fulfilled prophecy - specific examples.

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I didn't have time yet to go over all your comments Paul. However let's talk about some of the many copyists' errors which are admitted by textural critics to have occured in the transmission of the New Testament.

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Why exactly should we do that ? It isn't relevant to the discussion It isn't really a part of the topic. Sorry, but I'm not going to be dragged off inoto a different discussion just because you want to evade the real issues.

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Okay, you don't trust the temple prophesy. I gave you about four other instances where He said He must suffer and be raised on third day.

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So like a mouse on a spinning wheel, you've made zero actual movement forward. You still have Jesus prophesying that He would die and be raised on the third day.

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And none of them are good examples either. Remember you've still got to prove that Jesus really said it and that the resurrection really happened for any of them to count.Personally I believe that the lot of them were made up after the fact, just like the resurrection.

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Of course I expect equally weak conspiracy theories about each of the other passages that I quoted to you.

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I haven't offered any "weak conspiracy theories". That's just something you invented to try cover up the fact that you haven't got a case. Really, what's the point ? Every time you do it you just prove you've got nothing.

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I think this is only attributable to a Jesus of your own making.

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The Olivet discourse is in all three synoptic Gospels. According to the quote YOU provided from John the people who heard Jesus thought that he was referring to the Jerusalem Temple.The fact that you're having to deny all four Gospels speaks for itself.

If that were the case then Luke would mention the other disciple as having been present at the hearing. He does not. Nor does Mark. Moreover Luke does not report the accusations that are mentioned in Mark. Nor does John - who you claim was there !So you say that John was there, therefore we should disregard his account and believe Mark's instead !You see how hard you have to work to find reasons to believe this "prophecy" ? What contortions of reason you hae to indulge ? What surer sign can there be that your beliefs are not rationally supportable ?

It's really quite simple. According to you the Jesus who predicted the destruction of the Temple (the synoptics) and who was thought to be predicting that he would rebuild the Temple in three days (John) is a "Jesus of my own making". Since in fact these points come directly from the Gospels you must deny all four of them.

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My point was that the teaching that Jesus would be destroyed and rise again in three days was a prophecy made by Jesus. He fulfilled it.

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Then you've got to prove that Jesus made the prediction and that it was fulfilled. The particular example you chose was a non-literal interpretation made after the fact with no solid evidence that that was what Jesus meant, which is not good enough even on the first point.

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You can say "I don't believe Jesus rose." Fine, in that case it is likely that no prophecy can satisfy you as having been fulfilled by Jesus. You simply respond with an argument that He never did thus and such.

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And there you concede the point. If there really were good examples of fulfilled prophecy your statement would be clearly false. THe only way it can be true is if there are no good examples.So it's not a case of "you can always doubt, if you really want to". The situation is that doubt is the rational position.

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It is not to what extremes I am going to prove fulfilled prophecy. It is to what silly extremes you are going to provide rational not to believe that Jesus never made such a prophesy. Didn't your synoptics tell you that He spoke in parables often to the people?

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But I'm not going to extremes at all. I'm just not accepting your opinion backed only by inadequate evidence and a very selective use of the Bible. That isn't extreme at all.

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Why do you reject that principle in the case of the temple of His body being raised in three days after they destroyed Him? What makes this teaching unlikely to be a parabolic teaching ?

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The parables are extended stories, clearly metaphorical. Neither applies to this case. The literal reading makes perfect sense, is consistent with the allegedly "false" accusations in Mark (which cannot be false if Jesus really said it !) and the fact that all three synoptics agree that Jesus did predict that the Temple would be destroyed. Why should I assume that it was a parable, and if it was that John's explanation of it is correct ? Rememrb thatr YOU are the one with the burden of proof here

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1.) For Jesus to predict that the temple will be destroyed refers to the ENEMIES of the Jewish nation and not to the Jews as the destroyers.

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Does it ? The Olivet Discourse, while about the predicted destruction of the Temple, never mentions the actual event of the destruction. And therefore it does not indicate who will do it. Indeed - since the destruction is not mentioned - the only sensible reading is to put the destruction at the end of the events. It seems like to me therefore, that Jesus meant that he - or the Son of Man if he meant that to be a seperate entity - would destroy the desecrated Temple.

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It is clever of you to try to associate the two concepts together to try to deny that Jesus taught about the resurrection of the temple of His body. But the discerning reader should be able to see the difference.

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It's not especialy clever at all. It's the obvious reading. The cleverness comes in the reinterpretation offered by John. After all Jesus was just speaking about the Temple. There is nothing in the text to indicate any change of subject. John is saying that we shouldn't take the obvious interpretation - but offers no reason why.

