In this clip, James D. Tabor and Derek discuss the scholarly view that Revelation may have originally been a jewish apocalyptic text later Christianized. The Greek suggests a Semitic thinker behind it, and references to Jesus often appear as later insertions into phrases that already read naturally without them.

If so, it means one of Christianity’s most important prophetic texts ultimately preserves and promotes a fundamentally jewish eschatological framework. BTW, this shows plain as day that what I’ve been saying about what Rev 2.9 and Rev 3.9 are actually about is correct. Revelation is a jewish apocalyptic text, and those verses are aimed at proto replacement theology. It was written by an ethnically Jewish Christian who grew up in Israel, possibly Cerinthus, an Ebionite judaizer who remained Torah observant and did not teach that Jesus was part of a trinity, but a human teacher.

So when the text says people who “say they are jews and are not,” it is being written by an extremely jewish author responding to churches that were increasingly claiming the old covenant was finished. The point is that Yahweh will make those replacement theology types bow and recognize that God loved the jews.

It is not Jesus predicting that in the future there will be fake jews claiming to be real jews. Jesus isn't even originally in the text at all.

Think about how crazy that is. These idiots quote Rev 2.9 and Rev 3.9 all day long like it supports them, when the passage is literally directed against them.