Tuesday, December 24, 2019

Because




only a few are watching
no one talks about it
we were trained to take in what was dished out
it gets ignored or whined about and denied
there's a breakdown in communication
nothing was ever read before
this notepad finally got your attention
others were willing to listen
they didn't flip out
their world didn't come to an end
their temple wasn't threatened
their priesthood didn't change
they rarely chose to punt
muteness tastes stale and boring
obsequious politeness looks runny and insipid
eternal niceties feel worse than purgatory
everyone knows it's in the room
it's gotta leave the room somehow
no one wants to do anything about it
i'm the only one suggesting it gets eaten
i'll even use the tusks for broth













Monday, December 23, 2019

Eulogy for David P. Jesse





Standing in front of his crowd
He had a voice that was strong and loud
He took a stand on every little thing
Ranting and pointing his finger
At every unteachable heart
Because he had a lot to say
And he sure could yell
We’ll miss him

He had a lot to say
about “the goal” of God’s Law
about Historicism and patriotism
He had a lot to say
We'll miss him

He had a lot to say
about patterns of Satan
Globalism, Islam, and the Papacy
He had a lot to say
We'll miss him

He had a lot to say
about debate strategies of Jesus Christ
about protestant ethics and the spirit of capitalism
He had a lot to say
We'll miss him

He had a lot to say
about the demonic intent of tattoos
marriage plagues, Proverbs 31 women, and sex that’s no fun 
He had a lot to say
We'll miss him

He had a lot to say
about Fidel Castro at weddings and Hammurabi's economics
about spontaneous human combustion and Arigo the Brazilian healer
He had a lot to say
We'll miss him

He had a lot to say
about the Imperial Kerux
Attacking the foundational pentateuch, the Albigensian crusade, and Athanasius
He had a lot to say
We'll miss him

He had a lot to say
about unidentified flying objects and Lucifer …“The Morning Star”
about astrology, seances, and contact with the dead
He had a lot to say
We'll miss him

He had a lot to say
about Satan’s strategic strikes
about the REAL evil of socialism, the Titanic, and Scipio Africanus
He had a lot to say
We'll miss him

He had a lot to say
about leaving Christian “Fortress America” undefended
Satanic counterfeits of Christ’s word, false prophesies of His return, and “Judgement”
He had a lot to say
We'll miss him

He had a lot to say
about it being better to be Herod’s ‘Hus’ than Herod’s ‘Huios’
about the “two or three witnesses rule” and the “God changers”
He had a lot to say
We'll miss him

He had a lot to say
about kings and battles and battles and kings
Isaiah’s amazing prophecy IS the Weber Thesis
He had a lot to say
We'll miss him

He had a lot to say
about Reformations and removing the hedge around us
about the “Culture Carriers” and the destructive generation of the 60’s
He had a lot to say
We'll miss him

He had a lot to say
about a thesis proving the REAL, historical existence of …SATAN
(you know the one …the REAL devil)
He had a lot to say
We'll miss him

He sure could yell
Ranting and pointing his finger
At everything but his unteachable heart
Some day we'll be in heaven together
Laughing about how wrong he was
Because he had a lot to say
He had a lot of nothing to say
We're gonna miss him









Friday, December 20, 2019

Poisoning the well




You don't even know me
You've never met me
Before you chatted live about me
we never crossed paths anywhere
Not online
Not over the phone
Not in person
Nowhere
Not once
I think that's important to realize
If you can't make your mind up
we will never get started
And I don't want to wind up
being parted, broken hearted
We have chatted a little since then
in the comments of your stream
And you didn't even realize
I was the blogger
You devoted over an hour
To demonize
To discredit
To slander
To exploit
You told me
that he denies
things you took
verbatim from his site
And perhaps I have even erased them by now
Don't fret
I haven't and I won't 
erase a single word
I can't even imagine 
why you would presume so
and say so to a complete stranger
That seemed like a tactic 
a spiteful child
or curmudgeonly old, self-aggrandizing bitch 
would use to poison the well
Perhaps I was the one with mistaken opinions
Perhaps you're a real geode
You won't admit you really love me
And so, how am I ever to know
You only tell me perhaps
I even suggested studying the book
about dating John's Apocalypse
which demonstrates convincingly
by overwhelming evidence
that it was not written in 95 a.d.
but rather most definitely before A.D. 70
You then said you were not sure
of that particular book
But you've read some in the past
Whatever that means
A million times I ask you
And then I ask you over again
You only answer perhaps
Perhaps you're just a joke with a concordance
And the spells you cast from your magic book
make people laugh and laugh and laugh
Perhaps
Perhaps
Perhaps