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I don't follow these two sentences. I don't know if there is a typo or what. But I don't follow you.

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Then you can't reads in context. It's realy quite simple. A GOOD example of a fulfilled prophecy wewould not be so easy to deny. YOu could provide better evidence that Jesus said it, instead of choosing a statement that has to be reinterpreted after the fact. You could choose an event that definitely happened rather than one that is itself in doubt.If there really are good examples of fulfilled prophecy in the Bible the fault is yours for choosing such a worthless example.

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Sure it is. You can set your will to believe. Or you can set your will to disbeleive. It is not only a matter of evidence. It is a matter of what you choose to do. My point with the choosing to doubt was that God will not usurp the freedom of your will to decide one way or the other.

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But it isn't a matter of choice. The evidence IS inadequate. This theology of reducing free will to making a lucky guess by the way is just another count against Christianity. One more desperate excuse to try to evade the fact that the evidence isn't good enough.But if you'd rather demean your God than admit to a problem in your religion that's up to you. It's just one more reason why I wouldn't want to join your religion.

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When Paul wrote 1 Corinthians he mentioned that most of 500 people were still alive who had witnessed the resurrected Christ (1 Cor. 15:6)

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An event that never appears in the Gospels or Acts - or at least there is no clear reference to it - and likely refers to some sort of vision. If it happened at all.

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Do you trust Matthew's comment? Do you trust that Matthew was keen to the intent of the parables of Jesus and the reaction they generated ? This particlar parable surely includes the destruction of Jerusalem and the temple under the hands of Titus in 70 AD.

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As a matter of fact I don't trust "Matthew"'s comment. The linking of the Saducees and the Pharisees - two religious factison that were at odds - is certainly questionable. And of course the reaction is convenient for "Matthew"'s purposes.And no, it doesn't speak of the destruction of Jerusalem or the Temple. There's nothing in that parable that even hints at it. Rather it says that God will destroy the priests.

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Do you except the metaphorical teaching in Matthew 21:33-46 as was intended to predict the destruction of the priestly functions ? And that a prediction which came true in the destruction of the city and temple in 70 AD under the Roman general Titus?

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No, I don't. It says that the priests will be destroyed and replaced. It doesn't indicate that there will be no replacement or that their functions will be abolished. Nor does it indicate that the city will be destroyed. In fact it suggests that the destruction will occur with the coming of the Kindom of God.

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Sure it makes perfect sense because you do not believe that God can perform a miracle? Is that the "perfect sense" you are appealing to?

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Since rebuilding the Temple in three days would be a miracle, that obviously is not the reason ! No, it simply makes sense in context. As I state aboved there's nothing in the immediate text to indicate otherwise, only an interpetation after the fact.

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Matthew, Mark, and Luke tell us what Jesus said, how it was taken, and what He meant - "And when the chief priests and the Pharisees heard His parables, they perceived that He was speaking concerning them" (Matt.21:45; compare Mark 12:12; Luke 20:19), and you trust it.

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That's an assumption on your part - and an incorrect assumption - because I DON'T trust it.

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Do you think that the parabolic teaching of the vinedresser sending in armies to destroy the vinekeepers was not meant to refer to the temple's destruction with the priesthood and the city of Jerusalem then?

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There's no mention of armies. At least not in the NASB rendering of Matthew 21:33-46 which I am looking at right now. There's no suggestion of property damage, either. Just the death of the vinegrowers, and their replacement.

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You have not only an antt- John bias. You have an anti-miracle bias. With ordinary people it is understandable that one would have an anti-miracle bias, or at least not be quick to assume a miracle has taken place. But with someone like Jesus Christ a miracle is really rather consistent with the power of His words and teaching.

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As usual your accusation of bias only menas that I don't share YOUR bias. And you're likely just as biased against miracles as I am, except when they fit into YOUR personal beleifs.

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Any misinterpretation of a metaphor John 2 changes little as far as Christ's prediction of His resurrection is concerned. Thuis is because there are clear words of un-metaphorical nature which prophesy the same matter. Jesus will be destroyed and He will resurrect on the third day.

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Which only goes to show what a lousy choice you made. Personally I doubt the lot of them. I don't think that Jesus expected to be killed and resurrected at all. But I'll be generous. If you can prove the resurrection happened I'll give you that one.

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Now who do you suppose Jesus is predicting will pull the stones down, the Jews or the enemy of the Jews?

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As I already explained, my best guess is "The Son of Man" referred to in the Discourse. Since the destruction itself is not described or even mentioned in the list of events the best interpretation is that it comes after all the described events.And since Jesus is supposed to have referred to himself as "the son of man", it's not stretching far to suppose that Jesus meant himself. Just as the supposedly "false" accusations referred to in Mark said.

