Revelation

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NASB	Revelation 1:9 ¶ I, John, your brother and fellow partaker in the tribulation and kingdom and perseverance which are in Jesus, was on the island called Patmos because of the word of God and the testimony of Jesus.
AMPLIFIED 2015 2015	Revelation 1:9 ¶ I, John, your brother and companion in the tribulation and kingdom and patient endurance which are in Jesus, was on the island called Patmos, [exiled there] because of [my preaching of] the word of God [regarding eternal salvation] and the testimony of Jesus Christ.

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Bible Question: When was the book of Revelation written? About A.D.95, before A.D.70, other?

Please provide your evidence (scriptural, historical) when you reply. "I was always taught..." or "I believe..." doesn't prove anything.

Bible Answer: Kalos,

Part 1

I don't own stock in either view and have books on Revelation that both of the two major dating positions on the Book of Revelation. However, the preterist (pre 70 A.D.) view often seems to be laid out more convincingly. Here is a sample is several parts.

"To hold the preterist view necessarily means that the question of the date at which Revelation was written intertwines with the basic theme of the book. For the "coming" of Christ that is envisioned in Revelation concerns, according to the preterist view, not so much the end of the world as the end of a world: the world of the old covenant and of the Temple in Jerusalem...

"Now the majority of scholars at present argue that Revelation was written by John at the end of his life around 96 AD during the reign of Emperor Domitian, during an alleged period of persecution of Christians. However, the minority opinion (and the one we and a growing number of scholars in fact hold) is that Revelation was written shortly before 70 AD and the destruction of the Temple. Our reasons for holding this opinion are severalfold. First, there is really no evidence that Domitian ever persecuted the Church. Second, our primary source in antiquity for dating Revelation to circa 96 AD is the apparent testimony of Irenaeus, writing around 180 AD. However, Irenaeus. testimony is not without difficulties. For one thing, his historical knowledge is sometimes erroneous. He claims, for instance, that Jesus was 50 years old when he was crucified. In addition, the grammar of the sentence in which he allegedly dates Revelation to the reign of Domitian is ambiguous. It can be read to say that John had his vision near the end of his life and during the reign of Domitian, or it can be read to say that John had his vision (at some unspecified time in his life) and then lived on into the reign of Domitian, when he died. So the evidence for a composition date of 96 AD is not all that compelling.

In contrast, there is growing evidence (see, for example, Kenneth L. Gentry.s Before Jerusalem Fell) that Revelation can well be dated to the years just preceding the destruction of the temple in Jerusalem in 70 AD. Underlying this date is the fact that throughout the rest of the New Testament the persecution which concerns both Jesus and the apostles is not Roman persecution but persecution launched by Jews against the Church and the theological implications of this. This persecution of the Church by Jews culminated (as Jesus prophesied in, for example, (Matthew 24) in the judgment on the Temple when Jerusalem was sacked and the Temple destroyed by the Romans in 70 AD. This destruction of the temple and demolition of Jerusalem signified for the early Church the passing away of the Mosaic covenant and the establishment of the covenant of Christ.

And so, throughout the New Testament the persecution that preoccupies Christian thought is not persecution by Romans, but persecution by Jews. In the gospels, of course, it is the Jewish authorities at Jerusalem who initiate the persecution and eventual death of Jesus. Pilate is, at best, a reluctant participant. Similarly, it is a Roman soldier who declares, "Surely this man was a son of God." In other words, the gospels in no way depict the Church as a political revolutionary force in the Roman Empire. There is no particularly anti-Roman sentiment in the gospels, nor is there a particularly Roman persecution of Jesus in the gospels. Likewise, in the book of Acts, the first eight chapters show persecution against the Church coming exclusively from Jerusalem: from the priests, from men like Saul of Tarsus, and from others acting with the authority or approval of the Jerusalem elite. And as Acts and the New Testament continues, it is this mystery of Jewish persecution of the Church that continues to preoccupy the New Testament writers. Indeed, Paul meditates on it more than once in his epistles (most notably Romans 9-11) and with good reason. For he encounters constant persecution repeatedly throughout the book of Acts (both inside and outside Judea), and without any significant exception it originates from Jews who resent the kerygma or proclamation of the Gospel and its implications."

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Catholic Scripture Study
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