External evidence for an early date of Revelation
Francis Gumerlock
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Gumerlock, Francis X.,
Revelation and the First Century: Preterist Interpretations of the Apocalypse in Early Christianity (Powder Springs, Geo.: American Vision,
2012).
1
External Evidence for an Early Date of Revelation:
Ten Early Date Traditions in Ancient Christianity
by
Francis X. Gumerlock
Frank@francisgumerlock.com
National Prophecy Conference
Ridgecrest, North Carolina
June 1-4, 2011
Introduction
Problem: The Inaccurate Claim of Patristic Consensus. Biblical scholarship
manifests significant disagreement over the date of the Book of Revelation. When
ascertaining when John wrote his Apocalypse, writers weigh both internal and external
evidence. Concerning external evidence, the dominant tradition, beginning with Irenaeus
of Lyons (c. 180), dates Revelation to the end of reign of Domitian, about 95 or 96 AD.
This view was passed down through the writings of Victorinus, Eusebius, Ambrosiaster,
Chromatius, Jerome, Ecumenius, Primasius, Cassiodorus, Isidore of Seville, and Bede.
Based on the opinion of these ancient authors, it was common about a hundred years ago
for biblical scholars to make claims of patristic consensus about the dating of Revelation.
Those scholars said that the Domitianic view was the only tradition of the early church,
and that the early church was unanimous about the Domitianic date. A sample of these,
with italics inserted by me for emphasis, includes the following:
Philip Schaff (1910): “The prevailing view, we may say the only distinct
tradition, beginning with so respectable a witness as Irenaeus, about 170, assigns the
exile [of John] to the end of the reign of Domitian, who ruled from 81 to 96.”1
Doremus A. Hayes (1917): “The external evidence for the late date of the
Apocalypse is stronger than for any other book in the New Testament…Here are the
ancient authorities…They all agree that the Apocalypse was written during the reign of
Domitian, some time in the last decade of the first century. Can there be any good reason
for contradicting a tradition guaranteed by such names and such unanimity?”2
James Moffatt (1918): “So far as the early church had any tradition on the
subject, it referred the banishment [of John] to Domitian‟s reign.”3
Arthur Peake (1919): “And on the other side we have the external evidence
which is almost all in favour of the later date.”4
Robert H. Charles (1920): “The earliest authorities are practically unanimous in
assigning the Apocalypse to the last years of Domitian…”5
Unfortunately, several recent writers have repeated those inaccurate claims. For
example, Richard L. Mayhue wrote in The Master’s Seminary Journal: “From the second
through the eighteenth centuries, the late date was essentially the exclusive view.”6 And
Robert L. Thomas, in an entry for the Dictionary of Premillennial Theology, expressed:
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“The unanimous witness of the early church fathers…fix[es] the date in the 90s, during
the reign of Roman emperor Domitian.”7
The Purpose of This Session: To Show the Variety and Diversity of Early Date
Traditions. The truth of the matter is that quite a bit of diversity existed in early
Christianity regarding the date that John wrote the Apocalypse, and that the dominance of
one opinion is not synonymous with unanimity of opinion. Several writers in recent years
have noted that markedly different opinions about the date of Revelation abounded
among early Christian writers. For example, Adela Yarbo Collins took notice of
“traditions about the date of Revelation” that “were apparently independent of Irenaeus.”8
More recently George Wesley Buchanan wrote that in the church fathers “there is no
consistent agreement on the precise time when John lived and wrote.”9
In an earlier book I categorized patristic opinions regarding the date of Revelation
under different headings, from “very early,” e.g. the time of Claudius, (41-54 AD) to
“very late” during the reign of Trajan (98-117 AD).10 This essay expands significantly
upon that research. It provides passages from ancient and medieval texts, showing that
there were at least ten different traditions favoring a date before 70. These interpretations
all predate the seventeenth-century commentary of Luis Alcazar, which is regarded by
many as the first preterist commentary Revelation. I have arranged the texts starting with
those that portray the earliest dating of the Apocalypse, around 30 AD, and ending with
those that describe Revelation as having been written very close to 70 AD.
1. 27-30 AD. John received the visions recorded in Revelation shortly after the
Last Supper
The Venetian version of The Voyage of St Brendan, dated 1270-1350, has Elijah in
paradise saying this: “He [Antichrist] will win the world for himself by many means;
many prophets have spoken of him, and so did Saint John the Evangelist in the
Apocalypse, which was a vision which appeared to him when he was in anguish at the
Last Supper, grief-stricken on hearing that Judas would betray the Lord.”11
The author of the text does not give a source for his opinion that John received the
vision of the Apocalypse at the Last Supper. Most scholars say that Jesus was born
between 6 and 4 BC, and that he lived on earth for 33 and a half years, and therefore,
died, rose, and ascended between 27 and 30 AD. Since the Last Supper was on the night
before He died, that would put the reception of the visions of Revelation about 27-30 AD.
At first sight, such a theory seems outlandish. Upon closer examination, however,
one may be able to see, at least partially, why people might have believed this. First, this
tradition for such an early reception of the visions may be related to the actual wording of
Rev 1:10: I was in the Spirit on the Lord’s day. The word “Lord‟s” in the phrase “the
Lord‟s day” is a rare adjectival form of the word “Lord” and is used only twice in the
New Testament: here in Rev 1:10 (kyriake) and in 1 Cor 11:20 (kyriakon) where it speaks
of the Lord‟s Supper. Perhaps because of the similarity of vocabulary in the two
passages, John‟s reception of the visions on the “Lord‟s” day recorded in Revelation was
correlated with the events of the first “Lord‟s” Supper.12
Secondly, a tradition ascribed to Eusebius of Caesarea (d. c. 339) said that John was
banished by the emperor Tiberius (see point #2 below), who reigned 14-37 AD. If the
author of the Voyage were a recipient of that early date tradition, perhaps he was trying to
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make sense of when John would have received the visions of Revelation before 37 AD,
and placed it within the events of the night that Jesus was betrayed.
Thirdly, this view does not say that John immediately wrote down the visions, only
that he received them at the Last Supper. So, the author could have believed that John
received the visions at the Last Supper, but wrote them down sometime later, although
that does not seem to square with certain passages in Revelation, which indicate that John
wrote down the visions as he was receiving them (Rev 10:4; 21:5; 22:9-10).