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The more sensible interpretation is that the enemies of the Jews would be the ones to pull the stones of the temple down. In fact "guess work" is not needed because Jesus tells us plainly that "your enemies"(meaning His Jewish countrymen) will be the ones to encircle the city and throw down the city:

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The Olivet Discourse - as per Matthew and Mark - doesn't mention any such thing. Luke rewrote the Olivet Discourse (or used a rewritten version from elsewhere), so trusting Luke on this point (it doesn't seem to appear in the other synoptics) is questionable. Quite likely Luke wrote based on his knowledge of the actual events of the fall of Jerusalem.

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Obvious reading? When you say that the destruction of the temple is not mentioned in the Mt. Olivet discourse I can only wonder if you read it at all.

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The Olivet Discourse is ABOUT the destruction of the Temple, as I said. However the list of events in the Discourse proper does NOT include the destruction. You must either be misreading the Bible or misreading my posts because I've made that quite clear.In Matthew 24 the destruction is mentioned in verses 1-2. The disciples ask Jesus to explain WHEN the Temple will be destroyed (verse 3). The Discourse proper starts when Jesus answers that question and occupies verses 4-51. The destruction of the Temple os NOT mentioned in those verses. Go on read it, and you'll see that I am right.

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There is nothing particularly wrong about my choice. There is no "reinterpreting". When Jesus said "Destroy this temple and in three days I will raise it up" at that moment, not latter, He was refering to the temple of His body. The impact of the truthfulness of the promise did not fall upon the disciples in full force until He had actually risen from the dead.

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You're contradicting yourself. Of course there is a reinterpretation, as you clearly admit.
The literal reading IS obvious, which is why John needed to add his after-the-fact reinterpretation explicitly.

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On your say so? Nope. Its a good example. Maybe the best example it is.

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You can't show that Jesus said it. You have to rely on an after-the-fact reinterpretation (and you can't even be honest about that !). And you can't show that the allegedly predicted event even happened. That's a lousy example by any standard.

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I think you'e bluffing and I question that you even read Matthew 24 or the first two or three chapters of John lately.

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Then you're going to have to explain how I knew that the Olivet Discourse rwas about the destruction of the Temple when you were busy denying it. And how I knew that the destruction is not given in the list of events in the Discourse proper when you apparently didn't.And you're going to explain why I had to correct you on Matthew 21:33-46. Didn't you read it before talking about it ? [quote] Just because an event was not mentioned five times, in each one of the gospels plus the book of Acts, does not mean that it could not have happened.
[.quote]I didn't argue that it wasn't mentioned five times. I argued that it wasn't mentioned EVEN ONCE in ANY of those books.

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You are really ignorant here. They had a common enemy in Jesus. A common enemy can cause divided people to temporarily unite to counter a common threat. One gospel tells us plainly that they sent two opposing factions of people to question Jesus in the hope to catch Him one way or the other.

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I'm hardly ignorant since I'm aware of the problem. And if your only source is the Gospels then I'd say that you don't have much of a case. Just a circular argument.

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The temple was the whole physical realm of the service of the priests. Punishing the priests would logically include desecrating or destroying thier sphere of service the temple.

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Of course it is possible to kill the priests without destroying the Temple. And it's possible to reconsecrate the Temple after it has been desecrated without destroying it either.

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The precise mention of the temple destruction is an arbitrary
requirement on your part. In the next chapter in another parable Jesus continues the them of punishment coming to the religonists who oppessed God's Son

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So telling the truth is now an "arbitrary requirement". You're allowed to add whatever you like to the test of the Bible and woe betide anyone who points out the fact that it isn't there !

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No explicit mention of the temple is there. But putting all of the passages together it is rather reasonable that in so many different ways Jesus predicted the tearing down of the stones of the temple along with the persecution of the citizens and the buring of the city

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There's no special reference to the priests either. And isn't it interesting that you object to a literal reading of a statement that is NOT part of a parable while insisting on literally reading a statement IN a parable. Of course in the parable you now quote (Matthew 22:1-14) the King is God, So if the armies were literal they would be God's armies, not those of pagan Rome.

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The physical temple was destroyed. And the church as the building of God was looked to for the producing of the fruits of righteousness. The believers are a kingdom of priests assigned to bear the fruits which come out of abiding in the resurrected Christ (See John 15).

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According to Christian doctrine. However, you don't deal with the fact that the replacement is linked to the coming of the Kingdom of God.

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Not only Jesus expected to be killed and resurrected, even John the Baptist at least expected Him to be killed. He called Him the Lamb of God which takes away the sin of the world.

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As if we could trust the Gosepl of John of all the Gospels not to put Johannine theology into the mouth of John the Baptist !

