1. "Apocalyptic Literature," in Nelson's New Illustrated Bible Dictionary, Ronald F. Youngblood, Gen. ed. (Nashville, Tenn.: Thomas Nelson, 1995), p. 83.
2. Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History, 3:39:4.
3. J. H. Moulton, W. F. Howard, and N. Turner, Grammar of New Testament Greek, vol. 2, Part I, p. 3.
4. Word Pictures in the New Testament, vol. 6, p. 273.
5. Neutestamentliche Grammatik, p. 3, cited by A. T. Robertson in Word Pictures in the New Testament, vol. 6, p. 273.
6. Revelation, IBC, p. 1594.
7. Before Jerusalem Fell, pp. 30-38. This book, Gentry's doctoral dissertation, is one sustained defense for the early date of Revelation, and served as my principal source for early-date arguments.
8. Some advance a theory of an Ephesian origin of Philippians, placing the date of writing as early as a.d. 57.
9. Against Heresies, 5:30:1, 3.
10. Irenaeus' historical accuracy has sometimes been questioned in view of his assertion that Jesus lived to be over fifty years of age {Against Heresies, 2:22:5).
11. Alexander Roberts and W. H. Rambaut in The Writings oflrenaeus, vol. 1, trans. 1880. Cited by Gentry, Before Jerusalem Fell, p. 49.
12. Ibid., pp. 152-156.
13. Ibid., p. 153.
14. Before Jerusalem Fell, Dr. Gentry's dissertation, gives the fullest defense of the early date; his shorter work, The Beast of Revelation, summarizes the major arguments.
15. Some postmillennialists view this situation about the same as does the amillennialist. Alternatively, some postmillennialists do not see the Second Coming in chapter 19, but rather interpret the vision as the spread of the gospel in the present age.
16. This is also true of the Old Testament equivalent Hebrew word erets.
17. See, e.g., Isaiah 60:3-5; Daniel 7:2ff. Compare Revelation 10:2; 12:12 with notes there.
18. Revelation 3:10; 6:10; 11:10; 13:8, 12, 14; 14:6; 17:8.
19. Revelation 6:15; 16:14; 17:2, 18; 18:3, 9; 19:19; 21:24.
20. Revelation 7:1-3; 10:2, 8; 13:11.
21. Revelation 12:4, 9; 13:13; 20:9, 11.
22. Revelation 10:5-6; 12:12; 14:7; 21:1.
23. A possible exception would be the "fully-realized preterists" who believe that, since a.d. 70, there remains nothing further of prophecy to be fulfilled, e.g., J. Stuart Russell in The Parousia.
24. In the Old Testament examples, the word "earth" is the Hebrew erets and could be translated "land."
25. Matthew 11:16; 12:41, 42; 23:36.
26. A term derived from the Latin raptus, referring to the "catching up" into the air of believers who are alive at the time of the Second Coming, cf. 1 Thessalonians 4:16f.
27. In dispensational parlance, this term refers to a period of seven years at the end of the present age, identified with the time of judgments and calamities described in Revelation 4—19. The name "Tribulation" is taken from Matthew 24:21 and Revelation 7:14.
28. For which reason some of its critics have called it pessimillennialism.
29. Nearly all commentators who endeavor to survey the history of interpretation of Revelation express indebtedness to H. B. Swete's excellent work. I must also register my indebtedness to Swete, but also to Tenney, Bruce, Walvoord, and, especially, Wainwright, for their helpful summaries.
30. Swete, p. ccix.
31. Swete, p. ex.
32. Bruce, p. 1594.
33. Chapter 1, xxx.
34. The Millennial Kingdom (Findlay, OH: Dunham Publishing Co., 1959) p. 16.
35. The Basis of the Premillennial Faith (Neptune, N.J.: Loiseaux Brothers, 1953), p. 17.
36. See Swete, pp. ccviif.
37. Ibid., p. ccviii.
38. Ibid., p. ccix.
39. Ibid., p. ccviii.
40. Ibid.
41. Ibid., p. ccix.
42. Bruce, p. 1594.
43. Swete, p. ccx.
44. Ibid., p. ccxi.
45. Ibid., pp. ccxi, f.
46. Merrill C. Tenney, Zondervan Pictoral Encyclopedia of the Bible, vol. 5: "Revelation," p. 97.
47. Walvoord, p. 18.
48. Swete, p. ccxiv.
49. Bruce, p. 1595.
50. e.g., Walvoord, p. 17.
51. Swete, p. ccxiv.
52. Merrill C. Tenney, Zondervan Pictoral Encyclopedia of the Bible, vol. 5: "Revelation," p. 97.
53. Swete, p. ccxv.
54. e.g., Miller (Revelation: A Panorama of the Gospel Age, 1991) and Caringola (The Present Reign of Jesus Christ, 1995). Caringola told me in a telephone conversation that no American scholar had published a commentary from the historicist viewpoint in the past 50 years.
55. Boring, p. 49.
56. Reported to have sold over 20 million copies.
57. The 1000 years of Revelation 20 represents a notable exception. If the day-for-a-year principle were to be applied consistently here, the so-called Millennium would be 360,000 years long. Most his-toricists do not apply the principle to this period. Other examples in which "prophetic time" is not calculated on the day-for-a-year principle include Isaiah 7:8 (65 years), Isaiah 16:14 (3 years), Isaiah 23:15 (70 years), Jeremiah 29:10 (70 years), Matthew 20:19 (3 days), raising questions about this principle's general applicability.
