Why the delay in Christ's return?

[2Dbunk]

As a former Christian it has been my understanding that Jesus Christ is an all-loving, compassionate personal God (or Son of God). And above all the good things attributed to him there is one supreme caveat that hangs like the sword of Damocles over our heads: that Heaven is only achievable to those who believe in him " indeed, those who dont will be condemned to everlasting fire and brimstone.

Also, the New Testament tells us that Christs departure from Earth 2,000 years ago will be short-lived and his return is imminent . . . to take up to Heaven all those who follow Him " that few will be chosen.

My question for debate is: Knowing few will be chosen, why is there such a delay in his return? As the years go by and the worlds population at about 7 billion people, it is obvious that proportionately more and more will not "be chosen. How can an all-loving, understanding god consign more and more of his created children to hell each passing day, especially in these times of exponentially increasing knowledge and more doubt of what supernatural things to believe.

Can anyone posit a reason why the delay in the Second Coming?

[H.sapiens]

Believe in him, as in "faith" in him.

What does it mean to have faith in someone? Satan has faith in Gods ability to follow through and that he, Satan, has already lost (presupposing that Christian theology is true, of course.)

But that presupposition is so much claptrap, so ...

Excuse me but rational people have instituted a measurement system independent of ecclesiastical jargon . . .

Im no less reasonable than you and my question is legitimate.

The word is "rational" not "reasonable" but, in either case, I think it would be fairly easy to demonstrate that your views are not either as rational or as reasonable and that you are, in fact, "less reasonable."

All youve done is mock it and that hardly means youve addressed it. For the sake of the discussion taking place, you are asking a theological question on the Christian deity. Christian theology states that God is timeless. That isnt an unproven assertion " thats what the theology says.

It may be "theology" but it is also an unproven assertion. Is it not more rational and reasonable to posit a timeless but non-living, non-sentient but material universe that is timeless than it is to posit a timeless being, sentient and living?

Of course, as is typical with atheists, when they cannot actually attack a theological point they simply repair to the standard go-to " that deities dont exist.
One has to wonder why an atheist even asks a theological question at all if every discussion will end with, Oh yeah " well your deity doesnt even exist! Prove it does!

Yes, that is "typical" of atheists because have they have no need for invisible friends. Theists do have such a need and put themselves through the most mind-numbing mental contortions to justify their faith systems, forgetting always that "extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence." Not even "ordinary" evidence is forthcoming.

[Daddieslittlehelper]

[Replying to Ancient of Years]

It assumes nothing, Jesus spoke in Hebrew.

[Willum]

[Replying to post 42 by Daddieslittlehelper]

He spoke in Aramaic, closest to Arabic:
When he said "God," he said Elohim, or Al uh im, Allah im, as they still do today, for example.

[Ancient of Years]

Finally someone willing to debate without resorting to cut and paste!

Thanks for the thoughtful reply

I think there's two key questions here that have a big impact on how we read the books:
> Was Mark written before or after the temple's destruction?
> Was there a big gap between the writing of Luke and Acts?

In both cases I've seen little reason to suppose that the answers you're going with here are correct. Mark 13 could have been written just as easily by rehashing various prophecies from the Tanakh, and the two other arguments I've seen are unconvincing. (Namely, that the story of the Gadarene demoniac was meant to be an allusion to the Xth legion... yet one so subtle and convoluted that not even Matthew picked up on it, never mind Mark's audience! And that the story of the fig tree represents the temple's destruction; more on that later.)

One reason for Matthew to omit much of the detail of Marks demoniac is Marks geographic confusion. (Remember the Tyre and Sidon confusion in Matthew 7.) Josephus tells us that in the siege of Gamala many of the inhabitants died fleeing the Romans down a long steep slope. Having the 2000 pigs (likely the portion of the Roman legion X Fretensis " fond of flaunting their pig emblem - that participated at Gamala) die the same way would be a nice payback. Gadara was also the site of a Roman slaughter. There are tombs at Gadara as Mark describes but no steep slopes. Gergesa, as some Mark manuscripts have it, does have steep slopes running down to the Sea of Galilee but no tombs and no Roman slaughter. And then there are manuscripts of Mark that refer to the mysterious land of the Gerasenes. Sounds like the copyists were even confused.

Mark has mixed up many things together that do not really hold together. It should not be a surprise that Matthew omits the confusing details. Anyway the Roman legion aspect is really a sidetrack that does not advance the story. However note that the references date Mark to sometime after 67 CE.

Matthew concentrates on the Jesus casting out demons aspect. This provides Matthew with another opportunity for doubling the people that Jesus cures. Mark has one demoniac. Matthew has two. Having demons representing a Roman legion (or a part thereof) possess two men is a bit awkward. I am legion would not work well anymore.

Matthew also omits any mention of the demoniacs after they are cured, unlike Mark. This is characteristic of Matthew as can be seen in Matthew 9, Matthew 12 and Matthew 17. But that is a different topic.

The assumption of a long gap between Luke and Acts is even more dubious: It would have to be in the order of a decade or more for the author's views to change dramatically enough to serve the purpose you require, but there simply seems to be no evidence for it! On the contrary, the theme for Acts is clearly laid out at the end of Luke, that "repentance and remission of sins should be preached in His name to all nations, beginning at Jerusalem... but tarry in the city of Jerusalem until you are endued with power from on high" (Luke 24:47-49).

Why these questions are important is obvious - if there was no long gap between Luke and Acts, then we'd expect the same outlook for both books. In Acts that's clearly an emphasis on the growth of the church through the Holy Spirit more so than eschatology; Luke might be considered more ambiguous, but that's certainly a consistent interpretation of the 'kingdom of God' present with power. In fact, in the gospel Luke actively goes out of his way to make it so:

• Luke 17:20 Now having been questioned by the Pharisees as to when the kingdom of God was coming, He answered them and said, The kingdom of God is not coming with signs to be observed; 21 nor will they say, Look, here it is! or, There it is! For behold, the kingdom of God is in your midst.

Written a decade or more after the Jewish war, the expectations that it heralded the return of Christ would be swiftly fading for Luke and other Christians. He still expected Jesus to come back of course, but didn't know when.

Luke went along with the Olivet Discourse imminent return scenario because that was already present in the two existing Gospels. He modified it some to make it more understandable to a Gentile audience. Marks primary purpose was to revivify fading faith by turning the destruction of Jerusalem into a sign of hope. Matthews primary purpose was to establish Jesus as undeniably the Jewish Messiah, probably to counter rabbinic Judaism. Lukes primary purpose was to counter certain aspects of Matthew that would be problematic for a Gentile audience. Matthew and Luke kept Marks Olivet Discourse because to abandon an imminent return while it still might be possible would be to give up hope. Remember that Paul had already spread the idea that Jesus would come back soon while at least some of his readers were still alive. It was an important idea that needed to be preserved.

I have already addressed that other Gospels have used the kingdom idea in two senses and I explained why. There is the sense of the immanent kingdom, a kingdom already present or personally near, achievable by a return to true righteousness that I believe was preached by a real historic human Jesus. Then there is the imminent (transcendent) kingdom of the messianic age to be established by a returning divine Jesus as per Paul. I showed that even Luke repeatedly referred to that kind of kingdom being established by a returning Jesus.

Everyone knew from Paul that the disciples left Jerusalem and traveled to other places. But part of Lukes redirection of Matthew was to emphasize Jerusalem over Galilee. In Matthew they go to Galilee to see Jesus. In Luke Jesus comes to them and tells them to stay in Jerusalem for a while. The reason for staying: until you have been clothed with power from on high. (Luke 24:49) Paul makes numerous references to the Holy Spirit giving power and/or God giving power via the Holy Spirit. In order to go out and teach (as Matthew says they are to do) they ought to be endowed with power. And so a convenient reason for staying in Jerusalem for a little while and not run off to Galilee. It is all part of Lukes redirecting Matthew.

