These are some comments that would have been posted to an eschatology discussion on Jesus Creed if I could have got them past the spam filter.
Joel, you write: ‘So while many of the eschatological concepts were indeed applied to the Roman situation, these were never intended to be the ultimate fulfillment.’ But my question then is: How do you do know that? What are the (biblical) criteria in any particular instance for thinking that a prophecy has more than one fulfilment? Jesus could warn his disciples that something like the descration of the temple by Antiochus Epiphanes would happen again within a generation, but do we really have the prophetic authority to do the same thing? Or to put it another way, why shouldn’t Jesus speak only about AD 70, or Paul only about the confrontation with anti-Christian Rome? On what grounds do you make the rather Platonic claim that these are only shadows of things to come?
I’m not at all sure that this notion of progressive understanding is helpful, but even if there is some point to it, is every prophecy open to reinterpretation and reapplication? If not, how do we decide which are still open and which are closed? What in principle is wrong with leaving these things in the past? The Old Testament prophets foresaw exile to Babylon. The exile happened. The prophecies proved correct. End of story. The New Testament foresaw the vindication of the faithful and suffering church and the defeat of the virulent and oppressive paganism of Rome. It happened. They got it right. End of story. These were the birthpangs of the age to come. That age has now come. We are God’s peculiar people in the midst of the peoples of the earth, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, as we were always intended to be. Let’s get on with it.
Greg, you asked me whether I believe that Jesus returned in AD 70, and I answered no (the word ‘no’ is there – what more do you want?) and went on to outline - in language that is condensed but, to my mind at least, not ‘intentionally vague’ – what I think NT eschatology teaches. But I somewhat resent the fact that this is being made an inquisition regarding my beliefs. Interpretation is a process of enquiry, questioning, probing, testing hypotheses, viewing things differently, as part of a responsible hermeneutical community. I am not trying to state ‘my beliefs’ – I am seeking to understand how the authors of the NT saw their future. That is a very different kind of activity. I am not asking people to judge whether my beliefs are orthodox or not. I am asking them to look carefully at the arguments presented in The Coming of the Son of Man and help us all to work out whether the thesis makes sense or not, whether it is a plausible reading of the texts.
If it will help, however, this is roughly what I think NT ‘eschatology’ teaches, though to extract ‘eschatological’ material from the whole narrative is already a distortion.
Jesus was raised from the dead – bodily, in the sense that this event was an anticipation of a renewal of creation.
The complex parousia motif that emerges across the NT speaks of the vindication of the faithful community in Christ and the overthrow of the power that radically opposed it and threatened its survival. I am not going to reduce that to a belief in the ‘second, bodily coming of Jesus’ – in my view, that would misrepresent the NT.
The destruction of Jerusalem would have been a factor in this vindication: it demonstrated concretely that Jesus was right when he said that Israel was on a broad path leading to destruction and that the salvation of the nation depended on taking a painful narrow path that led to life.
But the birthpangs of the age to come extend beyond AD 70 because the faithful community comes into conflict with Rome – the ‘beast’ which makes war against the saints of the Most High.
It is the vindication of this community that is signified by the language of the Son of man coming to receive the kingdom or the Lord descending to defeat his enemies. These are OT motifs that describe how God preserves his people during times of political-religious crisis and judges the nations that oppose them, and I think that the NT uses them in much the same way.
As part of this vindication there is a resurrection of those who suffer and die in Christ, which like Christ’s resurrection is an anticipation the renewal of creation. This is John’s ‘first resurrection’ of the martyrs. They reign with Christ throughout the age of his lordship as head of the church. This is their ‘reward’ or ‘crown’ for the faithful endurance of persecution. They represent the fact that Christ and not Caesar is sovereign over the people of God.
That vindication of the faithful against both Jerusalem and Rome is now behind us. What lies ahead is the frankly much bigger hope that death and evil will not have the final say in creation. The vision at the end of Revelation is of a second resurrection of all the dead to be judged according to what they have done; there appears a new heaven and a new earth in which there is no more death, wickedness and suffering, and at the heart of which is the living God. If you’re ticking the boxes, that ought to mean that I am not a ‘hyper-preterist’.