58. Quoted in Editor's Preface to Barnes' notes (p. xii). Essentially the same accusation has been made by Stuart's opponents about his own preterism. Professor Bush critiqued Stuart's preterism as leaving the church "cut loose from every chronological mooring, and set adrift in the open sea, without the vestige of a beacon, lighthouse, or star ..." (Ibid., p. xiii). I have found futurist writers to quote Stuart verbatim in their criticizing every view that rivals their own. It seems that each view seems hopelessly subjective to critics who champion alternative positions.
59. This example cited by Barnes, p. 370, and Caringola, p. 3.
60. See above, The History of Interpretation.
61. Pieters, The Lamb, the Woman, and the Dragon, p. 48.
62. Pieters, Ibid.
63. Brace, p. 1595.
64. Stuart, p. v.
65. Walvoord, p. 125. Sensing the vulnerability of futurism to the same criticism, Walvoord adds:
"While even in the futurist school minor variations will be found in various expositors, the general conclusion that these chapters picture future definite events is the important coherent factor." His-toricists may respond that their view also pictures definite events, albeit events generally past, and that this definiteness provides the same "important coherent factor."
66. Walvoord, p. 19. The comment seems oblivious to the vulnerability of his own dispensational futurism to the same charge. The same criticism of historicism is made by J. Barton Payne, who regards it as "a sure proof of the illegitimacy of this approach." Encyclopedia of Biblical Prophecy (Baker Book House, Grand Rapids, Michigan) 1973, p. 593.
67. "Revelation" in Zondervan Pictoral Encyclopedia of the Bible, vol. 5, p. 96.
68. A Commentary on the Revelation of John, p. 11. However, in commenting on the futurist position, Ladd writes, "The objection again seems valid that if the book is conceived to deal primarily with events which lie in the distant future, its message had little relevance for the first-century churches to which it was addressed. This is an argument which cannot be pressed too far, or else it will empty many of the Old Testament prophecies of any relevance" (Ibid, p. 12). He proceeds to plead for a "blending of the preterist and futurist methods" (p. 14).
69. The Lamb, the Woman and the Dragon, p. 42.
70. Ibid.
71. Russell, The Parousia, p. 375f.
72. e.g., Russell.
73. e.g., Jay Adams and David S. Clark.
74. For this criticism, see, for example, the footnote to p. xiii of the Editor's Preface to Barnes' Notes on Revelation.
75. Ecclesiastical History, Book III, Chapter VII.
76. Both citations from Andreas taken from Kenneth Gentry, Before Jerusalem Fell, p. 107.
77. Cited by Gentry, Ibid., p. 107. Gentry mentions that this dating for Arethas is asserted by Stuart and Fausset, but that Swete and Aland place the date of Aretas later, c. a.d. 914.
78. Frequently identifying the seven church epistles with successive divisions of church history from the beginning to the present.
79. This is most likely to be the case when the commentator is a dispensationalist. Non-dispensational futurists, like Robert Mounce, do not encourage a literalistic approach and advocate a full appreciation for the symbolic character of apocalyptic literature.
80. The Revelation Record: A Scientific and Devotional Commentary on the Book of Revelation, p. 26.
81. The Revelation of Jesus Christ, p. 28.
82. Revelation, p. 9.
83. The Revelation Record, p. 26.
84. Hal Lindsey, There's a New World Coming, p. 140.
85. Ibid., p. 221
86. In 1973 Hal Lindsey wrote: "For those of us who know what the prophets have taught, picking up our morning newspaper is practically a traumatic experience. Headline after headline screams out a confirmation of these remarkable predictions." (Ibid., pp. 99-100). Twenty years later, some dispen-sationalists still make the same kind of claims, though the headlines describe a very different political landscape today.
87. e.g., Revelation 1:1, 3; 22:10.
88. Gore's New Commentary, p. 680.
89. So called e.g., by Henry Morris, Leon Morris, Tenney, Wilcock, etc.
90. e.g., Walvoord; Payne calls it allegorized.
91. e.g., G. R. Beasley-Murray.
92. e.g., Pieters, Hobbs, and Hailey.
93. Milligan, p. 153.
94. The Lamb, the Woman and the Dragon, p. 41.
95. The Revelation of Jesus Christ, p. 18.
96. "Revelation," Charles Carter, Gen. ed. (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1969) p. 419.
97. The Lamb, the Woman and the Dragon, p. 44.
98. Though Hendriksen's book is often cited as the definitive work on this position, he himself acknowledged that "This view, in one form or another, is adopted by R. C. H. Lenski [Interpretation of St. John's Revelation, 1935]... S. L. Morris, The Drama of Christianity [1928] ... M. F. Sadler, The Revelation of St. John the Divine [1894] . . . B. B. Warfield, Biblical Doctrines [1929]" (More Than Conquerors, p. 19). In fact, Albert Barnes, writing in 1851, evidenced an awareness of this position, though he disregarded it (Bames' Notes on Revelation, p. 189).
99. More Than Conquerors, p. 43.
100. Ibid., p. 45.
101. A Commentary on the Revelation of John, p. 14.
102. What Are We Waiting For? A Commentary on Revelation, p. 65.
103. Encyclopedia of Biblical Prophecy, p. 593.