When was the Book of Revelation written?

David Kent said:

That was fulfilled and is recorded by Josephus, if I remember about the time of Antiochus Epiphanes. He records that A Jewish Temple was buit in Egypt.

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συνείδησις said:

Check out the fulfillment of Zechariah 14:5. You'll have to do a bit of reading that I'm not going to repeat here - search zechariah + azal + yasul for details. There's no question that prophecy has been fulfilled, and you will probably find no futurists who would agree.

I'm not hyper preterist, btw.

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Biblewriter said:

Whatever anyone said or did not say has zero bearing on the plain statements of scripture.

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Biblewriter said:

I am thoroughly familiar with the ridiculous claim that the earthquake that happened when out Lord was crucified was a fulfillment of this prophecy. But it is absolutely ridiculous to claim that an earthquake that produced a half mile long crack less than an inch wide, is the earthquake described in Zechariah 14, where we read:


"And in that day His feet will stand on the Mount of Olives, Which faces Jerusalem on the east. And the Mount of Olives shall be split in two, From east to west, Making a very large valley; Half of the mountain shall move toward the north And half of it toward the south. Then you shall flee through My mountain valley, For the mountain valley shall reach to Azal. Yes, you shall flee As you fled from the earthquake In the days of Uzziah king of Judah. Thus the LORD my God will come, And all the saints with You. Zechariah 14:4-5

Are you actually ready to even pretend that a half inch wide crack, half a mile long, (which, by the way, went North to South, rather than East to West, as the prophecy required) is a fulfillment of a prophecy of an earthquake that would produce a valley so wide that men would flee through it, and would go all the way to Azal?

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Erik Nelson said:

what fissure are you talking about ? there's a real actual archeological or geological feature in the mountain ?

What's the LXX have for that verse ?

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Erik Nelson said:

Both the NIV Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible & MacArthur SB acknowledge the fulfillment of verse four's "fierce king" as Assurbanipal, king of Assyria who conquered Egypt in 664 BC (or other events of the same era)

The Nile river failed not infrequently, which could explain the next few verses

The future era of peace & cooperation could have been fulfilled with the Christianization of Egypt and the Near East under Constantine.

However, all this started as a simple observation, that references to Heavenly Power coming on "clouds" as in verse 1 refers to Judgements of Wrath, historically fulfilled, in the OT, so as to make an allusion (e.g. Wrath) and draw a comparison (Wrath against "Egypt" = Jerusalem

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Biblewriter said:

I am thoroughly familiar with the ridiculous claim that the earthquake that happened when out Lord was crucified was a fulfillment of this prophecy. But it is absolutely ridiculous to claim that an earthquake that produced a half mile long crack less than an inch wide, is the earthquake described in Zechariah 14, where we read:
...
Are you actually ready to even pretend that a half inch wide crack, half a mile long, (which, by the way, went North to South, rather than East to West, as the prophecy required) is a fulfillment of a prophecy of an earthquake that would produce a valley so wide that men would flee through it, and would go all the way to Azal?

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Biblewriter said:

The mount of Olives was to split so widely as to make a velley big enough to flee through, that reach all the way to Azal. There is no such valley. The mount of Olives is still intact.

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συνείδησις said:

I have no idea what you are referring to about a half-inch wide, half-mile long crack. I'm talking about a landslide that occurred on the Mt of Olives that blocked up the Kidron Valley between the king's garden and Azal River just as Zechariah predicted.

The valley between the hills will be filled in, yes, it will be blocked as far as Jasol [Yasŏl], it will be filled in as it was by the earthquake in the days of Uzziah king of Judah Zechariah 14:5
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Geologic and photographic evidence shows that this did happen. This landslide occurred in the same location that a landslide buried the king's gardens during Uzziah's reign, according to Josephus (Antiquities 9.10.4.225).

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συνείδησις said:

Here's a google map showing directions from the temple mount to Azal. Notice that all I had to do was type in Nahal Azal, and it knows where Azal is. This is fun because it shows how ridiculous the idea of fleeing east from Jerusalem through a split Mt of Olives to Azal is.

Google Maps

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Biblewriter said:

The Azal in this map could not even possibly be the city mentioned in Zechariah.

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Biblewriter said:

There are many errors in the Septuagent. The Hebrew words of this verse cannot be rationally be rendered to fit this translation.

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Biblewriter said:

This is as wrong as it could possibly be. Futurism was very clearly taught in the oldest Christian writings on the subject. It was taught by Justyn Martyr, by Irenaeus, by Hippolytus, by Tertullian, Commodianus, Lactantius, Nepos, Apollinaris, Victorinus of Petau, Cyprian of Carthage, John of Damascus, Cyril of Jerusalem, John Chrysostom, and Jerome. And Jerome called futurism “the traditional interpretation of all the writers of the Christian church.”

Historicism did not even begin to be taught until the 1500s, more than a thousand years after the fifth century Jerome.

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• Daniel 7:23 Thus he said, The fourth beast shall be the fourth kingdom upon earth, which shall be diverse from all kingdoms, and shall devour the whole earth, and shall tread it down, and break it in pieces.
• 24 And the ten horns out of this kingdom are ten kings that shall arise: and another shall rise after them; and he shall be diverse from the first, and he shall subdue three kings.
• 25 And he shall speak great words against the most High, and shall wear out the saints of the most High, and think to change times and laws: and they shall be given into his hand until a time and times and the dividing of time.
• 26 But the judgment shall sit, and they shall take away his dominion, to consume and to destroy it unto the end.

