Stop 10. Revelation

Revelation opens and closes on time words: "what must happen very soon" (Revelation 1:1), and "Do not seal up the words of the prophecy contained in this book, because the time is near" (Revelation 22:10). What those words mean depends on when the book was written and what it is about.

The blue line (Dispensationalism) dates the book about AD 95, under Domitian, and sends chapters 4 to 22 to "still future": the tribulation, a literal thousand years on earth, then the new creation.

The purple lines (Partial Preterism) date it under Nero, before AD 70. Most of chapters 4 to 19 go to AD 66–70; the beast is Nero. The thousand years of chapter 20 go to the present age. Christ's return, the resurrection, the judgment and the new creation, from 20:11 on, go to "still future".

The double red line (Full Preterism) sends the whole book to AD 66–70, the thousand years (read as AD 30 to 70) and the return included.

Record check (judgment). The early date rests on evidence inside the book. The earliest outside witness, Irenaeus, writing about AD 180, places John's vision near the end of Domitian's reign. See The Whole Story, Stop 12. By Full Preterism's own account the AD 70 return and resurrection were unseen, so the record can neither confirm nor refute them; the question is settled from the text.

Revelation: A Walk-Through goes through the book chapter by chapter, Dispensational and Partial Preterist readings side by side.

Picture: the arcs from Revelation. Layers: all three end-times views.