JERUSALEM; ROME; REVELATION - The Preterist Archive

93. For John himself may well have lived till after 100 A.D. He died, says Irenaeus, 50
only during the 98 to 117 A.D. reign of Emperor Trajan. But even if some of “those men who
saw John face to face” did so only before “the end of Domitian’s rule” 46 (and as late as 96
A.D.) - and even if they discussed his book of Revelation with him no earlier than A.D. 96 -
this would still only establish that the Apocalypse itself was written considerably before 96
A.D. (and perhaps even as early as our own preferred time of A.D. 69).
94. Moreover, “those men who saw John face to face,” 46 apparently did so no later than
96 A.D. Even if they themselves were fully twenty years old at that time, those who survived
for another three or four decades would still have been only fifty-five when Irenaeus was born
(around 130 A.D.). Many of these men would then still have been able to speak to Irenaeus
or to write to him personally about John’s Revelation, even twenty years later, around A.D.
150 - when they would have been seventy-five, and Irenaeus a young man of twenty.
Certainly, Irenaeus could quite easily have compiled the definitive and final record of all of
this 46 still later, around A.D. 185 (at which time he himself would have been only about fiftyfive
years of age).
95. Fifth, there is at least a slight ambiguity in the meaning of Irenaeus’s word “since.”
For it is not altogether clear (today), exactly what Irenaeus meant - where he wrote that John
“was seen no very long time since.” 46
96. Possibly Irenaeus’s “since” 46 is here intended to mean ‘ago.’ If so, Irenaeus
apparently means that John had indeed been seen alive in the last days of Domitian 46 (and
indeed even later, during Trajan’s A.D. 98 to 117 reign). 50 This would have been about only
three decades ‘ago’ - that is, about only thirty-plus years before Irenaeus himself had been
born (around 130 A.D.) in what he calls “in our day.” 45
97. However, by this word “since” - Irenaeus could alternatively have meant that John
himself had been seen (say in A.D. 96) “no very long time since” John received his “vision”
(in 69f A.D.). 46 And indeed, the mere twenty-seven years between those two dates, is
certainly not a long time.
98. Either way, however, this ambiguity hardly disproves the view of an ‘early date’
for the inscripturation of the Apocalypse. If anything, it far rather enhances the likelihood of
such an early date.
99. Sixth, it is significant that Irenaeus, while indeed remarking that John was still
being seen “towards the end of Domitian’s rule” - nowhere claims a Domitianic time-frame
for the inscripturation of the book of Revelation. In fact, if anything, Irenaeus rather
presupposes a Pre-Domitianic time-frame for the actual inscripturation of the Revelation.
100. That is, Irenaeus presupposes an inscripturation-date prior to the time of
Domitian’s 93 to 96 A.D. persecutions, and possibly even prior to the time of Domitian’s
reign as Sole Emperor (which commenced in 81 A.D.). For Irenaeus also refers to the earlier
(Pre-Domitianic?) time when John “beheld the apocalyptic vision.” 46
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