The Date of Revelation

The question that often accompanies authorship is date: When was Revelation written?

Ian Paul gives us some good information on checking our biases when it comes to dating ancient books:

“For us, writing and publication is a more or less instant process; if I want to write something, I can reach for pen and paper or turn on my electronic device and start writing. In the ancient world, formal writing was expensive and laborious, and to be a scribe was a specialist and elite occupation. It is also clear that, like John’s gospel, the book of Revelation is the fruit of extended reflection and careful composition. We therefore need to set aside notions of ‘the’ date of a text as if the moment of production was at a single instant or even a narrow and defined period of time, as it often is in modern writing.” (Ian Paul, Revelation: An Introduction and Commentary, pg. 13)

There is some external testimony for the dating of Revelation, but not much. We have Irenaeus of the second century who said Revelation “was seen no very long time since, but almost in our day, towards the end of Domitian’s reign.” (Against Heresies 5.30.3) Irenaeus also believed John the apostle was the author. To me, there seems little reason to doubt Irenaeus since he’s closely associated with the apostle John: “he was probably raised in Smyrna and was a student of Polycarp, the bishop of Smyrna who was martyred at the age of eighty-six and claimed to have known John.” (Ian Paul, Revelation: An Introduction and Commentary, pg. 12)

The next thing scholars look to to indicate dating is textual details. In Ian Paul’s commentary, there are a few possible points in the text that point to dating it around the time of Domitian’s reign, so in the 90s AD. Revelation 6:6 may point to Domitian’s edict to “remove half the vines in the provinces in order to grow more wheat because of grain shortages.” (Ian Paul, Revelation: An Introduction and Commentary, pg. 13) The ‘mountain, all ablaze’ being ‘thrown into the sea (8:8) may be referring to the eruption of Vesuvius in AD 79. The king list in Revelation 17:9-14 has been matched with different emperors, but it’s hard to match any approach to this text exactly.

Next, there are historical considerations:

“There are some external details worth noting which do appear to support a later date of writing. Laodicea was destroyed by an earthquake in AD 60, and the message to the assembly there seems to assume that it is prosperous and well established, which could hardly have been the case if John was writing in the late 60s. Polycarp, bishop of Smyrna, says (Phillippians 11) that the church in Smyrna did not exist in the time of Paul…And Epiphanius…notes that it was believed there was no Christian community in Thyatira until late in the first century.” (Ian Paul, Revelation: An Introduction and Commentary, pg. 16)

If John was a teen during Jesus’ ministry, he would have been in his 70s during the reign of Domitian. To me, there is little reason to suppose it was not the apostle John at this late date.