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Author | Topic: Christianity and the End Times | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
PaulK Member Posts: 17828 Joined: Member Rating: 2.6 |
quote: Your interpretations are not facts. Funny how you can’t tell the difference. I seem to remember you accusing others of the same confusion. Falsely, as usual.
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PaulK Member Posts: 17828 Joined: Member Rating: 2.6 |
quote: The identification of the messiahs is interpretation. The identification of the empires is interpretation. The identification of the little horns is interpretation. So I disagree with your interpretation on all three points. That’s not mangling the facts. Never mind that my interpretations fit better with the actual text of Daniel than yours. And to deal with Faith’s edit the only one that is a fact is the number of empires. And I don’t mangle that, at all. Even the translated text allows for two messiahs, and I understand that the Masoretic text insists on it. The claim that the little horns are different is just an opinion with no real foundation in the text. And, it must be said, that it would be very unlikely that Antiochus fit Daniel 7 so well by mere chance. So, no, no mangled facts. Just the usual falsehoods from Faith. Edited by PaulK, : No reason given.
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PaulK Member Posts: 17828 Joined: Member Rating: 2.6 |
quote: The Bible disagrees. In places. Jeremiah says as much. Jeremiah 18:8-10
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PaulK Member Posts: 17828 Joined: Member Rating: 2.6 |
This is a prophecy found in the Synoptic Gospels (Mark 13, Matthere 24-25, Luke 21) - attributed to Jesus. From a historical perspective we can’t be certain that Jesus said it at all. Certainly we can be sure that the Gospels do not relay Jesus actual words, if only because they were written in Greek.
The version in Luke is significantly different, so I will deal with it in a later post. Mark and Matthew have versions so similar that copying is almost certainly involved. Mark opens with the disciples remarking on the glory of the Temple buildings. Whatever else may be said of Herod the Great, his renovations and additions to the Temple were quite impressive - the Western - or Wailing - Wall is a remnant of his building projects. Jesus tells them that within a generation not one stone would remain upon another. Allowing for hyperbole this came true, when the Romans took Jerusalem and - perhaps accidentally - burned down the Temple. They move on and settle down on the Mount of Olives and they ask Jesus to tell them when this would happen. Jesus never gets to describing the actual destruction, so the events given are all leading up to that. Meaning, that if we want to relate them to actual events this prophecy can’t go past 70 AD. Jesus tells them the following, all phrased as instructions to the disciples: Many will come in his name and say I am he and they will lead people astray. The disciples should not trust them There will be wars, earthquakes and famine. The disciples will be persecuted and there will be violence and betrayal within families. The Gospel must be spread to all nations. The abomination of desolation will be set up in the Temple, and seeing that is a sign to run for the hills, because of the terrible events that will follow. Jesus again predicts false messiahs and prophets. He goes on to say that the sun will be darkened, and the moon. Then the Son of Man will come and send angels to gather the elect from all over the world. There is the parable of the fig tree, which says when those things occur that the end is soon. And more to say that the end will arrive suddenly so that the warnings should not be missed. Matthew elaborates a little but says the same, but with additions. Matthew adds the parable of the faithful slave, of the wise and foolish bridesmaids, of the talents. The final section of Matthew 25 is the judgement, how the Son of Man will judge men by their deeds, and those who failed to be adequately charitable will be sent to eternal punishment. I will note just some of the problems here. There is no good explanation of the abomination. The best attempt I have seen is the standards of the Roman legionaries. But that is a bit late to say the least. Conditions in Jerusalem were very bad before the Romans managed to get past the inner wall. By the time they took the Temple it should have been obvious to everyone that there was serious trouble. The time to run away would have been before the siege got seriously started. I understand that some Christians believe that Jesus was seen in the skies before the destruction of the Temple. But if He sent angels to gather His elect - let alone held the Final Judgement, you couldn’t tell from history. And it all has to happen within a generation of the discourse - with the destruction of the Herodian Temple an important part of it. Clearly this is set in our past, not our future. Edited by PaulK, : Fixed typo in title
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PaulK Member Posts: 17828 Joined: Member Rating: 2.6 |
quote: Aramaic was the dominant spoken language of that region. Most of the NT was written decades later, most (perhaps all) of it by people who weren’t among the disciples. There simply is no basis for the idea that Jesus would have spoken Greek all the time.
quote: That wouldn’t follow even if the premise were true. And it isn’t.
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PaulK Member Posts: 17828 Joined: Member Rating: 2.6 |
I know that you never like it when people prefer the truth - or at least the best attempt at it - to your beliefs. But that is simply your problem and getting angry about it won’t help you.