With all that said, I am unaware of anyone today who holds that John received the
visions of the Apocalypse at the Last Supper. Such a view, in my opinion, divorces John
and the Book of Revelation from the context of Patmos and the cities of Asia Minor.
Nevertheless, the Voyage of St Brendan contains a tradition which said that John received
the visions of Revelation at a very early date, corresponding to sometime between 27 and
30 AD in our reckoning of time.
2. 36-37 AD. John was exiled by Tiberius Caesar
Mingana Syriac 540. In 1930 Alphonse Mingana, keeper of Oriental manuscripts in
the John Rylands library in Manchester, England, published excerpts from a manuscript
now called Mingana Syriac 540. Although the manuscript dates from 1749, Mingana
concluded that “it was a faithful copy of an original from about A.D. 750.”13 The
manuscript contains the Syriac New Testament called the Peshitta along with another
treatise ascribed to Eusebius of Caesarea. That latter treatise gives a short account of the
deeds of the twelve apostles. About the apostle John it reads: “John the Evangelist was
also from Bethsaida. He was of the tribe of Zebulun. He preached in Asia first, and
afterwards was banished by Tiberius Caesar to the isle of Patmos. Then he went to
Ephesus and built up the church in it.”14
Mingana Syriac 540 says that John was banished to Patmos by Tiberius, who reigned
from 14-37 AD. We know from Acts Chapter 8 that John was still in Palestine around 36
AD. After the persecution broke out, in which Stephen had been stoned to death, the
apostle Philip went to Samaria. When the apostles in Jerusalem heard that Samaria “had
received the word of God, they sent them Peter and John, who came down and prayed for
them....” (Acts 8:14-15) So John was in Jerusalem and Samaria around that time, which
is thought to have been in 36 AD. Tiberius Caesar died in 37 AD. Therefore, in this
theory regarding the exile of John, John would have travelled to Asia in 36 or 37 and
would have been banished to Patmos shortly thereafter by Tiberius before the death of
that emperor in 37. From that island he would have written the Book of Revelation.
Michael of Antioch. A similar story, said to have come from the writings of
Dionysius Bar Salabi (d. 1171), is related in the Chronique written by Michael the
Syrian, patriarch of Antioch from 1166-1199. It reads:
John preached at Antioch; he went away to Ephesus and the mother of our Lord
accompanied him. Immediately, they were exiled to the island of Patmos. On
returning from exile, he preached at Ephesus and built a church. Ignatius and
Polycarp served him. He buried the blessed Mary. He lived 73 years and died after
all the other apostles; he was buried at Ephesus.15
In this account, John goes to Ephesus with Mary the mother of Christ. (Other
accounts of the life of John say that he remained in Judea until Mary died, and then went
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to Asia Minor.16) In other words, the relocation from Judea to Asia was early enough in
this life of John that he was still taking care of Mary. Immediately upon arriving both
John and Mary are exiled to Patmos. If the account is arranged chronologically, and it
seems to have been written that way, Mary returned from exile to Ephesus with John, and
he later buried her in that city. Then John died at age 73.
This is not the picture that is often portrayed of John as an aged man, eighty or ninety
years old, living on the island of Patmos, writing the Book of Revelation about 95 or 96
AD. If that were the case, and Mary were with him on Patmos, Mary would have been
on the island with John when she was well over 110 years old (assuming that Mary was
13 or 14 years old when she gave birth to the Lord).
Not many people today hold that John‟s exile and writing of the Book of Revelation
took place as early as the reign of Tiberius.17 Nevertheless, Mingana Syriac 540 preserves
an early Syriac tradition, in a writing ascribed to Eusebius, that John was exiled to
Patmos very early by the emperor Tiberius who died in 37 AD.
3. 41-54 AD. John was exiled by and prophesied in the time of Claudius
Epiphanius of Salamis. About the year 370 Epiphanius of Salamis, a Greek-
speaking bishop on the island of Cyprus, wrote that John “prophesied in the time of
Claudius…the prophetic word according to the Apocalypse being disclosed.”18 The
emperor Claudius reigned from 41-54 A.D. The Roman historian Suetonius tells of
Claudius expelling from Rome Jews who were arguing over “Chrestus,” which most
scholars take as a misspelled reference to Christ. Suetonius wrote: “The Jews he
[Claudius] expelled from Rome, since they were constantly in rebellion, at the instigation
of Chrestus.”19 Perhaps Epiphanius and others believed that John was a victim of that
expulsion, which occurred about 51 AD. In any event, Epiphanius believed that John
wrote Revelation very early. Other early Christian writers, Apringius of Beja and Beatus
of Liebana, recorded this as well.
Apringius of Beja. Apringius, a Latin-speaking bishop in Beja in modern
Portugal, wrote a commentary on Revelation in the early sixth century (c. 531-548). On
Rev 1:9 he made this comment:
Just as ecclesiastical reporters have taught, in the time of Claudius Caesar, when
that famine, which was announced to be coming within ten years by Agabus the
prophet in the Acts of the Apostles (cf. Acts 11:28), became severe, in that same
storm Caesar, compelled by customary vanity, proclaimed a persecution against
the churches. In that time also he commanded that John, the apostle of our Lord
Jesus Christ, be transferred into exile, whom also the present scripture establishes
was deported to the island of Patmos.20
So, just as the fourth-century Greek bishop believed that John was banished to
Patmos by the emperor Claudius, so too did this sixth-century Latin speaking bishop,
Apringius of Beja, who was ministering on the other side of the Mediterranean.
Beatus of Liebana. Beatus of Liebana, a monk in northern Spain, copied verbatim
Apringius‟ comments about John being exiled by Claudius, and included them in his
Commentary on the Apocalypse written in 786.21 Beatus‟ commentary, along with its
contents about the early date of Revelation, was widely disseminated in medieval Europe,
as shown by the large number of illustrated manuscripts of it that have survived.22
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4. 50-53 AD. Revelation was written in the 23rd year after Christ’s death
Sometime between the sixth and eighth century, an unknown person authored a
small Handbook on the Apocalypse of the Apostle John that circulated under the names of
Jerome and Isidore of Seville. The prologue to the handbook contained in a ninth century
manuscript—Bamberg, Staatliche Bibliothek Patr. 102—discusses the time when John
wrote the Book of Revelation: “It was written in the twenty-third year after the passion
of the Lord, and in the time of the emperor Domitian, who was very much a persecutor of
the churches of Christ.”23 The two dates given—the 23rd year after Christ‟s passion and
the time of Domitian, who did not reign until over fifty years after Christ‟s death—seem
contradictory. However, if one takes the 23rd year after the Lord‟s passion at face value,
and the Lord‟s passion took place between 27 and 30 AD (see endnote #2), that would
put his date of Revelation between the year 50 and 53.