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It is also clearly evident that He attached His death to the establishing of the new covenant promised by God in the Old Testament. On the night He was turned over to torture and death He established the Table Meeting of His disciples including these words:

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Again I can't trust any such saying. The Gospels were written decades after the fact with plenty of time for reinvention. And that is what I believe happened.And let us note that you don't even attempt the essential task of proving that Jesus really as resurrected. That's the most important issue in the post. Much more important than trying to pretend that I fail to understand the Bible while trying to excuse your own misrepresentations.Well, I'll be away for a week so any further responses will be delayed. I suggest you take the time to think about it and to try to deal honestly with the issues.

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I don't know why he answers this way

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Then you should read my posts, where it is explained. If you hvae problems with the explanation you should ask for clarification.

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It might help Paul to read the chapter again.

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No, it wouldn't because you're saying nothing that I do not already know. It WOULD help you to actually read my posts.

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Maybe Paul doesn't want to see it so perhaps he doesn't look at that part of the chapter. He seems to prefer to jump over to verse 27 and say something about "the Son of Man".

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It might seem that way to someone who didn't bother to read my posts. But quite obviously such a person's opinion caries no weight at all. There is no "skipping" Jay. THere is READING the text. THere is NOTING the fact that the list of events given as an explanation of WHEN the Temple will be destroyed nowhere lists the destruction itself. That is why we come to the end of that list - by reading it. Not by skipping it.

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The pulling down of the stones of the Jewish Temple is attributed to national enemies of Israel.

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In Matthew 24 ? No, it is not. It seems that you are the one who needs to read it !

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False. Back up to the sentence immediately before the words in Matt. 24:3

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No, True because 24:3 is NOT part of the discourse proper ! As I explained. Like I said, you need to read my posts. Instead of inventing excuses to dismiss them

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So PauK now hopes by limiting his discussion to whatever his bible states is the "proper" Mt. of Olivet Discourse, he can exclude the destruction of the temple reference.

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Won't work PaulK. Why? Because from the sentence when Jesus is said to have sat on the Mt. of Olives the disciples are asking Him precisely about the things which Jesus has JUST PREVIOUSLY MENTIONED

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So what we have Jay, is that you wish to include Jesus' initial remark, as part of the Discourse proper, because it allows you to falsely claim that I made an error. But all you are doing is trying to confuse the issue. Maybe you don't notice that yiour capitalised remarks confirm my point. That the Discourse proper is ABOUT the destruction of the Temple.

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What does PaulK suppose "THESE THINGS" refers to?
I say they definitely include the destruction of the Temple - with her stones being thrown down (v.2).

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If you'd been reading my posts carefully you'd know that I absolutely agree.

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It is possible. I am reading your posts quite carefully though.

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By my standards you are reading my posts very sloppily indeed. Not that your reading of the Bible seems to be much better.

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Then you are suggesting that Jesus is not answering the QUESTION to which His disciples put Him. I don't accept that.

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I am not suggesting any such thing. If you had read my posts you would know that I suggest that Jesus is giving a list of events that take place immediately PRIOR to the destruction. If, on the other hand you wish to suggest that the destruction has to occur during the listed events YOU would be suggesting that Jesus is not answering the question.

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One of the things which will occur in that extended time of when is the destruction of the temple. I believe that from verse 4 Jesus is addressing and elaborating on the question of "WHEN WOULD THESE THINGS BE", which of course included the throwing down of the stones of the temple.

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So what you are suggesting is that the series of events would take place over an extended period of time and sometime during that the Temple would be destroyed. Which means that you are indeed suggesting that Jesus is not really answering the question.

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It is an obvious FACT that many of the things Jesus taught did not have thier total IMPACT on the disciples UNTIL after He had been tortured, killed, and raised from the dead. Then they REMEMBERED that He had said this or that, and they ALL agreed "NOW we know what He meant."

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So you say that it is an obvious fact that the disciples WOULD reinterpret some of Jesus teachings. How exactly is this supposed to help your case that there is no reinterpretation in John 2 ?

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PaulK on the other hand, I think, is laboring under the assumption that a DIVINE book is impossible or unlikely. So he wants to read John DE-DIVINIZING everything he can, especially the helpfull comments of His faithful apostle.

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THe issue here is not the divinity of the Bible. The issue is how Jesus' statement was interpreted when he made it. IF he made it. And there is nothing in John 2 to suggest that anyone who heard it thought that it referred to anything other than the Temple - until much, much later. Hence the explanation given by John (whether he was a disciple or not - nobody really knows) is a reinterpretation.

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I take correction when correction is due PaulK.