This is the vision that should now motivate the church and give shape to its mission. The parousia motif belongs to a very different context: it is fundamentally an assurance that God will remain faithful through the very difficult period of eschatological transition that the early church faced. It doesn’t entirely lose relevance for us because we confess as Lord the one who suffered and rose and who received dominion and glory and a kingdom. But he suffered for the sake of that hope of new creation, and I think we need to embrace the full scope of that hope in ourselves as new humanity in Christ.
Jesus Creed
Andrew,
Very briefly,
My reasons for saying that The Bible a a whole foresees a much further horizin than merely 70 A.D. are primarily the following:
The deatils of numerous prophecies which require inconsistant and selective methods of interpretation or merely ingoring them entirely in order to support preterism. There are simply too many. When one pans out and attempts to speak in generalities as you do, preterism can make some sense. When one has to actually get up close and dig into actual texts there are simply too many that imagine a future far beyond 70 A.D.
Secondly the witness of the Fathers is simply way too big of an obstacle to overcome honestly. I did see that you made a few pick and choose citations on another thread on this site but everyone can do some of that. The Fathers foresaw an end that may have at times been immenant, but it was always future beyond 70 A.D. Any honest evaluation will substantiate this. This is not to be taken lightly or brushed aside with the standard protestant answe such as , “well the Fathers were wrong a lot.” Sure they were but there is a general consensus that cannot be brushed aside. These men were commissioned by Apostolic succession, some directly by the Apostles. They never suggest directly anything that you would substantiate your eschatological worldview.
I do agree with you however that we are now living in the Kingdom now and need to get on with it. But to now essentially ignore any eschatological passages as history is a grose deception and is not in keeping with the spirit of the NT which commands us to always be alert, watchful, sober and with lamps full of oil eagerly awaiting and longing for Christ return.
Video Projection and Labor Pains
I don’t know if this helps, but my own personal approach to this issue was developed after I began to realize that there are multiple fulfillments to just about every prophecy in Scripture. For example, there are a number of OT prophecies of Jesus which were somewhat fulfilled in his earthly ministry (his kingdom in a limited sense) but will be completely fulfilled in a future coming (his kingdom in a fuller sense).
The same is true of the views of death in the Hebrew Scriptures versus the NT. There is a more developed understanding of death and the places the dead go in the NT than in the OT. The Hebrews understood the place of the dead (sheol) in a more limited way than Jesus understood it. (I understand Jesus’ rabbinical context, but bear with me on this) I have taken to looking at prophecy like a video projector and multiple screens. There are progressively greater fulfillments. Prophecies are often given that do not make a whole lot of sense to those giving them [Take Peter’s statements in 1 Peter 1:10-12]. Later, after partial fullfillment, the writers of the Gospels could make sense of some of the prophecies of Jesus but they were still incomplete. (In fact, if you read the context of some of the prophecies they claim for Christ, it seems like they are ripped out of context.)
A perfect example is Daniel’s prophecy of the Abomination of Desolation. While the acts of Antiochus, and later Titus, partially fulfilled the prophecy, it is clear in the Revelation that there is a greater act of desecration to be performed. Jesus seems to have had Titus’ leveling of the Temple in near focus when he spoke, and yet his words transcend that act and pass into the eschatological future. So, prophecy tends to have various levels of focus, all of which are valid. I know that this seems to sound cyclical, because history is cyclical and the future will be as well. Motifs recur because of this, and we can interpret motifs more clearly if we understand that preterism and futurism are not necessarily either/or but AND situations.
