HarryStine

This is a horse that I feel should have been beaten to death, but, strangely, I don't seem to hear much about it either from christians or non-christians. When I was catholic this used to bother me plenty in my private mind, but for some reason I never bothered to look for an answer from anyone and it never came up by itself.

In any case, the elephant in the room that I am referring to is Mark 9:1, I don't believe I need to explain to anyone that this raises the problem of seeming to present a biblical prophecy that has not been and cannot be fulfilled. I imagine that there are ways of explaining this away but people don't seem to be trying as hard as they should to do this. In fact, a commentary in my New American Bible says, So, this commentator claims that the passage most likely refers to exactly what it seems to refer to, i.e. the second coming. This is a supposed keeper of the faith claiming that the impossible meaning is the correct meaning. Does this person believe that the end of the world has, in fact, already happened 2 millenia ago?

Anyway, I just wanted to see what thoughts people had on this. Is there something that I am not seeing? Is the reason I don't hear much about this because the answer is blaringly obvious and I am just too dumb, ignorant or inattentive to see it? What explanations exist out there? What have you heard said? Any christians out there who can comment?

jgreen44

This is the favorite subject of a type of Christian known as Preterists. My brother, David, for example, has a website all about the subject.

HarryStine

I see. We have Christians believing that the second coming already happened. This interests me and I'll be looking more into it. As for now, my impression is that they believe that the world, as we know it, is going to just continue as is and this either counts as the Kingdom of God or that that only exists in the afterlife.

Still, this doesn't help the majority of the rest of Christianity that believes we are still waiting. Also, the part about those who "will not taste death" seems to indicate that the Kingdom is an earthly one. If so, I wonder where God's throne is.

jgreen44

Hyper-Preterists, like my brother, believe that the Kingdom is not a literal place but rather a spiritual dimension all around us. The Second Coming, the resurrection of the dead, the New Jerusalem: for the Hyper-Preterist they are all spiritual and not literal. Consequently, God's throne would also not be in a literal geographic location. Even "death" in the Bible is not literal for Preterists. They believe the final enemy to be conquered, "death", is not physical biological death but rather spiritual death. And it's already happened. Isn't that great? :banghead:

IMHO, people who believe this stuff are tying the meaning of words into pretzels so as to maintain their own cozy perception of the Bible as the inerrant word of God.

Sheshbazzar

It is also the belief of some, that it is a truth ('His Word is truth') that some of those standing there never did die,
and are to this very day still living and walking amongst us, never aging, blending in by constantly moving on from place to place.

The next stranger passing you on the street may be one, that guy in the apartment at the end of the hall, or that migrant worker picking pickles.
For 'It is appointed to men to die once'.
Lazarus died and was buried once, but was resurrected to live, and never die;
'I am the resurrection, and the life: he that believeth in Me, though he were dead, yet shall he live: And whosoever liveth and believeth in me -shall never die-. Believest thou this?'
Therefore, Lazarus himself is still living and walking amongst us.

Moses knew this by faith; 'And this is the blessing with which Moses the man of Elohim blessed the children of Israel before his death....
'Let Reuben live, and not die; and let not his men be few.'

'I shall not die, but I shall live, and recount the deeds of YAH.'

These ever living souls, are being kept alive and present down through the ages to observe men, prepared to be called forth as first hand witnesses against evil men in The Day of Judgment.

Just thought I'd share this one with you, as it is an interpretation not often considered.

GakuseiDon

Doherty believes that the timing is related to Mark's generation, and not to the generation of Jesus/John the Baptist/Pilate. From page 403 in his book, "Jesus: Neither Man nor God":

There are those who point out that Mark has Jesus promise (13:30) that "this generation will live to see it all"... Certainly, 50 or 60 years is the outside time within which such a prediction alleged to be made around the year 30 could still have had legitimacy. Yet if Mark [writing around 90 CE] were creating only a symbolic Jesus within a midrashic tale, such a limitation would not apply. The time limit of the promise needs to start from the point of Mark's writing.

Paul also believed that the end was near, and implied that some in his generation would be alive when that happened.

Joan of Bark

Actually, Harry, it has been mentioned a lot on this site.

Some Christians today feel Jesus was referring to some future generation, despite what the passage seems to indicate. It is one step removed from this kind of silly interpretation that we get the idiots like Hal Lindsey who claim we are very close to the second coming because Jesus was referring to the generation after the re-emergence of Israel in 1948.

Why Jesus would be lecturing his followers on an event that is still 2000 years in the future is anybody's guess.

Deus Ex

Many of the somewhat liberal Christians that I dialog with on another board believe that Jesus had human limitations and was occasionally mistaken about things--at least until he was resurrected and exalted. They quote passages like Mark 13:32 as evidence of Jesus' human limitations. According to them, Jesus was simply wrong about the imminence of the parousia. Jesus did not get his full omnimax god-powers until the resurrection.

Doug Shaver

Non-Christians generally take it for granted that we have no reason to be surprised if any particular scriptural passage seems obviously to be false. Christians who are not inerrantists (the majority, by the way) tend to feel the same way.

For inerrantists, it's just a matter of finding an interpretation that makes it true.

For us who are not inerrantists, there is no reason to try at all. Those who are inerrantists need to try just hard enough to satisfy themselves. They really don't care whether the rest of us find their interpretation credible. It's credible to them, and as far as they're concerned, nothing else matters.

HarryStine

I never heard this one presented seriously before, but I'm loving it. Brute force apologetics.