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The parable of 21:33-46 and the parable of 22:1-14 are both talking of God's reaction to the rejection of the Jewish nation of the Son of God. Though no temple is mentioned per se in 21:33-46 the discipline upon the priests is mentioned. In the parable of 22:1-14 the destruction of the city is mentioned

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If you take correction when it is due, why are you making up this excuse to avoid accepting a correction ?

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The 500 witnesses may have been mentioned indirectly in Acts where Luke says that Jesus presented Himself with "many irrefutable proofs" over a period of 40 days.

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In other words, I am right and there is no identifiable reference to it in the Gospels or Acts. So all we have is a vague reference in one letter that you think somebody might check up on. Even though it doesn't give any names or places or anything to identify who these people were.

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What is your single strongest reason for believing that Jesus was not speaking of Himself when He said "Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up" and was refering to Himself?

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The fact that there is no good reason for assuming that it meant anything other than the literal reading. You've tried and tried and come up with nothing of any weight.

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You think Paulk's theology or lack thereof is more accurate?
Why should I trust you to be a better interpreter of the teaching of Jesus and John the Baptist?

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My theology doesn't enter into it. Nor indeed does interpretation of John the Baptist. Obviously I should prefer my opinion to yours because I UNDERSTAND THE ISSUES - AND YOU DON'T. The question is whether John the Baptist said the remark attribute to him or whether it was inserted by some later writer, either the author of the Gospel of John or a the author of a source used in the writing of that Gospel.

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The disciples were very deligent to look out that the gospel was NOT tamplered with and mixed with false ideas. We see this in Acts. We see this in each of the letters of Paul, and Peter, John, and Jude. They were watchful for possible corruptions.

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It surpises me that some skeptic thing that they ALONE would be concerned that the original message of Jesus would be preserved. They trust that NO ONE ELSE of course could have done the job of keeping Jesus' message pure.

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Essentially you are surprised that nobody attributes a superhuman accuracy to the Gospel authors, quite unlike any other ancient writings. You shouldn't be. Quite oviously you shouldn't be surprised in the least.

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Besides. Proving the resurrection is any mathematical certainty kind of sense is not likely to happen here. It always has been a matter of receiving the living Jesus into one's heart and knowing that He is alive and knowable, hence He must have resurrected.

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Which sounds an awful lot like the way great artists live through their art. Except without any actual art attributable to Jesus himself. There seems no reason to believe that this "proof" would not occur if there was no resurrection at all.

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Plus historically, the miracle of the resurrection is based on solid evidence. It is noted that you don't want to acknowledge even that it was a prophesy out of His own mouth that He would rise from the dead.

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This seems to me to be having three or four sceen doors on your house before you even get to the main door. All of them firmly locked just in case.

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No, there's no "solid historical evidence" at all. Christians like to pretend there is, but that's all it is - a pretense. Nor have you got any good confirmation that Jesus made such a prediction. Your only sources were written decades after the event, after the whole resurrection legend and got itself solidly established.It's like imagining you have locked screen doors, when in fact there is nothing but air.

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And I suggest to you that you don't adopt a knee jerk reaction to Christians so that whatever they say about a passage you hunt for an alternative meaning.

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SInce I'm not doing that, your suggestion has no value.

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PaulK's warped alternative analysis is not to be trusted by this reader of the Gospel.

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Let us note that to Jaywill an honest assessment of the evidence is warped. That says everything that need be said.

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We simply have a serious difference of inderstandings here Paul.

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Perhaps in the Bible you are looking at you have Editor paragraphs headings which divide up the chapter according to someone's concept of how teaching should be delineated. They have every right to do that. But their delineation may not be the best.

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No, it's really, really simple.Jesus makes a statment about the Temple being destroyed.
He and his disciples move on.
They stop and the disciples ask Jesus to elabourate on the earlier statement.Obviously the original statement is NOT part of the later elaboration.

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I not only read it. I wrote it out for you.

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OK, then which verse of Matthew 24 mentions the enemies of the Jews destroying the Temple ?

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Evidently, His answer spans over what we would consider a long time. He has not come yet. But false Christ's, wars, famines, earthquakes, international conflicts, persecutions, false prophets, etc., etc. have been going on for centries.

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i.e. you have to assume that it is refers to a long time to fit the prediction to the real events. It isn't any part of the prediciton itself that makes you say that.

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Anyway, I don't see how you can avoid saying that the tearing down of the temple is not a prediction.

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It obviously would be a prediction, if Jesus said it. I assume that the double negative is a typo ?

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Now you say that I am not reading your posts correctly. Sometimes I do not read carefully. However, this paragraph above seems to have a typo in it. It would be more consistent with what I have been understanding you to say if you wrote:

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"That the Discourse proper is [NOT] ABOUT the destruction of the Temple"

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Did you leave out the word "not"?

