Not that anyone is really going to change their mind but consider that in the wheat/weed parable the field was 'Israel'. The 'time of the harvest' was thought of as imminent. The writer understood himself to be standing at the end of a long wait (not the beginning) for God to sort the 'true' Israel from the larger Jewish/Christian population. That's standard sectarian language. It has perfect parallels with Qumran writings for example.
peacefulpete
JoinedPosts by peacefulpete
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60
The Question of the "Great Apostasy" and the Historical Continuity of Christianity
by aqwsed12345 in1. the continuity and visibility of the church.
the true church must be continuous from the apostolic age.
there is no room in christianity for a "gap" or interruption of thousands of years during which true christianity ceased to exist and then was revived in the form of another movement.
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Voting, why make it easier to vote??
by moomanchu indemocrats are always harping on and on about voting rights and how the ability to vote should be easier and access unrestricted.
the most progressive ones want to allow prisoners, and illegals with no voter id the ability to vote along with the criminals, drug addicts, and uneducated low lives who already can vote.. .
after they push for everyone and anyone to be able to vote they then tell us it is a sacred privilege, a duty and honor, and a big responsibility blah, blah ect..... if it is all those grandiose things are true i think it should be harder to vote not easier.
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peacefulpete
Anyone who believes qualified citizens should not be enabled to vote, should take a stand and protest the election.
Believe me when I say, I support your right to not vote.
Funny how those who say gun buying should be without any background checks or restrictions are the same who want background checks and restrictions on voting.
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Are you glad you got the Covid Vaccine? Did it help?
by liam ini didn’t get the covid vaccine, but i admit, i was scared as shit i made the wrong decision because there was so much confusion out there.
practically all my family and most of my friends took the vaccine because everyone was depending on those in charge to speak the truth.
now a lot of them are sick, and they can't figure out why.
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peacefulpete
Best estimate is that the death rate of those infected with Spanish influenza was about .6%. to some today that would seem hardly worth worrying about.
Our first set of data with COVID-19 came from China and it looked like the fatality rate was much higher , more like that of related outbreaks like SARS and MERS.
Out of 17,238 early COVID-19 cases 321 ended in death. Nearly 2%. As we know data was incomplete and we got better at treating it and vaccinations primed immune systems to cope when they were exposed. It also helped the virus mutated to a less virulent strain. Looking back the best estimated cfr was about 1.2%
What I'm getting at is we lived through genuine history. At least most of us did.
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Are you glad you got the Covid Vaccine? Did it help?
by liam ini didn’t get the covid vaccine, but i admit, i was scared as shit i made the wrong decision because there was so much confusion out there.
practically all my family and most of my friends took the vaccine because everyone was depending on those in charge to speak the truth.
now a lot of them are sick, and they can't figure out why.
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peacefulpete
The Spanish influenza compared. Read the whole thing.
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Are you glad you got the Covid Vaccine? Did it help?
by liam ini didn’t get the covid vaccine, but i admit, i was scared as shit i made the wrong decision because there was so much confusion out there.
practically all my family and most of my friends took the vaccine because everyone was depending on those in charge to speak the truth.
now a lot of them are sick, and they can't figure out why.
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peacefulpete
As Michael Shermer once put it, 'Smart people are actually better at rationalizing things they arrived at through non-smart reasons.'
Two reasons, First, due to their otherwise good decision making, they may be more blind to the idea that they are vulnerable to conspiracy theories or other irrational conclusions. I.E. their confidence in their own intelligence, can feed a confirmation bias formed through religious, political, cultural leanings.
Secondly, they are good at stringing together rationalizations.
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MANY DIFFICULT YEARS AHEAD : PER CHRISTENSEN
by raymond frantz inhttps://youtu.be/jsmbtv4nafi?si=ezj0dnudyjls4knc.
there was a time they preached the great tribulation was a short period of time between the fall of babylon and jesus coming back to save them, now they realize there are difficult years ahead of us, watch this latest morning worship video by per christensen on this subject .
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peacefulpete
It's been said recently, and it seems reasonable; they are building towards saying they are in the 'great tribulation '. They might be waiting for some trigger event to use. It solves their 1914 problem yet keeps the heat on.
