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Sunday, August 13, 2006

Jesus' Brothers And Skeptical Inconsistency

Often, critics will apply standards to Christianity that they don't apply to their own belief system. Jon Curry has given us some examples in a recent discussion we've been having in another thread.

For those who don't know, Jon recently left Christianity and now maintains that Jesus didn't exist as a historical figure. He speaks highly of the work of Earl Doherty. Some of you may have heard Jon when he spoke with James White on his webcast a couple of times earlier this year.

In a post yesterday, Jon criticized my view of Matthew 16:28 by noting that it probably isn't the most natural reading of the text, since "dozens" of commentators disagree with my view. Most of the examples he's given so far are from one web site he came across. That web site includes quotes from sources ranging from Jews for Judaism to C.S. Lewis, and some of the quotes weren't even about Matthew 16:28.

As I documented in my responses to Jon, my view of Matthew 16 and views similar to it are held by many scholars, including scholars who aren't inerrantists. Besides, even if such views were held only by inerrantists, that fact wouldn't do much to refute those views. More significant than modern scholarly opinion is the fact that none of the earliest Christians thought that they had any need to explain an alleged false prophecy made by Jesus. The sort of major, widespread disappointment and counterarguments that we would expect, if Jesus made a false prediction of His second coming in Matthew 16, didn't happen. Instead, the earliest Christians speak of their eschatology as if it's a repetition of what the apostles had taught, and Jesus' comments are recorded in three gospels and aren't removed or changed in the later copies of those gospels. If Jesus made a false prophecy in so significant a context, the ripples left in the historical record seem to be highly incongruous.

Though Jon doesn't prove that he has "the overwhelming majority" on his side, he asserts:

"But the overwhelming majority of those that have no prior theological committment all see the same thing."

Let's apply Jon's reasoning to his own belief system. There are far more scholars who hold my view of Matthew 16 or something similar to it than hold Jon's view that Jesus didn't exist. Even many atheists and other critics of Christianity think that Jon's belief in the non-historicity of Jesus is absurd.

Jon goes on to use an illustration that applies more to him than it does to me:

"The same is true of other faiths. For Roman Catholics there is a prior theological committment to the belief that Mary was ever virgin. So what to do with a text that indicates Jesus had blood relatives? Well, some will say it really means cousins. Others will say that these are half siblings from Joseph's prior marriage."

Jon denies that Jesus was a historical figure. So, how does he explain the references to brothers of Jesus in Paul's writings? Well, if he takes an approach similar to that of G.A. Wells, Earl Doherty, etc., then he would argue that Paul is referring to some group known as "brothers of the Lord", not blood relatives of Jesus. Jon criticizes Roman Catholics for interpreting the references to Jesus' siblings as something other than blood relatives, yet wouldn't his belief in Jesus' non-existence involve the same sort of denial that blood relatives are in view? If either of us is using Roman-Catholic-like argumentation, it's Jon, not me. People who believe that Jesus didn't exist don't have much credibility in objecting to the allegedly unnatural interpretations of other people.

5 comments:

  1. Further, I would observe that everyone has a prior theological commitment. No-one comes to the Bible a blank slate, because no-one who reads the Bible IS a blank slate (apart from the few amnesiacs who must have done so). Even an agnostic has a prior religious commitment )God is unknowable).

    We are all prejudiced, as Dr. Lloyd-Jones so rightly said. The question is the direction of prejudice. And it simply will not do for the atheist to reply that their view is more 'rational'. After all, as Pontius Pilate very nearly said, 'what is reason?'

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  2. I accept the phrase regarding the “brother of the Lord” as a strike against the mythicist view. As a non-dogmatist I’m free to admit problems with my view. The fact of the matter is ancient history is the most inexact of the sciences. Probability is the best I can do, and as I learn more about the evidence I’m free to follow where that evidence leads. What I’ve learned so far causes me to doubt Jesus’ historicity because in my view the difficulties for the historicist outweigh the difficulties for the mythicist, but I grant that I have a lot to learn on the subject and my opinion could easily turn. Truly you should grant the same thing.

    But you cannot, because you are not free to look at the evidence objectively. You have to see what your theology requires you to see. You have a dogmatic mindset, and I think you project that mindset on me. You think a phrase like “brother of the Lord” makes me squirm and uncomfortable, and I have to fight, fight, fight to make it say what I need it to say. Not so. If Jesus turns out to be historical, that’s fine with me.

    I’m more than happy to debate it with you, but as I said last time I prefer to reign you in and talk about one subject at a time. We’re talking about Jesus’ false prediction of his immanent return. I prefer to stick with that for now. Seems you don’t want to, as this whole post has little contact with the subject of our other thread. My point was how Christians in their attempts to salvage inerrancy will attempt a myriad of interpretations of difficult texts, grasping here and there for any possible alternative to what the text plainly says, and how this is no different from Roman Catholics. You respond by pointing out that mythicists all pretty much agree on the meaning of a text that is a problem for them. With your analogy the parallel is completely lost.

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  3. Jon Curry wrote:

    "What I’ve learned so far causes me to doubt Jesus’ historicity because in my view the difficulties for the historicist outweigh the difficulties for the mythicist, but I grant that I have a lot to learn on the subject and my opinion could easily turn."

    Either you hold the view that Jesus didn't exist or you don't hold it. You do hold it, which means that you accept the concept that the passages about Jesus' brothers in Paul's writings should be interpreted as referring to something other than blood relatives. In other words, you hold the same sort of view you criticized Roman Catholics for holding. Your own example of unnatural Biblical interpretation applies to you more than it does to me.