When Luke wrote Acts this was a convenient handle for Luke to pick up the story and redirect himself. In his Gospel Luke went along with the existing story. At that time he would not have been taken seriously if he had done otherwise. But now that story does not hold together anymore. So Luke does a clever job of changing the imminent return and end of days into the descent of the Holy Spirit and the ongoing story of what is now a church and not just a movement. (And some redirection of Paul along the way, yet another topic.)

Similarly, if Mark was written before the temple's destruction - maybe even before the revolt began - he too would have had little reason to expect Christ's imminent return. Sure, Paul and probably even Jesus both preached that it would be soon, but Paul was now dead and Jesus had been gone for over thirty years. By that stage we would expect - as with Luke - some ambiguity on the matter; a hope that it would be soon, for sure, but no great emphasis on it... just in case they'd somehow misunderstood and turned out to be wrong.

The imminent return of Jesus is in Paul as I have already shown. If that does not happen as expected then why believe anything Paul said? But as time went on and Jesus did not show up soon there would be a crisis looming in Pauline Christianity. There would be great emphasis. It is John written near the end of the century who says it was a mistake. John omits all reference to the Olivet Discourse or any hint of an imminent return. He turns the not taste death passages in an entirely different direction, separating them from any eschatological meaning. If (the authors of) John felt it was necessary to drop those references it is reasonable to infer that they referred to an imminent return of Jesus. Which never happened.

So bearing in mind how the implications of these assumptions will affect our understanding....

Concerning not taste death, let us look at those passage again.

Mark 8,9
8:38 If anyone is ashamed of me and my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, the Son of Man will be ashamed of them when he comes in his Fathers glory with the holy angels.
9:1 And he said to them, Truly I tell you, [some who are standing here will not taste death before they see that the kingdom of God has come with power.

Matthew 16
27 For the Son of Man is going to come in his Fathers glory with his angels, and then he will reward each person according to what they have done.
28 Truly I tell you, some who are standing here will not taste death before they see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom.

Luke 9
26 Whoever is ashamed of me and my words, the Son of Man will be ashamed of them when he comes in his glory and in the glory of the Father and of the holy angels.
27 Truly I tell you, some who are standing here will not taste death before they see the kingdom of God.

Each of these refer to the Son of Man returning in glory with angels while some of his listeners are still alive.

I think you've got the wrong end of the stick with these. The passage in Mark is not primarily about Jesus' return. Read in context, Mark's sequence is Peter's confession of Christ/secret Messiah; then prediction of his own death; then warning that the disciples too must take up their cross. Jesus mentions his return almost as an afterthought - reminding them what all this suffering and following and preaching is leading up to - not as the main focus of the passage. What it's about is preaching the good news, and if 9:1 is to be linked with that passage at all it has to fit the meaning of the whole passage, not just that final sentence from which Mark explicitly separated it. The kingdom of God present with power is the power of the gospel:

• When he had called the people to himself, with his disciples also, he said to them, Whoever desires to come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me. For whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake and the gospels will save it. For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world, and loses his own soul? Or what will a man give in exchange for his soul? For whoever is ashamed of me and my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of him the Son of Man also will be ashamed when he comes in the glory of his Father with the holy angels. And he said to them, Assuredly, I say to you that there are some standing here who will not taste death till they see the kingdom of God present with power.

As I've already pointed out, the fact that this final phrase is not unambiguously eschatological is proven by the fact that Matthew felt the need to change it to "Son of Man coming in his kingdom."

Mark 8
34 Then he called the crowd to him along with his disciples and said: Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. 35 For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me and for the gospel will save it. 36 What good is it for someone to gain the whole world, yet forfeit their soul? 37 Or what can anyone give in exchange for their soul? 38 If anyone is ashamed of me and my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, the Son of Man will be ashamed of them when he comes in his Fathers glory with the holy angels.
Mark 9
1 And he said to them, Truly I tell you, some who are standing here will not taste death before they see that the kingdom of God has come with power.

Sounds like it is about Jesus urging persevering in the faith through hard times and temptations because the Son of Man is coming soon and anyone in this generation who does not heed the words of Jesus is in for it. And it is all going to go down while some of the listeners are still alive. And you think the Son of Man eschatological part is just an afterthought? And you also think that the kingdom of God coming with power in the very next sentence has nothing to do with the preceding sentence? Sorry but I find this very hard to accept. The last two sentences are plainly eschatological and follow naturally from the preceding passage.

Now look at Matthews version.

Matthew 16
24 Then Jesus said to his disciples, Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. 25 For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will find it. 26 What good will it be for someone to gain the whole world, yet forfeit their soul? Or what can anyone give in exchange for their soul? 27 For the Son of Man is going to come in his Fathers glory with his angels, and then he will reward each person according to what they have done.

28 Truly I tell you, some who are standing here will not taste death before they see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom.

Matthew makes it very plain that sticking to the Jesus agenda is the key to being rewarded when the Son of Man comes and that the Son of Man is coming when some of the listeners ae still alive. Trying to separate the last two sentences into different meanings just does not work.

There are different schools of thought on what Mark meant when he referred to the abomination that causes desolation. One school says that Mark meant the destruction of the Temple. I do not see it that way. Having the abomination be the warning sign to flee to the hills does not work. By the time the Temple is destroyed, Jerusalem has been surrounded by armies for some time and there had already been fighting in the north for years. Too late to flee. Plus he says that the abomination is standing where it does not belong. The references in Daniel appear to refer to Antiochus IV putting a statue of Zeus in the Temple. A similar event (almost) took place when Caligula attempted to put his own statue in the Temple, causing riots. There was relative peace between the Romans and the Jews prior to that. But that was the beginning of the bad times that culminated in the Jewish Revolt and the destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple. Note that when Mark references the abomination he speaks directly to the reader: Let the reader understand. It is supposed to be something they know about.

You're assuming here that Mark was writing after the Revolt of course, but none of this applies if he wrote beforehand. The reader would understand that he was referring to prophecies from Daniel and the other prophets. In fact the passage makes a lot more sense if he was merely rehashing older prophecies: You're right that the temple's destruction would be foolish 'sign' to flee to the hills, but equally you're correct that there was no plausible abomination in the temple before that! Caligula's plans had occurred some 30 years earlier - an equally foolish 'sign' to flee, and obviously one which historically the Jerusalem church had not heeded. It simply makes no sense if Mark was writing after the fact.

We saw above that Mark refers to events that happened in 67 CE. The destruction of the Temple is explicitly described by Mark (knocked down completely) was an accident of war and not something predictable. The references to Daniel include the destruction of the city in a war but not the destruction of the Temple. It is clear that in Daniel the Temple remains sanding and also that the abomination is not set up until well after the destruction of the city. The sanctuary within the Temple is destroyed (some translations say profaned) but not the Temple itself. These are references to events in the time of Antiochus IV, couched as prophecies made centuries earlier.

Daniel 9
26 the Anointed One will be put to death and will have nothing. The people of the ruler who will come will destroy the city and the sanctuary. The end will come like a flood: War will continue until the end, and desolations have been decreed. 27 He will confirm a covenant with many for one seven. In the middle of the seven he will put an end to sacrifice and offering. And at the temple he will set up an abomination that causes desolation, until the end that is decreed is poured out on him.

Daniel 11:31
31 His armed forces will rise up to desecrate the temple fortress and will abolish the daily sacrifice. Then they will set up the abomination that causes desolation.

Daniel 12:11
11 From the time that the daily sacrifice is abolished and the abomination that causes desolation is set up, there will be 1,290 days.

