EstherRose

Actually the disciples asked Jesus when He would return and what would be the signs. He responded by telling them the signs of the end times. Then He assured His disciples that when these signs happened, especially the “abomination that causes desolation” then that generation would not pass away before the end. (The abomination that causes desolation is supposed to be an image of the AntiChrist.) Jesus was telling future generations about the end times. (Although some commentaries state this generation refers to Judah as a distinct group of people. This was a common reference in the bible. Personally, I think it refers to the generation that witnesses the end times signs.)

Matthew 24
3As Jesus was sitting on the Mount of Olives, the disciples came to him privately. "Tell us," they said, "when will this happen, and what will be the sign of your coming and of the end of the age?"
4Jesus answered: "Watch out that no one deceives you.
5For many will come in my name, claiming, 'I am the Christ,' and will deceive many.
6You will hear of wars and rumors of wars, but see to it that you are not alarmed. Such things must happen, but the end is still to come.
7Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. There will be famines and earthquakes in various places.
8All these are the beginning of birth pains.
9"Then you will be handed over to be persecuted and put to death, and you will be hated by all nations because of me.
10At that time many will turn away from the faith and will betray and hate each other, 11and many false prophets will appear and deceive many people.
12Because of the increase of wickedness, the love of most will grow cold,
13but he who stands firm to the end will be saved.
14And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come.
15"So when you see standing in the holy place 'the abomination that causes desolation,' spoken of through the prophet Daniel--let the reader understand—
16then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains.
17Let no one on the roof of his house go down to take anything out of the house.
18Let no one in the field go back to get his cloak.
19How dreadful it will be in those days for pregnant women and nursing mothers!
20Pray that your flight will not take place in winter or on the Sabbath.
21For then there will be great distress, unequaled from the beginning of the world until now--and never to be equaled again.
22If those days had not been cut short, no one would survive, but for the sake of the elect those days will be shortened.
23At that time if anyone says to you, 'Look, here is the Christ!' or, 'There he is!' do not believe it.
24For false Christs and false prophets will appear and perform great signs and miracles to deceive even the elect--if that were possible.
25See, I have told you ahead of time.
26"So if anyone tells you, 'There he is, out in the desert,' do not go out; or, 'Here he is, in the inner rooms,' do not believe it.
27For as lightning that comes from the east is visible even in the west, so will be the coming of the Son of Man.
28Wherever there is a carcass, there the vultures will gather.
29"Immediately after the distress of those days
" 'the sun will be darkened,
and the moon will not give its light;
the stars will fall from the sky,
and the heavenly bodies will be shaken.'
30"At that time the sign of the Son of Man will appear in the sky, and all the nations of the earth will mourn. They will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of the sky, with power and great glory.
31And he will send his angels with a loud trumpet call, and they will gather his elect from the four winds, from one end of the heavens to the other.
32"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.
33Even so, when you see all these things, you know that it is near, right at the door.
34I tell you the truth, this generation will certainly not pass away until all these things have happened.
35Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will never pass away.

The_Unknown_Banana

I think I can see Magus's argument, given the information in this thread. Also, the "you" Jesus refers to could in fact mean just humans (or humanity) in general. Sounds plausible enough to me, certainly not an argument strong enough to discredit the whole point of christianity, imo. (Though I must admit I am more than a little skeptical due to the ambiguity in such a claim)

judge

If you want to read about the great tribulation Josephus might be a good place.

"Accordingly, it appears to me that the misfortunes of all men, from the beginning of the world, if they be compared to these of the Jews are not so considerable as they were;..."

from...
http://www.ccel.org/j/josephus/works/war-pref.htm


If you want to understand the images that Jesus used in the verse you quote, compare it with similar language appearing in the writings of the prophets.
How were other "days of the Lord" described?
What happened on the "days of the Lord"?

Family Man

EstherRose, there is no support in the text for such a interpretation. The Apostles ask when the end times will come, he doesn't specify some future generation. He tells them what they will see, addressing the apostles directly. Linguistically, "this generation" can only refer to the generation of the apostles. There is nothing else in the text that it could possibly refer to. It's absurd to presume otherwise.

The only reason for this interpretation is the Christian need for Jesus not to have been so blatantly wrong. Frankly, it is exactly this type of bad argumentation prevalent in so much of apologetics that convinced me of the falsity of Christianity in the first place.

Family Man

Unless the translators got it very wrong, you are very incorrect here. In English, you cannot refer to humans in general with you. It can only refer to a person or group of persons the person is talking to. While it is possible for an god-like being to address all of humanity, from the context it is clear that the "you" in the passage refer to the apostles. Just as Jesus never specifies that he is referring to a future generation, he would need to be clear that he was referring to all of humanity for that argument to fly.

At best, even in the dubious case that the Christian argument is right and Jesus meant to refer to a future generation and all of humanity, he once again turns out to be a piss-poor communicator, having failed to make his meaning clear.

And, of course, we're ignoring the very likely scenario that Jesus never uttered these words at all, but that these were words that were put in his mouth after his death, which is what I suspect most serious NT scholars would say.

Steven Carr

I had asked
What distress happened 2000 years ago, never to be equalled again? What happened 2000 years ago, that Asuchwitz, Hiroshima, Nagasaki, were not their equal in distress?



Are you claiming that what happened in 70 AD was much worse than what happened at Auschwitz, Hiroshima and Nagasaki?

judge

Equalled in what way?

I am not "claiming" anything. I am not telling you "how" to interpret Jesus's words except to point out the event he referred to did in fact happen 66-70 a.d.

I think if we beleive the account of Josephus there is little doubt this is how it would have seemed to anyone going through it.
Josephus for example tells us there were as many as 500 crucifixions per day for some time ...""until there was neither wood for the
crosses nor places to set up the crosses."

But I am only scratching the surface here.

Steven Carr

'17How dreadful it will be in those days for pregnant women and nursing mothers! 18Pray that this will not take place in winter, 19because those will be days of distress unequaled from the beginning, when God created the world, until now--and never to be equaled again.

So clearly the event referred to by Jesus , days of distress 'never to be equalled again' did not in fact happen in 66-70 AD.

When the Flood happened, everybody in the world died except for 8 people. Was that not as bad as the destruction of one provincial city in the Roman Empire?

The_Unknown_Banana

I'm inclined to agree with your interpretation. However, as you concur, "you" could refer to humanity (as a group). I agree that the context would in fact infer that he was speaking personally, but I don't see how you can be 100% sure of that - as you say, in such a case, it could be blamed on interpretters or a lack of communication skills on Jesus's behalf (lol).

Still, it's easy for me/us to believe that it just didn't come true, and is a fault. This is not a possible option to a theist I'd imagine, hence any other option would seem more viable.

judge

Boy oh boy!
You biblical literalists are tough!
I mean you're good....you're real good (said with a crazy ..yet somehow serious look in his one glass eye):notworthy