Dating Revelation

[John Reece]

It will be obvious that this thread is a spin-off from Jude3b’s thread that seeks to predicate an inquiry regarding preterism upon the presupposition that Revelation was not written until AD 95.

Kenneth L. Gentry’s penchant for presupposition-based argumentation makes his Before Jerusalem Fell: Dating the Book of Revelation a bit less than ideal as a resource for dating Revelation.

That’s why I chose to base my response to Jude3b’s Opening Post upon a comment by a scholar whose modus operandi is to eschew presupposition-based argumentation.

Here is a snip from my comment on Jude3b’s thread:

Consider this comment on the subject of the dating of the books of the New Testament:
Indeed what one looks for in vain in much recent scholarship is any serious wrestling with the external or internal evidence for the dating of individual books (such as marked the writings of men like Lightfoot and Harnack and Zahn), rather than an a priori pattern of development into which they are made to fit. In fact ever since the form critics assumed the basic solution of the source critics (particularly with regard to the synoptic problem) and the redaction critics assumed the work of the form critics, the chronology of the New Testament documents has scarcely been subjected to fresh examination. No one since Harnack has really gone back to look at it for its own sake or to examine the presuppositions on which the current consensus rests. It is only when one pauses to do this that one realizes how thin is the foundation for some of the textbook answers and how circular the arguments for many of the relative datings. Disturb the position of one major piece and the pattern starts disconcertingly to dissolve. — John A. T. Robinson, Redating the New Testament, pages 8-9.
Robinson’s comment applies in spades to the modern consensus that Revelation was written at the end of the first century, rather than before AD 70.
I wish to devote this thread to a discussion of the dating of Revelation, starting with this comment by Robinson:
One must assume that Irenaeus believed the Apocalypse to have come circa 95, although unlike Eusebius he does not link it with Domitian’s persecution nor specifically with his fourteenth year, of which Eusebius’s Chronicle records ‘Persecution of Christians and under him the apostle John is banished to Patmos and sees his Apocalypse, as Irenaeus says.’

But before accepting this date at its face value one must recognize that Irenaeus is making three statements: (i) that the author of the Apocalypse and of the fourth gospel are one and the same person; (ii) that this person was the apostle John; and (iii) that the Apocalypse was seen at the end of Domitian’s reign. There are few scholars who would accept all three statements, and many who would reject both the first two. Hort was able to accept the first two only because he rejected the third: ‘It would be easier to believe that the Apocalypse was written by an unknown John than that both books belong alike to John’s old age.’ We may leave the question of authorship till we come to the relation of Revelation to the other Johannine writings. But whatever the relationship, it is difficult to credit that a work so vigorous as the Apocalypse could really be the product of a nonagenarian, as John the son of Zebedee must by then have been, even if he were as much as ten years younger than Jesus. So if Irenaeus’ tradition on authorship is strong, his tradition on dating is weakened, and vice versa. — John A. T. Robinson, Redating the New Testament, pages 221-222.

[Hitch]

Hmmmm seems like Gentry's examination of Irta fits pretty well with what you're talking about here John. Perhaps I've missed something.

take care

H

[James Peter]

I always found that Revelation wasn't very good company and let me tell you she is a lousy kisser...

(Sorry, somebody had to do it)

[studyhound]

I always found that Revelation wasn't very good company and let me tell you she is a lousy kisser...

(Sorry, somebody had to do it)
:lol:

[John Reece]

Hmmmm seems like Gentry's examination of Irta fits pretty well with what you're talking about here John. Perhaps I've missed something.

take care

H

Yes, of course Gentry’s examination fits well with what I’m talking about.

My comment about his ‘penchant for presupposition-based argumentation’ is based on the fact that he is not even-handed enough — with evidence contrary to his presuppositions — to be very persuasive to the mind of those who are not predisposed to agree with his thesis.

I had no problem with Gentry’s book at all, because by the time I read it I had already become convinced that Revelation was written pre-AD 70.

However, Gentry’s work has not been well received by scholars for whom I have great respect, who find his arguments to be unpersuasive.

Also, I corresponded at length with Gentry (circa 1989-1990) about his cessationist view of 1 Corinthians 12-14, and it was that experience that sensitized me to what I have termed his ‘penchant for presupposition-based argumentation’.

Blessings,

John

[James Peter]

I wish to devote this thread to a discussion of the dating of Revelation, starting with this comment by Robinson:
One must assume that Irenaeus believed the Apocalypse to have come circa 95, although unlike Eusebius he does not link it with Domitian’s persecution nor specifically with his fourteenth year, of which Eusebius’s Chronicle records ‘Persecution of Christians and under him the apostle John is banished to Patmos and sees his Apocalypse, as Irenaeus says.’

But before accepting this date at its face value one must recognize that Irenaeus is making three statements: (i) that the author of the Apocalypse and of the fourth gospel are one and the same person; (ii) that this person was the apostle John; and (iii) that the Apocalypse was seen at the end of Domitian’s reign. There are few scholars who would accept all three statements, and many who would reject both the first two. Hort was able to accept the first two only because he rejected the third: ‘It would be easier to believe that the Apocalypse was written by an unknown John than that both books belong alike to John’s old age.’ We may leave the question of authorship till we come to the relation of Revelation to the other Johannine writings. But whatever the relationship, it is difficult to credit that a work so vigorous as the Apocalypse could really be the product of a nonagenarian, as John the son of Zebedee must by then have been, even if he were as much as ten years younger than Jesus. So if Irenaeus’ tradition on authorship is strong, his tradition on dating is weakened, and vice versa. — John A. T. Robinson, Redating the New Testament, pages 221-222.

Now for something a little more serious...

Firstly I should probably make clear that I don't believe that the same author lies behind all the Johaninne writings (I'd attribute 1 John to the same authority as that in GJohn (making the distinction between the authority and the final redactor), with regard to 2nd and 3rd John I remain unconvinced that they are from the same hand and Revelation is almost certainly from an entirely different hand to all four). As I'd associate John of Zebedee as the authority behind GJohn and 1 John it follows that I wouldn't attribute Revelation to him.

However, despite that I do find Robinson's argument (the one I bolded) rather weak. Arguing that because he is 90 he would be incapable of producing the Apocalypse just doesn't seem to be entirely convincing. It is certainly conceivable that a 90 year old could produce something 'vigorous'.

Umm, thats all I have to say on the subject for now. :smile:

[PaulT]

John,



Thank you for the information. Would you explain a little bit about Mr. Robinson’s reasoning that produced the conclusions below.





‘It would be easier to believe that the Apocalypse was written by an unknown John than that both books belong alike to John’s old age.’ We may leave the question of authorship till we come to the relation of Revelation to the other Johannine writings. But whatever the relationship, it is difficult to credit that a work so vigorous as the Apocalypse could really be the product of a nonagenarian, as John the son of Zebedee must by then have been, even if he were as much as ten years younger than Jesus. So if Irenaeus’ tradition on authorship is strong, his tradition on dating is weakened, and vice versa. — John A. T. Robinson, Redating the New Testament, pages 221-222.





Thanks,



Paul

[John Reece]

John,

Thank you for the information. Would you explain a little bit about Mr. Robinson’s reasoning that produced the conclusions below.

He does not elaborate on that, but adds this:

Even more difficult to attach to a Domitianic date is the tradition which Eusebius goes on to quote from Clement of Alexandria:
When on the death of the tyrant he removed from the island of Patmos to Ephesus, he used to go off, when requested, to the neighboring districts of the Gentiles also, to appoint bishops in some places, to organize whole churches in others, again to appoint to an order some of those who were indicated by the Spirit.
To illustrate the last Clement then tells the tale of a young man whom John persuaded the local bishop to sponsor and bring up as his protégé. The story covers a number of years, over which this youth went to the bad, and it ends with the apostle going to visit him on horseback and then chasing him ‘with all his might’! All this is inconceivable after 96. Clement, however, nowhere mentions the name of ‘the tyrant’. He could have been an earlier emperor: it is only Eusebius who identifies him with Domitian.

This is not of course to say that Eusebius was the source of this identification. Apart from quoting Irenaeus, he refers to ‘the record of our ancient men’ (i.e. in all probability the Memoirs of Hegesippus) for the tradition that ‘the apostle John also took up his abode once more at Ephesus after his exile’ under Domitian’s successor Nerva. Moreover Victorinus, who antedates Eusebius, says that John was ‘condemned to the mines in Patmos by Domitian Caesar’ where he saw his Apocalypse, which he published after being released upon the death of the emperor.