Marks explicit reference to the Temple being totally destroyed is not found in Daniel. Yet this is exactly what happened in 70 CE. This is not rehashing old prophecies. This is a reference to something that has already happened. Mark wrote after the destruction of the Temple.

The best bet for the abomination set up in the Temple is still Caligulas attempt to put his statue in the Temple. Marks reference to the Temple being destroyed is going to jump out at the post-Revolt reader. Caligulas abomination takes a little memory jogging so that he has to directly address the reader " let the reader understand.

Tying into Daniel is at the very heart of Mark. He is the one to introduce the Son of Man phrase to refer to Jesus. Paul knows nothing of it. Daniel uses this phrase in reference to a figure coming from the clouds (heaven).

Daniel 7

13 In my vision at night I looked, and there before me was one like a son of man,[a] coming with the clouds of heaven. He approached the Ancient of Days and was led into his presence. 14 He was given authority, glory and sovereign power; all nations and peoples of every language worshiped him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion that will not pass away, and his kingdom is one that will never be destroyed.
[]
26 But the court will sit, and his power will be taken away and completely destroyed forever. 27 Then the sovereignty, power and greatness of all the kingdoms under heaven will be handed over to the holy people of the Most High. His kingdom will be an everlasting kingdom, and all rulers will worship and obey him.

Paul refers to the kingdom of God many times. He also has Jesus coming from heaven in Philippians 2. And of course to Jesus returning soon. The proper (mis)application of Daniel ties it all together. Marks purpose in writing a Gospel was to restore fading faith by turning a catastrophic event into a sign of victory.

However if that 'prophecy' (whether from Mark or from Jesus himself) had existed beforehand, it's obvious how Matthew would then take it - as proof that Jesus' return was imminent. And as noted previously, Matthew does indeed emphasise this far more than any other gospel, even to the point of inventing a whole new prediction for it (Mt. 10:23). Luke would take it the same way too, but unlike Matthew he was writing even later and wasn't so sure when Jesus was returning; so he removed the most dramatically prophetic element in the story, turned it into a much more plausible warning for Jerusalem Christians (flee when the armies start to converge), and inserted the indefinite "times of the Gentiles" before the the final showdown.

Luke refers to exactly the same event as Mark and Matthew, the siege of Jerusalem and the destruction of the Temple. He just does it in a way that Gentiles would understand. The abomination link to Caligula is not going to work for them, memory jog or not.

Mark describes all the terrible things that will (did) happen and then he says in those days, following that distress (Mark 13:24) various signs will appear described in Isaiah as happening in the day of the Lord and At that time people will see the Son of Man coming in clouds with great power and glory. And he will send his angels and gather his elect from the four winds, from the ends of the earth to the ends of the heavens. (Mark 13:26-27) Mark then refers to the fig tree, which he previously connected with the Temple, as the sign of these things happening. The Temple gets destroyed = the imminent return of Jesus. And Truly I tell you, this generation will certainly not pass away until all these things have happened. (Mark 13:30) It is now about forty years since Jesus. The generation alive when Jesus is supposed to have said this is fading away. Jesus has to come soon for Paul to be right.

Mark probably would have taken the temple's destruction as being hugely important, when it occurred - I can't imagine many Christians or Jews living at the time did not! But again, that doesn't mean he was writing after it happened. In chapter 11 a fig tree is withered because it doesn't bear any fruit - like the temple of Jesus' day - whereas in chapter 13 Jesus speaks of a fig tree in bloom. If that in itself was meant to be a sign, the implication would have to be that he'll return after the temple is finally 'bearing fruit,' not after it's destroyed! But that makes no sense of course. In the words of Freud, sometimes a fig tree is just a fig tree. Mark begins chapter 13 by saying that the temple would be destroyed; but that's the more or less the culmination of it all, not the sign that things are starting to heat up! The big early warning sign was to be the desecration of the temple, not its destruction, the abomination in verse 14. Both of these - desecration and destruction - were predicted in Daniel chapter 9.

As I already documented, the destruction of the Temple - Not one stone here will be left on another; every one will be thrown down " is not in Daniel, only the destruction of the city. The Temple survives. The profaning of the sanctuary happens at the time of the destruction of the city. It is not the abomination, which happens much later. Marks explicit and essentially accurate description of the Temple " not prophesied or expected " is shoehorned into Daniel. Likewise the problem with the order of events relative to the abomination. It is clear that Mark is trying (struggling) to make actual events that have already happened when Mark wrote into prophecies made by Jesus in accordance with Daniel to allow the returning Jesus be Daniels Son of Man and the one who establishes the kingdom.

Luke includes the Olivet Discourse that he very clearly relates to the Siege of Jerusalem. He changes the abomination that causes desolation to armies surrounding Jerusalem because that would be more familiar to his Gentile audience than the intricacies of the Book of Daniel. Note that he uses the word desolation specifically in relation to Jerusalem. He is otherwise on board with everything Mark says including the imminent return of Jesus before the generation of the time of Jesus dies off.

But in Luke, 'this generation' doesn't unambiguously mean that. Luke's audience were Christians, same as Paul's or Mark's, and writing later than them there'd be fewer first-generation believers amongst his readers too. He'd have even more reason to expect them to know the Septuagint than Paul did, probably as well as you'd find in most modern churches. There's certainly no credible reason there for changing the prophecy from something which actually was prophecied centuries earlier by Daniel, to something weak and meaningless. The only plausible explanation - both for this change and for inserting the indefinite "times of the gentiles" into the passage - is that Luke wanted to downplay the prophetic significance of the Jewish war and the corresponding expectation of Jesus' imminent return.

Therefore when he writes a few short sentences later that "this generation" will not pass away, there's little reason to suppose he's referring to the lifetimes of Jesus' listeners - 99% of whom would have already been dead from old age by the time Luke wrote some five decades later, never mind those killed in the war! It doesn't even make much sense (here as in Mark) to immediately follow a statement like that with the boast that "heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will by no means pass away," if they need only endure a few decades of worldly opposition. On the contrary, Luke in particular probably meant 'generation' in the sense of 2b that you posted in #38: "2b) metaph. a race of men very like each other in endowments, pursuits, character 2b1) esp. in a bad sense, a perverse race." For Luke, it probably meant that the Jewish race was still enduring despite recent events, and would continue to do so until the time of Christ's return.

As I have said before, Luke inherited the not taste death and this generation passages. He cannot dispense with them quite yet or risk not being taken seriously. And he needs to be taken seriously to successfully take on Matthew. While those from the time of Jesus may be pretty much dead, the still alive story originally began with Paul writing in the 50s. If Luke wrote 25-30 years after that there ought to have been survivors. Acts shows us that Luke was very familiar with Pauls letters. In any case you are looking for exact precision when revival of faith is the issue.

Lukes reference to the time of the Gentiles is Jerusalem will be trampled on by the Gentiles until the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled. The trampling of Jerusalem by Gentiles ended in 70 CE with the total destruction of the city following a lengthy siege. Not at all an indefinite period.

As far as Luke meaning a race of men very like each other etc., why should Luke be interested in telling his Gentile audience that the Jewish race will stay around until Jesus comes? And since he already made changes for his Gentile readers why should he preserve the exact wording of the previous Gospels but mean something different? In addition it is plain that Luke intended his Gospel especially for those who had already read Matthew. Witness the numerous instances of Luke telling stories opposite to those of Matthew. If he wanted a different meaning he would have used different words.

And for Mark? Perhaps the same, if it was written after the war had begun or had started to turn badly for the Jews. In fact Mark quite explicitly notes that "of that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father" (Mk. 13:32), so it's a bit of a stretch to claim that just two sentences earlier he was saying when it would be. Writing later, Matthew might have rationalised that Jesus might not know the day or hour, but did know the year or decade: But for the original author, if his intent was to set a clear time-frame for Jesus' return he surely would not have put the disclaimer in there at all!

