Matthew 24 Verse By Verse (page 2)

Nate Merit

Hi Michelle

Thank you for the love. I think, though, that in reality you would find me difficult to love. I'm a crotchety old coot with hubris galore. I like people, and people like me, but loving me takes work. Ask my wife of thirty years, Patricia. Love is hard work.

Why not email the author, Mark Smith, with some kind sentiments? Thanks Michelle. [email protected]

All the best to you Michelle.

Nate

Nate Merit

Hi Leolaia

Thanks for the imput. As usual, you're spot on.

I already agree with what you've posted, but Mark might take some convincing. I was hoping folks would email him with their reactions. [email protected]

I feel awful today. I think I have the flu. I was up writing my new book until nearly two am, then got really sick. Gack.

Nate

Nate Merit

You know, Nate. I can understand you wanting to promote the books by friends of yours. I just cannot understand you wanting to be associated with literature that stops short of in depth research in order to 'prove' that scripture is unreliable or that prophecy has not been or is not being fulfilled. What good is it to clear your mind (as much as anyone can) of presuppositions just to replace them with new ones? The goal is scriptural exegesis is to let scripture interpret itself and arrive at valid conclusions, with the caveat that there are some facets that are unexplainable. If you start off trying to prove your view of things instead of getting at the truth of the matter then you end up with bogus conclusions.

(My gawd Rex, if you were any more full of yourself you'd explode)

myelaine

dear Nate,

" I think, though, that in reality you would find me difficult to love. I'm a crotchety old coot with hubris galore."

ya......whatever........you had it coming to you......don't kid yourself!......

love michelle

Shakita

Hey Nate,

The preterist viewpoint makes sense. The words that Jesus spoke at Matthew 24 applies to his followers of the first century. The problem has been that persons from succeeding generations and succeeding centuries tried to take Jesus's words and make them fit into their time period. Inevitably, those persons that insisted that Jesus's words applied to their time, ended up with egg on their face. (quite icky)

How could Jesus's prophecy about the destruction of the temple and the need for his followers to flee Jerusalem possibly have any connection to any time period in the future? If modern day Christians are to flee, where are they to go? There are Christians the world over. His prophecy was to be understood in a narrow sense. It was only after centuries of time passed by without the end that Christians expected, is when they began to put a spin on Jesus's words.

Mr. Shakita

peacefulpete

There are those (eg. Thomas L. THompson) who read many of the apocalyptic passages in the Gospels as metaphor, Isaiah did as much. However, it seems to me that if we allow an early (pre70) date for the writing of at least Mark then quite possibly the language was reinterpreted post 70 as literal. This then motivated the insertion of overt references to Jerusalem's capture and references to multinational judgment.

Leolaia

PP...On this subject, you might recall my thread on the relationship between Mark 13 and Daniel and 1 Maccabees.

http://www.jehovahs-witness.com/10/91640/1.ashx

It seems that unlike Luke and Matthew, Mark reflects longstanding eschatological expectations about a final persecution and attack on the Temple (due to the failure for Daniel's expectations on the restoration of Israel to occur at the end of the Maccabean crisis), along the lines described in Daniel and 1 Maccabees, and there seems to be relatively little in Mark 13 that necessitates any actual reminiscence of the events of AD 70, other than the certainty that the events would come to pass. The oracle is cast almost entirely in the language of past tribulations (= the Antiochene persecution), so dependence on Daniel and 1 Maccabees may explain the features of the text, yet even the statement in Luke about Jerusalem being surrounded by encamped armies may be influenced by 1 Maccabees as well, tho actual history memory of a surrounded Jerusalem may explain the passage as well.

peacefulpete

I recall the thread and admire the work. It is the kind of observation that leads Thompson to the conclusion that the writer of Mark was NOT referring to a specific expected event but rather using the language and well worn motifs as parables of the KIngdom as a path of righteousness. The motif of a lost generation, destruction of the ungodly and salvation of the righteous was put in Jeus mouth not as a prophecy but as parable and metaphor. This well explains why Jeus is made to say that the kingdom had overtaken them and was not coming with observableness yet (hypothetically) later layers have him saying just the opposite. I feel the eathquakes, war madness, and pestilence et.al are simply part of the OT motif of the arrival of Yahweh as judge. I suspect that chapt 13 was tweeked (I know you agree) after 70 (or 135) to literalize the motifs as signs dispite Jesus otherwheres saying that there would be none.

Leolaia

There is also an interesting idea that the "Little Apocalypse" in Mark 13 derives from a Jewish apocryphon dating to c. AD 39, inspired by Caligula's plans for installing his statue in the Jerusalem Temple. What makes this suggestion attractive is that the connection to Daniel and its "abomination of desolation" (i.e. the heathen altar, or a statue of Jupiter as the tradition had become by the first century) fits better with what Caligula threatened to do than with the Roman suppression of Jewish nationalists in Judea in 66-70. There is also little in the chapter (specifically 13:5-37) that is necessarily "Christian" other than v. 10 and part of v. 32 and these may represent Markan redactions. The author of Mark would then have adapted an older apocalypse (from roughly the time of Jesus), anonymous but known to Jews and Christians, and made it into an oracle by Jesus. Another strength of this suggestion is that it would explain certain striking parallels with Mark 13 in 4 Ezra (cf. 4:33, the framing question that corresponds to Mark 13:4, and the portents in 5:1-13 and similarly the framing question in 6:7 and the portents and events in 6:17-26, 7:26-37, and most strikingly the framing question in 8:63 and the portents in 9:1-8 which include "earthquakes, tumult of peoples, intrigues of peoples", and 13:31 which states that "they shall plan to make war against one another, city against city, place against place, people against people, and kingdom against kingdom"), a Jewish apocalypse dating after AD 70 which is otherwise not Christian in character.

Shining One

Leolaia,
This is the end of the 'Jewish system of things', not the end of the world. Similiar language in other passages may or may not be a reference to the same events. 'This generation' is the one of the disciples who knew Jesus personally. Even though they expected the Lord any day (as we still do!) and may have understood Jesus' words that way, this is not what happened. The point is that we are to live each day as if He is coming the next, as our own judgment occurs at our physical deaths. Also, I would not give equal credence to Aprocryphal works in regards to valid scripture. Those books were not part of the Canon for some very good reasons. Full preterism is a heresy and I do not ascribe to it. Have you explored Covenant theology?
Rex

Matthew 24 Verse By Verse

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