Did Jesus And The Earliest Christians Teach That The Second Coming Would Occur Within Jesus' Generation?

In other threads, I've been discussing early Christian eschatology with Jon Curry. For those who don't know, Jon recently left Christianity and now maintains that Jesus didn't exist. Our eschatological discussions have primarily been about Matthew 16:28 and 24:34, though he's recently put more emphasis on Paul's eschatology. I want to quote, below, some portions of my most recent response to him, since I think these things might be helpful to some of you. Knowing the background of my discussions with Jon would make some portions of what's below easier to understand, but I think anybody should be able to follow the general thrust. In addition to addressing Matthew 16 and 24 and the eschatology of Paul, I'm addressing Jon's argument that 2 Peter 3 is "making excuses" for a false prophecy that Jesus would return within His generation. My response to Jon consists of more than what I quote below, and those interested can read that other thread for more.

People can ask why God hasn't done something yet even if He didn't set a generational time limit on it. See the examples I cited from the Old Testament in my previous post (Isaiah 5:19, Jeremiah 17:15, Ezekiel 12:22). Similarly, there are references in ancient extra-Biblical Jewish literature to people objecting to the lack of fulfillment of Old Testament prophecies, regardless of whether the prophecies had any time limit on them (Michael Green, 2 Peter & Jude [Grand Rapids, Michigan: Eerdmans, 1987], pp. 139, 148). Jews had believed for centuries that the day of the Lord was at hand without setting generational or other dates (Joel 2:1, Obadiah 15, Habakkuk 2:3), and Psalm 90:4 had been cited in this context by Jews before Peter cited it (Craig Blomberg, The Historical Reliability Of The Gospels [Downers Grove, Illinois: InterVarsity Press, 1987], p. 34). No generational time limit is mentioned in 2 Peter 3, and a promise without a generational limit makes more sense of 2 Peter 3:9....

If Jesus had said that His second coming would occur in His generation, then why would the scoffers Peter refers to not cite that promise of Jesus, but instead object to the slowness of a promise that could still be fulfilled in the future (2 Peter 3:9)? There's a difference between the slowness of a fulfillment that could still happen and the failure of a promise that can't be fulfilled as a result of the time limit having already passed. The situation addressed in 2 Peter 3 is the former, not the latter. We should ask, then, why scoffers would object to the delaying of the day of the Lord, much as people did in Old Testament times, rather than citing something more explicit, like a promise by Jesus that His second coming would occur before the end of His generation. They probably didn't cite such a promise because there wasn't one.

You still haven't given any examples of the earliest Christians responding to a false prophecy made by Jesus, with the sort of shift in belief and counterarguments we would expect to accompany such a false prophecy. Christians living after Jesus' generation continued to view Christ's return as imminent and continued to cite the comments of Jesus about not knowing the day or hour, as if they applied beyond the lifetime of Jesus' generation. Documents like Aristides' Apology and Justin Martyr's Apologies and Dialogue With Trypho address non-Christians and discuss many objections to Christianity, but they don't address any alleged false prophecy of Jesus, even when the second coming is discussed. Some of the early sources who comment on eschatology were eyewitnesses or contemporaries of the apostles (Clement of Rome, Papias, etc.). Their lives overlapped both the first and the second generations of Christianity. If a shift had occurred in eschatology like the one you're suggesting, with such significant implications, these people should have known about it. As David Aune notes, "The very paucity of references to a supposed delay of the eschaton is indicative of the fact that the delay of the Parousia was largely a nonproblem within early Christianity" (cited in Ralph P. Martin and Peter H. Davids, editors, Dictionary Of The Later New Testament & Its Developments [Downers Grove, Illinois: InterVarsity Press, 1997], p. 873). Christian sources of the second century (Ignatius of Antioch, Letter To The Ephesians, 11; The Epistle of Barnabas, 4; Second Clement, 12; etc.) make the same sort of references to living in the end times, the imminence of Christ's return, etc. that we find in first century sources. Ignatius even refers to Christ's coming, more than a century earlier, as occurring "in the end" (Letter To The Magnesians, 6)....

Matthew 16:27 also speaks about the glory of Jesus, which is reflected in the Mount of Transfiguration. So are His identity and His authority, which are relevant to His power to judge and His relationship to the angels....

