This was written by a friend of mine at Logos Apologia
A popular view amongst skeptics is that Jesus was failed apocalyptic prophet. Their argument centers on the Olivet discourse in Mark 13:30 where Jesus says, “Truly, I say to you, this generation will not pass away until all these things take place.” They contend that this means Jesus predicted his return in power prior to the death of the disciples and that since this failed to happen, Jesus is proven a false prophet. Atheist websites galore use this as a proof text. Even a few serious scholars do as well. For instance, Bart Ehrman argues:
Jesus appears to have anticipated that the coming judgment of God, to be brought by the Son of Man in a cosmic act of destruction and salvation, was imminent. It could happen at any time. But it would certainly happen within his generation.[1]
Albert Schweitzer held a similar position:
At the end of His career Jesus establishes a connection between the Messianic conception, in its final transformation, and the Kingdom, which had retained its eschatological character; He goes to His death for the Messiahship in its new significance, but He goes on believing in His speedy return as the Son of Man.[2]
These are established scholars and we must take them seriously. However, are they really being honest with the data? More so, are they accounting for all of the data or merely pulling a verse from its context because it seems to infer an error on Jesus’ part.
I was listening to Gary Habermas’ lecture on the historical Jesus and an interesting question surfaced concerning Mark 13:32,
But concerning that day or that hour, no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father (Mk 13:32).
Habermas uses this verse to demonstrate that Jesus’ messianic title “Son of Man” (cf. Dan 7:13) was not added later (no one would claim Jesus was God and then add a verse claiming he did not know something). Theologically, this verse is an embarrassing detail so it has an air of authenticity.[3] But more importantly, this verse appears directly after Jesus’ alleged prediction that he would return in his own generation. Doesn’t it seem odd that Jesus would predict his return within a very narrow time frame (his own generation) and then immediately say that he did not know when it would be? Actually, it seems incoherent for a reason. The skeptics have it wrong.
Jesus did not really teach that his return would be imminent. In fact, he provided hints it would not be. In Jesus’ parable about the ten talents, which is clearly about him leaving and then returning, he includes a pertinent detail, “Now after a long time the master of those servants came and settled accounts with them” (Mt 25:19). The parable of the Ten Virgins is another one which is centered on Jesus’ return and it provides a similar clue, “As the bridegroom was delayed, they all became drowsy and slept” (Mt 25:5). Craig Blomberg asks why Jesus would bother addressing so many worldly matters if he really believed as the critics suggest:
The majority of Jesus’ teaching presupposes a significant interval before the end of the world, because Christ spends much time instructing his disciples on such mundane matters as paying taxes, marriage and divorce, dealing with one’s enemies, stewardship of wealth, and so on.[4]
Jesus also implied an extended period of world evangelization, “And this gospel of the kingdom will be proclaimed throughout the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come”( Mt 24:14). It seems absurd to argue that Jesus and the apostles would have expected world evangelization in their lifetime. This begs the question what did Jesus mean by this generation.
From the fig tree learn its lesson: as soon as its branch becomes tender and puts out its leaves, you know that summer is near. So also, when you see these things taking place, you know that he is near, at the very gates. Truly, I say to you, this generation will not pass away until all these things take place (Mk 13:28-30).
The “these things” of v. 30 must be the same as the “these things” of v. 29, which clearly refer to signs preceding Christ’s second coming. Jesus was teaching that the generation who witnessed the signs he had previously outlined in chapter 13 would see his return. There has been no other generation in history prior to our own that has seen these signs in such abundance.
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[1] Bart D. Ehrman, Jesus, Apocalyptic Prophet of the New Millennium (Oxford: Oxford University Press, USA, 1999),160.
[2] Albert Schweitzer, The Quest of the Historical Jesus (Joseph Kreifels).
[3] If you are interested in how Jesus can be God and not know something, the solution lies in his two natures human and divine. Look into the two minds view here.
[4] Craig Blomberg, in Michael J. Wilkins, Jesus Under Fire: Modern Scholarship Reinvents the Historical Jesus (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Zondervan, 1996), 31.
