Foreword by Michael Alan Nichols
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After many years of research and study of biblical history, Edward E. Stevens offers this book to help explain and document the first century historical events that took place before the Jewish revolt against Rome. As we “Preterists” discover and share our understanding of fulfilled prophecy, we are constantly asked to produce some proof to support our views. I am persuaded that this book is a God-given tool to help provide that evidence. In this book we now have a well-researched and thoroughly-documented resource for the historical legitimacy of the eschatological view known as “Preterism”. The body of believers can now more confidently grasp the truth of what occurred during the final decade leading up to the Second Coming (Parousia) of Christ. We now have scholarly evidence to know when the canonical books of the New Testament were written. We can ascertain the historical events that took place during that last decade before the destruction of Jerusalem and the end of the Jewish age. Stevens is passionate about historical accuracy. He is extremely judicious and precise about the facts that are presented here. This material includes much of what Stevens has taught in his podcasts, his writings, and his seminar lectures. It has personally helped me to see more clearly, and better explain in my books, the truth of fulfilled prophecy in the first century generation of the Apostles. This book is one that belongs in the library of every bible student, every seminary professor, and every Christian. Michael Alan Nichols December 2014
Introduction Ever since the booklet, What Happened In AD 70? was published in 1980, there have been constant requests for more detailed information about the Destruction of Jerusalem and the Jewish, Roman, and Christian history associated with it. Over the years since then I have studied Josephus, Yosippon, Hegesippus, Tacitus, Suetonius, Eusebius, the Talmud, Midrash, Zohar, Pseudepigrapha, Church Fathers, Apocrypha, Dead Sea Scrolls and other Jewish/Christian writings, trying to determine exactly what happened, when it happened, and the effect it had upon the Church. Then in 2002, after I began to promote J. S. Russell’s view of a literal rapture, the demand for historical documentation of the fulfillment of all eschatological events dramatically increased. That forced me to dig much deeper. So in 2007 I put together a 21-page chronology of first century events. Two years later in 2009, we published a more substantial 73-page manuscript entitled, First Century Events in Chronological Order. That helped fill the void, but it did not go far enough. It only increased the appetite for a more detailed and documented historical reconstruction of first century events. In 2010, I began expanding that 73-page manuscript and presenting it on my weekly podcasts. Four years later, it had become almost 500 manuscript pages, including the intertestamental history and all the events from the birth of Christ up to the end of the first century. That was way too much material for a single volume, so we chopped it up into smaller sections. However, the amount of material covering the last dozen years before the Jewish war was still 250 manuscript pages, about half of the total! That was a large amount of material to include, but it is necessary in order to form a comprehensive understanding of what was really happening to Christianity during that final decade just before the End. One of the major purposes I had when I began this historical study was to discover when each of the New Testament books was written, along with a good understanding of the historical circumstances which prompted and facilitated their production and distribution. Even though that was a worthy goal, I never imagined what else I would discover on the journey. While interacting