    You attempt to justify your acceptance of that interpretation by appealing to other evidence for the larger framework of Jesus' non-existence. Proponents of Biblical inerrancy can make the same sort of appeal to evidence for a larger framework.

    There's a difference, however, in that proponents of Biblical inerrancy have much better evidence they can appeal to for their framework. The testimony of the early sources relevant to Jesus' resurrection and His prophecy fulfillments, for example, is much more explicit than the alleged references to Jesus' non-existence in early sources. I've read not only the writings of Paul, but also the works of Theophilus of Antioch, Athenagoras, Minucius Felix, and other post-apostolic sources often appealed to for evidence of Jesus' non-historicity. None of these sources explicitly refer to Jesus' non-existence, and the alleged non-explicit evidence is weak and far outweighed by other factors.

    Another difference between an inerrantist view of Matthew 16 and a mythicist view of the passages about Jesus' brothers is that the former has far more scholarly and popular support. You appealed to the popularity of interpretations to argue against my interpretation of Matthew 16, but your mythicist interpretations are more unpopular.

    You write:

    "I grant that I have a lot to learn on the subject and my opinion could easily turn. Truly you should grant the same thing."

    If you're asking me to grant that I'm as ignorant of the evidence as you are, I won't grant it. I've read thousands of pages of the earliest Christians' writings, and I've read enough scholarship to not be as dependent as you've been on sources like Wikipedia and preteristarchive.com. I'm fallible, and I continue to learn, but I see no reason to think that I'm in a position comparable to or worse than yours.

    You write:

    "But you cannot, because you are not free to look at the evidence objectively. You have to see what your theology requires you to see."

    There would be no way for you to know that, and the same sort of charge could be brought against you.

    You write:

    "I’m more than happy to debate it with you, but as I said last time I prefer to reign you in and talk about one subject at a time."

    Actually, the post in which you made that claim was one in which you addressed more than one subject. And you were the one who initiated our discussion by entering the thread and making claims about me that were off the original topic of the thread. That thread was initially about Christianity and fideism, and you brought up and discussed a variety of topics, so your claim to want to "reign me in" is hollow. What you want to do is move the discussion toward what you want to discuss and away from what you don't want to discuss.

    You write:

    "Seems you don’t want to, as this whole post has little contact with the subject of our other thread."

    Since this is a different thread, what's your objection? And if you're so concerned about staying within a thread's original topic, then why did you enter that other thread with a post about issues that had "little contact", to use your phrase, with the original subject?

    You write:

    "My point was how Christians in their attempts to salvage inerrancy will attempt a myriad of interpretations of difficult texts, grasping here and there for any possible alternative to what the text plainly says, and how this is no different from Roman Catholics."

    You refer to "myriad" views, but Roman Catholics don't have "myriad" views of Jesus' brothers. The view involving children of Joseph from a former marriage has been a small minority position in Catholicism. The differences among Catholics on this issue aren't "myriad". Just as there are some disagreements among Catholics, there are some disagreements among people who deny Jesus' existence. There are disagreements among critics of Christianity on other issues of interpretation as well, such as what sort of resurrection Paul believed in.

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  4. Continuing our previous discussion:

    “How does the fact that you consider my reading of Matthew 16 "very unnatural" explain why it took you so long to understand what C.E.B. Cranfield wrote about the passage?”

    Why is it difficult to understand an unnatural explanation? Because it is unnatural.

    ”As I explained before, you're the one who initiated this discussion, and you did it by addressing topics other than the one that originated this thread.”

    John Loftus raised a criticism of your post which was very relevant. You pursued the topic and I followed up on it. Your man handling of the Bible and uncharitable interpretation of my comments on James White’s webcast were precisely related to John’s criticisms and your rebuttal. So my comments were germane. You’ve responded by trying to switch topics to everything else.

    "Jon-Do you really think that a guy that's done 60 public debates was nervous about taking a call from me?

    Jason-You didn't quote what I went on to say. I gave two examples, and neither was about nervousness.”

    You gave three reasons. The one about nervousness was your first reason. Am I supposed to read your mind and only respond to reasons that aren’t poorly conceived? If you think it’s a poor reason, don’t complain about me responding to it. Just don’t offer poor reasons.

    ”How is that different from what I said about his comments? It isn't. You go on to accuse him of "changing the subject", but whether he changed the subject doesn't change the fact that he argued that the phrase in question had a different meaning in its original context than you apply to it today.”

    Again, he does not say that the “phrase in question” had a different meaning. He said “a lot” of texts sound one way but mean something else. This means that he’s saying some texts sound one way but mean something else. He did not say that this text follows that pattern. As I said last time I specifically asked him if his reasoning applied to this text and he changed the subject.

    ”Your assumption that he would have mentioned more details if he held my view doesn't make sense.”

    Doesn’t make sense? It doesn’t make sense that a person would change the subject when he doesn’t have a good answer? It doesn’t make sense that he wouldn’t offer an answer since he can’t see your unnatural reading? Clearly it makes perfect sense.

    “Furthermore, if you're so concerned about determining natural interpretations by popularity, how popular is your interpretation of Paul and other sources with regard to whether Jesus existed as a historical figure?”

    Try and focus on the topic at hand. I would be delighted to debate the Jesus myth view with you at a later time.

    “Then why did Mark place it there to begin with, and why did Matthew and Luke follow his chronology on this point while putting things in different order elsewhere?”

    Why wouldn’t they?

    ”Luke includes a reference to "these sayings" (Luke 9:28), which makes the connection even stronger.”

    It’s just an emphasis of the same chronology. This is not at all a difficulty on my view.