THINKAPOLOGETICS.COM 
In this post I want to accept the impressive case that can be built for thinking that Jesus was an apocalyptic prophet whom, amongst other things, predicted that the parousia would occur within a generation of his lifetime and critically examine whether Christian theism still has any legs to stand on. My reasons for doing this are:
1) The case that can be made for this conclusion is very powerful, and to my mind, if not true, so probable that it requires taking the position very seriously
2) A large number of very influential NT scholars hold to some version of the ‘Jesus as apocalyptic prophet’ framework (James Dunn, Dale Allison, Paula Frederickson, E.P. Sanders, and more)
3) Very little (actually none, as far as I know) work has been done to determine what follows with respect to the truth of Christian theism, if Jesus truly did make such a prediction; except for those who raise the de facto objection that Jesus was a failed apocalyptic prophet based on Biblical teaching itself (Deut. 18:22), and therefore it is unlikely that God would raise Jesus from the dead (or if Jesus was wrong about something as huge as the timing of the parousia, then we have little to no basis for trusting anything else he said), or some raise de jure objections that make Jesus into an unsavory fellow such as: ‘only a lunatic would predict such a thing’,
4) I am convinced that it is more effective for the cause of Christ to show that Christian theism plausibly fits with the largest number of background beliefs (based on good evidence of course) possible rather than trenchantly defending ones cherished view instead. In other words, even if one thinks Darwinian evolution is largely false, we should try to show that Christian theism is true for someone who thinks Darwinian evolution is actually true. Or, even if one thinks the Bible is inerrant, we would do well to try and develop an alternate theory of inspiration that accords with modern Biblical scholarship. Or again, we would do well to show that for those who think Jesus was an apocalyptic prophet who predicted the imminent coming of the kingdom of God that Jesus was still a ‘true’ prophet. This last suggestion will be the focus of this post.
JESUS AS AN UNSAVORY FELLOW / AN ALTERNATE QUADRILEMMA (Mistaken, Deceiver, Lunatic, Fanatic):
Jesus’ error in predicting the timing of the parousia means that Jesus was either mistaken, a deceiver, a lunatic, a fanatic, or some combination of these.
LUNATIC/FANATIC?:
The legal definition of a lunatic is: a person legally declared to be of unsound mind and who therefore is not held capable or responsible before the law. The definition of a fanatic is: a person with an extreme and uncritical enthusiasm or zeal. Thus, if Jesus made such a prediction out of an unsound and uncritical mind in an overzealous manner, then we may conclude that he was some sort of fanatical lunatic. Indeed, we may think that a person today who makes a prediction about the parousia is borderline, or a full-fledged fanatic/lunatic. No doubt, this may be true of some in our Western culture. However, once we develop a sensitive palate for apocalyptic teachings and first century Judaism, I think we will see that Jesus was neither a fanatic or a lunatic for the following reasons:
1) The cultural milieu into which Jesus was born and had his being was one of widespread anticipation, hope for, and belief in the imminent arrival of the kingdom of God. Thus, Jesus’ eschatological expectations were widespread and the norm in the first century in stark contrast to our day and age.
2) Moreover, unlike the ‘lunatics/fanatics’ of our day, Jewish apocalyptic expectations were revolutions of the imagination of the apocalyptic community where:
“…the revolutionary potential of such an imagination should not be underestimated, as it can foster dissatisfaction with the present and generate visions of what might be. The legacy of the apocalypses includes a powerful rhetoric for denouncing the deficiencies of this world. It also includes the conviction that the world as now constituted is not the end. Most of all, it entails an appreciation of the great resource that lies in the imagination to construct a symbolic world where the integrity of values can be maintained in the face of social and political powerlessness and even of the threat of death”
As Thom Stark writes, “Its significance is that it is a complex, beautiful, and incisively accurate expression of outrage at the existing world order, and a clarion call for fidelity to a new social system based upon justice rather than exploitation…this is not the voice of despair at the world, but the voice of hope, and this, I submit, is the voice of God speaking to us through our Scriptures.”
