Phizzy,
I know of one fundamental erroneous assumption that haunts the entire Revelation Climax book: That the Jehovah's Witnesses are, alone, the only true rendering of Christianity in contemporary times and that, therefore, all prophecies concerning God's people have a fulfillment into them.That being said, this leads to all sorts of false conclusions, and an enormous deal of eisegesis. One such example is to see the fulfillment of the sounding of the "trumpets" as the Resolutions adopted in several conventions of the JW's during the 1920's. Laughable.
I disagree with you when you claim that there's a "consensus" among scholars that Revelation wasn't penned by the apostle John, and that its writing is to be dated close to the end of the first century. The scholars are in fact divided about the date of writing. The majority, usually conotated with an evangelical / millerite agenda, favors a later date for the writing of Revelation, because that allows them to reject a preterist view of Revelation for it invalidates their notions of futuristic fulfillments, such apocaliptic, rapture and end-of-the-world doctrines. On the other hand, the preterists, usually conotated with more traditional churches, favor an earlier date, contemporary to Nerus, because that allows them to put all of Revelations' visions as having been completely fulfilled within the first century, and focus on individual salvation.
In very short, these are the two opposing views. I wasn't aware of this when I started to write my article about "Dating Revelation". I simply allowed the NT to cross-reference itself, and to me the picture became clear: Revelation could only have been written BEFORE 66/70 CE. Now, if it was compiled into one single book at a later stage, if its compiler was the apostle John or someone else, if there were tiny bits edited, to me that's interesting, but secondary. The MESSAGE was delivered to the Christian congregation before 66/70. I don't side with the preterists because I have an interest in their agenda; I'm actually persuaded that part of Revelation is still awaiting a fulfillment in the future. But a good deal of it unquestionably has seen its fulfillment in the first century.
The Aramaic Peshitta NT (5th century) preface writes the following comment on the preface page of Revelation: "The revelation which God gave the evanglist John on the island of Patmos where he had been banned by Nero Caesar." Now, the emperor Nero ruled from 54-68 AD, and according to Roman rules those banned by a Cesaer would be released after the Caesar's death ... thus, John would have been released from Patmos in 68 AD (or shortly thereafter) and the time when he received this revelation and wrote it down would have been prior to 70 AD. John himself mentions in the book that he was at Patmos, when he received this revelation. Given the commentary of Paul about a distinguished disciple receiving visions of heavens and secret revelations in the year 41 CE, and assuming that disciple was John, then the visions of John began even before he was exiled to Patmos. It was in Patmos that he received orders to write down what he saw - and possibly new visions were then given to him.
Also notice another detail, in Revelation 10:11 - John is told that he "must prophesy again before many peoples, and nations, and tongues, and kings". If John was an old man in 96 CE, and soon to die around 100 CE, how come this prophecy would come to be? How could he still have a life full of ecclesiastical and evangelical activity, enough to span over several "peoples, nations, and tongues and kings"? However, if he received the Revelation during the reign of Nero, and his life span stretched to year 100, then h e would have been able to prophesy and to teach during the reigns of caeasars Galba, Otho, Vitellius, Vespasian, Titus, also Domitian, and even possibly Nerva.
Also consider chapter 11. John is told to measure the temple, but is instructed: " do not measure the court outside the temple; leave that out, for it is given over to the nations, and they will trample over the holy city for forty-two months." In this vision, the temple is referred to as still exisiting, still standing, and the trampling of the temple given as a future event. Would it be a logical thing to say if Revelation was written in 96 CE, 26 years past the destruction of the temple??
Still, remember that contemporary Christianity in North America is dominated by agressive neo-evangelical groups. They invest a lot in universities. They produce a lot of scholars. However, there is an agenda there - to advance that agenda of a future rapture and end-of-the-world apocaliptica, it is absolutely vital that Revelation is portrayed as a book written AFTER the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 CE. Because it frees the interpretation to be transported into an indeterminate time in the future.
Eden