Jesus Predicted a First Century Return That Did Not Occur
Matthew 16:27-28:
"For the Son of Man is going to come in his Father’s glory with his angels, and then he will reward each person according to what they have done. Truly I tell you, some who are standing here will not taste death before they see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom.”
Christ predicted his second coming would occur very soon after his death. He was emphatic in many verses that he and his apostles were already living in the end times, and that various signs of the immnent end of history had already come to pass.
Of course that never took place, or you wouldn't be here to read this. Revelations was a metaphorical prediction of the fall of Rome, written as metaphor because Christians could not openly criticize Rome at the time for fear of persecution. Everywhere in the New Testament that Christ discusses his second coming, it is explicitly said to be imminent, not 2,000+ years later.
"…he was wrong. He clearly knew no more about the end of the world than anyone else. It is certainly the most embarrassing verse in the Bible."
—C. S. Lewis, The World’s Last Night and Other Essays (New York: Harcourt Brace & Company, 1973), 98. (Post-conversion)
Pre-emptive answers to common objections:
“No one knows the day or the hour” means that the date cannot be known precisely. However, that does not stop Jesus from repeatedly giving a general timeframe of several decades within which to expect his second coming.
It can't be interpreted to mean you and I as metaphorical apostles because he specifically says "some of you standing here", as in the people he was talking to at that time. The full context reinforces that, he was speaking to disciples who accompanied him to Caesar Phillipi who wanted to know how they would recognize the second coming.
It can't be interpreted as referring to the transfiguration because the events described in verse 27 don't happen at the transfiguration (Jesus, God and angels coming from the clouds, judging mankind according to their deeds).
Daniel's visions don't satisfy the claim either because while they depict seven apocalyptic creatures (representing kingdoms that ruled over the Jews up to that point) nowhere does Daniel's vision describe Christ's return.
The 666/616 gematria code known as the number of the Beast must mean Nero/Neron, because only that name fits both 666 (Nero) and 616 (Neron). Source: http://www.math.harvard.edu/~elkies/mp666.html. This is because the book of Revelations was intended to metaphorically describe the fall of Rome, in a time when Christians could not openly predict it.
It's true that some of the events Christ said must occur before his second coming have not yet occurred. However, submitting this as proof that Christ must have meant something else in the verses supplied above presupposes that he actually was clairvoyant, instead of simply being wrong about those predictions too, because he was a regular human being without the ability to see the future.
For those who say that no Christian tastes death but lives on forever, it is clear Christ meant bodily death by other verses wherein he tells his traveling companions which signs they may personally expect to witness as his second coming approaches. They, according to Christ, should anticipate those signs within their lifetimes and would know by those signs that his second coming was imminent. There are two deaths: bodily and spiritual.
Jesus’ resurrection does not fit the criteria supplied by the verse because he did not, on that occasion, “come in his Father’s glory with his angels, and reward each person according to what they have done.” By that description it’s clear he is referring to his second coming, as explored more thoroughly in Revelations.
“When Christ said some standing there would not taste death before witnessing his return, that isn’t the kind of death he meant.” But it is. Hence "taste". There are two deaths. The first bodily and the second spiritual. He's referring to the first (to merely taste, rather than to eat) as those saved in him will only briefly experience death before being resurrected.
He cannot have meant the destruction of Jerusalem because the events described (Christ coming in the clouds with God and angels, judging men according to what they had done) did not occur when Jerusalem fell.
“But Jesus performed miracles!” ….according to a book written by his devoted followers, used to convert more people to their religion. According to books written by Scientologists about L. Ron Hubbard, he was one of America's first nuclear physicists, a war hero and the greatest humanitarian ever to live. And the Qur'an says that Muhammad once split the moon in half by pointing at it, then rejoined the halves. Was Muhammad therefore a true prophet?
“How do you explain all those fulfilled prophecies?” Almost all of which are recorded in one book of the Bible, then recorded after the fact as having come true in a later book of the Bible. This is a very easy trick. Observe: In 1998 I predicted that on Sept. 11, 2001 planes would collide with the WTC towers. Amazing! How did I know that? Am I clairvoyant?
