Dee Dee, convert me to preterism! (HOF thread)
- Thread starter Gavin
- Start date
- Status
D
Dee Dee Warren
Guest
Dear Gavin:
Here is where I would like to start if that is okay, and that is by asking you to consider a few verses, and let's talk about them. Our discussion is going to focus now almost solely on the Olivet Discourse and we we can work out to more difficult passages from there. So I have an assignment for you. Please read Matthew 24, Luke 21, and Mark 13. These are going to be our foundational passages.
After you read those passages, I want you to focus on and give some good thought to Matthew 24:34 and its parallels and Matthew 16:27-28 and its parallels.
With regards to your question about my view and Hymenaeanism.. it short it is this. Hymeneans deny any future phsyical coming of Christ, future physical resurrection event (there are many different species of this denial), and future final judgment. Thus, they are creedally heterodox, but more importantly, Scripturally denounced in their denial of the resurrection. Please see the link in my signature line for more information.
Here is where I would like to start if that is okay, and that is by asking you to consider a few verses, and let's talk about them. Our discussion is going to focus now almost solely on the Olivet Discourse and we we can work out to more difficult passages from there. So I have an assignment for you. Please read Matthew 24, Luke 21, and Mark 13. These are going to be our foundational passages.
After you read those passages, I want you to focus on and give some good thought to Matthew 24:34 and its parallels and Matthew 16:27-28 and its parallels.
With regards to your question about my view and Hymenaeanism.. it short it is this. Hymeneans deny any future phsyical coming of Christ, future physical resurrection event (there are many different species of this denial), and future final judgment. Thus, they are creedally heterodox, but more importantly, Scripturally denounced in their denial of the resurrection. Please see the link in my signature line for more information.
D
Dee Dee Warren
Guest
Dear Smilax:
Did you get that file okay (eat your heart out Cal, you amillennial wimp)?? And look for my response on 2 Peter 3 to up later this morning... or after work this evening. I am off to the gym.
Did you get that file okay (eat your heart out Cal, you amillennial wimp)?? And look for my response on 2 Peter 3 to up later this morning... or after work this evening. I am off to the gym.
C
cirisme
Guest
Hey, Dee Dee, didn't you and I do something like this a while ago? 
Gavin
New member
Dee Dee, I have read the requested material. Here are some initial thoughts.
1) I do not know how to account for Matthew 24:34 (and the parrallel Mark 13:30 and Luke 21:32) under a futurist model. My initial thought was that if the word can mean "race" instead of "generation" then that solves the problem, but then you still have to account for Matthew 16:27-28:
"I tell you the truth, some who are standing here will not taste death before they see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom."
So I am not really sure how to deal with these verses is futurism is true.
Further discussion of the word "generation" would be appreciated. Also, are there people who claim that these verses were added later by copiers? I heard that once. What do most futurists do with these verses?
2) If Christ returned in 70 AD, when was Revelation written? Can you prove it was before this? If Revelation was written AFTER Christ's return, it seems very strange for Jesus to say, "I am coming soon" repeatedly in it (22:7, 12, 20, etc.). And yet I have always been told John wrote this book about 90 when he was on Patmos.
3) When I read Matthew 24, I get the sense that the coming of Christ is a really big deal. I read that "nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. There will be famines and earthquakes in various places" (7). I read that "this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come" (14). And most of all, I read:
"29"Immediately after the distress of those days
" 'the sun will be darkened,
and the moon will not give its light;
the stars will fall from the sky,
and the heavenly bodies will be shaken.'[3]
30"At that time the sign of the Son of Man will appear in the sky, and all the nations of the earth will mourn. They will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of the sky, with power and great glory. 31And he will send his angels with a loud trumpet call , and they will gather his elect from the four winds, from one end of the heavens to the other" (29-31, cf. I Thessalonians 4:16-17).
So the obvious question is, did all this stuff happen in 70 AD, or does the version of preterism you hold to leave room for all this to happen in the future? If the former, I will need some pretty heavy proof. If the latter, how can Matthew 24:34, in context, refer to 70 AD while the preceding verses do not? I need some help here.
