(1) Rev. 3.17 has been connected with Laodicea’s unaided recovery from the earthquake of Nero’s reign (Ramsay, SC, p. 428)/ The eivdence here might be variously read, but I argue the strong probability that the reference is to a later stage of the reconstruction, mentioned in the earlier Sibylline Oracles (4.108, of about AD 80), and occupying a full generation between the disaster and the time of Domitian.
(2) We adduce reasons for accepting the view that Rev. 6.6 alludes to an evict issued by Domitian in AD 92 to restrict the growing of vines in the provinces (Suet. Dom. 7.2; 14.2) and connect this with the contemporary setting of the Philadelphian letter.
(3) In Rev. 2.7. there may be reference to the abuse of the right of asylum in Ephesus, a problem known from the ostensibly contemporary letters of Apollonius of Tyana (Nos. 65, 66) to have been acute under Domitian.
(4) An explanation is offered of the ‘synagogues of Satan’ at Smyrna and Philadelphia (Rev 2.9; 3.9) which links them with conflicts operative under Domitian. It is further argued that the occasion was provided by the conjunction of that emperor’s policy with the insertion of the curse of the Minim in the Shemoneh ‘Esreh about AD 90. The aftermath of the controversy may be traced in a problem passage in Ignatius (ad Philad. 8.2) as it affected one of the very churches under discussion.
(5) The problems of Philadelphia may have been intensified by the recent occurrence of widespread famine in Asia Minor (cf. again Rev. 6.6). There is an instructive parallel in an inscription of Pisidian Antioch of AD 93.
(6) The Salutaris bequest in Ephesus (BM Inscr 481, of AD 104) seems ot mark a resurgence of paganism in the city. This may be explicable as a reaction against a revival of Christian zeal among the recipients of the Apocalyptic letter.
Certain expressions, while not to be understood as illusions to datable events, offer parallels with contemporary evidence, especially datable poems of Statius and Martial. An aureus of the empress Domitia depicts her deified infant son seated on a globe and stretching out his hands to seven stars. Again, a comparison of Domitan with the morning start appears in a poem celebrating his entrance of the consulship in January 95 (Sat. Silv. 4.1; cf. Rev 2.28). Points of this kind lend themselves to the case for beliving that the Revelation is strongly atithetical to the language of the imperial cult as current under Domitian.
… We accordingly reaffirm the Domitianic date of the letters in the light of the kind of evidence here considered, while recognizing that many of these indications are uncertain. Cumulatively they align themselves with the case widely accepted on other grounds that the Revelation was written about AD 95.
Colin J. Hemer, The Letters to the Seven Churches of Asia in Their Local Setting JSOT Supplement Series 11 (JSOT Press), 4–5.
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