How old are the questions re "this generation shall not pass till" all things fulfilled, etc?

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DCHindley
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Re: How old are the questions re "this generation shall not pass till" all things fulfilled, etc?

Post by DCHindley »

neilgodfrey wrote: Mon Jan 29, 2018 10:58 pmIs not all of this something of a mystery? How is it that Mark and Matthew seem to us to be so clearly pointing to Jesus' return in or very close to the year 70 CE yet there appears to be no surviving ancient commentary addressing this point? Surely it is something that we would expect critics to latch on to as well, and surely we would therefore also expect some surviving rebuttal of the critic's attack on Christianity with such passages. How is this disconnect best explained?
My response will have to be short (Doctor appointment) but I think the extreme anti-Judaic rhetoric, which alludes to the destruction of Jerusalem and the temple with "they got what they deserve!" thrown in as icing on the cake *is* the telltale sign of reaction. That pesky rebellion changed everything. Judaism no longer had a sacrificial system, and had to adapt, and the Christ theology (where Jesus is a (semi-)divine redeemer) was formed among the former gentile followers of Jesus. The failure of the rebellion may have changed their minds about what an ideal messianic kingdom should be (from a land of milk & honey in Palestine to a place for them in heaven upon death, or at least for a while, on a temporary earthly kingdom to be replaced eventually by the eternal kingdom.

Gotta go ... :arrow:

DCH
Bernard Muller
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Re: How old are the questions re "this generation shall not pass till" all things fulfilled, etc?

Post by Bernard Muller »

to Neil,
Is not all of this something of a mystery? How is it that Mark and Matthew seem to us to be so clearly pointing to Jesus' return in or very close to the year 70 CE yet there appears to be no surviving ancient commentary addressing this point? Surely it is something that we would expect critics to latch on to as well, and surely we would therefore also expect some surviving rebuttal of the critic's attack on Christianity with such passages. How is this disconnect best explained?
It seems to me that you think the passages in gMark & gMatthew pointing to the second coming in the 1st century (in the case of gMark, soon after the events of 70) were written well after the 1st cent., possibly up to the third century.
But would that make sense for a Christian author, writing so late, to have Jesus make such a false prophecy? NO. That would be very uncalled for.

Cordially, Bernard
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Re: How old are the questions re "this generation shall not pass till" all things fulfilled, etc?

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Bernard Muller wrote: Tue Jan 30, 2018 1:15 pm to Neil,
Is not all of this something of a mystery? How is it that Mark and Matthew seem to us to be so clearly pointing to Jesus' return in or very close to the year 70 CE yet there appears to be no surviving ancient commentary addressing this point? Surely it is something that we would expect critics to latch on to as well, and surely we would therefore also expect some surviving rebuttal of the critic's attack on Christianity with such passages. How is this disconnect best explained?
It seems to me that you think the passages in gMark & gMatthew pointing to the second coming in the 1st century (in the case of gMark, soon after the events of 70) were written well after the 1st cent., possibly up to the third century.
But would that make sense for a Christian author, writing so late, to have Jesus make such a false prophecy? NO. That would be very uncalled for.

Cordially, Bernard
You've completely lost me, Bernard. I have no idea where in anything I wrote or that you quoted I "seem to think that the passages were written well after the first century". I thought it was clear that my question was pointing to a writing around the year 70. That's the problem I cannot solve. I am not suggesting a late date -- which would potentially add to the problem.

Yes, I do sometimes play with the idea that Mark was written in the second century because that possibility cannot be ruled out (I know you disagree) but I am not dogmatic and more often address Mark as written very close to the events of 70. I have posted many times on this on vridar -- with reference to the crucifixion themes and midrashic references to the fall of the temple, and also with Roger Parvus's views. If you take a comment I make some time ago in another context as indicating the dogma I believe in you are very mistaken and will misread most of my comments.
Last edited by neilgodfrey on Wed Jan 31, 2018 12:09 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: How old are the questions re "this generation shall not pass till" all things fulfilled, etc?

