A little more from the same book:
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......... consider an error that is common among those who adopt a preterist interpretation of Revelation. The two facts of St. John’s symbolic style and his clearly anti-statist content have led some to believe that the politically sensitive message determined the use of symbolism — that St. John wrote the Revelation in a secret code in order to hide his message from the imperial bureaucrats. This is the view of James Kallas (who, incidentally, also holds that John wrote in the time of the emperor Domitian, rather than Nero):
He writes in deliberately disguised language. He resorts to imagery the Romans will not understand. He cannot write in a literal and obvious way. He cannot say in clear and unambiguous terms what lies closest to his heart. What would happen if he wrote what he believed, that Domitian was a blasphemous son of the devil himself? What would happen if he cried out that the Roman empire, in its demand that men bow down and worship Caesar, was a diabolical scheme of Satan himself designed to win men away from Jesus? The letter would never be delivered. It would never clear the censors.
And thus he must camouflage and conceal his true meaning. He must resort to non-literal symbolism, to obscure and apparently meaningless references which his Roman censors would see merely as the senile musings of a mad old man.
There may be some truth to this, as a tangential slant on the use of the number 666 in 13:18 in reference to Nero (not Domitian) — a “code” that the Romans would be unable to decipher correctly. But even without that reference, the Book of Revelation is a clearly treasonous document, and any State bureaucrat would have been able to figure that out.
Consider what we have seen already in St. John’s description of Jesus Christ: The mere assertion that He is Ruler of the kings of the earth is an assault on the emperor’s autonomy. The very first chapter of Revelation is actionable, and the symbolism does not obscure that fact in the slightest. The reason for the use of symbolism is that the Revelation is a prophecy, and symbolism is prophetic language.
We must remember too that the Roman government knew very well who St. John was. He was not “a mad old man” who had been exiled for mere “senile musings.” He was an Apostle of the Lord Jesus Christ, under the imperial ban on account of the Word of God and the Testimony of Jesus (1:9).
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......... consider an error that is common among those who adopt a preterist interpretation of Revelation. The two facts of St. John’s symbolic style and his clearly anti-statist content have led some to believe that the politically sensitive message determined the use of symbolism — that St. John wrote the Revelation in a secret code in order to hide his message from the imperial bureaucrats. This is the view of James Kallas (who, incidentally, also holds that John wrote in the time of the emperor Domitian, rather than Nero):
He writes in deliberately disguised language. He resorts to imagery the Romans will not understand. He cannot write in a literal and obvious way. He cannot say in clear and unambiguous terms what lies closest to his heart. What would happen if he wrote what he believed, that Domitian was a blasphemous son of the devil himself? What would happen if he cried out that the Roman empire, in its demand that men bow down and worship Caesar, was a diabolical scheme of Satan himself designed to win men away from Jesus? The letter would never be delivered. It would never clear the censors.
And thus he must camouflage and conceal his true meaning. He must resort to non-literal symbolism, to obscure and apparently meaningless references which his Roman censors would see merely as the senile musings of a mad old man.
There may be some truth to this, as a tangential slant on the use of the number 666 in 13:18 in reference to Nero (not Domitian) — a “code” that the Romans would be unable to decipher correctly. But even without that reference, the Book of Revelation is a clearly treasonous document, and any State bureaucrat would have been able to figure that out.
Consider what we have seen already in St. John’s description of Jesus Christ: The mere assertion that He is Ruler of the kings of the earth is an assault on the emperor’s autonomy. The very first chapter of Revelation is actionable, and the symbolism does not obscure that fact in the slightest. The reason for the use of symbolism is that the Revelation is a prophecy, and symbolism is prophetic language.
We must remember too that the Roman government knew very well who St. John was. He was not “a mad old man” who had been exiled for mere “senile musings.” He was an Apostle of the Lord Jesus Christ, under the imperial ban on account of the Word of God and the Testimony of Jesus (1:9).