The most recent editor of the Handbook, Roger Gryson, believes the number
XXIII, or 23, was an error written by either the author or a later librarian, and the
intention of the author was for it to read LXIII, or 63. Gryson explained his reasons for
this conjecture. The author of the prologue, he says, was probably using as a source
Jerome‟s translation of Eusebius‟ Chronicle.24 In it, time is reckoned by Olympiads, or
periods of four years. John is said to have written the Apocalypse in the fourteenth year
of Domitian, which would have corresponded in the Chronicle with the second year of
the 218th Olympiad (217 X 4=868, plus 2=870). The passion of Christ, according to the
Chronicle, took place in the 18th year of Tiberius or the third year of the 202nd Olympiad
(201 X 4=804, plus 3=807). The difference between 870 and 807 is 63. Thus, the
fourteenth year of Domitian would have been the LXIII, or 63rd year, after the passion of
the Lord. It makes sense, but the theory would be stronger if there were a manuscript that
contained LXIII to confirm it, and there are none.
It may be that Gryson is correct. However, there are other possible explanations
for the discrepancy between the 23rd year after the passion of the Lord and the reign of
Domitian. One possibility is that the author of the prologue did not know his Roman
history of emperors and did not perceive any contradiction between the 23rd year after the
passion of Christ and the reign of Domitian.
Another possibility is that the author of the prologue, in mentioning that
Revelation was written in the 23rd year after the Lord‟s passion and under Domitian, was
giving voice to two different patristic traditions about the date of Revelation (the
Domitianic tradition and the Claudianic tradition which links John‟s exile with the
expulsion of the Jews from Rome in 51). Not concerned about consistency, he simply
blended the two traditions into one short statement. For an early medieval Apocalypse
commentator to reiterate earlier traditions, even though those traditions are contradictory,
is certainly not out of the ordinary. Beatus‟ commentary contains three conflicting
patristic traditions about the date of Revelation (Claudianic, Neronic, Domitianic),
without any attempt at reconciling them.25
It is also allowable to interpret the conjunction “and” (et) in the sentence of the
prologue as “in addition.” In other words, the author of the prologue could have believed
that Revelation was published both in the 23rd year after Christ‟s death and in the reign of
Domitian. This is not to be confused with redaction theories of certain higher critics,
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which say that the Apocalypse was edited several times by different people before taking
its final form.26 Rather, some biblically conservative scholars, who uphold the
inspiration of Scripture and single authorship of Revelation, think that Revelation was
originally written early and distributed on a relatively small scale, and then a few decades
later was copied and distributed on a much wider scale. For example, Kym Smith, an
Anglican priest from South Australia, conjectured that John wrote Revelation about 62
AD, but not many copies of it were circulated at that time. Then, near the end of the
reign of Domitian, there was a reissuing of the book on a wider scale. This theory, for
Smith, reconciles the internal evidence he sees, that Revelation was written in the 60s,
with Irenaeus‟ statement about the Apocalypse having been seen toward the end of
Domitian‟s reign.27 Did the author of the prologue to this Handbook believe that John
wrote the Apocalypse in the 23rd year after the passion of Christ and that it was copied on
a wider scale in the time of Domitian? It is possible, although maybe not probable.
Whatever we are to make of the prologue to this early medieval Handbook on the
Apocalypse of the Apostle John, we know that many medieval readers and hearers (since
texts were often read aloud) of the Bamberg manuscript read or heard that the
Apocalypse was written in the twenty-third year after the death of the Lord, which
corresponds to the early 50s of the first century.
5. 54-68 AD. John was exiled to Patmos by Nero and from there wrote the Book of
Revelation.
History of John. An ancient Syriac document, the History of John, the Son of
Zebedee, shows that some Syriac Christians believed John was exiled by Nero, who
reigned from 54-68 AD. While one of the manuscripts containing this treatise dates from
the sixth century, recent scholarship has shown that the History was most likely
composed by the end of the fourth century.28 It reads:
After these things, when the Gospel was increasing by the hands of the Apostles,
Nero, the unclean and impure and wicked king, heard all that had happened at
Ephesus. And he send [and] took all that the procurator had, and imprisoned him;
and laid hold of S. John and drove him into exile; and passed sentence on the city
that it should be laid waste.29
Clearly the author believed, its readers read, and its hearers heard, that John was
exiled by the emperor Nero.
Thomas of Harkel. In 508, Polycarpus translated the New Testament into the
Syriac language. It was later revised by Thomas of Harkel in 616.30 This version of the
New Testament is called the Peshitta. At the beginning of the Book of Revelation in the
Peshitta version, a preface reads: “The Revelation, which was made by God to John the
Evangelist, in the Island of Patmos, To which he was banished by Nero the Emperor.”31
This preface to Revelation in the Peshitta version shows that many in the Syrian church
read or heard that John was exiled by Nero to Patmos where he wrote the Book of
Revelation.
6. 59-62 AD. John was banished to Patmos 32 years after Christ’s ascension
7
Theophylact of Ochrida (d. 1109) a Byzantine bishop who ministered in the
region we know today as Bulgaria, recorded an exegetical tradition that John had been
banished to Patmos thirty-two years after Christ‟s ascension. In the preface to his
commentary on the Gospel of John, he wrote that John “began to explain those things,
and to bring clarity, and to bring forth in his own Gospel, which he also wrote, having
been banished on the island of Patmos after thirty-two years after the ascension of Christ
into heaven.”32 Since Christ died, rose, and ascended to heaven sometime between the
year 27 and 30 AD (see endnote #4), thirty-two years afterward brings one to the years
59-62, during the reign of Nero.
