This is appendix A of Our Past and Future Hope: Reintroducing a Traditional Faith-Building Eschatology by Jason Giles. The Contents page is here.
The paperback and Kindle versions are now available here.
It is well worth diving deeper into the historicist interpretation of many Bible passages not covered in this book, which was only meant to be an accessible introduction. Many free resources are available online, but they are often older books.
Albert Barnes, Notes, Critical, Illustrative, and Practical
Albert Barnes (Dec. 1, 1798 – Dec. 24, 1870) “was an American theologian, clergyman, abolitionist, temperance advocate, and author. Barnes is best known for his extensive Bible commentary and notes on the Old and New Testaments, published in a total of 14 volumes in the 1830s.”1 Historicist author Fred Miller (who I’ve quoted in this book and recommend below) calls Barnes “the master of historical interpretation, bar none!”2 The best part is his Notes can be found for free online in many places and formats- I have used the site sacred-texts.com in this book, but they are also on studylight.org, biblehub.com, Google Play Books, and many more. Old physical copies (separated into many volumes or specific books) of his Notes can also be found for purchase.
Because they cover the entire Bible, they are a great resource for any particular passage one is curious about, but for a beginner to the historicist interpretation I recommend starting with Barnes’ Notes on Daniel 7.
https://www.sacred-texts.com/bib/cmt/barnes/dan007.htm
Fred Miller, Revelation: A Panorama of the Gospel Age
Fred Miller (May 8, 1931 – Feb. 9, 2018) was an American scholar of ancient Greek and Hebrew, as well as an author, preacher, and teacher who planted churches in New England and founded a school for ministry in Vermont.3 He created the website moellerhaus.com that his family maintains, which is full of his writings and other resources. His book on the historicist interpretation, Revelation: A Panorama of the Gospel Age, is no longer in print, but it is available to read for free from his website. His approach to prophecies he believes are related to Russia and Ukraine seems novel to me, and I don’t entirely agree with all of his views, but he is a rigorous scholar that deserves a look.
http://moellerhaus.com/revdir.htm
Oral Edmond Collins, The Final Prophecy of Jesus: An Introduction, Analysis, and Commentary on the Book of Revelation
Dr. Oral Collins (May 9, 1928 – Jan. 14, 2013) is a serious scholar, archaeologist, and educator with an impressive academic career at Gordon-Conwell and Brandeis. He wrote the best modern academic treatment of historicism, The Final Prophecy of Jesus. It’s a great book, but it’s only available in a physical format for no less than $40-$70. It’s also a very dense tome, and not geared to beginners in the subject. Collins actually has an Adventist background, but his approach to the historicist interpretation rejects all of the errors from that system. It can be purchased from Amazon:
https://www.amazon.com/Final-Prophecy-Jesus-Introduction-Commentary/dp/1556352603
Steve Gregg, Revelation: Four Views, Revised and Updated
Steve Gregg is a Bible teacher, author, and radio talk show host. His book Revelation: Four Views is a parallel commentary of the futurist, preterist, historicist, and idealist views of Revelation, all side by side. It’s not the best way to learn about historicism in particular, but the book is a good tool to get an overview of the four major views. Gregg does a good job of giving a neutral perspective of each view. It can be found on Amazon in multiple formats:
https://www.amazon.com/Revelation-Parallel-Commentary-Revised-Updated/dp/1401676219
Other Authors to Check Out…
Many other classic books on the historicist perspective are available for free online. Some of them are easier to read than others, but each of the authors are scholars in their own right:
Thomas Newton, Dissertations on the Prophecies
Edward Bishop Elliott, Horae Apocalypticae
Henry Grattan Guinness, History unveiling prophecy
Robert Fleming, Apocalyptical Key
Isaac Newton, Observations Upon the Prophecies of Daniel and the Apocalypse of St. John
John Gill, Exposition of the Bible
Thomas Rawson Birks, First Elements of Sacred Prophecy
…And Some to Avoid
Sadly, there are some authors associated with what they would call ‘historicism’, which is usually bundled with problematic or even heretical ideas such as Seventh-Day Adventism, Nontrinitarianism, Anglo/British-Israelism, Christian Identity, and Neo-Confederacy:
Ellen G. White
Le Roy Edwin Froom
Robert Caringola
Charles Jennings
Roger Rusk
Truth In History, truthinhistory.org
- Wikipedia, “Albert Barnes (theologian).”
Available online at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_Barnes_(theologian) ↩︎ - Fred Miller, “Revelation: A Panorama of the Gospel Age”, 137.
Available online at http://moellerhaus.com/7bowls.htm ↩︎ - From his obituary, available online at https://www.almonfuneralhome.com/obituaries/Frederick-Peter-Miller?obId=2958685#/obituaryInfo ↩︎