συνείδησις said:

You're making an assumption that Azal had to be a city. Nevertheless, it probably was a town as there is a 1/3 mile long subterranean aqueduct running from an underground cistern near En Rogel in the king's garden to the mouth of Azal Valley. The ancients didn't chisel 1/3 mile long aqueducts 80-90' underground just for grins.

Also, the government of Israel, the Israel Antiquities Authority, and at least one Hebrew University archaeology professor (that I know of) disagree with you that that's not the Azal of Zechariah 14:5

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David Kent said:

You are as wrong as you can be, The early writers were writing about the future but it is in the near future not the far distant future. One, I think it was Tertullian said the Antichrist was almost at the doors. I have read most of those, but that was many years ago when i used to have a long journey to London and back every day. Remember I was taught dispyism when I was in the Brethren so I recognise it when I see it and I never recognised any such thing. Firstly Tertullian and others recognised that the Roman Empre and the Emperor were the let and hindrance in 2 Thess. 2 The empire would be removed and then ten kings would overthrow, they would give power to the little horn, the Antichrist. All this was fulfilled. None of this is anything like dispensationalism. And to say an alternative was taught till the 1500's is wll, I would say a lie, but I suspect that you actually believe it. The Waldensians taught the same as the reformers, as di the Lollards, and John Huss and the Hussites. John H wrote many letters to the Lollard leaders about the Papal Antichrist. The Wadensians wrote a Treatise on Antichrist about the year AD 1200.

Constantine removed the empire to the east, thus removing the let and hindrance that the early church was expecting. The Wldensians seemed to recognise that as they claim their withdrawal from Rome from that time, other didn't see it and were still awaiting the removal. Nothing like dispensationalism.

Why do you think that Constantine removed the seat of the empire? The greatest empire in the World till that time? Rome, the eternal city, they say. Rome, the small city which became mistress of the world. Why move it?

I am not sure if I read it somewhere, or if I was told, but it was suggested the he knew Antichrist would arise in Rome and be head of the church and thought it may be he so he left.

Julius Caesar was Pont Max, and all the emperors from him used the title. The popes use the same title showing they are descendents of the Caesars, and rulers of Rome.

The following is a short history of the Roman Empire almost to the current day.

• Daniel 7:23 Thus he said, The fourth beast shall be the fourth kingdom upon earth, which shall be diverse from all kingdoms, and shall devour the whole earth, and shall tread it down, and break it in pieces.
• 24 And the ten horns out of this kingdom are ten kings that shall arise: and another shall rise after them; and he shall be diverse from the first, and he shall subdue three kings.
• 25 And he shall speak great words against the most High, and shall wear out the saints of the most High, and think to change times and laws: and they shall be given into his hand until a time and times and the dividing of time.
• 26 But the judgment shall sit, and they shall take away his dominion, to consume and to destroy it unto the end.

The early writers believed that , and that is where they took their teaching from, it was future to them, but history to us. The only thing they got wrong was that they expected an individual Antichrist ruling for 3½ years. But then they couldn't foresee the long centuries ahead.

The dominion was taken from the papacy in 1870.

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Biblewriter said:

There is not a single word in the Hebrew text of Zechariah 14:4-5 that can even rationally be rendered “block” or “blocked.”

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Biblewriter said:

But that is a minor problem. The main problem is that the text explicitly says that half of the Mount of Olives will move (Masoretic text) or lean (Septuagint text) to the north, and half to the south. There is no such split in the Mount of Olives, even to this day.

And again, a split as described in this passage would make a valley that runs from west to east. This makes it physically impossible for a location south of the Mount of Olives to be the Azal referenced in this scripture. The opinions of all the “scholars” in the world cannot change this undeniable fact.

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συνείδησις said:

In the Masoretic Text (MT) that is correct. Blocked is the meaning in the LXX. There are 3 instances of the Hebrew verb nstm in Zechariah 14:5. Based upon the pronunciation, nstm means either flee or blocked. The Masoretes incorporated into the MT a Jewish tradition (masorah) that told of GOD splitting the Mt of Olives in two like Moses split the Red Sea. It's totally fake. All it took was to slightly alter the pronunciation of nstm, and voila. Only the LXX has preserved the original reading. There is a lot of evidence that the LXX rendering is the correct pronunciation, and zero evidence that the MT pronunciation is correct.

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συνείδησις said:

Your mind is too biased by the fairy tale of the Mt of Olves splitting in two to form a valley that you can't see something that has already happened - one half of the mountain tore apart from the other half during a landslide. But frankly, based on your defensive attitude and responses, I doubt you are really interested in studying the matter to discern the truth.

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Biblewriter said:

I have studied ancient documents for about 45 years, including about ten years devoted specifically to the writings of ancient Christians. And I can tell you with absolute assurance, that the early Christian writers were most absolutely futurists. In fact, Jerome, writing in the fifth century, called futurism “the traditional doctrine of all the writers of the Christian church.” They taught that prophecy would be fulfilled in the earth’s six thousandth year. As the text they were using was the Septuagint, that meant they were expecting a fulfillment at around the year 450. Many today make the same error, so they expeced a fulfillment a few years ago.

But the Bible simply does not say that the Lord will come in the earth’s six thousandth year.

And as a side note, aside from the assumption made by some (not all) of them, that the Roman Empire was the “let,” the scenario you described is indeed taught in classical Didpensationalism.

And the early “church fathers” often used the word “dispensation “ for an age, they often insisted on the importance of interpreting Bible prophecy literally, they often taught a future prophetic program for “the Jews,” and some of them explicitly taught and futur vonversion of all Jews, as well as a future fulfillment of Daniel’s seventieth week, and even a rapture before the great tribulation. I have thoroughly documented all of this in my forthcoming book, “Ancient Dispensational Doctrine.”

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