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Some of the early church fathers (Clement of Alexandria, Eusebius, Irenaeus, and Victorinus) wrote that the Apostle John experienced exile on the island of Patmos during Domitian’s reign.3 They wrote that the government allowed John to return to Ephesus after this emperor died. Domitian died in A.D. 96. Consequently many conservative interpreters date the writing of this book near A.D. 95 or 96.
Tom Constable. (2003; 2003). Tom Constable's Expository Notes on the Bible (Jud 25). Galaxie Software.
My prediction is that Mike’s going to get a lot of correspondence from clergy to the effect of “we’ll forego pretending we’re experts on criminology if you forego pretending you’re an expert on the Bible”.
Sounds like a Methodist.
>>1. The Revelation to John was written around 65 AD, not 95 AD.<<
Why on earth would start with this?
The important thing about the new Testament are the words of Jesus.
Then, much, much, less important but relevant is the early history of the church and the apostles.
Everything else is way below that.
The author seems more interested in scoring theological points than in actually helping people read the New Testament.
bump for later reading...
“After receiving the cherished card from his wife, my friend would sneak into their bedroom late at night (she always fell asleep while he was finishing his last TV show). After giving her a kiss while she was sleeping, he would take the card off his dresser and go into the spare room to read it by the light of a small lamp.”
Here’s a guy who stays up every night until his wife is asleep in bed, which says all sorts of things about their love life. Then he kisses her when it’s pretty sure she won’t respond and engage him in anything. Then he sneaks off to a spare room to read a card from her.
Sorry, but the lesson I draw from this has nothing to do with finding a soul mate, but rather the opportunities we throw away to tell those we love that we love them.
One night, he’s going to go into their bedroom and find she died while he was watching TV. Oh well, he can go read the note again, I guess.
Left to right. Top to bottom has always worked well for me.
Um, yeah, Nero was an anti-Christ. But as scripture tells us, there will be many anti-Christs. (And there have been several already.)
1 Corinthians 15:51-52 "Listen, I tell you a mystery: We will not all sleep, but we will all be changed—in a flash, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed."
1 Thess 4:15-17: "According to the Lord's own word, we tell you that we who are still alive, who are left till the coming of the Lord, will certainly not precede those who have fallen asleep. For the Lord himself will come down from heaven, with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. After that, we who are still alive and are left will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will be with the Lord forever."
One can argue about the timing, but no one can deny the rapture without denying scripture.
You done stepped in it!
Wow. He’s never really read Revelation before... But when some guy named “Mike” helps him interpret it, he goes against 2 millenia of Christian interpretation.
Yeah, I can really trust this writer to help me understand the NT.
If Christians would simply study the New Testament themselves – instead of relying upon 21st Century “prophets” writing fictional books for 21st Century profits – they would arrive at a few very simple conclusions:
1. The Revelation to John was written around 65 AD, not 95 AD.
2. The anti-Christ was Nero, not some world figure yet to emerge in the 21st Century.
3. The tribulation occurred in the First Century around the time of the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem in 70 AD.
4. The “rapture” never happened and it never will.
5. The words of Jesus in Matthew 24 plainly reveal that most of the discourse in The Revelation to John is based on events in the First Century.
Gee, I've read and studied the whole new testament and I can't seem to find any of those things.
Do you have a more "up to date" version than I do. I have the KJV.
Great article.
John
None: They already changed it back in 70 AD.
BigMack