Mark 13:30 “This generation will not pass away until all of these things take place”

Faith & Science Conversation
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It was just a question. Doesn’t that seem like a reasonable question to ask? Why should we dodge the plain meaning of His words? Would anyone listening have any reason to think Jesus meant anything different?

Didn’t Jesus also say, “Truly I say to you, There be some standing here, which shall not taste of death, till they see the Son of man coming in his kingdom.” I suppose you could decide this is talking about something different, but it does seem to me that He was always talking of the immediate future and not of something millennia later. After all, consider who he was speaking to and what future would interest them. Were not their concerns all focused on the Roman empire and the survival of Israel?

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I’m wondering how it is possible that Jesus was speaking directly to them because it would seem that some of those events have not yet come to pass…and I know many Christians believe Jesus to be addressing some future time

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I listened to the message, thanks for posting! This speaker believes that Jesus was referring to the Hebrew (Jewish) people as a lineage and not as the individuals he was addressing! That seems plausible.

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He was speaking to his hearers and the generic, poetic you. On a spectrum of literal to metaphoric, inclusive, all was fulfilled within their lifetimes; in less than forty years, regionally. He wasn’t talking about 1000, or 1836 or 1844 or 1914 or 1917 or 1945 or 1975 or 2000 or 2011 or 2012 or or 3000 or 30,000

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It means this race of people, the Jews
You’re welcome Ciara :blush:

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What about the moon going dark and the sun dimming? It would seem this would be referencing a catastrophic end times.

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It’s happened many times due to volcanic eruptions, forest fires, dust storms, even meteor and comet strikes. As He spoke He got more and more apocalyptic, but not in the modern sense.

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Yes Jesus was referring to the “tribulation” of that generation. He was looking at the second temple and foretold it’s destruction. He was not looking at the second temple and pretending it was a third temple that would be destroyed.

Preterism and cessationism both provides a lot of good biblical arguments for why it already happened. Even in one of the recent podcasts, the genealogies podcast they mention have 666/616 is a reference to Nero.

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In the next paragraph, Jesus talks about “staying awake” because no man knows when he will return. He talks about these events being signs that the coming is approaching. So it gives the impression what is being talked about is related to the return of Jesus Christ/ “that tribulation”

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It would make sense except for the fact that the next paragraph talks about the second coming of Christ and that these are “signs of the time”.

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There are also a lot of other verses peppered throughout scripture that showcases in Paul’s mind that something was in fact happening then. He uses the same language there as in Matthew 24, Daniel and Revelation.

1 Corinthians 7:29-31
New American Standard Bible
29 But this I say, brothers, the time has been shortened, so that from now on those who have wives should be as though they had none; 30 and those who weep, as though they did not weep; and those who rejoice, as though they did not rejoice; and those who buy, as though they did not possess; 31 and those who use the world, as though they did not make full use of it; for the present form of this world is passing away.

In these verses Paul warns the disciples that the time has been shortened and that the present form of the world was passing away. He was writing this in his letter to the Corinthians concerning marriage, divorce and remarriage. He wanted those disciples at that church to be aware of these things happening.

Matthew 24 is where he mentions the destruction of the building. He even warns them that when they see the abomination in the holy place they need to flee. Flee so earnestly thru abandon their earthly treasures and run rooftop to rooftop.

Matthew 10:23
New American Standard Bible
23 “But whenever they persecute you in one city, flee to the next; for truly I say to you, you will not finish going through the cities of Israel until the Son of Man comes.

Shortly before the verse you posted we see this by Jesus.

Matthew 10:23
New American Standard Bible
23 “But whenever they persecute you in one city, flee to the next; for truly I say to you, you will not finish going through the cities of Israel until the Son of Man comes.

He lets them know they won’t even finish going through the cities of Israel before he comes.

Shortly after we see this.

Matthew 16:28
New American Standard Bible
28 “Truly I say to you, there are some of those who are standing here who will not taste death until they see the Son of Man coming in His kingdom.”

He says here ,” some will still be alive when he comes in his kingdom” . He was taking to literally those standing there .

So in light of everything when we read the word “ generation” it means just that. It would not fit with everything else to force it to mean jews 2000+ years down the road.

I don’t want to add all these verses here but this a link to them ( Isaiah 65:17-25). It talks about the “ new places” as well but mentions things like death still occurring.

The Bible Project Podcast has a fantastic free 100+ page workbook on this that I’ve just skimmed through. Soon I’ll work through it. Also a entire podcast series on heaven and earth thst helps tease out how to interpret the stories.

https://bibleproject.com/church-at-home/week17-heaven-and-earth/.

They also recently have done some work on revelation itself.

Enough to get a fairly good crash course on this subject from a scholar.

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Thank you for posting resources! I followed the podcast and signed up for alerts on new episodes. If they are referring to events of their time, obviously Jesus did not come back?

I think there is a lot to wade through with this. It’s apparent that some people think Jesus is referencing events that have yet to come and others believe He was speaking of past events in their near future.

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I guess by did Jesus come back depends on what you think it means. There are people that literally believe Jesus will come back floating in the sky or ridding a flying horse. Some believe that Jesus coming back , combined with like a their in the night, means Jesus would come back in a way visible to his disciples.