Post by neilgodfrey »

DCHindley wrote: Tue Jan 30, 2018 5:54 am
neilgodfrey wrote: Mon Jan 29, 2018 10:58 pmIs not all of this something of a mystery? How is it that Mark and Matthew seem to us to be so clearly pointing to Jesus' return in or very close to the year 70 CE yet there appears to be no surviving ancient commentary addressing this point? Surely it is something that we would expect critics to latch on to as well, and surely we would therefore also expect some surviving rebuttal of the critic's attack on Christianity with such passages. How is this disconnect best explained?
My response will have to be short (Doctor appointment) but I think the extreme anti-Judaic rhetoric, which alludes to the destruction of Jerusalem and the temple with "they got what they deserve!" thrown in as icing on the cake *is* the telltale sign of reaction. That pesky rebellion changed everything. Judaism no longer had a sacrificial system, and had to adapt, and the Christ theology (where Jesus is a (semi-)divine redeemer) was formed among the former gentile followers of Jesus. The failure of the rebellion may have changed their minds about what an ideal messianic kingdom should be (from a land of milk & honey in Palestine to a place for them in heaven upon death, or at least for a while, on a temporary earthly kingdom to be replaced eventually by the eternal kingdom.

Gotta go ... :arrow:

DCH
Can you clarify how the "telltale sign" of an anti-Judaic reaction helps resolve the question of the apparent failure of the prophecy of the return of the Son of Man?
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Re: How old are the questions re "this generation shall not pass till" all things fulfilled, etc?

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neilgodfrey wrote: Wed Jan 31, 2018 12:09 am
DCHindley wrote: Tue Jan 30, 2018 5:54 am
neilgodfrey wrote: Mon Jan 29, 2018 10:58 pmIs not all of this something of a mystery? How is it that Mark and Matthew seem to us to be so clearly pointing to Jesus' return in or very close to the year 70 CE yet there appears to be no surviving ancient commentary addressing this point? Surely it is something that we would expect critics to latch on to as well, and surely we would therefore also expect some surviving rebuttal of the critic's attack on Christianity with such passages. How is this disconnect best explained?
My response will have to be short (Doctor appointment) but I think the extreme anti-Judaic rhetoric, which alludes to the destruction of Jerusalem and the temple with "they got what they deserve!" thrown in as icing on the cake *is* the telltale sign of reaction. That pesky rebellion changed everything. Judaism no longer had a sacrificial system, and had to adapt, and the Christ theology (where Jesus is a (semi-)divine redeemer) was formed among the former gentile followers of Jesus. The failure of the rebellion may have changed their minds about what an ideal messianic kingdom should be (from a land of milk & honey in Palestine to a place for them in heaven upon death, or at least for a while, on a temporary earthly kingdom to be replaced eventually by the eternal kingdom.

Gotta go ... :arrow:

DCH
Can you clarify how the "telltale sign" of an anti-Judaic reaction helps resolve the question of the apparent failure of the prophecy of the return of the Son of Man?
In physics the saying goes: "For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction."

If Jesus was a prophet predicting an immediate establishment of a kingdom of God on earth (a kingdom which would be led by an anointed king-messiah, or was a claimant for this himself), that is not what "our" proto-Christians believed. To them, Jesus was not a messiah but a specially anointed divine entity sent to remove "sin" from all who believe that it had happened and dedicate themselves to the creed of doing good and being just, and they were almost all gentiles. That is not, IMHO, a Judaic thing, but a gentile type mystery cult.

The question is: These gentiles were surely associated with the original Jesus movement centered on the establishment of a messianic kingdom. An attempt was made by Judeans to establish such a kingdom in 66-70 CE, but lost to the Romans, who took vengeance and destroyed the temple and enslaved or killed huge numbers of people, both combatants and civilians caught in the fighting. These gentiles probably mostly lived in Palestine and southern Syria which was smack in the war zone. There was severe stratification between "Judeans" and gentiles, with numerous attempts at ethnic cleansing by both sides. It surely must have been very traumatic for them, as those who were moderates or friendly to the "other side" were marginalized and in some cases even killed by their "own kind."

