Deciphering the Clues of Revelation (5)
Understanding the significance of Nero's death, the civil wars that followed, and Vespasian's rise to power in the year of four emperors.
This is Part 5 of a 5-part series. Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5
Part of the challenge of interpreting the Book of Revelation in light of its original first-century context is that, because of the failure of our modern educational system, few Bible readers today have even a basic grasp of ancient history. Therefore, if the Apocalypse is best interpreted as relating to events that were about to take place in John’s own day,1 then for most of us, the crucial interpretive keys have been lost.
What’s particularly fascinating, however, is to discover the apparent relationship between events related to the death of Nero and key passages in Revelation. Since Nero was the last blood relative of the Julio-Claudian dynasty,2 the Roman historian Suetonius candidly admits that “The race of the Caesars ended with Nero.”3 Though subsequent emperors continued to use the name “Caesar” moving forward, they did so not because any of them happened to be related to Julius Caesar but because his name had essentially become synonymous with emperorship itself.