Partial Preterism and dating revelation

[Anto9us]

I had just read Gentry's book right before I joined CF long ago -- and was OPEN to the early date for Revelation...

One of the sticky points to an early date was the martyr Antipas -- mentioned by name in Revelation and attested to be a bishop of Pergamum who was martyred in like 92 AD

but then I found online somewhere a sort of Greek Orthodox version of "Fox's book of martyrs" and it said it was not conclusive/unanimous that Antipas the faithful witness died in 92 -- that some sources say he was martyred under Nero -- in the sixties

At that time I kinda threw up my hands and punted on nailing down a date of Revelation for sure

and as said above, a late date doesn't NECESSARILY rule out partial preterism

but I lean toward ALL of NT being written ORIGINALLY by 70 ad, with Mark and Matthew maybe first done in Aramaic, translated into Koine Greek later

Preterists generally have strong plausible arguments for Revelation and Olivet Discourse; weaker for 2 Thes 2 -- like -- a man of Sin/Son of Perdition already destroyed by the brightness of the Lord's Parousia...

not strong on that

 

[Deborah~]

I had just read Gentry's book right before I joined CF long ago -- and was OPEN to the early date for Revelation...

One of the sticky points to an early date was the martyr Antipas -- mentioned by name in Revelation and attested to be a bishop of Pergamum who was martyred in like 92 AD

but then I found online somewhere a sort of Greek Orthodox version of "Fox's book of martyrs" and it said it was not conclusive/unanimous that Antipas the faithful witness died in 92 -- that some sources say he was martyred under Nero -- in the sixties

At that time I kinda threw up my hands and punted on nailing down a date of Revelation for sure

and as said above, a late date doesn't NECESSARILY rule out partial preterism

but I lean toward ALL of NT being written ORIGINALLY by 70 ad, with Mark and Matthew maybe first done in Aramaic, translated into Koine Greek later

Preterists generally have strong plausible arguments for Revelation and Olivet Discourse; weaker for 2 Thes 2 -- like -- a man of Sin/Son of Perdition already destroyed by the brightness of the Lord's Parousia...

not strong on that

Unless the reference was to the Zealots, which I believe it was.
In Christ,
Deborah ~

 

[Anto9us]

Zealots?

I don't understand, Deborah.

 

[parousia70]

Zealots?

I don't understand, Deborah.

I'm not Deborah but...

Paul's passage in 2 Thess 2 shows that the event was already underway. The son of perdition was already alive. He was at that time being restrained from his takeover of the Temple. This shows without question that it was a first century event. It is important to note that this was fullfilled entirely within a decade of Paul's writing to the Thessalonians.

The jewish Zealot-leader Manahem and his followers murdered the High Priest, robbed the Roman garrison, and siezed the Temple to start the armed Revolt in AD 66 from the Temple headquarters in Jerusalem. The victory over the Temple priests and rulers appeared to many to be God's blessing and purpose for the Revolt against Rome. The Zealots had been trying to gain control of the whole Nation and the Temple from about the time of Christ's birth. Menahem was a third generation terrorist rebel and was the son (or grandson) of Judas the Galilean rebel mentioned in the book of Acts.

Menahem is a CENTRAL figure to the Revolt and is considered one of the most powerful Jewish Messiahs of the 1st century for having successfully raided the Masada armory, securing an armed jewish force to fight the Revolt against Rome from the headquarters of the Holy Temple! Entirely apocalyptic.

The Nation had become a hotbed of Revolt-styled apocalypticism, and Josephus blames the Zealots as THE incendiary group among the Israelites that ignited the tinderbox and ruined the whole nation.

King Manahem of Israel literally fulfilled the sign of 2 Thess 2:4-7 and ordered the commands that locked the Nation into its final course of ruin and Revolt.

The Roman Armies came at that time to surround Jerusalem, and in response to all this and the Christians heeded the signs and fled Jerusalem according to Luke 21:20-22 and 2 Thess 2:4.

 

[Anto9us]

this Menahem -- in what way was he 'destroyed by the brightness of the Lord's parousia' ?

btw, I do appreciate the response, Parousia70,
if true, this solves 'son of perdition/restrainer' etc

or is it 'entirely apocalyptic'

 

[parousia70]

this Menahem -- in what way was he 'destroyed by the brightness of the Lord's parousia' ?

As for how God's brightness destroys his enemies in 2 Thess 2:8 I would refer you to how the brightness of God's presence always destroyed his enemies: Ps 9:3-5; Ps 44:2-3; Ps 68:2&8; Ps 18:12; Nahum 1:5; Ps 97:5. This is consistent jewish apocalyptic language.