Some recent scholarship on the date of the Book of Revelation concurs with
Theophylact‟s view regarding the time of John‟s exile. Gonzalo Rojas-Flores, in a 2004
article entitled “The Book of Revelation and the First Years of Nero‟s Reign,” argued for
a date of the writing of Revelation in the early years of Nero‟s reign, between 54 and
60.33 Kym Smith also, in a 2001 book entitled Redating the Revelation, argued that
John‟s banishment took place in 61 and that he wrote the Apocalypse in 62.34
7. Before 67 AD. John wrote the Book of Revelation before Paul’s seven letters
were completed
The Muratorian fragment, dated variously from the second through fourth
centuries, is an important document for the study of the formation of the canon of
Scripture. A section of it reads:
…since the blessed apostle Paul himself—following the pattern (ordo) of his
predecessor John—writes, giving their names, to not more than seven churches, in
this order: To the Corinthians a first; to the Ephesians a second; to the Philippians
a third; to the Colossians a fourth; to the Galatians a fifth; to the Thessalonians a
sixth; to the Romans a seventh. But although there is one more each to the
Corinthians and to the Thessalonians, for the sake of reproof, nevertheless it is
obvious that one church is dispersed over the whole globe of the earth. For also
John, in his Apocalypse, while writing to seven churches, yet speaks to all (lines
47-59).35
If this fragment is read plainly, it says that John was a predecessor of Paul in the
writing of epistles, that John wrote to seven churches (in the Book of Revelation), and
that Paul, following John‟s pattern, wrote to seven churches. While Samuel Tregelles,
who edited the Muratorian fragment in 1867, said, “It cannot be that the author thought
that St. John saw and wrote the Apocalypse before St. Paul had written his Epistles,”
others are not as dismissive of that idea.36 Krister Stendahl commented on this portion of
the fragment referring to the seven churches to which Paul wrote, saying: “This number
seven is seen as a conscious conforming to the pattern of God‟s own revelation through
John.”37 Kenneth Gentry, Jr. interpreted the fragment as external evidence that some in
the early church believed that John wrote the Book of Revelation much earlier than 95 or
96. He explained, “This ancient writer clearly teaches that John preceded Paul in writing
letters to seven churches. And it is universally agreed among historians and theologians
that Paul died before A.D. 70, either in A.D. 67 or 68.”38 Kym Smith sees the fragment
as evidence that John wrote the Book of Revelation about the same time that Paul was
writing his epistles. He concludes, “The fragment‟s reference to John as Paul‟s
8
predecessor, then, is interesting. At the very least it places the writing of the Revelation
in the midst of Paul‟s epistolary activity….”39
It is very likely that the author of the Muratorian fragment was placing the
authorship of the Book of Revelation before the completion of Paul‟s letters, and
definitely before Paul‟s death around 67.
8. 67 AD. John was exiled by Nero at the same time that Peter and Paul died, and
he wrote the Book of Revelation before the destruction of Jerusalem.
Tertullian. Around the year 203, Tertullian of Carthage wrote On Prescription
against Heretics. In that book he linked the deaths of Peter and Paul with the suffering
and exile of John at Rome under the emperor Nero.40 About the church at Rome, the
passage reads:
How fortunate is that church, upon which the apostles poured out all their
teaching with their own blood, where Peter suffers a passion similar to the Lord‟s,
where Paul is crowned with the death like that of John [the Baptist], where the
apostle John afterward, submerged in boiling oil, suffered nothing, and is exiled
on an island.41
On this passage J. Hadot wrote that the city of Rome was “the theater of the triple
martyrdom of Peter, of Paul, and of John.”42 Gentry observed that the statement by
Tertullian “unites the three Apostles under the Neronic persecution.”43
Jerome. About the year 393, Jerome in his work Against Jovianian commented
upon that passage of Tertullian, saying, “Moreover, Tertullian relates that he [John] was
sent by Nero into boiling oil.”44 The words “by Nero” (a Nerone) are contained in the
ancient editions of Jerome‟s work, including the 1524 edition by Erasmus of Rotterdam.
However, in the 1564 edition by Vittori the words “by Nero” were changed to “at Rome”
(Romae). In that edition a note says that for “„by Nero,‟ as was read previously, from
Tertullian himself we have put „at Rome.‟ For, this was in the time of Domitian not
Nero, and Tertullian himself did not report that it happened „by Nero‟ but „at Rome‟,
there being no mention of Nero.” Vittori‟s change was reproduced in the editions of
Vellarsi in 1767 and Migne in the next century. 45
Origen (d. 251) In fragment 9 of his commentary On Luke, Origen wrote that
“John was still living at the time of Nero,”46 suggesting that after Nero John was not still
living. So Origen seems to have believed that the apostle John lived up to (and died)
during the reign of Nero. This is far different from the tradition recorded in Eusebius that
John was still living at the time of Trajan.47
John Henten (1545). Besides Tertullian, Origen, and Jerome suggesting that John
suffered, was exiled, or died under Nero, John Henten in the mid-sixteenth century wrote
that the apostle John was exiled and wrote the Book of Revelation at the same time as the
deaths of Peter and Paul. Henten was a professor at Louvain who edited the Apocalypse
commentary of Arethas of Caesarea in Cappadocia (860-940 AD). In 1545 Henten
commented on the date of Revelation as follows:
And first it seems to us that John, this apostle and evangelist who is called the
Theologian, was exiled onto Patmos by Nero at the very same time in which he
killed the blessed apostles of Christ Peter and Paul…[and] that the Apocalypse
was written on Patmos before the destruction of Jerusalem.48
9
Henten also held that Chapters 6-11 of Revelation referred to the abrogation of
Judaism, and Chapters 12-19 referred to the destruction of Roman paganism.49 For these
views Henten does not seem to have been influenced by the statements of Tertullian,
Origen, and Jerome cited above. In all likelihood he found justification for these preterist
views about Revelation in the ninth or tenth-century Apocalypse commentary of Arethas.
One conclusion can be drawn from Henten‟s dating of the Apocalypse before the
AD 70 destruction of Jerusalem. Luis Alcazar, in his 1614 commentary on Revelation,
was not the first to take a preterist approach to the prophecies of the Apocalypse. Henten
wrote his comments almost a century before the publication of the commentary by Luis
Alcazar.
9. Before 70 AD. John was martyred in Jerusalem before the destruction of that
city by the Romans.
As mentioned above, the tradition about John that eventually dominated the others
was that the apostle was exiled by Domitian, wrote Revelation in the closing years of that
emperor‟s reign about 95 or 96, was later released from exile, and lived in Ephesus up to
the time of Trajan (98-117). However, another tradition that may be even more ancient is
that the apostle John was martyred in Jerusalem before its destruction by the Romans in
70. The tradition in all probability dates back to Papias in the early second century; and it
was well preserved in early churches of Syria.
