Dating the Book of Revelation: Apocalypse Against Which Emperor?

Mar 27, 2023

book page — Photo by César Abner Martínez Aguilar on Unsplash

The Book of Revelation poses many historical and interpretive problems. Although the question of dating is far from the hardest one to answer, nonetheless, the dating of Revelation remains vexing because the internal evidence gives us little to be precise about.

Since the time of Irenaeus (Adv. Haer. 5.30.3), the Book of Revelation has ordinarily been dated to the final years of the reign of the emperor Domitian (81-96 CE).[1] Domitian’s reign was a natural backdrop for Revelation since Domitian was depicted in literature as a tempestuous and tyrannical emperor, with an intense regard for his divine status, even demanding to be addressed as “lord and god” (Suetonius, Dom. 13.2), and who was thought to have unleashed a violent persecution against Christians (Dio Cassius, Hist. 67.14; 68.1; Tertullian, Apol. 5.4; Eusebius, Hist. Eccl. 3.17; 3.18.4; 3.20; 4.26.8). James Dunn summed up the consensus on the dating of the Book of Revelation: “The likelihood remains, however, that the Apocalypse reflects the pressures building up from the local provincial elite for citizens and residents to express their loyalty to Rome by participating in the imperial cult during the reign of Domitian.”[2]

A date during the reign of Domitian might well be correct, but it is not certain. Before agreeing on a date during the Domitian imperatorship, two important caveats need to be made. First, prior to the third century, most persecutions of Christians were local rather than empire-wide, they were spasmodic rather than a matter of empire-wide imperial policy. The persecutions of Christians mentioned in Revelation are undoubtedly due to provincial rather than imperial policy. “All in all,” notes Wolfram Kinzig, “we cannot speak of a comprehensive persecution of Christians during the reign of Domitian.”[3] Second, whatever the reality or not of Domitian’s self-aggrandizing and self-styled divine lordship,[4] the Book of Revelation engages in a concerted critique of the Asian imperial cults, but it is cults built on local elite enthusiasm for the emperors as opposed to a top-down imposition from Rome. And here is the problem, provincial persecution of Christians and provincial enthusiasm for lavishing divine honors on the emperor could describe many cities in Roman Asia from Claudius to Commodus.

Some researchers have attempted to date Revelation as early as the late 60s CE during the tumultuous sequence of events that included Nero’s pogrom against Christians in Rome, Nero’s suicide, the year of the four emperors in 68/69, the Judean rebellion that climaxed in the sacking of Jerusalem in 66-70.[5] This preterist reading of Revelation has not caught on, mostly hamstrung by the lack of evidence for Christian persecution in Asia Minor in the 50s and 60s and the time needed for the Nero redivvus myth to develop. Other scholars locate the composition of the book after the time of Domitian, during the reigns of Trajan (98-117 AD)[6] or Hadrian (117-38 AD).[7] A date after Domitian is made plausible by patristic tradition which declared that John was released from Patmos, returned to Ephesus, and lived into the reign of Trajan (Irenaeus, Adv. Haer. 2.22.5; 3.3.4; Clement of Alexandria, Qui. Div. Sal. 42; Victorinius, Apoc. 10.11; Eusebius, Hist. Eccl. 3.23.2-4). In addition, we do have concrete evidence for the persecution of Christians in Bithynia ca. 113 as reported by Pliny’s correspondence to Trajan (Ep. 10.96-97) which provides a possible backdrop to the book.

There are several factors for us to consider related, once more, to manuscripts, external attestation, and internal evidence. Prior to the fourth centuries majuscules, the limited manuscript evidence includes papyri fragments of Revelation dating from the third-fourth centuries (P¹⁸, P⁴⁷, P¹¹⁵) with a fragmentary witness to Rev 1:13-20 found in P⁹⁸ which might be dated as early as the late second century. There are quotations of John’s Apocalypse in Hippolytus (ca. 200), Irenaeus (ca. 180), an early though no longer extant commentary by Melito of Sardis (ca. 180), and a possible allusion in the Epistle of Vienne and Lyon concerning Christian persecutions in Roman Gaul (ca. 177). Justin Martyr, writing in the 150s/60s, alludes to John’s Apocalypse with mention of the “millennium of peace” (Dial. Tryph. 81.4). More contentious, but plausible no less, is that Papias’ millennialism was shaped by his reading of Revelation 20, which would give the book attestation as early as 110 CE (Eusebius, Hist. Eccl. 3.39.12; Andrew of Caesarea, Praef. Apoc.).

The internal evidence is also ambiguous for dating the book. First, the reference to “temple of God” and the “holy city” (Rev 11:1-2) does not require that the Herodian temple is in view and still standing at the time of the author since temples in Revelation are suffused with symbolic and eschatological significance. An observation proved by the fact that the task of measuring the temple is drawn from Ezekiel 40-48 which concerns the future eschatological temple. In addition, Christian literature could often speak of the Jerusalem cultus as if it were still standing even after it had long disappeared (Heb 7:27; Ep. Diogn. 3.1-5). What is more, if Rev 11:2 refers to a literal besieging of Jerusalem, that could just as well apply to the Bar-Kokhbah revolt of 132-35 CE as it does to the Judean rebellion of 70 CE. In any case, the point is moot because the seventh bowl of wrath pictures “the great city” as already destroyed by Babylon the Great (Rev 16:17-21). What is more, Rome is probably called “Babylon the Great” because of Jewish tradition which derided Rome as the destroyer of Jerusalem (Rev 14:8, 16:19; 17:5; 18:1-2, 10, 21; 4 Ezra 3.2, 28-36) which assumes that Jerusalem has been subdued and sacked some time earlier. Second, the “seven kings” in Rev 17:9-11 has excited wild speculation on a notoriously opaque text, with intrigue over the identity of the “one that is living” and another who “has yet to come.” The problem is whether one begins the list of seven kings with Julius Caesar, Augustus, Caligula, or Nero as that will determine who is the present king and the king yet to come. But, once more, the point is moot. The seven kings belong with the seven heads and the seven hills as a symbol of Roman power, which is precisely what the woman riding the scarlet beasts symbolizes. Finally, the number of the beast as “666” in Rev 13:18 supposedly derives from calculating an emperor’s name through gematria, but that itself depends upon which language (Greek, Hebrew, Aramaic, Latin?) and which variations of titles and abbreviations one might use to calculate the number for a given emperor. The beast’s number is too polyvalent to determine a specific emperor.

One might concede that, given the weight of patristic tradition in favor of a date during the reign of Domitian, and the relative ease with which such a theory can be plausibly connected with the contents of Book of Revelation, that a date in the 90s remains most likely.[8] True enough, but one must add that a date during the time of Nerva (96-98), Trajan (98-117), and perhaps even Hadrian (117-138) are also genuine possibilities. Thus, a date from 90-135 gives a sufficiently broad spectrum of options as to where the book can be chronologically placed.

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