For Jesus, the final judgment, the general resurrection of the dead, and [the eschatological sojourn of the Gentiles to Zion] were all at hand, and much like those who finally want to ‘live’ life when they realize that their time is almost up, Jesus was hoping to turn his hearers into eschatological actors of the final drama which in light of the imminency of the kingdom, were too important to ignore.
3) Jesus’ apocalypticism was not of the doomsday sort which we find today in which the destruction, or complete annihilation of this world and its inhabitants is usually envisioned; which can arouse great anxiety and fear. Some who make this claim are either ignorant of apocalyptic literature, or are simply twisting the facts Rather, as Dale Allison writes, “…Jesus, …probably drew no distinction between a millennial kingdom kingdom and the eternal world to come, and whose eschatology probably contained, to use Scholem’s categories, elements of both restorative and utopian-catastrophic messianism, may similarly have looked for a time “free from old age, death, decomposition, and corruption…when the dead shall rise, when immortality shall come to the living, when the world shall be perfectly renewed.” Though it is true that Jesus thought the path to the new world would pass through the suffering and death first (birth pangs), he believed that “his death itself…would be [the] decisive manifestation of those pangs,” and most importantly is that the end result was that this world would ultimately be transformed into a perfect one.
4) From the overall portrait of Jesus we see in the Gospels, it is unlikely that Jesus was either a lunatic or a fanatic: “He was loving but didn’t let his compassion immobilize him; he didn’t have a bloated ego, even though he was often surrounded by adoring crowds; he maintained balance despite an often demanding lifestyle; he always knew what he was doing and where he was going; he cared deeply about people, including women and children, who weren’t seen as being important back then; he was able to accept people while not merely winking at their sin; he responded to individuals based on where they were at and what they uniquely needed. All in all I just don’t see signs that Jesus was suffering from any known mental illness.”
5) The importance of prophetic apocalyptic literature of the historical sort “rested not in their predictive value so much as in the encouragement they offered to suffering people.” “…critical scholars…view apocalyptic merely as a literary method employed by ancient writers to convey a future hope of better world. The enduring valued of apocalyptic is its promise of this better world to those who are overwhelmed by their present circumstances, such as poverty, disease, and persecution.”
6) It is very difficult, if not impossible to psychoanalyze somebody through historical texts alone, “Psychoanalysis is notoriously difficult even with a patient seated in front of oneself on the couch, but it is virtually impossible with historical figures. That is why the genre of psychobiography is rejected by historians. Martin Hengel rightly concludes, “Lüdemann . . . does not recognize these limits on the historian. Here he gets into the realm of psychological explanations, for which no verification is really possible . . . . the sources are far too limited for such psychologizing analyses.”
7) If Jesus was ‘right,’ then he was neither a lunatic nor a fanatic with respect to this prediction; which is what I am ultimately going to argue.
Thus, Jesus was far from an unsound and uncritical mind, but instead, he was a thoroughly Jewish minded first century prophet (amongst other things) with an apocalyptic message that has many virtues that we would still cheer for today and who was, to all appearances, also sincere in his message, and thus not a deceiver.
A MISTAKEN JESUS?
If Jesus truly distinguished between this present earthly existence into which the kingdom of God was in-breaking and present for the first time, and the life to be lived in a future kingdom of God that was not yet at hand, then as D.F. Strauss wrote: “it is irrelevant at which nearer or remoter point of time he removed this act; it would be but a human mistake for Jesus to have put the end nearer instead of further than he should.”
Indeed, it is the majority view (although not a full consensus, thanks to the Jesus Seminar) that Jesus’ teaching on the kingdom of God was that it was present in his person and ministry and had begun to transform the here and now; and that the futurity of the establishment of God’s kingly rule was due to come in its fullness soon although it was not here yet. Thus, in light of the ‘already’ and ‘not yet’ temporality of Jesus’ teaching with respect to the kingdom of God, and in light of the widespread first century Jewish expectation that Jesus culturally inherited of the imminency of the coming of the kingdom of God that was demonstrated above (although his teaching that it was in breaking and to some degree already present in his ministry is culturally unique); I think we can be charitable to Jesus, and understand the ‘error’ in his prediction about the timing of the parousia as a mere human error.