This is also how Qur’anic prophecies work, although most Christians have already figured that out, just not applied it to Christianity. The ones not yet fulfilled are sufficiently vague, like horoscopes, as to always be true. For example, “there will be wars and rumors of wars”. This is so the eschaton always appears imminent: World events will always appear to confirm Biblical prophecy, no matter what century you live in. The purpose being to supply a perpetual sense of urgency to drive evangelism.
The entirety of Matthew through John, wherever Christ speaks of his return he does it in language that makes it clear he expects it to be imminent. A good example of this is in 1 John 2:18, where Christ urges the followers he is writing to: “18 Children, it is the last hour, and as you have heard that antichrist is coming, so now many antichrists have come. Therefore we know that it is the last hour.” also Matthew 10:23, "When you are persecuted in one place, flee to another. Truly I tell you, you will not finish going through the towns of Israel before the Son of Man comes." They long ago fled through all the towns of Israel, so where is Jesus?
Over and over it is stressed to early Christians that they should not to make long term plans (like marriage: 1 Cor. 7:29-31), not to go on living in the world as if it will still be here for the rest of their lives, and to look for specific signs that they could expect to see.
This was committed to writing a few decades after Christ's death by people who still believed they were living in a window of time that was consistent with what Christ predicted for his return. Then it just never got changed, because of the freezing effect of orthodoxy on preserving the contents of a holy text. It was just continually reinterpreted in a way to make it seem like Jesus wasn't wrong.
Jesus didn't predict an event like you have described - your supposition is ludicrous.
I've almost finished a writing a very detailed post that totally debunks the nonsense in your post - but I'll give you an small insight now.
Saved Christians never die - they have everlasting life. But I'm just skimming the surface and giving you a teaser. I'm going to go much deeper than that.
Follow me as i will debunk this post, and C.S. Lewis, and put this nonsense argument to bed once and for all.
Matthew:
29 “Immediately after the distress of those days
“‘the sun will be darkened,
and the moon will not give its light;
the stars will fall from the sky,
and the heavenly bodies will be shaken.’[b]
30 “Then will appear the sign of the Son of Man in heaven. And then all the peoples of the earth[c] will mourn when they see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven, with power and great glory.[d] 31 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.
32 “Now learn this lesson from the fig tree: As soon as its twigs get tender and its leaves come out, you know that summer is near. 33 Even so, when you see all these things, you know that it[e] is near, right at the door. 34 Truly I tell you, this generation will certainly not pass away until all these things have happened. 35 Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will never pass away.
Certainly seems to me he is saying people listening to him would witness these things.
I already supplied the very verses in which he did so.
This is already accounted for in the post, under 'pre-emptive answers to common objections' #7 and #9.
I haven't posted my article yet.
I assure you that I will put this argument to rest in a future post.
gduran's comment isn't worth replying to - he's way off.
It is not necessary to address every one of your strawman answers, but I will pick the two of them that fail to debunk answers that are almost right.
The Discourse at Caesar Phillipi was different from the Olivet Discourse and must be analyzed separately. There are four consecutive verses that got separated by the latter insertion of a Chapter break. They are:
Now there are two ways that this prediction could come true. They could physically live to see the Second Coming or they could live to see a vision of the Second Coming in the distant future. Behold, the very next two verses tell us about that vision which occurred just six days after the prediction.
So, readers have their choice. Either (a) Jesus was talking about physically seeing it and was wrong or (b) He was talking about next week's planned vision and was right.
Those of little faith will choose the former.
Those who trust the Lord will choose the latter.
Because I have seen the overwhelming amount of evidence provided by the eyewitnesses who knew Jesus, it is easy for me to give them the benefit of the doubt when a difficult passage arises. Only those who are looking to find fault fall off the turnip truck at the first hairpin turn.
They aren't straw men, and saying "it isn't necessary" to address my arguments is not the same as rebutting them. You've said this because you cannot rebut them.
That is already addressed in 'pre-emptive answers to common objections' #3:
"It can't be interpreted as referring to the transfiguration because the events described in verse 27 don't happen at the transfiguration (Jesus, God and angels coming from the clouds, judging mankind according to their deeds)."
