Was Jesus and Paul wrong about the Second Coming?

[polonius]

Matt 24:34 Amen, I say to you, this generation will not pass away until all these things have taken place.

Matt 10:23 When they persecute you in one town, flee to another. Amen, I say to you, you will not finish the towns of Israel before the Son of Man comes.

Matt 26:64 Jesus said to him in reply, “You have said so.[a] But I tell you: From now on you will see ‘the Son of Man seated at the right hand of the Power’ and ‘coming on the clouds of heaven.’�

1Thes 4:15-17 Indeed, we tell you this, on the word of the Lord, that we who are alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, will surely not precede those who have fallen asleep. 16 For the Lord himself, with a word of command, with the voice of an archangel and with the trumpet of God, will come down from heaven, and the dead in Christ will rise first. 17 Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. Thus we shall always be with the Lord.

[polonius]

[Replying to polonius.advice]

Revelation 1:7

However, an invisible return is contradicted by Revelation 1:7 thus:
Look! He is coming with the clouds; every eye will see him, even those who pierced him; and on his account all the tribes of the earth will wail. So it is to be. Amen. (NRSV)

Just as those who saw Him but did not see Him for who He is
2000 ys ago,
so today He comes to those who have eyes to see Him the second time.

RESPONSE: What do you think "every eye" means. Only some eyes?

[polonius]

Still, the claim that Jesus returned in 1914 is the extraordinary one, the one that requires extraordinary evidence.

What extraordinary evidence would you expect to see of an invisible event that happened in heaven? Plenty of things are reported to have happened in heaven which have gone totally unseen by every human on earth, why would you expect to see spiritual events in the invisible heavens

SOMETHING...riight now we only have hearsay evidence from JW's that defies Reason. The claim that Jesus has been on the throne since 1914 is as unsubstantiated as the Mormon claim that Jesus visited the Americas.

OK, let me rephrase for a minute, I am not making an absolute claim that Christ did not return, but I have not encountered any evidence that he has.

Then may I suggest that you read Matthew 24, Luke 21 and Mark 13 all of which indicate that we are indeed living during the time of Jesus parousia (return).

Regards,
JW

Before I read those chapters, tell me exactly which verses in each "indicate that we are indeed living during the time of Jesus parousia".

RESPONSE: Christ didn't return. It was a biblical error. There are a lot of those.

Charlie Russell spent a lifetime trying to explain them away.

"...the Bible is an organizational book and belongs to the Christian congregation as an organization, not to individuals, regardless or how sincerely they may believe that they can interpret the Bible...the Bible cannot be properly understood without Jehovah's visible organization in mind" (Watchtower, October 1, 1997, p. 587).

Or really only with a vivid imagination bypassing common sense or by using Charlie Russell’s interpretations???

[JehovahsWitness]

RESPONSE: Christ didn't return. It was a biblical error. There are a lot of those.

Christ did return, it was not a biblical error, there are no biblical errors.

JW

[polonius]

RESPONSE: Christ didn't return. It was a biblical error. There are a lot of those.

Christ did return, it was not a biblical error, there are no biblical errors.

JW

RESPONSE:

Really? Then where is Christ keeping himself now?

"...there are no biblical errors." Really, where should we begin? Let's take a simple one.

Mark, Luke, and John on Jesus'entry into Jerusalem. How many animals did Jesus instruct his apostles to bring to him? And how many did he ride when entering when entering Jerusalem?

Matthew reports two. The other two report only one ridden in the usual manner.

[polonius]

JW posted:

there are no biblical errors.

If so, Jesus was born twice, ten years apart.

Matthew 2:1 When Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea, in the days of King Herod,* behold, magi from the east arrived in Jerusalem,
Luke 2, 1-2, 6-7* In those days a decree went out from Caesar Augustus* that the whole world should be enrolled. 2This was the first enrollment, when Quirinius was governor of Syria….6 While they were there, the time came for her to have her child,7 and she gave birth to her firstborn son.*
Notes:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herod_the_Great
Since the work of Emil Schürer in 1896[46] most scholars have agreed that Herod died at the end of March or early April in 4 BCE.[47][48] Evidence for the 4 BCE date is provided by the fact that Herod's sons, between whom his kingdom was divided, dated their rule from 4 BCE (see for example: Josephus, Wars, 1.631–632.)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_R ... s_of_Syria
6 – 12 AD Publius Sulpicius Quirinius

[polonius]

JW posted:

Quote:
'...there are no biblical errors.


Mark 2:25-26
He said to them, “Have you never read what David did* when he was in need and he and his companions were hungry?26How he went into the house of God when Abiathar was high priest and ate the bread of offering that only the priests could lawfully eat, and shared it with his companions?�

Jesus made a biblical error here. It wasn’t Abiathar but Ahmelech who gave David the sacred bread. (See Sam 21:1-4

[2timothy316]

JW posted:

Quote:
'...there are no biblical errors.