Yet the identification is by no means solid. Clement’s disciple Origen writes in his Commentary on Matthew that ‘the emperor of the Romans, as tradition teaches, condemned John to the isle of Patmos’, adding that John does not say who condemned him. This does of course prove that Origen did not know, but the absence of a name is again to be noted, especially since Origen does name Herod as having beheaded John’s brother James.

The fact that the condemnation is seen as the direct act of the emperor may link up with the tradition preserved earlier by Tertullian that John’s banishment was from Rome,
where Peter suffered a death like his Master [i.e., crucifixion], where the apostle John, after being plunged in burning oil and suffering nothing, was banished to an island.
This is the only association in ancient tradition of John with Rome. Jerome in quoting the passage interprets Tertullian to mean that John’s suffering, like that of Peter and Paul, occurred under Nero — despite his own acceptance from Eusebius’ Chronicle of the Domitianic date.

Epiphanius, a contemporary of Jerome’s, whom Hort describes as ‘a careless and confused writer but deeply read in early Christian literature’, refers to John’s banishment and prophecy as having taken place under ‘Claudius Caesar’ — though he also seems to imply that Claudius was emperor in John’s extreme old age! Whatever Epiphanius may have meant, it has been credibly argued that his source may have intended Nero, whose other name was Claudius (just a Claudius’ other name was Nero). For what it is worth, both the title to the Syriac version of Revelation and the History of John, the Son of Zebedee in Syriac say it was Nero who banished John.

Hort, who surveys the evidence with scrupulous fairness, sums up as follows:
We find Domitian and Nero both mentioned, as also an emperor not named. The matter is complicated by the manner in which St John is brought to Rome, or his banishment referred to the personal act of the emperor. It is moreover peculiarly difficult to determine the relation of the legend of the boiling oil to the Roman tradition of a banishment from Rome. On the one hand the tradition as to Domitian is not unanimous; on the other it is the prevalent tradition, and it goes back to an author likely to be the recipient of a true tradition on the matter, who moreover connects it neither with Rome nor with an emperor’s personal act. If external tradition alone could decide, there would be a clear preponderance for Domitian.
Yet, despite this, Hort, together with Lightfoot and Wescott, none of whom can be accused of setting light to ancient tradition, still rejected a Domitianic date in favour of one between the death of Nero in 68 and the fall of Jerusalem in 70. It is indeed a little known fact that this was what Hort calls, ‘the general tendency of criticism’ for most of the nineteenth century, and Peake cites the remarkable consensus of ‘both advanced and conservative scholars’ who backed it. Since then the pendulum has swung completely the other way. In his learned and exhaustive commentary Charles never even alludes to Hort’s presentation of the case for an early dating, and in the course of my investigations I have not come across a single modern New Testament scholar who comes down in favour of it — apart from Torrey, and now most recently and eccentrically J. Massyngberde Ford. Yet though the theologians may have forsaken it, the classicists have not. It was powerfully argued by Henderson, in his classic study of the reign of Nero, and he reaffirmed his belief in it many years later, commending and endorsing the strong statement of the same thesis by Edmundson which had appeared in the interval. It was also accepted by A. D. Momigliano in the Cambridge Ancient History and A. Weigall in his biographical study of Nero. It has also commended itself recently to the distinguished German jurist K. A. Eckhardt. It will not perhaps be inappropriate to argue the question of date by examining again the strength of this case against those who have dismissed it, or more often ignored it.

— John A. T. Robinson, Redating the New Testament, pages 222-226.

Robinson then turns his attention to the evidence supplied by the book of Revelation itself.

[John Reece]

Firstly I should probably make clear that I don't believe that the same author lies behind all the Johaninne writings (I'd attribute 1 John to the same authority as that in GJohn (making the distinction between the authority and the final redactor), with regard to 2nd and 3rd John I remain unconvinced that they are from the same hand and Revelation is almost certainly from an entirely different hand to all four). As I'd associate John of Zebedee as the authority behind GJohn and 1 John it follows that I wouldn't attribute Revelation to him.

However, despite that I do find Robinson's argument (the one I bolded) rather weak. Arguing that because he is 90 he would be incapable of producing the Apocalypse just doesn't seem to be entirely convincing. It is certainly conceivable that a 90 year old could produce something 'vigorous'.

James Peter,

Thanks for sharing your thoughts.

Although it is conceivable that a nonagenarian may have written Revelation, and that your theories regarding authorship may be plausible, I am rather more attracted to Hort’s conclusions regarding the date and authorship of Revelation.

The commentary quoted below is from the Introduction to The Apocalypse of St John I-III: The Greek Text with Introduction, Commentary, and Additional Notes, by the late F. J. A. Hort (MacMillan and Co., London, 1908).

Hort deals first with the date.

After writing a number of pages assessing and comparing the historical record regarding persecution under both Nero and Domitian, Hort wrote this:

Grounds for asserting the Neronian date.

But two points seem decisive:
1. The whole language about Rome and the empire, Babylon and the Beast, fits the last days of Nero and the time immediately following, and does not fit the short local reign of terror under Domitian. Nero affected the imagination of the world as Domitian, as far as we know, never did. On some evidence of this there is more to be said just now. [Note the combination of Nero and the populace. This is characteristic of the adverse power in Apocalypse.]
2. The book breathes the atmosphere of a time of wild commotion. To Jews and to Christians such a time might seem to have in part begun from the breaking out of the Jewish war in the summer of 66. Two summers later Nero committed suicide, and then followed more than year of utter confusion till the ascension of Vespasian, and one long year more brings us to the Fall of Jerusalem. To the whole Roman world the year of confusion, if not the early months of Vespasian’s reign, must have seemed wholly a time of weltering chaos. For nearly a century the empire seemed to bestow on civilized mankind at least a settled peace, whatever else it might take away. The order of the empire was the strongest and stablest thing presented to the minds and imaginations of men. But now at last it had become suddenly broken up, and the earth seemed to reel beneath men’s feet. Under Vespasian, however, the old stability seemed to return; it lasted on practically for a century or more. Nothing at all corresponding to the tumultuous days after Nero is known in Domitian’s reign, or the time which followed it. Domitian’s proscriptions of Roman nobles, and Roman philosophers, and Roman Christians, were not connected with any general upheaval of society. It is only in the anarchy of the earlier time that we recognize a state of things that will account for the tone of the Apocalypse.

It is therefore to no purpose that critic after critic protests that we have no evidence of the persecution of Nero having extended beyond Rome. This is quite true, — if we leave the Apocalypse out of sight, but it applies equally to the persecution of Domitian. The question really is (1) whether the Apocalypse is intelligible if there was no persecution of Christians except that local and apparently short persecution described by Tacitus; and (2) which of the two persecutions was most likely to call forth terrible echoes of itself in other lands. The absence of evidence doubtless comes from the absence of all Christian records for this period.

I do not wish to occupy time with commenting on the correspondence between Pliny and Trajan. But I am very thankful now to be able to refer to Lightfoot (Ign. 1:7-17) as shewing that it is wholly wrong either to treat Trajan as first introducing important persecution, or to suppose that previously the Christians were habitually confounded with the Jews by heathens, and therefore shared their immunities in the earlier period. Whether Christians were by name forbidden to exist, or condemned under more general laws, condemnation was assuredly always a danger which they had to fear: and there is no reason why this state of things should not date from the time of Nero.

It may be added that several verses seem to refer to the deaths of SS. Peter and Paul; chiefly called prophets, once (xviii. 20) apostles and prophets, and in Ephesians. So (cf. xvi. 6, not clearly Rome) xvii. 6; xviii. 24; xix. 2 (besides xviii. 10): and though this language might be used at a later time, it acquires special force if the deaths were still recent, and the Church were still in the midst of the sore trial of which their deaths were an early stage.

These grounds are sufficient [for placing Apocalypse perhaps in the earliest months of Vespasian’s reign]. Though not resting much on single definite facts, they are strong on a broad view.

Besides them other grounds are given of a more definite kind, regarded by some critics as quite decisive. So indeed they would be if the interpretation of the passages on which they depend were certain. I have not however been able to satisfy myself enough as to the interpretation to be able to lay much stress on them. They are interesting in themselves: and I could not with propriety pass them over.

