Preterism Part 2 (Rev 1)

I am getting better, but now J is sick. Reading for today has been Il 4, Matt 18, Jos 8, Ps 15, Barnaby Rudge, and Orthodoxy. I had vivid nightmares last night (apparently during a lightning storm) of missing a gig, somehow more terrorizing after two nights of drugged sleep. Last night we watched The King’s Speech, which was outstanding. And for the record, the use of Beethoven didn’t bother me at all.

As promised, I am opening the book of Revelation in the most unscholarly of attitudes, simply flipping through the pages from high above its well-worn terrain. The first thing I see as I open to the book is the word ΑΠΟΚΑΛΥΨΙΣ, looking more etched than written in the stark Greek capital letters. It is, transliterated, apokalupsis, which has become our “apocalypse.” Now, apocalypse has gradually come to mean the same sort of event as Gotterdammerung, but before it picked up these extra flavors of meaning it was simply “revelation”—the revealing of the secret or the hidden.

What “God’s servant John” promises is to reveal is ἃ δεῖ γενέσθαι ἐν τάχει; a painfully literal translation of which would read “what is necessary to be in swiftness,” probably in paraphrase more along the lines of “what soon coming shall pass.” Again, I will withhold myself from the scholarly fray, and without commenting on the merits of either case remark here that there are two possible dates for Revelation: circa 60 or 95. The case for Preterism is staked entirely on the earlier date. The Preterist would say that when John says “swiftly,” he means it. If, of course, none of Revelation has yet come about, the date makes no difference; but it makes John’s insistence of swiftness and imminence difficult to understand. He is always promising ὁ γὰρ καιρὸς ἐγγύς; The time is near.

The presentation of Jesus and his address to the seven churches is, for our purposes, not needed. As I understand it, there is room in the philosophy of most Left-Behinders to understand these letters as local mail. Whether or not they are somehow allegorical or addressed to different ages of the church can be answered in the discussion afterwards. I’ll note only one other verse in chapter 1, since it further clarifies the imminent tone of the book, Jesus’ instructions in verse 19: γράψον οὖν ἃ εἶδες καὶ ἃ εἰσὶν καὶ ἃ μέλλει γίνεσθαι μετὰ ταῦτα. Write thus, what you saw and what now is and what is intended to be after these.