Before Jerusalem Fell

200 BEFORE JERUSALEM FELL
Although wide-ranging scholarly consensus is certainly not the
sine qwz non of truth, it should be noted that a good number of noted
scholars have accepted this identity as designating Nero. Milligan,
who considered the designation to be “impossible,”2 9
listed the following
scholars of his day as holding to the Nero postulate: Fritzsche,
Benary, Hitzig, Reuss, Ewald, Baur, Zeller, Hilgenfeld, Volkmar,
Hausrath, Krenkel, Gebhardt, Renan, Abbe, Reville, Sabatier,
Davidson, Stuart, Bleek, Beyschlag, Farrar, and Cowles.30 Other
scholars who have affirmed this view include: J. Stuart Russell,
Shirley Jackson Case, George Edmundson, B. W. Henderson, Arthur
S. Peake, Martin Kiddie, Charles C. Torrey, John Bright, Austin
Farrer, G. Driver, D. R. Hillers, Bo Reicke, J. P. M. Sweet, Bruce
M. Metzger, and John A. T. Robinson, to name but a few.3] Weigall
undoubtedly goes too far when he claims that “scholarship is pretty
well unanimous” on this identification.32 Henderson is a bit more fair
to the opposition when he states that the “‘number of the Beast’ is
now fairly generally admitted to be 666 because this = Neron kai.rar
transliterated into Hebrew. “ 33
In either case, Morris’s statement that
of all the solutions put forward “none has won wide acceptance”3 4
seems quite mistaken. “The most probable view still remains that
most generally accepted, that the writer intended Nero Caesar in
Hebrew letters.”3 5
Thus, “many are the solutions offered, some of
29. William Milligan, Di.mussion.r on the A$oca~@ (London: Macmillan, 1893), p. 115.
30. Ibid., p. 110.
31. Russell, Parowia, p, 557. Shirley Jackson Case, 7?u Revelation ~Johm: A HistQv ~
Interpretation (Chicago: University of Chicago, 1919), p. 319. George Edmundson, The
Church in Rome in the First Centu~ (London: Longman’s, Green, 1913), pp, 165-166. B.
W. Henderson, Fzve Rornaz Emperors (Cambridge: University Press, 1927), p. 45. Arthur
S. Peake, The Revelation of John (London: Joseph Johnson, 1919), p. 326. Martin Kiddie,
The Revelation ~ St. John (New York: Harper, 1940), p. 261. Charles C. Torrey, T/M
Apocalypse of John (New Haven: Yale, 1958), p. 60. John Bright, 7% Kingdom ~ God
(Nashville Abingdon, 1963), p. 240. Austin Farrer, 77u Revelation of St. John the Divine
(Oxford: Clarendon, 1964), pp. 158fT. G. Driver, Tb Jud.an Scrolls (Oxford: Blackwell,
1965), p. 374. Hillers, “Revelation 13:18,” p. 65. See J. P. M. Sweet, Rewlatwn. Westminster
Pelican Commentaries (Philadelphia Westminster, 1979) p. 218, note u. Bruce M.
Metzger, The Text of the New Testanwnt, 2nd ed. (Ofiord, 1968), p. 752. John A. T.
Robinson, Redating the New Testumwnt (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1976), p. 235.
32. Arthur Weigall, Nero: Emperor of Rome (London: Butterworth, 1933), p. 298.
33. B. W. Henderson, Z?ze Lz~e and Prim.@ate of the Empmor Nero (London: Methuen,
1903), p. 440. Robinson calls it “far the most widely accepted solution” (Robinson,
Redating, p. 235).
34. Leon Morns, Th Revelation of St. John (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1969), p. 174.
35. Peake, Revelation, p. 326. This conclusion was reached after twelve pages of
discussion.