Before Jerusalem Fell

238 BEFORE JERUSALEM FELL
maus, and the environs of Jerusalem. Caesarea remained the official
residence; the governor, however, was no longer a procurator but the
general of the Tenth Legion (called “Fretimis”), whose soldiers were
quartered after thewar mostly in thevicinity of Jerusalem, in partat
Qumran.17
History records that after the Jewish War there was a “permanent
presence of a legion defiling the holy city with military standards
which were objects of cult, and . . . [an] accompanying civilian
settlement containing pagan shrines as well as baths, shops and other
amenities. . . .“’8 All of this fits well with a pre-A.D. 70 situation.
The Expectation of War
The bulk of the book of Revelation carries out the theme stated
in Revelation 1:7. That is, the majority of the scenes in Revelation
deal with judgment – a judgment interspersed, of course, with songs
of triumph from the persecuted Christians. This judgment is the
direct result of Christ’s “judgment coming” (see especially the bulk
of Rev. 6-19). If the previous argumentation heretofore is generally
accurate, then we would expect that these judgment scenes, despite
their frequent symbolic garb, would preserve at least kernels of
historical events. And if so, then in light of the thrust of the present
study, we should rightly expect to document from Revelation certain
historical indicators of the Jewish War with Rome (sometimes called
“The Great Revolt”). In this section of our analysis, we will point
out significant indicators in Revelation that fit hand-in-glove with the
historical records of the Jewish War.
If traces of the Jewish War do exhibit themselves in Revelation,
a conservative analysis of the matter would lead the devout Christian
to conclude that Revelation was written prior to the War, in light of
his conviction as to the supernatural character of true predictive
prophecy. The conservative Christian need not resort either to an ex
eventu interpretation or to multi-documentary, editorialized formcritical
hypotheses. As Stuart points out in regard to Revelation’s
theme verse (Rev. 1:7):
17. Bo Reicke, The New Testament Era: Tb World of the Bible from 509 B. C. to A.D. 100,
trans. David E. Green (Philadelphia Fortress, 1968), p. 266.
18. E. Mary Smallwood, The Jews Under Roman Rule. Studies in Judaism in Late
Antiquity 20 (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1976), p. 346.