Today I read a short volume defending the Continuous Historic (AKA "Historicist" Approach to the book of Revelation:
Alfred Nicholls, Interpreting the Book of Revelation (Birmingham: The Christadelphian, 1988)
Indeed, the Historicist approach is the mainstream view of Christadelphia (see my articles on Christadelphian issues here), and some other small groups. A brief summary of the view is as follows:
The basic principle is to interpret the symbols of the Apocalypse as corresponding to historical events specifically the events between the time the book was written (c. 96 AD) till the Second Coming.
Interpretations of this approach are generally anti-Roman and anti-papal. The progression of symbols in the book is interpreted as the progression of judgments against the Roman Empire and its 'successor', the Roman Catholic Church. The Seals (chapter 6) are interpreted as representing the decline of the Roman Empire, the Trumpets (chapters 8-9) as the fall of Rome in the West, and then in the East, and the Vials (chapter 16) represent the judgements against the Catholic Church. (Thomas Gaston, The Continuous Historic Interpretation Examined [2d ed; Lulu, 2007], 9-10)
This has led to a lot of problematic interpretation of the book of Revelation, including the “man-child” in Rev 12 not being a positive depiction of Jesus but a negative depiction of Constantine! See this discussion by Thomas Farrar, a former Christadelphian (Nicholls explicates this view on pp.71-74).
Thomas Gaston, another Christadelphian, has written a good critique of this approach to the book of Revelation which one can get for free as a PDF:
The Continuous Historic Interpretation Examined (2d ed; 2007)
Support this blog:
Paypal