    "There are other connections with the surrounding context as well. Joel Green notes:"

    The problem often with your commentaries, with rare exceptions, is that they simply assert what they would like to be true without actually interacting with the obvious problems that their interpretation results in. You say that just because your commentaries are mostly from inerrantists, this doesn't show that I've refuted them. But if they simply assert your view then they are not arguments and there is nothing to refute there specifically. The refutation is contained throughout my replies to you.

    Note that these commentaries actually in some cases provide reasons. In other cases they do simply state the obvious.

    "Some claim that the 'coming' Jesus had in mind was the Transfiguration. But the transfiguration cannot be its fulfillment since Jesus indicated that some who were standing with Him would still be alive when He came but most would be dead. If we adopt the view that the Transfiguration is the fulfillment of Matthew 16:27-28, we must conclude that most of the people with whom Jesus spoke were dead within seven to ten days (Mt 17:1)!!! Hardly possible. Others see the Feast of Pentecost, with the coming of the Holy Spirit, as the fulfillment. But the same problem arises—nearly all the disciples would have had to die within a period of a few months after the events described by Jesus…Such a scenario does not fit with the language of the text or the history of the time."(Last Days Madness, Gary DeMar, American Vision Inc., Atlanta, GA 1994)

    "To suppose that it refers merely to the glorious manifestation of Jesus on the mount of transfiguration, though an hypothesis which has great names to support it, is so palpably inadequate as an interpretation that it scarcely requires refutation… The very form of the expression shows that the event spoken of could not lie within the space of a few months, or even a few years: it is a mode of speech which suggests that not all present will live to see the event spoken of; that not many will do so; but that some will. It is exactly such a way of speaking as would suit an interval of thirty or forty years, when the majority of the persons then present would have passed away, but some would survive and witness the events referred to… The Parousia, or glorious coming of Christ, was declared by Himself to fall within the limits of the then existing generation."(The Parousia, J. Stuart Russell, T. Fisher Unwin Pub., London, 1887)

    Some have understood that the reference is to the transfiguration, which all three synoptists record immediately afterward. But two decisive objections stand in the way of such a reference:

    1. That event occurred only six or eight days afterward.
    2. It could not with any propriety be called a coming of the Son of man in the glory of his Father with the angels, or coming in his kingdom…

    The plain teaching of the passage is that before some of those who heard him speak should die the Son of man would come in glory, and his kingdom would be established in power.(Apocalypse of The Gospels, Milton Terry (1819), chapter 18 reprinted and its pages renumbered in 1992 by John Bray, PO Box 90129, Lakeland, FL 33804)

    Many expositors (e.g. some mentioned by Origen on this place, Hilary, and Jerome) refer this verse to the Transfiguration, in which case the promise relates only to the three Apostles: Peter, James, and John. This interpretation, however, seems open to objection:

    1. Because it does not satisfy the usual meaning of the kingdom in the Gospels.
    2. Because our Lord's words seem naturally to point to a more remote event.(The Holy Bible with an Explanatory and Critical Commentary, F.C. Cook, Scribner's, NY, Vol. 1, 1903)

    For one thing, he (Christ) certainly thought that his second coming would occur in clouds of glory before the death of all the people who were then living at the time. There are a great many texts that prove that. …there are a lot of places where it is quite clear that he believed that his second coming would happen during the lifetime of many then living.(Bertrand Russell on God and Religion, Al Seckel, editor. Prometheus Books, Buffalo, NY 1986)

    There is no justification for twisting this about or explaining it away. It simply means that Jesus promises the fulfillment of all Messianic hopes before the end of the existing generation.(The Quest of the Historical Jesus, Dr. Albert Schweitzer, Macmillian, NY, 1968)

    With regards to the parallel passage at Mark 8:9:

    *…this apocalyptic event will take place within the lifetime of some of Mark's congregation… within the lifetime of some of the members of their respective congregations.(The Scholars Version, found within The Five Gospels, Robert Funk, Macmillan Pub. Co, New York, 1993)

    Mark [i.e. Mark 9:1, a parallel passage] like all early Christians, was expecting the end of the age soon; and in this case he is specific. Some standing here, say is AD 30, will not have tasted death, will not be dead, before they see the kingdom come in power… In other words, Jesus' return was expected in the lifetime of some of his hearers, or in rough terms, before 90: that would be when the kingdom of God would begin. Notice Mark's phrase in power, echoing Paul's in 1st Cor. 4:20. What we have now is talk; what we are looking for is power, when we will look out of the door and not see beggars starving and Roman soldiers driving Jews off in slavery.(St. Paul verses St. Peter: A Tale of Two Missions, Michael Goulder, Westminster John Knox Press, Louisville, Kentucky, 1994)

    "Jon-Youngs Literal Translation has 'times and seasons.' That's not the same as within a generation.

    Jason-That's the point. The same Luke who wrote Luke 9:27 also wrote Acts 1:7. The reason why people wouldn't even know the general time or epoch (or season) is because there wasn't any assurance that it would happen within a generation."

    That doesn't follow. Just because you don't know the day or hour, or the "times and seasons" it doesn't follow that there aren't other limits on the timing of the events. You may not know if it will be winter or summer, but you do know that it will happen before 40 years has transpired. Your argument is that the same person can't both say that events will occur within a generation, but yet also say that we don't know the "times and seasons." That's false. There is no conflict there.

    "None of your dismissive comments refute his argument."

    As explained above, it wasn't an argument. It was an assertion.

    "2 Peter 3 says nothing about any false prophecy."

    Of course it does. It says this: They will say, "Where is this 'coming' he promised?