Mark is putting words into the mouth of Jesus ca 30 CE. The disclaimer is meant to explain away the already remarkable time lag. In the days of Jesus no one would have known when the destruction of the Temple might have been. The prophecy refers to precise future events not to a precise timeframe.

All of this has only limited bearing on what Jesus himself actually believed of course, though Paul obviously thought it would be soon. But Mark was written over three decades after Jesus' death: Short of the assumption that it was written after the temple's destruction (which seems not to make sense in some key respects), the statements in Mark's gospel are ambiguous at best I'd say - open to the possibility that it would be soon, no doubt, but strongly hedging his bets with a here-and-now kingdom of God theology.

Matthew wrote shortly after the revolt, and was adamant it would be soon. Luke wrote later still, and really didn't know when it would be.

My argument is that the here and now kingdom derives from original teachings of a historic Jesus. We can find references to it in Paul along with the future kingdom idea. The former comes from original traditions of the living Jesus. The latter comes from Pauls efforts to explain why a messianic figure unexpectedly got himself killed. Mark did not hedge anything. He played the hand he was dealt.

[2Dbunk]

[Replying to 1213]

2Dbunk wrote:

...
Can anyone posit a reason why the delay in the Second Coming?

1213 wrote:

I have understood that the delay is because the fullness of the Gentiles has not yet come in

For I don't desire, brothers, to have you ignorant of this mystery, so that you won't be wise in your own conceits, that a partial hardening has happened to Israel, until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in,
Romans 11:25

You and Tam and others are indicating that Christ's Judgment Day won't occur until the last Gentile is heard from. With the world population increasing (even faster than the Christian population), how is that going to be possible? At the present rate of expansion there will be more and more Gentiles (to be heard from) -- it will be never ending.

I have prepared a graph that you might study showing current population figures, and extrapolated those figures based on data from Wikipedia and the UN. I hope this is helpful.




Above graph is based on projected data from Wikipedia and the United Nations
As can be deducted from the above graph, the total amount of unborn gentiles (people) from 2015 to 2100 will be approximately 2.9 billion. Add to that another 3 billion people who will probably become anything but Christian. That makes a total of about 5.9 billion who need to be convinced and recruited to Christianity if Judgement day is, lets say the year 2100. The graph also shows that overall population growth and the increase of number of Christians will continue to diverge, as it has been for decades (it is projected that Muslims will overtake Christianity by the year 2050 as the largest religion in the world). If Judgement day is any farther out than 2010, the statistics become even less friendly.
In determining the number of unborn children that may become convinced of the Bible stories, it is important to note that every child is born atheist (that is, born with a clean slate). For the child to become religious, it must first be indoctrinated into the religious culture of the country it is born into. 85 to 90 % are cemented into that culture when born in the West " that number approaches 100% in lands that have no freedom of religion. So Christians . . . get busy indoctrinating " the numbers are not in your favor.

[Mithrae]

One reason for Matthew to omit much of the detail of Marks demoniac is Marks geographic confusion. (Remember the Tyre and Sidon confusion in Matthew 7.) Josephus tells us that in the siege of Gamala many of the inhabitants died fleeing the Romans down a long steep slope. Having the 2000 pigs (likely the portion of the Roman legion X Fretensis " fond of flaunting their pig emblem - that participated at Gamala) die the same way would be a nice payback. Gadara was also the site of a Roman slaughter. There are tombs at Gadara as Mark describes but no steep slopes. Gergesa, as some Mark manuscripts have it, does have steep slopes running down to the Sea of Galilee but no tombs and no Roman slaughter. And then there are manuscripts of Mark that refer to the mysterious land of the Gerasenes. Sounds like the copyists were even confused.

Mark has mixed up many things together that do not really hold together.

A more plausible explanation would be that modern scholars have mixed up things that don't really hold together by reading far too much meaning into the story. If this were an author who didn't even know where Tyre and Sidon were located (which I'm not convinced of, but that's another issue), why on earth would he be relatively knowledgeable and so deeply obsessed with the far more obscure actions of the Xth legion as to write a convoluted metaphor which even Jews like Matthew would not understand, let alone his gentile readers? It makes no sense whatsoever, except to those eagerly searching for potential allusions to the war regardless of how obscure and incongruent they might be.

Luke went along with the Olivet Discourse imminent return scenario because that was already present in the two existing Gospels. He modified it some to make it more understandable to a Gentile audience. Marks primary purpose was to revivify fading faith by turning the destruction of Jerusalem into a sign of hope. Matthews primary purpose was to establish Jesus as undeniably the Jewish Messiah, probably to counter rabbinic Judaism. Lukes primary purpose was to counter certain aspects of Matthew that would be problematic for a Gentile audience. Matthew and Luke kept Marks Olivet Discourse because to abandon an imminent return while it still might be possible would be to give up hope. Remember that Paul had already spread the idea that Jesus would come back soon while at least some of his readers were still alive. It was an important idea that needed to be preserved.

You're adding yet another supposition here (in addition to the post-70 authorship of Mark and a long gap between Luke and Acts); that Luke wrote to counter Matthew. The two-source hypothesis might be waning in popularity, but it's still the dominant view from what little I've seen.

More importantly, nowhere does Paul say that some of his readers would still be alive at Christ's return. You cannot claim that unless you insist that he believed he would still be alive - if it's not just "a group of which I am a member" then that is what 'we' means, "me and some others" - and that borders on the absurd considering how often Paul portrays himself in jeopardy from the authorities and his enemies. Paul said only that it would be soon. His passage/s saying things like "those with wives live as if you had none" would be just as impractical over 5 years as over 500, and might be viewed as either hyperbole, or some weirdly specific expectation he had in the year he was writing, or just as another of his exhortations to celibacy. But there's nothing in his letters specifically suggesting Jesus' return within a definite timeframe such as folks' lifetimes. That originated elsewhere; perhaps with Jesus, or with Mark, or with a misreading/rewriting of Mark by Matthew, or even with some source unknown to us.

Finally, abandoning that idea "while it was still possible" is quite a stretch if you're talking about 10+ years after the temple's destruction. Matthew in particular draws his readers' attention to Daniel, who wrote that an end to sacrifice and offering would occur in the middle of a final 'seven.' Maybe folk might try and stretch it out, as believers do, to somehow have a final seven beginning with the temple's destruction. But by the late 70s/early 80s CE you're in a situation with little in the way of current catastrophic end-times events, long after any reasonable time-frame for the temple's destruction to have been the penultimate prophetic sign and, above all, when few if any could be sure that any of Jesus' hearers remained alive. That is not the time when Luke would still be insisting on the same things that Matthew did. (And nor would Matthew have insisted on them if he had written that late, which is why I think he most likely wrote around 72-74 CE.)

I have already addressed that other Gospels have used the kingdom idea in two senses and I explained why. There is the sense of the immanent kingdom, a kingdom already present or personally near, achievable by a return to true righteousness that I believe was preached by a real historic human Jesus. Then there is the imminent (transcendent) kingdom of the messianic age to be established by a returning divine Jesus as per Paul. I showed that even Luke repeatedly referred to that kind of kingdom being established by a returning Jesus.

I don't know what the historical Jesus taught or believed. As far as I'm aware there's only one place in Mark in which 'kingdom of God' is used in a sense not potentially consistent with the former, and that use (14:25) isn't readily consistent with the eschatological sense either - it seems to mean simply heaven. So quite possibly you're right about what the historical Jesus taught, and it may have been Paul and Matthew who brought the other meaning to the fore. I don't deny that Matthew used the Markan sense as well, and Luke also; Luke simply didn't know when Jesus might return, so he would hardly deny the eschatological possibility, even if he refused to emphasise it. Heck, straight after having Jesus refute those who asked when the kingdom of God would come and say that "The kingdom of God does not come with observation... the kingdom of God is within you," Luke immediately goes on to write about the return of the Son of Man (Luke 17:20ff)! He obviously hadn't abandoned hope that it would happen sometime, but he also very explicitly de-emphasised any expectation that it must occur in this decade or that.