The Mount of Transfiguration involves more than "seeing Jesus shining". Jesus is visited by Moses and Elijah, an eschatological figure, He's overshadowed by a bright cloud reminiscent of the Shekinah, and He receives Divine sanction. It's a foretaste of the "glory of the Father" referred to in Matthew 16:27. The Father says that the Son is to be heeded, in language reminiscent of Moses' comments about heeding the Messianic prophet to come (Deuteronomy 18:15). The passage doesn't just involve "Jesus shining", but involves a manifestation of His identity, glory, and authority. It is a foretaste of Matthew 16:27....

The phrase "we who are alive" [in 1 Thessalonians 4:15] doesn't reflect an assurance that Paul and all of the living people he was writing to would live until Jesus' return. People in the churches of the first century were dying on a regular basis, just like people outside the church. Paul would have known that some of the people living when he wrote could die, just as he knew that his own death was a possibility once he finished the work he was called to do (Acts 21:13, Philippians 1:22-23, 2 Timothy 4:6). Thus, in 2 Corinthians 5:1-9, Paul can refer to how "we" might be in the body or out of the body through death. The same Paul who refers to "we" who are alive at the time of Jesus' second coming in 1 Thessalonians 4 goes on in the next chapter to refer to how "we" might be alive or dead (1 Thessalonians 5:10). Similarly, Paul refers elsewhere to how "we" will be raised (1 Corinthians 6:14, 2 Corinthians 4:14), which assumes that "we" would first die, in contrast to other passages where "we" are transformed without having died (1 Corinthians 15:51). Apparently, Paul thought it was possible that he and his contemporary Christians would be alive or dead at the time of Jesus' second coming, so he assumes one possibility in some places and the other in other places....

We're discussing Matthew 24:34. I'm appealing to the same phrase ["all these things"] in verse 33. You're appealing to a different phrase in verse 3. My reference to verse 33 is more relevant. But if we look to verse 3, the closest parallel to "all these things" is what the disciples asked about the temple (they use the phrase "these things"), not all of their questions collectively....

Matthew 24:33 tells us that "all these things" happen before Jesus' second coming. The "all these things" indicate that Jesus is at hand. The second coming itself isn't included in the "all these things". If by "apocalyptic events" you're including the second coming itself and the events that follow it, then those events can't be included in the "all these things" of verse 33....

The "all these things" of Matthew 24:34 are general signs, types of events, like the ripening of a fig tree. He's addressing the signs of the end times, not the end time events themselves. Jesus can't be referring to everything discussed earlier in the chapter, since the second coming itself and the events following it were part of what was discussed, yet we know that He wasn't including those events.

What all would be included in the "all these things"? Apparently, what's in view is all of the signs that are comparable to the signs a fig tree gives as it ripens. The ripening suggests that summer is coming, but it doesn't give the specifics of the timing. Similarly, the general birth pangs Jesus referred to earlier (Matthew 24:4-8) are signs of something coming, but only in a general sense, since "that is not yet the end" (verse 6) and "all these things are merely the beginning of birth pangs" (verse 8). General signs lead to a brief sequence of specific events, including the second coming itself and the events that follow it (angels gathering people, etc.). Jesus' generation would see the general signs, which would warrant their preparation for Jesus' return. They shouldn't be like the foolish virgins or the unfaithful slaves who were unprepared. Once the general signs are in place, Jesus' return is at hand. It could happen quickly, like a thief coming in the night (Matthew 24:43). What Jesus is conveying in verses 33-34 is the fact that those general signs, like the ripening of a fig tree, will be present as early as that current generation. That generation has to be watchful. They can't assume that the Master will delay His coming....

Shortly after Jesus' comments in Matthew 24:33-34, He addresses the theme of watchfulness and ignorance of the timing of His coming. You've argued that people wouldn't know the timing within Jesus' generation, but that they did know that it would happen within that generation at some point. Against that conclusion, I've cited the language of Acts 1:7, which uses the broad phrase "times or epochs". Notice, also, that a variety of phrases are used in the Synoptic accounts. We see "day" at one point (Matthew 24:42), "hour" at another point (Matthew 24:44), and "day or hour" (Matthew 24:50), "watch" (Luke 12:38), or "time" elsewhere (Mark 13:33). Hours and days wouldn't be the only units of time that would be unknown within a generation. Minutes, weeks, years, decades, etc. would also be unknown. It's likely that Jesus had more than just units of hours and days in mind. The rabbis of ancient Israel generally condemned the setting of dates in general, not just hours and days (Craig Keener, A Commentary on the Gospel of Matthew [Grand Rapids, Michigan: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1999], p. 590). Jesus probably was agreeing with general Jewish condemnations of setting dates. It would make less sense for Jesus to agree with Jewish opposition to setting hours and days while disagreeing about setting a generational date. And if Christians had an assurance of a second coming within Jesus' generation, it doesn't seem that unpreparedness would be as much of a problem as Jesus goes on to suggest in the remainder of Matthew 24 and in Matthew 25.