As another statement, did Jesus have the present corruption of the church, the medieval corruption of the church or the future corruption of the faith in view in Matthew 24? I think the answer is “Yes.” Are the seven churches of the Revelation a history/future of the church or a spiritual examination of the tendencies in the church? Again, the answer is “Yes.” Rather than saying we must choose, I think we need to view things holistically, understanding that Jesus knew what he was talking about when he describes this stuff as labor pains (“beginning of sorrows” in Matthew 24:8). There is a cyclical nature to things, and they get progressively worse and progressively bigger just like a woman’s contractions in labor. Eventually, there will be an end - but the ride seems unendurable, doesn’t it?
AD 70 and beyond
Joel, I appreciate your patience in following this discussion, but I have said repeatedly that I do not think that NT prophecy focuses exclusively on AD 70. Why is that so difficult to hear? Beyond judgment on Jerusalem is the challenge of the gospel to Roman imperial hegemony, the suffering of the ‘Son of man’ communities, and the eventual overthrow of Rome.
This is the extended eschatological context not only for the NT church but also for the early fathers. The passages I quoted - admittedly out of context but as an invitation to explore the argument further - reflect the circumstances of a persecuted church looking for the vindication and end to suffering promised to them by NT prophecy. If you would just let go of this everything-is-fulfilled-in-AD-70 bone, which I didn’t throw to you, you might get a better sense of how the outlook of the apostolic fathers fits within the eschatological narrative for which I am arguing.
Andrew,
Andrew,
I guess I am confused now. I apologise if I frustrating you. Perhaps you are simply too intelligent for me and I miss some of your points.
What I heard you saying was the following:
I guess I understand the above to be inferring that you didn’t see any prophecy as speaking to anything beyond the Roman Empire. Thus, I used not only the 70 A.D. date but also the 130 A.D. date to refer to the Bar-Kochba rebellion and the subsequent exile of Jerusalem’s Jewish inhabitants. I assumed that you saw that.
You also said that:
I guess in these comments I heard you arguing for th 70 A.D. date, specifically when you said “why shouldn’t Jesus be speaking only about 70A.D.?”. But then agian, as I said, I’m not as sharp as you and my misundertsnading is more than liklely my fault here.
So agin, I defer to you. I apologise for misunderstanding you.
You did ask me the question however:
Basically to answer you question Andrew, my answer would be history is the standard. So when Jesus said:
There is no reason to see this as having been accomplished by Titus. Titus never set up an Abomination in the temple. To force Titus as being the fulfillment of such is to force a sqaure peg into a round hole.
History is the thorn in the side of your hermenuetic. At leat it is for me, when I try to look at the passsges side by side with history honestly.
Likewise, I mentioned Gog below. Ezekiel 38. This list of nations has never attacked Jeruslame before. There is no historical equivalent that one could point to to try to say that this already took place. Which is why i asked what your opinion was regarding it.
Again, my point was simply that the actual passages are the problem. The concept seems good, but it cannot be supported by the actual Biblical texts and history. Likewise the fathers looked beyond Rome. I will not flood your blog here with a thousnad citations but certainly you wouldn’t want to try to argue that the fathers support your view and do so honestly. Its really not possible.
Prophecy and history
My point was only to question the assumption that biblical prophecy typically has multiple fulfilments, or that we should look for an ‘ultimate fulfilment’ beyond the immediate historical setting. However, I also do not think that NT eschatology is fulfilled entirely within the horizon of judgment on Jerusalem (the AD 130 date doesn’t make any difference here). Following a well-established OT pattern, the NT also foresees judgment on the enemy of God’s people, the instrument of judgment on Israel, which is Rome. This takes us well beyond AD 130 to the less clearly defined second horizon of the collapse of the Roman imperial cult, etc.
Yes, but Jesus is not the only voice in NT eschatology. I don’t think Jesus looked much beyond the first horizon of judgment on Israel. The church in the Roman world, however, had a different perspective. Paul doesn’t entirely lose sight of the fate of Jerusalem, but he is also preoccupied with the threat posed to his churches in the Gentile world by pagan opposition. He looks, therefore, to the second horizon of the vindication of the suffering churches of the Roman world and the overthrow of their enemies. My suggestion (and it’s only a suggestion at this point) is that the early fathers in effect shared this eschatological frame of reference: their experience is faith is shaped by the overarching hostility of Rome.