It must have dawned on them that no messianic kingdom would be established in the face of Roman armies, and God did not step in with the angelic cavalry. "How could we have been so wrong?" This is where rationalization comes in. They still retained a veneration for Jesus as an idealized messiah, but now rejected Judean observances, including it's Laws and the rite of Circumcision. The conclusion, IMHO, was that Jesus was "really" a divine savior on a mission for the supreme God, and the Judeans, by the failed rebellion, had shown themselves to be unfit heirs of God's promise land to come. In time, with no coming, they spiritualized the coming messianic kingdom to be symbolic, and the afterlife would be in heaven.

This is what happened to the Jehovah's Witnesses when Charles Russell's predicted coming of Jesus did not happen. They spiritualized it.

Gotta go ... :silent:

DCH
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Re: How old are the questions re "this generation shall not pass till" all things fulfilled, etc?

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DCHindley wrote: Wed Jan 31, 2018 4:33 am This is what happened to the Jehovah's Witnesses when Charles Russell's predicted coming of Jesus did not happen. They spiritualized it.
Indeed. 'When Prophecies Fail,' etc.

Could I be cheeky though and suggest that you may have inadvertently just laid some groundwork for a possible celestial/spiritual-only Jesus theory? :o
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Re: How old are the questions re "this generation shall not pass till" all things fulfilled, etc?

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DCHindley wrote: Wed Jan 31, 2018 4:33 am

In physics the saying goes: "For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction."

.......

This is what happened to the Jehovah's Witnesses when Charles Russell's predicted coming of Jesus did not happen. They spiritualized it.
Is not there a catch, though? The prediction left us in the Synoptic gospels is Charles Russell's, not the spiritualization of it.

In history Arnold Toynbee attempted to interpret events through a model known as "challenge and response" -- a sort of equivalent of the physics law. It was a beautiful interpretive model but it eventually foundered on the rocks of the extant evidence. Better historical method is to work with the evidence we have and explain it in terms of other extant data rather than speculate sources for which we have no evidence and that even run against the evidence we do have.
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Re: How old are the questions re "this generation shall not pass till" all things fulfilled, etc?

Post by hakeem »

DCHindley wrote: Wed Jan 31, 2018 4:33 am

In physics the saying goes: "For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction."

If Jesus was a prophet predicting an immediate establishment of a kingdom of God on earth (a kingdom which would be led by an anointed king-messiah, or was a claimant for this himself), that is not what "our" proto-Christians believed. To them, Jesus was not a messiah but a specially anointed divine entity sent to remove "sin" from all who believe that it had happened and dedicate themselves to the creed of doing good and being just, and they were almost all gentiles. That is not, IMHO, a Judaic thing, but a gentile type mystery cult.



The Jewish belief that Messianic rulers would come at around c66 CE had nothing whatsoever to do with a character called Jesus of Nazareth or nothing about Jesus called Christ in the Gospels. Based on Josephus, Suetonius and Tacitus the Jews used their own ancient writings to establish their prediction.

There could not have been Christians who were followers of the character called Jesus of Nazareth when in their own story their Jesus was not even known as Christ and that their Jesus told his disciples not to tell anyone he was Christ.

If Jesus was not known as the Jewish Messiah when he was alive then he could not be the Jewish Messiah after he was dead.

The Jews are not and have never looked for a dead Messiah.

The War of the Jews c66-70 CE confims that there was never any known Jewish Messiah up to c 70 CE and that the Jewish Messiah must be called the Christ when he is living.
DCHindley wrote: Wed Jan 31, 2018 4:33 am This is what happened to the Jehovah's Witnesses when Charles Russell's predicted coming of Jesus did not happen. They spiritualized it.
The very stories of Jesus contradict you. Unlike Charles Russell's prediction of October 1874 there is no specific date given for the coming of the "son of man". in the Gospels.

In the Jesus story, it is claimed the supposed Jesus of Nazareth said "this generation will not pass till all things be fulfilled.