Everyone knew from Paul that the disciples left Jerusalem and traveled to other places. But part of Lukes redirection of Matthew was to emphasize Jerusalem over Galilee. In Matthew they go to Galilee to see Jesus. In Luke Jesus comes to them and tells them to stay in Jerusalem for a while. The reason for staying: until you have been clothed with power from on high. (Luke 24:49) Paul makes numerous references to the Holy Spirit giving power and/or God giving power via the Holy Spirit. In order to go out and teach (as Matthew says they are to do) they ought to be endowed with power. And so a convenient reason for staying in Jerusalem for a little while and not run off to Galilee. It is all part of Lukes redirecting Matthew.

Man... getting more in depth than I'd intended at 11pm on a work night, but I can't resist. You're working back-to-front here. As the main area of Jesus' preaching activity, Galilee may well have been a major centre of early Christianity; but common sense suggests that the apostles would also have focused as much if not moreso on developing a strong group of followers in the centre of Jewish cultural and religious life. This is borne out by what little we know of that earliest period of Christian history, especially from Paul. The story of Jesus appearing to his disciples in Galilee originates from Mark, but we don't know what he wrote about that if anything, or beyond it. John seems to have Jesus' appearances in Jerusalem, while the appendix adds a trip to Galilee. After the revolt and written for a post-war Jewish audience, Matthew probably had powerful reasons for de-emphasising Jerusalem's significance to his movement regardless of whatever other traditions existed, whereas those would be lesser concerns for Luke. So Luke may have been simply telling the story a little closer to what we'd expect and infer from Paul to have likely been the case - that the new movement focused its greatest efforts early on in Jerusalem - and for his propaganda purposes incidentally painting it for his readers as a bit more of a cosmopolitan movement than a rural superstition. There's no need to invoke influence or redirection of Matthew. On the contrary, if one of his main aims was to draw attention away from Jesus as a Jewish Messiah/King, he surely would not have had Jesus choose Jerusalem as his movement's base of operations!

But the point here was simply that the gospel of Luke ends with the precisely the same theme as is carried throughout Acts; the preaching of the gospel beginning in Jerusalem and spreading to all nations, under the blessing of the Holy Spirit. More pointedly, that there is simply no evidence for any great gap and change of opinions between Luke and Acts.




I think I'll call it a night for now anyway

[Ancient of Years]

One reason for Matthew to omit much of the detail of Marks demoniac is Marks geographic confusion. (Remember the Tyre and Sidon confusion in Matthew 7.) Josephus tells us that in the siege of Gamala many of the inhabitants died fleeing the Romans down a long steep slope. Having the 2000 pigs (likely the portion of the Roman legion X Fretensis " fond of flaunting their pig emblem - that participated at Gamala) die the same way would be a nice payback. Gadara was also the site of a Roman slaughter. There are tombs at Gadara as Mark describes but no steep slopes. Gergesa, as some Mark manuscripts have it, does have steep slopes running down to the Sea of Galilee but no tombs and no Roman slaughter. And then there are manuscripts of Mark that refer to the mysterious land of the Gerasenes. Sounds like the copyists were even confused.

Mark has mixed up many things together that do not really hold together.

A more plausible explanation would be that modern scholars have mixed up things that don't really hold together by reading far too much meaning into the story. If this were an author who didn't even know where Tyre and Sidon were located (which I'm not convinced of, but that's another issue), why on earth would he be relatively knowledgeable and so deeply obsessed with the far more obscure actions of the Xth legion as to write a convoluted metaphor which even Jews like Matthew would not understand, let alone his gentile readers? It makes no sense whatsoever, except to those eagerly searching for potential allusions to the war regardless of how obscure and incongruent they might be.

Much of Mark appears to be stories he inherited from others that he strung together to build his story. Mark has a definite story of his own to tell and he does it well. But often the material he uses is from elsewhere, not purposeful invention as in the other Gospels. We can see side effects of this in the two calming the storm stories and the two feeding the multitude stories. These appear to have been traditions of sufficient age to have developed into separate variants. But Mark incorporated both versions of each because they were told to him and they were good stories.

It is not necessary for Mark to have understood the various elements of the pig story. Being given the pieces would have been sufficient and a good explanation for why it is both so evocative and the location details so confusing, just as with the Tyre and Sidon mixup.

I have already given reasons why Matthew would not want to include it. Here is another. An explicit reference to revenge against the evil Romans would distract from Matthews main target " the Pharisees! While Marks episodes show enmity between Jesus and the Pharisees, a believable scenario for the putative era, Matthew is nearly psychotic on the subject. Check out the tirade in Chapter 23.

The Temple was the heart of Judaism. When it was destroyed along with Jerusalem itself, the center of Jewish intellectual life, Judaism was in chaos. The Pharisees that went to Yavne before the end in Jerusalem were reconstructing Judaism in accordance with a rabbinic model. Matthews mission in writing his Gospel was to demonstrate positively that Jesus was the Jewish Messiah and that the Jesus movement was therefore the proper continuation of historic Judaism, not rabbinic Judaism. (Among other clues note that Matthew is the only Gospel to have the Pharisees refer to themselves as Rabbis, and loving to be called so.)

Matthew was seeking to protect his community of Jewish Christians against those Jerusalem educated, scripture quoting, anti-Jesus Pharisees. So he threw in loads of scriptural quotes and references of his own to elevate the stature of Jesus and focused his story on the mission of Jesus in Galilee, that is, NOT Jerusalem. And of course made the Pharisees into devils wherever possible.

Best not distract the hate focus away from the main target by talking about the bad Romans.

Luke went along with the Olivet Discourse imminent return scenario because that was already present in the two existing Gospels. He modified it some to make it more understandable to a Gentile audience. Marks primary purpose was to revivify fading faith by turning the destruction of Jerusalem into a sign of hope. Matthews primary purpose was to establish Jesus as undeniably the Jewish Messiah, probably to counter rabbinic Judaism. Lukes primary purpose was to counter certain aspects of Matthew that would be problematic for a Gentile audience. Matthew and Luke kept Marks Olivet Discourse because to abandon an imminent return while it still might be possible would be to give up hope. Remember that Paul had already spread the idea that Jesus would come back soon while at least some of his readers were still alive. It was an important idea that needed to be preserved.

You're adding yet another supposition here (in addition to the post-70 authorship of Mark and a long gap between Luke and Acts); that Luke wrote to counter Matthew. The two-source hypothesis might be waning in popularity, but it's still the dominant view from what little I've seen.

As discussed above Matthew wrote for a Jewish Christian audience. Lukes audience was Gentile. Matthews Gospel raised some issues for Gentiles.

• Matthews frequent emphasis on Jesus as King of the Jews.
  This could raise memories of the terrible Revolt.
  
  Matthews image of Jesus as the new Moses, the Jewish Lawgiver.
  Jewish Law would be a problem for non-Jewish Christians
  
  Matthews overall sense of Jesus being essentially Jewish.
  As we know from Paul, there were those who thought of the Jesus movement in terms of Gentiles need not apply.

With this in mind consider the following.

Matthew has a genealogy underscoring the Jewish character of Jesus. Luke has a genealogy underscoring the universal character of Jesus, in a format totally reversed from Matthew. And just in case anyone does not get the point, Luke essentially negates the importance of the genealogy.

Matthew has the briefest of annunciation stories, which is really all about Joseph leaving Mary as a nearly invisible figure. Luke has an elaborate annunciation story that is all about Mary and Joseph is nearly invisible.