There is nothing which ever turned out to be true that required us to have faith in it. Truth never needs to rely on faith, it can stand on its own empirical merits.
If I were to tell you to have faith that North Korea doesn't exist and is actually an elaborate hoax, would you? Probably you'd want evidence, right? Faith is not a substitute for evidence, nor a valid basis for belief in anything. It is what you encourage people to have lots of, if you want to fool them.
i.e. all early Christians, all in the same book, written for the purpose of convincing readers to convert to Christianity. The Qur'an is also replete with eyewitness accounts of miracles performed by Muhammad, yet this does not convince you that Islam is true.
You still have yet to acknowledge the fact that Jesus does not fit the messianic criteria found in the Torah any more convincingly than Muhammad is argued by Muslims to have been predicted in the book of John. You've just said "other Christians have written about it" but naturally neglected to quote them, an obvious bluff.
It is not necessary for me because I am not offering most of your preemptive rebuttals as a defense in this case.
We have a 4 verse context with the preceding verse talking about the end times and the two following verses talking about the transfiguration. Either could apply. One makes Jesus wrong, one makes him right. The context of all the rest of scripture weighs in on the side of "Jesus is right". Therefore your preemptive argument fails to block me from continuing to assert that Jesus was talking about seeing a vision from the future, not living to see the future. Your entire (recurring) post is therefore undone since believers now have a plausible answer and unbelievers don't care if there is an answer.
Faith is a part of everything we know. We usually have enough information to believe something when we get to 50% or 75% certain, but seldom have 100% proof -- so we take the rest on faith. Standard human procedure for dealing with the uncertainties of life. It is so with the Bible. While each of us have different thresholds of how much is enough, the demand for 100% proof in this case is not reasonable and will not be granted. Get over it. "It is a wicked and adulterous generation that asks for a sign and none will be given it except the sign of the prophet Jonah."
I am content to let people read the various accounts of the Bible and Quran and Book of Mormon, et. al. and make their own decisions which passes their acceptance threshold. I contend that every single one of those that Jesus has called will be convinced by the Bible and that no one else will. So be it.
I do not intend to spend time on the messianic argument because I have not studied that in sufficient detail to make the case myself. I have seen the case made by great people for 2000 years, and will simply refer you to that. "A man's gotta know his limitations" as Clint Eastwood might say.
Any time a mere mortal takes on Jesus Christ in a contest of who knows the most about what He meant by something and whether He was being consistent with everything else, I'm going with Jesus.
For that reason, I'm not going to make the same mistake and try to explain every nuance as if I had every angle covered.
But I did appreciate the following post I found in another forum discussing CS Lewis's remark. I haven't completely analyzed it other than to do some light editing for clarity. TL;DR - Jesus is answering two questions asked by the disciples concerning the destruction of the temple and the Second Coming. Some things were to happen in the generation of those present and some in the generation of those to see the "beginning of sorrows" - perhaps in our generation.
Benjamin Hoogterp • 2 months ago
I studied this for a while, before finding Lewis' words. As I searched, I found a wonderful article by Ted Noel pointing out the structural form of Matthew 24 (which also tracks for Mark's and Luke's accounts).
He points out that two questions are in view. Of course, 70 AD could account for most of the first half of Matthew 24, but it should, because Jesus prefaced it with, "as for what you see here". Then, in v22-28, is a short interlude, and then v29-31 show the yet future Second Coming.
I like Lewis' pointing out that the "no one knows" passage is right next to it, but what I think he fails to see is that v34&36 go hand in hand (with v35 as parenthetical interjection). v34 says, all "these things" would happen, meaning the v4-21, 70 AD events. v34 says "of that day". Which day? Not 70 AD, that was really a 3 1/2 yr war. No, "That Day" is referring to the unique day, the Second Coming day..."The Day of the Lord" to be precise.
So, together, v34&36 read, All these (70 AD, temple destruction) things will happen within this generation, ... (v35) but of That Day and hour, no one knows. No contradiction, perfectly fulfilled in part, the other yet to come.