    So someone promised a "coming." Someone offered a prediction. who was it? Well, just previous to that he had said "2I want you to recall the words spoken in the past by the holy prophets and the command given by our Lord and Savior through your apostles." Who is the "he" that made a promise? Peter just referred to prophets (plural) and Jesus (singular). Had he said "where is this 'coming' they promised, then we could conclude that he's referring to promises of the OT prophets. Instead he says where is this 'coming' he promised. This can only mean Christ.

    "There's no attempt to explain what Jesus said in Matthew 16."

    I didn't say it was specifically about Mt 16. I'm not so sure 2 Peter is familiar with the gospels. I think this belief that Christ would come again before the disciples died is floating around as a result of sources like Paul, and at the time of the writing of 2 Peter it's codified in the gospels as well, but 2 Peter may or may not be aware of the gospels. He is aware of the teaching that Christ would come again soon though. Clearly he is aware of Paul's writings.

    "It's about why the day of the Lord (2 Peter 3:10, 3:12), which is an Old Testament concept, hasn't occurred yet."

    What is the "day of the Lord"? Isn't it the second coming of Christ, with judgment, angels, and coming in the clouds? Is there a separate "day of the Lord" that will happen independently of Jesus second coming? For Paul the "day of the Lord" is a reference to Christs coming (I Thess 5:2, I Cor 5:5). The day of the Lord is the coming of Jesus with judgment. Again, 2 Peter knows Paul's writings so he must be familiar with what this phrase means to him.

    In addition to Paul's use of the phrase "day of the Lord" at I Thess 5:2 Paul also talks about how the "day of the Lord" will come like a "thief in the night." 2 Pet says the exact same thing (3:10). To repeat, we know he's familiar with Paul. The entire tenor of the context is consistent with Paul's understanding of this as referring to the same "day of the Lord" that is coming like a "thief in the night."

    "The context is about Old Testament promises, not a statement of Jesus in the gospels. That's why there's a reference to "His coming", referring to God in general, not Jesus in particular, and Peter goes on to refer to parallels to Old Testament judgment and Psalm 90:4."

    What is your evidence that 2 Peter sees these things as two separate concepts? Where is your evidence that Peter understands these concepts in a manner radically divorced from Paul, who uses the exact same terminology?

    "The reference to "fathers" in 2 Peter 3:4 most likely has Old Testament patriarchs in view, not Christians. That term is applied to Old Testament figures frequently, but none of the earliest Christians apply it to other Christians."

    I think that's a pretty good argument. I will accept that.

    "In other words, this objection Peter is addressing is an objection about the continuity of events since Old Testament times, not just since Jesus spoke the words of Matthew 16."

    I don't deny that the OT also talks about the "day of the Lord." But I don't see any reason to distinguish it from the coming of Christ. If you want to claim that in addition to the expectation of Christ's return the author also has some OT concepts in view, I don't see how that affects my argument.

    "Their focus is on what's happened "from the beginning of creation" (2 Peter 3:4), not whether a particular saying of Jesus had been fulfilled."

    The focus is on a prediction of somebody (apparently Christ) of a 'coming' that he promised. The timing of it has failed. So two excuses relating to the timing are invoked. One is that when the timing was given it meant something other than what timing statements normally mean because for God a day is like a thousand years. The other excuse is that it's not so much that God is slow, but that he's since decided to be patient so that more people could be saved.

    "The "promise" of 2 Peter 3:4 is associated with the new heavens and new earth in 2 Peter 3:13, which suggests that what 2 Peter 3 has in mind is the Old Testament promise of a day of the Lord that would transform the universe. Jesus' second coming would be relevant, but it isn't the focus, much less is its specific form in the saying of Matthew 16 Peter's focus."

    As I said, I don't think it's focused on Mt 16 because I don't think 2 Peter has read Mt. I think Matthew has codified concepts about an immanent return of Christ, which 2 Peter and the scoffers are also aware of. As far as "transforming the universe," "the present heavens and earth are reserved for fire, being kept for the day of judgment and destruction of ungodly men" (v7) the "heavens will disappear with a roar; the elements will be destroyed by fire, and the earth and everything in it will be laid bare" (V10) these are all concepts that echo was is stated by Paul and the gospels. We're talking about the end judgment and the second coming (or in Paul's case the first earthly coming) of Christ.

    "In other words, if the generation Jesus referred to was dead, and 2 Peter 3 was attempting to explain why the second coming hadn't happened yet, then it would make no sense for 2 Peter 3 to explain Jesus' comment as a reference to a second coming that was yet future. If Peter was trying to explain what happened within the first generation of Christians that had already passed, he wouldn't argue that something in the future will fulfill it. Rather, he would argue that something in the past fulfilled it. Yet, 2 Peter 3:9 has something future in view."

    Sure he would. Why wouldn't he? Why wouldn't he say exactly what he's said, which is that you've misunderstood what Christ meant. He meant a far distant coming, not an early one within the lifetime of his generation. That's more like what I would expect, rather than some preterist type of view.

    "Jon-But I offered just as an FYI what they would say in response to him. I emphasized that this is what they say, not what I say because I don't know.

    Jason-Then you went on to defend their argument against James White's objections, and you've continued to do so at this web site."

    That's because his objections to their argument were flawed. Just because I point this out doesn't mean I agree with their dating scheme and their claim of interpolation, especially since I specifically distanced myself from them. Are you going to try and make me again say something other than what I know I meant? Are you going to again read my mind and parse my words and ignore what I'm telling you?

    "But if you don't want to defend the argument for textual corruption in Matthew 17, then are you saying that you believe that the Synoptic gospels were written while Jesus' generation was still alive? If so, then that earliness has significant implications for the gospels' credibility and for theories like Earl Doherty's. If, on the other hand, the gospels were written later, then why would they include a prediction of Jesus known to be false? Or do you view the situation in some other way? I'm trying to understand just how you think these things fit together."

