Douglas F. Kelly’s Sixth “Indicator” for Revelation’s Early Date

The sixth and final of Douglas Kelly’s “indicators” for Revelation’s early date deals with the military imagery used in the book. Kelly claims that the weapons of warfare fit with the Jewish War against Rome in the first century, not with current or futuristic weapons of wars. Kelly writes,

Sixth, the military imagery used in Revelation fits with the Jewish War of 70 AD. Horses and swords are used, not tanks, airplanes, and missiles. It takes a violence of interpretation to get the military equipment spoken of to mean anything but typical first century hardware. There is no compelling reason to resort to such interpretation when the events of 70 AD literally fulfill the kinds of battles spoken of in Revelation (and Matt. 24).

Dispensational pundits on the radio and internet are frequently heard analogizing the weapons mentioned in Revelation and using those analogies to predict future events like the appearance of the Antichrist or the final coming of Christ. At best, this hermeneutic does violence to the text and fails to interpret Revelation within the first century time indicators it gives (i.e. “soon,” “quickly,” “about to,” etc.). At worst, this type of “prophecy” manipulates the listener into living within a worldview that is not consistent with that of the Bible. Kelly’s commentary is worth reading because he consistently seeks to situate Revelation in its first century context. Far from making the book of Revelation irrelevant to us, Kelly's preterist reading allows us modern readers to apply the text properly to our own lives without over-analogizing the text out of its first-century context. Let horses and swords be horses and swords.

Kelly, Douglas. Revelation: A Mentor Expository Commentary. Ross-shire, Scotland: Mentor, 2012. p. 20-1.