(This is classic Double Fulfillment of Prophecy -- Stan)
Their whole question is "when". His answer first describes both, but says the second coming will be after the 70 AD stuff. Then, He describes the timing of the first and says the second is completely unknown. Sometime later, John filled in that there would be some 1,000 years and then some, as I read it, Rev 20.
The only question is the Greek 'Eutheos' in v29. As Mr. Noel put it, a simple comparison of the Lexicon plus the New Testament usage of the Word shows that "immediately" is not the best choice. Directly, straightway, or even Next can be used. John 6 being a prime example, the boat did not "immediately" reach the other shore, by the parallel account, they rowed. The word meaning "straight" (like the street in Acts), many translations render the word as "straightway", not denoting time, but rather a direct course from here to there. The prevalence of "immediately" owing largely to historical translations, plus the coupling with the phrase "de meta", "straightway but after" is more cumbersome than the simplification "immediately". But, what is lost is the precision of the Greek.
So, in the end, there was no real contradiction in this verse. Jesus was relating two things, and their timing. One happened in the allotted time, the other is yet-to-come. It has simply been obfuscated by the imprecise translation, and the too great focus on v34's generation at the ignoring of what Lewis pointed out--Jesus pointed out in the same sentence structure that the day of the Second Coming was completely unknown--other than being "de meta", Next but after the tribulation, just not "immediately after".
Once again you are assuming a priori that Christianity is true. You seem unable to think in any other way. You are no different in this respect from any given Muslim, who would scoff at your presumption that you know better than the prophet Muhammad.
Now, if you would care to demonstrate that Jesus satisfied the messianic criteria found in the Torah after all (without using the same metaphorical stretches that Muslims use to say Muhammad's coming was predicted in John), I am all ears.
Recommended reading: How to recognize a cult
Being in something that matches the definition of a cult is only worrisome if it has a false leader. You bring up that cult description over and over again hoping to smear the negative aspects of false cults onto Jesus. Non sequitur.
I have already addressed your tendency to try to prove Christianity false by pointing to a thousand other false beliefs. Non sequitur.
I have read the Scriptures and found them credible and see no need to convince someone who doesn't want to be convinced. I have explained, patiently, that only those who have ears to hear are expected to be convinced, as Jesus Himself stated many times.
Anyone who is not converted to a believer after reading the things that Jesus said and did is not meant to. Jesus said, "My sheep hear my voice." If you don't hear it, you are not His sheep.
I only respond here to those who might be discouraged from trying by your campaign to undermine their belief. I'm not trying to convince anyone who works as hard as you do to NOT be convinced.
:o)
Israel did not exist in Jesus day. What had been the Northern Kingdom of Israel was then called Samaria. The lost tribes of Israel have been dispersed to the ends of the earth since circa 700 BC.
So, we have not finished going through all "the towns of Israel" to this day.
It is true that Jesus wanted his disciples to live in a perpetual state of readiness until He returned. Quoting any apostle acting like they believed it could happen at any time is merely them being obedient to his recurring command for them to "Watch." That produces the proper attitude to the things of this world and a sense of urgency about His Great Commission:
Clearly, this was not possible for anyone to achieve, unless He had meant the little tiny nation of Israel as it appears on the map today which did not even exist until 1948.
In the very same Olivet Discourse of Matthew 24:14, (where you hope to have found evidence that Jesus meant He would return within the lifespan of the people He was addressing) Jesus makes it clear that the Gospel must be preached in all the world before the end would come:
You need to think BIGGER, Pinky!
This is a weak answer, which does not under any circumstances simply allow Christianity to be untrue where that is the simplest and most plausible explanation. Instead it assumes, as you always do, that Christianity must be true and then interprets everything from within that framework. There is one particular conclusion this mindset will never allow you to arrive at, by design.
Which is to say it furnishes a perpetual sense of urgency to motivate recruitment, out of concern for the 'unsaved'. This is a good way to condition recruits to always feel driven to go out and recruit more people, which is how you would design a religion to spread itself efficiently.