    At this stage I would claim that they may have been written near the time of what is accepted as the standard dating scheme. That is, between AD 70 and AD 95 or so. On the other hand Doherty and Price could be right. I haven't looked into it in enough detail so I can't say.

    "Jon-As far as the New Jerome Bible Commentary, you say they make 'some of the same comments' you do. In what sense? In the sense of criticising them?"

    Jason-No, in the sense of agreeing with them. I'm not going to type out everything contained in the commentaries, but an example is Robert Karris' comments on Luke's account. He takes a view similar to D.A. Carson's, and he makes points similar to the ones I've made regarding connections between the earlier parts of Luke 9 and the Mount of Transfiguration account."

    Well, I'd be very interested in seeing what they say about Mt 16 and if it's anything like what you claim. Why would you take the time to type out paragraphs from inerrantist commentaries, which you must know don't carry much weight with me, but then refuse to type out paragraphs from non-inerrantist commentaries, which clearly would matter more to me? Perhaps you could scan it and email it to me. I can't afford to buy every book you discuss unfortunately.

    "You're assuming your interpretation in order to argue for it. Whether Jesus is referring to judgment coming before some of His listeners die is the issue we're debating. You can't assume your conclusion in order to argue for it."

    I'm assuming my interpretation and observing how well it fits the context of the preceding verses. That's how exegesis is done.

    "Your argument is also fallacious in that you're using verse 27 of Matthew 16 to qualify verse 28. But that, again, assumes the correctness of your view."

    It's not fallacious to look at the very verse preceding the verse in question to determine a sense of the context. That's called exegesis.

    "Under my view, verse 28 is about how some people will see Jesus' glory in this life, then will die. What they'll see will be a foretaste of Jesus' later glory at His second coming. My view doesn't anticipate seeing the details of Matthew 16:27 in the Mount of Transfiguration. Rather, it anticipates seeing the details of verse 28."

    Hence my point. Your interpretation requires that verse 27 be divorced from verse 28. But it's all stated to the same people during the same conversation.

    "Jon-Your interpretation disconnects Jesus' thoughts. He talks about how important it is to get saved, then offers as a completely unrelated sidenote that some of the people will see him transfigured, while others will be dead and won't see it.

    Jason-Why would my view of verse 28 be "completely unrelated" to verse 27? It isn't. My view of verse 28 involves a foretaste of Jesus' glory mentioned in verse 27, a foretaste that all three gospels go on to describe just after Jesus' comments."

    The text says nothing about a foretaste. The text talks about judgment and angels. There is no foretaste of judgment and angels at the transfiguration. On your view we have a very unnatural situation. Jesus is talking about how you need to get saved, because judgement is coming, then as a concluding thought he points out that three lucky people will see him shining in a few days. That doesn't relate very naturally to what is stated in v27. On my view he's talking about how you need to get saved and as a concluding thought says don't delay, because the end judgment will occur soon. My interpretation makes sense. Your interpretation is disconnected and incoherent.

    "Your references to 1 Corinthians 15 and 1 Thessalonians 4 are likewise irrelevant, since the "we" can refer to believers in general, not just the earliest Christians."

    It can also mean what it ordinarily means and what it means in context. This is a letter written to a specific people at a specific time. Paul talks about himself and them. "We" in such a context would include Paul.

    "Briefly, the "all these things" of Matthew 24:34 is referring to the immediate context in verses 32-33. Those verses are about general signs, like the leaves of a fig tree (verse 32). Those signs lead up to the end, but don't include the end itself."

    Yes they do. The entire question is precipitated by the disciples asking him when the end of the age and his second coming will occur. "Tell us," they said, "when will this happen, and what will be the sign of your coming and of the end of the age?" Jesus tells them that "he who stands firm to the end will be saved." Who's he talking to? The disciples. What kind of sense does it make to tell someone to "stand firm to the end and they will be saved" when in fact they will be long since dead before the end comes? He talks about how it would be so bad that if these days weren't cut short nobody would be saved. He talks about how he'll be coming in the clouds with great power and glory to gather the elect. And when will this happen (going back to the original question posed by the disciples)? This generation shall not pass away before ALL of these things are fulfilled.

    "The "all these things" in verse 34 (which is the same phrase used in verse 33 to refer to what happens before the second coming) would refer to the signs of verses 32-33, not the second coming itself."

    Are you kidding? The fig tree thing is not the "all these things" stuff he's talking about. The fig tree is simply analogous to the various events he just described. Wars, dreadful times, stars falling to earth, sun and moon darkened. The fig tree is not the issue. The issue is the apocolyptic events described.

    "And those signs were seen by Jesus' generation, especially in the destruction of Jerusalem."

    I'm sorry, but the destruction of Jerusalem does not need to be "cut short" so that even the elect can be spared. The destruction of Jerusalem is not a coming in the clouds gathering the elect unto himself. The destruction in Jerusalem is not the sun darkened, stars falling, heavenly bodies shaking.

    "The point is that Jesus' second coming could occur even in His own generation"

    Wrong. The point is that Jesus' second coming would occur even in his own generation. Boy, I'm glad I don't have to defend this stuff anymore. So very difficult.

    "Jon-So the question to you is, how is it that I was able to recognize my error and offer clarification based upon 4 words of correction that have absolutely no substance? Are you going to answer the question or ignore it again?

    Jason-I didn't ignore it. You knew that James White had more knowledge of the textual record than you do. When he corrected you, you might have accepted the correction because you knew that he had more knowledge of the subject."