Now the Gospel story places the supposed prophecy of Jesus in the time of Pilate or sometime around c27-37CE. If a generation is regarded as a 70 year period then the supposed prophecy expires at around 97-107 CE.

The generation prophecy expires c97-107 C

The supposed imminent return of Jesus based on the Jesus story would therefore be the end of the 1st or start of the 2nd century which would most likely coincide with the writing of the earliest Gospels.

Like the Russell prediction had to be modified after his supposed prophecy expired it is the very same that the Jesus prophecy had to be altered after at least 97-107 CE or around the time it was expected for "this generation to pass".

Based on the supposed prediction, the writings attributed to Philo, Pliny the Elder, Josephus, Tacitus, Suetonius and the Dead Sea Scrolls I place all NT writings about Jesus around or after the end of the 1st century.
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Re: How old are the questions re "this generation shall not pass till" all things fulfilled, etc?

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archibald wrote: Wed Jan 31, 2018 5:20 am
DCHindley wrote: Wed Jan 31, 2018 4:33 am This is what happened to the Jehovah's Witnesses when Charles Russell's predicted coming of Jesus did not happen. They spiritualized it.
Indeed. 'When Prophecies Fail,' etc.

Could I be cheeky though and suggest that you may have inadvertently just laid some groundwork for a possible celestial/spiritual-only Jesus theory? :o
I dunna thinka so.

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Re: How old are the questions re "this generation shall not pass till" all things fulfilled, etc?

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hakeem wrote: Thu Feb 01, 2018 8:42 am
DCHindley wrote: Wed Jan 31, 2018 4:33 amIn physics the saying goes: "For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction."

If Jesus was a prophet predicting an immediate establishment of a kingdom of God on earth (a kingdom which would be led by an anointed king-messiah, or was a claimant for this himself), that is not what "our" proto-Christians believed. To them, Jesus was not a messiah but a specially anointed divine entity sent to remove "sin" from all who believe that it had happened and dedicate themselves to the creed of doing good and being just, and they were almost all gentiles. That is not, IMHO, a Judaic thing, but a gentile type mystery cult.


The Jewish belief that Messianic rulers would come at around c66 CE had nothing whatsoever to do with a character called Jesus of Nazareth or nothing about Jesus called Christ in the Gospels. Based on Josephus, Suetonius and Tacitus the Jews used their own ancient writings to establish their prediction.

There could not have been Christians who were followers of the character called Jesus of Nazareth when in their own story their Jesus was not even known as Christ and that their Jesus told his disciples not to tell anyone he was Christ.

If Jesus was not known as the Jewish Messiah when he was alive then he could not be the Jewish Messiah after he was dead.

The Jews are not and have never looked for a dead Messiah.

The War of the Jews c66-70 CE confims that there was never any known Jewish Messiah up to c 70 CE and that the Jewish Messiah must be called the Christ when he is living.
DCHindley wrote: Wed Jan 31, 2018 4:33 am This is what happened to the Jehovah's Witnesses when Charles Russell's predicted coming of Jesus did not happen. They spiritualized it.
The very stories of Jesus contradict you. Unlike Charles Russell's prediction of October 1874 there is no specific date given for the coming of the "son of man". in the Gospels.

In the Jesus story, it is claimed the supposed Jesus of Nazareth said "this generation will not pass till all things be fulfilled.

Now the Gospel story places the supposed prophecy of Jesus in the time of Pilate or sometime around c27-37CE. If a generation is regarded as a 70 year period then the supposed prophecy expires at around 97-107 CE.

The generation prophecy expires c97-107 C

The supposed imminent return of Jesus based on the Jesus story would therefore be the end of the 1st or start of the 2nd century which would most likely coincide with the writing of the earliest Gospels.

Like the Russell prediction had to be modified after his supposed prophecy expired it is the very same that the Jesus prophecy had to be altered after at least 97-107 CE or around the time it was expected for "this generation to pass".

Based on the supposed prediction, the writings attributed to Philo, Pliny the Elder, Josephus, Tacitus, Suetonius and the Dead Sea Scrolls I place all NT writings about Jesus around or after the end of the 1st century.
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