That’s what I believe. I believe that Jesus came back as hope and guidance for his people during the end of the world under Nero when the current form and way of the world passed away with the destruction of the temple and the defeat of Satan.

I’m Revelation it mentions a interesting thing about what sparked the war between Michael and Satan and thst war was kicked off by Satan trying to destroy the child who would be King of Kings, aka Jesus. I think Herod was guided by Satan in trying to kill Jesus. Thst sparked the final war in which Satan lost and was cast to earth and became angry and knowing his time was short ( just like Paul knew the time had been shortened ). I think that the world truly changed. Not physically, but that a spiritual change occurred. That’s why Nero went after Jews and destroyed the temple. It’s why Jesus said he say Satan fall like lightening. I think Jesus as a man in this earth saw Satan lose and be cast out.

There was just a few thousands disciples at this time. Not millions like now. The whole world is used metaphorically a lot. It says the end will come after the whole world hears the gospel.

Matthew 24:14
New American Standard Bible
14 This gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all the nations, and then the end will come.

But we see Paul saying that happened.

“the gospel , which has come to you , as indeed in the whole world it is bearing fruit and increasing. [Col. 1:5-6]

“…not shifting from the hope of the gospel that you heard, which has been proclaimed in all creation under heaven [Col. 1:23]

“But they have not all obeyed the gospel. For Isaiah says, “Lord, who has believed what he has heard from us?” So faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ. But I ask, have they not heard? Indeed they have, for ‘ Their voice has gone out to all the earth, and their words to the ends of the world.” [Romans 10:16-18]

So to me everything seems to have been verified in scripture as happening.

The temple was destroyed.
The gospel was heard throughout every city of Israel.
The gospel was heard throughout the whole world.
That generation has passed.
All those standing there has died.
The anti christ has come and went.

So i have no reason to believe Jesus did not also show up and finally crush the head of the serpent destroying him in hell.

There are some confusing verses. Such as how does the resurrection of the good and the evil come into play. I don’t know. I’m not sold on a physical resurrection or the spiritual as one being stronger than the other. But when there is something very complicated, I make the complicated for to the easy instead of making the easy extra complicated to go with the complicated. If that makes sense.

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Here’s a good article on some of the issues with hyper-preterism, though:

http://web.archive.org/web/20200514211222/http://www.cmfnow.com/articles/pt556.htm

(If your browser has a Reader View available, it’s a better format if you use it.)

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I’m not a hyper preterist. Nothing I posted is hyper preterism. It’s scripture.

In the article many of the points are nonsense. Such as saying it leaves us without a cannon or that it makes all scripture meaningless to us. That’s not true at all. Just because the Torah was written to Jews pointing towards Christ does not mean just because Christ has already came at least once thst we all agree on, useless. It’s still very valuable. Also the Bible Project are not hyper preterist either. Neither is NT Wright.

But preterism, for what it is, thst the book of revelation was written to the Christian’s in the first century warning them of what to come is far more sound than it was written and had no value to them but may have value to us. Futurism is even more ridiculous than hyper preterism.

Also there was many views of what the resurrection meant among first century Christian’s and the Jews prior to that.

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I did not say that you were, nor did I mean to imply it.

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He didn’t say it to us. He wasn’t speaking to us. In any way. He was speaking, according to ‘Mark’, 30-40 years later, to His disciples. So, if He was the real deal in every textual regard, what He said came to pass one way or another. And it did in no uncertain terms for Jewish Christians in 70 AD. Up to a million people died in the First Jewish War. The siege of Masada stretched the Roman army, treasury, state to breaking point. The logistics of attacking a desert mountain fortress with fifteen thousand men for three months was ruinous. There was no water, no wood, no food.

The rational, natural explanation is that ‘Mark; wrote it after 70 AD. Which doesn’t mean that Jesus wasn’t the real deal. ‘Mark’ wasn’t. But let’s assume they both were. Josephus - an eye witness of sorts - backs that up with his 78 AD publication of angelic cavalry manoeuvres and other utterly spine tingling accounts. Others here have argued on the authority of Tom Wright that Jesus’ coming was going; going to Heaven in a local fly-by air display. Begrudgingly I have to accept that. The Greek allows it.

We read - I did for 30 years - our modern eschatological, chiliad (so did the RCC a thousand years ago, hence the Crusades) desperation back in to ‘Mark’. As for the disciples, apostles, Christians from 31-70 AD, they expected Jesus’ imminent return and… moved on when it didn’t happen. According to dubious late Pauline and Petrine epistles.

Whatever the truth, it has nothing to do with now, whenever that is.

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On the other to be more considered hand, there’s Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s hermeneutic.

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If it is I who determine where God is to be found, then I shall always find a God who corresponds to me in some way, who is obliging, who is connected with my own nature. But if God determines where he is to be found, then it will be in a place which is not immediately pleasing to my nature and which is not at all congenial to me. This place is the Cross of Christ. And whoever would find him must go to the foot of the Cross, as the Sermon on the Mount commands.

Nice! Thanks

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