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To: Cronos

When was Revelation written?


5 posted on 12/27/2011 5:51:17 AM PST by Daveinyork
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To: Daveinyork; Lee N. Field; Psalm 73
There are two options:

  1. Iraeneus says that Revelation was written during the reign of Domitian, during the last part of the first century, about 95 or 96 A.D. -- all other sources using this date quote from Iraeneus (NOTE: I'm not saying he wasn't right, or that he was right, just that Iraeneus is the source of the 96 AD date) in Adversus haereses -- ‘that the Apocalypse was seen not long ago, but almost in our generation, toward the end of Domitian’s reign,’
  2. Epiphanius according to Moses Stuart in his Commentary on the Apocalypse, vol 1 says that John was banished and then returned under Claudius and john "who prophesied in the time of Claudius... the prophetic word according to the Apocalypse being disclosed". Epiphanius places John's kicking out ot Patmos in connection with the banishment of the Jews from Rom in AD 54

    Note that at the beginning of the Syriac version of Revelation the document states that it was written in Patmos, “whither John was sent by Nero Caesar.”

Now a lot of the problem about interpreting this is that we in the modern world don't realise that the names of the Roman Emperors, at least the ones we call them, may not be their real "names" and were not necessarily "titles" etc. --> for example, "Nero" was born "Lucius Domitius Ahenobarbus", he was adopted by Claudius and became "Nero Claudius Caesar Drusus Germanicus" and then took the TITLE "Augustus" when he was made Emperor

Note that Caesar was the name adopted by those from Caesar's "family" -- Augustus (who was born Octavian and took the TITLE Augustus) was Caesar's grand-nephew and adopted son, hence he had the name Caesar. Tiberius, Augustus' adopted son was born "Tiberius Claudius Nero" and adopted as "Tiberius Julius Caesar"! Then you had Caligula whose name we know "Caligula" was actually a nick-name given to him as a kid when he wore little shoes (Caligulae!) with the troops in Germany when he accompanied his father Germanicus

anyway, the point is that Nero's name also contained "Domitius" -- while the guy we call Domitian (who was Roman Emperor from 81 to 96) was called "Titus Flavius Caesar Domitianus "!

As a side note -- even the "Emperors" before 300 AD weren't called that - their official position was "princep" or first citizen. The "imperator" word meant field-marshall.

Anyway, so we've seen that the other Christian writers place this in the time of the guy we call "Nero" and if we examine Iraeneus closely he says that this was during Domitian's time, but he would know the names of emperors etc. a lot better than we English speakers 2000 years later knew -- so was this "Domitius Nero" he referred to? I think it's a lot more probable.

9 posted on 12/27/2011 6:24:34 AM PST by Cronos (Nuke Mecca and Medina now..)
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To: Daveinyork
Also, note that Apocalypse begins with "[1] The Revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave unto him, to make known to his servants the things which must shortly come to pass: and signified, sending by his angel to his servant John"
18 posted on 12/27/2011 7:31:01 AM PST by Cronos (Nuke Mecca and Medina now..)
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To: Daveinyork

My opinion is that it was written in the 60s AD, under the persecution of Nero. Because there is no evidence for persecution under Domitian in the later years of the 1st century.


37 posted on 07/16/2019 4:22:10 AM PDT by Cronos (Re-elect President Trump 2020!)
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