Clivedurdle

c. 3831/
9th of Av,70 CE Roman General Titus besieges Jerusalem destroying city and murdering inhabitants, terrible suffering and destruction. (Josephus) Temple set afire, soldiers tear every stone apart to get melted gold. Menorah and vessels carried to Rome. Treasury robbed. 3896/
c. 136 CE Hadrian Undertakes rebuilding of Jerusalem as "Aelia Capitolina" provoking unsuccessful Bar Kochba revolt in 135 by devout Jews. Hadrian erects Temple of Jupiter on Temple Mount and statue of himself facing east in front. Jewish attempt to build Third Temple fails.

This reads that the temple was a ruin until about 135 when Hadrian cleared the site and built the temple to Jupiter. Anyone know when that went? Was it Islam? How does this relate to the koran and mo going there on a horse?

http://www.templemount.org/history.htm

Later in above link is unclear about history of temple of jupiter.

spamandham

...unless of course, it is. I don't buy the idea that a pre-70 writer of Mark would feel the need to give clues that he was referring to Daniel. It's obvious from the direct quotes. If a reader hasn't figured out he's referring to Daniel then adding "let the reader understand" doesn't help.

"let the reader understand" is intended to clue people in to current events without the risk of pissing off Hadrian's henchmen. "Hey guys, when Hadrian erected that temple to Jupiter and it caused the Bar Kochba revolt, well, that's what Daniel was really talking about".

No he didn't. Read it again. The author has Jesus describe the apocalypse in response to "when will these things happen" at the mount of olives. This is a later separate conversation from the one that happens at the temple where Jesus said the temple would be destroyed. "these things" can not be referring to simply the destruction of the temple, since that would be a "this thing".

The entire exchange is simply the author's way of introducing his concept of the end times into the mouth of Jesus.

I guess this is the fundamental disagreement then. You seem to think the apocalypse is all about the events leading to the fall of the temple. I see it instead as the events leading to the return of Jesus.

Considering the anti-Jewish slant of Mark overall, I guess I'm having a hard time understanding why the author would consider the return of Jesus to be less significant than the fall of the temple, such that the focus of the chapter is about the latter rather than the former.

Why did you leave off the passage number for the last item? If you had put it, you would see that the destruction of the temple is introduced first in the chapter, not last.

Do you really think the author intended for his readers to think that the return of Jesus was simply one of the steps toward the destruction of the temple? I don't know how you can read Mark 13 and not realize that the return of Jesus is the focus of the chapter. Early Christians could care less about the Jewish temple, other than it's relevance to the return of Jesus.

It isn't a failed prophecy from the perspective of a 2nd century writer, unless you think the fall of the temple is the focus of Mark 13. I don't believe that to be the case.

Clivedurdle

http://books.google.com/books?id=R9V...esult&resnum=8

This states that a xian source says that Constantine destroyed Hadrian's temple in 325.

mod note: the url is to The Temple of Jerusalem By John M. Lundquist, p. 155

PaulK

Let me know if you ever come up with a case that it is an anachronism.

Which requires that they DON'T know Daniel, because if they did they would know that the Abomination should have been set up in the Temple. Now it is certainly possible that some readers wouldn't know Daniel (especially those who were neither Jews nor Christians) - or even that the author set up an easy puzzle to make those "in the know" feel superior. It seems less likely to me that the author would refer to Daniel while contradicting it.

You read it again:
DId you stop after the first half-dozen words ?

Yet nothing else is mentioned in the context. And yes, I have already pointed out that it is a separate conversation.

Quite possibly.

The destruction of the Temple complex IS the event that is being asked about. And it isn't referred to in the main discourse. So why shouldn't it be at the end ? After all - unlike Luke - Jerusalem does not fall in Mark's version.

The predicted destruction of the Temple is what kicks it all off, so I'd say that it is the focus of the chapter. And what does the attitude to Judaism matter ? The Temple IS important. The destruction and replacement could be seen as a necessary and highly desirable purification.

