out , he returns to the ground, On that very day his thoughts perish”
Psalms 118: 8, 9:
“It is better to trust in the LORD than to put confidence in man. It is better to trust in the LORD than to put confidence in princes.”
Jer 17:5-8 ESV
5 Thus says the LORD: “Cursed is the man who trusts in man and makes flesh his strength, whose heart turns away from the LORD.
6 He is like a shrub in the desert, and shall not see any good come. He shall dwell in the parched places of the wilderness, in an uninhabited salt land.
7 “Blessed is the man who trusts in the LORD, whose trust is the LORD.
Which do we really need to place our faith and trust in?
My thought is that you are suggesting that its both of the above in that we can judge the authenticity of another individuals lead by the way in which they “live their life” (so to speak).
I would like to offer my concern that my understanding of your conclusion above would then leave an individual become open to trickery?
Outwardly there are many individuals in the media for example, who are con artists that have historically convinced even those very close to themselves that they are very decent people…its only after the lie is exposed the true nature is observed and the associated con unravels.
Would you agree that the disciple Judas Iscariot is an example demonstrating how my summary of your conclusion fails?
I would suggest another example is WACO Texas (a former SDA member who lead a group of individuals into a terrible con and many lost their lives believing that evil mans trickery). Outwardly he seemed to be a genuine man of God. inwardly, he was anything but that.
ps I used the WACO example specifically because i don’t take prisoners even within my own organisation. Ive made mistakes (actually bad choices, not mistakes) in the past, and still do regularly, for which I’m not proud of…evil is not denominational.
Great question…and what a topic!! I don’t know that the Book of Revelation is helpful in your otherwise-worthy efforts to reconcile “Christianity, Science and history”…
I do recommend extreme suspicion of anyone claiming to know the date-and-time of the events described in Revelation.
In truth though, I think that the best solution is to not look at what didn’t happen but what did. Babylon (Rome) did fall about three hundred and something years later. For God a day is like a thousand years and a thousand years is like a day. Under such perameters given to prophecy the fall of Babylon did happen “soon.” I think that I am a preterist that believes most of the prophecies came true by about 500 AD as Paraleptopecton mentioned as an option. I think that the plagues and disasters, the persecution of Christians, and the evil emperors, and the decline of the Roman Empire that happened from 96 AD to about 500 AD are more than enough to fulfill the prophecies of Revelation.
Yeah - I do think how a person lives is pretty significant. A tree is known by its fruit. Wisdom is vindicated by its fruit. And this isn’t even to say I’m pretending to know a person’s eternal status (and I know you weren’t suggesting that) - but it should be a significant consideration if one is going to let themselves be discipled by somebody. One probably shouldn’t look to a drunk to find advice about sobriety, etc. In the same way, I’m not going to waste time devouring words of conspiracy theorists who’ve already been wrong about so much, and display a habit of doubling down on exposed lies rather than conceding they were in error. Truth is not found in such people - but Satan finds them quite useful! And all their sheep are led to the slaughter.
Please Adam, take care in the way you read and interpret other people’s posts. I urge you to go back and read Terry’s post carefully. You will see that the whole of Terry’s post is in quotation marks, and the reason for that is, he’s not giving his own opinion, he’s giving the opinion of Martin Luther, the Reformation leader from the 16th century.
Luther was passionate about Romans and the doctrine of justification by faith, as against the Catholicism of his day, and he reads everything through that lens. For example, he was suspicious of the book of James for similar reasons.
For our part, we don’t have to agree with Luther. I don’t. I think Revelation is a fantastic artistic expression of God’s sovereignty and the hope that we have in the ultimate triumph of the gospel, no matter our current circumstances. But we do need to understand Luther’s background and show grace towards his interpretations.
As for Terry, I don’t know what his views are at all.
(1) Maybe he quoted Luther because it was a view he agreed with.
(2) Maybe he quoted Luther even though he disagreed with it. Maybe he thought it added something to the discussion.
(3) Maybe he doesn’t have an opinion on Luther one way or another, but thought it was an interesting historical perspective.