Papias (c. 60-130). Papias was bishop of Hierapolis in Asia Minor in the late first
and early second centuries. Only fragments of his writings exist. Philip of Side in
Pamphylia wrote a 36-volume Christian History between the year 434 and 439. In it he
claimed that Papias wrote that John the Evangelist was slain by the Jews. The full
citation from Philip of Side reads as follows, and I have put the relevant portion in italics:
Papias, bishop of Hierapolis, a disciple of John the Theologian and friend of
Polycarp, wrote The Lord’s Gospel in five books. There he gave a list of Apostles
and, after enumerating Peter and John, Philip and Thomas and Matthew, recorded
as „disciples of the Lord‟ Ariston and another John, whom he also called
„presbyter‟. As a result, some believe that (this) John is the author of the two
short Catholic Epistles, which circulate under the name of John, their reason being
that the men of the primitive age accepted the First Epistle only. Some have also
erroneously believed the Apocalypse to be this man‟s work. Papias, too, is in
error about the Millennium, and so is, in consequence Irenaeus. Papias says in
the second book that John the Evangelist and his brother James were slain by the
Jews. The aforesaid Papias related, alleging as his source of information the
daughters of Philip, that Barsabas, the same Justus that passed the scrutiny, was
forced by the unbelievers to drink snake poison, but was in the name of Christ
preserved unharmed. He relates still other marvelous events, in particular the
rising of Manaemus‟s mother from the dead. Regarding those who were raised
from the dead by Christ, he says that they survived till Hadrian‟s time.50
According to Philip of Side, Papias wrote that the apostle John and his brother
James were martyred by the Jews. A similar report of Papias writing that John was killed
by the Jews is contained in the Chronicle of George the Sinner [Hamartolus] (c. 840). It
says: “John has been deemed worthy of martyrdom. For Papias, the Bishop of
10
Hierapolis, having been an eyewitness of him, saying in the second book of his
„Dominical Oracles,‟ that he was killed by Jews, having evidently fulfilled, with his
brother the prediction of Christ concerning them.”51
Clement of Alexandria (d. c. 215). In his Stromata, Clement, bishop of
Alexandria, quoted Heracleon as saying that “Matthew, Philip, Thomas, Levi, and many
others” did not die as martyrs.52 Since John is not mentioned in the list of apostles as
those who did not die a martyr‟s death, it is probable that Heracleon was a recipient of the
early tradition that the apostle John was martyred.
Aphraates of Nineveh (c. 344). This Syrian church father discussed life after
death and eschatology in one of his Demonstrations. In it he speaks of the martyrdom of
James and John. He writes: “Great and excellent is the martyrdom of Jesus…to him
followed the faithful martyr Stephen whom the Jews stoned. Simon also and Paul were
perfect martyrs. James and John trod in the footsteps of their Master Christ. Also other
of the Apostles thereafter in divers places confessed, and proved themselves true
martyrs.”53
Manichaean Psalm Book (4th c.) This book from fourth century Syria says that
the “two sons of Zebedee were made to drink the cup” of martyrdom, and that while
James was stoned and killed, John the Virgin was “fourteen days imprisoned that he
might die of hunger.”54
John Chrysostom (400). John Chrysostom, in a homily on the Acts of the
Apostles that he preached during his residence in Constantinople about the year 400,
mentioned that the Roman-Judean war broke out “only after the Apostles were dead.”55
Jerusalem was besieged by the Romans in 68 AD. This implies that Chrysostom believed
that the apostle John had died before 68 AD.
Syrian martyrology (411). In a Syrian martyrology dated 411, the martyrdom of
“the apostles James and John at Jerusalem” was celebrated on December 27th.56 This
document gives clearer indication that the early Syriac church not only believed that the
apostle John was martyred, but that he was martyred in Jerusalem.
In summary, evidence exists from Philip of Side and George the Sinner that
Papias, a very early Christian writer, communicated that the apostle John was killed by
the Jews. Aphraates in the fourth century and a Syrian martyrology in the fifth century
also stated that the apostle John was martyred, the latter specifying the place of his
martyrdom as Jerusalem. The writings of several others imply that John‟s martyrdom in
Jerusalem occurred before the Roman-Judean war. From this evidence E. Lipinski
concluded that the opinion of the fathers which says that John died at Ephesus at an
advanced age goes “against the more ancient testimony of Papias and against the weight
of the tradition preserved by the Syrian church.” Lipinski continued, writing that the
tradition of Irenaeus which became dominant—that John lived until the time of Trajan—
may have overshadowed but did not “completely eliminate the more ancient tradition.”57
Some might use the tradition of an early martyrdom of John in Jerusalem to deny
the authorship of the Book of Revelation by that apostle. It should be noted, however,
that these patristic writers, who held to the early martyrdom of John, may have believed
that John was exiled to Patmos by Claudius around 51, a view expressed in four different
texts (Epiphanius, Apringius, pseudo-Jerome, Beatus), and therefore would have had no
problem holding that the one who saw the visions on Patmos in the 50s was martyred in
Jerusalem before AD 70.
11
10. About 57-72 AD. John was exiled on Patmos for 15 years, and lived another 26
years after returning from Patmos to Ephesus.
Another early account of the life of John, written in the fifth century, is called the
Acts of John by Prochorus. (Prochorus, to whom it is attributed, was one of seven men
named in Acts 6:5.) The treatise survived in several languages including Greek, Latin,
and Arabic, which means it was well circulated. It says that John was 50 years old and
Prochorus 30 years old when they came from Jerusalem to Ephesus. It goes on to say
that they ministered in Ephesus for nine years. Then they were exiled on Patmos for 15
years. Finally, it says, John lived another 26 years back in Ephesus after his exile, dying
at the age of 100.58
It was believed by the author of this life of John, that the apostle John lived a very
long life. As mentioned above, many early Christian accounts of John‟s life say that he
lived all the way up to the time of Trajan, whose reign began in 98. If that tradition of
John living to a very old age (up to Trajan‟s reign) is brought to bear on this account of
John living to 100 years old, the math is simple. John would have died about 98 AD. 98
minus the 26 years John spent in Ephesus after his exile, means the apostle was released
from Patmos about the year 72. Having spent 15 years in exile on Patmos, John was
there from around AD 57-72. Hence, he would have been exiled to Patmos by the
emperor Nero (54-68), and would have received the visions of Revelation on that island
sometime during his fifteen year exile. Therefore, this Acts of John by Prochorus is yet
another witness for a much earlier date of John‟s exile than under Domitian.
