The authorship of the apocalypse of John.

[Ben C. Smith]

So are you denying that failed apocalypticists existed in 2° century CE ? According to your argument, the Epistula Apostolorum has to be dated before the end of 1° CE.

That is crazy. According to my argument, the Epistle of the Apostles has to be dated to sometime before about 150 for the Coptic version or to sometime before about 180 for the Ethiopic (slightly oversimplified, but close enough to recognize the principle). You obviously have no idea what is going on here, or what the arguments being made actually are. Please take your patent ignorance to another thread. I do not have the patience for it on this one. Serious inquiries only.

[Ben C. Smith]

And while it may be simplistic, why couldn't Revelation have been written by someone named John...?

Because literally no other apocalypse was written by the name assigned to it in the text. (I am not saying this as an absolute argument; it is the challenge of the thread.) Why should this apocalypse be the only one different on that score?

And I'm thinking that even though other apocalypses were pseudonymous, Revelation could still be by a real John (and it doesn't purport to be an NT John, at least) and the others copy cats (i.e., apocalypses pretending to be by NT guys, inspired by the idea that the author of Revelation was an NT guy).

Trouble is, apocalypses like 1 Enoch and Daniel cannot be the copycats. Apocalyptic is not a native Christian genre; it is Jewish, and Christian used it for their own purposes.

[John2]

And while it may be simplistic, why couldn't Revelation have been written by someone named John...?

Because literally no other apocalypse was written by the name assigned to it in the text. (I am not saying this as an absolute argument; it is the challenge of the thread.) Why should this apocalypse be the only one different on that score?

And I'm thinking that even though other apocalypses were pseudonymous, Revelation could still be by a real John (and it doesn't purport to be an NT John, at least) and the others copy cats (i.e., apocalypses pretending to be by NT guys, inspired by the idea that the author of Revelation was an NT guy).

Trouble is, apocalypses like 1 Enoch and Daniel cannot be the copycats. Apocalyptic is not a native Christian genre; it is Jewish, and Christian used it for their own purposes.

What makes Revelation seem different from the other apocalypses to me is that its author doesn't claim to be any particular John. He's just some guy named John, it seems to me, and only later did people think he was an NT John. And while he didn't invent the genre, I figure he inspired later writers (who thought he was an NT John) to pretend to be other people from the NT.

[Ben C. Smith]

And while it may be simplistic, why couldn't Revelation have been written by someone named John...?

Because literally no other apocalypse was written by the name assigned to it in the text. (I am not saying this as an absolute argument; it is the challenge of the thread.) Why should this apocalypse be the only one different on that score?

And I'm thinking that even though other apocalypses were pseudonymous, Revelation could still be by a real John (and it doesn't purport to be an NT John, at least) and the others copy cats (i.e., apocalypses pretending to be by NT guys, inspired by the idea that the author of Revelation was an NT guy).

Trouble is, apocalypses like 1 Enoch and Daniel cannot be the copycats. Apocalyptic is not a native Christian genre; it is Jewish, and Christian used it for their own purposes.

What makes Revelation seem different from the other apocalypses to me is that its author doesn't claim to be any particular John. He's just some guy named John, it seems to me, and only later did people think he was an NT John.

We might say the same thing about Enoch and some of the other figures if we did not already know who they were. "Just some guy named Enoch." Or "just some guy named Peter." This forces one to suggest that we do not know who this John is, when actually it seems pretty clear, without the lenses of canon on, that we do know who "John" is. He comes from the same stock of personages from which we get the apocalypses of Paul and Peter.

You have to consciously excuse yourself from the current arrangement of the evidence, whereby the apocalypse of John has less to prove than the other apocalypses, and consider all as the same thing at first. Once you do that, what sets the apocalypse of John apart from the rest? What claims does the author fail to make that other authors make for their putative seers?

And while he didn't invent the genre, I figure he inspired later writers (who thought he was an NT John) to pretend to be other people from the NT.

You may be right, but what elevates this from an assumption ("I figure") to an argument?

[John2]

We might say the same thing about Enoch and some of the other figures if we did not already know who they were. "Just some guy named Enoch." Or "just some guy named Peter." This forces one to suggest that we do not know who this John is, when actually it seems pretty clear, without the lenses of canon on, that we do know who "John" is. He comes from the same stock of personages from which we get the apocalypses of Paul and Peter.

No way. We know who Enoch is from the OT. He's the guy who was taken up (presumably to heaven) and was thus privy to the heavenly info in the later Enoch writings, which include Daniel-related stuff so we know they are tied to the OT (and he's the only Enoch I'm aware of). And I checked the other NT apocalypses. They are clearly (at least to me) the NT Peter and Paul etc. in recognizable NT contexts. But what NT John was on Patmos or wrote to Asian churches? Why say only those things and not other details (like the other apocalypses do) to indicate who the guy is if he meant to be understood to be someone from the NT?

You may be right, but what elevates this from an assumption ("I figure") to an argument?

Nothing. It's just my guess.

[Giuseppe]

So are you denying that failed apocalypticists existed in 2° century CE ? According to your argument, the Epistula Apostolorum has to be dated before the end of 1° CE.