They are:

1. The relations between the seven heads of the Beast
(xvii. 9 ff.; cf. 7, 8; xiii. 2)

v. 9 leaves no doubt that in some sense John has Rome in view, the seven hills. Whatever the relation of the heads, mountains, and kingdoms may be (not at all clear), it is certainly said that five kings are fallen, one is, and the other is not yet come, and when he shall come, he must abide a little while. This is supposed to be a summary of imperial history. The five are Augustus, Tiberius, Gaius, Claudius, Nero. A difference of opinion as to the present emperor, some urging Galba, the first of the three emperors of the anarchy; others Vespasian, the first emperor after the anarchy. Whatever may be the truth of these interpretations, the positive objections made to them are frivolous. To begin counting the emperors from Augustus rather than Julius is the more correct reckoning of the two: and the treatment of the anarchy as a mere interval is fairly justified by such language as Suet. Vesp. 1, “Rebellione trium principum et caede incertum diu et quasi vagum imperium suscepit firmavitque tandem gens Flavia.” When it is said of apparently the same Beast (xiii. 2) that one of his heads was as it were stricken to death, and the death wound was healed, this is referred to the blow received by the empire by the anarchy on Nero’s death, and its gradual recovery to order. So much again is written on the words xvii. 8, how the Beast “was and is not,” which is similarly interpreted.
2. The future Head as the returning Nero

The two words about the future or seventh king, who is also apparently eighth, and also of the seven (xv11. 10 f.) are referred either to an expected return of Nero or to Domitian as a new embodiment of the spirit of Nero. Certainly at the beginning of Vespasian’s reign Domitian, who first represented him at Rome, bore a hateful character: “Omnem vim dominationis tam licenter exercuit ut jam tum quails futurus esset ostenderet” (Suet. Dom. 1). One suggestion that has been made by Weiss (St. u. Kr. 1869, pp. 49f.) should be noticed. If Domitian in his youth, not yet emperor, was regarded as the future head of the beast, he would in a very true sense be a main subject of the Apocalypse, and the best coming representative of the hostile forces against which St John represented the Church as contending: and it is conceivable that if this were known and remembered, the association of his name with the book might be a possible confusion, after Domitian had come to be known as a persecutor, pass into a tradition that the book was written in his reign.

But the most striking feature of the times in connexion with this interpretation is the supposed connexion of this language of St John with the popular belief in the return of Nero. This is the most telling element in Renan’s melodramatic picture; but he has to resort to large exaggerations. Still the facts are impressive enough. First, Nero had won a kind of popularity; nay by the court which he had paid to the mob, by the exhibition of games, by his crimes, and his whole wild personality, he had deeply impressed the minds of many by a kind of demoniacal influence. “There were not wanting,” says Suet. 57, “men to adorn his tomb with spring flowers and summer flowers for a long period,” and his name was held in a strange kind of veneration. Presently rumours arose that he not dead, but would soon return to take vengeance on his foes. Several pretenders to the name did actually appear at different times. Dio Chrysostom, who died about 117, says (Or. xxi. p. 271) that “even now all desire him to live.” But, as Weiss shews, the belief was not in a resurrection, but simply in his being hidden away in the East, not really having died. The widely spread modern notion that there was a contemporary expectation of his mysteriously returning from the dead rests on a confusion between the ideas of different times. Nero, we must always remember, died young, not yet 32. If, therefore, the popular notion that he was not dead, but a fugitive in the East, had been true, there would have been nothing unreasonable for the next 40 or 50 years in looking for his return from the East; and that period carries us down later than the latest conceivable date of the Apocalypse. It was not till the full three score years and ten or four score years had elapses from his birth, that the expectation of his reappearance could put on that supernatural character which is implied when the language of the Apocalypse is accounted for in this way.

Hort surveys references to Nero in the Sibylline Oracles and adds this comment:

From these relatively late Sibylline Oracles the idea of a Nero-Antichrist (or forerunner of Antichrist) passed into some Latin writers of the West, as the poet Commodian, and probably the commentator, Victorinus of Pettau, and thus gained a place which it long held in Latin tradition. But the late origin of this conception of Nero destroys it supposed value as fixing the date of the Apocalypse by means of that single passage of xvii; while on the other hand all the language of the Apocalypse suggested by the Roman Empire has its full force only if it was written when the terrible spell of Nero’s career was freshest in its power over the imagination of mankind.

That’s quite enough for one post, but Hort has more to say about the date of Revelation under the categories of The number of the Beast and The measuring of the city. I plan to post those tomorrow.

Blessings,

John

[John Reece]

Here is a continuation of Hort’s comment on Grounds for asserting the Neronian date:

3. The Number of the Beast (xiii. 18).

If this riddle could be certainly read, it might tell much. Two solutions only deserve mention, LateinoV (in Irenaeus), which might in a manner suit the Roman Empire at any time, but never well, and at all events is not distinctive. Of late years, however, much has been said on the Hebrew Neron Kesar. The absence of the Yod is nothing: there is excellent authority for that. There are, however, two strong difficulties: (1) despite the Hebraising of the book, it is strange that a book written in Greek to men who probably did not know a word of Hebrew should need Hebrew for the solution; and (2) whatever importance the image of Nero may have as the personal representative of the Roman Empire, it is not his own personal name the we should look for as given to the Beast. To identify the two is to confuse the parts.
4. The measuring of the city (xi. 1 ff.).

It is often assumed that this refers to the anticipated fall of Jerusalem, either from the siege actually begun or because events were so tending towards it that it could be clearly anticipated, more especially in the light of our Lord’s own words (e.g. Lk. xxi. 24, probably founded on Zech. xii. 3, LXX). That some sort of reference to the actual siege, known or anticipated, is here, is certain. But there are great difficulties in taking the whole passage as referring to definite external events. The distinction between the shrine and the outer court is better understood, as by Weiss and Gebhardt, of the outer shell of rejected Israel, and the true inner Israel, the Church of Jesus Christ, the only genuine representation of the old holy people (cf. i. 6). It is urged indeed by Düsterdieck that, whatever the precise interpretation, there is a reference to treading down in the future, and this is true, and yet not quite conclusive. If a spiritual separation is intended, it is just conceivable that the prophet might use the material treading down, which was already past, as a suggestive symbol for the future. This however is not likely, and the example of Ezekiel does not help, because then, as in some of the other evidence, the earlier date is not absolutely enforced, but it alone is natural; and so far this point of the allusions to the temple might stand as well among the positive evidence as to date.

Thus, to gather up the result of the whole, the evidence alleged by recent critics for the early date on the ground of sharp and absolutely decisive personal details seems too uncertain, in respect to St John’s meaning, to be relied on at present with full assurance. But on the other hand the general historical bearings of the book are those of the early, and are not those of the late period. The force of Irenaeus’s testimony cannot be denied: it is a real difficulty, because on this matter his information is likely to be good. But it is on the other hand true that, supposing no tradition to have come down from the Apostolic age, and it to be known, as we see it was from independent places of Irenaeus, the St John had lived till Trajan’s reign, it was very natural to put the banishment of i. 9 into the last preceding known persecution. Probably it was a mere guess, like the later guess, that Domitian himself banished him, and like the analogous guess that Nero, the other great persecutor, was the offender. On the Neronian traditions themselves little stress can be laid. What they do attest is the limited range of the Irenaean tradition.

On the evidence to date dependent on difference of style from the Gospel see pp. xxxvii ff.

— F. J. A. Hort, The Apocalypse of St John I-III: The Greek Text with Introduction, Commentary, and Additional Notes (London: MacMillan and Co., Limited, 1908), pages xxvi-xxxiii.

[John Reece]

With this post I am beginning a transcription of Hort’s 3-part case for identifying John the Apostle as the author of Revelation.

Authorship:
1. External Evidence for St John.

Just. Dial, 81, “A certain man among us, whose name was John, one of the apostles of Christ, in a Revelation (apokaluyei) made to him prophesied that they who believed our Christ should pass 1000 years in Jerusalem, and after that the universal and in a word eternal resurrection and judgment of all at once with one accord should come to pass” (Apoc. xxx. 4-6).

There are several other instances early or in middle of second century, in which the Apocalypse of John was quoted as authority, but no direct evidence that the Evangelist was meant. There is no evidence, however, or indication to the contrary. The names are Papias of Hierapolis, Melito of Sardis, Epistle of Gallican Churches, Muratorian Canon, Theophilus of Antioch. But all these are only fragments, if so much.

When we come to great writers of late second and early third centuries, the testimony is clear as to the Evangelist being the author. So Irenaeus, and later Hippolytus; Clement and Origin; Tertullian and Cyprian. To this time, on the other hand, belong Epiphanius’ Alogi, i.e. those of Hippolytus. They rejected both the Gospel and Apocalypse, not the Apocalypse for the sake of keeping the Gospel of John. They ascribed them to Cerinthus. They were probably stimulated by reaction against Montanism, a strongly progressive movement; its doctrine of the Paraclete in the Gospel, of chiliasm in Apocalypse: probably also against the growing doctrine of the Word, and the theology that was being founded upon it.