Summary
This session showed that the Domitian hypothesis for the date of Revelation was
by no means universally received in early and medieval Christianity. On the contrary,
many ancient writers expressed opinions that John wrote Revelation before 70 AD. In
fact ten different traditions for such an early date of Revelation can be extracted from
their literary monuments.
One tradition has John receiving the visions of the Apocalypse at the Last Supper,
another during the reign of Tiberius as early as 36 or 37 AD. Several commentators on
Revelation believed that John was exiled by the emperor Claudius around 51 AD. One
biblical commentator said that John wrote Revelation 23 years after Christ died, while
another put his exile to Patmos 32 years after the ascension of the Lord. Both of these
views have John writing the Apocalypse long before the reign of Domitian in the 80s and
90s.
Another very early tradition stated that the apostle Paul patterned his letters to
seven churches after those of John to the seven churches of Revelation, implying that
Paul knew of the Apocalypse before the end of his literary activity in 67. Many early
Christian writers believed that John was exiled by the emperor Nero who reigned in the
50s and 60s; and a very early tradition that survived in Syrian Christianity has John being
martyred in Jerusalem before the Roman-Judean war of 68-70, and therefore writing the
Apocalypse before that time.
12
These early date traditions are similar to what many biblical scholars are saying
today about the date of the Book of Revelation. Mark Wilson in his essay “The Early
Christians in Ephesus and the Date of Revelation, Again” argued for a date in the late
60s.59 Albert A. Bell, Jr‟s article “The Date of John‟s Apocalypse. The Evidence of
Some Roman Historians Reconsidered,” and J. Christian Wilson‟s article “The Problem
of the Domitianic Date of Revelation,” concluded that Revelation was written in 68 or
69.60 Robert B. Moberly in “When Was Revelation Conceived?” and Thomas B. Slater
in “Dating the Apocalypse to John” fix the date of the Apocalypse in 69.61 The reasons
for their conclusions are diverse, but their findings are similar to those of the early
Christian writers cited above, namely, that the Book of Revelation was written much
earlier than the reign of Domitian.
Regarding our brothers, like Philip Schaff, who in the early twentieth century
made the claim that the Domitianic dating of Revelation was the only tradition of early
Christianity, latitude can be shown for their inaccurate statements; perhaps the patristic
texts illustrating the variety of opinions prevalent in the early church and middle ages
were not readily available to them. But now that so many of these texts have been
brought to light, it seems to me that in the twenty first century there is no excuse for
making the assertion that the church fathers were all agreed on the Domitianic date of
Revelation, or that such dating was the exclusive view of the early church. For, in dating
the Apocalypse before 70 AD, at least ten different traditions from ancient and medieval
Christianity have been preserved.
1 Philip Schaff, History of the Christian Tradition, 3rd ed. (New York: Charles Scribner‟s Sons, 1910;
reprint, Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1987), 1:427.
2 Doremus A. Hayes, John and His Writings (New York: Methodist Book Concern, 1917), 245-6.
3 James Moffatt, An Introduction to the Literature of the New Testament, 3rd ed. (Edinburgh: T & T Clark,
1918), 505.
4 Arthur Peake, The Revelation of John (London: Holborn, 1919), 96.
5 Robert H. Charles, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Revelation of St. John, 2 vols (Edinburg:
T & T Clark, 1920), xcii. The five references above were cited in Mark L. Hitchcock, “A Defense of the
Domitianic Date of the Book of Revelation,” (diss. Dallas Theological Seminary, 2005), 75-7.
6 Richard L. Mayhue, “Jesus: Preterist or Futurist?,” The Master’s Seminary Journal 14:1 (Spring 2003):9-
22 at 13.
7 Robert L. Thomas, “Dating the Book of Revelation,” in Mal Couch, ed., Dictionary of Premillennial
Theology (Grand Rapids, MI: Kregel, 1996), 366-7.
8 Adela Yarbro Collins, Crisis and Catharsis: The Power of the Apocalypse (Philadelphia: Westminster,
1984), 55.
9 George Wesley Buchanan, The Book of Revelation: Its Introduction and Prophecy (Eugene, OR: Wipf
and Stock, 2005), 40.
10 Francis X. Gumerlock, “The Date of Revelation in the Early Church,” Ch. 7 of Gary DeMar and Francis
X. Gumerlock, The Early Church and the End of the World (Powder Springs, GA: American Vision,
2006), 125-139. One Arabic commentary, that of Ibn Katib Qaysar written in 1267 AD, has the sixth king
of Rev 17:10 (“the one who is”) as Ilia Andrianus (Publius Aelius Hadrianus) or the emperor Hadrian, who
reigned from 117 to 138 AD. That is on page 337 of the 1994 reprint of the Arabic edition, which I learned
through personal correspondence with Stephen J. Davis of Yale University who has studied the
commentary. See his article “Introducing an Arabic Commentary on the Apocalypse: Ibn Katib Qaysar on
Revelation,” Harvard Theological Review 101:1 (2008):77-96.
11 W.R.J. Barron and Glyn S. Burgess, The Voyage of St Brendan (Exeter, UK: University of Exeter Press,
2002), 221. Concerning the date of 27-30 AD for the Last Supper, a Scythian monk named Dionysius
Exiguus (d. 544) was responsible for our modern reckoning of time from the birth of Christ. However,
13
because of miscalculations on his part, recent scholarship dates the birth of Jesus between 6 and 4 BC.
Colin J. Humphreys, “The Star of Bethlehem, a Comet in 5BC and the Date of Christ‟s Birth,” Tyndale
Bulletin 43:1 (1992):31-56; Tom Wright, The Millennium Myth (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox
Press, 1999), 2; Ben Witherington III, “Primary Sources,” Christian History 59 (1998):12-19 at 14; Damian
Thompson, The End of Time (Hanover: University Press of New England, 1996), 32-3; Allan Hauch,
Calendar of Christianity (New York: Association Press, 1961), 25. If it is agreed that the Lord lived on
earth about 33 and a half years, this would put Christ‟s death (and the Last Supper the night before he
died), resurrection, and ascension between 27 and 30 AD.
