Caveat_Imperator

The delegates didn't sign the Declaration until August 2nd, 1776.

rjf

[Dusts off old Bible]

Hmmm....Let's see.....

The Lord will no longer be with his people
Howlings in the temple, dead bodies abound
Land tremble, everyone mourn, flood, darkening,
Mournig of an only son
Famine of the words of the Lord
Wandering the earth seeking the word of the Lord and not finding it

You're right. This does correspond to what happened in and after the Seige of Jerusalem. Only line three was missing, so how much of a stretch would it have been for 'Mark' to have added it? The only part missing was darkness, a quake, and a flood, so he claimed two of them happened when Jesus was killed.

Is there evidence that Mark was written after Titus' destruction? Or at least this passage (it's my understanding that the first complete text didn't appear until ~100 years after, but I'm not a scholar and don't want to rule out any possibilities).

I would also say the same could be applied to Mark 13. If it was written after Christians started getting persecuted, it becomes nothing more than retroactive justification for their suffering.

Same with Matthew 22--the parable is that the gospel should be preached to the gentiles because the Jews rejected Jesus, and then got killed/scattered. 'Matthew' would have had no difficulty justifying this, as we know with absolute certainty that his book was written after Jesus' death.

I say 'retroactively self-fulfilling prophecies,' all of them.

rjf

Don't nitpick.