One other early writer partially agreed with them, the Roman presbyter Gaius. Not long ago there was room for serious doubt as to the identity of the of the Book of Revelation which he condemned; and his very personality was so shadowy that Dr Lightfoot was able to make out a strong case for identifying him with Hippolytus. However, that is all at an end now. Not many months ago Dr Gwynn of Dublin published extracts from ms. Syriac Commentary (century xii.) on the Apocalypse containing distinct replies of Hippolytus to distinct objections made by Gaius. These passages prove that Gaius rejected our Apocalypse on the ground of discrepance with the Gospels and with St Paul’s Epistles, while there is no sign that he rejected St John’s Gospel.

We now come to a peculiar episode in the history of the reception of the book, the line taken by Dionysius of Alexandria. See Eus. vii. 24, 25, esp. the following: “Afterward he speaks in this manner of the Apocalypse of John, ‘some before us have set aside and rejected the book altogether, criticizing it chapter by chapter, and pronouncing it without sense or argument, and maintaining that the title is fraudulent. For they say that it is not the work of John, nor is it a revelation, because it is covered thickly and densely by a veil of obscurity. And they affirm that none of the apostles, and none of the saints, nor anyone in the Church is its author, but that Cerinthus who founded the sect which was called after him the Cerinthian, desiring reputable authority for his fiction, prefixed the name’” (vii. 25.1-2). Cf. iii. 28.

It is difficult to say whether he refers to contemporary gainsayers, or to Alogi, or yet to others. In any case doubtless their opposition was owing to dislike of chiliasm. His own careful criticism is based on internal grounds. He makes no references to tradition on either side.

Latter part of third century obscure. Methodius certainly names a John as author, “The blessed John” (p. 94 Jahn). “Christ called prwt. t. nek by the prophets and apostles” (p. 95), and apparently he means John the Evangelist. See also Convic. pp 13, 28, 30, 35, 44.

Eusebius disturbed (1) by his own hatred of chiliasm, (2) by respect for Dionysius Alex., leaves all undecided, after his manner.

Thenceforward the question is not of authorship but of authority, and a very difficult and ill explored question it is. The Latin Churches as a rule rejected it. The Egyptian versions omitted it (Lightfoot in Scrivener’s Introd. 3rd ed. pp. 389, 398). The Greek East was divided: sometimes it occurs in catalogues of Scripture, sometimes not. Now and then shy quotations from it occur: but on the whole it is conventionally accepted and in practice for the most part ignored.

It is startling to glance over and apparatus criticus to the text of the Apocalypse, such as that of Tischendorf, and see how astonishingly few quotations of it are found in Post-Nicene Greek Fathers, except in the two commentators, Andreas, of somewhat uncertain age, and Arethas his follower, who is now clearly fixed to the early years of century x.

But there is no evidence that this state of things in respect of the use practically made of the Apocalypse has any real relation to the question of authorship. Throughout, from the first to the last, there is no trace whatever of any historical tradition, except John the Apostle. The dissent comes apparently only from internal criticism on the part of those who disliked its teaching or were puzzled and embarrassed by it. The rasher sort coolly attributed it to Cerinthus, the traditional antagonist of St John; a careful and reverent man like Dionysius of Alexandria hunted about in the N.T. for other Johns. Practically, as far as our knowledge goes, antiquity knows only John the Apostle. But of course in this as in other matters tradition may err: and further evidence is desirable. […]

— F. J. A. Hort, The Apocalypse of St John I-III: The Greek Text with Introduction, Commentary, and Additional Notes (London: MacMillan and Co., Limited, 1908), pages xxxiii-xxxvi.

Tomorrow I’ll post the second of Hort’s 3-part case for identifying John the Apostle as the author of Revelation.

[John Reece]

This is the second part of Hort’s 3-part case for identifying John the Apostle as the author of Revelation.

2. Positive Internal Evidence.

There is very little either way. The reference to “the twelve apostles of the Lamb” in xxi. 14 has been urged against the authorship of the son of Zebedee. The question is simply whether one of the number could so write. It is really difficult to discuss the point seriously. Setting aside the relation to the vision, supposing it were part of John’s message to convey this teaching, was he to omit it because he was included in it? Or was he to put in some additional words to shew his own relation to the rest? Surely nothing could have been more incongruous or unlikely. The verse is then simply neutral.

So also, I think, is with one exception the whole book. There is nothing in it which specially belongs to one of the twelve, nothing at variance. If it be asked whether we should not expect some positive signs of an apostle, if the writer be one, the very peculiar contents of the book remove any seeming strangeness. The one exception is the tone which St John takes throughout. He does not, it is true, call himself an apostle, but why should he? St Peter’s example is virtually solitary (St James and St Jude not being apostles), for St Paul not being one of the twelve, had need to assert his apostleship. St John had no such need, and moreover, he wrote more as a prophet than as an apostle, not to make known the revelation given in our Lord’s life, but the new revelation. But he does write in the tones of conscious authority. It is true, this might be prophetic authority simply: so that this would not be a serious difficulty if a second John, prophet but not apostle, were on other grounds likely. But still the most natural way of understanding the language is to take it as that of one of the chosen Three among the chosen Twelve

— F. J. A. Hort, The Apocalypse of St John I-III: The Greek Text with Introduction, Commentary, and Additional Notes (London: MacMillan and Co., Limited, 1908), pages xxxvi-xxxvii.

[Jaltus]

The problem with connecting the Nero Reborn myth with the dating is that the myth did not take wide root until after AD 70. Thus, it is more likely to still have a post 70 date for it.

[John Reece]

The problem with connecting the Nero Reborn myth with the dating is that the myth did not take wide root until after AD 70. Thus, it is more likely to still have a post 70 date for it.

An astute observation.

I have never thought of the Nero Reborn myth as being an essential element in the case for a pre 70 date; but you are right in that Hort set himself to have his case weakened by your observation.

[Jaltus]

An astute observation.

I have never thought of the Nero Reborn myth as being an essential element in the case for a pre 70 date; but you are right in that Hort set himself to have his case weakened by your observation.

Thanks, John.

I have to say, the evidence so far seems to slant only slightly toward the side of post-70.

Of course I am looking forward to how you deal with internal evidence. And I agree that Gentry's arguments are pretty poor. I have not, however, read Robinson's book, which I need to at some point in time.

[John Reece]

Thanks, John.

I have to say, the evidence so far seems to slant only slightly toward the side of post-70.

Of course I am looking forward to how you deal with internal evidence. And I agree that Gentry's arguments are pretty poor. I have not, however, read Robinson's book, which I need to at some point in time.

Thanks, Jaltus.

I have been pondering your observation further, and re-reading Hort’s commentary.

It should be noted that Hort does not really base his case on a Nero Reborn myth. On the contrary, he wrote that with regard to an expectation of a return of Nero, “It was not till the full three score years and ten or four score years had elapsed from his birth, that the expectation of his reappearance could put on that supernatural character which is implied when the language of the Apocalypse is accounted for in this way.” — that is, in the way of a Nero Redivivus (= ‘come back to life’).

Here is Hort’s comment in full:

But the most striking feature of the times in connexion with this interpretation is the supposed connexion of this language of St John with the popular belief in the return of Nero. This is the most telling element in Renan’s melodramatic picture; but he has to resort to large exaggerations. Still the facts are impressive enough. First, Nero had won a kind of popularity; nay by the court which he had paid to the mob, by the exhibition of games, by his crimes, and his whole wild personality, he had deeply impressed the minds of many by a kind of demoniacal influence. “There were not wanting,” says Suet. 57, “men to adorn his tomb with spring flowers and summer flowers for a long period,” and his name was held in a strange kind of veneration. Presently rumours arose that he not dead, but would soon return to take vengeance on his foes. Several pretenders to the name did actually appear at different times. Dio Chrysostom, who died about 117, says (Or. xxi. p. 271) that “even now all desire him to live.” But, as Weiss shews, the belief was not in a resurrection, but simply in his being hidden away in the East, not really having died. The widely spread modern notion that there was a contemporary expectation of his mysteriously returning from the dead rests on a confusion between the ideas of different times. Nero, we must always remember, died young, not yet 32. If, therefore, the popular notion that he was not dead, but a fugitive in the East, had been true, there would have been nothing unreasonable for the next 40 or 50 years in looking for his return from the East; and that period carries us down later than the latest conceivable date of the Apocalypse. It was not till the full three score years and ten or four score years had elapsed from his birth, that the expectation of his reappearance could put on that supernatural character which is implied when the language of the Apocalypse is accounted for in this way.