Thursday, December 19, 2019

Catena of Dangerous Denial



I think futurists are close-minded fear-mongers.
I am the one who is not open to whatever Scripture teaches.
I do not treat fellow believers with dignity.
I am trying to sound academic or intellectual.
I am the one using word-salad.
This is all a hand-wave dismissal of valid research methods and appeal to evidence.
Daniel was written at least one thousand years before Christ.
I ignore the Bible's own precedent for prophesies prior to the time of Christ.
I think that God shouldn't have given that prophesy until the generation to whom it referred was born.
I think God only gives prophesies to people whom they apply to.
I depend upon the allegorical approach to Scripture.
I am the one using a bullying tactic.

Where did I describe futurism as a "conjured-up social paradigm"?
Can you admit that you can be wrong?
It looks like you did not actually read point number four.
What about footnote number seventy four?
You never mentioned it once, yet that was the background of point number four.
One hour, eighteen minutes, forty one seconds, press play.
The door of being convinced swings both ways, you say.

I have concluded that God only and always writes about current or imminent events.
I mock the idea that any prophesy would be given to people it doesn't apply to.
I paint us all with that brush.
I write pejoratively and abusively.
I know it was a cheap shot.
Humility and teachability are your virtues.
Self-contradiction is all over the place.
I am disingenuous.
I appeal to popularity.
I deny that "this generation" can have any other possible meaning than that of time.
I don't believe in a very real and physical kingdom.
I take away our blessed hope.









Bible Literalist?



Truly, I say to you, you will not have gone through all the towns of Israel before the Son of Man comes. 

The men of Nineveh will rise up at the judgment with this generation.  

The queen of the South will rise up at the judgment with this generation. 

To what shall I compare this generation?

Have you understood all these things? 

O faithless and twisted generation, how long am I to be with you? 

Truly, I say to you, all these things will come upon this generation. 

Truly, I say to you, this generation will not pass away until all these things take place.

Truly, I say to you, there are some standing here who will not taste death until they see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom.












Monday, December 16, 2019

Which Some Deny





Continuing in the recent series about the seamless message of first century fulfillment throughout the New Testament scriptures (here and here), I have gathered a few quotes from Dale Allison Jr’s excellent study, The End of the Ages Has Come: An Early Interpretation of the Passion and Resurrection of Jesus. In it, Allison devotes scholarly attention to chunks of overlooked and obscure passages of Scripture to see how they relate to the topic at hand. 

