Biblically Compatible Archaeology and Geography

  by   Damien F. Mackey       “… if the Book of Revelation was in fact written in AD 96, only twenty-six years after the destruction of the Temple and the Holy City, it is shocking that John didn’t mention the recent massacre of the city and Temple”.   Jonathan Welton     Evidence for date of John's exile on Patmos | Christian Forums   Taken from the book, Raptureless , by Jonathan Welton, with some comments added:   The following are proofs to show that the book of Revelation was written prior to AD 70 Proof #1: The Syriac   The first proof for an earlier dating of Revelation is the witness of one of the most ancient versions of the New Testament, called The Syriac. The title page of the fourth-century Syriac Version, called the Peshitto, says this: Again the revelation, which was upon the holy John the Evangelist from God when he was on the island of Patmos where he was thrown by the emperor Nero....

    by Damien F. Mackey       Who, then, was Nero?   Where does Nero fit into this list of kings?   And can Nero be the man-beast numbered 666 in John’s Revelation 13:18?       Introduction The emperor Nero I have found extremely difficult to slot into an appropriate time frame in my revision of ancient history. In this sense, Nero has been for me like - in the case of Assyrian history - the difficult Ashurnasirpal, or his presumed (but not actual) son-successor, Shalmaneser so-called III.   In earlier times I would simply have considered Nero as – just as the text books tell us – a Roman emperor who reigned in the era thereby assigned to him, after Claudius.   The conventional (or text book) succession of Roman rulers is given as follows:   1st century AD   (Julius Caesar) Augustus  (27 bce–14 ce) Tiberius  (14–37 ce) Caligula  (37...