[eschaton]

Hi,

Pardon me for butting in, but I just wanted to mention there's a very interesting study going on by the Knox Theological Seminary that they call the John-Revelation Project.

http://www.knoxseminary.org/Prospective/Faculty/FacultyForum/JohnRevelationProject/index.html

They are looking at the relationship between Revelation and the Gospel of John. Here is one of the interesting comments made:

The following papers from the Faculty Forum represent the ongoing project of Knox Seminary to articulate an understanding of Revelation through a lectionary reading of the Apocalypse and the Fourth Gospel and by an awareness of the overwhelmingly typological character of Johannine literature. We invite the participation of our students and the Christian community at large as we undertake this exciting study!

I hope some of you will find it as interesting as I do.

[John Reece]

Hi,

Pardon me for butting in, but I just wanted to mention there's a very interesting study going on by the Knox Theological Seminary that they call the John-Revelation Project.

http://www.knoxseminary.org/Prospective/Faculty/FacultyForum/JohnRevelationProject/index.html

They are looking at the relationship between Revelation and the Gospel of John. Here is one of the interesting comments made:

The following papers from the Faculty Forum represent the ongoing project of Knox Seminary to articulate an understanding of Revelation through a lectionary reading of the Apocalypse and the Fourth Gospel and by an awareness of the overwhelmingly typological character of Johannine literature. We invite the participation of our students and the Christian community at large as we undertake this exciting study!

I hope some of you will find it as interesting as I do.

Thanks, eschaton.

That is indeed very interesting.

[Jaltus]

Thanks, Jaltus.

I have been pondering your observation further, and re-reading Hort’s commentary.

It should be noted that Hort does not really base his case on a Nero Reborn myth. On the contrary, he wrote that with regard to an expectation of a return of Nero, “It was not till the full three score years and ten or four score years had elapsed from his birth, that the expectation of his reappearance could put on that supernatural character which is implied when the language of the Apocalypse is accounted for in this way.” — that is, in the way of a Nero Redivivus (= ‘come back to life’).

Here is Hort’s comment in full:

But the most striking feature of the times in connexion with this interpretation is the supposed connexion of this language of St John with the popular belief in the return of Nero. This is the most telling element in Renan’s melodramatic picture; but he has to resort to large exaggerations. Still the facts are impressive enough. First, Nero had won a kind of popularity; nay by the court which he had paid to the mob, by the exhibition of games, by his crimes, and his whole wild personality, he had deeply impressed the minds of many by a kind of demoniacal influence. “There were not wanting,” says Suet. 57, “men to adorn his tomb with spring flowers and summer flowers for a long period,” and his name was held in a strange kind of veneration. Presently rumours arose that he not dead, but would soon return to take vengeance on his foes. Several pretenders to the name did actually appear at different times. Dio Chrysostom, who died about 117, says (Or. xxi. p. 271) that “even now all desire him to live.” But, as Weiss shews, the belief was not in a resurrection, but simply in his being hidden away in the East, not really having died. The widely spread modern notion that there was a contemporary expectation of his mysteriously returning from the dead rests on a confusion between the ideas of different times. Nero, we must always remember, died young, not yet 32. If, therefore, the popular notion that he was not dead, but a fugitive in the East, had been true, there would have been nothing unreasonable for the next 40 or 50 years in looking for his return from the East; and that period carries us down later than the latest conceivable date of the Apocalypse. It was not till the full three score years and ten or four score years had elapsed from his birth, that the expectation of his reappearance could put on that supernatural character which is implied when the language of the Apocalypse is accounted for in this way.


I understand your point (and his), yet I cannot help but question the issue in the first place.

Does the myth need to be there in order for the passage to be there, or could we be trying too hard to make a supernatural occurrence look like a natural one by giving an explanation for it?

That has always been my problem with Revelation (and dating the NT in general), that people want to be able to point to solid historical happenstance which they can say gave rise to the narrative/prophecy/or whatever. Since we believe in a real God, we do not need such a crutch, as it were.

Hopefully you understand what I am saying, I do not think I am coming across well.

[FreezBee]

Quite interesting info, you have here, John :thumb:

But let me share my own two cents anyway :smile:


The wqay I read Revelation, it is written during the reign of Domitian, but as if it was written during the time of Nero. If Domitian is "Nero Reborn", then Revelation probably might be trying to suggest other parallels :huh:

It's worth here remembering the destruction of Jerusalem by the Babylonians, and that Babylon herself not long after was surrendered to the Persians. Maybe Revelation by its frequent allusions to the Old Testament tries to play along with such an idea.

The 7 heads of the beast fit well with Roman emperors from Augustus to Titus, when excluding Galba, Otho, and Vitellius, none of which were recognized in the east! Vespasian was in the east from before the death of Nero and until re was proclaimed emperor by the legate of Syria with the acceptance of the prefect of Egypt, the proconsul of Asia, and the Donau legions following soon after.


- FreezBee

[John Reece]

I understand your point (and his), yet I cannot help but question the issue in the first place.

Does the myth need to be there in order for the passage to be there, or could we be trying too hard to make a supernatural occurrence look like a natural one by giving an explanation for it?

That has always been my problem with Revelation (and dating the NT in general), that people want to be able to point to solid historical happenstance which they can say gave rise to the narrative/prophecy/or whatever. Since we believe in a real God, we do not need such a crutch, as it were.

Hopefully you understand what I am saying, I do not think I am coming across well.

I do agree with you (if I understand you) that the prophetic inspiration that resulted in the writing of Revelation 17:10 is not to be explained by any popular expectation of a return of Nero — myth or no myth; early date or late date.

[Jaltus]

Exactly, John.

The problem with scholarship is the atheistic, anti-supernatural assumptions made when doing the work. We need to look past our academic conditioning and remember that God can do whatever He wants, hehe.

[John Reece]

Exactly, John.

The problem with scholarship is the atheistic, anti-supernatural assumptions made when doing the work. We need to look past our academic conditioning and remember that God can do whatever He wants, hehe.

:thumb:

[John Reece]

I am picking up where I left off in this post (http://www.theologyweb.com/campus/showpost.php?p=1379453&postcount=12).

2. Internal Evidence as to identity with author of Fourth Gospel.

This is a vast subject, far too vast for more than a few words. As regards difference of language and ideas, there is little to add to what I said before. The differences are great, so great that if the name John were absent, and if both Apocalypse and Gospel came down to us anonymously, difference of authorship would at least occur to us more naturally than identity of authorship. But this is not the problem. This evidence is only a part of the whole: and the question for us is simply whether it is to be so strong as to overpower the evidence for identity, and whether there is not other evidence of a contrary kind.

As regards language, the only important difference is the number of constructions not truly Greek in the Apocalypse, and their absence from the Gospel. These peculiarities are either crude Hebraisms, or such as may easily be explained as phrases of one accustomed to think and speak in Hebrew rather than in Greek. A large proportion might be described simply as relaxations of the laws of concord in appositional phrases, in which there is a reversion (so to speak) from oblique cases to the nominative as the primary case, or from the feminine to the masculine as the primary gender. The best account is in Ewald’s Latin Comm., 37-46 (de Linguae indole). A good summary also in Credner’s [I]Einl. 731 f.; a diffuse but not minute one in Lücke Offenb. 448 ff. Winer, from his just hatred of finding Hebraisms everywhere, is too little disposed to recognize them in the Apocalypse. Supposing St John to have spent most of his life till then in Palestine (cf. Jos. Ant. xx. 11. 2), the phenomena are natural enough. It is not at all likely that he purposely chose this kind of language, though no doubt the nature of the subject made it easier to adopt. But still the fitness is there, and helps us to understand that we are listening to the last of the Hebrew prophets. It would have been just as unnatural if after 25 years and more of a Greek life he had not learned to write more correct Greek. But it is only the incorrectnesses that vanish. The Gospel of St John (and to a great extent his Epistles), though rarely Hebraistic, is entirely and intensely Hebraic in form as well as in substance. Its sentences have no Greek elaboration; they have the broad Hebrew simplicity. The only other book comparable is St James, and there the Hebrew substratum is hidden by distinct Greek culture. It is also striking that the chief exceptions to this simplicity are made by the naked inclusion of one sentence within another without mutual adaptation. Thus Ev. iv. 1 ff., i. 14-16; x. 12 f.; cf. xiii. 1-4, and Apoc. i. 5 f.; 17 f.; also ii. 2, 9; iii. 8 f.