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No, I did not. I have consistently asserted that the Olivet Discourse IS about the destruction of the Temple. That you would assume that I meant the opposite only confirms that you are not reading my posts properly.

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At any rate it is exceedinly logical that when the disciples ask Jesus "WHEN WILL THESE THINGS BE ...?" that "THESE THINGS" include the tearing down of the Temple stones which He has just remarked on in the immediatly previous verse.

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Thank you for agreeing with one of my points.

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How do you know that they are PRIOR or AFTER the destruction of the Temple?

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How do you know that He intended that famines would be AFTER the tearing down of the Temple or BEFORE or during the same time?

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How do you know that He intended that earthquakes would be AFTER the Temple destruction, BEFORE it, or around the same time?

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Because otherwise, Jesus would not really be answering the question of "when".

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And there are TWO questions put to Christ:

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1.) When will these things be ? (Temple Destruction included)

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2.) What will be the sign of Your coming and of the age's consummation.

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On what grounds do you suggest that Christ was ONLY responding to the second question of "What?" ?

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You seem to be confusing your position with mine. I'm saying that he gave a genuine answers to "when". You don't.

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I have read this a couple of times and it still makes little sense to me.

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It almost sounds like "It depends on what IS is."

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If you have some Ace of Spades - "Gotcha!" logic here you're going to have to break it down for me.

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It's quite simple. I say that Jesus is giving a list of events, and means that immediately after these events the Temple will be destroyed. You say that Jesus means that the Temple will be destroyed at some unspecified point in a series of events that has been going on for more than 1900 years - and has yet to end. It's obvious which is the better answer !

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How do you expect us to believe that Jesus meant that the Jews would be pulling the temple down stone by stone to see if Jesus really could rebuild it in three days?

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Because he knew that they wouldn't - if he said that, and I don't beleive that he did.

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Now we are not saying the same thing.

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Then you're contradicting yourself. You accepted that the division exists and then you deny it.

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I say obviously Jesus is continuing in private about what He said in public.

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But it isn't a simple continuation because it is prompted by the disciple's question.

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Otherwise you will have to explain why Jesus is catagorically and specifically EVADING the question put to Him about when THESE things would be (ie. the tearing down of the temple stones).

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You're simply wrong here. You're the one implying that Jesus is evading the question, not me.

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Isn't this a little bit of a different question Paul?

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No, it isn't It's an attempt to get you to answer the question you dodged in your last post.

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First of all let us realize that there were no chapters and verse numbers in the original document. Chapters and numbering of verses were provided as helps for readers. It might well be possible to come up with totally different chapter arrangements in the New Testament books. These helpful lines of deliniation should not be made more of than what they are - helps to organize and structure the writing.

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Of course I'm aware of that. However it is completely irrelevant, to this point as you know very well.And I've already dealt with your use of Luke 19, by pointing out the fact that - even though Luke almost certainly used Matthew, Mark or both as a major source - and Matthew and Mark agree very closely on the material found in Matthew 24 - Luke's version of the Olivet Discourse (found in Luke 21) is quite different. And the differences reflect a knowledge of the destruction of Jerusalem. Obviously it's not safe to use material from Luke alone to interpret Matthew !

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The Son of Man is Jesus Himself. Could Jesus be a candidate? Could Jesus have meant that He Himself would pull down the stones of the temple? I don't think so, at least not directly.

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I disagree. Firstly my arguments for the timing of the destruction make the Son of Man the most likely candidate. Sp far your main "rebuttal" is to insist that I am claiming that Jesus was "evading" the question by giving a MORE precise answer than YOU believe he did ! Obviously such an objection holds no water leaving you with no real answer.Secondly, why not destroy a desecrated Temple, built by a hated ruler, to miraculously replace it ?You reference to chasing out the moneylenders is hardly relevant either. According to you Jesus DID intend to destroy the priests - but he didn't do that.

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So what ? History has gone on. The Second Coming of Christ is still to come and the temple was destroyed. So it is logical to assume that the discussion of Matthew spans over a longer period by human accounting.

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Well it MIGHT be honest, if you admit that it's based on the assumption that the prophecy must succeed - which rather begs the question of this thread. Or it would be IF there were no clues t the actual timing in the text which you have to ignore. Jesus repeatedly describes the events as if at least some of the disciples WOULD see them (e.g Matthew 24 verses 4, 9, 15, 23). Matthew 24:33 has Jesus saying: These indicate that everything listed above would occur within the span of a single generation, indeed during the natural lifespan of the disciples. It's hardly honest to ignore the text for an assumption which has no basis in the text.

