Toto

Nothing at all. Just that there would be no expectation that this "embarrassing" element would be weeded out by later generations.

Or Jesus never existed and the prophecy was written concerning the situation around a later Jewish War; still, it is more likely to be kept and explained away or projected into the future.

There are still Americans expecting the end of the world as predicted in the scriptures, although the scriptures must be constantly reinterpreted to push the date into the future. Even the failure of the Y2K prophecy of doom has not changed their mindsets.

It's almost as if there is some sort of genetic basis for this expectation of the end of the world in a glorious conflagration, in which justice will be done and evil will be consumed by fire. When religion was at a low ebb, there were various Marxist factions who expected the Revolution to do something similar. I think there are still Marxists around somewhere, probably waiting for the vanguard of the working class to appear and lead the way.

show_no_mercy

Has anyone put forth the idea that gMark 8: 34 - 9: 1; gMatt 16:24 – 28; and gLuke 9: 23 – 27 are all referencing the destruction of the 2nd Temple, thus a fulfilled "prophecy"? The writer of Mark et. al. places Jesus one generation (40 years) before the destruction of the Temple so that this particular "prophecy" could come true. Which could also be another peice of evidence that Mark was written sometime close to the 2nd Temple's destruction and the readers are then waiting for the return of the Son of Man / the Kingdom of God after the fall of Jerusalem.

aa5874

Well, if nothing can be proven to be false even if implausible then your investigation is futile or irrelevant.

I can now tell you that you cannot prove that the so-called failed prophecy was ever predicted by anyone in the first century.

Again, you cannot prove that a person called Jesus lived in the 1st century and made any prediction.

Why did you assume, without proof, a character called Jesus actually said that people would be alive when he came back a second time?

Now, what is the time span of one generation? 10 years or 100 years?

What was the age of the youngest person that heard Jesus make the so-called failed prediction?

According to Irenaeus, John, a disciple of Jesus, was still alive up to the time of Trajan.


Against HeresiesXXII.5 It is therefore possible that gMark, Matthew, or Luke could have been written in the 2nd century before the so-called prophecy had failed since one of the so-called disciple call John was still believed to be standing during the time of Trajan who was Emperor in the 2nd century from 98-117 CE.

So, if gMatthew, Mark or Luke were written when the disciple John was believed to be alive the prophecy or prediction could still be believed to be pending.

And, remember based on your statement nothing can be proven even if implausible.

There may have been people who believed Jesus did come a second time.

PhilosopherJay

Hi Jayrok,

Please note that the passage about "this generation" is identical in Mark, Matthew and Luke:

This is quite unusual. It is hard to find another passage where no changes have been made. This suggests to me that all three gospels have been corrected at the same time by the same person.

Note the other references to "this generation" in Mark:
Here is Matthew talking about "this generation":
It is clear that in the original text the lead character did not think much of "this generation." Note also how much the passages are different in the two writers, suggesting that the writers were not interested in simply copying their source material.

Now look at the structure of the passage which is exactly the same in not just Mark and Matthew, but Luke as well:


Let's analyse this a bit to see what it is saying about what will and will not be.

1. What will not not be (pass away) before Apocalypse will be? This generation.
What will be -- The Apocalypse
2. What will not be before my words will not be? The World.
What will not not be -- my words.

The use of the double negative terms are confusing, instead of "being," the phrase uses the idea of not "not being" (Will not pass away)

Thus we get this:
A. will not "not be" - This Generation
B. will be - The Apocalypse
C. will not be - The world
D. will not "not be" - my words.

The not "not be" is a clever twist or a clever way of saying "to be". It obscures the fact that we are getting a broken analogy. The analogy should be "A" is to "B" as "C" is to "D". The relationship of A (this generation) to B (the Apocalypse) should be the same as C (the world) to D (my words).

Notice that we have three things that will be - this generation, the apocalypse, and my words, and one thing that will not be - the world.

We are getting a strange disanalogy that A to D is not B to C.

