Godwithus

I agree 100%. Doesnt make sense to include a "false" prophecy many years after the event...especially if that event was suppose to see the return of the Christ. There is only one real answer...the texts were written before AD 70. I also believe that prophecy isnt about AD 70...but about a restored pre-Messianic Israel. The Messiah of course in both the OT and NT returns to a Jewish state.

spin

The temple is the edifice of the Jews. The destruction of the temple is the overthrow of the Jews. No-one cares about the actual stones. One can refer to the overthrow of the Jews at any time after the event. The overthrow of the Jews is the earliest indicator we have, but how much later could reference have been made to it? I'd say a long time.

The dating issue is complex and there is a lot of rubbish in circulation regarding dates and texts. We have remarkably few significant pointers as to when anything hit parchment.

Certainly the Jesus of the gospels is no messiah. For starters he died. Hence the Jewish reaction that he was obviously a false messiah. The messiah is a military leader who by doing the will of god will overthrow the oppression of the Jews and defeat the nations ushering in an era of peace, centered round the state of Israel. Jesus under Paul's formulation is a savior. There is nothing messianic about him. I can therefore understand the logic of your last few sentences.


spin

Godwithus

Hi, spin can I ask you a question? Who is that Messianic figure coming with the clouds in Daniel 7? And who is that coming to Israel with the Holy ones in Zechariah 14? And is Isaiah 9 a reference to the Messiah?

Transient

hmm well that creates an even worse problem. It is often said that the stories are fiction made up using the OT as a guide - making the prophecies come true as it were in Jesus.
How could they have done such a lousy job of interpreting the scriptures if it was all made up?

spin

Fiction is an inappropriate word for what we are dealing with. It carries connotations that seem to me unrelated to what we are examining. No-one seems actively making up anything. If you watch today's christians trying to support their personal biblical interpretations, they are creative in that they add to the starting material, add interpretive layers in an effort to make sense of the text. This is not fiction, but in an orally transmitted situation this attempt to make sense of the tradition leads to the development of the tradition. One finds better ways of saying things, justification from earlier religious texts. The transmission with personal clarifications changes the tradition in an ad hoc manner.

We can see the development of traditions in the gospels. Just consider that Capernaum is both in Mark and Q, while Nazareth is not in Q and doubtful in Mark. Bethlehem is a later addition again. So we can construct a relative chronology of tradition developments, of which both Nazareth and Bethlehem receive biblical "prophecy" support. This is ad hoc and there is no overarching mentality fabricating stories. You have storytellers passing on their wares, wares received from others, now with value added.


spin

aa5874

But, do not gMatthew, gMark and gLuke contain the very "false prophecy" today? Why is it still in the Synoptics and it was known to be false? Why does not gJohn contain the "false prophecy"?

Why did gJohn not contain anything about the DAY of Judgement AFTER the tribulation, the Fall of the Temple and the destruction of Jerusalem as found in the Synoptics?

The Church claimed John the Apostle wrote the Gospel of John and LIVED up to the time of TRAJAN so once John was ALIVE, Jesus could have come in "HIS GENERATION" but the author of John wrote nothing about the "false prophecy".

Why did the author gJohn forget the words of Jesus, forget the "false prophecy" when he should have at least seen the other Gospels and remembered the words of Jesus?

The Gospels are just stories written sometime after the Fall of the Temple. You will notice ONLY the Fall of the Temple and the destruction of Jerusalem appear to be predicted correctly.

Virtually everything else in the Gospels with Jesus is FICTION or false prophecies.

Jaybees

I can see where the gospels wouldn't have mentioned Paul since those writers, whoever they were, were merely recording oral traditions or copying from each other. Paul, on the other hand, should have been eager to make use of all the gospel materials he could lay his hands on. The fact that Paul seems woefully ignorant of much that's in those gospels convinces me that he (or the pseudo-Paul) was writing before they were.

Toto

If the gospels were recording these "oral traditions" why had Paul not heard about them?

Transient

Maybe Paul was writing around the same time that some of the gospels were being written and most of it was still just word of mouth from Jesus' followers.

spamandham

I think you are conflating theological Judaism with political Israel. They are not the same thing.