James Berry Releases Daniel's Apocalypse IV: The Beast, Arguing First-Century Israel Was the Beast of Biblical Prophecy

Fourth volume in a series on the prophecies of Daniel and Revelation argues the beast was not Rome, not a future Antichrist, and not an individual.

NEW YORK, NY, UNITED STATES, September 10, 2026 /EINPresswire.com/ -- Pastor James Berry has released "Daniel's Apocalypse IV: The Beast," the fourth volume in his series on the prophecies of Daniel and Revelation. The book addresses a question interpreters have debated for centuries, the identity of the beast, and argues it was neither a future world ruler nor the Roman emperor Nero. Berry builds his case on the text's own description: Daniel describes a "body" destroyed and ten horns that are ten kings, and John adds seven heads that are seven kings. A body made of kings, Berry writes, is not a man but a nation.

The book works chapter by chapter through Daniel 2, 7, and 8 and Revelation 11, 12, 13, 17, and 19, arguing that all describe the same entity. Berry identifies it as the first-century nation of Israel, specifically the corporate body of Jewish Zealots who revolted against Rome between A.D. 66 and 70, and identifies the woman who rides the beast in Revelation 17 as first-century Jerusalem. Both were judged in A.D. 70, which in his reading places these prophecies in history rather than the future. The volume opens with a summary of the first three.

Berry draws his principal evidence from the book of Micah. Daniel gives the fourth beast teeth of iron and nails of brass that tread down and break in pieces, and Berry argues that Micah applies the same imagery to Israel. "Brass, iron, and treadeth down and tear to pieces? Sound familiar?" he writes. "Micah prophesied this of Israel not a Gentile nation, or even Rome." He identifies the mark of the beast as the shekels the Zealots minted after defeating Cestius Gallus, which he says were the only currency accepted at the temple money changers' tables.

His own study began in his teens, after years under Baptist teaching. "I made the decision when I turned fifteen years old that I would start to study for myself and verify whether that doctrine was true," he says. Three decades on, he acknowledges the position has come at a cost: "I exposed a couple of my friends recently to the doctrine of fulfilled prophecy and their response was to ostracize me."

None of this, he states, applies to the present: neither modern Israel nor modern Jerusalem is in view.

"Daniel's Apocalypse IV: The Beast" is available on Amazon, Barnes & Noble and other major retailers.

About the Author

Pastor James Berry is a U.S. Air Force veteran, theologian, and author dedicated to making biblical concepts accessible to all. With over 18 years of ministry experience, he serves as a pastor and worship leader in Goldsboro, NC. Three further volumes, a verse-by-verse commentary on Revelation, are planned.

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