The Society is not honest about the meaning of parousia. The discussion in the 15 February 2008 Watchtower, for instance, only mentions "presence" and states that the word "refers to an extended period of time". There is nothing about its very usual, common usage to mean "coming" or "arrival". There are countless examples of this usage in ancient Greek sources; in previous posts I have provided some excellent examples from Josephus, Diodorus Siculus, and other sources. The difference in meaning is very simple. "Presence" is a state of undefined duration; "arrival" or "coming" is a telic change of state from absence to presence; it is the moment that ends a state of absence. The Society assumes that the etymological or original sense of the word is the only one that counts but this is erroneous; parousia very commonly expresses both states and changes of state, and the difference between the two usually apparent in the context and language used. If a passage says that a state of affairs continues UNTIL (heòs, akhri) a parousia happens, then the meaning is "coming" or "arrival"; the parousia changes the state of affairs. If a passage uses parousia interchangeably with the word for "come" (erkhomai), then it has the same meaning; it denotes a change from absence to presence. If a passage refers to a "sign" (sèmeion) or "signaling" (sèmainò) of one's parousia, then the sense usually is that this is a heralding either of one's arrival or that one is near (and is soon to arrive). It would be unusual to signal something that is already present unless it were invisible, but invisibility has nothing to do with the meaning of parousia; the notion of invisibility is quite conspicuously read into the Olivet discourse by the Society....it isn't in there if one looks at the text impartially.
Let's look at just a few of these examples:
Diodorus Siculus, 17.10: "Elsewhere in Greece, as people learned the seriousness of the danger hanging over the Thebans, they were distressed at their expected disaster but had no heart to help them, feeling that the city by precipitate and ill-considered action had consigned itself to evident annihilation. In Thebes itself, however, men accepted their risk willingly and with good courage, but they were puzzled by certain sayings of prophets and portents of the gods (theòn sèmeiois). First there was the light spider's web in the temple of Demeter which was observed to have spread itself out to the size of an himation, and which all about shone iridescent like a rainbow in the sky. About this, the oracle at Delphi gave them the response: 'The gods have all made this sign appear (sèmeion phainousi, cf. phanèsetai to sèmeion in Matthew 24:30) to mortals, to the Boeotians first and also to their neighbours' .... The sign (to sèmeion) had occurred three months before Alexander's arrival (Alexandrou parousias) to the city, but at the very moment of the king's attack the statues in the market place were seen to burst into perspiration and be covered with great drops of moisture".
Alexander Polyhistor, 9.21.18: "It is said that Joseph was in Egypt for 39 years and from Adam until (heós) Joseph's brothers came (eiselthein) into Egypt there were 3,624 years, and from the Flood until (heós) Jacob's coming (parousias) into Egypt (eis Aigupton) there were 1,360 years".
Josephus, Vita 90: "So, having perused the letters from Silas, I gathered two hundred men and went on my way, through an entire night. I sent a messenger ahead to signal (sèmanounta) my imminent arrival (parousian) to those in Tiberias".
Hermas, Parable 5.2, 5: "A certain man had a field and many slaves and in a part of the field he planted a vineyard. And as he was going away on a journey, he chose a certain slave who was reliable, respected and honest and called him over to him and said, 'Take his vineyard which I have planted and fence it in until (heós) I return (erkhomai)' ... Some time later, the master of the slave and the field returned (élthen), and he went to the vineyard ... The field is this world and the lord of the field is he who created all things and perfected them ... and the absence of the master is the time remaining until (heós) his coming (parousian)".
Epistula Ecclesiarum apud Lugdunum et Viennam, 1.8: "And at length, being brought to the forum by the tribune of the soldiers, and the magistrates that had charge of the city, they were examined in presence of the whole multitude, and having confessed, they were shut up in prison until (heós) the arrival (parousias) of the governor".