TRUTH FUNCTIONALITY, DEGRESS OF ERROR, AND EINSTEIN’S GREATEST BLUNDER:
The following is from the article Did Einstein Predict Dark Energy? which will lead into a discussion about Jesus’ ‘blunder’ of a prediction regarding the timing of the parousia:
“Oddly enough, dark energy — for all the surprise around its discovery — is not an entirely new concept in physics. There is historical background for this idea, and it comes from the preeminent astronomer of the 20th century, Albert Einstein.
In 1917, Einstein was applying his new theory of general relativity to the structure of space and time. General relativity says that mass affects the shape of space and the flow of time. Gravity results because space is warped by mass. The greater the mass, the greater the warp.
But Einstein, like all scientists at that time, did not know that the universe was expanding. He found that his equations didn’t quite work for a static universe, so he threw in a hypothetical repulsive force that would fix the problem by balancing things out, an extra part that he called the “cosmological constant.”
Then, in the 1920s, astronomer Edwin Hubble, using a type of star called a Cepheid variable as a “standard candle” to measure distances to other galaxies, discovered that the universe was expanding. The idea of the expanding universe revolutionized astronomy. If the universe was expanding, it must at one time have been smaller. That concept led to the Big Bang Theory, that the universe began as a tiny point that suddenly and swiftly expanded to create everything we know today.
Once Einstein knew the universe was expanding, he discarded the cosmological constant as an unnecessary fudge factor. He later called it the “biggest blunder of his life,” according to his fellow physicist George Gamow.
Today astronomers refer to one theory of dark energy as Einstein’s cosmological constant. The theory says that dark energy has been steady and constant throughout time and will remain that way.
A second theory, called Quintessence, says that dark energy is a new force and will eventually fade away just as it arose.
If the cosmological constant is correct, Einstein will once again have been proven right — about something even he thought was a mistake.”
Albert Einstein was one of the greatest (if not the greatest) scientists of all time. His general and special theory of relativity revolutionized our understanding of the universe, and yet, Einstein was wrong about something so huge, that he himself called it the ‘biggest blunder of my life,’ namely, that the entire universe is not static, but dynamic; and to be specific, it is expanding! How could one of the most revered scientists of all time be wrong about something so huge? Can we trust anything else he said? Can we conclude at best that he was a failed static universe proponent? Is 50 years of mounting empirical evidence for the Big Bang enough to conclude that Einstein was a failed scientist based on the criteria of falsification?
Of course, I am partly being facetious, but only to make the following points of comparison between this ‘blunder’ of Einstein’s career and the ‘biggest blunder’ of Jesus’ career (the prediction about the timing of the parousia):
1) Just because somebody made an error (notice that Einstein’s error was also to the scale of the entire universe just as with Jesus), doesn’t mean that everything else they said is false or discredited. We did not throw out the theory of relativity when we found out that Einstein made a mistake of astronomical proportion. To do so, would be to commit the fallacy of composition.
2) Similar to Jesus, Einstein was born into a scientific community in which a static view of the universe was widespread but false, and which Einstein accepted as true; so too Jesus was born into a Jewish community that held to the widespread, but false view that the final establishment of God’s rule would be established very soon. Both errors are in large measure attributable to the cultural environment that both men matured in.