You make the important point about history being the criterion for judging the application of prophecy. I would make a couple of comments in response to your argument about the abomination of desolation.
First, there are questions to consider regarding exactly how Jesus reuses narratives in Daniel that originally referred to the religious-political crisis provoked by Antiochus. My assumption is that Jesus understood very well that Daniel was not attempting to describe the Roman invasion of Judea - that is simply outside his frame of reference. But Jesus himself reinterprets Israel’s situation in the first century AD in the light of Daniel’s prophetic imagination. By drawing on the familiar, and powerfully evocative, detail of the abomination of desolation he is saying in effect that Jerusalem will face a pagan incursion like that faced in the second century BC, with a similar outcome. Of course, this is a hermeneutical assumption over which we may disagree. My point is only that I think Jesus uses the apocalyptic detail to invoke a larger narrative structure about apostasy, judgment and restoration.
In any case, the raising of the Roman standards and the offering of sacrifices in the temple area is not so far from Antiochus’ action in setting up an altar to Zeus. It’s interesting that Josephus also saw a fulfilment of Daniel’s prophecy in the events of the war, though in his view it was the Jews not the Romans who committed the sacrilege.
Secondly, Jesus repeatedly and crucially links his prophecies to the circumstances of first century Israel. Your historical standard should also oblige us to look for a fulfilment of these prophecies in the lifetime of the generation that Jesus addressed. Jesus was answering his disciples’ question about when the temple would be reduced to ruins. Whatever he meant exactly by the abomination of desolation, it has to be located historically in the events of the war against Rome, events that would directly impact the generation of Israel that he so virulently condemns in Matt. 23. Otherwise, in my view, we destroy the historical (and indeed spiritual) integrity of the passage.
I haven’t got time at the moment to look at Ezekiel 38. Perhaps we can come back to that later.
Thanks Andrew, Doesn't ruin
Thanks Andrew,
Doesn’t ruin the historical integrity of the passge for me. Jesus was asked two questions. Firstly he was speaking about the destruction of the temple (every stone being thrown down etc.) to which his disciples asked two questions, though they may not have understood that there was a distinction between the two. When will these things be (destruction of the temple) and… what will be the sign of your coming and of the end of the age? Obviously Jesus has not yet returned and thus he was speaking of a horizon which is yet to be seen. Or am I understanding your entire thesis to be saying that Jesus will never literally return on the clouds etc?
Coming on the clouds of heaven
My argument is that the language of coming on the clouds of heaven is intended to bring into play Daniel’s vision of the vindication of the community represented by the son of man figure. So in the first place, the destruction of Jerusalem and the temple constitutes a vindication of Jesus as the Son of man who represents the community of faithful disciples that is in him. It is not a coming to earth but a coming to the throne of God to receive the kingdom.
But I would stress again that within the NT as a whole this prophetic vision extends beyond judgment on Israel to include judgment on the enemy of Israel, which becomes identified with the fourth beast in Daniel 7. The larger story in Daniel 7-12 readily accommodates both judgment on apostate Israel as the climax to the exile, vindication of righteous Israel that suffers persecution, and judgment on the vicious and godless enemy of the people of God.
I think Jesus’ prophecy about the coming of the Son of man was fulfilled as this narrative worked itself out historically. There is no need forcibly to insert the word ‘literally’ into that statement in the sense that you use it - that may be required by modern rationalist theology but not by biblical prophecy. I would suggest that Jesus expected people to ‘see’ the son of man coming on the clouds of heaven in much the same way that he expected Nathanael to ‘see’ the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of man (John 1:51).