4) Finally, I would be curious what age we are in now if Christ has already returned. Is he coming a third time now? What are we still doing here? Are we in the thousand year time?
Thanks for any info you can provide. All preterists (and futursts)are welcome to chime in along with Dee Dee.
1) I do not know how to account for Matthew 24:34 (and the parrallel Mark 13:30 and Luke 21:32) under a futurist model. My initial thought was that if the word can mean "race" instead of "generation" then that solves the problem, but then you still have to account for Matthew 16:27-28:
"I tell you the truth, some who are standing here will not taste death before they see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom."
So I am not really sure how to deal with these verses is futurism is true.
Further discussion of the word "generation" would be appreciated. Also, are there people who claim that these verses were added later by copiers? I heard that once. What do most futurists do with these verses?
2) If Christ returned in 70 AD, when was Revelation written? Can you prove it was before this? If Revelation was written AFTER Christ's return, it seems very strange for Jesus to say, "I am coming soon" repeatedly in it (22:7, 12, 20, etc.). And yet I have always been told John wrote this book about 90 when he was on Patmos.
3) When I read Matthew 24, I get the sense that the coming of Christ is a really big deal. I read that "nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. There will be famines and earthquakes in various places" (7). I read that "this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come" (14). And most of all, I read:
"29"Immediately after the distress of those days
" 'the sun will be darkened,
and the moon will not give its light;
the stars will fall from the sky,
and the heavenly bodies will be shaken.'[3]
30"At that time the sign of the Son of Man will appear in the sky, and all the nations of the earth will mourn. They will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of the sky, with power and great glory. 31And he will send his angels with a loud trumpet call , and they will gather his elect from the four winds, from one end of the heavens to the other" (29-31, cf. I Thessalonians 4:16-17).
So the obvious question is, did all this stuff happen in 70 AD, or does the version of preterism you hold to leave room for all this to happen in the future? If the former, I will need some pretty heavy proof. If the latter, how can Matthew 24:34, in context, refer to 70 AD while the preceding verses do not? I need some help here.
4) Finally, I would be curious what age we are in now if Christ has already returned. Is he coming a third time now? What are we still doing here? Are we in the thousand year time?
Thanks for any info you can provide. All preterists (and futursts)are welcome to chime in along with Dee Dee.
Last edited:
Gavin
New member
I think there is a place for communal learning, DrB, especially within the body of Christ. I once read that "growth in isolation tends toward distortion". I am just trying to learn about preterism by dialoguing about it with preterists. Don'd panic, I won't convert unless it is totally clear from Scripture. And you are welcome to post here as well.
D
Dee Dee Warren
Guest
Dear Gavin:
Great questions!! Do you mind if I ask everyone who participates if we can take it one point at a time and exhaust those points first?? I will post soon on the first of your points.
Great questions!! Do you mind if I ask everyone who participates if we can take it one point at a time and exhaust those points first?? I will post soon on the first of your points.
just an interesting note: One of my study Bibles I've noticed tends to interpret verses in a futuristic interpretation generally, but it's interesting what happens in this verse: it says this:
What you'll notice, is that a) it pretty much disqualifies the use of "race" as a translation and b) of the three interpretations it offers, it fails to mention the obvious literal translation.
smilax
New member
That would be "genos," not "genea." There are forty-two references in the New Testament. Here is a great example of its use:
Matthew i, 17: "So all the generations from Abraham to David are fourteen generations; and from David until the carrying away into Babylon are fourteen generations; and from the carrying away into Babylon unto Christ are fourteen generations."
Yay.
You could say that Psalms xii, 7 proves the generation is eternal. On one of the other threads, this sleight of hand was attempted.
http://www.infidels.org/library/magazines/tsr/2000/4/004genea.html.
Check your sources. The same people probably came up with JEDP and Q. Actually, come to think of it, it was probably the Jesus Seminar, with their question-begging assumption that Jesus could not have said anything eschatological, and therefore, everything eschatological is a redaction. (And what are you left with after you finish cleaning up your colored beads? Jesus the Holy Hippy.)
http://www.conservativeonline.org/articles/preterism/preterism_has_prophesy_been_fulfilled.htm is an excellent attempted (that's the key word) refutation by Thomas Ice himself.