3) Even though Einstein introduced the cosmological constant as a ‘fudge factor’ out of what was probably some kind of motivation bias to preserve a globally static universe called the cosmological constant, it may (and indeed it looks plausible) that Einstein will turn out to be ‘right’ about the cosmological constant he predicted although in a manner different from what he expected. At this point I think we must ask what it would mean to say that Einstein was ‘right’ about his prediction with respect to the cosmological constant since both his motivation, and the exact observational nature of what the cosmological constant was predicted to do by Einstein is different from what he expected to some degree. So, it seems that Einstein was both ‘right’ and ‘wrong.’ But how can this be? Fuzzy logic supplies us with the answer. Basically, propositions can be absolutely true, absolutely false, or have some intermediate degree of truth. Fuzzy logic is useful because the world often presents us with conflicting information saying that the state of affairs obtains as well as fails in some respect. The nature of Einstein’s prediction of the cosmological constant is just one example. So, we can conceive of three truth degrees: (1) absolutely true, (2) absolutely false, and (3) some intermediate truth degree between (0, 1). Thus, we can say that Einstein’s prediction of the cosmological constant was partially true I think, but not absolutely true, and not absolutely false.
But someone might protest that there is a serious disanalogy between the prediction of Einstein and the prediction of Jesus since we have some empirical evidence (direct or indirect) to determine to what degree Einstein’s prediction was correct, and that this same empirical evidence furnishes us with an apparatus for fine-tuning those aspects of his prediction that were partially incorrect whereas in the case of Jesus we are left with nothing but disconfirming evidence of his prediction about the timing of the parousia (just as Einstein must have felt when the redshift was observed through the Hubble telescope when he said that his prediction of the cosmological constant was the ‘biggest blunder of his life’). Moreover, we have no empirical evidence that vindicates Jesus’ prediction even partially, and that it is doubtful that such evidence would also help us fine-tune those aspect of Jesus’ prediction that were partially incorrect. Or do we?
THE RESURRECTION AS JESUS’ ‘COSMOLOGICAL CONSTANT’ & THE DIVINE VINDICATION OF HIS PRE-EASTER ACTIVITY:
A miracle without a context is inherently ambiguous, thus, of God raised Jesus from the dead, we must understand the meaning of this miracle in terms of first century Judaism. “If Jesus really has been raised”…[then this] “was done by Israel’s God […and] for a Jew can only mean that God himself has confirmed the pre-Easter activity of Jesus.” “Without the resurrection of Jesus his message would have turned out to be a fanatical audacity. But…the resurrection did justify Jesus’ expectation of the near End. It was in himself that it was fulfilled. Admittedly, this happened otherwise than Jesus and his disciples probably had imagined the announced future. But it is true of every ‘fulfillment’ that it only rarely corresponds to the announcement prior to it. Nevertheless, in view of the resurrection of Jesus and the eschatological quality of that event, we cannot be satisfied with the simple judgment that Jesus’ expectation of the near End remained unfulfilled.”
“This is not to say that everything Jesus had said and done receives explicit confirmation, [or that Jesus was really referring to his resurrection instead of the imminent parousia in various passages], but it means that he is vindicated in things for which he was accused of blasphemy…and for which the crucifixion threw wide open…, mainly in respect to his role in God’s dealings with humankind…and…Jesus’ understanding of the imminent reign of God…dawning in his own ministry.” Though oblique, the resurrection is best understood as the divine vindication of Jesus’ pre-Easter activity, including his prediction about the timing of the parousia insofar as Jesus’ resurrection is related to the general resurrection, or the end of the world which we will say more about in the next section.
