The historical-contemporary or preterist approach has consecrated the Roman empire in the first century as the referent behind the spiritual Babylon of chapters 16 to 18 of Revelation. However, a reassessment of this theological motif from the document itself and in the light of certain hermeneutical, exegetical and historical considerations demonstrates a transtemporal referentiality in harmony with the chronologically multivalent and historically continuous character of biblical apocalyptic eschatology in general and Johannine eschatology in particular. The recurring apostasy of God's people at key moments in history emerges from such an analysis as the referent behind the great prostitute-city of the Apocalypse.