 

[parousia70]

Just as the bible says in verses like Ps 44:3, Jer 4:26; Nahum 1:1,5; Isa 30:30-31. Just as Elisha saw God's warring chariots of fire all around during a human battle (2 Kings 6:17). Just as Gideon raised his own sword and shouted "the Sword of the Lord" (Judges 7:20-22). Just as Jesus described AD 70 as the "coming of the Lord of the Vineyard" and described Himself as "the Stone which crushes them" (Matt 21:40-45) and described it as the time of their visitation (Luke 19:40-44). Just as King David described his defeat of Saul in this fashion:

"Smoke went up out of [God's] nostrils, fire from His mouth devoured; coals were kindled by it. He bowed the heavens also, and came down with thick darkness under His feet. And He rode on a cherub and flew; And He appeared on the wings of the wind. And He made darkness canopies around Him, a mass of waters, thick clouds of the sky. From the brightness before Him coals of fire were kindled. The LORD thundered from heaven, and the Most High uttered His voice. And He sent out arrows, and scattered them, Lightning, and routed them. Then the channels of the sea appeared, the foundations of the world were laid bare by the rebuke of the LORD, at the blast of the breath of His nostrils." (2 Sam 22:8-16)

So it was when Christ's presence came upon Jerusalem to destroy it at AD 66-70. The Zealot revolutionaries tricked the Jewish nation into a Messianic rebellion launched from the Holy Temple. The result was the destruction of their nation and Holy Temple. For "those were the days of vengeance that all things written be fulfilled" (Lk 21:20-22). The Jews could never have conceived of the destruction of their nation as anything but God's coming/visitation.

 

[BABerean2]

Do the references to the synagogue of Satan in Revelation 2:9 and Revelation 3:9 offer up any evidence of a Jewish temple where animal sacrifices were still being made, when the Book of Revelation was written?

Joh 8:44　 You are of your father the devil, and the desires of your father you want to do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own resources, for he is a liar and the father of it.

　

Rom 2:28　 For he is not a Jew who is one outwardly, nor is circumcision that which is outward in the flesh;　
Rom 2:29　 but he is a Jew who is one inwardly; and circumcision is that of the heart, in the Spirit, not in the letter; whose praise is not from men but from God.



1Jn 2:22　 Who is a liar but he who denies that Jesus is the Christ? He is antichrist who denies the Father and the Son.　
1Jn 2:23　 Whoever denies the Son does not have the Father either; he who acknowledges the Son has the Father also.
　


Is this related to Hebrews 8:13, which many think to have been written about 65 AD?

.

 

[Anto9us]

Do the references to the synagogue of Satan in Revelation 2:9 and Revelation 3:9 offer up any evidence of a Jewish temple where animal sacrifices were still being made, when the Book of Revelation was written?

that's a FACT, JACK !

 

[Anto9us]

Hebrews 8:13 In that he saith, A new covenant, he hath made the first old. Now that which decayeth and waxeth old is ready to vanish away.

Does it relate?

Does a Pope crap in the woods/is the bear Catholic?

 

[iamlamad]

I certainly don't think all of the NT was completed by 70AD, however I did find the link above compelling.

Let me ask this question another way --- is it possible to believe in the later dating of Revelation and reconcile with partial preterist / Amillennial views?

What is extremely difficult, and has never been accomplished, (and never will be acomplished) is finding the Trumpet judgments and vial judgments in history. Nothing fits, for the simple reason, from the 6th seal on in Revelation is FUTURE.
(Future is not a bad word.)

 

[BABerean2]

What is extremely difficult, and has never been accomplished, (and never will be acomplished) is finding the Trumpet judgments and vial judgments in history. Nothing fits, for the simple reason, from the 6th seal on in Revelation is FUTURE.
(Future is not a bad word.)

You would be correct overall, except for the history lesson at the beginning of chapter 12, which includes the birth and death of Christ.

In the past you have labeled this as a "parenthesis".

However, it is still is an exception to your statement above...

.

 

[iamlamad]

You would be correct overall, except for the history lesson at the beginning of chapter 12, which includes the birth and death of Christ.

In the past you have labeled this as a "parenthesis".

However, it is still is an exception to your statement above...

.

Parentheses are allowed to remain outside the chronology of the general narrative. (Sadly Greek did not have such nice and easily identifiable marks.)

There is another pesky parenthesis in 11:4 - 11:13 that throws many off on chronology.

 

[BABerean2]

Parentheses are allowed to remain outside the chronology of the general narrative. (Sadly Greek did not have such nice and easily identifiable marks.)

There is another pesky parenthesis in 11:4 - 11:13 that throws many off on chronology.

How do you deal with the time of God's wrath and the time of the judgment of the dead at Revelation 11:18?

Many people try to ignore it.

.

 

[iamlamad]

How do you deal with the time of God's wrath and the time of the judgment of the dead at Revelation 11:18?

Many people try to ignore it.

.

It is written as prophecy: foretelling that these events will soon take place. They do not take place at this time.

 

[BABerean2]

It is written as prophecy: foretelling that these events will soon take place. They do not take place at this time.

If the doctor told you it is the time to take your medicine, when would you take it?

.

 

[Anto9us]

I would have taken it in 70 AD

 

[Deborah~]

Zealots?

