1) "Diverse" means different - it doesn't have to be *that* many.
The implication as the context indicates is that they were to understand that there was to be a lot happen before the end of the age, the first being the wars and then a number of earthquakes and famines in various places around the world and so forth. You're straining at gnats here.
2) Your false accusation of spin is noted. However you proved no factual argument you just assert that Jesus must have meant the whole world. In fact knowing about the New World WOULD have required supernatural knowledge so assuming that would beg the question.
Jesus declared himself to be the divine and supernatural son of God. He is here proving to the world of all ages that this is so by his miracles, which include prophesying the future. If his claims were true, he did indeed know what the world was like. He has here in this discourse just added one more good reason for us today who read these things and see that it has indeed turned out exactly as he prophesied thus far. Regardless as to what he knew, the prophecy would not have been fulfilled until now and the likelihood of that was, humanly speaking, practically nil. The Bible has always been the world's most hated as well as the most loved book in the world. It is no coincidence that among all the books of history the Bible has been the overall best seller ever for sustained periods of time. Jesus was not
whistling in the wind here in this prophecy.
Equally given the historic spread of Christianity a spread to the known world of the time would not have been out of the question within a timescale of decades. Even then it is equally possible that Jesus could have underestimated the time. You can't just dismiss all these and then use your questionable interptation to sweep aside all the contrary evidence.
LOL. That plane isn't flying. When he said the whole world as well as "all nations", he meant exactly that, regardless of what he knew.
3) A "gathering of the elect" is mentioned. People disappearing "from the Earth suddenly for no explicable reason" is not. It does not say where nor who the elect will be gathered.
1. Mark 13 verse 28. Did you read it? The angels grab/gather the elect of (guess who?) Jesus. The "elect" of Jesus, according to all the apostles of Jesus are the Christians, his followers.
2. It does so say where. "from extremity of earth to the extremity of heaven." Extemity and uttermost are synonomous. My interlinear uses "extremity." This describes the "rapture" or gathering up of the saints/elect of Jesus from earth to heaven.
3. Of course, this means many folks disappear from the earth. When are you going to get real?
4) There is no support from the text that your assertion that the budding of the fig tree refers to a literal event. It is described as a "parable" (Mark 13:28, Luke 21:29, Matthew 24:32). And the meaning is clearly stated - when the signs appear the return of Jesus is close at hand. The fig tree is not even placed in the list of events - it is placed after that.
Why do you waste my time with this yada? You simply trying to wear me down with yada? I already granted you that they weren't literal but that they bore a literal conotation, being that the return of the Jews and restoration of the nation also literally caused the trees in Israel to bud for the first time in many centuries.
5) As I have pointed out Luke's reference to the siege of Jerusalem (21:20) parallels the start of the Tribulation in the other Gospels (compare Luke 21:21-23 with Mark 13:14-19). And the captivity follows that (Luke 21:24). Luke follows that with the return of Jesus.
All you can do is to insist that the Tribulation has to occur in the future - but you offer nothing from the prophecy we are discussing.
...But Jesus is saying that after all the wars, famines, earthquakes and so forth way down in verse 24 that a latter day tribulation will occur, followed by the darkening of the sun and moon, return of Jesus and the gathering of his elect to heaven. As I stated there have always been tribulations but this one is to be unprecedented, implicating world wide. Other statements of Jesus as well as his apostles elsewhere and especially in Revelation also bear this out.
6) I'm not sweeping anything under the rug. I'm pointing out that the Olviet Discourse is NOT a good match for the historical events. And then YOU try to sweep that under the rug. That's exactly what your point 5 does. You don't deal with the evidence I've produced, you just call the conclusion "nonsense" because it contradicts your beliefs.
Now you're spinning your sweep and spin job. Your sweep and spin job was about the long occupation of more than one gentile nations which history attests to (many nations have occupied at various times) and that there would come an end to this near the end of the age when Jews would re-occupy and restore. That's what you need to sweep under the rug and spin for any hope of winning this debate and that's exactly what you're trying to do but to no avail. Your argument is KO'd with this important point of the prophecy. It is so vividly proven to be exactly as prophesied as past and recent history of the land show. In one day a few decades ago, the Jews marched in and neither hell nor high water has been able to dislodge them, no matter how overwhelming the surrounding armies have been since the late forties.
So what really seems to be happening is that you reject my arguments for no good reason. And you reject my rebuttals to your arguments for no good reason.
And, of course, you reject none of the historical facts, do you PaulK?? YAH, SURE!
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