That is crazy. According to my argument, the Epistle of the Apostles has to be dated to sometime before about 150 for the Coptic version or to sometime before about 180 for the Ethiopic (slightly oversimplified, but close enough to recognize the principle). You obviously have no idea what is going on here, or what the arguments being made actually are. Please take your patent ignorance to another thread. I do not have the patience for it on this one. Serious inquiries only.

really I am doing a criticism against your implication: "John" is a failed apocalypticist ---> "John" is the genuine author of Revelation.

[Ben C. Smith]

But what NT John was on Patmos or wrote to Asian churches? Why say only those things and not other details (like the other apocalypses do) to indicate who the guy is if he meant to be understood to be someone from the NT?

Patmos is a new detail, true. But the famous John of whom I speak was famous for living a long time in Asia.

You do have a point that this apocalypse includes fewer details about the figure in question than some of the other apocalypses, and there is seemingly no derivation of his character from the gospels as there is in others.

If this author, alone among all the rest, used his own name (John), what is the reason for his having done so, in your opinion? What concrete thing can I point at and say, "Yes, that looks like a good reason to use one's own name rather than some past luminary's."

[Ben C. Smith]

So are you denying that failed apocalypticists existed in 2° century CE ? According to your argument, the Epistula Apostolorum has to be dated before the end of 1° CE.

That is crazy. According to my argument, the Epistle of the Apostles has to be dated to sometime before about 150 for the Coptic version or to sometime before about 180 for the Ethiopic (slightly oversimplified, but close enough to recognize the principle). You obviously have no idea what is going on here, or what the arguments being made actually are. Please take your patent ignorance to another thread. I do not have the patience for it on this one. Serious inquiries only.

really I am doing a criticism against your implication: "John" is a failed apocalypticist ---> "John" is the genuine author of Revelation.

I was arguing exactly the opposite: that John is not the author of Revelation.

And on this thread I am using exactly the same method to date the apocalypse as I do to date the Epistle of the Apostles.

Again, please, take this incredible level of misunderstanding to another thread.

[Giuseppe]

So are you denying that failed apocalypticists existed in 2° century CE ? According to your argument, the Epistula Apostolorum has to be dated before the end of 1° CE.

That is crazy. According to my argument, the Epistle of the Apostles has to be dated to sometime before about 150 for the Coptic version or to sometime before about 180 for the Ethiopic (slightly oversimplified, but close enough to recognize the principle). You obviously have no idea what is going on here, or what the arguments being made actually are. Please take your patent ignorance to another thread. I do not have the patience for it on this one. Serious inquiries only.

really I am doing a criticism against your implication: "John" is a failed apocalypticist ---> "John" is the genuine author of Revelation.

I was arguing exactly the opposite: that John is not the author of Revelation.

And on this thread I am using exactly the same method to date the apocalypse as I do to date the Epistle of the Apostles.

Again, please, take this incredible level of misunderstanding to another thread.

excuse me, please.

[klewis]

I just thought Rev 16 a bit unusual
"Righteous are You, O Holy One,
who is and who was,
because You have brought these judgments.
6For they have spilled the blood of saints and prophets,
and You have given them blood to drink
as they deserve."

The name "Holy one" is quite rare, unique in revelation
There's some question of 'who is and who was', but no is to come
and also it's a quote from the 'angel of the waters'
so couldn't this be a candidate from a previous prophetic writing, incorporated into the work?
its worth to recall something else also, from an early church standpoint the 'apocolypse' was *before* the Roman/Jewish war, if you take Acts literally when it refers to severe persecution of the church taking place, that Saul/Paul was involved in. The fact this possibility exists must mean the Christian elements could be earlier than the Jewish elements if you posit these two streams, i'm not saying they were earlier, but that the possibility surely has to be considered... since the persecution's in Israel and Rome (Nero) took place before

Sorry for getting back at this post so late.

The "Holy one" is derived from Isaiah 12:6 (see page 59 in my Ezekiel-Isaiah draft document). Please keep in mind, that the Ezekiel-Isaiah draft was the first draft of Revelation. Since there are 4 more drafts, things moved and content was added and changed.

The "Who is, and who was" is a new name for God with the idea from Exodus 3:14. This was done in the Exodus draft in which John applied a theme to
the book of Revelation in which the call of Moses and the servicing of the tabernacle / temple in heaven. I wrote a whole chapter on it in my book.

If you look at the texts that John chose to write the book of Revelation, they tell a story by themselves.

• The Ezekiel-Isaiah draft was one of hope and judgment. All the judgment side came from Ezekiel and the core of the hope in Revelation came from Isaiah.
• The Zechariah Draft was one in which incorporated in a manner that brought the judgments against those who were unfaithful. For example the hope found in Zechariah chapters 2 to 4 is conveyed in Revelation in such a way that brings judgment on Israel and a restoration by Jesus.
• The Deuteronomy-Joshua draft was taken by the last chapters of Deuteronomy and the first six chapters of Joshua. It is where we get the judgment for idol worship and the story of Joshua / Jesus (called the Lamb) as victorious over the unfaithful. It was in this draft that the number seven came into Revelation.
• The Exodus draft is where Jesus becomes the new Moses, the priest of all believers, and the story of him servicing the temple in heaven.
• The Daniel draft is where we get the Beast, hell, and it is happening soon.