In his chapter on Matthew, he makes some remarkable comments which I think are both profound and questionable in relation to Matthew 27:51b-53. Those verses are:
And the earth shook, and the rocks were split. The tombs also were opened. And many bodies of the saints who had fallen asleep were raised, and coming out of the tombs after his resurrection they went into the holy city and appeared to many. (ESV)
Before I quote Allison in detail, I want to point out that the context in which he makes his remarks has to do with an evaluation made by Donald P. Senior, in his published monograph, The Passion According to Matthew: A Redactional Study, as it relates to the resurrection of “holy ones.” Allison points out the following:
Senior’s evaluation of the background of Matt. 27:51b-53 also invites criticism. His claim that our passage depends primarily upon Ezekial 37…is questionable. …Despite the parallel between Ezek. 37:12 and Matt. 27:52, there is another Scripture that lays claim to bear directly on our text: Zech 14:4-5.1 The affinity between the two passages has probably gone largely unnoticed because, in the Christian tradition, Zech 14:4-5 has not been interpreted as an account of the resurrection. The north panel of the Dura-Europos synagogue (mid-third century A.D.), however, provides evidence that the passage was so understood within ancient Judaism. Although many scholars have looked primarily to Ezekiel 37 for the interpretation of the panel, there can be little doubt that Zech 14:4-5 is also reflected. In the section which portrays the resurrection of the dead, the Mount of Olives (indicated by the two olive trees on the top of the mountain) has been split in two—precisely the event prophesied in Zech 14:4—and the revived dead are emerging from the crack. The fallen building on the slopes of the mountain probably symbolizes an earthquake (Zech 14:4), and those resurrected are in all likelihood here identified with the “holy ones” of Zech 14:5. Such an interpretation gains some support by (1) the Targum on Zech 14:3-5: the passage is introduced with God blowing the trumpet ten times to announce the resurrection of the dead; (2) the Targum on the Song of Songs (8:5): “When the dead rise, the Mount of Olives will be cleft, and all Israel’s dead will come up out of it, also the righteous who have died in captivity; they will come by way of a subterranean passages and will emerge from beneath the Mount of Olives”; and (3) later rabbinic uses of Zech 14:5: the “holy ones” of Zechariah are more than once identified not with the angels but with the ancient saints, specifically the prophets (for example, Midr. Rabbah on Song of Songs 4.11.1; on Ruth 2; and on Eccles. 1.11.1; cf Ign. Magn 9). The passage from the Targum on the Song of Songs (2) clearly represents an interpretation of Zech 14:4-5 and is the perfect literary parallel to the panel at Dura. It appears, therefore, that Zech. 14:4-5 was understood in some Jewish circles to be a prophecy of the resurrection.  
Once Zech 14:4-5 is read as a prophecy of the resurrection, its relation to Matt. 27:51b-53 becomes manifest. In both texts (1) a resurrection of the dead takes place immediately outside of Jerusalem…; (2) there is an earthquake; (3) the very schizo is used in the passive, in connection with a mountain (Zechariah) or rocks (Matthew); and (4) the resurrected ones are called hoi hagioi.2 These parallels are sufficient to permit the conclusion that Matt. 27:51b-53 is based in part on Zech 14:4-5 and not, as Senior holds, solely upon Ezekiel 37.3

A few paragraphs later, Allison makes a few striking remarks about the relationship between these passages and Matthew 25:31-46. He continues:

...Matthew has apparently supplied the following introduction to the parable of the sheep and goats in 25:31-46: "'When the Son of man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him [kai pantes hoi aggeloi met auto]...'" As others have observed, the Greek [in brackets] strongly recalls Zech 14:5 LXX: kai pantes hoi ago met auto. Now, if Matt. 25:31 is indeed a redactional composition based on Zech 14:5, the exegete is faced by two riddles. First, while hoi hagioi of Zech. 14:5 are the angels (hoi aggeloi) in Matt. 25:31, they are the resurrected saints (ton hagion) in Matt. 27:52-53. Second, while Matt. 25:31 sets the fulfillment of Zech. 14:5 in the future ("'When the Son of man comes..."), Matt. 27:53 narrates the realization of Zechariah's vision. One is thus confronted by two rival interpretations of Zech. 14:5. If it is unlikely that both came from the same hand, then since Matt. 25:31 is probably redactional, 27:52-53 probably is not.4 


Here is my takeaway from these insights: 

1) There are no actual "riddles" which the exegete is faced with if Jesus actually raised the holy ones from the "dead ones" in Sheol/Hades.

2) "Angels" and "holy ones" only appear to be conceptually different because Christian traditions have largely neglected serious study of the relationship between the two. As far as the unseen realm of this world is concerned, modern exegetes still have much to learn as they do to unlearn. 

3) Matthew 27:53 narrates the realization of Zechariah's vision because God raised Jesus up along with the righteous dead who were in Sheol/Hades.

