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A big problem that they (Preterists) have to overcome is the fact that Polycarp the Bishop of Smyrna was John's direct disciple who in turn was a direct disciple of Irenaus. Irenaeus clearly shows that John was banished to Patmos during the reign of Domitian. Since Domitian didn't reign until 81-96 it should be clear that John wasn't banished to Patmos until at least 81. And John clearly states he wrote Revelation while on Patmos.

This is only one huge problem for the Preterists who claim to rely on "modern scholarship" for their views and completely discard the earliest church fathers, pick the ones that "seem" to make this theory work and twist meanings completely around as well as make numerous argument's from silence.

For example, the weakest most lame argument where they claim that Paul in 2 Corinthians 12:2 is making a reference to John (of Revelation) to attempt to place the writing of Revelation at an earlier date is such a huge stretch that it is laughable. It is so obvious that Paul was referring to himself. To stretch it out of context there is as bad as the cults who twist scripture.

Holding that John referred merely to Nero completely ignores the fact that Emperor Domitian is the one who took upon himself the titles of Lord and God and had gone beyond Nero's self obsession to the point where he was so loathed in Rome for his maniacal self-importance that the Romans wanted to strike him from history itself and did attempt to do so.

This is far more in keeping with the nature and spirit of "anti-christ" than even Nero, and in line with Daniel's view of such in the book of Daniel. I should mention that the same mentality in relegating revelation to the fulfilled past has been used by scholars to say that the abomination of desolation referred to by Daniel was also passed and fulfilled with/in Antiochus Epiphanes. Yet Jesus himself refers to the Abomination of Desolation as yet future. So the errant Daniel Scholars are the same ones with the same arguments to throw revelation's future references out the window because it suits them and doesn't fit their preconceived theology/eschatology.

We could spend days refuting the Preterist's teachings but many have already done that work so I'll refer to them for reference.

Preterism seems to be the newly repackaged amillenialism, for the most part, and as it has always has been historically, and is by nature anti-jewish. And I sat under professors who were fierce amillenials and they were RABIDLY and angrily anti-semites in the truest sense of the term.

I was very disappointed to learn that Hank Hanegraaff had departed from the teachings of his predecessor Dr. Walter Martin, who was not only a millenialists but also, at least at one point, a post tribulationist. Hopefully Hank will come back around at some point and swallow his pride.

So again, to discard Polycarp/Irenaeus is foolishness.

Reading the challenges by the preterists is fine if you also read the counter view points. But to those without knowledge of these matters, and a long eschatological study of years, they can by easily led into the preterist camp and get stuck there because it seems easier to accept to those who feel they have waited "long enough" for the end of the age to come and have previously been misled by cults or have an inflated self-view of their own scholarship.