so called "Oivet" discourse

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so called "Oivet" discourse

Post by Metacrock » Sat Dec 29, 2012 11:31 am

the so called olivet discourse (from mount of olives) is held up by atheists as an example of a Jesus prophesy that did not come true. In it Jesus seems to say that the current living generation wont pass away until the son of man returns with angels in the sky to end the world. He also says this will occur at the same time as the destruction of he temple.

Of course the temple was destroyed in AD 70 and no the eve of 2013 the other part has not hapepned yet so therefore it was wrong. Bible wrong, Christianity not true, blah blah blah.

here's the passage found in Mark 13:
NIV
13 As Jesus was leaving the temple, one of his disciples said to him, “Look, Teacher! What massive stones! What magnificent buildings!”

2 “Do you see all these great buildings?” replied Jesus. “Not one stone here will be left on another; every one will be thrown down.”

3 As Jesus was sitting on the Mount of Olives opposite the temple, Peter, James, John and Andrew asked him privately, 4 “Tell us, when will these things happen? And what will be the sign that they are all about to be fulfilled?”

5 Jesus said to them: “Watch out that no one deceives you. 6 Many will come in my name, claiming, ‘I am he,’ and will deceive many. 7 When you hear of wars and rumors of wars, do not be alarmed. Such things must happen, but the end is still to come. 8 Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. There will be earthquakes in various places, and famines. These are the beginning of birth pains.

9 “You must be on your guard. You will be handed over to the local councils and flogged in the synagogues. On account of me you will stand before governors and kings as witnesses to them. 10 And the gospel must first be preached to all nations. 11 Whenever you are arrested and brought to trial, do not worry beforehand about what to say. Just say whatever is given you at the time, for it is not you speaking, but the Holy Spirit.

12 “Brother will betray brother to death, and a father his child. Children will rebel against their parents and have them put to death. 13 Everyone will hate you because of me, but the one who stands firm to the end will be saved.

14 “When you see ‘the abomination that causes desolation’[a] standing where it does not belong—let the reader understand—then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains. 15 Let no one on the housetop go down or enter the house to take anything out. 16 Let no one in the field go back to get their cloak. 17 How dreadful it will be in those days for pregnant women and nursing mothers! 18 Pray that this will not take place in winter, 19 because those will be days of distress unequaled from the beginning, when God created the world, until now—and never to be equaled again.

20 “If the Lord had not cut short those days, no one would survive. But for the sake of the elect, whom he has chosen, he has shortened them. 21 At that time if anyone says to you, ‘Look, here is the Messiah!’ or, ‘Look, there he is!’ do not believe it. 22 For false messiahs and false prophets will appear and perform signs and wonders to deceive, if possible, even the elect. 23 So be on your guard; I have told you everything ahead of time.

24 “But in those days, following that distress,

“‘the sun will be darkened,
and the moon will not give its light;
25 the stars will fall from the sky,
and the heavenly bodies will be shaken.’[c]

26 “At that time people will see the Son of Man coming in clouds with great power and glory. 27 And he will send his angels and gather his elect from the four winds, from the ends of the earth to the ends of the heavens.

28 “Now learn this lesson from the fig tree: As soon as its twigs get tender and its leaves come out, you know that summer is near. 29 Even so, when you see these things happening, you know that it[d] is near, right at the door. 30 Truly I tell you, this generation will certainly not pass away until all these things have happened. 31 Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will never pass away.
The Day and Hour Unknown

32 “But about that day or hour no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father. 33 Be on guard! Be alert[e]! You do not know when that time will come. 34 It’s like a man going away: He leaves his house and puts his servants in charge, each with their assigned task, and tells the one at the door to keep watch.

35 “Therefore keep watch because you do not know when the owner of the house will come back—whether in the evening, or at midnight, or when the rooster crows, or at dawn. 36 If he comes suddenly, do not let him find you sleeping. 37 What I say to you, I say to everyone: ‘Watch!’”


I've emboldened v 26-27 becuase they say the Messiah will return with an army angles in the sky, and it marks the introduction of end times events and that's where it becomes clear we are talking about the end times.

My answer up to this point was to compre this to the passage in Matthew where Mathew makes it clear there are two separate questions. (1) when will the temple be destroyed (2) when will the Messiah return.

I have argued that the redactors got the answers to these questions cross threaded. the real answer to when will the temple be destroyed is "this generation will not pass away." The answer to the return is "you will see angels coming in the clouds."