FINE-TUNING OUR UNDERSTANDING OF JESUS’ PRE-EASTER ACTIVITY IN LIGHT OF THE RESURRECTION:
THE PAROUSIA / GENERAL RESURRECTION OF THE DEAD: What about the delay of the parousia and the still yet ‘to be’ future general resurrection, does Pannenberg’s view of the resurrection still make sense; especially since Jesus’ resurrection was understood as siganling the imminency of the general resurrection in the writings of Paul? Pannenberg’s answer is yes; what counts is the material analogy of what has already happened in and with Jesus and that for which the apocalyptic expectation hopes from the ultimate future. If they are essentially the same, then time cannot change their qualitative identity. The difference between the resurrection of Jesus and the general resurrection of the dead is quantitative, not qualitative. Thus, if Jesus was really raised from the dead, then the general human destiny has occurred in Jesus; He truly is the first of many; this underscores the eschatological interpretation of Jesus’ resurrection. What is this ‘material identity’ that Pannenberg is referring to in relationship to this long temporal gap? Pannenberg expresses the ‘material identity’ of Jesus’ resurrection and the eventual resurrection of others by the term ‘anticipation,’ or ‘prolepsis,’ which are equivalent. Pannenberg sees prolepsis as a ‘new systematic category’ for the resurrection rooted in its ‘historic facticity.’ For the resurrection is at once an event in history and the eschatological salvation-event, a past event and one that remains before us in as our ultimate future. The resurrection of Jesus is a pre-realization of the future. Only in this sense can the final self-revelation of God, which can only occur at the end of history, have already taken place in the history of Jesus. The idea of the return of Jesus keeps alive the tension between the resurrection of Jesus and the general resurrection. The return of Christ brings with it the completion of God’s rule. Pannenberg’s concept of prolepsis or anticipation, is linked with the resurrection and the eschatological events that will establish God’s rule in its fullness. God’s rule has already come proleptically in Jesus ministry and resurrection; though differently from the way he may have expected, Jesus’ message of the coming kingdom of God received its confirmation in his resurrection…[though] obliquely, Jesus’ resurrection can be understood as the fulfillment of his expectation of the imminence of the kingdom of God.”
(Pannenberg goes into greater detail about the particulars of Jesus’ pre-Eater ministry that are vindicated via the resurrection in his book Jesus-God and Man in addition to what is discussed here such as:
1-Through his resurrection from the dead, Jesus moved so close to the Son of Man that the insight became obvious: the Son of Man is none other than the man Jesus who will come again.
2-If Jesus, having been raised from the dead, is ascended to God and if thereby the end of the world has begun, then God is ultimately revealed in Jesus.
3-The transition to the Gentile mission is motivated by the eschatological resurrection of Jesus as resurrection of the crucified One;
I exclude a discussion of them in detail because I am focusing on the truth-functional connection between the resurrection and the parousia prediction here)
WHAT ABOUT DEUTERONOMY 18:22? / DOESN’T THIS REFUTE THE CASE FOR THE RESURRECTION?
John Loftus uses Deut. 18:22 to speak against Jesus by labeling him a failed apocalyptic prophet, while ‘Ex-Apologist’ uses this verse to argue that because Jesus was a failed apocalyptic prophet it is unlikely that YHWH would raise Jesus from the dead as a divine vindication of his pre-Easter activity; contra Pannenberg. I have two responses to this:
1) This argument presupposes both the inspiration and inerrancy of the Bible, at least with respect to this verse in Deut. 18:22 and so would only constitute a problem for the Christian who accepts such a presupposition. However, for both the Christian, and the non-Christian who do not subscribe to inerrancy (I will give an argument that self-destructs this argument by both Loftus and Ex-Apologist in a moment) this argument based on Deut. 18:22 will hold zero positive weight in their epistemic set of beliefs and puts Loftus and Ex-Apologist in the awkward and potentially self-defeating position to argue that YHWH really did inspire the verse in Deut. 18:22 despite their actual belief that God not only doesn’t exist, but that YHWH didn’t inspire Deut. 18:22. Moreover, it is commonplace in critical scholarship to think that the book of Daniel also contains a failed prophecy with respect to the imminency of the kingdom of God such that if Loftus and Ex-apologist (and rightly in my opinion) accept the fact that YHWH (if this God exists) allowed a similar false prophecy into ‘His’ Jewish Scriptures, then that would disconfirm Ex-Apologists claim that YHWH abhors false prophecies so much that he wouldn’t raise Jesus from the dead. Lastly, if Loftus and Ex-Apologist are correct about Jesus’ failed prophecy then they have proven that the Bible is not inerrant and in particular, it is not inerrant in the area of prophecies which should take away our confidence that any other Biblical texts about prophecies are likewise inspired (i.e. Deut. 18:22). So, if they are right, then their argument self-destructs, and if they are wrong, then they are wrong. Either way then, unless one is an inerrantist, this argument should hold no weight, but even here their argument won’t work for the inerrantist because the inerrantist will no doubt argue that Jesus did not make such a prediction, as Loftus and Ex-Apologist want to ascribe to him (although the inerrantist is probably wrong about that). In any case, this appeal to Deut. 18:22 constitutes neither a successful internal or external problem for my argument.