Since Jesus wanted people to be in a state of readiness, it wouldn't make sense to expect Him to make explicit reference to His second coming not occurring until a future generation. The most we can expect is the suggestion of the possibility of a longer period of time. Some of the illustrations Jesus goes on to use allow for a return within a short amount of time, but others suggest the possibility of "a long time" (Matthew 25:19) or involve events that would never have something like a generational time limit set on them (Matthew 24:43). The spreading of the kingdom and the spread of the gospel (Matthew 13:24-32, 24:9-14) make more sense as occurring over a longer period of time, even though a shorter time would be possible. Paul refers to how Christians of his day could be "waking or sleeping" (alive or dead) when the second coming happens (1 Thessalonians 5:10). Paul also repeats, in a passage addressing children, the Old Testament concept that children will tend to live lengthy lives on earth if they obey their parents (Ephesians 6:1-3), suggesting that Paul thought it was possible for people who were only in childhood at that time to live to an old age. Those children wouldn't reach an old age until after Jesus' generation had passed. When Paul wrote Ephesians, it had been more than 50 years since Jesus' birth. Clement of Rome, who was at least a contemporary of the apostles and probably was one of their disciples, refers to how the apostles themselves had made preparation for future generations of church leadership (First Clement, 44 - see the translation and notes in Michael W. Holmes, The Apostolic Fathers [Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Books, 2005], pp. 77, 79). The apostles did think that it was possible, and in some cases apparently probable, that Jesus would return in their lifetime. But they also seem to have thought that it was possible that there would be future generations. It doesn't seem that they thought they had any assurance from Jesus that He would return by the end of His generation....

If the gospels are dated much past 70, then, according to your reasoning, the authors were recording statements attributed to Jesus that were known at the time to be false prophecies. For example, you maintain that the events of Matthew 24 didn't occur surrounding the destruction of Jerusalem in the first century. And if you date the documents earlier, then eyewitnesses and contemporaries of Jesus (if He existed) and the apostles were still alive. The year 70 would be less than a decade after Paul's death. Think of all the churches he influenced, how widely he traveled, how well he got along with other leaders like James and John (Galatians 2:9-10), etc. If he taught that Jesus existed in some non-earthly realm, are we to believe that Greco-Roman biographies addressing an earthly life of Jesus were circulating among Christians beginning less than a decade after Paul's death? Wouldn't Paul's disciples (and those of James, Peter, John, etc.) object? Both from what we know of human lifespans and from what early sources report about specific individuals, we know that disciples of the apostles would have lived into the second century. Polycarp lived into the second half of the second century.

Even if you put every gospel in the 90s, for example, you still have eyewitnesses and contemporaries of Jesus and the apostles alive at the time. How would the children of men like James and Jude, who had been told all their lives that Jesus was a non-earthly figure, react to the new claim that Jesus was actually their biological uncle? How would the children, associates, etc. of men like Pilate, Joseph of Arimathea, and the apostle Peter react when false claims began circulating about how these people supposedly interacted with a historical Jesus? Etc.

Whether you date the gospels earlier or later, your theories have major problems either way. Eyewitnesses and contemporaries of Jesus and the apostles would have lived into the second half of the second century. If you put the gospels early, then you have them close to the time when belief in a non-earthly Jesus supposedly was popular, and you have them at a time when eyewitnesses and contemporaries were still alive. But if you give them a late dating, then, according to your assertions about Christian eschatology, you have people putting eschatological material in the gospels that they knew to be false. And why do people in the early second century refer to written documents called "gospels" (or "the gospel" collectively), and refer frequently in their writings to the concepts we find in our gospels, if our gospels didn't exist at the time? Who could have composed the gospels after the apostles were dead, then got them to be nearly universally accepted, by both Christian and non-Christian sources, as works of the apostolic era? Etc.

As difficult as some elements of Christian eschatology are, I would say that they're gnats in comparison to some of the camels you're swallowing. You tell us that you "haven't looked into it [the dating of the gospels] in enough detail", and it seems that the same could be said about much of the rest of your analysis of Christianity.