Indeed, this is how you design a religion if its purpose is to continue propagating until all of humanity is consumed. It makes no difference whether the founder knows in advance if that will occur or not, you can't win if you don't play. Which is to say if you hope to succeed on that scale, this is how you lay the groundwork for it.
Morevoer, the Olivet discourse does not cause verses to stop existing in which Christ explicitly says his return will occur within that generation, and before some standing there had died of old age. In light of those verses, the most reasonable conclusion is that Christ had unrealistic expectations about how quickly Christianity would spread.
You're a creationist. I think you have the mice reversed. By the by, you never explained why Jesus does not fit the messianic criteria found in the Torah. You just abandoned that discussion. Have you found anything relevant to that topic since then which you would like to share with me?
Of course Christianity has been designed to propagate until all humanity has been reached. That's Jesus' Great Commission in a nutshell. You act like that's a bad thing.
The ways Jesus fits the messianic criteria have been well-covered by many people much more versed in the Torah than me. Look it up. I'm not here to spend my time rewriting the entire body of Christian apologetics for you.
I'm here only to help seekers find answers. Scoffers can find other ways to amuse themselves.
Pointing to a few verses that are hard to understand does not offset the enormous number of verses that make it plain who Jesus was. Given that this has been made plain, I am willing to assume that anything I can't explain is because I don't understand. I'm quite comfortable with that.
Edit: I recommend reading the following comment with a tone of smug, cowardly, ignorant sarcasm. Think David Brent from the U.K. The Office.
No I haven't. Read the rest of the post. Several verses are supplied in support of the central claim. Please apologize for lying.
Not true, unless you can show how the context of the verses in question changes their apparent meaning.
I can only work with scripture as supplied. I could imagine it originally said something else, but then a blank check to do that would mean I could freely conclude it means whatever I want it to.
The context does not change its meaning. I have supplied the name of the essay it's from. In context he is arguing for the reliability and honesty of the authors of scripture on the basis that if they were going to lie, they surely would've omitted verses wherein Christ predicts a near term second coming. This does not vindicate those predictions as you seem to suggest. The meaning indicated by my quote is not in any way misleading, it is as C.S. Lewis intended, he simply meant to argue that it bolsters the authors' credibility.
What does 2 Timothy 3:16 say?
Moreover, I want to add that you came out swinging with some very rude remarks about me. I have not been insulting towards you, to my knowledge. It could be argued that to say Christianity is descended from an apocalyptic cult is inherently insulting, but not deliberately so. In the same way, it would be impossible to attempt to persuade a Scientologist that he or she is in a cult without offending them, but that does not mean that you went into it with the intention to upset them.
Fair enough - I apologize for my rudeness, and I won't take smug potshots at you again without tagging them with #sarcasm or #snark or something like that. I'm editing my original comment a bit.
It's a tricky situation, just as you've pointed out in the last paragraph of your reply. I recognize that my faith is my choice, and the associated cognitive dissonance isn't your fault - it's just part of the deal. I hope you can forgive my moment of levity at your expense. It was uncharitable, and proves me to be rather a poor example of Christianity.
For what it's worth, I don't buy the typical evangelical (i.e., context-free) interpretation of 2 Timothy 3:16. If you don't take "all scripture is God-breathed" quite literally, everything gets easier to deal with. I assume you'll pity me for trying to juggle Christianity and Reason in this way - but this is the path I've chosen.
No worries. There is a long tradition of wrestling with doubt in Christianity, which has informed a historical dialogue between Christians and atheists stretching back several centuries. Some recoil from that sort of thing, others find it constructive. I have some Jewish friends for whom constant self-questioning is an integral part of their religion.
I confess that I don't understand why faith is promoted as virtuous unless it is to convince people to accept claims without evidence. That doesn't sound like a good thing to me.
No doubt, faith is very useful to the sort of people who wish to fool others, but I cannot think of even one remarkable claim which turned out to be true that ever required us to have faith in it. Rather, because it was true, it was vindicated by evidence.
I have never considered faith to be as valid a basis for belief as evidence. I don't see how it could be. Maybe I am missing some crucial aspect, but I don't think so. If you imagine someone asking you to have faith in some remarkable claim that lies outside of Christianity entirely, would you? Or if not, why are only Christian claims good to have faith in?