I don’t think Jesus’ apocalyptic narrative allows for a dissociation of the destruction of Jerusalem and the coming of the son of man - notice Mark’s ‘in those days, after that tribulation’ (Mark 13:24) and Matthew’s ‘immediately after the tribulation’ (Matt. 24:29). The disciples also connect the coming of the son of man with the close of the age: the age coming to an end is the age of Torah-centred Judaism; the age to come is the age of the Spirit-filled church under the lordship of Christ.
Andrew, Thanks again. This
Andrew, Thanks again. This is helping me to understand your position much better. Help me a bit more if you would. How do you then interpret other passages and historical references? Do you discuss these verses in your book? If you could at least briefly comment on each of these, I would greatly appreciate it.
Thanks Andrew.
How do you understand:
The “as lightening flashes across the sky” motif?
2 Peter 3:3-4 “First of all, you must understand that in the last days scoffers will come, scoffing and following their own evil desires. They will say, “Where is this ‘coming’ he promised? Ever since our fathers died, everything goes on as it has since the beginning of creation.”
How could they scoff that he hasn’t come yet if the Church was to understand that the “coming” already happened?
“why do you stand here looking into the sky? This same Jesus, who has been taken from you into heaven, will come back in the same way you have seen him go into heaven.”
“On that day his feet will stand on the Mount of Olives, east of Jerusalem, and the Mount of Olives will be split in two from east to west, forming a great valley, with half of the mountain moving north and half moving south.”
“For the Lord himself will come down from heaven, with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first.”
The Apostles Creed: “whence He shall come to judge the living and the dead” And lastly, as I mentioned elsewhere, the Fathers and early Christians undertood Antichrist to be a future tyrant. Thus their understanding of this could not be that it was completed by Nero:
Thessalonians 2:1-4 Concerning the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our being gathered to him, we ask you, brothers, not to become easily unsettled or alarmed by some prophecy, report or letter supposed to have come from us, saying that the day of the Lord has already come. Don’t let anyone deceive you in any way, for that day will not come until the rebellion occurs and the man of lawlessness is revealed, the man doomed to destruction. He will oppose and will exalt himself over everything that is called God or is worshipped, so that he sets himself up in God’s temple, proclaiming himself to be God.
2 Thessalonians 2:9-10 The coming of the lawless one will be in accordance with the work of Satan displayed in all kinds of counterfeit miracles, signs and wonders, and in every sort of evil that deceives those who are perishing.
Do you ever worry that you may be teaching exactly what Paul warned the Thessalonians against here?
Bless You, Joel
Answers to questions
Joel, most of the passages you cite or allude to are dealt with at great length in The Coming of the Son of Man, so here I will give only a brief (and quite possibly misleading) indication of how I read them. I accept that we have to take this rather laborious and atomized approach to the texts, but I would ask that we also keep in mind the larger apocalyptic narrative that is both the product of the individual readings and the interpretive structure that gives prior coherence to them. The crucial question, I think, has to do with how well this larger narrative fits the real or actual future that the authors of the NT might have imagined for themselves.
The lightning image (Matt. 24:27) stands in contrast to the localized appearance of those who will claim (falsely) to be Israel’s deliverer in this time of crisis (out in the wilderness, in the inner rooms). Just as lightning shines, is visible, across the whole sky, so the vindication of the Son of man will be apparent to people throughout the Graeco-Roman world.
I don’t see the problem with the 2 Peter passage. It simply points to the fact that the suffering (and ridiculed) community was still waiting for vindication. They were in or approaching the last days at the end of the age - the birthpains that would accompany the emergence of a renewed people of God from under the hegemony of Rome. But the concrete demonstration that Christ and not Caesar was Lord still hadn’t occurred. Assuming the letter was written before AD 70, we might imagine that news of the destruction of Jerusalem would have been received as at least partial vindication of the one in whom they had put their trust; but I suspect that for Peter’s readers it was the all-pervasive antagonism of Rome that constituted the real cause for concern. When would the suffering end? When would the great eschatological opponent be defeated? We are not in fantasy land here; we are talking politics.