4) Matthew 25:31ff is not--I REPEAT, NOT--about the end of the world, or the end of time, or the so-called "second coming" of Jesus where, allegedly, he returns to earth bodily. Matthew 25:31ff most naturally fits within a first century context of fulfillment.  

5) The event narrated in Matt. 27:53 is significant because that was evidence that Jesus is the guarantor of all who would be raised up to eternal life with God thereafter. That was the very first time in human history where human beings were raised up to the presence of God. Previously, they had all been in Sheol/Hades, awaiting final judgment about their eternal destination. God then vindicated his Son by raising him out of the dead-ones. Jesus also led a whole host of captives with him to heaven, to rule and reign in the resurrection. Not everyone was raised with Jesus at the time of his resurrection from the dead-ones. The wicked remained until their final judgment in AD70. 

6) Matthew 25:31ff is about the final judgment of all the dead-ones in Sheol/Hades in AD70. According to Matt. 27:53, although many bodies of those who had died were brought back to life, that was only the beginning. There is no remark about the wicked, evil, treacherous dead-ones being raised back to life. Such were still awaiting final judgment in AD70. Matthew 25:31ff is about that judgment, where the saints who were raised with Jesus (around AD30) would come in final judgment upon Israel.

7) Numerous theologians (and scholars) throughout history have noted that Zech. 14:4-5 referred to events which received their fulfillment in the first century. Notable among the Church Fathers is Theodore, bishop of Cyrus (423-457 AD), who connected Zech. 14:4-5 with the destruction of Jerusalem in AD70. These types of symbolic connections did not go unnoticed among the Church Fathers, as I have shown in a separate series

8) Perhaps most intriguing find within all of this is the little, tiny cross-reference of Ignatius of Antioch which Allison made in passing. To be exact, Allison referenced Ignatius' Letter to the Magnesians, chapter nine.5 In that particular chapter, Ignatius exhorts his Christian disciples to not keep the Sabbath of Judaism, but live instead "in accordance with the Lord's Day, on which our life also arose through him and his death (which some deny)." Only one verse later, he connects the holy ones of history with those who were anticipating being raised up from the dead-ones in Sheol/Hades along with their Messiah: "how can we possibly live without him [Jesus], whom even the prophets, who were his disciples in the Spirit, were expecting as their teacher? This is why the One for whom they righty waited raised them from the dead (ἐκ νεκρῶν) when he came." 

This past fulfillment of raising up holy ones from the abode of the dead-ones (i.e. Sheol/Hades) is what justifies his other remarks bracketing the letter with regard to his own personal hope and exception to "reach God" when he dies (1:2; 14:1). For Ignatius of Antioch, the whole notion of reaching God was made possible by the definitive end and final judgment upon the Old Creation. For Ignatius, there is no more a message of awaiting resurrection from the dead-ones after a period in Sheol/Hades; there is only eternal death or resurrection unto eternal life with Christ, which, of course, makes perfect sense since Ignatius wrote after AD70. 

9) Matthew 25:31ff is probably not redactional. The affinity between Matt. 25:31ff and 27:52-53 has probably gone largely unnoticed because, in the Christian tradition, very few modern scholars consider most (or all) eschatological "end-times" remarks as actually being fulfilled in the first century.  There are many great reasons to consider the ways in which Church Fathers thought otherwise

10) Modern scholars like Allison and Senior can't make sense of resurrection in the first century because they're assuming something imaginary, something that is part of a later Christian tradition about bodily resurrection. Christian tradition is loaded with debates about that doctrine. Early Judaisms had similar debates. Regardless of whether bodily resurrection at the end of the physical cosmos is philosophically cogent and true, as long as we approach these texts literarily, we cannot help but notice that the expectation surrounding the New testament message consistently witnesses to soon-coming first century events; and as long as we assume that those New Testament scriptures are historically reliable and rhetorically coherent, I think it's safe to say that Allison and Senior (along with scholars like them) tend to read back into the text what became popular dogmas centuries after their fulfillment. The message of being raised "out of" or "from the dead-ones" (ἐκ νεκρῶν) make more sense if it was actually fulfilled in first century events (which, as Ignatius of Antioch pointed out, some deny). 














