The Different Interpretations of Revelation

This week I had a conversation with another Baptist preacher who has been in ministry twice as long as me.  I told him that I was currently preaching through Revelation, and he replied that he had done that several times.  I told him I was preaching it from a preterist interpretation.  To my surprise, he had never heard the word preterist, or of the preterist perspective.  He was very open and told me he would like to see my notes.  

Like most Christians that I meet, my fellow preacher had only been exposed to one interpretation of Revelation -- the futurist view.  But there are several views held by highly learned scholars, and that shouldn't surprise us at all because Revelation is the most difficult book in the Bible to understand.  In this short post I'm going to explain the two main interpretations of Revelation.  If you are interested in reading further, check out the book Four Views on the Book of Revelation.

According to Marvin Pate, there are four major interpretations of Revelation:  preterist, historicist, futurist, and idealist.  The two most popular are the preterist and futurist.

Preterist.  The word preterist means "past."  The preterist view holds that most of the visions in Revelation were fulfilled in the first century, in the years leading up to an including the destruction of Jerusalem in A.D. 70.  It holds to an early date for the writing of Revelation, around A.D. 65.  Revelation is primarily about God's judgment on first-century Israel for murdering the Messiah and persecuting His people.  It is written to comfort Christians as they are suffering.  This view is the most popular among biblical scholars, and the view that I hold.  

Futurist.  The futurist view believes that most of the visions in Revelation have not yet been fulfilled, and relate to the end times.  It holds to a late date for the writing of Revelation, around A.D. 95.  This is the most popular view among laypeople.  However, I would add that it is the only view that most laypeople have heard.

Why The Preterist View?

I hold the preterist view for four main reasons:

1) There is strong evidence that Revelation was written before the fall of Jerusalem in A.D. 70.  If this is so, then it opens up the possibility that the visions in Revelation are pointing not to the end of the world, but to the end of the Jewish state in A.D. 70.

2) The visions of Revelation fit well with the events leading up to and including the fall of Jerusalem in A.D. 70.  We have a detailed account of these events in the writings of the Jewish historian Josephus.  You can read a helpful chronology of the Jewish War here.

3) There is convincing evidence that the "mark of the beast" is associated with Nero Caesar, the Roman Emperor at the start of the Jewish War and who died in A.D. 68, before the fall of Jerusalem.  

4). The time indicators in Revelation 1:1-3 point to a near-future fulfillment rather than a distant-future fulfillment. John writes that his visions "must soon take place," because "the time is near."  If Revelation is about events that will happen thousands of years after it was written, then these time-indicators don't make sense.