Stevens continue throwing darts at any natural events they can find to see if anything will stick. First it appears like he maintains multiple comings at two different points in time (one for the saints, and one for their persecutors). He also maintains that Christ's returned for the saints was somewhere between AD 62-66 (although he maintains he knows the Exact date). This calls for a very, very early date to the book of Revelation (before 62-66), especially since in his natural scheming timeline, John was still present, and had not spoke about past events. Now in all my research, I have found no specific dates given that would pre-date 66. I have seen many Preterist give a date of 66-68 for the dating of the book. If this is true, how did John miss such a important event that occured prior to him writing the book of Revelation. Either Stevens and Walt Hibbard are terribly wrong and have no clue what they are taking about, or the events of Revelation were non-historic events or future to him writting the book. If Stevens are correct, and John did write Revelation after those events occured, and John did not close the book saying they were past events, it would support the claim that these were not historical events that he saw.
Ed Stevens
The saints were being persecuted. Christ would come and give them relief (AD 66), and at the same time give tribulation to their persecutors. We are talking about two different phases of the tribulation, with Christ’s return in the middle (the first against the saints in AD 62 - 66, and the second against their persecutors in AD 66-70).
http://www.preterist.org/preteristQA.asp
Ed Stevens
"If the angelic armies literally seen in the clouds at AD 66 were the fulfillment of ‘every eye shall see Him’ (Rev. 1:7) as Sproul has allowed as a possibility, then it was also the fulfillment of Acts 1:11!" (Foreword to the new edition of James Stuart Russell’s The Parousia Bradford, PA: International, p. xii)
Hibbard also follows this same believe that the actual return was in 66 AD before Revelation was written.
Walt Hibbard
However, I believe that these verses were meant to be taken literally, and that the first century Jews did "see" Jesus at His return as Josephus implies when he records the angelic armies being seen in the clouds in AD 66. The literal rapture idea also implies that the living and remaining saints "saw" Christ at His return when they were changed and caught up into the clouds to meet with Him at the destruction of the Temple in AD.
http://www.preteristviewpoint.com/id7.html
The book of Revelation was written by St. John between AD 66-68, in the final years of the Neronic persecution.
http://www.preteristvision.org/questions/qa_revelationdate.html
I guess all that can be said is that John I guess wasn't a part of the rapture, apparently by their view. With AD 68 being one of the only the representation of the EARLY date among Preterists. . . let alone all of the massive amounts of late daters our there . . .