Your translation of Acts 1:11 has ‘come back’. The idea of ‘back’ (ie. returning to earth) is not in the Greek, which reads: ‘this Jesus, who was taken up from you into heaven, will come in the same manner you saw him going into heaven’. The disciples will ‘see’ the ‘coming’ described in Daniel 7:13: a coming on the clouds of heaven to receive vindication and rule from the ancient of days - in other words, the restoration of the kingdom to Israel (cf. Acts 1:6).
I can’t give a detailed response to the quotation of Zechariah 14:2 at the moment. Zechariah is certainly not averse to using symbolic language to describe the process of judgment and renewal. I would imagine that this applies (in some way) to chapter 14 also.
Paul’s apocalyptic language in 1 Thess. 4:16 invokes numerous OT passages that speak of YHWH descending to rescue his people from their enemies. However exactly he conceived of the event, I think he brings into view a narrative of God’s action in history and projects it on to the situation of the harrassed community in Thessalonica. The novel element in it (apart from the fact that the ‘Lord’ is now Christ) is the need to include those who have died in the vindication of the community.
The NT idea of judgment on ‘the living and the dead’ (Acts 10:42; 2 Tim. 4:1; 1 Pet. 4:5) reflects the belief that God’s judgment falls in the first place on real historical communities and regimes (Jerusalem, Rome). But as in Daniel 12:2 this ‘judgment’ includes the fact that ‘many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt’. I think it is significant that the judgment that precedes the creation of new heavens and new earth in Revelation is a judgment of the dead only - because heaven and earth have fled away, there is no more history, no more ‘living’ to be judged. How well the Apostles’ Creed reflects these distinctions, is another question.
I haven’t got access to the works of the fathers right now, but we have the option of regarding the supreme opponent of the church as a recurring type during this period of ‘tribulation’. I think that Paul’s ‘man of lawlessness’ (is this the same as John’s ‘antichrist’?) is modelled after Antiochus Epiphanes - a powerful, arrogant, blasphemous ruler who opposes the people of God. Nero fits the description, but so too would subsequent emperors - or the figure of the emperor in a general sense as the embodiment of the imperial ideology. But this remains within the overarching apocalyptic narrative of the church’s struggle to overcome Rome through faithfulness to the point of death.
Beyond this, the argument about 2 Thess. 2:1-12 is too complex to summarize here. My main point is that Paul is drawing on a tradition that has developed a comprehensive apocalyptic typology from Daniel in order to give form to the prophetic assurance that God would deliver these oppressed communities and defeat the ‘lawless’ regime of Rome.
Your last question is interesting, though. The difference, of course, is that I am trying to interpret Paul, which I consider a legitimate activity - not produce ‘some prophecy, report or letter’ under the pretence that it comes from Paul. If the interpretation is correct, then it is entirely fitting that after the vindication of the Son of man and those who suffer in him we should say that ‘the day of the Lord has come’.
Andrew,
Andrew,
Thank you for taking the time to respond in detail as best you could. I must say honestly that I am overall amazed that anyone actually believes this stuff - namely that the language of the New Testament and the Bible in general is so utterly and pervasively metaphoric, allegorical, and written in secret code as it were, that it ultimately ends up saying something completey opposite of what IT APPEARS to be saying. I’m not saying that metaphors and allegory etc are non-existant altogether of course, but in light of the degree to which you see the langauge of the NT as being so pervasively laden with such, that I’m wondering if perhaps that gal that thought that David Letterman was flirting with her (in code, through his TV show, of course) would be a bit better in deciphering some of the passages that you might still wrestle with such as Ezekiel 38. Not to be rude, but this is really how I see it. For me, the ultimate fulfillment of NT and Ot prophecy is clearly yet to come. And I am in very good company (pretty much all of the The Church throughout history) by thinking this. I do very sincerely thank you for your time however. Sincerely. And although you will likely see it as the fundamentalist antithesis of your book, please consider reading my book as well. Just key in Joel Richardson on Amazon. And I’ll buy yours as well. Bless You! Joel
Decoding
Joel, having seen the title of your book I am surprised we managed to keep the conversation going this long! Let’s take that as a very positive thing.
