When Christ was in the Wilderness of the Jordan with John the Baptist, he was not far from Qumran, where the Essenes sought to prepare for the kingdom of God by living in a rigorously structured monastic community. The community only admitted those who had undergone years of demanding probation. But in spite of speculations about links between Jesus and the Essenes aroused by the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls, there is no sure evidence that Jesus ever made contact with that desert community.

It seems as though Christ did not wish his followers to know about the existence of the Essenes and Qumran until 1947, almost two thousand years later, when the whole world had been devastated by the results of the Second World War and was crying out: "Where was God in all the turmoil, destruction and suffering?"

As I mentioned in the introduction, I had a strong feeling that a historic event would cast light on the contents of Revelation. The discovery of these seven nearly complete scrolls in cave 1 at Qumran could be such an event. There could be a possible link between the Judaean Dead Sea Scrolls and the fact that Revelation opened with the breaking of the seals of the scrolls.

"Three" represents completeness: heaven, earth and the underworld; beginning, middle and end. "Three" is also associated with sacrifices (Ge 15:9 and Lev 19:23).

"Four" represents cosmic order: the four phases of the moon; the four cardinal points of the earth (north, east, west and south); the four rivers of Paradise (Ge 2:10) and the four winds of Heaven (Jer 49:36).

"Seven" is the most important number of all. Jews commemorated this number in the seven branches of the menorah; in the seven day feasts of Passover and of the Tabernacles; the Seven Pillars of Wisdom (Pr 9:1). Seven continues to have symbolic prominence in the New Testament with Jesus telling Peter that it is not enough to forgive the brother who has sinned against him seven times, but "seventy times seven" (Mt 18:21—22). Seven is also the number of Greek-speaking Christians appointed by the Twelve Apostles in Acts 6:3.

The New Testament concludes with a great surge of sevens. In Revelations1:19—20 Jesus tells John, "Write, therefore, what you have seen, what is now and what will take place later. The mystery of the seven stars that you saw in my right hand and the seven golden lampstands is this: The seven stars are the angels of the seven churches, and the seven lampstands are the seven churches". And after this John tells that he has beheld a lamb with seven horns and seven eyes "which are the seven spirits of God sent out into all the earth" (Rev 5:6). In the broader sense, ‘seven’ denotes perfection, totality.

The discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls, made me think: If "seven" denotes totality the first seven scrolls ( complete or nearly complete) found in cave 1 could be significant as a group. I asked myself the question: Does the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls in the middle of the twentieth century not relate to the Book of Revelation?

At first I thought it might be a far-fetched assumption, but after serious research I am convinced that it is not. I now know that the discovery of the first seven scrolls from the Qumran caves heralds the opening of Revelation in 1999.The first seven complete scrolls, now housed at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, holds a message for both Christians and Jews.

Two Isaiah Scrolls were found in Cave 1 at Qumran: one is complete and is known as the St Mark’s Isaiah because it was initially owned by the St Mark’s Monastery . It is the largest and oldest of the Dead Sea Scrolls, and is by and large the same as that of the traditional Book of Isaiah in the Bible.

The symbol of the scroll is used in both passages to indicate that the sky will disappear and the stars fall from their place. Another image depicting the falling of the stars is the dropping of the figs. According to Isaiah, this will happen when ‘the Lord is angry with the nations" (Isa 34:2).

These passages convinced me that there was a direct link between Isaiah and Revelation. I then realised that if the history of the world was connected to Revelation, as I believed it was, clues would be found here. The phrase: "the year of the Lord's favour" gave me the idea that a "year" in history might have something to do with the interpretation of Revelation. There was the possibility that the dates of years might be significant.

It seemed of some significance that the Scroll of Thanksgiving Hymns resembled the Psalms of the Old Testament and that in Revelation there are both songs of praise and thanksgiving hymns.

The great drawback of information written on a scroll was the difficulty of finding a specific place, especially on a long scroll. The text of a Hebrew scroll was written in columns and had to be read from right to left. The reader held it in both hands, exposing two or three columns at a time as he proceeded. He rolled up the finished section with his right hand and unrolled a column or two with his left hand. Thus, when he had read the whole text, the beginning was inside and the end was outside. For the convenience of the next reader, the scroll had to be re-rolled in the opposite direction, to bring the beginning back to the outside. Therefore the beginning of the scroll often became so worn and frayed that some of the content was lost.

On page there is a diagram of the scroll in its length. Just below this there is a diagram of the individual sheets of the scroll, placed one below the other up to the point where the scroll has been preserved.

I placed the chapters of the book of Revelation on this diagram, but had to add three and a half columns, because there are twenty-two chapters in the book of Revelation What is remarkable is that the contents of the chapters of Revelation strongly correspond to this grouping and to the historical interpretation that is to follow.

The first ten chapters and the last twelve chapters each form a group as indicated in the diagram. But what must be carefully observed is that the middle of the nineteenth chapter, more or less at the point where the scroll was worn through time, corresponds with the place in Revelation where the rider on the white horse appears a second time.

In my study of Revelation I discovered that the end section, that is from Revelation 19:11 to the end (as indicated on the diagram), augmented certain things that were said before. I therefore constantly had to refer to the end section to interpret the meaning of the other chapters of Revelation. To make this easier for myself and the readers of this book, I decided to treat the end section as a separate section.

("Apocryphon" means in ecclesiastical matters: 'Not accepted as canonical or standard rule of the faith'.) This nearly complete scroll was in the worst state of preservation. About half the pages of the scroll are missing, including the beginning and the end.

The text of the first two chapters of the Book Habakkuk (there are three chapters of Habakkuk in the Bible) is set out on the scroll and is followed by the author’s comments. What is of interest here is that the author applied the prophesies of the prophet Habakkuk to his own time.

As I was searching for possible "clues" to Revelation, the possibility struck me that there were some direct links between Revelation and the history of the past two thousand years. As shall be indicated in the text, these links were found.

There are numerous symbols that link with those in Revelation. It is significant that the beginning of Habakkuk (1:2—4 see also verse 13) in a way resembles the opening of the fifth seal in Revelation. I will refer to this in a following chapter (see page .)

This scroll, also called the Community Rule, is the final scroll of the group of seven 'complete' scrolls found in cave I in 1947. This scroll consists of five skins sewn together. It is almost complete except for the opening lines. It will later be seen that the rule of the "community" or "the populations of the nations" that replaced the rule of kings, is significant in the interpretation of Revelation (see p ).

Five discoveries of scrolls hidden in secret places and two other archaeological findings that occurred at seven different times during the past two thousand years have been incorporated in this interpretation and are regarded as the "seven thunders". The biblical basis for this was found in Ps. 81:7 ( KJV).