129; E. Schüssler Fiorenza, Revelation: Vision of a Just World [Minneapolis: Fortress, 1991] 67). Against this objection it can be countered that Josephus, writing at the end of the first century A.D., reckoned with the existence of twelve tribes in his day (Ant. 11.133) and that the widespread Jewish eschatological hope of the regathering of the twelve tribes of Israel was certainly based on the assumption of their actual existence in the world (see Comment on Rev 7:4b). (b) The distinction between