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Then you are saying what I am saying. Then you just said what I said.

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And you should ask yourself how you managed to miss it.

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Rather than blame me for not reading you right you just might see if you are not appearing to contradict yourself. What I see is your saying at one time that:

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1.) The Discourse on the Mount of Olives is NOT about the temple being torn down.

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2.) The Discourse on the Mount of Olives IS about the temple being torn down.

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But you DIDN'T see me saying your "1.)" for the reason that I never said it !The post that you appear to have misinterpreted is in Message 130[qs] The Olivet Discourse, while about the predicted destruction of the Temple, never mentions the actual event of the destruction. [/quote](Bolding added).
I have already explained the natural divisions of the text exclude the original statement attributed to Jesus from the Discourse proper. Even if you don't like these divisions all that is required for this discussion is that you recognise and accept that I am using them. To argue about it is simply a distraction from the real points.

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I try to concentrate on communicating and not just winning a debate with as few words as possible.

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You seem to focus on winning a debate by confusion, evasion and misrepresentation. The added verbiage is helpful to you in that respect.

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I don't agree. He did not give a specific date as to year, month, and day. He did say that these other things compose the manner of time in which the WHEN is to occur.

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Some may flank the event on one side and some may flank the event on the other.

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And according to you it is the "sort of time" that has endured for more than 1900 years - and still continues, with no end in sight. That is far more vague than my reading which puts it at the end of the listed events - and in the lifetime of the current generation.

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What "division" Paul?

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The one I mentioned in my previous post of course. If you can't remember what I said in recent posts then you really ought to go back and check them.

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It was a continuation in a "dove tail" manner. "These things" certainly include the tearing down of the temple. Jesus said. The disciples are concerned about it. They asked about it. Jesus continued with it.

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In other words it wasn't a simple continuation. It was a response to a specific question.

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This charge makes no sense to me. We move on.

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If an obvious fact makes no sense to you than you really do have problems.My reading of the Olivet Discourse indicates where the destruction of the Temple is in the sequence of events - and includes a timescale. Yours includes neither. Thus my reading has Jesus providing a more precise answer to the question. It is therefore completely absurd for you to characterise my reading as Jesus evading the question - but not your own.

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This charge also makes no sense to me. We move on again.

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Again it's an obvious fact. If you actually know what was said. Your "careful reading" seems to consist of skimming each post in isolation.

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This may make sense depending on what you define as "the division".

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It is not irrelevant.

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Wrong AGAIN ! For it to be relevant you would have to find some text that belonged to the Olivet Discourse, that addressed the issues under discussion and had been wrongly excluded on the grounds of chapter and verse divisions. You didn't. Your chosen verse came from a different Gospel. So it is obviously false to say that it depends on the division I refer to, and completely false to say that it is relevant. And you don't even have to read one of MY posts to know that !

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That is irrelevant. And it is not known for sure WHO used WHO. It is one of the mysteriess of textural criticism which as far as I know scholars still have no universal agreement on.

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It is relevant, but you would have to have read the rest of my argument to understand that. For some reason you decided not to quote it. Apparently either your "careful reading" managed to completely miss it, or maybe you assume that by failing to quote it people will assume that it didn't exist ?You're also presenting a very superficial view of the state of scholarship. Yes there are lots of arguments over whether Mark or Matthew came first. Where the material common to Luke and Matthew but not Mark came from. Even over which of Matthew and Mark Luke used. But none of those touch on my point. A big majority of scholars would accept that Luke used at least one of Mark or Matthew. (And in this particular case which is more likely ? That Luke changed the Discourse to more accurately reflect past events ? Or that Matthew or Mark changed it to be less accurate ? The answer is obvious...)

There is no "suspicion" involved on my side. The fact of blatant and repeated misrepresentation is there for all to see. Whether Jay is simply unable to remember the content of previous posts - even those immediately preceding the post he is answering - and is too lazy to actually look or is engaging in intentional dishonesty is harder to determine.The real reason that Jaywill is abandoning this discussion is because he is making no progress. He can't answer my arguments. He keeps getting caught making misrepresentations.

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I believe John 2:18-22, including the Apostle John's comment about what Jesus meant when He said it. And I also believe that Jesus actually did rise and in so doing fulfilled the prophetic word spoken in John 2:19.

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PaulK's alternative arguments I take as a product of a fertile imagination.

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Let us note that I say that John 2:21 is a reinterpretation after the fact - based on actually reading the Bible (a huge leap of imagination there !). Anyone who honestly reads John 2 can see that John 2:21 is an authorial comment, And Jaywill has even admitted that he EXPECTS such reinterpretations to occur - but he doesn't want to admit that this could be one.