D
Dee Dee Warren
Guest
Ice falls flat. I personally would not hesitate to debate him.
D
Dee Dee Warren
Guest
Did you say... penguins??
Did you say... penguins??
"What’s happening is that Preterism is challenging futurism. Idealism is not a factor out there and Historicism is not a factor. Preterists are rising up, coming mainly out of the Reconstructionist Movement, to do this. What is their theme verse? Does anybody know? Let’s all say it together, “Truly I say to you, this generation will not pass away until all these things be fulfilled.” So, when you talk to a Preterist, get ready to hear the words, “this generation” at least eight dozen times if you have an extended conversation.
We’ll have to have some Christian sociologists do an analysis of how frequently Preterists in an average hour discussion of Preterism say “this generation” and report back. That would be a good thing for the Christian Ed department to do. That way we could have some probability rates on these kinds of things."
--Tommy ICE
The Conservative Theological Journal, 48, Volume 3,
in an article entitled "The Destructive View of Preterism," pg 393
Did you say... penguins??
"What’s happening is that Preterism is challenging futurism. Idealism is not a factor out there and Historicism is not a factor. Preterists are rising up, coming mainly out of the Reconstructionist Movement, to do this. What is their theme verse? Does anybody know? Let’s all say it together, “Truly I say to you, this generation will not pass away until all these things be fulfilled.” So, when you talk to a Preterist, get ready to hear the words, “this generation” at least eight dozen times if you have an extended conversation.
We’ll have to have some Christian sociologists do an analysis of how frequently Preterists in an average hour discussion of Preterism say “this generation” and report back. That would be a good thing for the Christian Ed department to do. That way we could have some probability rates on these kinds of things."
--Tommy ICE
The Conservative Theological Journal, 48, Volume 3,
in an article entitled "The Destructive View of Preterism," pg 393
D
Dee Dee Warren
Guest
Okay Gavin... here we go... remember you asked for it!
Okay Gavin... here we go... remember you asked for it!
Dear Gavin:
Okay let’s start our discussion of “this generation.” Ciris had mentioned that he and I had a similar discussion a little while’s back, and he will certainly recognize some of the same material I had posted back then… but I don’t see a need to reinvent the wheel. Our conversation will become unique as we interact with each other. I intend upon presenting four proofs for my contention that this phrase squarely places the intended fulfillment of the Olivet Discourse within the first century. There are more proofs which may be touched upon as we converse. I was hoping this could be a good foundational springboard.
Each time the phrase “this generation” is used in the NT, it ALWAYS means the generation then living. I will list them for you, but I wanted to say something first. What I just said is not controversial. Even those people who believe that it refers to something else in the Olivet Discourse concede that they are making a case of special pleading since it means the contemporaries of Christ elsewhere it is used. But here they are: Matthew 11:16; 12:41; 12:42; 23:36; Mark 8:12; Luke 7:31; 11:30; 11:31; 11:50; 11:51; 17:25. (omitting Matthew 24:34; Luke 21:32; Mark 13:30 because they are the very verses under question). Make careful note of the use of the near demonstrative identifier “this”…. If Jesus had wanted to carefully make sure that his words were not referring to His contemporaries, He could easily have used the far demonstrative identifier… “that.”
The Discourse does not appear in a vacuum. The immediate backdrop which gives us our context to interpret Christ’s words, including the timing statement, is Matthew 23. I would go even further and state that Matthew builds up to Chapter 24 even way before Chapter 23…. Matthew presents a mounting sense of doom and destruction upon the first century apostates like threatening and looming thunder clouds.
Almost all commentators agree that Matthew is the most “Jewish” of the Gospels. As such, he arranges his material with a very definite and Jewish purpose in mind. The Gospels are not exhaustive biographies of everything Jesus said and did. The Gospel writers said what they did where they did in the text for important reasons. The order and arrangement of the Gospel narratives is purposeful. The whole context and arrangement of the Gospel of Matthew lends tremendous weight to the preterist position.