I don't understand, Deborah.

My apologies for the delay, this is the first chance I've had to sit down and write.
This letter to the Thessalonians was written in 50 A.D. Paul is writing to reassure the Thessalonians that the trials and persecutions they were suffering was not the great tribulation foretold by Jesus and the Day of Christ was not yet at hand. He said the revolt would have to come first, and then the man of sin would rise up. Sixteen years later, in 66 A.D., the Jews revolted.
After Vespasian subdued Galilee there were three factions who took refuge in the fortress city of Jerusalem. One faction led by a man named Eleazar and made up mainly of the refugees from the fighting in Galilee. A second faction led by John of Gishala was made up of neo-Zealots, and a third faction led by a man named Simon son of Giora. This third faction had been invited into the city by the more moderate party of religious and civil authorities, including the majority of the Sanhedrin, who had previously ruled the nation but had been overthrown by John and his army. They joined with Simon who became the defacto titular head of the Jewish state. Thus, as the Scripture said, before its fall “the great city was divided into three parts.” (Revelation 16:19)
The eventual fighting between these three factions for control of the city during the siege caused more death and destruction than the Romans did, but in the weeks before the siege it was Simon who gained official recognition as the new ruler of the Jewish nation. He donned the royal robes that were brought from the treasury and made a ceremonial procession which wound its way through the streets of Jerusalem and up to the Temple Mount. There his army took control of the Temple Courts and committed the ultimate blasphemy of anointing Simon “King” of Israel and setting up Simon's armed camp in the very courts of the Holy House itself (“… the son of perdition; who opposeth and exalteth himself above all that is called God, or that is worshipped; so that he as God sitteth in the temple of God, shewing that he is God.”) Coins were struck to commemorate the realization of the messianic dreams of the Zealots and they bore this inscription: “Year Four of the Redemption of Zion,” or year A.D. 69. The coins were also stamped with the name “Simon” and a three-stringed harp on one side, and on the reverse the coin read, “Deliverance of Jerusalem,” and was decorated with a palm branch surrounded by an olive wreath, the standard victor’s emblem.
However, this messianic dream-come-true turned out to be a nightmare, a false vision of a messianic kingdom of their own imagination, based on their own faulty interpretation of the Messianic promises. Because they refused the truth of the Gospel and rejected Jesus, the Messiah of God, they were given over to delusion so strong that they believed a lie, and plunged the nation of Israel and the Jewish people into a war the bitter fruit of which was untold bloody death and suffering, the firey destruction of the land and of the Jewish commonwealth, and the violent and permanent end of the Old Covenant worship and fellowship of God . . .
“. . . because they received not the love of the truth, that they might be saved. And for this cause God shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie: That they all might be damned who believed not the truth, but took pleasure in unrighteousness.” (2 Thessalonians 2:10:b-12)
It is a sad and bloody history, but it is precisely what Moses and all the prophets, Jesus and all the Apostles had foretold would happen.
So it was written, so it was done.
In Christ,
Coin of Simon bar Giora minted A.D. 69 commemorating 4th year of "deliverance" of Jerusalem

Deborah~

 

[Deborah~]

What is extremely difficult, and has never been accomplished, (and never will be acomplished) is finding the Trumpet judgments and vial judgments in history. Nothing fits, for the simple reason, from the 6th seal on in Revelation is FUTURE.
(Future is not a bad word.)

I don't think that is correct. For example, the passage about the third part of the sea becoming blood and a third part of the fishes dying and the third part of ships destroyed and the waters being poisoned, I believe that was about the battle that was fought on the Sea of Galilee. Josephus records that there were so many slain in that battle that the sea was turned red with their blood and the flow of the Jordan River was stopped from all the dead bodies damning it up. He even describes the horrendous stench for miles around with dead bloated corpses and dead fish and how the waters of the Jordan which flows from the sea were unfit to drink.
And the part about the "scorpions" was describing one of the siege-engines the Romans used against Jerusalem. It was a rear-mount catapult, the newest technology at the time, that shot stones coated with pitch and set on fire. When they struck they exploded and the firey fragments became deadly shrapnel that set everything on fire. The Jews positioned men atop the walls of the city to report when there was incoming but the effect was horrific. People were literally decapitated and Josephus reports that a pregnant woman was struck and the impact was so hard it knocked the babe from her belly. These siege-engines were called "scorpiones" and they were used during the 5 months that Jerusalem was under siege.
So I think there is a lot of evidence for an historical fulfillment, too much to just shrug it off as impossible and put it off to the future. The language is rather fantastic, but after all, John was describing how all these things appeared in the spirit, not what form they took in the world.
In Christ,
Deborah

 

[Anto9us]

Thx Deborah

So this explanation differs somewhat from what Parousia70 posted about Menahem...

If either this Simon or Menahem was THE MAN OF SIN/SON OF PERDITION

who was the RESTRAINER who continued to restrain from the time Paul wrote til he was "taken out of the way"?