Matthews nativity story is about exotic wise men from the east seeking to worship a king and about fleeing from a murderous pharaoh, oops, king who wants to kill all the children. Joseph and Mary flee with Jesus from Bethlehem to Egypt to Nazareth.

Lukes nativity story is about lowly shepherds going to see Jesus. Joseph and Mary had come to Bethlehem from Nazareth and they all go back to Nazareth. No Moses references. In case anyone does not get the point Luke mentions Herod, a major player in Matthew, in the first sentence of his Gospel and never again. Luke also explicitly blows away Matthews timeframe for the birth of Jesus with a clever image that disassociates Jesus from the messianic Jewish Zealots.

Matthews Sermon on the Mount, where Jesus emphasizes the Law of Moses and fences around the Torah becomes Lukes much abbreviated Sermon on the Plain, eliminating all explicitly Jewish references. Luke also specifically includes Gentiles in the audience in a paraphrase of Matthews language.

Matthew has virtually all of the ministry of Jesus happen in Galilee and places north i.e., NOT Jerusalem " see above) and only at the end of that is Jesus rejected at Nazareth. Luke starts off the ministry of Jesus with the rejection at Nazareth and quickly focuses on the journey to Jerusalem. Many bits and pieces from Matthews Sermon on the Mount are scattered throughout this phase.

Matthew often refers to a future judgment at the end of days involving fire for the unrighteous. Luke also has fire for the unrighteous but it happens immediately after death. This was another one of the several Jewish traditions but also a more familiar image to Gentiles.

All of these things " Matthews theses and Lukes antitheses " appear only in these Gospels. Luke being familiar with Matthews Gospel and intentionally writing to counter certain aspects of it sounds a lot more convincing to me than that they both read a source that has totally disappeared and no one else mentions. The two source hypothesis (Mark and Q) was based on the idea that the Gospel writers were recording pre-existing traditions and did not consider the possibility of intentional agenda driven invention. The two source hypothesis does not explain the differences between Matthew and Luke that appear nowhere else, which would require yet more vanished documents. My proposal does not need any unknown documents and explains the differences as well.

Various other points like this. Both Matthew and Luke obviously had rad Mark. But I really see no reason for any other source for Matthew except his own imagination (and Philo " another story). And I see no reason for any other source for Luke except Matthew and Lukes imagination.

More importantly, nowhere does Paul say that some of his readers would still be alive at Christ's return. You cannot claim that unless you insist that he believed he would still be alive - if it's not just "a group of which I am a member" then that is what 'we' means, "me and some others" - and that borders on the absurd considering how often Paul portrays himself in jeopardy from the authorities and his enemies. Paul said only that it would be soon. His passage/s saying things like "those with wives live as if you had none" would be just as impractical over 5 years as over 500, and might be viewed as either hyperbole, or some weirdly specific expectation he had in the year he was writing, or just as another of his exhortations to celibacy. But there's nothing in his letters specifically suggesting Jesus' return within a definite timeframe such as folks' lifetimes. That originated elsewhere; perhaps with Jesus, or with Mark, or with a misreading/rewriting of Mark by Matthew, or even with some source unknown to us.

Nothing absurd about it. In 1 Thessalonians Paul addresses the concern that some Christians have died since Jesus was resurrected. (those who have fallen asleep in him) Are they going to miss out on going with Jesus when he comes back? Paul reassures them that dead Christians will be resurrected. This concern only makes sense if Jesus was expected to return while they were still alive. If Jesus was not expected until some indefinite future time, the concern would not be about those who have died for whom they might grieve but about themselves missing out. This clearly indicates a belief that Jesus was expected very soon. The repeated references to we who are still alive (not those who are still alive) support this. A generic we does not work here or the dichotomy between those already dead and those still alive would make no sense.

1 Thessalonians 4
3 Brothers and sisters, we do not want you to be uninformed about those who sleep in death, so that you do not grieve like the rest of mankind, who have no hope. 14 For we believe that Jesus died and rose again, and so we believe that God will bring with Jesus those who have fallen asleep in him. 15 According to the Lords word, we tell you that we who are still alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, will certainly not precede those who have fallen asleep. 16 For the Lord himself will come down from heaven, with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. 17 After that, we who are still alive and are left will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will be with the Lord forever. 18 Therefore encourage one another with these words.

1 Thessalonians has multiple references to Jesus coming soon, an event to be witnessed by those Paul is writing to.

1 Thessalonians

1 9They tell how you turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God, 10 and to wait for his Son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead"Jesus, who rescues us from the coming wrath.

2 19 For what is our hope, our joy, or the crown in which we will glory in the presence of our Lord Jesus when he comes? Is it not you? 20 Indeed, you are our glory and joy.

3 13 May he strengthen your hearts so that you will be blameless and holy in the presence of our God and Father when our Lord Jesus comes with all his holy ones.

Paul says that this is according to the Lords word (1 Thess 4:15) When did the Lord say this? If we go back to the beginning of 1 Thessalonians we see that Paul previously visited those he is now writing too and he gave them our gospel. Paul elsewhere says that Jesus personally gave Paul special revelations. It sounds like Paul is the origin of this story.

1 Thessalonians 1
4 For we know, brothers and sisters loved by God, that he has chosen you, 5 because our gospel came to you not simply with words but also with power, with the Holy Spirit and deep conviction. You know how we lived among you for your sake.

If we look at the passage you alluded to, it is clear that Paul expects the end of days to come very soon. Staying as you are is possible for a short period, unless of course it would be to risk sin. And it is definitely a short period Paul is talking about.

1 Corinthians 7

17 Nevertheless, each person should live as a believer in whatever situation the Lord has assigned to them, just as God has called them. This is the rule I lay down in all the churches. 18 Was a man already circumcised when he was called? He should not become uncircumcised. Was a man uncircumcised when he was called? He should not be circumcised. 19 Circumcision is nothing and uncircumcision is nothing. Keeping Gods commands is what counts. 20 Each person should remain in the situation they were in when God called them.

21 Were you a slave when you were called? Dont let it trouble you"although if you can gain your freedom, do so. 22 For the one who was a slave when called to faith in the Lord is the Lords freed person; similarly, the one who was free when called is Christs slave. 23 You were bought at a price; do not become slaves of human beings. 24 Brothers and sisters, each person, as responsible to God, should remain in the situation they were in when God called them.

25 Now about virgins: I have no command from the Lord, but I give a judgment as one who by the Lords mercy is trustworthy. 26 Because of the present crisis, I think that it is good for a man to remain as he is. 27 Are you pledged to a woman? Do not seek to be released. Are you free from such a commitment? Do not look for a wife. 28 But if you do marry, you have not sinned; and if a virgin marries, she has not sinned. But those who marry will face many troubles in this life, and I want to spare you this.

29 What I mean, brothers and sisters, is that the time is short. From now on those who have wives should live as if they do not; 30 those who mourn, as if they did not; those who are happy, as if they were not; those who buy something, as if it were not theirs to keep; 31 those who use the things of the world, as if not engrossed in them. For this world in its present form is passing away.

Finally, abandoning that idea "while it was still possible" is quite a stretch if you're talking about 10+ years after the temple's destruction. Matthew in particular draws his readers' attention to Daniel, who wrote that an end to sacrifice and offering would occur in the middle of a final 'seven.' Maybe folk might try and stretch it out, as believers do, to somehow have a final seven beginning with the temple's destruction. But by the late 70s/early 80s CE you're in a situation with little in the way of current catastrophic end-times events, long after any reasonable time-frame for the temple's destruction to have been the penultimate prophetic sign and, above all, when few if any could be sure that any of Jesus' hearers remained alive. That is not the time when Luke would still be insisting on the same things that Matthew did. (And nor would Matthew have insisted on them if he had written that late, which is why I think he most likely wrote around 72-74 CE.)

