marco wrote:Your question requires no answer, phrased as it is.
Okay I will rephrase it. Who do you think your ridicule scores a hit with?
And on ridicule, our opinions differ.
Hold on a minute. It isn’t merely a matter of differing
opinion. It is a
fact that an
argument by ridicule is a fallacy, implied or explicit. Therefore, ridicule is not justified because arguing by a fallacy is never justified.
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The counter argument that Matthew 24:29 is in reference to future events as opposed to the past events of Matthew 27 goes so far as to differentiate the events in terms of past or future. But how is that a meaningful distinction?
Really? In the one case we are given a sequence of events,...
In both Matthew 24 and 27 we are given a sequence of events.
...with back-up surrounding details including a live centurion.
There are numerous details in Matthew 24 as well. And the events of Matthew 24:29 occurring “immediately after� the tribulations previously mentioned in particular relate to a person - Jesus (the Son of Man).
This means we are dealing with actual events.
Granted. But the symbolic argument is not that there is
nothing historical reported in Matthew 27:51-53.
The mention of time when these things occurred, makes the point more strongly.
But Matthew 24:29 mentions a time of occurrence as well.
In the instance you gave Matthew is using the future tense for an event that has no specifically temporal status.
Matthew 24:29 certainly provides a very specific temporal status – “immediately after.� It’s no less specific than “at that moment.� Moreover, the future tense does not preclude a specific temporal point. What time is your alarm clock set to go off tomorrow morning?
It is vague , and admits a symbolic interpretation. The one we are dealing with is precise.
I don’t see this. Both Matthew 24 and 27 seem to carry roughly the same level of detail and aspect of temporal preciseness.
I still don’t see how this argument that one passage speaks of future events and the other of past events is a significant enough distinction to stop the argument.
It seems this counter argument must assume apocalyptic symbolism cannot be mingled with historical events. I don’t see that as necessarily the case. We see what is clearly apocalyptic symbolism in Peter’s preaching in Acts 2 and these events then seem to be interpreted by Peter as having occurred.
You are confusing issues and moving to a completely different argument.
How so? This is part of the symbolic argument. That Matthew 27:51-53 mingles the historical with the apocalyptic. The reference to the risen Jews being apocalyptic symbolism.
It's the difference between what was and what might happen; between recording events that were and making guesses about the future.
But here it seems you are projecting your view about apocalyptic genre onto Matthew. You are assuming Matthew, when recording the apocalyptic words of Jesus in chapter 24, understood those prophecies as “making guesses about the future.� Surely that was not how Matthew understood these events. Surely Matthew understood these events with the same certainty as anything he knew to be historical.
Further, if the preterist eschatology view holds then Matthew chapter 24 is referring to at least some events which have occurred.
Moreover, you seem to be assuming that apocalyptic symbolism can only refer to prophetic events of the future. That’s not necessarily the case at all. Surely if Matthew believed he was near the end times he could very easily be using apocalyptic references in a past tense to symbolism the significance of Jesus’ resurrection. That’s exactly what we see in Acts 2.
If Matthew placed some symbolic meaning on the dead rising, similarly it does not nullify the event - it simply interprets things that did happen.
Yes of course. But that would be assuming Matthew meant the risen saints to be understood as literal history.