As regards ideas and words representing them there are again no doubt great differences, but not contradictions, and there are also some striking resemblances. For the two sides see Lücke 662-744, and Gebhardt, Doctrine of the Apoc. (last section), who, however, somewhat exaggerates the resemblance. Everyone notices o logoV t. qeou (xix. 13) and o logoV, conceptions in their contexts by no means identical, but the one leading to the other, the Apocalypse standing between the O.T. and the Gospel. Not the least remarkable point is the selection of this name at all in such a context in the Apocalypse. And again iii. 14 h arch t. ktisewV t. qeou carries us back in another way to the Prologue. But the Christology of the Apocalypse is too large a subject to take only in passing. On this and other points of the relation between the two books see Wescott St John lxxxiv ff. The two subordinate but far reaching connexions I must mention, the peculiar prominence of the idea of marturia in both books, and (what is often noticed) nikaw [conquering by seeming defeat]. The relation of Judaism we shall have other opportunities for examining in connexion with passages supposed to be anti-Pauline. Notice at once the double position, devotion to Israel, yet bitter feeling that it was lost (xi. 1 f, esp. 8). In the Gospel both are there again, but the proportion is changed, the doom now being manifest: yet still it is eiV ta idia and oi idioi; oi Ioudaioi have joined the side of evil, but this is just the misery: it what only a Jew could feel completely.

What strikes me, however, most strongly in the way of connexion is the sharp opposition of good and evil in concrete forms in the Apocalypse and in the other writings. No other books of the N.T. have anything like it. The opposition of the Holy City, the New Jerusalem, and Babylon is the most salient exhibition of it in the Apocalypse, but, indeed, it runs all through the book. In the Gospel the form is altered; St John has exchanged the Empire and the woman seated on the seven hills for o kosmoV. To anyone who recalls the respectful language of St Paul and St Peter towards the heathen rulers, the recognition of them as having an authority from God and a work to be done for God, it is startling to read the language of the Apocalypse. But it is those last days of Nero that explain the contrast, the days when the supreme power seemed to be only the organ of the vilest passions of the most degraded humanity. In the Gospel we have come back to the serener air of the earlier time, and the more permanent view (as it were) of the relations of Christians to other men. But the antithesis, which in the Apocalypse puts on a peculiar and exceptional form, due to the circumstances of the time, is in itself too fundamental to be absent from the Gospel, though now the antagonist is “the world,” for “the world” includes every embodiment of the Babylonian spirit. In the Gospel St John goes back to our Lord’s own words, while he also applies them to his own person. Like the elder prophets he had first been led to see a vision of judgment in a concentrated form as it were, all brought into a single picture near at hand; and then learned by degrees that it had to be worked out by a slow process. The antagonism of powers takes various forms: but both Apocalypse and the other Johannine books are pervaded by it.

Thus on the whole I see no sufficient reason in diversity of language or ideas for assigning the Apocalypse to a different author. Various good critics who have done so have also been so much struck by coincidences of spirit as to say that the author of the Gospel must have been a student of the Apocalypse. When we get thus far, it is merely arbitrary to suppose that our criticism can perform with certainty so delicate a task as that of discriminating the relationship of a Christian writer to a younger yet very mature disciple from that of a Christian writer between Nero and Vespasian to the same writer in the days of Trajan; the are, to speak roughly, only two different cases of the one relation, “the child the father of the man.” If we could find any tolerable evidence for the theory that the author of the Apocalypse was a bigoted Jew, and the author of the Fourth Gospel a subtle philosophizing Greek, it would no doubt be hard to imagine the passage from the one to the other. But these representations are baseless fictions, and the real differences of the books need no such violent transition to bridge them over.

It is however true that without the long lapse of time and the change made by the Fall of Jerusalem the transition cannot be accounted for. Thus date and authorship do hang together. It would be easier to believe that the Apocalypse was written by an unknown John than that both books belong alike to St John’s extreme old age. The supposition of an early date relieves us however from any such necessity, and the early date is, we have seen, much the most probable on independent grounds.

— F. J. A. Hort, The Apocalypse of St John I-III: The Greek Text with Introduction, Commentary, and Additional Notes (London: MacMillan and Co., Limited, 1908), pages xxxvii-xl.

[John Reece]

Here is the conclusion of Hort’s Introduction to his commentary on Revelation:

Circumstances

The question whether it was through banishment that St John found himself in Patmos turns on the interpretation of i. 9, the discussion of which may stand over for the present [see on i. 2]. No doubt the exile is a tolerably constant feature of the traditions, but in all probability the source of the belief is that verse itself interpreted, and cannot be safely relied on as independent evidence. Today it is enough to say that the familiar interpretation seems to me much the most probable, though just now another interpretation is very popular.

There were two grades of banishment, deportatio (periorismoV) and relegatio (exoria). The word used in the traditions of St John is relego, but in non-legal writers it sometimes denotes vaguely any kind of banishment. (Rein in Pauly vi. I. 429 sub fin.). Deportatio, which succeeded to the aquae et ignis interdictio, was among the capitals poenae, and involved greater loss and degradation than relegatio, which might be for either a limited time (half a year to ten years) or for life. See especially Dig. xlviii. 19, 28 (Callistratus), also xlviii. 22. The power of deportation was reserved for emperors and the city prefect, that of relegation belonged also to the senate, the praetorian prefect, and the governors of provinces. Unless therefore St John was banished from Rome, he must have suffered the milder relegatio. Among the recorded banishments to Aegean islands hardly any are to those on the West coast of Asia Minor, the Cyclades being preferred. This somewhat confirms the supposition that the Proconsul of Asia banished St John. Governors of provinces had the power of relegation to islands belonging to their own province, if it possessed islands: otherwise they could only give sentence in general terms and then write to the emperor to get him to assign an island (Dig. xlviii. 22. 7, Ulpian). But there can be little doubt that Patmos (very obscurely mentioned in ancient writers) would belong to Asia: the separate province of isles is apparently only of much later date.

There is no inherent impossibility of St John’s having accompanied St Peter to Rome, and for some special reason having suffered banishment at the hands of Nero; and this would agree with the language of Tertullian, and apparently Roman tradition. St Peter and St John appear together in John xxi.; Acts iii. 1 ff.; iv. 13 ff.; viii. 14-25. But little as we know about St Peter at Rome, it is not at all likely that if St John had been with him the fact would not have escaped notice. This and the choice of Patmos suggest the probability that the banishment was from Asia (e.g. Ephesus) and by the proconsul.

The only place in N.T. (excluding Apocalypse) where St John appears in person after the early part of Acts is Gal. ii. 9, with reference to St Paul’s visit to Jerusalem about 51, when St James the Lord’s brother, St Peter and St John agreed with St Paul and Barnabas that they should take the Gentiles, themselves the circumcision. We know nothing of the Churches of Judea from Acts after Acts xi. except so far as they are connected with the works of St Paul. Neither the time nor the occasion of either his or St Peter’s leaving Jerusalem can be fixed with certainty. Eus. iii. 5. 2, 3 speaks of the martyrdom of St James, and the rest of the apostles having had innumerable plots against their lives and being driven from Judea and setting out to preach the Gospel among all nations with the power of Christ, in that He had said to them “Go ye, &c.,” and moreover (ou mhn alla) of the people of the Church at Jerusalem having been bidden to go and dwell in Pella of Peraea by a certain oracle (kata tina crhsmon) given by revelation to those held in esteem there (toiV autoqi dokimoiV). Epip. (Naz. 7, p. 123 B) speaks also of the migration to Pella, in which he includes “all the [?disciples of the] apostles [Oehler prints twn maqhtwn twn en Pellh wkhkotwn], but notes in Addenda ‘Pro maqhtwn twn en Ven. est apostolwn en],” and which he ascribes to a command of Christ: in his Mens. et Pond. 15, p. 171 A, he again refers to it but speaks of “all the disciples,” and of a divine warning by an angel. The common source of both is not unlikely to be Hegesippus, whom Eusebius transcribes for the account of St James’s death. That event has an uncertainty of its own. If, as is most probable, the account in Josephus is not an interpolation, and is true, St James’s death must have occurred early in 62. It is true that Hegesippus closely connects it with the siege (Eus. ii. 23. 18), which was in 70: but his language need not be interpreted chronologically. The whole account, however, of the subsequent events is too vague to allow us to use it for determining the particular crisis which led the apostles, or some of them, to leave Palestine.

We are equally ignorant what St John took, and what was his local or ecclesiastical position when he was banished to Patmos. The authority with which he writes is not necessarily official authority: his personal position towards our Lord as one of the Twelve and one of the Three will account for everything. It is conceivable that at this time he had some government of the churches of Asia; but there is no evidence for it, such as we might naturally have expected had this been his position. His voice throughout is not the voice of ruler, but of a prophet.