I already discussed Matthew and Luke taking Marks Olivet Discourse mostly as they found it, except for Luke tailoring it a bit for Gentiles. Matthew and Luke had other agendas and included Marks eschatology because it was there. To abandon it would be to admit that Jesus was not coming back soon after all and maybe not ever. Exact dates were not an overriding concern. Soon was what mattered. When the Synoptic Gospels were themselves getting old it was time to move on. Which is what John and Acts do.

If you want to have Mark write before the destruction of Jerusalem and Matthew write after, why is there so little change in the Olivet Discourse? Such a dramatic fulfillment would have been a great opportunity for Matthew.

I have already addressed that other Gospels have used the kingdom idea in two senses and I explained why. There is the sense of the immanent kingdom, a kingdom already present or personally near, achievable by a return to true righteousness that I believe was preached by a real historic human Jesus. Then there is the imminent (transcendent) kingdom of the messianic age to be established by a returning divine Jesus as per Paul. I showed that even Luke repeatedly referred to that kind of kingdom being established by a returning Jesus.

I don't know what the historical Jesus taught or believed. As far as I'm aware there's only one place in Mark in which 'kingdom of God' is used in a sense not potentially consistent with the former, and that use (14:25) isn't readily consistent with the eschatological sense either - it seems to mean simply heaven. So quite possibly you're right about what the historical Jesus taught, and it may have been Paul and Matthew who brought the other meaning to the fore. I don't deny that Matthew used the Markan sense as well, and Luke also; Luke simply didn't know when Jesus might return, so he would hardly deny the eschatological possibility, even if he refused to emphasise it. Heck, straight after having Jesus refute those who asked when the kingdom of God would come and say that "The kingdom of God does not come with observation... the kingdom of God is within you," Luke immediately goes on to write about the return of the Son of Man (Luke 17:20ff)! He obviously hadn't abandoned hope that it would happen sometime, but he also very explicitly de-emphasised any expectation that it must occur in this decade or that.

As I previously commented, I see the not taste death and the Olivet Discourse with its this generation as carryovers from Mark, essential parts of the story of keeping the faith. But they were not the main agendas of Matthew and Luke. This was Marks agenda. I see him as having invented not taste death and this generation as a means of linking to the destruction of the Temple and keeping Pauls sense of an imminent eschaton alive. Matthew and Luke both added further disclaimers about possible further delays but were not yet ready to throw it all over completely as John does.

Everyone knew from Paul that the disciples left Jerusalem and traveled to other places. But part of Lukes redirection of Matthew was to emphasize Jerusalem over Galilee. In Matthew they go to Galilee to see Jesus. In Luke Jesus comes to them and tells them to stay in Jerusalem for a while. The reason for staying: until you have been clothed with power from on high. (Luke 24:49) Paul makes numerous references to the Holy Spirit giving power and/or God giving power via the Holy Spirit. In order to go out and teach (as Matthew says they are to do) they ought to be endowed with power. And so a convenient reason for staying in Jerusalem for a little while and not run off to Galilee. It is all part of Lukes redirecting Matthew.

Man... getting more in depth than I'd intended at 10pm on a work night, but I can't resist. You're working back-to-front here. As the main area of Jesus' preaching activity Galilee may well have been a major centre of early Christianity; but common sense suggests that the apostles would also have focused as much if not moreso on developing a strong group of followers in the centre of Jewish cultural and religious life. This is borne out by what little we know of that earliest period of Christian history, especially from Paul. The story of Jesus appearing to his disciples in Galilee originates from Mark, but we don't know what he wrote about that if anything, or beyond it. John seems to have Jesus' appearances in Jerusalem, while the appendix adds a trip to Galilee. After the revolt and written for a post-war Jewish audience, Matthew probably had powerful reasons for de-emphasising Jerusalem's significance to his movement regardless of whatever other traditions existed, whereas those would be lesser concerns for Luke. So Luke may have been simply telling the story a little closer to what we'd expect and infer from Paul to have likely been the case - that the new movement focused its greatest efforts early on in Jerusalem - and for his propaganda purposes incidentally painting it for his readers as a bit more of a cosmopolitan movement than a rural superstition. There's no need to invoke influence or redirection of Matthew.

But the point here was simply that the gospel of Luke ends with the precisely the same theme as is carried throughout Acts; the preaching of the gospel beginning in Jerusalem and spreading to all nations, under the blessing of the Holy Spirit. More pointedly, that there is simply no evidence for any great gap and change of opinions between Luke and Acts.

Marks Gospel supplies no post-resurrection story involving a resurrected Jesus. His empty tomb and a stranger saying Jesus rose from the dead appears to be the only tradition he is willing to go with. All of the others Gospels add their own post-resurrection details but retain the empty tomb and stranger theme. Even Mathews ultra-dramatic rendering still has no actual resurrection scene, only an already empty tomb. It would appear that this tradition was so well entrenched that it could not be tampered with. Whether being sent off to Galilee was part of an old tradition or if Mark supplied that detail, it would have been a convenient explanation for the absence of eyewitness accounts of a risen Jesus in the public record.

The appendix to John (chapter 21) address issues raised in the other Gospels. Chapter 20 has Jesus in Jerusalem as per Luke. The appendix has the rather odd story of the disciples running into Jesus in Galilee while fishing, thereby allowing some association with Matthew. And of course the not taste death prophecy is put to bed as simply a misunderstanding. John (or whoever wrote the appendix) clearly understood that phrase from the Synoptic Gospels literally.

I already addressed above why Matthew would want to focus on Galilee and points north rather than Jerusalem.

Your point about Luke recognizing Jerusalem as the headquarters of early Christianity is a good one. Luke would have known this from Pauls writings for example.

In Luke Jesus tells the disciples to stay in the city until you have been clothed with power from on high (Luke 24:49) In Acts this is linked to the Holy Spirit. I already quoted from 1 Thessalonians about them receiving Pauls gospel with power, with the Holy Spirit. If this is characteristic of Pauls gospel, surely the Apostles must have gotten that in connection with the gospel of Jesus. And they are to get it in Jerusalem in the Jesus tradition, not from Pauls private gospel. That is, the idea and language can be seen to have come from Paul but adapted to Lukes purpose. If it were original with Luke it could be argued that Luke was already planning Acts. As it is, Luke in Acts could simply picking up the idea again to continue his story.

But it is the presence of the not taste death Olivet Discourse this generation mode of thinking in Lukes Gospel contrasted with the angel saying to stop looking at the sky and the substitution of the Holy Spirit for Jesus in Acts that clearly shows the change in attitude. And only the passage of enough time for the expectation of an imminent return of Jesus to be utterly untenable can account for that.

[Mithrae]

I think you've got the wrong end of the stick with these. The passage in Mark is not primarily about Jesus' return. Read in context, Mark's sequence is Peter's confession of Christ/secret Messiah; then prediction of his own death; then warning that the disciples too must take up their cross. Jesus mentions his return almost as an afterthought - reminding them what all this suffering and following and preaching is leading up to - not as the main focus of the passage. What it's about is preaching the good news, and if 9:1 is to be linked with that passage at all it has to fit the meaning of the whole passage, not just that final sentence from which Mark explicitly separated it. The kingdom of God present with power is the power of the gospel:

• When he had called the people to himself, with his disciples also, he said to them, Whoever desires to come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me. For whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake and the gospels will save it. For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world, and loses his own soul? Or what will a man give in exchange for his soul? For whoever is ashamed of me and my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of him the Son of Man also will be ashamed when he comes in the glory of his Father with the holy angels. And he said to them, Assuredly, I say to you that there are some standing here who will not taste death till they see the kingdom of God present with power.