What you characterize as allegorical decoding, I regard as uncovering the realistic prophetic narrative out of which the NT has constructed its view of the future. To my mind these are two very different things. I agree with N.T. Wright that ‘understanding how stories worked in the ancient world, and how a small allusion could and did summon up an entire implicit narrative, including narratives within which speaker and hearer believed themselves to be living’ is vital for NT interpretation (Paul: Fresh Perspectives, 8).
It is the need to bring this allusiveness to the surface that creates the impression of decoding. But where we really differ is over the nature of controlling narrative, which is a much broader hermeneutical question than can be properly addressed in a piecemeal exegetical approach.
Never judge a book by its
Never judge a book by its cover. For what it is worth, I have a certain loathing for books like mine - or at least ones that I would imagine mine would be by the cover. You might actually find it interesting. Even if you utterly disagree with the conclusions, you will be enlightened regarding where the Islamic hermeneutic leads them. One of my continuing thoughts is that while so much of those from our little corner of the Christian world are so focused on this post-modern shift, the real polar-shift that we should be a bit more focused on is that which is taking place in the Middle East and Europe with the third great revival of Islam. But thats not for this thread. Cheers.
. . . cover
I thought Joel’s book looked quite interesting - if it was an attempt to understand the mentality of some aspects of middle east politics in the light of Islamic eschatology. If it’s a guessing-game about the identity of some future ‘antichrist’/’beast’/’man of lawlessness’, with a bit of radical Islamic scaremongering thrown in, it will sell well, but I’m less interested.
Likewise it becomes an increasingly self-defeating task to debate Andrew’s viewpoint without reading The Coming of the Son of Man.
Maybe Joel and Greg should scroll back over the ‘headers’ to threads on this site to catch up on discussions which have already taken place. The direction which this thread has been taking sometimes seems like an effort to reinvent the wheel.
Peter, Hopefully not
Peter,
Hopefully not fear-mongering. Though the threat that Islam represents does merit a measure of healthy concern. For what it is worth, my background is outreach to Muslims. Interfaith dialogue etc. I try to emphasize the imperative for love for Muslims despite my strong critique of elements of the religion throughout. I end the book with a call to outreach in the spirit of St. Francis. (fearlessness). Hope that answers your question.
Bless Ya
>>On what grounds do you
>>>On what grounds do you make the rather Platonic claim that these are only shadows of things to come?<<<
Andrew,
Been out of town for a few days. I was half-asleep / half-awake this morning and I heard two things:
The first was sort of a tweaked version of your question which you asked me above. It was (addressed to you, I’m assuming) essentially:
“On what grounds do you make your rather pendantic claims that these things are anything other than shadows of the things that are to come?”
Being however that in a sense I really was not the one that asked the question, I’ll leave this one to you and WHOEVER may have been THE ONE asking it.
And the second thought that popped into my head was simply: Gog.
Ezekiels Gog specifically. Chapter 38.
Just curiously, (and again this is perhaps a “throw a dart into the Bible and see where it lands” kind of thing, but I think that it may be a good example to highlight the glaring weakness of your position - namely the actual passages and texts of the Bible) how do you interpret such a passge and the many specifics therein? Not trying to be a wiseguy here, but how is such a passage dealt with by preterism in general?
Blessings,
Joel
Jesus Creed response
I have posted this a Jesus Creed but because it is now several days out of circulation I will repost it here.
“Andrew Sorry for such a long response time, I put it off and then it was the long weekend for the frozen chosen of Canada and I was chipping away at the permafrost in my garden all weekend. I did read the posts at your site last night but I’m not sure how much farther ahead I am as a result.