Although we are obliged to acquiesce in ignorance of much that we should greatly desire to know, it is quite possible to gain a clear view of the position of the Apocalypse to the Apostolic age and the Apostolic literature. Putting aside St Paul’s Epistles, three great Epistles from other hands seem to belong to different stages in the eight to ten years preceding the Fall of Jerusalem, with shadows deepening as the climax approaches. These are James, 1 Peter, Hebrews; and then last of all, out of the very midst of the day the Lord foretold by Christ Himself, we have this trumpet message to the seven churches of Asia. Thus, although the Apocalypse is not the last book of the N.T., it is the last book of that great first period which ends with God’s final judgment on His own holy city. St John’s Gospel and Epistles are spoken out of and into the midst of another world, the world which in a true sense is our own world or at least continuous with it. But a generation earlier, when the Apocalypse was written, St John already stood alone, the last of the great apostles: St James, St Peter, and St Paul had already perished by violent deaths: this book has thus a far more catastrophic and in that sense final character than it could have had in the closing years of the century.

Asia Minor was, there can be no reasonable doubt, the house of his later years; though this has latterly been rashly denied.

The evidence is Polycarp (ob. 155-6) according to Irenaeus (v. 20): Irenaeus writing to Florinus gives a precise account of his early intercourse with Polycarp, and how Polycarp talked of his sunanastrofh with John and with the others who had seen the Lord, &c. (Eus. v. 20).

(Papias of Hierapolis is said by Irenaeus v. 33. 4 to have been a hearer of John and companion of Polycarp. This is less certain evidence because, though it may have come from independent knowledge, it may depend on a misunderstanding of Papias’s words about the presbyter John, as Eusebius himself points out. But the supposed similar confusion in the case of Polycarp is most improbable when we read Irenaeus’s very definite words.)

Polycarp again, according to Irenaeus (Eus. v. 24), had not been persuaded by Anicetus to change the paschal customs of Asia, as he had always kept them “with John the disciple of our Lord and the other apostles with whom he held converse” (sundietriyen).

About the same time Polycrates of Ephesus appeals to the tombs of apostles (Eus. iii. 31. 2; v. 24) in Asia, among them “John, who leaned on the Lord’s breast, who became a priest wearing the petalon, kai martuV kai didaskaloV, he is said to sleep at Ephesus.” Apollonius (Eus. v. 18) speaks of John having raised a man from the dead at Ephesus. Later evidence abundant enough.

As evidence for an earlier death of St John is urged:
(1) Apoc. xviii. 20, as if SS. Peter and Paul were not enough.
(2) Heracleon (ap. Clem. Str. iv. 9, p. 595 Potter) speaks of Matthew, Philip, Thomas, Levi and many others as having made their confession by their voice, i.e. not by suffering, while John is not mentioned. But evidently his exile would count as suffering and marturew is in fact several times applied to him in this sense.
(3) Georgius Hamartolus [quoted in Lightfoot and Harmer, p. 519] seems to say that according to Papias John “was killed by Jews”: — PapiaV gar o IerapoliwV episkopoV autopthV toutou genomenoV en tw deuterw logw t. kuriakwn logiwn faskei oti upo Ioudaiwn anhreqh plhrwsaV dhladh meta t. adelfoi autou thn t. cristou peri autou prorrhsin kai t. eautou omologian, &c. In the condensed extract from Papias lately published by De Boor from and Oxford MS. It stands PapiaV en tw deuterw logw legei oti IwannhV o qeologoV kai IakwboV o adelfoV autou upo Ioudaiwn anhreqhsan. In any case there must be some confusion or mistake.

Unless St John really was in Asia, it is hopeless to attempt to explain the beliefs about it; above all, those of Polycarp.

— F. J. A. Hort, The Apocalypse of St John I-III: The Greek Text with Introduction, Commentary, and Additional Notes (London: MacMillan and Co., Limited, 1908), pages xl-xliv

[John Reece]

Unfortunately Hort died before he got beyond chapter III in his commentary on Revelation.

The last comment I have to transcribe from Hort (except for a pull-quote from the last post) is on Revelation 2:9 (brackets added by me):
9. legontwn IoudaiouV einai eautouV. [= (with context added) ‘those who say that they are Jews and are not’ —ESV] (=iii.9). Again urged as against St Paul, and again paralleled by his own language, Romans 2:28f. The Jews who refuse the hope of Israel and reject their true King have lost their title to the name Jews. After the destruction of Jerusalem and God’s manifest judgment on the nation this form of language lost its meaning. Henceforth Jew and Christian stood opposed to each other, and hence the language of St John’s gospel.

— F. J. A. Hort, The Apocalypse of St John I-III: The Greek Text with Introduction, Commentary, and Additional Notes (London: MacMillan and Co., Limited, 1908), page 25.

Here is a paragraph in the last post above that I think bears repeating:

Although we are obliged to acquiesce in ignorance of much that we should greatly desire to know, it is quite possible to gain a clear view of the position of the Apocalypse to the Apostolic age and the Apostolic literature. Putting aside St Paul’s Epistles, three great Epistles from other hands seem to belong to different stages in the eight to ten years preceding the Fall of Jerusalem, with shadows deepening as the climax approaches. These are James, 1 Peter, Hebrews; and then last of all, out of the very midst of the day the Lord foretold by Christ Himself, we have this trumpet message to the seven churches of Asia. Thus, although the Apocalypse is not the last book of the N.T., it is the last book of that great first period which ends with God’s final judgment on His own holy city. St John’s Gospel and Epistles are spoken out of and into the midst of another world, the world which in a true sense is our own world or at least continuous with it. But a generation earlier, when the Apocalypse was written, St John already stood alone, the last of the great apostles: St James, St Peter, and St Paul had already perished by violent deaths: this book has thus a far more catastrophic and in that sense final character than it could have had in the closing years of the century.

[Ted]

I have found no argument on the date of the Apocalypse convincing, in either direction. But I must comment on Hort’s approach to the Beast. He in essence applies it to Nero, as many modern preterists do. But this completely ignores the essential symbolism of this character.

The beast is presented in Rev 13 and 17 as an amalgam of the four beasts of Daniel 7. This necessarily imports the symbolism of Daniel 7 into the Apocalypse. Those four beasts represented human government from the time of Babylon to the parousia. Thus, the beast as an amalgam cannot represent Nero. He was a bit player for several years in God’s grand design. The symbol greatly exceeds him. As a result, any argument for an early date based on Nero being the beast is sadly mistaken.

Extending on this argument, any argument that suggests that the seven heads of the beast are seven hills of Rome or seven emperors is again far exceeded by the symbolism and is again mistaken.

I agree with Hort on the proper use of gematria. It must be the native Greek application, not a Hebrew transliteration.

Without examining details, I agree with Hort that the Apostle was the author of the Apocalypse. The scholarly opinion seems to tilt fairly strongly in that direction.

Ted

[John Reece]

If indeed the Apostle John wrote both the Gospel and the Apocalypse in Greek, there is much merit in this comment by Hort:

Although we are obliged to acquiesce in ignorance of much that we should greatly desire to know, it is quite possible to gain a clear view of the position of the Apocalypse to the Apostolic age and the Apostolic literature. Putting aside St Paul’s Epistles, three great Epistles from other hands seem to belong to different stages in the eight to ten years preceding the Fall of Jerusalem, with shadows deepening as the climax approaches. These are James, 1 Peter, Hebrews; and then last of all, out of the very midst of the day the Lord foretold by Christ Himself, we have this trumpet message to the seven churches of Asia. Thus, although the Apocalypse is not the last book of the N.T., it is the last book of that great first period which ends with God’s final judgment on His own holy city. St John’s Gospel and Epistles are spoken out of and into the midst of another world, the world which in a true sense is our own world or at least continuous with it. But a generation earlier, when the Apocalypse was written, St John already stood alone, the last of the great apostles: St James, St Peter, and St Paul had already perished by violent deaths: this book has thus a far more catastrophic and in that sense final character than it could have had in the closing years of the century.

[Jaltus]

I have issues with Hort's reasoning in regards to the actual Greek of the text of Revelation. The more Koine documents we get, the less Revelation is understood as a poor form of Greek or a Hebraic form of Greek. Greg Beale's dissertation (and subsequent JSNTSup publications) have put the nail in the coffin on this for me. Beale points out how the "grammatical irrgularities" are in fact intentional allusions to the LXX, done so that the reader would understand that something symbolic is happening at that point in the text. Instead of being poor Greek or Hebraic Greek, it is loaded language.

[Teallaura]

I have issues with Hort's reasoning in regards to the actual Greek of the text of Revelation. The more Koine documents we get, the less Revelation is understood as a poor form of Greek or a Hebraic form of Greek. Greg Beale's dissertation (and subsequent JSNTSup publications) have put the nail in the coffin on this for me. Beale points out how the "grammatical irrgularities" are in fact intentional allusions to the LXX, done so that the reader would understand that something symbolic is happening at that point in the text. Instead of being poor Greek or Hebraic Greek, it is loaded language.