In the first example, Alexander's parousia ends a period of the city's waiting for disaster. For several months, there had been "signs" announcing this parousia; the signs did not pertain to a "presence" that was already current but one that would soon come. There was also a "sign" at the "very moment" of the parousia when Alexander attacked the city. The example by Alexander Polyhistor also uses parousia interchangeably with the word for "come". The parousia of Jacob into Egypt (the use of eis "into" shows further how the parousia is an action, not a state) is not a period but an event that ENDS a period of 1,360 years. The example by Josephus is also instructive. Here we have sèmainein as a verbal form of sèmeion, such that the messenger provides a "sign" of Josephus' parousia. Here it is absolutely clear that parousia does not mean "presence" because the purpose of the messenger was not to indicate that Josephus was already present; he was supposed to inform the people that Josephus was on his way and was due to arrive soon. And in the next sentence, Josephus mentions that he arrived at Tiberias when morning came, and a mob was already there to "meet" (hupèntiazen) him, greeting him in a perplexing way (Vita, 91); the "sign" of Josephus' parousia thus allowed the people of the city to prepare for it. The example in Hermas also uses parousia interchangeably with the word meaning "come", and the parousia is not a period but an event that ENDS a period of absence as the word heós "until" shows. Finally the Epistula Ecclesiarum designates the parousia of the governor as a telic event that ENDS the state of confinement for the Christians locked up in prison.
There isn't any real doubt as to the meaning of parousia in the Olivet discourse in Matthew 24. Its use in the disciples' question in v. 3 is followed by its use in v. 27, 37, 39. There the parousia is compared to sudden and unexpected events, such as a flash of lightning, the cataclysmic Flood in Noah's day, and the surprising trespass of a burglar into a home at night. And with each of these events, parousia is used interchangeably with the word for "come". In v. 27, the parousia of the Son of Man is like lightning that "comes" (exerkhetai) from the east. In v. 37 and 39, the parousia of the Son of Man is like the Flood that comes (èlthen) and swept the people away. In v. 42 and 44, the disciples are admonished on the basis of these examples to stay awake because they do not know when the Son of Man is "coming". And this last phrase has v. 30 as its antecedent, for it was there when the verb "come" first occurs with this sense, i.e. "the Son of Man coming (erkhomenon) on the clouds of heaven". The idea that the parousia is a period of Christ being present is not found at all in the passage. The term does not look at a state of being present following the coming of the Son of Man (and oddly enough the Society interprets the "coming" of the Son of Man as an event that occurs AFTER the parousia), it looks directly at the coming itself as an event that changes the state of affairs into a new one, just as the coming of the Flood was an event that changed things for the people destined to experience it. The language is the passage shows over and over how parousia is interchangeable with the word for "coming". We have the "parousia of the Son of Man" in v. 27, 36-37 and the "coming of the Son of Man" in v. 30, 38-39, 43-44 and the "coming of (the/your) Lord" in v. 42, 46, 50. We have references to the "day" and "hour" of the parousia in v. 36-37, 38-39 (hint: "day" and "hour" is not a long duration), and references to the "day" and "hour" of the Son of Man's "coming" in v. 38-39, 42, 43-44, 50. And of course the reference to the "sign of your (= Jesus') parousia" in the disciples' question in v. 3 has its consequent in the "sign" of the coming (erkhomai) of the Son of Man in v. 30 (like the sweating statues in Diodorus Siculus' story, this is a sign that occurs at the same time as the parousia). We also have examples with heòs and akhri "until" like that found in the examples above. In v. 34, we read that "this generation" would not pass away UNTIL (heòs) "all these things" (panta tauta) occur. That includes the coming of the Son of Man in v. 30-31; the generation thus represents a state of affairs that comes to an END with the parousia of the Son of Man. The parousia of the Son of Man in v. 37 is also directly compared to the "day Noah entered the ark" in v. 38 (which ENDS a period of everyday life that continued UNTIL that day), and the parousia of the Son of Man in v. 39 corresponds to the Flood which ENDS the state of "not knowing" about what was going to happen UNTIL (heòs) the Flood actually starts. So the sense of parousia is justifiably "coming" or "arrival" and this is the general understanding by Bible scholars.
