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The preterist interpretation of Revelation reads the book within its historical context. The events described took place close to the time of the book's writing, probably during the fall of Jerusalem in A.D. 70. Some preterist interpretations say that the prophecies of the book were fulfilled during the fall of Rome in A.D. 476. From a modern perspective, in this interpretation, the book is a symbolic and poetic historic record and includes no future predictions.
Critics of this interpretation say that the absolute triumph of Christ and the church over evil forces that is described in the end of Revelation has not happened in a historical sense. Either the book is inaccurate, or it must predict future events. -
Historicist scholars read Revelation as a prediction of history from the first century up until the time the scholar is writing. In this view, the prophecies of Revelation are seen as symbolic descriptions of the history of the Western world, including church and political leaders and important historical events. There is no real agreement among these types of interpretations on which passages in Revelation correspond to which historical events.
Besides the lack of agreement on how to interpret Revelation in a historicist sense, both this view and the futurist view are criticized because they diminish the significance of the book for its first readers. Revelation is addressed to the first-century church, but first-century Christians would probably have had little interest in a prediction of all of history up until the present time. - The futurist view holds that most or all of Revelation describes events that will happen in a distant future, at the end of the world. Futurist interpreters combine Revelation with other Biblical passages that talk about the End Times to predict a series of events that will happen before the end of the world and the final defeat of Satan. These events include the rise of the Antichrist, a time of tribulation and persecution for the church and a final rapture in which all Christians will be caught up into heaven. The tribulation will end with Christ's second coming, when he will return to earth to defeat evil and reign for a thousand years, after which he will judge evil and destroy earth to create a new one. There are three main divisions of futurist interpreters based on when the rapture of Christians is expected to occur. Pre-tribulationists believe that Christians will be taken out of the world before the tribulation begins and will escape the persecution of good people during that time. Mid-tribulationists believe that Christians will be taken out of the world in the middle of the tribulation. Post-tribulationists believe that Christians will stay on earth throughout the tribulation but will be taken up to meet Christ immediately before he returns.
- Symbolic interpretations of Revelation view the book as an addition to the large body of apocalyptic literature that was popular in the first century. In this view, the symbolism and metaphor that is evident throughout Revelation indicate that the book is not meant as a literal prophecy. Rather, it is an allegorical description of the unending battle between good and evil. The disadvantage of this view, like the preterist view, is that it makes the final triumph of good as described in Revelation unnecessary.