Let me try to answer that one about faith:
Faith is the ultimate in applied wishful thinking.
So, since Jesus doesn't want servants who are leaning away from Him, the idea of not offering 100% proof (or anything close to it) makes perfect sense.
The only people who qualify to spend eternity with Jesus are those who really, really want to. It's a filter. A brilliantly conceived filter. And we all get exactly what we bargain for.
I haven't insisted on 100% proof. I would accept the same standard of tangible evidence that I accept for any other academic claim. But it does not meet that standard. You are the one who requires 100% proof that it's untrue, a standard designed to be unreachable.
This is a rationalization for why your belief system is unsupported by evidence. It works for any similar claim one wishes to place beyond empirical evaluation.
No, nobody will. For the same reason that nobody will spend an eternity with Muhammad, Joseph Smith, or flying around in alien spaceships with Marshall Applewhite. We do not live in crazy fantasy land where the supernatural exists. We live in reality. The reality is that you're in a cult, but don't realize it.
Ask yourself why salvation is contingent upon belief that Jesus rose from the dead, rather than good behavior. Why such a specific, arbitrary criteria unrelated to how benign or cruel a person has been?
It makes perfect sense however if the point is to threaten (hell) and bribe (heaven) you into believing a central claim of Christianity from which all the rest follows. If you can be persuaded to believe in Jesus' divinity, it isn't necessary to persuade you of the rest, you've already bought into that paradigm.
As for why it is so emotionally important to the early founders of a fledgeling religion (also sometimes known as a cult) to increase the number of people who share their beliefs, you can read about that here
I don't think I have any good answers about the faith questions. I've never (even at my most Fundamentalist moments) bought the idea that faith is an end in itself; rather, faith appears to be a means to the end of knowing God. Many Christians have extensive personal experiences which serve for them as evidence of the validity of Christianity. If faith (defined as belief without evidence) is an end in itself, but these people do not require faith to believe, is their belief somehow invalid?
This is about as strong an argument as the Jewish scholars saying "Jesus isn't the Messiah because we say he isn't." No doubt it feels like a true statement to you, but since you believe evidence to be the only valid certificate of truth, how would you ever know if it were false? It's only definitely true if you define "true" as "supported by evidence." This characterization of truth is comfortingly tidy, but probably too restrictive and I suspect ultimately indefensible.
You seem like someone who would be familiar with Goedel's Incompleteness Theorem? He proved that there are infinitely many true statements that cannot be mathematically proved. I'm not one of those who invokes Goedel and then says Ergo, God exists QED; but Goedel suggests to me that truth is not as well-behaved as I'd sometimes like.
As to the question of why Christianity and not some other religion, I don't even have incoherent ramblings to answer that. I'll never be sure that I would have chosen Christianity if I hadn't been brought up in it. Unsatisfying, but unavoidable.
It's fine, really. Out of curiosity, what do you think of this?
There are exactly three possibilities regarding the state of the world in which we live:
If 1 is true, then the standard Jewish objections to Jesus are totally believable and reasonable. I.e., if I'm Jewish, I have no trouble believing them and they reassure me that I am on the right path.
If 2 is true, then it wouldn't be at all surprising that the ancient Jewish scholars fell prey to the groupthink of orthodoxy and systematically misinterpreted the messianic prophecies. In the Jewish story itself, there are many times when the Israelites were distracted from God's chosen path for them; perhaps in the 1st century (B)CE they were on one of their detours. That is, if I'm Christian, the Jewish objections don't trouble me.
On the other hand, neither the Christian defense of nor the Jewish objection to the Messiah-hood of Jesus feels more or less compelling when viewed from the outside.
That is, if 3 is the state of the world, both the Jewish and Christian stories are absurd and sound like two children fighting over which superhero is better.
As you're aware, our perception of truth is highly dependent on our goals and our initial set of assumptions. If I were trying to dismantle Christianity, the things you linked to would feel pretty damning. Since that's not my goal, your link doesn't bother me.