Therefore we need to be equally gracious towards him.
I believe that for Christians who hold to the authority of the Bible, interpreting Revelation is a really good exercise in graciously discussing the relationship between the Bible and history.
Broadly there are three main perspectives:
Past history - for example, John is talking about Christianity in the setting of first century Roman persecution.
Predictive history - for example, John is speaking prophetically about events in the distant future (from his time frame). Maybe some of them have happened during the last 2000 years; maybe they are still future for us too.
Non-history - John is creating prophetic pictures of spiritual realities that are true at all times, and don’t directly connect to specific historical events.
Personally, I believe that #3 makes best sense of Revelation as a whole, but I can see points at which #1 and #2 contribute to a better understanding of what John is saying. So I keep an open mind.
More importantly, for those who accept its authority, the question is: How is this text relevant today? How should we then live? And surely, considered from that angle, all three perspectives above merge into the same issue.
If it is past history, then how does John’s writing to first century Christians apply to us in our time? (Jesus’ baptism in the Jordan is cleary a past event, but also a template that says something about the meaning of baptism to us in our day.)
If it is future history, even for us, again we need to ask the question: What then for us? (In 1 Peter the apostle asks that question: He paints a powerful picture of the end of the world, then asks: If the world is to be destroyed like this, how should we then live? See 2 Peter 3.)
If it is non-historical, then we have timeless realities that by definition will speak to us in ways relevant to our own time and place. (We would then be applying Revelation the way we might apply verses from the Proverbs or Job.)
I’m offering these thoughts because I think there is great value in learning to read history graciously in the bible. By all means we should have our well thought out opinions. (I certainly do!) But at the same time we can recognise that maybe the differences aren’t as important as we sometimes try to make out.
And some of what he said makes me wince, but then he did not have all the knowledge we do - for example that “do not take away from this book” was a standard line for apocalyptic literature.
It’s a good point; except for the seven letters to the seven churches, nothing is clear other than that Jesus wins so stay steadfast.
Not forgetting that in the biblical view of prophecy, the above are not so neatly separated; past can be prophetic (e.g. “Our of Egypt I have called my son”), and prophetic can point to multiple things, not necessarily just one event.
And even if the images of spiritual realities do connect to specific historical events that doesn’t mean they can’t pertain to others, or even to – as I think I noted in a prior post – the “flavor” of an age. It has not been uncommon down through history for scholars to note that the end times began at the fall of the Temple and will remain the end times until they themselves end.
Agreed. And that’s another reason for grace and humility. Imagine what people will say about some of our ideas in 500 years time!
(On reflection I don’t need to imagine. I just have to re-read some of my early sermons )
Interestingly enough, given the interpretation of Revelation i’m leaning toward, a 500 AD preterist, if the Roman Empire and Rome were judged in 476 AD, the next thing to come according to the scriptures is the millennium. After the Roman Empire fell Christianity spread through Europe greatly and has spread through the rest of the world and has improved the world a great deal since then Dark Ages from 476 to 1066 not withstanding. Are we living in the millennium now possibly (1,000 being a symbolic number)?
A small comment:
Roman Empire did not fell when Rome fell. That is a biased view, probably originating from the history of the church in Rome and its descendants.
After Constantine moved the capital of the Roman Empire to Constantinople, the Roman Empire continued to rule until the year 1453. The last centuries of the Roman Empire have later been called the Byzantine Empire but it is a direct continuation of the Roman Empire. The citizens of the Empire used the name ‘Roman Empire’, calling themselves ‘Romans’.
Yeah, I know, but the Western part with Rome in it fell, and the Roman Empire never achieved its territorial extent or rulership over “all the peoples of the world” as it did before that fall. The Byzantines since the time of Justinian and the Muslim Invasions later usually only controlled Greece and Asia Minor consistantly. The Byzantine Empire for most of its history was really just a Roman rump state.
Anyhow that the Western Roman Empire fell, the part with Rome in it fell is not a problem for my view.
The emperor presented the final draft of the 
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