Matthew’s Gospel is uniquely focused on judgment and condemnation of the Jewish apostates, and in fact so much so, that critics and Jewish anti-missionary types argue that it is anti-Semitic to the core!! Matthew also portray Gentiles in favorable lights to again shed judgmental light upon the apostates. Here are some very brief highlights:
Chapter 1 – Christ is presented as the Messianic heir.
Chapter 2 – It is the non-Jewish magi who seek the Christ child but Jerusalem is troubled (verse 3)
Chapter 3 – The ministry of John the Baptist who with great vitriol condemns the Jewish leadership of his day and warns the people of the wrath to come and that the ax is NOW laid at the root of the tree. He warns that the Kingdom is AT HAND. The winnowing fork is ALREADY in God’s hand.
Chapter 8 – Jesus commends a Gentile’s faith and rebukes and warns Israel saying that the Gentile nations shall come and feast with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, but the “sons of the kingdom shall be cast out in to the outer darkness…”
Chapter 11 – Jesus rebukes the unbelief of that apostate Jews and calls infamous pagan cities of old in judgment against them.
Chapter 12 – Jesus refers to His contemporaries as an evil and adulterous generation, a wicked generation
Chapter 13 - Jesus then begins to speak to them in parables so that they cannot understand in order to fulfill prophecy about their blindness.
Chapter 15 – Jesus continues to rebuke His contemporaries using the words of Isaiah in judgment against them.
Chapter 17 – Jesus declares them to be a faithless and perverse generation.
** notice the deliberate repeat of the phrase “this generation” almost as an epithet against the apostates of Jesus’ day
And then things worsen considerably beginning in Chapter 21 where the contemporary judgment references are more explicit and frequent.
Chapter 21 – Jesus cleanses the Temple and very shortly later permanently curses the fig tree which in context obviously represents barren Israel. There is the parable of the two sons, and then the parable of the landowner in which Jesus tells them that the Kingdom of God will be wrested from them and given to a nation bearing the fruits of it.
Chapter 22 – The parable of the wedding feast demonstrating Israel’s resistance to God’s call which results in fiery judgment when “the king was enraged and sent his armies and destroyed those murderers and set their city on fire…” (a clear reference to 70AD) and God gathers Gentiles to the wedding feast.
Chapter 23 – Jesus pronounces seven woes upon the corrupt spiritual leaders….
Let’s look at some of the concluding verses to Chapter 23 which bring this all together:
Verses 31-38 – “Therefore you are witnesses against yourselves that you are sons of those who murdered the prophets. Fill up, then, the measure of your fathers’ guilt. Serpents, brood of vipers! How can you escape the condemnation of hell? Therefore, indeed, I send you prophets, wise men, and scribes: some of them you will kill and crucify, and some of them you will scourge in your synagogues and persecute from city to city, that on you may come all the righteous blood shed on the earth, from the blood of righteous Abel to the blood of Zechariah, son of Berechiah, whom you murdered between the temple and the altar. Assuredly, I say to you, all these things will come upon this generation.. O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the one who kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to her! How often I wanted to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing! See! Your house is left to you desolate.
That is astounding. Jesus lays the guilt of the ages at their feet. But there are some repeated themes here which are not accidental.
Matthew 23:34 –Therefore, indeed, I send you prophets, wise men, and scribes: some of them you will kill and crucify, and some of them you will scourge in your synagogues and persecute from city to city…
Compare with
Matthew 24:9 – Then they will deliver you up to tribulation and kill you, and you will be hated by all nations for My name’s sake.
and with
Luke 21:12 – They will lay their hands on you and persecute you, delivering you up to the synagogues and prisons. You will be brought before kings and rulers for My name’s sake.
and with
Mark 13:9 – But watch out for yourselves, for they will deliver you up to councils, and you will be beaten in the synagogues. You will be brought before rulers and kings for My sake, for a testimony to them.
Next item…
Also,
Matthew 23:36 – Assuredly, I say to you, all these things will come upon this generation.
**[what things?? – all the woes and the pronouncement of the desolation of the Temple]
Compare with
Matthew 24:1 – Now as He sat on the Mount of Olives, the disciples came to Him privately, saying, “Tell us, when will these things be? And what will be the sign of Your coming, and of the end of the age?”