Mark 2:25-26
He said to them, “Have you never read what David did* when he was in need and he and his companions were hungry?26How he went into the house of God when Abiathar was high priest and ate the bread of offering that only the priests could lawfully eat, and shared it with his companions?�

Jesus made a biblical error here. It wasn’t Abiathar but Ahmelech who gave David the sacred bread. (See Sam 21:1-4

Scribe's error not God's error. Which I'm sure someone has told you before, yet I doubt your knowing it's a scribe's error will change your current dogma. The error doesn't change the point of the message.

[polonius]

JW posted:

Quote:
'...there are no biblical errors.


Mark 2:25-26
He said to them, “Have you never read what David did* when he was in need and he and his companions were hungry?26How he went into the house of God when Abiathar was high priest and ate the bread of offering that only the priests could lawfully eat, and shared it with his companions?�

Jesus made a biblical error here. It wasn’t Abiathar but Ahmelech who gave David the sacred bread. (See Sam 21:1-4

Scribe's error not God's error. Which I'm sure someone has told you before, yet I doubt your knowing it's a scribe's error will change your current dogma. The error doesn't change the point of the message.

RESPONSE: Oh, I get it. All the scribes made the same error in all the copies of that passage. And none caught the error!

Should Bible readers really take that explanation seriously?

[2timothy316]

JW posted:

Quote:
'...there are no biblical errors.


Mark 2:25-26
He said to them, “Have you never read what David did* when he was in need and he and his companions were hungry?26How he went into the house of God when Abiathar was high priest and ate the bread of offering that only the priests could lawfully eat, and shared it with his companions?�

Jesus made a biblical error here. It wasn’t Abiathar but Ahmelech who gave David the sacred bread. (See Sam 21:1-4

Scribe's error not God's error. Which I'm sure someone has told you before, yet I doubt your knowing it's a scribe's error will change your current dogma. The error doesn't change the point of the message.

RESPONSE: Oh, I get it. All the scribes made the same error in all the copies of that passage. And none caught the error!

Should Bible readers really take that explanation seriously?

The job of a scribe is to copy the scriptures exactly as it is. Perhaps not all copies had the error but the copies we discovered do. To me it's not a big deal. As I said, those that stick to the their dogma that the Bible can't be trusted will make it a big deal. They need the Bible to be wrong so that their doctrines can survive. Which means the people that don't trust the Bible have more motive to change the Bible then some poor copyist that simply made a mistake.

The real question is should we take those seriously whose faith in God is so weak that they think God can't get truth to us in the form of a book.

[2timothy316]

Curious, which generation do you think he was talking about and why?

The words are clear. He is talking to his audience about his audience. And he is wrong in what he is alleged to have said.

But of course it is hard for most people to recall what has been said far less quote verbatim after a number of years. It was a good thing to say to get people's attention. I had a priest who used to say, unfailingly, that many in front of him would suffer in the flames of hell. I suppose he had toothache and that gave him some relief.

Here is what 'this generation' was said to see.

In answer Jesus said to them: “Look out that nobody misleads you, for many will come on the basis of my name, saying, ‘I am the Christ,’ and will mislead many. You are going to hear of wars and reports of wars. See that you are not alarmed, for these things must take place, but the end is not yet. “For nation will rise against nation and kingdom against kingdom, and there will be food shortages and earthquakes in one place after another. All these things are a beginning of pangs of distress. “Then people will hand you over to tribulation and will kill you, and you will be hated by all the nations on account of my name. Then, too, many will be stumbled and will betray one another and will hate one another. Many false prophets will arise and mislead many; and because of the increasing of lawlessness, the love of the greater number will grow cold. But the one who has endured* to the end will be saved. And this good news of the Kingdom will be preached in all the inhabited earth for a witness to all the nations, and then the end will come." Matt 24:4-14

So it's not as clear as you think if we read the whole chapter. Also note that all of this was said to Jesus' disciples in private. "While he was sitting on the Mount of Olives, the disciples approached him privately..." Matt 24:3. So when you say, "He is talking to his audience about his audience" you're suggesting that only Jesus' small audience of apostles are the 'generation'? They clearly didn't see an uptick in the world's nations go to war, earthquakes, food shortages, etc all during their life. Plus the Good News certainly didn't reach every nation during their lifetime. There is no historical record of such disasters on a huge scale happening during their lifetimes. It is only in the past 100 years have we heard an uptick in the 'reports' of such things happening all during a person's lifetime. So really, that 'generation' Jesus was speaking about is alive now. There is a generation of people that have seen or heard all of these things. Including that the Good News has reached every nation. Not every person, but every nation. All of what Jesus said, is happening now.