Journal: Bibliotheca Sacra
Volume: BSAC 21:82 (Apr 1864)
Article: The Author Of The Apocalypse
Author: R. D. C. Robbins

BSac 22:82 (Apr 1864) p. 319

The Author Of The Apocalypse

Prof. R. D. C. Robbins

Reasons For The Following Discussion

To some persons it may seem useless to occupy the pages of the Bibliotheca with an argument in favor of the genuineness of the Apocalypse, and of its composition by John the beloved apostle. It is enough for them that it is prefaced with the words: “The Revelation of Jesus Christ.....to his servant John” or “John to the seven churches which are in Asia,” and “I John who am also your brother and companion in tribulation.....was in the isle called Patmos,” etc.; and that near the close it is said, “I John saw the holy city,” etc. Others, however, from the peculiarities of the book, may be inclined to excuse themselves from its study with the lingering feeling that while it has indeed “some things hard to be understood,” it yet does not come under the injunction: “search the scriptures, for in them ye think ye have eternal life, and they are they which testify of me.”

Such certainly has been the feeling of some in modern days; and some, as Oeder, Semler, and Corrodi, in Germany, have opposed it with bitterness and acrimony, and denied it aesthetical merit as well as inspiration.

The majority of the leading writers in Germany are unequivocal in their denial of its apostolic origin. De Wette says: “In New Test, criticism nothing stands so firm as that the apostle John, if he be the writer of the Gospel and the First Epistle did not write the Apocalypse; or if the latter be his work, that he is not the author of the former.”1 Ewald is equally positive in his opinion. “That the Apocalypse was not written by the same author who composed the

BSac 22:82 (Apr 1864) p. 320

Gospel and Epistles is,” says he, “clear as the light of the sun.”2 Credner, too, expresses himself to the same effect: “Between the author of the Apocalypse and the apostle John there exists a diversity so deeply pervading, that even to the mere supposition, that the Gospel and First Epistle were the productions of the same mind, when it had attained to higher spiritual progress, which at an earlier period would have composed the Apocalypse, no place can be given; since it would be altogether unnatural and inadmissible.”3 Others, as F. Lücke, Bleek, and Schott, might be quoted to the same purpose.

At the beginning of the Reformation, as well as more recently in Germany, the Apocalypse was discarded. Luther says: “There are many reasons why I regard this book as neither apostolical nor ...