No question, Revelation is the most difficult to discern book because of the figurative language used. I admire your persistence in data mining the text.
I've posted in numerous places that I tend to avoid End Times threads. This was not supposed to be that but what is the case right now. Frankly, I'm turned off by the many pre and post millennial threads filled with vitriol. Seen from the outside, nothing can be more obvious than we fail to love each other as Christ loved us.
That is what he commanded us to do. Yet somehow, we've managed to turn doctrine into an IDOL. Jesus never said "bash over the head anyone who had incorrect doctrine." Thank God there is not a doctrinal purity test to be saved.
????? Am I bashing anyone's head?
If there is anyones head I would love to bash it would be the original authors that present what they clearly understood in such a way as to create confusion that started several hundred years ago when the 66 books were translated and then came so many versions of translation... all hinting at the same thing but just enough off that can make some question.
Fr myself I have had , I think, a healthy interest in all things end times coupled with eternal reward vs eternal punishment, and especially the latter where again no one agrees.
I cannot help but wonder if Revelation was written in Ad68 or 69 ... why? Why so close to AD70.
John was shown.. yada,yada... that through a millennia or two has been taught that this is what we are to expect when the time is at had for "the generation" of God's children.
But the preterist will assure us that Revelation was completed before the temple destruction of AD70.
And that would mean that Revelation was written before
See the timeline of when each book of the Bible was written, understand challenges in dating them, and learn how scholars estimate the composition dates of ancient writing.
www.biblegateway.com
If the books in my Bible don't follow a chronological arrangement, what was the order in which they were written? The following list arranges the books of the Bible accord
www.gty.org
John--A.D. 80-90
1 John--A.D. 90-95
2 John--A.D. 90-95
3 John--A.D. 90-95
An interesting answer though not conclusive by any means is
The temple was destroyed sometime around AD 70. Which New Testament books were written after that catastrophe? Do these books comment at all on the destruction of the temple?
christianity.stackexchange.com
Raymond E. Brown says in
An Introduction to the New Testament, page 164, there is wide scholarly agreement that
Mark's Gospel was written in the late 60s or just after 70, and therefore the destruction of the temple was imminent or had already occurred. Burton L. Mack goes as far as to say, in
Who Wrote the New Testament, page 152, it would not have made sense before the war had run its course and the tragic fate of the city was known. The prophecies in
Mark chapter 13 are clearly of the First Roman-Jewish War and of the civil war that raged concurrently within the Jerusalem walls, but these prophecies were written with after the event. Had Jesus prophesied the destruction of the temple, he would have been correct, but this prophecy was followed by another prophecy that he would return on clouds of glory within the lifetimes of those to whom he spoke, an event that did not occur as prophesied. Since it is not possible for Jesus to make a prophecy that does not come true, these were not his prophecies and were actually written at the end of the War.
Most scholars now believe that
Matthew and
Luke were substantially derived from Mark's Gospel. In fact, John Dominic Crossan, in
The Birth of Christianity, page 110-111, speaks of a massive consensus among scholars in favour of Markan priority. On this information we can say that the Gospels of Matthew and Luke, being written some time later than
Mark, were certainly written after 70 CE. Acts of the Apostles was written some time after
Luke, although it does not mention the destruction of the temple nor the Roman-Jewish War of 66-70.
John's Gospel is generally dated 80-110 CE, although critical scholars, who see it as influenced by Luke's Gospel, would place in towards the later end of this range. The three Johannine epistles were written shortly after the Gospel.
Thirteen epistles have been attributed to the apostle Paul:
Romans, 1 Corinthians, 2 Corinthians, Philemon, Galatians, Philippians and
1 Thessalonians, but five of these are regarded as disputed. Paul's genuine epistles were, of course, written before 70 CE. Known to critical scholars as pseudo-Pauline epistles,
Ephesians, Colossians, 2 Thessalonians, 1 Timothy, 2 Timothy and
Titus are thought to have been written between 70 Ce and the first half of the second century.
Critical scholars place the First Epistle of Peter no earlier than 80 CE, and the Epistle of Jude and the Second Epistle of Peter in the first half of the second century.
Jude, perhaps carelessly, self-identifies as written long after the apostolic era, while scholars have noted that
2 Peter uses material from the earlier Epistle of Jude.
So I am going to stop listing links of when the New Testament may have been written and I will suggest this.
If by two sources...
John--A.D. 80-90
1 John--A.D. 90-95
2 John--A.D. 90-95
3 John--A.D. 90-95
And the third....
John's Gospel is generally dated 80-110 CE,
If these are factual... then they were written after AD 70.... and there is no mewwntion of the temple destruction in any of them.... which you would think there should have been a comment... especially if Jesus had come then as the Preterist claim.
Okay bored you enough.... thanks for your ear.
Have a blessed and safe great day.
www.neverthirsty.org
