Four main ideas about the Book of Revelations

Preterist: The book isn’t prophecy about the end of time and it’s for Christians trying to live in faith during the Roman Empire.
Strength: The observation that the book was intended for a first-century audience.
Weakness: Doesn’t show why the book tells of the end of time .

Historicist: Revelation gives a bird’s eye view of the entire sweep of Christian church history, from the Pentecost church until Jesus returns.
Strength: The conviction that God controls the course of history.
Weakness: Revelation then has little importance for the people in Biblical time who it was written for.

Idealist: There’s no connection between the visions and any historical facts; they’re simply symbols of the ongoing struggle between good and evil.
Strength: The book clearly shows good ideals or morals.
Weakness: No proof from history, thereby doubting Jesus’ historical death, resurrection, and ascension.

Futurist: The book describes events leading up to Jesus’ return. The focus is on a historical struggle that unfolds at the end of the age and climaxes with Jesus’ Second Coming.
Strength: That the book prophesies a literal return of Jesus and a new creation.
Weakness: The weakness of the futuristic view is that it interprets chapters 1–3 as referring to the first century. Then it declares that at the sixth seal everything else is about the final period of earth history before Christ returns.