    What correction? All he said was basically "no." You are again ignoring the question, so I'll ask it again. How do I know to shift the focus to the specific texts of Mt 17 when I have no way to know that's what he intends with his correction? You think I figured out that I was wrong about fragments and thought to shift to discussing the specific text all in a split second as a result of him saying "no"? I must be the fastest thinking mind reader ever.

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  5. Jon Curry writes:

    "John Loftus raised a criticism of your post which was very relevant. You pursued the topic and I followed up on it. Your man handling of the Bible and uncharitable interpretation of my comments on James White’s webcast were precisely related to John’s criticisms and your rebuttal. So my comments were germane. You’ve responded by trying to switch topics to everything else."

    In your first post in this thread, you refer to "the subject of our other thread", but in your comments quoted above, you mention more than one subject, and you discussed other subjects in that other thread as well. Your suggestion that Matthew 16:28 was "the subject of our other thread" is false.

    Now you're arguing that you can address topics other than the ones in the original post of a thread, as long as the topics you're addressing are related in some way to what somebody in the thread has posted. Using that same logic, you should have had no objection to what I've posted here or in the other thread. This is a new thread started by me, so it would have whatever topic I chose for it. And if you can discuss issues like your call to James White and Matthew 16 in that other thread, what's wrong with my discussing an issue like your belief in Jesus' non-existence as it relates to the standards you're applying to Matthew 16? If Matthew 16 was "the subject of our other thread", as you claim, and I used your interpretation of passages about Jesus' brothers to illustrate the erroneous nature of your arguments about Matthew 16, then how can you claim that I was changing the subject?

    You write:

    "You gave three reasons. The one about nervousness was your first reason."

    No, I didn't argue that James White might have been nervous. Rather, I said, in the form of a question, "Why couldn't a similar explanation be applied to his not arguing for my interpretation?" I then gave two examples. I used the word "similar" in my question I just quoted rather than using the word "same", because I wasn't suggesting that he was nervous. Rather, I was suggesting that there could be reasons for his behavior unrelated to the quality of his arguments, just as you said that your behavior resulted from something unrelated to the quality of your arguments (you were nervous). You ignored the two examples I gave and wrongly assumed that I was suggesting that James White was nervous.

    You write:

    "Again, he does not say that the 'phrase in question' had a different meaning. He said 'a lot' of texts sound one way but mean something else. This means that he’s saying some texts sound one way but mean something else. He did not say that this text follows that pattern."

    He was responding to your reading of Matthew 16:28. He was arguing that the passage (and the phrase about not tasting death in particular) has a different meaning than you think it does. If he agreed with your reading, he wouldn't have disputed it.

    Listen to the program (http://www.aomin.org/dl21.ram) around the 34-minute mark. He mentions a preterist interpretation, then he asks how a first century Jew would understand the passage. Just after you mention the phrase in question in Matthew 16 around the 35-minute mark in the program, James White argues that the original Jewish audience would have had an understanding of that phrase different from yours. He was addressing Matthew 16 specifically, not "some texts" in general. He mentions that the same principles apply to other passages, but he does so in addition to discussing Matthew 16, not instead of it.

    You write:

    "It doesn’t make sense that a person would change the subject when he doesn’t have a good answer? It doesn’t make sense that he wouldn’t offer an answer since he can’t see your unnatural reading?"

    A lot of subjects came up, and both of you changed topics at times along the way. There's no way for you to know what his motives were in directing the discussion in the manner he did.

    You write:

    "Why wouldn’t they?"

    You aren't explaining why Mark placed the Mount of Transfiguration just after Jesus' comment. Instead, you're only responding to my second question, which was a question about why Matthew and Luke kept the Mount of Transfiguration account just after Jesus' comment, even though they differ from Mark's order in other places. You can argue that all three of them put the Mount of Transfiguration just after Jesus' comment without any of them thinking that Jesus had that event in view, but my interpretation has the advantage of giving an explanation for the order of the accounts that's better than just saying "Why wouldn't they?"

    You write:

    "But if they simply assert your view then they are not arguments and there is nothing to refute there specifically. The refutation is contained throughout my replies to you."

    You haven't interacted with all of the details I cited from Joel Green. The fact that Green holds a view similar to mine doesn't prove that your responses to me address all of Green's points.

    You go on to quote some other commentaries agreeing with your view, but their arguments are mostly ones I've addressed already. The comments of Gary DeMar and the others you cited are almost entirely (see below) answered by my citation of C.E.B. Cranfield and other material I've posted already, and their objections do nothing to refute views that see the Mount of Transfiguration as only a partial fulfillment. I've already cited the discussions of the scholarly literature in the commetaries of Keener, Bock, etc. Quoting people who hold positions different from mine doesn't refute my view, nor does it change the fact that many scholars disagree with the people you're citing.

    You didn't mention any web site or other source that gave you the quotes you posted. Are you claiming that you're quoting books in your own possession or that you possessed in the past? You own J. Stuart Russell's 1887 book? You own F.C. Cook's 1903 commentary?

    I used the phrase "almost entirely" above. I'm making an exception for something in your citation of Michael Goulder. He mentions the use of "power" in Mark 9:1 and 1 Corinthians 4:20. I don't see how that helps your argument, though. Paul is referring to the kingdom as it exists in the present. He's not referring to something that happens upon or after Jesus' second coming. If the use of "power" in relation to the kingdom in both Mark 9 and 1 Corinthians 4 helps either of our views, it's mine that's helped, not yours. 1 Corinthians 4 is an example of how the kingdom can be manifested in power prior to Jesus' second coming. But why go to 1 Corinthians 4? Look at the rest of Mark's gospel. Mark repeatedly refers to present manifestations of Jesus' power (Mark 5:30, 6:14, etc.). How is the use of "power" in Mark 9 supposed to be contrary to my interpretation? If you don't think that it is, then why did you include Goulder's comments on it?