Before the trick of putting in the double negative confused the passage, we may assume that there was an analogy of A to B as C to D. The passage originally must have read something like this:

We now have a simple A to B = C to D structure. What will pass away: A (This generation) and C (The world). What will not pass away: B: (The Apocalypse) and D: (My Words). Rather then the senseless and confusing disanalogy that we have in the synoptics, we now have found the original clear analogy that was in the original text.

I am not sure why the editor of the synoptic gospels made this change to the passage in the synoptics. Anybody care to speculate?


Warmly,

Philosopher Jay

DCHindley

Because it was all they had. Everyone knew that Jesus was a Jew, and that he was crucified. I am not sure what it was, but some sort of "glue" kept these clearly-Gentile "Christians" together as a group who nonetheless still had a strong link to judaism, and prevented the individuals who constituted it from just giving up and assimilating back into society. I think they threw their lot in with Judaism, probably hoping against hope that the rumors were true that Jews would one day soon institute a just new world empire. It didn't work that way, unfortunately, but they had burned their bridges and simply couldn't go back to the way it was before.

The anti-Roman sentiment is inferred, not overtly stated. At any rate, at least the Christian authors of the Gospels thought the explanations might fly with at least some Romans, or at least with the general populace.

They would say it wasn't political messianism, but a kind of spiritual messianism. Jesus was annointed by God, all right, but not as a military ruler but a spiritual ruler. Them mixed-up Jews just got it all wrong, had him killed, and in the process unwittingly fulfilled God's purpose of saving all mankind. No wonder why they unwisely rebelled and got their asses kicked by the Romans.

DCH

DCHindley

First off, I don't subscribe to the POV that the Church wielded some sort of absolute Soviet Union like power to revise, or arbitrarily invent, history, even in Constantine's time. Constantine used Christianity as a tool. If the Christian bishops were so powerful, why did Constantine have to impose his own compromise on the Arian theological debate, and a powerful bishop like Eusebius, a favorite of the Emperor, put aside his own pro-Arian opinions and say "Yes SIR!!!"? I doubt Constantine would have created Christianity as we know it if he really wanted to invent a cult from scratch.

The NT books read by the many firmed up in the 2nd century, but there were many who didn't like all the ones read by some others. 2 Peter and Jude come to mind. Some didn't like the Apocalypse of John. Others had "favorite sons" like the Shepherd of Hermas, or the Letters of Clement or Barnabas, etc, which they added to the other books as they saw fit. The current number was finally agreed upon in the 4th century or so, maybe a tad later in some places, but there is evidence that these books (the NT books) were well established by the end of the 2nd century, after they all suddenly started to be copiously cited by Irenaeus.

DCH

aa5874

But, your statement cannot be shown to be true.

This is like saying that everyone believed that the angel Moroni did speak to Joseph Smith of Mormonism about the golden plates just because there are millions of Mormons today.

Actually, the extant evidence shows the opposite. No-one knew Jesus of the NT. Philo and Josephus cannot account for Jesus of the NT.

And upto the middle of the 2nd century Justin Martyr cleary wrote that many persons believed that Jesus was not a Jew or was crucified, and even laughed at him.


First Apology LVIII

spamandham

Modern Christians predict he is coming at any moment...many think his coming is so imminent, we need not even worry about 2010. Delusion knows no rational bound.

One would think such imminent claims would be even more embarassing now - 2000 years later. Yet they are not. How much less embarrasing would they have been without 2000+- years of intervening history?

Doug Shaver

That would depend on what I thought the authors thought the "coming of the Son of Man" meant. At this time I have no opinion on that issue.

Huon

The exact date of the writing of the gospels is not very important on the subject. "The coming of the Son of Man" is a subject of faith. If he does not come today, well, perhaps to-morrow ? Perhaps, he came, long ago, and nobody noticed ...

The christians have lived and developed for approximately two millenaries. "The coming of the Son of Man" does not concern seriously the majority of them. When a christian dies, he/she hopes that he/she will be admitted in the paradise.