>I just want to point to a serious critique which in my humble opinion
>seems to be rather to the point. Look at Leonard L. Thompson:
>_The Book of Revelation. Apocalypse and Empire_. OUP: 1990, pp.
>202-204. Hemer's book is valuable, but his parallelomania and
>disregard of the OT influence have weakened his thesis rather too
>much.
This is quite true -- one has to read Hemer's book very carefully. But also
L. L. Thompson (op.cit. p. 17) does in Rev 6:6 see a possible allution to
the Domitianic edict of 92 CE.
> One of the problems is that it is almost impossible to know
>whether his evidence would fit a, e.g., Neronian date, because he
>doesn't even consider this possibility which were almost a consensus
>view in the last century. Much of his evidence seems to support a
>Neronian date as well as a Vespasianian (wordform ?) date.
...or a Domitianic date, which is the date suggested by both Hemer and
Thompson. However, the idea of a Vespasianic date for the Apocalypse seems
very interesting to me. It has been sugged by S. Giet. (I tend to believe
that the 6th emperor of Rev was Vespasian...)
- Otto