    You write:

    "Your argument is that the same person can't both say that events will occur within a generation, but yet also say that we don't know the 'times and seasons.' That's false. There is no conflict there."

    I'm not appealing to what "can't" happen. I'm arguing for a probability. A phrase like "times or epochs" more naturally refers to timing in general, not just timing within the limits of a generation. I'll have more to say about this below.

    You write:

    "As explained above, it wasn't an argument. It was an assertion."

    D.A. Carson argues for a chiasm in Matthew 16:24-28. He explains the details involved in forming the chiasm. If you think he's wrong, then interact with his arguments. Have you read his comments on the subject?

    You write:

    "Peter just referred to prophets (plural) and Jesus (singular). Had he said 'where is this 'coming' they promised, then we could conclude that he's referring to promises of the OT prophets. Instead he says where is this 'coming' he promised. This can only mean Christ."

    I don't know what translation you're using now. Earlier, you used Young's Literal, but it doesn't render the passage in the manner you're quoting. I usually use the Updated New American Standard. It renders the question of 2 Peter 3:4 as "Where is the promise of His coming?", which doesn't identify who made the promise. As I explained in my last response to you, in the other thread (http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2006/08/christianity-and-fideism.html), I view Jesus' second coming as relevant to 2 Peter 3, but as part of a larger theme. The promise Peter describes is one that existed from Old Testament times.

    You write:

    "He is aware of the teaching that Christ would come again soon though."

    For your argument to stand, Peter must be responding to a promise by Christ that His second coming will happen within His generation. Where does Peter say that he's responding to such a promise by Jesus? He doesn't. He doesn't refer to any promise from anybody, Jesus or anybody else, about the second coming happening within a generation. The generational timeframe isn't mentioned anywhere in 2 Peter.

    You write:

    "The day of the Lord is the coming of Jesus with judgment."

    As I explained earlier, Jesus' second coming is part of what's involved, but the themes Peter is addressing predate the New Testament era. What Peter is discussing was promised before Jesus came. Jesus is relevant to what Peter discusses, but the promise in question can't be limited to what Jesus said.

    You're now arguing that Peter had Paul's comments in mind, but that isn't what you originally argued. Matthew 16:28 was spoken by Jesus, not Paul. Paul doesn't say that the second coming will happen within Jesus' generation, so shifting your focus to Paul doesn't justify your argument.

    Your appeal to Paul runs into one of the same problems as your earlier appeal to Jesus. 2 Peter 3:9 refers to the promise as being fulfilled in the future. But if the promise under consideration was about Jesus' generation, and that generation had already passed, then Peter couldn't appeal to a future fulfillment to explain it. He would have to appeal to a past fulfillment in something other than the second coming or argue that the second coming had already occurred, for example. Whether you argue that Peter is responding to Jesus, Paul, both of them, or somebody else, we know from 2 Peter 3:9 that the promise he's discussing is one that could be fulfilled after Jesus' generation (if we assume your dating of 2 Peter). Your appeal to 2 Peter 3 is erroneous. Peter isn't addressing a prediction of the second coming in Jesus' generation.

    You write:

    "What is your evidence that 2 Peter sees these things as two separate concepts? Where is your evidence that Peter understands these concepts in a manner radically divorced from Paul, who uses the exact same terminology?"

    You're misunderstanding my argument. I don't claim that Jesus' second coming is "separate" or that Peter's comments are "radically divorced from Paul". Rather, I'm arguing that Peter is addressing a theme that began in Old Testament times, and most of his comments use Old Testament terminology. New Testament eschatology is relevant and would have been known to Peter, but the promise he's addressing predates Jesus' earthly ministry. Your claim that Peter is addressing a promise that Jesus would return within His generation is unproveable. Since Peter's comments make sense without any promise of the second coming within a generation, and since 2 Peter 3:9 runs contrary to the concept that Peter had something like Matthew 16:28 in view, there's no reason for us to accept your interpretation.

    You write:

    "The focus is on a prediction of somebody (apparently Christ) of a 'coming' that he promised. The timing of it has failed."

    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.

    You write:

    "So two excuses relating to the timing are invoked. One is that when the timing was given it meant something other than what timing statements normally mean because for God a day is like a thousand years."

    Where does Peter say that a timeframe was set on the promise? He doesn't. You're assuming what you need to prove. Peter is addressing why God hasn't yet brought about the day of the Lord. Some people were asking why it hadn't happened yet. It doesn't therefore logically follow that the day of the Lord must have had a time limit set on it, much less that the time set was Jesus' generation, as in Matthew 16:28. You're reading things into the text in an attempt to justify your original misuse of 2 Peter.

    You write:

    "Why wouldn't he say exactly what he's said, which is that you've misunderstood what Christ meant. He meant a far distant coming, not an early one within the lifetime of his generation."

    If Peter was responding to a promise that something would happen in Jesus' generation (something you've read into the text without any evidence), then he would need to address why a generation was mentioned in the promise. He doesn't. Instead, he says that the promise will be fulfilled, even though some people object to the slowness of it (2 Peter 3:9). 2 Peter 3 is entirely consistent with the non-existence of any promise that Jesus would return within a generation. The Old Testament themes I cited in my last response (in the thread at http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2006/08/christianity-and-fideism.html) are sufficient to explain the passage. Just as people complained about God's timing in Old Testament contexts, some people complained in New Testament contexts as well. You're assuming that the latter's complaints must have been the result of a promise that the second coming would occur within Jesus' generation. That's unproveable.

    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).

    You write:

    "Why would you take the time to type out paragraphs from inerrantist commentaries, which you must know don't carry much weight with me, but then refuse to type out paragraphs from non-inerrantist commentaries, which clearly would matter more to me?"

