IBelieveInHymn

The Aramaic term that Jesus Himself probably used the Syriac Peshitta uses "sharbeta" here, which can mean either generation or race is susceptible to either interpretation.

I'm going to take a shot in the dark here, and I'm going to assume Jesus didn't speak Greek, but Aramaic.

And the Greek translators and copyists translated "Generation" instead of "Race."

Jesus actually said "The race of the Jews shall not perish before the end of the World."

IBelieveInHymn

Didn't Jesus say his word will outlive the world? :Cheeky:

graymouser

So you don't believe in plenary verbal inspiration, then?

A hypothetical Aramaic "original" is not supported by the style of the Gospels. Linguistically, regardless of what Jesus "himself" may or may not have spoken, we are discussing documents that were written in Greek straight from the author's pen. There are no credible theories right now in textual criticism that suggest any kind of Aramaic primacy; this board's history is littered with the proof, as it used to be frequented by a vocal Peshitta primacist.

In any case, the Aramaic word used in the Peshitta, $RBT), has the same problems that γενεα has in Matt. 1:17 and throughout the Synoptics, where it is used in the list of generations at the start and then used to denounce the current generation as a recurring theme. Why have you not answered this objection but instead just repeated the same material? Why have you not brought in one analysis from a textual critic (not an apologist) discussing the meaning of γενεα? Why hasn't one single translation team from a theologically conservative translation of the NT used "race" for γενεα in Matt 14:34? (The answer to the last one is that this is a notoriously hard verse, and the gloss that you are trying to push is such an ad hoc construction that nobody would seriously stake his or her reputation on it.)

Even if γενεα somehow weaseled you out of one failed prophecy - and it doesn't - you still have a second failed prophecy in Matt 16:28, "There be some standing here which shall not taste of death, till they see the Son of man coming in His kingdom." Unless you think that some people who listened to Jesus are still alive in the world, this didn't happen.

Dark Virtue

So you ARE saying there are translation errors in the Bible?

It's hard to tell since you're trying to coat it in so much mumbo jumbo :P

If that's the case, then how can the Bible be infallible?

If God is all powerful and all knowing, why didn't he just leave a copy of his instructions PENNED BY HIM? Why is it that Jesus NEVER WROTE ANYTHING DOWN?

Why would God leave it all up to interpretation?

IBelieveInHymn

I would have to say the Greek copyists misunderstood some of the words Jesus said.

Why didn't Jesus right anything down? Because he was an oral teacher. Everything was pretty much hearsay in Jesus' time. I think they call it 'Oral Tradition.'

IBelieveInHymn

There is no failed prophecy, this has been explained to you as plain as day. I've shown you the words Jesus spoke in that verse. And scholars agree the word has a few different meanings. It could have meant race or generation. Like I've been saying since this argument began.

graymouser

And you have not been able to provide any reason to use the gloss of "race" for γενεα - or $RBT), since you apparently believe in oral Aramaic primacy - in Matt. 24:34 in contradistinction to the other uses in Matthew. The word is used 13 times in the book. I've already brought up Matt. 1:17, where "race" could not possibly be the gloss. For instance, in Matt. 11:16 γενεα is used in a context where "generation" is the only possible translation. Jesus is discussing the generation that saw John the Baptist and now him (Jesus), and he uses γενεα in Greek, with $RBT) in Aramaic. Throughout the Gospel, the author - and Jesus - use γενεα in a way that unambiguously translates as "generation." Yet all you can do is bleat "the word has a few different meanings." Not here. Not according to any Bible scholars - apologists and preachers don't count. I'm not even aware of a translation that notes "or race" in a footnote.

And you haven't dealt with the prediction in Matt. 16:28 that some "shall not taste of death" until the coming of the Son of Man in glory, which clearly agrees with the standard, accepted gloss of "generation" in Matt. 23:43.

Sheshbazzar

Thank you for mentioning it. No I do not believe that 'Jesus' (sic) ever said any such thing,
or for that matter anything at all. There never was any living 'Jesus' (sic) as the one described in your favorite fairy-tale, the character being an entirely imaginary creation and fabrication of a lunatic religious cult.
They are the ones that put these words into the mouth of their imaginary god.
It really doesn't make one whit of difference if those made up fairy-tale words survive for even another 10,000 years, as your imaginary man/god never existed, never actually lived, never was here in the first place, has not came, and never will come.
It ('he') was nothing but a spook, a cult figure, a figment created out of deranged men's imaginations then, and remains nothing more today.

spamandham

No, it says that *he* will gather the elect via his angels, *after* he returns.

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. And 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 (Matthew 24:21-31).

None of this has happened, and the Jews are not the elect of Jesus according to Christian tradition, Christians are.

Even if the end-times prophecies were real, 1948 had nothing to do with them, since Jesus wasn't the one who gathered them together...and since Jews are not the elect referred to in the NT.

Joan of Bark

So modern Bible translators are intentionally confusing us by using the word 'generation' instead of 'race' or 'people'? Or are they the uneducated ones you're referring to?