That is not all that Daniel predicted, however. Halfway through his treatment of Antiochus in chapter 11, for example, the predictions stop lining up with history. Also, no resurrection of the dead came about (12.1-3). So part of Daniel consists of vaticinia ex eventu, while part of it does not.DCHindley wrote: ↑Sat Feb 17, 2018 1:11 pmNot sure why you think so. Most people, I'd think, would see this as an anachronism, or Prophecy ex eventu like what Daniel was written to "predict." The main difference is that Daniel "predicts" the re-establishment of an "independent" nation (a happy thing) while Mark 13 was explaining away a failed expectation.Ben C. Smith wrote: ↑Sat Feb 17, 2018 12:17 pmNo, mainly the stuff that equates, especially with the benefit of hindsight, the abomination of desolation with the destruction of Jerusalem.DCHindley wrote: ↑Sat Feb 17, 2018 11:19 amThe Simon bar Giora/Ger stuff?Ben C. Smith wrote: ↑Sat Feb 17, 2018 10:26 amI disagree with much of what you posted in the second column of your table, but with this opening statement I agree wholeheartedly.
I think we would agree that Mark 13.1-2 is a vaticinium ex eventu. I also think we would agree that Mark 13.24-27 is not a vaticinium ex eventu. The question is: which kind of prediction (before the fact or after the fact) is Mark 13.14-20? You say about the flight to the mountains in verse 14 that it is "clearly based on Titus' subjection of Jerusalem" and that the mountains represent Masada. But I say that this flight to the mountains is based on Mattathias' flight to the mountains in 1 Maccabees. Mattathias and his sons also leave everything behind, thus explaining verses 15-16, as well. (This also explains why it is those "in Judea" who are fleeing, rather than, as your own statement would have it, Jerusalem: Mattathias was in Modin, not in Jerusalem, when he fled to the mountains.) The motif of pregnant and nursing women suffering special hardships in verse 17-18 is a common one in apocalyptic lore (as well as being universally true in times of distress or warfare). The great tribulation of verses 19-20 comes directly from Daniel. This prediction, in other words, is literally nothing like Mark 13.1-2 or Luke 21.20-24; in fact, it is counterindicated as a prophecy after the fact by the simple virtue of what the abomination of desolation actually was in Daniel and 1 Maccabees: what was expected in this prediction was not the destruction of the temple but rather its defilement by an idolatrous addition of some kind. This explains the parallels in 2 Thessalonians 2, in which the temple is the site of the man of sin's blasphemies. It also explains the mismatch between the motif of signs leading up to the end like the leaves on a fig tree and that of the unknown hour: the latter was added in order to mitigate the obvious force of the former, since the former involved a prediction that did not come to pass. It explains a few other data which I am still assembling, as well, data based on arguments both by Theissen and by Detering (who oppose one another thoroughly on the dates involved) which help to demonstrate that both Matthew 24 and Mark 13 are working with an oracular source.
Is there any problem with a prediction like this? I mean, Antiochus defiled the temple with the original abomination of desolation, Pompey entered the holy of holies, and then Caligula came thiiiiis close to defiling the temple once again with his own likeness (thus explaining the masculine participle "standing" modifying the neuter noun "abomination" in Mark 13.14). Of course people would be worried that such a thing would happen again, especially as tensions with Rome continued to mount.
So my overall, hawk's eye view is that much of Mark 13 = Matthew 24 was a prediction, couched exclusively in terminology from apocalyptic lore and already extant Jewish history (before 70), that the temple was going to be defiled (as per Antiochus, Pompey, and Caligula). However, it was destroyed instead. The prediction was salvaged by making it point to the destruction (Mark 13.1-2) and by making the advent of the Lord a matter of divine knowledge alone (Mark 13.32-37). The "abomination of desolation" itself, originally intended to point to idolatry in the temple, was now winked and nudged into a covert prediction of the destruction of the temple (this is what he really meant... "let the reader understand!").