As I've already pointed out, the fact that this final phrase is not unambiguously eschatological is proven by the fact that Matthew felt the need to change it to "Son of Man coming in his kingdom."

Mark 8
34 Then he called the crowd to him along with his disciples and said: Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. 35 For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me and for the gospel will save it. 36 What good is it for someone to gain the whole world, yet forfeit their soul? 37 Or what can anyone give in exchange for their soul? 38 If anyone is ashamed of me and my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, the Son of Man will be ashamed of them when he comes in his Fathers glory with the holy angels.
Mark 9
1 And he said to them, Truly I tell you, some who are standing here will not taste death before they see that the kingdom of God has come with power.

Sounds like it is about Jesus urging persevering in the faith through hard times and temptations because the Son of Man is coming soon and anyone in this generation who does not heed the words of Jesus is in for it. And it is all going to go down while some of the listeners are still alive. And you think the Son of Man eschatological part is just an afterthought? And you also think that the kingdom of God coming with power in the very next sentence has nothing to do with the preceding sentence? Sorry but I find this very hard to accept.

Why do you find it so hard to accept? Mark himself separated the thought in the last sentence from the one preceding it. Granted, you and I might instinctively link the two distinct sentences together, but only because we're already so accustomed to thinking of the 'kingdom of God' in eschatological terms. There's little reason to suppose that Mark or his readers were burdened by such preconceptions. Paul never uses the phrase. Mark's gospel begins by explicitly identifying Jesus' mission as a baptism with the Holy Spirit (1:8) and his disciples' as fishers of men (1:17), a theme expanded on and explicitly linked with the 'kingdom of God' in chapter 4. In fact correct me if I'm wrong, but besides a passing reference to the 'day of judgement' in 6:11, 8:38 is the first time anything eschatological is mentioned in the gospel at all!

Read without preconceptions, there is nothing in Mark to suggest that 'kingdom of God' in 9:1 is eschatological - quite the opposite in fact - and Mark himself separates that sentence from the one preceding it. Since 'kingdom of God' has previously been established in the book to mean the preaching/growth/following of the gospel, and since this passage in 8:34ff is about suffering whilst spreading the gospel, it's really quite obvious that 'kingdom of God' means the same thing here as previously in the book!

Mark even explicitly suggests in more ways than one that something would change for the disciples after Jesus' death and resurrection; he repeatedly suggests that while Jesus was with them they were dull and slow to understand, and that they didn't fast while the 'bridegroom' was with them but would after he'd gone. It's really no stretch to suppose the baptism with the Holy Spirit - which Mark says from the very beginning of his gospel was the purpose of Jesus' mission - is supposed to have something to do with this change, and probably is what the kingdom of God present with power means also: Following on from Peter's wish for Jesus to avoid his own death, Jesus is tellling his followers not only that they must be willing to face suffering in the cause of spreading the kingdom of God, but reassuring them that they will have the same strength and courage to do so as Jesus himself because soon it will be present with power.

Snipping those two sentences out and chaining them together against Mark's own editting misses the point of the whole sequence and the themes of the gospel! Admittedly it's an almost instinctive way to think about it, given the preconceptions with which we are burdened, but I see nothing to suggest that it is correct.

[Mithrae]

As I have said before, Luke inherited the not taste death and this generation passages. He cannot dispense with them quite yet or risk not being taken seriously. And he needs to be taken seriously to successfully take on Matthew. While those from the time of Jesus may be pretty much dead, the still alive story originally began with Paul writing in the 50s. If Luke wrote 25-30 years after that there ought to have been survivors. Acts shows us that Luke was very familiar with Pauls letters. In any case you are looking for exact precision when revival of faith is the issue.

Lukes reference to the time of the Gentiles is Jerusalem will be trampled on by the Gentiles until the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled. The trampling of Jerusalem by Gentiles ended in 70 CE with the total destruction of the city following a lengthy siege. Not at all an indefinite period.

As far as Luke meaning a race of men very like each other etc., why should Luke be interested in telling his Gentile audience that the Jewish race will stay around until Jesus comes? And since he already made changes for his Gentile readers why should he preserve the exact wording of the previous Gospels but mean something different?

I'm sorry, but you're jumping from obfuscation to assumption to circularity here.

Either 'this generation' refers to Jesus' generation, or it refers to something broader. It does not refer to the generation of an ageing Paul - that's an unconvincing attempt at obfuscation. But the simple fact is that by the 80s CE virtually no-one (including perhaps Luke himself) could be confident that anyone from Jesus' day was still alive, so that interpretation makes little sense from the pen of any 80s author (including Matthew).

Luke unabashedly removed or changed plenty of things from Mark (and even moreso from Matthew in your view), including the most important thing in the prophetic sequence itself, the abomination which Mark specifically draws readers' attentions to. You cannot simultaneously claim that Luke was compelled to include stuff merely because it was in Mark/Matthew - even though it was becoming absurd by the 80s CE, if your interpretation of his meaning were correct - yet also that he could merrily change the most important detail of it on the flimsiest of pretexts. The fact is that he messed around with the script: So if he meant what you claim he meant, and that was indeed absurd by the time he wrote, then he simply would not have written it! Since he did write it, it's evident that he didn't mean what you think he meant.

Removing the abomination and saying that "Jerusalem will be trampled by Gentiles until the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled" both make complete sense in that context - providing an indefinite delay to the final conclusion of the prophecy. The latter would make no sense if he was merely saying "Jerusalem will be overrun, and Roman soldiers will be there while they overrun it," and you are merely assuming that no gentiles remained afterwards. On the contrary, Josephus suggests that a Roman garrison did remain.

Finally, you're simply begging the question by stating that Luke in this view meant something completely different to Mark. As I've pointed out, Mark immediately follows that sentence up by saying that Jesus did not know when it would occur. So Mark, particularly if he was writing in the early/mid stages of the war, most likely meant the same thing as Luke: That whatever trials might follow, the Jewish race would still endure until the end. This is entirely consistent with the frequent references in the synoptics to the Jews as 'a sinful and adulterous generation' or the like, akin to the older prophets' characterization of 'a stubborn and stiff-necked people.'

It's a bit of a stretch, when Mark says with one sentence that Jesus didn't know when it would all occur, to declare that the sentence immediately before that was giving a time-frame for its occurance!

[2Dbunk]

[Replying to JLB32168]

Sorry it took me so long to get back to you but I had to reply to your "not believing my numbers." I don't make these things up. I do hope the following (which is also in a new thread entitled Does everything happen for a reason?) is edifying, supporting my point of view:

. . . And, we cannot exactly predict the birthrate or conversion rate of those born in Muslim countries (thats why I cited Pew Research Councils population predictions).

Without being anymore obvious, my target is to effect a reaction from those (1213, tam and JLB 68132) in the Why the delay in Christs Coming? thread, specifically 1213s NT quote:
Quote:
For I don't desire, brothers, to have you ignorant of this mystery, so that you won't be wise in your own conceits, that a partial hardening has happened to Israel, until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in,
Romans 11:25


This quote deals with the unborn, un-indoctrinated Gentiles up to Judgment Day.

In that passage, one gets the idea that the population cornucopias issuing of Gentiles is petering out and the day is coming when the last Gentile will, as an adult, attest to the Word of Christ. Never mind that most all population predictions have the Earth increasing in population (10.2 Billion by 2100 -UN Average) and Christians increasing slower " significantly slower than Muslims. If the word Gentile can be equated to the word people (the definition is: non-Jewish people. Unless I miss my guess, Gentile is extended to include Christians also, as 1213 seems to infer) then there seems to be a disparity as to the numbers issuing forth at / near Judgment day. And with China ending its one-child policy, those numbers will probably escalate.

Best regards