12 Furthermore, the phrase “in the spirit” in Rev 1:10, according to some (e.g. Buchanan, Book of
Revelation, 61), is a Hebraic poetic expression describing a mental state similar to day dreaming. Whether
or not such an interpretation of that phrase is correct, the author of the Voyage of St Brendan may have
viewed the expression in a similar manner. Then, if he correlated the mental anguish that John must have
felt upon hearing the news that his Lord would be betrayed, this might account for the author‟s mention of
John‟s mind being “in anguish” and “grief stricken” when he received the visions. For another non-
traditional interpretation of the phrase “in the spirit” in Rev 1:10, written about the same time at the Voyage
of St Brendan, see the English commentator Richard Rolle (d. 1349) who explained: “It can be said that
John here sees while he is sleeping.” Robert Boenig, trans., Richard Rolle. Biblical Commentaries
(Salzburg, Austria: Institut für Anglistic und Amerikanistik Universität Salzburg, 1984), 142.
13 R. Alan Culpepper, John, the Son of Zebedee: The Life of a Legend (Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 2000),
230.
14 Translated in Culpepper, John, the Son of Zebedee, 230. This text of Mingana is also cited by F. F.
Bruce in his “Some Notes on the Fourth Evangelist” (
www.earlychurch.org.uk), which gives the
bibliographical information of Mingana‟s original article as “The Authorship of the Fourth Gospel”
Bulletin of the John Rylands Library 14 (1930): 333ff.
15 Translated in Culpepper, John, the Son of Zebedee, 235.
16 For example, the account of Arethas of Caesarea of Cappadocia on Rev 7:4-7. PG 106:606.
17 However, Buchanan (Book of Revelation, 431, 712) holds that some parts of the Book of Revelation,
namely Chapters 12-15, could have been written as early as 37 AD or during the reign of Gaius Caligula
(37-44 AD). Buchanan does not seem to hold to the authorship of Revelation by the apostle John or even
by one author. However, his 2005 commentary is useful for its placing in parallel columns the text of
Revelation and passages of the Old Testament to which they allude.
18 Epiphanius of Salamis, Panarion [often referred to as Adv. Haer.or Against Heresies] 51.12, 33. PG
41:909. Translation in Kenneth L. Gentry, Jr., The Beast of Revelation, Rev. ed. (Powder Springs, GA:
American Vision, 2002), 196; Gentry, Before Jerusalem Fell: Dating the Book of Revelation, Rev. ed.
(Atlanta: American Vision, 1998), 104. In Panarion 51.12.2 Epiphanius wrote that John wrote his Gospel
“after his return from Patmos in the time of Claudius Caesar and after he had spent many years in Asia.”
Translation in Culpepper, John, the Son of Zebedee, 158.
19 Suetonius, Lives of the Caesars. Catharine Edwards, trans. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000),
184.
20 Apringius, Tractate on the Apocalypse. On Rev 1:9. CCSL 107:39. My translation of: Sicut relatores
ecclesiastici docuerunt, Claudii Caesaris tempore, quando famis illa invaluit quae ab Agabo propheta in
Actibus apostolorum annis decem venire nuntiata est, ea tempestate idem Caesar solita vanitate compulsus
persecutionem indicit ecclesiis. Quo in tempore etiam domini nostril Iesu Christi apostolum Iohannem
mandate exilio mancipari, quem deportatum in Pathmos insula etiam praesens comprobat scriptura. An
English translation by William Weinrich of the entire Tractate on the Apocalypse by Apringius is
scheduled for publication by InterVarsity Press in their Ancient Christian Texts series. See Gumerlock,
“Patristic Commentaries on Revelation,” Kerux 23:2 (Sept 2008):47-67 at 56.
21 Beatus of Liebana, Commentary on the Apocalypse, 1. On Rev 1:9. E. Romero-Pose, ed., Sancti Beati a
Liebana Commentarius in Apocalypsin, Vol. 1 (Rome: Typis Officinae Polygraphicae, 1985), 91-2. Latin
and English translation are in DeMar and Gumerlock, The Early Church and the End of the World, 147,
154.
22 John Williams, The Illustrated Beatus: A Corpus of the Illustrations of the Commentary on the
Apocalypse, 5 vols (Langhorne, PA: Harvey Miller Publishers, International Publishers Distributor, 1994-
2002).
14
23 Pseudo-Jerome, Handbook on the Apocalypse, Prologue. CCSL 107:193. My translation of: XXIII anno
post passionem domini scriptum est, et sub tempore Domitiani imperatoris, et qui etiam persecutor
ecclesiarum Christique nimium fuit. This entire Handbook on the Apocalypse has been translated by me,
but is currently unpublished.
24 Roger Gryson, ed., Commentaria minora in Apocalypsin Johannis. CCSL 107 (Turnhout, Belgium:
Brepols, 2003), 182-3. Jerome‟s translation of Eusebius‟ Chronicle is in PL 27.
25 Beatus of Liebana, Commentary on the Apocalypse. The Claudianic date is in Book 1 (Romero-Pose, 1:
91-2); the Neronic in Book 9 (Romero-Pose, 2:281-3); and the Domitianic in Book 6 (Romero-Pose,
2:159).
26 An excellent summary of the redaction theories of twentieth century scholarship, with helpful charts, is
John W. Marshall, “Appendix 2: Composition Theories of the Apocalypse of John,” in his dissertation
“Parables of the War: Reading the Apocalypse within Judaism and during the Judaean War,” Vol. 1
(Princeton University, 1991), 473-83.
27 Kym Smith, Redating the Revelation (Blackwood, South Australia: Sherwood Publications, 2001), 57,
76, 144.
28 Culpepper, John, the Son of Zebedee, 223. One of the arguments for the early composition of the History
of John, the Son of Zebedee is its use of the Diatessaron, a harmony of the Gospels that was used in the
Syrian churches, but prohibited in the fifth century.
29 William Wright, Apocryphal Acts of the Apostles, 2 vols (1871. Reprint, Amsterdam: Philo, 1968),
2:55.
30 On the dates of the Syriac translation of the New Testament by Polycarpus and the revision of it by
Thomas of Harkel, Arthur Vööbus, The Apocalypse in the Harklean Version. Corpus Scriptorum
Christianorum Orientalium 400 (Louvain: Secrétariat du CorpusSCO, 1978), 59; John Gwynn, The
Apocalypse of St. John in a Syriac Version Hitherto Unknown (London: Longmans, Green, and Co., 1897),
iv and xcvi.
31 James Murdock, trans. The New Testament; or, The Book of the Holy Gospel of our Lord and our God,
Jesus the Messiah. A Literal Translation from the Syriac Peshitto Version (Boston, MA: Hastings, 1852),
442. This has been reprinted under the title The New Testament: A Literal Translation from the Syriac
Peshitto Version (Piscataway, NJ: Gregorias, 2001). A translation by Vööbus (Apocalypse, 42) of the
same transcript reads: “Again the revelation which was upon the holy John the Evangelist from God when
he was on the island of Patmos where he was thrown by the emperor Nero.”