Please forgive me; I should not have impugned your motives in that I don’t know why you write as you do, but I have to disagree with you about your being clear. Your posts are full of technical language and unhelpful qualifications that leave me with more questions. Frankly they remind me of an insurance policy I once read, which I am sure the team of Lawyers that wrote it was convinced was crystal clear. When I read Joel’s observation on your site that “Perhaps you are simply too intelligent for me and I miss some of your points”. I immediately thought about what Einstein said:”If you can’t explain it simply, you don’t understand it well enough”. I think you can and should do better.
That said; Eschatology is a very difficult subject and I think I give a lot of latitude to those who disagree with my position. I am glad you are not a hyper-Preterist because that position is clearly heretical. Identifying false teaching is not crude, it is a responsibility, especially for those charged with the role of shepherd and teacher. Christian theology is not like technology it is not “open source” in that it is not open to whoever wishes to redesign or reconfigure it as it pleases them. I do not interpret the NT by measuring it crudely or otherwise against Hyper-Preterism. In fact I try to measure all things Hyper-Preterism included as faithfully as I can by a sound, historical grammatical hermeneutic.
I really take issue with your use of Daniel’s visions as if they culminated in 70.A.D.. Daniel’s visions take us all the way to the end of God’s dealings with Israel, (cf Rom 11:25-36) to the physical resurrection of the just and the unjust, “Some to everlasting life and some to shame and everlasting contempt.” (Dan 12:2) and to the end of the 70 weeks of Dan 9: and after seeing the “‘abomination of desolation’ spoken of by Daniel the prophet standing in the holy place” That did not happened with Titus in 70 A.D. nor since, it is future.
The first resurrection for believers is physical not spiritual and is still future. To ascribe the few figurative and secondary uses of “raised” in the NT as if they are primary seems to me to be a serious error.”
Comment by Greg Mc – May 23, 2006 @ 12:03 pm
Is difficult really so bad?
Greg, thanks for taking the trouble to respond. A few random comments…
I didn’t say that identifying false teaching was crude. What I object to is the method of evaluating difficult discussions by trying to bang them into crude holes such as ‘hyper-preterism’. (It’s late. The metaphor went a bit awry there, but hopefully you see what I mean.)
The ‘open source’ analogy, as far as I am concerned, does not allow people to redesign theology as they please. It basically just acknowledges and exploits the fact that healthy theology should be responsive, contextualized, and should engage the whole community. In an open source community there is actually a high degree of discipline and coherence - otherwise the programme would be useless. The difference is simply that the process is open rather than closed. A couple of recent articles discuss the idea of open source theology: Power to the People! How Technology is Changing the Face of Theological Formulation; and New time religion.
The Einstein argument is fine, but it doesn’t always work. Some things are difficult to understand and explain. That’s just the reality. Paul is difficult to understand; he doesn’t always explain things simply. Einstein is difficult to understand, for that matter - you have to admit that the general theory of relativity gets a little technical in places. I would politely suggest that NT eschatology is more complex and subtle than you realize.
I am not trying to obscure things. In part I want to resist oversimplification. In part, I am trying to resist the pull of habitual and unchallenged ways of reading. I’m sorry if you don’t like it, but I think my reasons have more to do with preserving the integrity of exegesis than with being evasive. I could be wrong, but that’s how I see it at the moment. It also probably has something to do with the fact that I am unconsciously summarizing the content of my book - a lot of the explanatory detail and context gets missed. That’s my fault. Or yours because you haven’t read the book :)
I do not think Daniel’s visions ‘culminate’ in AD 70. I have made this point repeatedly - see also the responses to Joel on this thread. The narrative, which I think in many ways is formative for NT eschatology, includes the renewal of the covenant with the people of God following a protracted period of exile, the defeat of Israel’s enemy, and the vindication of the suffering church for its resistance to the idolatrous claims of pagan imperialism. I don’t expect you to agree with that, of course. It seems to me that we are too far apart in how we understand apocalyptic language to work to have any chance of reaching agreement on these issues.
Incidentally, what is the ‘technical language and unhelpful qualifications’ that you find so objectionable?