Introduction

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

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

16 with all the internal and external evidence for the date and authorship of these writings, a plethora of other insights about the history of the apostles and the saints was uncovered. Soteriological, eschatological, and ecclesiastical issues popped up everywhere, begging for examination. One historical fact led to another, brick upon brick, until a coherent history of the first century church began to emerge. The project quickly mushroomed into a full-blown historical reconstruction of first century Christianity, with its development of the New Testament Scriptures, and its experience of all the endtime fulfillments that Jesus and the Apostles had promised them.

In order to gain a deep understanding of the first century, we need to experience it like an eyewitness. We need to know not only what happened and when, but where it happened and why, and how it is related to the overall plan of redemption. That requires us to go far beyond the mere recital of dates and events that are contained in this book, to look at maps, atlases, archaeological artifacts, timelines, and photos. After doing that kind of intense study, I now almost feel like I was there and experienced those things firsthand. I have also heard so many dear brothers say that a visit to the biblical lands is tremendously helpful. The more we immerse ourselves in the first century historical context, the better we will understand eschatology and our Christian faith. We need to know how all these events interrelate with each other and connect to the biblical plan of redemption.

There is a lot more to discover here than just the documentation of the fulfillment of all the eschatological events. There is a profound providential plan running through all these events that will bless your socks off when you catch sight of it and follow it through to its consummation.

My goal was not to produce a mere catalog of all the unsupported speculations about what might have happened (such as Eusebius appears to have done in some cases), but rather to ascertain “at the mouth of two or more credible eyewitnesses” exactly what DID occur, in what sequence it occurred, and how it interrelated with other Jewish, Roman, and Christian events.

My method was to use the very best sources as close to the first century as possible (e.g., the New Testament and Josephus), and to use their internal evidence as the main basis for this chronology. Wherever there are known dates that have been confirmed by multiple witnesses, these are used as foundations to build other dates upon. But this is not just an annotated list of events pulled from Josephus’ jumbled accounts and arranged in chronological order. We do engage in a significant amount of historical reconstruction (educated guesses), but hopefully no historical revisionism. The reader will have to be the judge of that.

In my research of other historical documentaries, I noticed that many of them separate the Jewish, Roman, and Christian events into three separate lists. That approach simply does not work for me, since it does not reveal very many of the interrelationships between the events. To see those relationships, I needed to have all the Jewish, Roman, and Christian events put together into one continuous chronological list.

I did not realize at first how helpful that would be. By putting all three of those lists together into one continuous stream with seemingly unrelated events right next to each other, patterns and interrelationships began to appear. Little nuances and details, that never had any obvious significance before, now revealed connections between events that I had not noticed previously. One detail led to another, and then another, and then another – connecting the dots. Those relationships between events were an additional dynamic that I had not anticipated. They provided far more insight than a mere chronological list of events could ever do. It is like the old saying: “The whole is more than the sum of its parts.”

As I began to perceive some of those relationships between events, my interest was riveted. I was now finally able to put together not just a list of independent events, but a coherent interpretation of those events and their impact upon each other. This is what historical reconstruction is all about.

The book of Acts does not give a lot of details about the other Roman and Jewish events that were happening while Paul was on his various missionary journeys. For those events, we have to go to the other contemporary Jewish and Roman historians such as Josephus and Tacitus. The closer we get to AD 70, the more important all of those Jewish and Roman events become. They

17 form an important backdrop behind the Christian events, and show how all the predictions made by Jesus were literally fulfilled. Every High Priest and Zealot leader that we encounter from AD 52 onwards are directly connected with the events of the Last Days. Things are heating up, not only for the Christians, but also for the Jews and the Romans.

Paul on his missionary journeys was clearly following a plan which was providentially arranged for him by Christ: (1) to plant new churches among all nations and not just Jews, (2) appoint elders and deacons in every church (Acts 14:23; 1 Cor. 4:17), (3) write inspired epistles to guide them, (4) instruct his fellow workers to “teach these things to faithful men who would be able to teach others also” (2 Tim. 2:2), and (5) establish the Gentiles in the Church and make them one united body with the Jews (Eph 4). Everywhere Paul went, he followed this pattern. We see this clearly as we study the historical narrative in Acts and Paul’s other epistles that were written during this time. These are essential patterns that the apostles evidently bound upon both Gentile and Jewish Christians, and which were intended to be the pattern for all future generations of the eternal Church (Eph 3:21; 2Tim 2:2).

We begin our study by looking at the most likely dates for Matthew (AD 31-38) and Mark (AD 38- 44), and then proceed to the first three epistles of Paul (Galatians, 1 & 2 Thessalonians), which were written on his second missionary journey (AD 51-53). Including these five books in our study allows us to date all twenty-seven books of our New Testament, and show how the NT canon was formed and completed before the outbreak of the Jewish War in AD 66. The study of New Testament canonization in itself is a good reason for reading this work, without even looking at the historical fulfillment of all of the endtime prophecies that we document here.

After looking at the dates for those first five books, we then move on into the third missionary journey of Apostle Paul which began in AD 54. It was during this final dozen years (from AD 54 until AD 66) when the birth pangs and signs of the end started increasing in both intensity and frequency, along with a quickening pace of NT books being written. We show how 19 of our 27 NT books (70 percent) were written during those last five years just before the Neronic persecution (AD 60-64). The Great Commission was finished, and the rest of the endtime events predicted in the Olivet Discourse were fulfilled during that time of “tribulation” upon the church and the “days of vengeance” upon the unbelieving Jews (Luke 21:22).

This has been a challenging journey, but often very exciting and inspiring. And yet there is so much more buried beneath the surface that needs the attention of future preterist students and scholars. I hope they will use this as a launching pad to take it much further. We have, no doubt, missed the mark in some of our explanations here, but it still provides something with which to start, and with which to compare and contrast future studies. That alone provides justification for this work.

Admittedly, some of these events and dates are based on very slim evidence, and are nothing more than deduction based on the best internal evidence that I could ferret out from the primary sources. But hopefully there are no suggestions here that are pure speculation with no basis in any kind of fact.

We may never know for sure exactly when, where, and how Apostle Paul was martyred, but using the facts that he mentions (people, places, sequences, future intentions, etc.) we can reconstruct what could have happened, and maybe even what probably happened. And that is just one example of the benefits of this kind of historical study. There will be many such insights that will materialize in your mind as you read through this chronology.

We are devoted to chasing after the Biblical and Historical Truth, wherever it leads, and whatever it takes. This book was written for truth-chasers like you. There are so many confusing voices out there in the religious world, who compromise the truth, and lead people astray. We need certainty and absolutes to anchor our faith, so that we are not cast about by every wind of speculation and false doctrine that blows through. We need to go back to the Bible to see what it really says, not what others think it says. We need to be Bereans who search the Scriptures daily to see whether the things we have been taught are really true. After studying all this history, I no longer read the New