Fr. Mike Schmitz

There are, I think, two theories, essentially.

One theory is that the dating of this book is from the 90s, that the end of John's life, he's an old man at this point, and he's writing this book of Revelation during the era or the age of the Emperor Domitian.

So that's one of the theories.

Another theory is that this is happening in the 60s or 70s.

So, you know, 30-ish plus years ahead of that time would be another theory, and that would be under the time of Nero.

Now, a couple of reasons why I like, I prefer, in fact, that this would come from the 60s, 60s before the year 70.

And one is because when we get to the number 666, everyone is afraid of the word 666, or the numbers 666, that is in Hebrew numerology, a number indicating the name of

Nero Caesar or Caesar Nero so you know all the letters all numbers have a letter value or all letters have number value and so if you add those up later on we're going to hear this where John says this is code but if you're smart enough you can figure this out because if I'm writing this during the time of Nero then it makes sense that I'm going to keep this a code and so they don't see me um essentially you know lambasting the emperor who wants to kill all these Christians in Rome so but

It would make sense.

It also, there's some variations that have the number 616, and that still spells Nero just in, I think, in the Latin language.

So it makes a lot of sense that if this is happening during the persecution of Nero versus the persecution of Domitian, that makes sense to me.

Also what makes sense is that Jesus had said that essentially, I'm coming soon, and the end of the world is happening soon.

In fact, remember in the Gospels, Jesus prophesied that I'll come back before all these things take place, that essentially the world will end soon.

Before this generation ends, all these things will take place.

So since Jesus prophesied this, you'd say, wait a second, when did that happen?

And if you remember in the year 70 AD, what happened was Rome destroyed Jerusalem.

They destroyed the temple.

And we have to understand how important the temple was.

I mean, I've emphasized this, I think over the last 359 days, but the temple was everything.

In fact, remember when God showed Moses on the mountain, the dimensions and the building of the temple, it was meant to be a little microcosm of the cosmos, right?