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PaulK Member Posts: 17828 Joined: Member Rating: 2.6 |
Luke makes some major changes.
I will just point out that Luke is usually dated to after 70AD, while Mark may be as early as 60AD. This may explain the differences. The first sections with the signs of the end and the persecution of the disciples are mostly the same. Although Luke does add a warning not to follow those who teach that the time is near (21:8). Oddly Luke does not say that the Temple will be destroyed within a generation here - that gets left to the parable of the fig tree. The first big change is to lose the Abomination of Desolation (why?)Instead the sign to run away is when armies surround Jerusalem. Which is better than waiting until the armies are over the last wall, but still a little late. The people are meant to leave the city (with an army in the way?) and everyone outside is supposed to stay outside (they need Jesus to tell them that?). (What seems to be envisaged in Mark and Matthew is that pagan worship, or at least the installation of an idol - like the statue of Caligula that was planned but never came to pass - would be instituted before things got too bad. That obviously didn’t happen, but it makes more sense than even Luke’s version.) The passage ends with the people of the city being taken away as captives - and the city controlled by gentiles until the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled. Next there are the heavenly signs and the Son of Man coming in the clouds. When the (surviving) disciples see those, they can expect to be redeemed. This is followed by the parable of the Fig Tree, and the exhortation to watch because the end will be sudden. The parable includes Jesus stating the the end will come in the present generation (21:32J. Again it is all set in our distant past. Although it may be stretched out a little by allowing the times of the Gentiles to intervene after the fall of Jerusalem it still ought to happen within the generation living at the time of Jesus’ ministry. The Olivet Discourse, then, is another failed end times prophecy. In both versions.
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PaulK Member Posts: 17828 Joined: Member Rating: 2.6 |
Well aside from the fact that they probably didn’t write in Greek, if they did it would have been decades later and they would have had time to learn.
What sense does it make to assume that people who spoke Aramaic as their native language would use any other language in speaking among themselves ?
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PaulK Member Posts: 17828 Joined: Member Rating: 2.6 |
I understand that you are really determined to have things your way. But that doesn’t make people who disagree revisionists or liars.
The fact is that the Jews of Judaea - and Galilee predominantly spoke Aramaic, not Greek.
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PaulK Member Posts: 17828 Joined: Member Rating: 2.6 |
The New Testament was written for a predominantly Gentile Church, so Greek would be more appropriate.
If the disciples wrote any of it, then they had the opportunity to learn Greek or to get someone to help them. The question of why they would speak differently makes no sense, since they would have been speaking Aramaic, too.
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PaulK Member Posts: 17828 Joined: Member Rating: 2.6 |
Describing a lack of bias as bias makes it hard to trust your judgement.
But if you think the second answer has some good arguments please present them - I don’t intend to sign up, so I can’t read it.
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PaulK Member Posts: 17828 Joined: Member Rating: 2.6
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I note that the second article has only points that argue for the possibility that the traditional Gospel authors might have been able to write Greek.
That’s a long way from arguing that they did write anything, let alone Faith’s idea that Jesus would have spoken Greek as a matter of course.
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PaulK Member Posts: 17828 Joined: Member Rating: 2.6 |
quote: The Gospels were not written for the first believers. Diaspora Jews may well have spoken Greek - it’s those living in Judeans and Galilee that concern us.
quote: One of the arguments for Mark is that the Greek isn’t that good. Aside from that we don’t know that the disciples wrote anything, and if good Greek is required they probably didn’t..
quote: Of course this is not true.The copying between the synoptic Gospels is pretty good evidence that one of Matthew or Mark wasn’t written by the traditional author. Papias pretty much suggests that Mark wasn’t a disciple. And the work Papias attributes to Matthew likely isn’t the Gospel we have today (for one thing it was not written in Greek). You don’t have any evidence of significance for the traditional authorship.
quote: The Bible was translated into Greek in Egypt. That really doesn’t help you much.
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PaulK Member Posts: 17828 Joined: Member Rating: 2.6 |
quote: The evidence of copying is there in the text. Papias is evidence, too.
quote: Tradition is not trustworthy and it certainly does not go back to the beginning. That is why it is classed as tradition.
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PaulK Member Posts: 17828 Joined: Member Rating: 2.6 |
An apologist - by definition - is interested in defending a particular view rather than in discovering the truth. Hence an apologist is biased - by definition.
If bias is your concern you should trust scholars - scholars acting as scholars - over apologists. And that’s before considering how bad apologetics can get.
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