It's obvious this grouping is logical for three reasons:

(1) this is the way the early chruch understood events. They were Jews, they saw themselves not as a separate faith called "Christianity" but as Jews. they could not conceive of Judaism with no temple. so they assumed the Messiah would return (that means they had to assume he would go away) and temple be destroyed as part of the same event, the end of the age. So they mix the answers of two separate questions because they don't see them as operate.

(2) they answers go together in such a way that Messiah is part of the army in the air, if you look at the passage it links Messiah with the angles. "26 “At that time people will see the Son of Man coming in clouds with great power and glory. 27 And he will send his angels and gather his elect from the four winds, from the ends of the earth to the ends of the heavens" so then if we assume those go together then by default the gee national remark is the answer to the other question.

(3) there is no reason why these can't happen at two different times. Taken that way they work. there is no contradiction no failure it just hasn't all been totally fulfilled yet because it's not time yet.

What I'm saying is totally reasonable because if you look at this passage the only question is about the stones, or the temple. He answers that in v 14 "14 “When you see ‘the abomination that causes desolation’[a] standing where it does not belong—let the reader understand—then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains." That is a reference to the destruction of the temple by Antiocus in the interdepartmental period. So he's using that as a symbol for the Romans, after all they were both foreign conquerors. He is saying the temple will be destroyed by the foreign invaders.

at the end of the passage he says no one knows the day or the hour so he let's himself off the hook form predicting a real time for it all. There's no failed prophesy here there's only the failure of atheist to understand what's being asked and what's being said.

they go nuts on carm over this answer becuase they just can't believe that anyone would be able to tell what has been added to a text. that's just ignorance because that's the whole point of textual criticism.
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Re: so called "Oivet" discourse

Post by Metacrock » Sat Dec 29, 2012 11:39 am

What I'm saying is not all that radical. the major features are:

(1) the real issue was the temple and that's the question Jesus was answering (maybe there were two questions, since Mark came firs let's assume not).

(2) the redactors added the end times stuff because that's the way they thought, that's their conception of how it had to be.

(3) the temple was just destroyed the same year that this version of the Gospel was produced and began circulating so we can look upon the redactor's additions about end times as commentary spurred by recent events.

(4) in this version Jesus doesn't say "this generation will not pass away (unless I missed it but I looked and I don't see it). so in that case the cross thread idea is unnecessary. we can just assume that mark being first originally dealt with the temple the redactor added the end times stuff and Matt added the bit about the generation.
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Re: so called "Oivet" discourse

Post by Magritte » Sun Dec 30, 2012 11:08 am

I have second thoughts about pursuing this with you.

If I demonstrate to your satisfaction that the historical Jesus believed in the end of the world within the lifetimes of his followers, what will that do to your faith?
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Re: so called "Oivet" discourse

Post by Metacrock » Mon Dec 31, 2012 4:31 pm

Magritte wrote:I have second thoughts about pursuing this with you.

If I demonstrate to your satisfaction that the historical Jesus believed in the end of the world within the lifetimes of his followers, what will that do to your faith?
I wouldn't do anything to it because I have accepted that he could be wrong about he said he didn't know! My anger at Hakkore is his atypical pretense that i can't have a bleieve without the permission of guys with letters after their names. He's done to me before when I'm saying something that is self evident form the text and backed by other scholars (even though I have not quoted one it's no big trick to find schoalrs who don't accept that Jesus was wrong, the woods are full of them) but he still maintains one must have textual support for every statement one makes.

the whole edifice of modern text crit is based upon Q and there is no textual support for Q. We don't even have one tiny fragment of a Q document. It's all conjecture based upon the quotes form the canonical Gospels. It's exactly what he says I can't do.

the rest of the atheists are total hypocrites becuase they have time and time again spurned boat lords of scholars that I quote to back up my view. I had 45 schoalrs supporting my 8 levels of verification arguemnt and they would not look at the marital because one document was an outline. they tried to assert that an outline was not proof so that was grounds to ignore the documents that had the proof. the docs that combined the outline points with the quotes that proved the points they refused to examine becuase I had an outline. That makes no sense at all.

Time and time again they have ridiculed, mocked, derided, rejected, refused, spurned, criticized and just plain ostracized scholars that I've quoted merely becasue they back up a view they can't handle. When you quote the guys supporting their side it's so clear, so obvious. I'm violating some kind of canon not to just accept their word as a law. they have five whole schoalrs agreeing that Jesus was false prophet and an idiot he was wrong. Because I don't accept that that means that I'm fundie and I'm not being honest.