2) JESUS WASN’T WRONG AFTER ALL / SECOND TEMPLE HERMENEUTICS:
With the discovery of so much extra-biblical literature in the past century or so, we have been privileged to discover what is commonly called Second-Temple Hermeneutics (516 BC-70AD).
As Thom Stark says in another context about the Chicago inerrantists misunderstanding with respect to Second Temple Heremeneutic, “…They present themselves with a false dichtomony: either Paul interprets Moses correctly or incorrectly. If incorrectly, then Paul is wrong and the Bible is not inerrant. The problem is that interpreters like Paul were not concerned with interpreting Moses “correctly,” if by “correctly’ one means, “historically-grammatically.” Like most other Jewish interpreters of his day, Paul was interested in the text not for what it said in the past, but for what it was saying to Paul’s own generation. When the Chicago inerrantists insist that a given passage can only have one fixed meaning, they are—unwittingly or not—rejecting a principle of interpretation that was axiomatic for Paul: the text has both a historical meaning and an eschatological meaning. Paul shared this assumption with virtually all apocalyptic Jews of his day. To such thinkers, the text has at least two meanings, if not more, none of which were necessarily tied by any fixed principle to any of the other meanings.”
Peter Enns puts it this way, “in the same way that grammatical–historical exegesis is vital for our understanding the words of the biblical authors, a hermeneutical–historical approach is vital for our understanding of the hermeneutics of biblical authors. In other words, we must extend what is implied in grammatical–historical exegesis, the principle that original context matters, to the world of apostolic hermeneutics.” Thus, in order to understand how the disciples could judge Jesus’ prediction to be true requires us to understand their cultural moment within Second Temple Judaism, while at the same time if we want to understand why they viewed Jesus’ prediction and pre-Easter ministry as vindicated we must understand their eschatological moment, which was rooted in the historical facticity of the resurrection and the backdrop of first century Jewish apocalypticism. This means that if we want to accurately judge the merit and validity of Jesus’ ministry and parousia prediction, we must judge it within the Second Temple phenomena in which it occurred, “Revelation necessarily implies a human context. When God speaks and acts, he does so within the human drama as it is expressed at a certain time and place and with all the cultural trappings that go along with it. This makes revelation somewhat messy…it would seem that God would not have it any other way. For the apostles to interpret the Old Testament in ways consistent with the hermeneutical expectations of the Second Temple world is analogous to Christ himself becoming a Second Temple citizen…[thus, we cannot properly] shy away from identifying the New Testament, the written witness to Christ, [including the witness of Christ himself], as likewise [being] defined by its first-century context. [This] should remind us that our own understanding of the Old Testament—and the gospel—has a contextual message as well.” Though we may not like it very much because it is ‘messy’ as Enns says, we cannot say that Jesus was ‘wrong.’ Enns gives the following illustration that I think makes this point very well, “If Matthew were transported back in time and told Hosea that Hosea’s words would be fulfilled in the boy Jesus and that, furthermore, this Jesus would be crucified and rise for God’s people, I am not sure if Hosea would have known what to make of it. But if Hosea were to go forward to Matthew’s day, it would be very different for him. There Hosea would be forced, in light of recent events, to see his words…in the final eschatological context. In a stunning reversal it is now Matthew who would show Hosea how his words fit into God’s ultimate redemptive goal: the death and resurrection of Jesus. And so Hosea’s words, which in their original historical context did not speak of Jesus of Nazareth, now do.” The same point applies to Jesus’ prediction concerning the timing of the parousia.
