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Maurice A. Williams


Author of
Revelation and The Fall of Judea


How I wrote my book  ·  Where I Got My Source Material


WHY I WROTE MY BOOK

Are you confused with the many contradictory interpretations of Revelations? Are you still waiting for Hal Lindsey's final war with the Soviet Union, a twentieth-century war that will end history as we know it? Do you think Tim LaHaye is more correct in his "Left Behind" series, postponing this final war until the 21st Century? Are you intrigued aith Hank Hanegraaff's series, "The Last Disciple," proposing, as I do, that the prophecies were fulfilled during the early Church age? I am!

I often wondered why the predictions in Revelations didn't happen to the people that first heard them. After all, Revelations claims twice that these predictions would happen soon. I studied many other interpretations and early history to see if some predictions had already happened. "Revelation and the Fall of Judea" describes what I found.

I found a clue to interpret many visions by reading J. Massyngberde Ford in the Anchor Bible Series. She pointed out that, today, many Biblical scholars, after much textural study, believe parts of Revelation came from John the Baptist. These scholars claim that Chapters four through eleven were the original part of Revelation and were first preached by John the Baptist. Ford, an expert in this field, reviewed their evidence and left it unchallenged. Their evidence is part of the legitimate scholarship conducted on Revelation.

These scholars believed that what came from the Baptist was preached by his disciples for about thirty years. Then a Christian disciple of John the Baptist revised and added more visions just before A.D. 66. Finally in A.D. 96, John the Evangelist added the letters to the churches and made the final redaction that we have today. If this be true, then the early visions are the Baptist's announcement that the Messiah has arrived and the Baptist's warnings what would happen should his listeners not accept the Messiah and oppose him.

This caught my imagination. If the above were true, then our perception of the historical events predicted by the visions would shift from modern times to a much earlier period.

Revelation is the most frequently interpreted and least understood book in the Bible. The average person keeps reading book after book, hoping to get something that makes sense. The most popular interpretations take the scattered bits of current events we known and weave them into conformity with Revelation. This is a powerful way to influence people who are not familiar with first and second century history. I wondered, if we all knew early events as well as we know modern events, would we see a better fit with early events than we do modern events.

My aim is to contribute an easy-to-read, well researched, interpretation showing that these early visions were meant primarily for first and second-century Judeans. I believe that chapters four through sixteen explain who Christ really is and that those who reject Christ and try to defeat him will themselves be defeated.


HOW I WROTE MY BOOK

I spent many years researching history books and reading more than thirty commentaries by other authors. As I did, I saw a logical fit of Chapters four through sixteen with first and second century events as the Church grew and Judaism declined.

I wrote my book for the average reader. I state my case in plain, nontechnical English so that my audience can easily follow my thinking. I deliberately meet low fog index (10-11), high readability (60-65% Flesch scale), and medium grade level (8-9 Flesch-Kincaid). I avoid words likely to alienate people already sensitive to certain words, for example:

  1. I use sexually inclusive language, and I do so without compromising our faith's deep truths.
  2. I avoid negative criticism of other faiths. However, I stress that we must all respect what God knows is true.
  3. I am careful writing about the Jews. The word "Jew" carries more connotations today than it did in the first century. If I use the word "Jew" indiscriminately, some people may think I blame today's Jews for what other individuals did two thousand years ago. Of course, I do not. So, rather than overwork "Jews," I used synonyms like "Judeans," "the circumcised" or "the descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob." "Judeans" is, I think, more appropriate than "Jews" because it is more specific to the Jewish people of the first and second centuries.


WHERE I GOT MY SOURCE MATERIAL

For source material, I used long direct quotations from the following public domain texts:

  1. The Holy Bible Translated From the Latin Vulgate (Baltimore: The John Murphy Co., 1899). I quote the entire text from Apoc. 4 through Apoc. 16.
  2. Flavius Josephus, The Genuine Works of Flavius Josephus in Two Volumes translated by W. Whiston (Philadelphia: J. Grigg, 1829)
  3. Suetonius, The Lives of the Twelve Caesars, translated by J. C. Rolfe, Ph. D. (Great Britain: William Heinemann Ltd., 1914)
  4. Tacitus, The Annals, translated by A. J. Church and W. J. Brodribb (MacMillan and Co., 1906)

I included long quotes so my readers need not consult other books to verify what I say as they read my book. I quote sufficient text to show the quotes in context. I used public domain texts to avoid permission problems quoting long passages from copyrighted material. I hope you like my book.

You can find more information about my book and me on my personal website http://www.geocities.com/mauricewms2003 and in articles I posted in http://www.writing.com and http://www.rosedog.com. I also posted poems on both websites, almost 60 on Writing.com. I have also posted reviews of books on several websites. Much of it is shown in my web page. More can be accessed through a search engine searching for my name within quote or the title of my book within guotes or both within quotes with the word AND typed between them. I hope you like my articles and poems. I hope you contact me either through Writing.com or my web page.

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