If it was my five guys they would revile them as always. Moreover, of the scholars they quoted none really qualify as Christians. Hakkore sure doesn't he said he doesn't. Now he says he is one because it helps his case, when he first came back he said he was not longer a Christina. Two of them are notorious anti-Christian scholar such as Bart Erheman. He's a fine scholar and is willing speat out against ate hits and Jesus mythers when he feels it's necessary, and I admire him. He does have his biases. taking sides against Daddy is one of them. HIs father was a big shot fundie at Moody bible college so he's working his whole carrer to disrpove Daddy's work.
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Re: so called "Oivet" discourse

Post by Magritte » Wed Jan 02, 2013 4:07 pm

Sorry for not replying sooner... I've been meaning to but every time I log in the phone rings or my kid cries or something else calls me away.

My main objection to your redaction mixup scenario is that the imminent apocalypticism isn't limited to the Olivet discourse - it runs all through the NT. For example, we see Paul comforting the Thessalonians because some among them have died while they've been waiting for the end of the world. And Paul was writing this in the 50s, well before any Markan redaction would have taken place. No?

Also, can we PLEASE let this be about the subject matter, and not about you playing amateur psychologist, assigning unsavoury motives to people who disagree with you? And can it also not be about your wounded pride because someone at Carm didn't accord your ideas the attention you believe they merit?
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Re: so called "Oivet" discourse

Post by mdsimpson92 » Thu Jan 03, 2013 10:13 am

Magritte wrote: Also, can we PLEASE let this be about the subject matter, and not about you playing amateur psychologist, assigning unsavoury motives to people who disagree with you? And can it also not be about your wounded pride because someone at Carm didn't accord your ideas the attention you believe they merit?
He has the same anger issues as when I first joined the forum.
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Re: so called "Oivet" discourse

Post by Metacrock » Thu Jan 03, 2013 11:57 am

Magritte wrote:Sorry for not replying sooner... I've been meaning to but every time I log in the phone rings or my kid cries or something else calls me away.

My main objection to your redaction mixup scenario is that the imminent apocalypticism isn't limited to the Olivet discourse - it runs all through the NT. For example, we see Paul comforting the Thessalonians because some among them have died while they've been waiting for the end of the world. And Paul was writing this in the 50s, well before any Markan redaction would have taken place. No?

Also, can we PLEASE let this be about the subject matter, and not about you playing amateur psychologist, assigning unsavoury motives to people who disagree with you? And can it also not be about your wounded pride because someone at Carm didn't accord your ideas the attention you believe they merit?
sure I said in my thing the early chruch expected it. That doesn't mean Jesus did. I said it was the redactors that imposed it that would be the early chruch. Your asserting without reason that this is an unsavory motive. It's not unsavory it's just the way they saw it. There was a time when Americans couldn't conceive of America not winning a war.
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Re: so called "Oivet" discourse

Post by Metacrock » Thu Jan 03, 2013 11:59 am

mdsimpson92 wrote:
Magritte wrote: Also, can we PLEASE let this be about the subject matter, and not about you playing amateur psychologist, assigning unsavoury motives to people who disagree with you? And can it also not be about your wounded pride because someone at Carm didn't accord your ideas the attention you believe they merit?
He has the same anger issues as when I first joined the forum.
I probably have used the self esteem issue wrongly with atheists. of course I do. because they are still treating me like a know nothing shit hole. they always will because that's the way they deal with people.
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Re: so called "Oivet" discourse

Post by Metacrock » Thu Jan 03, 2013 12:00 pm

I'm confused about where you both see this coming into it; the psychology self esteem stuff. I never said anything about he psychosocial motives of people in regard to this passage did i?

I think Fleet is just picking up something that offended him from CARM and dumping it here.
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Re: so called "Oivet" discourse

Post by mdsimpson92 » Thu Jan 03, 2013 12:24 pm

Metacrock wrote:I probably have used the self esteem issue wrongly with atheists. of course I do. because they are still treating me like a know nothing shit hole. they always will because that's the way they deal with people.
Likely, but it has made you preemptively angry which often makes it difficult for some people to talk with you. Not me normally because I'm normally on your side, if not with your temperament.
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