That some folks choose to believe John knew he was writing the last book of the bible before he wrote the last three books in his life first second and third john is up to them. Internal evidence seems to indicate otherwise... If your doctrine depends on Revelation being written last.. far be it from me to shoot it down.. its just that there are a considerable number of pleniary inspiration authorities (fundamentlaists) that have come out and admitted this over the last fifty years.
Those committed to the authority of the King James over other versions are the primary proponents of the late date theory of revelation... who am I to insist I am right.. nobody... but I am quite sure I am not alone in stating what I did... except for the misstatement MOST instead of much... five or six epistles including hebrews is a LOT of new testament in my book.. but not most...
One comment: That is incorrect. The authorship and dating of Revelation to the time of Domitian's reign was written on by Irenaeus in the second century....1400 years before Erasmus compiled the Greek NT and 1500 years before the KJV was first compiled. In book 5 of his "Against Heresies, [5: 30: 3] he says that the book was composed "towards the end of Domitian's reign."
A lot of when you think Revelation was written depends upon whether you believe in a literal future fulfillment, or you are a preterist. Now...I am not saying that Revelation was written in 90 AD...to me it really doesn't matter who sent John to Patmos or when it happened...I am still a futurist...and beleive in a future filfillment of Revelation. However, my point in this post is to correct the misconception that the KJV scholars back dated it. It had been back dated to the late date back in the 2nd century. Of course, Clement in the 2nd century dated the book to Nero's reign...but you get my point.
Scholars such as Adams cite the Temple still standing in Rev 11 as "proof". That is fine if you are a historist or a preterist. However, many believe the temple will be rebuilt and I believe that as well. Jesus discussed the Anti-Christ sitting in the temple (abomonation of desolations) which proved that the passage in Daniel was NOT fulfilled when Antiochus Epiphanes desolated the temple. So....all arguements that come from the angle "this referred to that...and can't be because the temple is there...or this referred to the Jewish war" have to be thrown out simply because the point of view of the scholar clouds the judgment...i.e...the scholar looks at the book from a particular angle. There is no proof that the temple in Revelation 11 refers to the same temple that was destroyed before 70 AD. There is no proof that it does not. There is no proof the persecutions point to the Jewish war. There is no proof it does not.
So...the date depends on your escatological point of view. If you are a preterest...then Rev 11 is proof poitive of a pre 70 AD date because the temple is there. If you are a futurist...it really doesn't matter when the book was written because Rev 11 is future still (and I believe it is...simply because the Temple in Rev 11 was not the temple of pre-70...and in Rev 11...the diminsions of the temple are being re-measured). But again...it is all opinion.
And BTW....Revelation was canonized in 393 A.D. at the Council of Hippo and in 397 A.D. at the Council of Carthage. This canon was set in stone long before the KJV scholars...there was no need to late date it to make it more canon...it already was.
I understand that there are a lot of writings about when the different gospels, epistles, etcetera were written. Fundamentally I presume God to be the author of all of these different writings, and that He somehow guided people's hands in assembling these books together into the Bible - so I'm not too hung up as to what got written when ... except I'm right.
OK, I wasn't there - but most people take the Letter to the Hebrews as having been written by Paul, and he was martyred in the 60ish AD timeframe. The epistles of John? No, I can't prove they were written prior to the Book of Revelations - but I presume they were.
Anyways, I agree with you on your points - there are references that dispute when the different epistles/books were written - but I believe the strongest evidence points at Revelations being the last book written.
Be well.