What's so mysterious about "generation" (genea) in Matthew? (page 4)

Vanderhoven7

In every instance in the synoptic gospels, the term "this generation" on the lips of Jesus refers to resistent Jewish contemporaries of Christ.

King Solomon

Thanks K.Sol, and if you want a laugh and to see exegetical gymnastics performed to Olmpic standards just look at the WT's attempt to explain away that scripture.

I bet!

You can almost sense Jesus' frustration, even pulling out the, "truly, I say to you" bit (which is Jesus' code for, "Are you all REALLY that clueless?")

Here's the King Solomon translation:

"For cryin' out loud, you dim-wits! Let me make this PERFECTLY CLEAR without using the "generation" word, since it's GOING TO BE A PROBLEM, apparently. YOU (points to John), and YOU (Peter), and YOU (Judas Iscariot): SOME of you will NOT die (<cough> hint: NOT Judas! <cough>) until you see ME coming into MY Kingdom. Oh, it will take about 2,000 yrs for me to get to the throne, as I tend to dawdle on the way..."

JW's gymnastics reminds me of this video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5mLOUWl-L-s

peacefulpete

Seriously guys, the splitting hairs about who or what is the "generation" is exactly the exegetical gobbly gook that gets groups like the JWs in to the endless bother they are in. The immediate context is clearly emphasizing the immediacy of the return of Jesus. The author, whoever he was and whenever they wrote, was asserting that the end was to be seen by the people who had seen the aforementioned signs. I do doubt very much that he intended to segregate jews from christaians or believers from unbelievers in that they all live about as long. All the reinterpretation over the past 1,800-1,900 years is a tragically missing the point.

Open mind

Excellent thread.

Bookmarking for possible future chats with extended JW family.

om

EdenOne

marked too

yadda yadda 2

Found quite a good article on the subject on this site http://jwsrefined.com/

mP

"So all the generations from Abraham to David [are] fourteen generations; and from David until the carrying away into Babylon, fourteen generations ; and from the carrying away into Babylon unto Christ, fourteen generations ."

mP:
Ive heard it somewhere that Matthew pretended there were 3 lots of 14 because DAVIDs name in Hebrew has the numeric value of 14. Each Hebrew each letter also has a numeric value, think A =1, B=2 etc. The same exists in Hebrew and if you sum the letter in David you get 14. This is of course nonsense but Judaism was into numerology and astrology and this is yet another example.

What's so mysterious about "generation" (genea) in Matthew?