So, the really fascinating point here is that both John Loftus and Ex-Apologist have anachronistically hi-jacked Deut. 18:22 out of Second Temple Judaism thereby giving away their case since as anybody in that period would say, the eschatological meaning and vindication of Jesus’ prediction via the resurrection shows him to be a true prophet after all! Enns says it so well, “If I may speak this way, for God himself, the Second Temple setting of the Apostles is not a problem for modern interpreters to overcome but to understand… that it has pleased God to reveal himself in time and place, and that understanding something about those times and places will help us understand not just what a passage means, but what Scripture is.
Thus, for us to look back at Jesus’ prediction today and judge it as being either absolutely right or absolutely wrong is not only misguided given fuzzy logic, but it is wrong-headed and anachronistic given the first century context and the practice of Second Temple Hermeneutics.
In other words, if we want to have a meaningful conversation about the ‘wrongness’ or ‘rightness’ of Jesus’ parousia prediction, we must hear that prediction in its ancient voice against the backdrop of Second Temple Judaism and not impose questions or burdens of proof upon that prediction that it will not bear. Or again, if we want to bring the parousia prediction into our world we must first understand the world of Second Temple Judaism and what Jesus’ prediction was saying in that world all things considered. Then we will be in a position to understand how Jesus’ parousia prediction can be appropriated for today.
If we anachronistically pass over the first century context of Second Temple Hermeneutical practices we present ourselves with a false dilemma about the prediction of Jesus regarding the timing of the parousia: he was either right or wrong. I am not saying that as a matter of historical facticity Jesus did not predict this, but what I am saying is that the eschatological meaning of this prediction was rooted and revealed in the historical facticity of the resurrection such that we cannot shy away from the Second Temple Hermeneutical standards if we want to correctly understand not only the truth-functional connection between the resurrection and Jesus’ prediction about the parousia according to our standards of logic and evidence, but to correctly judge Jesus’ prediction from within its own time and place (religio-historical context) so as to guide our present judgment about that very same prediction.
Was this copied and pasted from somewhere?
Yes, it was copy and pasted from my blog: http://www.apologeticsinthechurch.com
Okay, well I was not sure if Stark wrote alot of that. I guess I really don’t see Jesus as a failed apocalyptic prophet. I am well aware of scholars that take the view of his role as a prophet. That is fine. I think his role as a prophet is one aspect of his role to Israel. But I think there are plenty of plausible asnwers to the issues with the end of Matthew 16. NT scholars have been offering quite a few of them for yrs. There is not even one answer to it. The post which was written by a friend of mine gives some possible solutions.
I also wrote post on his role as a prophet according to Deut 18. I think that can help a bit as well. https://chab123.wordpress.com/2012/06/08/a-look-at-messianic-prophecy-who-is-the-prophet-of-deuteronomy-18-15-18/
Hmmm, I will try not to take offense to “Okay, well I was not sure if Stark wrote alot of that.” For some reason my footnotes did not carry over on your blog format but here they are: Thom Stark, The Human Faces of God, 229-230; Stark, 19. The point of the paper was to show that even if we assume the ‘worst’ so to speak about Jesus’ prediction we cannot say that Jesus was a failed apocalyptic prophet. Did you actually read the whole paper?
I was just asking a question because it was confusing. As you noticed, there were no footnotes. You had a sentence that started with a Stark quote and then it had no footnote. So I did not know who was writing from there on. Anyway, to now move on to more important matters, I agree that Second Temple Hermeneutical practices is one of the keys here. And you are right about Loftus and others not understanding it. I guess the Matthew 16 text has never been a huge issue for me since there are many plausible solutions (just like many other issues in the Bible). The problem with the word “innerancy” is that it needs a lot of clarification. Most of the issues we end up dealing with are very hermeneutical in nature. So if we don’t go over hermeneutics, trying to find a solution can be waste of time. I have not had much luck in this area with skeptics. They have told me that hermeneutics is some lofty theological word for the elite. Lol. And you have brought some more possible solutions to the issue. In the end, many who turn from the faith like Loftus and others even become even bigger fundamentalists than before. They insist on absolute certainty on almost everything.