You should know exactly why. You yourself said:
I left out the passage because the destruction of the Temple is NOT given in the list of events - as I stated. And giving the earlier passage would be misleading - as you obviously know.

No more than I would consider the Tribulation just one of the steps toward the return of Jesus.

I disagree.

Even then, according to Mark 13:30 the current generation would still be alive to see the events (and the phrasing pretty clearly implies that at least some of the Disciples would be). That wouldn't be true in 130 AD.

ApostateAbe

The context of Mark 13 makes it clear that the prediction of the destruction of the temple was in the context of the apocalypticism of Jesus. He makes the prophecy in the same breath as saying that the Son of Man will lead an army of angels from the kingdom of heaven to conquer the kingdoms on Earth, all before "this generation" passes away. So I have no trouble believing that Jesus made such a prediction, because it fits with who Jesus really was.

Also realize that the prophecy is more specific than you think. If we are careful, then we see that the prediction did not come true. "Temple Destruction" is only a rough interpretation of what Jesus was reported to say in the Gospel of Mark. He was actually quoted as saying:

"Do you see all these great buildings? Not one stone here will be left on another; every one will be thrown down."

The temple was mostly destroyed in 70 AD, but the prophecy of Jesus did NOT come true. In fact, many stones of the temple remain on other stones. They call it the Western Wall or the Wailing Wall. If the prediction by later Christians was invented after the fact, then it is likely that they would have phrased it differently.

spamandham

...or they do know it and are spinning scripture to match current events, just like religious people do all the time even today. Keep in mind that from the Jewish perspective, Daniel's prophecy had already come true hundreds of years earlier. The author of Mark is looking for parallels to it, not a fulfillment of it.

Please explain why a pre-70 writer would play a game of clue as to where the abomination would be set up, when it would obvious to all even if Daniel hadn't told them? There was only *one* sacred place for the Jews. It's not much of a secret. Even the Romans would have known what location Mark was referring to. There isn't any sense in his substitution from a pre-70 perspective. It only makes sense from a post-70 perspective.

If you agree that they are two separate conversations, then where are you getting the idea that the destruction of the Temple is being stated to be chronologically later than the return of Jesus? That isn't in the text, and I don't think it makes sense from either a pre-70 or a post-70 perspective.

And again, from your interpretation, what does "these things" refer to?

Do you at least agree that the return of Jesus is the focus of the chapter, and that the destruction of the temple is incidental?

You just got done agreeing those are two different conversations, and now you are insisting that the second conversation is referring back to the first. Why do you think that? You really need to think about what "these things" refers to.

I think it's obvious that "these things" refers to the monologue Jesus is getting ready to start. It's a clumsy poorly thought out hack, not fine prose.

Right. The destruction of the temple comes first. It's mentioned first, because that's what is seen as kicking off the end times, not because the end times lead up to that.

Neglecting that 'generation' can also be translated as 'race' (referring to Jews in general), this is only a problem if the author is writing fine prose and expects his readers to analyze it as such.

If he is sloppy and is talking to his readers as "this generation"....which I think is the case, then there is no problem.


I don't think we're going to come to agreement here, so I'll just ask one question. Which is simpler, that the author of Mark basically just guessed at things that were going to happen and they came uncannily true ~60 years later, or that it was written 60 years later and the author was a bit sloppy in his prose, the signs of which are evident even from your perspective?

spamandham

The western wall is believed to be part of the wall surrounding the temple complex, and not part of the interior buildings. This prophecy really was exactly fulfilled when the Romans tore the temple buildings apart stone by stone looking for gold. A remarkable bit of prophecy really!!! Truly Jesus was the son of god!!!!

(or it was written after the fact :constern01: ).

