Hi Fisherman.....Thank you for the clarification, and if I were to give my own clarification, I would emphasize again that what I wrote bears no resemblance with a "double fulfillment" interpretation like the one offered by the WTS. The references to Judgment Day and the coming of the Son of Man in power in the synoptic apocalypse do not within the context of the passage entail or imply a double fulfillment. The notion that there should be a twofold fulfillment is not based on the data contained within the passage; it is a hermaneutic principle motivated by harmonistic concerns external to the text itself.
Now eisegesis has a time-honored role in Judaism (midrash) and Christianity and thus is the very "stuff" of theology and eschatology, so I do not want to be misunderstood as denying your or anyone's right to read the text in a way that makes sense to you. That indeed is how texts continue to live and thrive in a modern context wholly different from the one in which they were composed. My concern is only that of understanding what the text originally meant, what the author's intent was, how the first readers of the text would have understood it. That is exegesis, and one of the most basic rules of exegesis is to be lead primarily by the text itself, its rhetorical and narrative construction, the word choice, what motifs and themes are expressed, and how they interpret or appropriate earlier sources. If you pursue a strictly exegetical reading of the Olivet discourse (and related apocalyptic texts in the synoptic gospels), and forget about the hindsight of history, forget about what you may want the text to say, and strictly follow what is said therein and pay attention to how it is said, there is no way a concept of a double fulfillment would naturally fall out of the text. Neither would one conclude that the text puts the epiphany of the Son of Man and the final Judgment at a time far removed from "this generation"; in fact, the exact opposite is what the reader would conclude. That is why I suggested a commentary like Davies & Allison would be a good choice because you would be able to see how this exegetical process works and why a "double fulfillment" interpretation is infelicitous with the text.
Jesus words MUST come true
That is the raison d'etre for the "double fulfillment" interpretation, the reason why it is read into the text at all. Such a stipulation if accepted would necessarily take precedence over a straightforward reading of the text that is not biased by the hindsight of history. If the text in fact presents a scenario that conflicts with history, history must override that scenario. BTW, this concern even crops up in liberal "Jesus Seminar" scholarship that, at least in the case of JD Crossan, constructs the "historical Jesus" as strictly non-apocalyptic and limited only to Cynic-like sapiential teaching. Both liberals and conservatives seem to shirk at the implications of an apocalyptic Jesus, while others find theological value in it as evidence of a truly human and non-docetic Jesus.
But Jessus said: " When you see all of these thing..." What did Jessu mean by "you" and what did Jessus mean by "all". The Apsstles did not see all of the sign come to pass.
Here's a good example. An exegete would examine the anaphoric and deictic relations in the text, seeing what is the logical antecedent of what, and how one thing is implied by another. Taking the text on its own terms, the exegete would find no reason for a sudden change in reference in blepein "to see, look" (v. 2, 5, 9, 23, 33 of Mark 13), which is used throughout the passage with consistent second-person reference. And regarding the tauta panta "all these things" of Mark 13:30, the logical antecedent of this is the tauta panta of v. 4, and when the two verses are compared it is clear that the question of when (hotan) one should expect tauta panta to be finished (sunteleisthai) is answered right there in v. 30: Q. When will tauta panta be completed? A. Tauta panta will fully happen before "this generation" passes away. Of course, this is just one small piece of the exegesis, one needs to take into account all the other data in the text which point to the same thing (e.g. the antecedent in v. 1-2 of the tauta panta of v. 4, en ekeinais tais hémerais in v. 24, the parallels of v. 26 in 8:38-9:1 and 14:62, etc.).
