Was There a “Pre-Christian” Book of Revelation?

This will not be an article about the eschatology of Revelation—we won’t be interpreting any denominational doctrines regarding the return of Christ. Rather, we’ll be showing how the text that all Christians use as the basis of our eschatology is fundamentally reliable.

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Textual Basis for Revelation

We have fewer manuscripts of Revelation than for any other New Testament book, but even so, one recent article claimed that there are 314 manuscripts, and the number is growing for New Testament manuscripts across the board because new manuscripts are being unearthed.2 There are fewer manuscripts for Revelation than other books because Revelation was one of the few books whose membership in the canon was disputed before it was ultimately accepted. It was less popular than the Gospels and Paul’s epistles, for instance, which were universally accepted, so fewer people copied it. Even worse, it was used heavily by Montanists, a group of heretics in the early church, leading some early Christians to wrongly reject it.3

That being said, we have good evidence that Revelation was a thoroughly Christian book from its inception. The earliest manuscript of Revelation, P98, is dated to AD 150–250 and includes Revelation 1:13–2:1. Another papyrus manuscript, P18, is dated to the 200s–300s and includes 1:4–7. The earliest full copy of Revelation is Codex Sinaiticus, which is a particularly important manuscript, and is dated to the 300s. For an ancient document, this is very good and early evidence for the book.

We have good evidence that Revelation was a thoroughly Christian book from its inception.

Another form of evidence we have about the book is people who quoted it in their works. Justin Martyr, around AD 155, said, “And further, there was a certain man with us, whose name was John, one of the apostles of Christ, who prophesied by a revelation that was made to him.”4 Irenaeus, in the second century, said, “In a still clearer light has John, in the Apocalypse, indicated to the Lord’s disciples what shall happen in the last times.”5 So less than 100 years after the book of Revelation was written, two witnesses affirm that John was the author of Revelation.

Was Revelation Hijacked by the Christians?

Throughout history, Christians always interpreted Revelation as a literary unity—that is, it was originally composed in a form that pretty much matches what we have today. There might be isolated textual questions, but there was no radically different earlier form of the book.

Mostly German scholarship in the nineteenth century (a phrase that should always prepare you that something bad is coming) proposed that “it was either composed of a variety of sources (frequently seen as Jewish rather than Christian in origin) or was a mélange of different redactions.”6 Particularly, they note it would be rather easy to remove the explicit mentions of Jesus to arrive at a potentially Jewish, not Christian, apocalyptic text about the “Son of Man.” However, there is no textual or historical evidence that a form of Revelation like this existed, and today, mainstream biblical scholarship accepts the literary unity of Revelation. So why would BAS try to revive a theory that should be buried along with those who first proposed it?

There is no evidence in the manuscripts of Revelation or in the records about it by the early church fathers indicating that the book of Revelation was compiled from previous non-Christian sources. It is a fringe theory rejected for good reason by the vast majority of textual scholars.

Jewish Apocalyptic Language

All interpreters recognize that Revelation draws its language and imagery from Daniel, Ezekiel, and other Jewish apocalyptic imagery. This is intentional and completely in line with how the rest of the New Testament uses the Old Testament. God is the same in the Old Testament as in the New Testament, which means that it’s unsurprising that his judgment that culminates in the end of history is described in similar terms.

It is also true that there are other groups, like the Qumran community, who also used Old Testament apocalyptic imagery. However, the Qumran community was also very insular, had limited impact on wider Judaism, and had little to no demonstrable influence on early Christianity, despite some superficial similarities due to the messianic expectations reflected in the Dead Sea Scrolls.

Reliable Traditions on the New Testament Text

Early Christians cared about the provenance of their texts. They agreed that the New Testament texts were inspired and authoritative because (1) they were written by eyewitnesses or by authors who were authorized by eyewitnesses, (2) they agreed with the existing body of Scripture, and (3) they were used by the entire church. It was important to them to be able to trace the provenance of the document back to a trustworthy human author. If Revelation was not written by John the apostle who was exiled on Patmos but rather cobbled together from a collection of Jewish apocalyptic texts with Jesus’ name slapped on at the end, no one would have accepted that as authoritative.

Early Christians also didn’t accept a document just because it claimed to speak about Jesus. The early canon lists and statements of the church fathers show that it was important to early Christians to differentiate between which books were inspired Scripture, which books were edifying but not Scripture, and which books were heretical and to be avoided.

We can trust that the Bible has all the books that should be in it and none that shouldn’t.

We can trust that the Bible has all the books that should be in it and none that shouldn’t. God both inspired and preserved the text of Scripture. It shouldn’t surprise us when some put forward theories that contradict the Christian view of Scripture, and it also shouldn’t trouble us.