**(inquiring about the desolation (destruction) of the Temple just prophesied to them and also to the Pharisees as judgment upon them… the two chapter are intimately related on that fact alone)
and with
Mark 13:3 - Now as He sat on the Mount of Olives
opposite the temple, Peter, James, John, and Andrew asked Him privately, “Tell us, when will these things be? And what will be the sign when all these things will be fulfilled?”
and with
Luke 21:7 – So they asked Him, saying, “Teacher, but when will these things be? And what sign will there be when these things are about to take place?”
And along the same lines.. tying in “all these things” with the “this generation” of Matthew 23:36....
Matthew 24:34; Luke 21:32; Mark 13:30 – Assuredly, I say to you, this generation will by no means pass away till all these things take place.
I will give pause for you to comment before I present the next proof.
Okay Gavin... here we go... remember you asked for it!
Dear Gavin:
Okay let’s start our discussion of “this generation.” Ciris had mentioned that he and I had a similar discussion a little while’s back, and he will certainly recognize some of the same material I had posted back then… but I don’t see a need to reinvent the wheel. Our conversation will become unique as we interact with each other. I intend upon presenting four proofs for my contention that this phrase squarely places the intended fulfillment of the Olivet Discourse within the first century. There are more proofs which may be touched upon as we converse. I was hoping this could be a good foundational springboard.
Each time the phrase “this generation” is used in the NT, it ALWAYS means the generation then living. I will list them for you, but I wanted to say something first. What I just said is not controversial. Even those people who believe that it refers to something else in the Olivet Discourse concede that they are making a case of special pleading since it means the contemporaries of Christ elsewhere it is used. But here they are: Matthew 11:16; 12:41; 12:42; 23:36; Mark 8:12; Luke 7:31; 11:30; 11:31; 11:50; 11:51; 17:25. (omitting Matthew 24:34; Luke 21:32; Mark 13:30 because they are the very verses under question). Make careful note of the use of the near demonstrative identifier “this”…. If Jesus had wanted to carefully make sure that his words were not referring to His contemporaries, He could easily have used the far demonstrative identifier… “that.”
The Discourse does not appear in a vacuum. The immediate backdrop which gives us our context to interpret Christ’s words, including the timing statement, is Matthew 23. I would go even further and state that Matthew builds up to Chapter 24 even way before Chapter 23…. Matthew presents a mounting sense of doom and destruction upon the first century apostates like threatening and looming thunder clouds.
Almost all commentators agree that Matthew is the most “Jewish” of the Gospels. As such, he arranges his material with a very definite and Jewish purpose in mind. The Gospels are not exhaustive biographies of everything Jesus said and did. The Gospel writers said what they did where they did in the text for important reasons. The order and arrangement of the Gospel narratives is purposeful. The whole context and arrangement of the Gospel of Matthew lends tremendous weight to the preterist position.
Matthew’s Gospel is uniquely focused on judgment and condemnation of the Jewish apostates, and in fact so much so, that critics and Jewish anti-missionary types argue that it is anti-Semitic to the core!! Matthew also portray Gentiles in favorable lights to again shed judgmental light upon the apostates. Here are some very brief highlights:
Chapter 1 – Christ is presented as the Messianic heir.
Chapter 2 – It is the non-Jewish magi who seek the Christ child but Jerusalem is troubled (verse 3)
Chapter 3 – The ministry of John the Baptist who with great vitriol condemns the Jewish leadership of his day and warns the people of the wrath to come and that the ax is NOW laid at the root of the tree. He warns that the Kingdom is AT HAND. The winnowing fork is ALREADY in God’s hand.
Chapter 8 – Jesus commends a Gentile’s faith and rebukes and warns Israel saying that the Gentile nations shall come and feast with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, but the “sons of the kingdom shall be cast out in to the outer darkness…”
Chapter 11 – Jesus rebukes the unbelief of that apostate Jews and calls infamous pagan cities of old in judgment against them.
Chapter 12 – Jesus refers to His contemporaries as an evil and adulterous generation, a wicked generation
Chapter 13 - Jesus then begins to speak to them in parables so that they cannot understand in order to fulfill prophecy about their blindness.
