Ancient Rome as Babylon the Great

[DanielConway]

Hi.  What brief exposure I have had to the preterist board leads me to believe that most of the posters here identify Jerusalem as the Great City and Babylon the Great of Revelation.  I do not.  I believe that the pre-millenial prophecies of Revelation have already taken place, as well as the eras of the first and second beasts of Revelation 13, which I map onto the early pagan and later Constantinian Roman empires, but that Babylon the Great was ancient Rome, and that here prophesied fall took place at the sack of Rome in 410.  Are there any other posters here who hold Babylon the Great to be Ancient Rome?

[robycop3]

Hi.  What brief exposure I have had to the preterist board leads me to believe that most of the posters here identify Jerusalem as the Great City and Babylon the Great of Revelation.  I do not.  I believe that the pre-millenial prophecies of Revelation have already taken place, as well as the eras of the first and second beasts of Revelation 13, which I map onto the early pagan and later Constantinian Roman empires, but that Babylon the Great was ancient Rome, and that here prophesied fall took place at the sack of Rome in 410.  Are there any other posters here who hold Babylon the Great to be Ancient Rome?

  Yes, I do. It'll be a great center of commerce & a seaport.

  But the pre-millenial events have NOT yet occurred. The "beasts" will each be one man. While they're in power, the great trib will occur. And Jesus will return IMMEDIATELY AFTER the great trib, as He said. Thus, the trib hasn't yet occurred, or Jesus is long-overdue!

[DanielConway]

Please try to re-evaluate your construct on it's merits.  The scriptural precedent for identifying an apocalyptic beast as a kingdom is so strong as to be nearly insurmountable.  Consider John's audience.  They were early believers coming under intense pressure from the then most powerful nation in the world, Rome.  They would not have been concerned about events to take place 2000 years in the future or whenever you posit the first beast to appear, but needed some encouragement, something to hold onto in the midst of the buffeting they were getting from Rome.  Don't you see?  The Apocalypse was written using symbols they could easily identify as current threats and was given to them as a way of saying "Hold on, deliverance is on the way!"  Rome did fall, and the church was released from the archetype of the State persecutor, whether it came in the form of naked oppression or,  towards the end,  in the form of a State sponsored substitute for the real thing.