32 Theophylact of Ochrida, On the Gospel of John, Preface. PG 123:1133-4.
33 Gonzalo Rojas-Flores, “The Book of Revelation and the First Years of Nero‟s Reign,” Biblica 85
(2004):375-392.
34 Smith, Redating the Revelation, 58.
35 Translation of Krister Stendahl, “The Apocalypse of John and the Epistles of Paul in the Muratorian
Fragment,” in William Klassen and Graydon F. Snyder, eds., Current Issues in New Testament
Interpretation (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1962), 239-245 at 239. A translation of the entire canon
is contained in D.H. Williams, ed., Tradition, Scripture, and Interpretation: A Sourcebook of the Ancient
Church (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 2006), 163-165.
36 Samuel Prideaux Tregelles, ed., Canon Muratorianus: The Earliest Catalogue of the Books of the New
Testament (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1867), 44.
37 Stendahl, “The Apocalypse of John and the Epistles of Paul in the Muratorian Fragment,” 241.
38 Gentry, Before Jerusalem Fell, 94.
39 Smith, Redating the Revelation, 55.
40 That the apostles Peter and Paul were martyred by Nero is attested also in Eusebius of Caesarea,
Ecclesiastical History, 2.25. Christian Frederick Cruse, trans., The Ecclesiastical History of Eusebius
Pamphilius (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 1987), 79-80. One preface to 1 Peter in an early Latin Bible says
that Peter was killed “in the fourteenth year” of Nero. Another preface says “in the thirty-sixth year after
the passion of the Lord.” See Donatien de Bruyne, Préfaces de la Bible Latine (Paris: Auguste Godenne,
1920), 258.
41 Tertullian, De praescriptione haereticorum, 36. CCSL 1:216-217. My translation of: Ista quam felix
Ecclesia cui totam doctrinam Apostoli cum sanguine suo profuderunt, ubi Petrus Passioni Dominicae
adaequatur, ubi Paulus Iohannis exitu coronatur, ubi Apostolus Iohannes posteaquam in oleum igneum
demersus nihil passus est, in insulam relegatur… Cf. ANF 3:260.
15
42 J. Hadot, “L‟Apocalypse de Jean et les christianismes primitifs,” Revue de l’université de Bruxelles 18
(1966):190-217 at193-194. My translation of théâtre du triple martyre de Pierre, de Paul, et de Jean.
43 Gentry, Before Jerusalem Fell, 95.
44 Jerome, Against Jovinian, 1.26. My translation of Refert autem Tertullianus quod a Nerone missus in
ferventis olei… I realize that elsewhere in Jerome‟s corpus he states the Domitian theory for the date of
Revelation.
45 The scholia in the edition of Vittori, Vol. 3, p. 344, cited in Henry Dominique Saffrey, “Le témoignage
de pères sur le martyre de S. Jean l‟Évangeliste,” Revue des sciences philosophiques et théologiques 69
(1985):265-272 at 267-268. My translation of A Nerone, sic legebatur antea, nos ex ipso Tertulliano pro A
Nerone reposuimus Romae. Domitiani enim non Neronis tempore hoc fuit, ipseque Tertullianus minime id
a Nerone sed Romae, nulla Neronis habita mentione, factum esse prodit.
46 In Lucam, Fragment 9. The Greek text with French translation is in E. Lipinski, “L‟apocalypse et le
martyre de Jean à Jerusalem,” Novum Testamentum 11:3 (July 1969):225-232 at 227.
47 Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History, 2.20. Cruse, 103.
48 Johannes Henten, Enarrationes vetustissimorum theologorvm: in Acta qvidem Apostolorvm et in omnes
D. Pavli ac Catholicas epistolas ab Oecumenio, in Apocalypsim verò, ab Aretha Caesareae Cappadociae
episcopo manga cura collectae (Antwerp: Johannes Steelsius, 1545). Available at
http://books.google.com. My translation of Primumque hoc nobis videtur, Johannem hunc Apostolum ac
Evangelistam, qui et Theologus cognominatur, a Nerone in Patmos relegatum, eodem omnino tempore ille
beatos Christi apostolos Petrum et Paulum interemit…quod scripta sit in Patmo Apocalypsis ante
Ierosolymorum excidium.
49 Seán P. Kealy, The Apocalypse of John (Wilmington, DE: Michael Glazier, 1987), 242.
50 Cited in Johannes Quasten, Patrology, Vol. 3 (Westminster, MD: Christian Classics, 1986), 530.
51 George the Sinner, Chronicle, 3.134. Translated in Culpepper, John the Son of Zebedee, 171. The Greek
text is reproduced in Gentry, Before Jerusalem Fell, 92.
52 Clement of Alexandria, Stromata, 4.9. ANF 2:422.
53 Aphraates of Nineveh, Demonstrations, 21.23. Quoted in Culpepper, John, the Son of Zebedee, 173.
54 Quoted in Culpepper, John, the Son of Zebedee, 172.
55 John Chrysostom, Homilies on the Acts of the Apostles, Homily 25. NPNF, 1st series, 11:164.
56 Culpepper, John, the Son of Zebedee, 172. See also Donald Guthrie, New Testament Introduction , 3rd ed
(Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 1970), 261.
57 Lipinski, “L‟apocalypse et le martyre de Jean à Jerusalem.” My translation of contre le témoignage puls
ancient de Papias et contre le poids de la tradition préservée par l’Église syraique (p. 229) and éliminer
complètement la tradition plus ancienne (p. 231).
58 Culpepper, John, the Son of Zebedee, 221.
59 Mark Wilson, “The Early Christians in Ephesus and the Date of Revelation, Again,” Neotestamenica
39:1 (2005): 163-193.
60 Albert A. Bell, Jr., “The Date of John‟s Apocalypse. The Evidence of Some Roman Historians
Reconsidered,” New Testament Studies 25 (1978):93-102; J. Christian Wilson, “The Problem of the
Domitianic Date of Revelation,” New Testament Studies 39 (1993): 587-605.
61 Robert B. Moberly, “When Was Revelation Conceived?” Biblica 73:1 (1992): 376-393; Thomas B.
Slater, “Dating the Apocalypse to John,” Biblica 84 (2003): 252-258.
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