Chapter 15 – Jesus continues to rebuke His contemporaries using the words of Isaiah in judgment against them.
Chapter 17 – Jesus declares them to be a faithless and perverse generation.
** notice the deliberate repeat of the phrase “this generation” almost as an epithet against the apostates of Jesus’ day
And then things worsen considerably beginning in Chapter 21 where the contemporary judgment references are more explicit and frequent.
Chapter 21 – Jesus cleanses the Temple and very shortly later permanently curses the fig tree which in context obviously represents barren Israel. There is the parable of the two sons, and then the parable of the landowner in which Jesus tells them that the Kingdom of God will be wrested from them and given to a nation bearing the fruits of it.
Chapter 22 – The parable of the wedding feast demonstrating Israel’s resistance to God’s call which results in fiery judgment when “the king was enraged and sent his armies and destroyed those murderers and set their city on fire…” (a clear reference to 70AD) and God gathers Gentiles to the wedding feast.
Chapter 23 – Jesus pronounces seven woes upon the corrupt spiritual leaders….
Let’s look at some of the concluding verses to Chapter 23 which bring this all together:
Verses 31-38 – “Therefore you are witnesses against yourselves that you are sons of those who murdered the prophets. Fill up, then, the measure of your fathers’ guilt. Serpents, brood of vipers! How can you escape the condemnation of hell? Therefore, indeed, I send you prophets, wise men, and scribes: some of them you will kill and crucify, and some of them you will scourge in your synagogues and persecute from city to city, that on you may come all the righteous blood shed on the earth, from the blood of righteous Abel to the blood of Zechariah, son of Berechiah, whom you murdered between the temple and the altar. Assuredly, I say to you, all these things will come upon this generation.. O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the one who kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to her! How often I wanted to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing! See! Your house is left to you desolate.
That is astounding. Jesus lays the guilt of the ages at their feet. But there are some repeated themes here which are not accidental.
Matthew 23:34 –Therefore, indeed, I send you prophets, wise men, and scribes: some of them you will kill and crucify, and some of them you will scourge in your synagogues and persecute from city to city…
Compare with
Matthew 24:9 – Then they will deliver you up to tribulation and kill you, and you will be hated by all nations for My name’s sake.
and with
Luke 21:12 – They will lay their hands on you and persecute you, delivering you up to the synagogues and prisons. You will be brought before kings and rulers for My name’s sake.
and with
Mark 13:9 – But watch out for yourselves, for they will deliver you up to councils, and you will be beaten in the synagogues. You will be brought before rulers and kings for My sake, for a testimony to them.
Next item…
Also,
Matthew 23:36 – Assuredly, I say to you, all these things will come upon this generation.
**[what things?? – all the woes and the pronouncement of the desolation of the Temple]
Compare with
Matthew 24:1 – Now as He sat on the Mount of Olives, the disciples came to Him privately, saying, “Tell us, when will these things be? And what will be the sign of Your coming, and of the end of the age?”
**(inquiring about the desolation (destruction) of the Temple just prophesied to them and also to the Pharisees as judgment upon them… the two chapter are intimately related on that fact alone)
and with
Mark 13:3 - Now as He sat on the Mount of Olives
opposite the temple, Peter, James, John, and Andrew asked Him privately, “Tell us, when will these things be? And what will be the sign when all these things will be fulfilled?”
and with
Luke 21:7 – So they asked Him, saying, “Teacher, but when will these things be? And what sign will there be when these things are about to take place?”
And along the same lines.. tying in “all these things” with the “this generation” of Matthew 23:36....
Matthew 24:34; Luke 21:32; Mark 13:30 – Assuredly, I say to you, this generation will by no means pass away till all these things take place.
I will give pause for you to comment before I present the next proof.
Y
Yxboom
Guest
NEWSFLASH: I have been converted by DDW.
C
cirisme
Guest
Are you serious?
Y
Yxboom
Guest
serious
D
Dee Dee Warren
Guest
Dear Gavin:
Okay, great... I have the other three points ready... so let's discuss and then we can move on.
Okay, great... I have the other three points ready... so let's discuss and then we can move on.
Y
Yxboom
Guest
<===worships DDW in a non-flirtatious way
- Status