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Convoluted and retrofitted skepticism under the guise of simplicity I don't trust on this passage.

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Of course there is no "convoluted and retrofitted skepticism" here. Just the simple observation that John 2:21 is an authorial comment - and thus made long after all the facts. Including the alleged fulfillment of the prophecy. But Jay doesn't like that so he has to invent excuses to dismiss it. Obviously the real reason is that he doesn't like it - and can't refute it

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Eventually, in this life, we all have to trust someone or someones.
I trust Christ and His apostles.

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But nobody has to offer unquestioning trust in the Gospels (we can't really trust Jesus because all we have is second hand words - virtually all of them in translation - written down long after the fact.). There's plenty of room for critical investigation of the Gospels - and they don't do well. Luke's revised version of the Olivet discourse being a case in point. Why should we unquestioningly trust both we trust both the versions found in Mark and Matthew and the quite different version found in Luke ?What Jay means is that he trusts himself above and beyond the Gospels - and Jesus. We've seen enough errors in his Bible reading to know that. And we've seen how he insists that my reading of the Olivet Discourse has Jesus evading the question when his own preferred reading is even vaguer. If he really trusted the Gospels, then why wouldn't he admit the fact that his interpretation was badly flawed by his stated standard ?So really Jay is saying here that everyone should unquestioningly trust him. Despite all the falsehoods he's produced in this discussion. Obviously no sensible person should do that.

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In case PaulK didn't notice for the last 2,000 years quite a few readers have understood that John's words were not "reinterpretation" but interpretation.

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I really don't know how many people have made that mistake, but it's still a mistake.

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PaulK's living in some kind of skeptic's dream world to think
everyone naturally will see his conspiracy theory in the Apostle John's comment.

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Of course I'm not proposing any sort of conspiracy theory (do you even know what that means Jay ?). Indeed inMessage 135 you found this sort of reinterpretation to be an "obvious FACT".

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And this is long becomming a pattern with PaulK - he's again trying to put words in my mouth. PaulK is fond of fashioning straw arguments and then dishonestly putting them into the mouths of others.

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Of course I'm not putting words in your mouth, am I Jay ? The quote from Message 135 above proves that you said it.

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The reason I don't like it is because it is much more obvious to me that it is a skeptic's daydream.

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Which is why you have to call it a "conspiracy theory" when it's obviously nothing of the sort. But it's not a daydream. You CAN'T refute it.

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In case you don't swallow PaulK's theory that John fabricated a meaning out of the words of Jesus, all hope is not lost to the skeptic. You can always just throw up your hands and say that we don't really know what Jesus said anyway.

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i.e. the truth is on the side of the skeptics. We certainly don't know what Jesus said on a word for word basis. Not when we are dealing with translations written decades after Jesus' death.

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Another bit of weasel worded nonsense.

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No weasel-wording. No nonsense. Just another proven example of your dishonesty.

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PaulK wants to portray me as having no questions. I have plenty of questions.

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And yet another obvious falsehood from Jay.The bottom line is that John 2:18-22 is a lousy example of fulfilled prophecy. For a good example we would have to be able to show that the prophey was made before the event and that the alleged fulfillment actually happened. (There are other things we'd want to show but those two are the most basic). John 2:18-22 fails badly on both. That's it.

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Look at that paragraph again:

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The word "reinterpretation" appears nowhere in my paragraph.

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The word "reinterpretation" was used by PaulK, not me.

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That's the wonderful thing about the English language . There are many ways of saying the same thing.

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What I called an "obvious fact" was as I said - "many of the things Jesus taught did not have thier total IMPACT on the disciples UNTIL after He had been tortured, killed, and raised from the dead."

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I then said the disciples then said in essence "Now we know what He meant"

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Exactly. Thanks for admitting that I was right, and that I did NOT put words in your mouth.

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Paulk's theory is that Jesus must have meant for the physical temple in Jerusalem to be destroyed. In other words - according to him there was NO METAPHOR.

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That is my opinion - but then it's also my opinion that John misrepresented Jesus' words, too. When I call it a reinterpretation I'm not making either assertion. What I am arguing is that there is nothing in the description of the actual event to indicate that it was meant to be metaphorical - or, and this is the important bit, that anyone hearing it understood it to be metaphorical.In other words the author came to the idea that the comment was meant to be metaphoorical only because of later events - exactly as you describe it.And that's what you call a "conspiracy theory".

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You tried to put a word in the paragraph that I wrote which was not there.

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No Jay, I didn't. You're trying to put words in MY mouth now.And if you read my posts at all carefully you know that.

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You are trying to give the impression that I am agreeing with you when I am not.

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Only to the extent that you are.