Before Jerusalem Fell

308 BEFORE JERUSALEM FELL
Early Date Refutation of the Myth
Despite the intri~ing correspondences between the Nero Rediuivu.s
myth and several verses in Revelation, by no means is it a foregone
conclusion that the two are related. The present writer at one time
held to the early date Nero Redivivzu view of Stuart, Russell, Farrar,
and others on this matter. He has since come to reject it, however,
for a more plausible understanding of the passages in question. The
non-Nero Redivivus interpretive views of other competent early date
advocates is superior in every respect to the one considered above.3]
Galba as “Nero Redivivus”
One reasonable alternative interpretation of the relevant passages
is the possibility that the sixth head’s revival in the eighth head
speaks merely of a semus in which Nero lived again. That is, it could
be that the slain head that died was in fact Nero, but that his return
to life as the eighth head was not a literal, corporeal reappearance
on the scene of history, but a moral and symbolical return. For
instance, Revelation 17:10-11 reads: “and they are seven kings; five
have fallen, one is, the other has not yet come; and when he comes,
he must remain a little while. And the beast which was and is not, is
himself also an eighth, and is one of the seven, and he goes to
destruction.” Literally, the seventh emperor of Rome was Galba, who
reigned only “a little while,” i.e., from June, A.D. 68 to January 1,
A.D. 69. The eighth emperor, however, was Otho. Suetonius tells us
something of Otho that is of great interest if this interpretive route
be taken. Upon presenting himself to the Senate and returning to the
palace, it is said of Otho: “When in the midst of the other adulations
of those who congratulated and flattered him, he was hailed by the
common herd as Nero, he made no sign of dissent; on the contrary,
according to some writers, he even made use of that surname in his
commissions and his first letters to some of the governors of the
provinces.”3 2
Tacitus, too, speaks of Otho’s predilection for Nero: “It
was believed that he also brought up the question of celebrating
31. Diisterdieck, Revelation, pp. 371ff.; Schaff, HistoU 1 :390tl; F. J. A. Hort, Ttu
Apoca~pse of St. John: I-III (London: Macmillan, 1908), p. xxix; David Chilton, Tb Days
of Vlgearwe: An Expositwn of the Book of Revelation (Fort Worth: Dominion Press, 1987),
pp. 328ff.; Bernhard Weiss, A ComnwztaT on the New Testarmmt, 4 vols., trans. George H.
Schodde and Epiphanies Wilson (New York: Funk and Wagnalls, 1906) 4453fI
32. Suetonius, Otho 7. .