    I have quoted some non-inerrantist sources. I've also given you page numbers for other references you could look up. The comments of Robert Karris I was referring to are:

    "In its Lucan context, this difficult verse refers to the disciples, to whom a new understanding of God's kingdom will be given after Jesus' resurrection (Acts 1:3)." (The New Jerome Biblical Commentary [Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice Hall, 1990], p. 700)

    As I said, that interpretation of Luke 9:27 is similar to D.A. Carson's. Karris goes on, after the quote above, to make some of the same points I've made about the Mount of Transfiguration as a Divine sanction of Jesus, how it's "tightly connected" to what Jesus had just said, etc.

    You write:

    "Hence my point. Your interpretation requires that verse 27 be divorced from verse 28."

    How is saying that Matthew 16:28 involves a foretaste of the events of verse 27 equivalent to saying that the two verses are "divorced"? It isn't.

    You write:

    "The text says nothing about a foretaste. The text talks about judgment and angels. There is no foretaste of judgment and angels at the transfiguration."

    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.

    You write:

    "On your view we have a very unnatural situation. Jesus is talking about how you need to get saved, because judgement is coming, then as a concluding thought he points out that three lucky people will see him shining in a few days."

    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.

    You write:

    "It can also mean what it ordinarily means and what it means in context. This is a letter written to a specific people at a specific time. Paul talks about himself and them. 'We' in such a context would include Paul."

    If the "we" is living Christians in general, then it can include Paul without requiring that the event in question occur within his lifetime. The phrase "we who are alive" 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.

    You write:

    "What kind of sense does it make to tell someone to 'stand firm to the end and they will be saved' when in fact they will be long since dead before the end comes?"

    The general principles would still be applicable to Jesus' disciples, even if they don't experience all of the events He addresses. And Jesus wasn't just speaking to them. He was speaking through them to others as well, as we see illustrated in Mark 13:37: "What I say to you I say to all" (see also Matthew 28:19-20, John 17:20, Acts 1:8, etc.). He wants all believers to live in expectation, to keep watching for His return. That's why He goes on to use the illustrations of the ten virgins, the slaves and their master, etc. Some people will die before the second coming occurs, but He wants everybody to live with the second coming in mind.

    You write:

    "And when will this happen (going back to the original question posed by the disciples)? This generation shall not pass away before ALL of these things are fulfilled."

    We're discussing Matthew 24:34. I'm appealing to the same phrase 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.

    You write:

    "The issue is the apocolyptic events described."

    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.

    You write:

    "I'm sorry, but the destruction of Jerusalem does not need to be 'cut short' so that even the elect can be spared. The destruction of Jerusalem is not a coming in the clouds gathering the elect unto himself. The destruction in Jerusalem is not the sun darkened, stars falling, heavenly bodies shaking."

    I wasn't referring to the destruction of Jerusalem as the fulfillment of all of the details. I was referring to it as a fulfillment of some of the details. 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.

    Earlier in this post, I said I would return to the issue I raised in relation to Acts 1:7. It's relevant here, so I'll address it now. 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.

    On the dating of the gospels, you write:

    "At this stage I would claim that they may have been written near the time of what is accepted as the standard dating scheme. That is, between AD 70 and AD 95 or so. On the other hand Doherty and Price could be right. I haven't looked into it in enough detail so I can't say."

    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.

    You write:

    "Boy, I'm glad I don't have to defend this stuff anymore."

    Instead, you argue that all of the early Christian and non-Christian sources who refer to the existence of Jesus, including sources writing when eyewitnesses and contemporaries of his purported lifespan and his apostles were still alive, were mistaken. Only a minuscule percentage of people, like Earl Doherty and Richard Carrier, have understood, hundreds of years later, what actually happened. You criticize Roman Catholics for not accepting the "plain" meaning of passages that refer to the brothers of Jesus, then you reject that same "plain" meaning in order to argue that Jesus didn't exist. Romans 1:3 doesn't refer to Jesus as a human who lived on earth. Neither does 1 Corinthians 2:8. The passages in Paul about crucifixion are about something that happened in a non-earthly realm. All of the people who thought they saw Jesus risen from the dead were mistaken. The people who thought that the fourth gospel was written by John, and attributed it to him while eyewitnesses and contemporaries of John were still alive, were mistaken. In reality, John not only didn't write the document, but, as one of Jesus' apostles and a companion of Paul, he would have held a view of Jesus radically different from that of the fourth gospel. In fact, a lot of other books were mistakenly attributed as well. The account of women discovering the empty tomb while the male disciples are in unbelief and hiding? Made up. It never happened. Jesus' statement about not knowing the time of His second coming, which the early church had difficulty explaining? The early church made it up. All of those people in the early post-apostolic church who thought they met eyewitnesses and contemporaries of Jesus and the apostles, and heard those people confirm the events recorded in the gospels, were mistaken.

    To paraphrase you, Jon: "Boy, I'm glad I don't have to defend this stuff".

    You write:

    "You are again ignoring the question, so I'll ask it again. How do I know to shift the focus to the specific texts of Mt 17 when I have no way to know that's what he intends with his correction? You think I figured out that I was wrong about fragments and thought to shift to discussing the specific text all in a split second as a result of him saying 'no'? I must be the fastest thinking mind reader ever."

    If somebody more knowledgeable of the textual record than you are tells you that you're wrong about the New Testament, why would you have to be "the fastest thinking mind reader ever" to think of changing your argument to a category smaller than the New Testament? Even if you meant to refer to Matthew 17 all along, that wasn't what you said, and you would be wrong either way.

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