was not written by the author of the gospel of john but by a different john living on the isle of patmos off what is now turkey. >> he seems to be a jewish prophet who is a refugee from a war in his own country, which was judea, from jerusalem, where a war had broken out in 66 to the year 70 when the romans came in with 60,000 troops and totally destroyed jerusalem. >> reporter: it was, she writes, john's "cry of anguish." >> this book picks up the language from the prophets and speaks about rome and the leaders of rome, the emperors, as a huge bright red dragon with seven heads, seven horns on its head. it was anti-roman propaganda, because john was devastated by what had happened to his people, what had happened to the city of jerusalem. >> reporter: he writes it in language of dreams and nightmares. >> yes. it was probably dangerous in the roman empire to openly express hostility to rome, so people would have done it in coded language. >> reporter: john's book of revelation targeted the roman empire as evil. but nearly 300 years later, when the roman empire became christian, a wily an