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Did your witness family have a 'Thanksgiving' that wasn't on Thanksgiving?
by SydBarrett inmy family had several elders, ministerial servants, auxillary pioneers etc, so it certainly wasn't one of those 'barely in' families.
but in certain small ways, i think mine were slightly less hard line than some other families i've heard stories about over the years.
one example was the 'fall dinner'.
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peacefulpete
Same here. It would be a low impact, but welcome, change for church leadership to begin 'allowing' it's people to openly gather without the pretence.
Any small steps toward normalization would work for the psychological good. Maybe the next batch of masters.
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The boy who has cried wolf - for nearly 140 years!
by BoogerMan in"when will this hope be fulfilled?
the bible foretold events that would signal that god’s kingdom is about to begin its rule over the earth.
present world conditions match what the bible foretold.
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peacefulpete
Jesus clearly warned us that some people wolud predict things that would not come true. That makes them a false prophet.
You know who else that makes a 'false prophet'?
28 Verily I say unto you, There be some standing here, which shall not taste of death, till they see the Son of man coming in his kingdom.....Truly, I say to you, this generation will not pass away until all these things take place.
The writers who put the words above in the mouth of Jesus.
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60
The Question of the "Great Apostasy" and the Historical Continuity of Christianity
by aqwsed12345 in1. the continuity and visibility of the church.
the true church must be continuous from the apostolic age.
there is no room in christianity for a "gap" or interruption of thousands of years during which true christianity ceased to exist and then was revived in the form of another movement.
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peacefulpete
That generation was a moving target almost as soon as it was written.
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60
The Question of the "Great Apostasy" and the Historical Continuity of Christianity
by aqwsed12345 in1. the continuity and visibility of the church.
the true church must be continuous from the apostolic age.
there is no room in christianity for a "gap" or interruption of thousands of years during which true christianity ceased to exist and then was revived in the form of another movement.
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peacefulpete
Kerry....You might find better sources than me using a google search. Sadly so much is biased toward Christian tradition. The Jewish Encyclopedia, TheTorah.com and Wiki are always good places to start.
Jeffro, I understand what you are saying but when the full text doesn't fit 70CE very well, it's reasonable to consider alternatives. While I have agued that 'earthquakes' might just be standard apocalyptic motif, (e.g. Rev 6:12-14), if we are now assuming there was a physical earthquake, or series of them, that would have impressed the writer and readers, our best period is later. I haven't been able to locate any recorded (of course minor ones may not have been) earthquakes around 70. (Unless we count the two fictional ones slipped in Matthew)
There were a series of major ones from 98-132CE that everyone would have heard of.
And as I said, the empire wide wars during the second Jewish revolt would have been of incredible interest to the Judeo-Christian world. This is the kind of significant notoriety I would expect if we were assuming a literal meaning to these 'signs'. It's also worth considering whether what was originally boilerplate apocalypse language was understood literally by the next generation.
Also, the reference to preaching in 'all the nations' and the State sponsored oppression of Christians certainly better fits the period of Trajan and later. It's estimated there were only a few thousand Christians in the world by 70CE and they were centered in a few locations.
The oddest element that always disturbed me, which I mentioned before, is how, seeing the conquering Roman standards on the Temple mount could represent an opportunity to escape. It was far too late to escape. That's why the Lukan version is either an earlier form (70-130's) or the author saw the logical defect in Mark and Matt's timeline and changed 'abomination in the holy place' it to 'surrounding armies'. I'm inclined to favor Luke preserves an earlier form as we have other examples of Luke not including wording from Matt that otherwise are suspected later additions. (e.g. Matt 24:12) The Markan and Mattean language makes far more sense in the time of Hadrian. It was that act that triggered the war, hence depicting it after the fact as an opportunity to escape make sense.
It's then a possible solution for these details. Again, the parallels of the events surrounding Bar Kokhba and Judas Maccabeus, are pretty hard to miss. It would not be at all surprising if they inspired some refinements to the text.
It's all irrelevant to many, but it's an interesting puzzle for some.
