For those of you, like me, who not only own televisions but also have them hooked up to a satelite or cable provider there is a show coming on discovery again this weekend that deals with the book of Revelation.
I watched it last weekend and found it to actually have a few things of interest, especially to those of us with Preterist leanings. The show came close on one aspect saying that the book of Revelation was not written so that christians 2000 yrs later could postulate as to how current events fall into its prophecy. The show points out that an apocalypse is not what the common definition held now about the end of the world, but rather a symbolic style of writing. They even had it right about the mark of the beast being not 6 6 6 but six hundred sixty-six, and that that number was the number of Nero.
The show failed in many many areas, as one would expect from a secular television show. They said that John was not the apostle the writer of the Gospel and three letters to the church. They say that given the evidence in the book of Revelation itself the writer was obviously a man who held some authority in the asia-minor churches given letters, but he was not the apostle John because he used the word "and" twice as many times as in any of the other books bearing his name. Also, the thing he was prophecying was not the destruction of the Temple as held by Orthodox Preterists, but rather he was prophecying the destruction of the Roman empire. They held to a later dating of the book. And in the end said that they book was nothing more than apocalyptic writing giving hope to the persecuted church, saying it was not meant even to be truly prophetic and if it was then its prophecies failed. As if we will one day enter the gates of heaven only to hear John say "
".
Overall I found the show to be inaccurate, aggravating, and entertaining if only to see how our secular "experts" understand the book.
Bryan Riddle
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