Breaking the Apocalypse Code: The Dating Game--Part 1

[Chris D]

(Originally posted here at The Preterist Blog.)

CHAPTER 11: WHEN WAS REVELATION WRITTEN?

"For LaHaye, everything hinges on proving that the book of Revelation was written long after the destruction of the temple in AD 70. If, like the rest of Scripture, Revelation was written prior to AD 70, his entire Left Behind juggernaut is compromised." (The Apocalypse Code, p. 109)

Chapter 11 of Breaking the Apocalypse Code begins with the above quote from Hanegraaff. The authors respond saying,

"The above statement by Hanegraaff is simply not accurate. Hanegraaff acts as if a futurist interpretation of Revelation is somehow dependent on an AD 95 date, which is not true. However, it is true that Hanegraaff's view of Revelation 1:1-20:6 is totally dependent on a mid-sixties date for Revelation." (p. 187)

Now, here I generally agree with Hitchcock and Ice. It is clearly we preterists, not futurists, whose eschatological model collapses with a late date for Revelation. As the authors of Breaking go on to say leading up to an examination of the evidence, it is primarily for polemic purposes that futurists argue fervently for a late date. Where I disagree, however, with the authors, and indeed likely many of my fellow preterists, is that I don't believe the evidence is terribly conclusive one way or the other. By and large, one comes to a conclusion regarding the dating of Revelation based on the eschatological model they think fits best with the rest of Scripture, and then view as being strongest that evidence which supports their foregone conclusion.

So I do not put forth a great effort in arguing for an early date. However, it frustrates me as one who appreciates truth and reasoned debate when futurists make the absurd claim that the evidence is strongly in their favor. Such is not the case at all, as we'll see as I review their so-called "evidence." In this first part of my review of this chapter, we'll look at the external evidence Hitchcock and Ice present.

Visit The Preterist Blog to continue reading and discuss.

[Rick H.]

Whether we have a late or early date for the writing of Revelation might be in question, but we do know that we have a late date for its inclusion in the canon. We might be able to know something about the community that canonized it and gain some insight into the purpose of the church that authorized it.

[Christian><>]

Chris, I just listened to your first podcast - kicking some left behind 3.

You did a “really, really” good job for your first podcast. The first part especially, was really, really, really funny.

I know this episode is fairly old in terms of the current, but it is new to me. I am a fairly new listener to this podcast. And I have to say that the LB criticisms seem rather nit-picky. You criticize the authors because Buck receives a message from Dirk regarding an upcoming nomination in spite of the fact that no elections where anticipated, but that they should have been anticipated because of the rapture. I haven’t read that book since 1998 and I still knew something was funny about this, so I went to the page you referenced (104). If you had simply looked at the paragraph before the phone message you would see that the message was SAVED. Dirk had sent it to Buck PRIOR to the rapture and he stated that it was the whole reason that he was on the flight to England in the first place…

You said that the resurrection was the quintessential hope of believers, not the rapture; and that Irene’s Christianity was unhealthy because she only focused on the rapture and didn’t talk about the resurrection. This is a poor understanding of pretrib view. The rapture IS the resurrection of believers, at least the first phase of it.