ApostateAbe

The exterior vs. interior distinction is not a distinction that is important to the people of the time and place. They think of the Western Wall as part of the original structure, a remaining portion of the temple itself. Consider that the Gospel of John, written in 90 CE, does NOT have this same prophecy. Instead, per John 2, it reinterprets the "temple" to be the body of Jesus Christ. If they believed that the prophecy came true, then it would seem to be a huge advantage to them, and they likely would not have reinterpreted it to a metaphor. It is not at all unbelievable that Jesus would have made a prediction that the temple would be destroyed. It matches the other predictions of Jesus and his way of thinking. One prophecy almost came true, and the rest of them did not. There is nothing unbelievable about that, and it should not be used to move the date of the gospel of Mark with little else to support it. If you do move the date to a later time, then the other portion of the prophecy, that "this generation will not pass away until all these things take place," becomes more embarrassing to the authors.

spin

One of the beauties of using dates plucked out of the air, is that you can build really airy hypotheses upon them and you won't be the worse off.

Nobody knows when John was written. Or for that matter any of the gospels. In any case, writing after the reputed time allows one to create whatever one likes and seem to be at least coherent. It allows for apologists to grasp at dates, turning vaticinium ex eventu into "true prophecy", which can then be reinterpreted by even later writers.

What passes for common sense doesn't pass for history.

For what we know, Jesus may not have existed: for all the rationalizations Jesus is still just the protagonist of four related texts. One builds history on stronger grounds.

Good literature.

Believability is not a sufficient critierion for history. Many stories aim to be believable, though they need not be in any way historical.

Again an attempt at common sense. Common sense functions best in a current situation, when the "common" part of the sense reflects what is truly common. When you try to retroject that "common sense" into another context in which you are unable to say much about what you need to, the "common sense" is a waste of breath.

Part of that retrojected "common sense" seems to entail a well-connected continuum of believers, which doesn't seem to reflect what I know of that past. Otherwise we wouldn't have had four conflicting gospels written. Their existence implies a less than well-connected continuum, a condition which should caution you from your attempts at common sense. Your common sense should suggest that the existence of four conflicting gospels would be an embarrassment for the early christian community.

In short, arguments from embarrassment (according to one's common sense interpretation) are simply crap. I find people arguing from embarrassment embarrassing.

There should be no problem in establishing the parameters on which discussion is based. If we are going to talk for example about Jesus in history, should we establish that he was in history?

(I note your previous post which equates gospel literature with accounts of what actually happened. Can one use any literature as history without needing to show that it actually contains history?)


spin

PaulK

By the time Jesus lived it was absolutely clear that Daniel's Kingdom of God had NOT arrived.

I've already offered reasons. Really, there's no difficulty with the author introducing a little bit of obscurity.

I've already explained this. It's the absence of any explicit mention of the destruction of the Temple in Jesus' speech in the second conversation - which is supposedly all about when it will happen.

The destruction of the Temple has to be the main thing. To say that it refers to anything else would have to be conjecture.

No.

Because the text clearly links them. We go straight from the first to the second.

It obviously includes the destruction of the Temple. It might include other things but we can't say what they are.

It's not at all obvious. The only obvious one is the destruction of the Temple complex.

You're not getting that from the text. You've already admitted that these are two separate conversations. The link give is that the second appears to start with a request for Jesus to elaborate on what he said in the first. So there's no reason to put the destruction of the Temple first.

No, it does not require the writer to be anything more than competent. There's no need for fine analysis here - the simple observation that Jesus is talking to the disciples as if they will witness the events is enough.

Again you have to assume that both the author and the readers are too stupid to notice (yet apparently intelligent enough to somehow decipher "genea" as referring to the Jews as a race despite nothing being given in the context to suggest it).

Of course he DIDN'T get things "uncannily right".

So the real comparison should be whether the creator of the prophecy reinterpreted Daniel and got one lucky hit, among a number of misses (as I say) or whether he was a hopeless incompetent unable to even notice that the prophecy he was creating didn't fit his own timescale. (because no Christian writing in 130 AD could think that the generation of the disciples was still alive).

And let us not forget that your version demands a very late date for Mark (130 AD or later) - and presumably Matthew and Luke, too (since Matthew's version is very close to Mark's, and Luke gives a version which appears to have been "corrected" to indicate the failure of whichever revolt is meant)