JERUSALEM; ROME; REVELATION - The Preterist Archive

71. Naturally, greater weight should obviously be attached to these Pre-Irenaean 42
authorities than to just one single passage from Irenaeus himself. Especially is this the case
since even those very words of Irenaeus can easily be reconciled with the ‘early date’ view
of the Apocalypse - as we shall seen demonstrate.
72. Significantly, even Hengstenberg - who himself advocates a ‘late date’ for the
inscripturation of the book of Revelation - clearly concedes 43 the possibility of an early date
for the Apocalypse. For Hengstenberg admits that to John (in Revelation 11:13) “the temple
at Jerusalem can be nothing else than a den of robbers.... At what period did the temple
more deserve this name, than shortly before the destruction of Jerusalem, to which the
composition of the Apocalypse is transferred by those who understand by the ‘temple’ in
chapter eleven - precisely the temple at Jerusalem?....
73. “The crisis” of Calvary, continues Hengstenberg, “was by that time [just before 70
A.D.] quite past. The nobler elements [of the Jews] had long ago been absorbed by the
Christian Church.” And the continuing and worsening apostasy of Judaism alias “the
synagogue of Satan [Revelation 2:9 and 3:9] retained only the scum.” Consequently, that
“scum” was soon to be thrown out of Jerusalem - by the Roman armies, in 70 A.D.
* * * * * * *
74. Before discussing Irenaeus’s much-appealed-to passage on the authority and date of
the book of Revelation, it should first be pointed out that this fallible Church Father has
(unwittingly) sometimes made erroneous statements contradicting even the infallible Bible
itself. For example, Irenaeus has falsely stated: that Adam was created as a child; that Lot’s
wife still went on menstruating for a long time after becoming a pillar of salt; and that Jesus
while He was here on Earth appeared to be a lot older than even fifty years of age even while t
in fact not yet even thirty-five. 44 Accordingly, it is certainly conceivable that Irenaeus could
have been wrong also in his other statements about John’s book of Revelation. 45
75. However, let us for argument’s sake assume that the short Irenaean statement
relating to the date of the book of Revelation is indeed historically correct. Let us assume
that, unlike some of Irenaeus’s other statements on other matters, at least his extant views on
the inscripturation date of the last book of the Bible is absolutely correct.
76. Even then, the Irenaean statement about the date of the Apocalypse would still be
quite reconcilable with the (Pre-Irenaean and Pre-70-A.D.) ‘early date’ view of the book of
Revelation. For the Irenaean statement could still quite easily be interpreted to agree with the
‘early date’ suggested by the internal evidence of the Apocalypse itself - as well as by the
external evidence of all of the relevant extant Pre-Irenaean patristic writings.
77. Here - emphases ours (F.N. Lee) - is the relevant passage 45 in Irenaeus. It was
written in approximately 185 A.D..
78. The number ‘666’ was, says Irenaeus, “found in all the most approved and ancient
copies” of Revelation chapter thirteen - “those men who saw John face to face, bearing their
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