An aside (and probably stupid) question: Could something similar be part of what is going on in 2 Peter? Bear in mind I understand very little of the issue with the Greek differences in 1 & 2 Peter beyond that there is a controversy and a few of the theories as to why they vary. But I do find it fascinating.


By the way, cool thread! :thumb: Someday, I hope to understand it! :smile:

[John Reece]

I have issues with Hort's reasoning in regards to the actual Greek of the text of Revelation. The more Koine documents we get, the less Revelation is understood as a poor form of Greek or a Hebraic form of Greek. Greg Beale's dissertation (and subsequent JSNTSup publications) have put the nail in the coffin on this for me. Beale points out how the "grammatical irregularities" are in fact intentional allusions to the LXX, done so that the reader would understand that something symbolic is happening at that point in the text. Instead of being poor Greek or Hebraic Greek, it is loaded language.

Very interesting.

Can you give me identifying information for Beale’s writings on this subject (so I can order them from a library)?

I wish to find out if there are ‘grammatical irregularities’ in the LXX texts to which the writer of Revelation alludes by means of ‘grammatical irregularities’, rather than by quotes of the LXX . . . and how it is that ‘grammatical irregularities’ indicate something symbolic is happening at that point in the text . . . and how is that something so subtle would be obvious to first century lay readers but too subtle to be seen by the best scholars of the 19th and 20th centuries.

[Jaltus]

John's Use of the Old Testament in Revelation. Journal for the Study of the New Testament Supplement Series 166. Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1999. 400 pages.

It is the last (or second to last, can't remember off the top of my head) chapter in the book.

[John Reece]

John's Use of the Old Testament in Revelation. Journal for the Study of the New Testament Supplement Series 166. Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1999. 400 pages.

It is the last (or second to last, can't remember off the top of my head) chapter in the book.

Thanks, Jaltus.

[Ted]

Jaltus and John,

The book Jaltus mentions is very good, but it's not just the last chapter. Beale's essential position is that the "solecisms" (c.f. Eusebius) are really "Septuagintalisms." That is, they are quotes lifted from the LXX with the intent to draw the reader or hearer to the LXX source. They are placed in the Greek text of the Apocalypse without regard to either Greek or Hebrew grammatical considerations (in the new site) to preserve their LXX source identity.

BTW, Beale uses a lot of this work in his Revelation commentary.

Ted

[John Reece]

Jaltus and John,

The book Jaltus mentions is very good, but it's not just the last chapter. Beale's essential position is that the "solecisms" (c.f. Eusebius) are really "Septuagintalisms." That is, they are quotes lifted from the LXX with the intent to draw the reader or hearer to the LXX source. They are placed in the Greek text of the Apocalypse without regard to either Greek or Hebrew grammatical considerations (in the new site) to preserve their LXX source identity.

BTW, Beale uses a lot of this work in his Revelation commentary.

Ted

Thanks for that prompt, Ted.

For the benefit of thread-readers who may wish to follow this discussion, here is what Beale wrote in the Introduction to his commentary:

Stylistic Use of Old Testament Language

This use represents the most general category so far discussed. It has long been recognized that the Apocalypse contains a multitude of grammatical solecisms. Charles claimed it contained more grammatical irregularities than any other Greek document of the ancient world. He accounted for this with his famous dictum that “while [John] writes in Greek, he thinks in Hebrew, and the thought has naturally affected the vehicle of expression,” a judgment that has met with subsequent agreement, especially recently.

But was this intentional on John’s part or an unconscious by-product of his Semitic mind? It seems that his grammatical “howlers” are deliberate attempts to express Semitisms and Septuagintalisms in his Greek, the closest analogy being that of the Greek translations, especially that of Aquila. The fact that most of the time the author does not keep the rules further points to the solecisms being intentional.

Why did John write this way? His purpose was deliberately to create a “biblical” effect in the hearer and thus to demonstrate the solidarity of his work with the divinely inspired OT Scriptures. A polemical purpose may also have been at work. John may have been expressing the idea that OT truth via the church as the new Israel was uncompromisingly penetrating the Gentile world and would continue to do so until the parousia.

—G. K. Beale, The Book of Revelation (NIGTC), page 96.

I have ordered the JSNT supplement, which I will read with great interest — because I’d really like to be able to accept Beale’s thesis, if only to be in agreement with Jaltus :smile: .

But at this point my response is :huh: .

[OMEGA7]

EPHESUS SMYRNA PERGAMOS THYATIRA

SARDIS PHILADELPHIA LAODICEA

Why is it soooooo important at what date Revelation was written.

It had to have been written when these Churches were well established

around AD 33-100.

It is more important to study Revelations.

You can't make up this stuff.

What other book will tell you that a Comet is going to hit the Earth and
will split and hit the Mediterranean and the other half will land on Babylon in Iraq and other things that will happen just before Armageddon.

[Ted]

You can't make up this stuff.

What other book will tell you that a Comet is going to hit the Earth and
will split and hit the Mediterranean and the other half will land on Babylon in Iraq and other things that will happen just before Armageddon.
It looks like you've been eating too many omega 7 fatty acids. Perhaps you could enlighten all of us as to where such a comet is mentioned in Revelation...

Ted

[Sheepdog]

Omega7, needlessly disruptive posts aren't allowed.

[OMEGA7]

YOU asked for this information,

Isa 13:13 Therefore I will shake the heavens, and the earth shall remove out of her place, in the wrath of the LORD of hosts, and in the day of his fierce anger.
Joe 3:16 The LORD also shall roar out of Zion, and utter his voice from Jerusalem; and the heavens and the earth shall shake: but the LORD will be the hope of his people, and the strength of the children of Israel.
Hag 2:6 For thus saith the LORD of hosts; Yet once, it is a little while, and I will shake the heavens, and the earth, and the sea, and the dry land;
Hag 2:21 Speak to Zerubbabel, governor of Judah, saying, I will shake the heavens and the earth;
-------------------------------------------
Rev 8:7 The first angel sounded, and there followed hail and fire mingled with blood, and they were cast upon the earth: and the third part of trees was burnt up, and all green grass was burnt up.
Rev 8:8 And the second angel sounded, and as it were a great mountain burning with fire was cast into the sea: and the third part of the sea became blood;
Rev 8:9 And the third part of the creatures which were in the sea, and had life, died; and the third part of the ships were destroyed.
Rev 8:10 And the third angel sounded, and there fell a great star from heaven, burning as it were a lamp, and it fell upon the third part of the rivers, and upon the fountains of waters;
------------------------------------

[dizzle]

dude that has nothing to do with this thread - stop disrupting it or I will ask a moderator for intervention

[dizzle]

I just read a very interesting argument by DeMar in the latest issue of Biblical Worldview magazine. I am going to have the article at some point on the PreteristSite; his argument with regards to the Irenaeus quote was this - he argues that perhaps the "it" that was seen was not John or the vision, but the original copy of the book of Revelation. He makes a persuasive case for that interpretation from the context which is an argument as to which reading is correct 666 versus 616 citing the most "ancient copies" - thus arguing that these copies had been compared not too long with the original which was seen during the end of the reign of Domitian.

[OMEGA7]

This Forum is NOT CHRISTIAN .

It is ruled by Women and Non Christians.

The only True Christian here is Commonman.

I pity you people.

You will change after the Comet hits.

bye bye

Please stop disrupting this thread.

[studyhound]

This Forum is NOT CHRISTIAN .

It is ruled by Women and Non Christians.

The only True Christian here is Commonman.

I pity you people.

You will change after the Comet hits.

bye bye

:lolo:

[OMEGA7]

DD

The Scripture says to count the Number.
The only number of 666 that is in the Bible is the Counted Children
of Adonikam in Ezra 2 .
Therefore the name of the Person who is the Beast might be Adonikam
which means " Lord of the Rising" .


Re 13:18 Here is wisdom. Let him that hath understanding count the number of the beast: for it is the number of a man; and his number is Six hundred threescore and six.


Ezr 2:13 The children of Adonikam, six hundred sixty and six.
Ezr 8:13 And of the last sons of Adonikam, whose names are these, Eliphelet, Jeiel, and Shemaiah, and with them threescore males.
Ne 7:18 The children of Adonikam, six hundred threescore and seven.

[eschaton]

Not that this has anything to do with anything, but the weight of the gold that Solomon received yearly was 666 talents. (1 Ki 10:14,2 Chr 9:13).