1. On that day his feet shall stand on the Mount of Olives that lies before Jerusalem on the east, and the Mount of Olives shall be split in two from east to west by a very wide valley, so that one half of the Mount shall move northward, and the other half southward. And you shall flee to the valley of my mountains, for the valley of the mountains shall reach to Azal. And you shall flee as you fled from the earthquake in the days of Uzziah king of Judah. Then the Lord my God will come, and all the holy ones with him. (ESV)
2. hoi hagioi is the transliteration of the Greek text, ο γιοι, which means “the holy ones”
3. Allison Jr., pp. 42-44
4. Ibid. p. 44-45
5. This was referenced in the first, lengthy paragraph above, in sub-point (3), which mentioned rabbinic sources. One of Ignatius's letters ("Ign. Magn 9") is compared with those remarks in rabbinic sources because that letter makes a lot of comments in contrast with the philosophy of rabbinic judaism in the first century.










Thursday, December 12, 2019

Opening the verse



waking up to love
every day with you right here
tucked into warm sheets

peeking over there
I cannot help but wonder
you gave self to me

goodness must be felt
like a tattoo of kindness
i can see it too

blessed is he who finds
and who understands wisdom
her worth is priceless 









Tuesday, December 10, 2019

Ex Eventu Deviance




Consider this my second post in a potential series that started earlier this month. That first post is found hereIn that post, I mentioned a few personal views:

1) People either believe the so-called 'New Testament' witness is historically reliable and rhetorically coherent, or they don't. 

2) Almost all academicians unswervingly swear allegiance to the same dogmas: that the end of the ages did not come in the first century, and the parousia was delayed (and must still be delayed); therefore all "data" collected from new testament witnesses and even non-canonical literature of that general era must be jammed through a peer-reviewed process that, in the very least, attempts to cohere with those dogmas.

3) All the eschatological mumbo-jumbo of academic guilds theorizing about imaginary sources seems more convoluted than just taking the new-testament texts at face value. Either something cataclysmic occurred as promised (or prophesied) in first century Israel, and that fulfilled promise influenced the course of history, or the New Testament witness is false and unreliable.

4) I also don't think 'already-not-yet' paradigms are helpful in mediating the tension between what the texts are and what meaning those texts would have communicated if they were historically reliable and rhetorically coherent. 

Even though I have not traced out a history of that paradigm (because that would be an exhaustive study), I nevertheless imagine, based on what I have studied over fifteen years, that every traceable, popular tradition thereof was conjured up and defended because Christians throughout history have, in large part, been highly influenced by inescapable social expectations, dogmas, and politics. In social-psychological parlance, this natural movement away from some dogmas and toward others is described as the black sheep effect, where Christians have renegotiated the boundaries of permissible thought in response to perceived deviants.1

5) Last of all, if 'already-not-yet' paradigms are only partially adequate (which is to say, they are not wholly adequate), then I think one might as well seriously consider playing around in the Jumanji of source-critical dogmas. 



* * * * * * *


In this post, I just want to say a few words about point #5 above: playing around in the wild and enticing jungle of source-critical dogmas. 

Over many years I have marked up a few hundred books in my personal library that attempt to apply the 'science' of Vaticinium ex eventu to the Tanakh, the New Testament scriptures, the so-called 'intertestamental' scriptures, the so-called 'Apostolic Fathers,' and the pseudopigraphical writings surrounding them all. I am well aware of scribal traditions and the ever-shapeshifting attempts of scholars to pinpoint sources and the reasons for redaction or composition after the events. Undoubtedly, some manuscripts manifest reasons for redaction. 

I also do not (personally) deny that there exists a plethora of redacted religious documents related to the Christian Scriptures; nor do I blow off the reality of ex eventu compositions between 1,000 BC and AD 1,000. Nevertheless, I have remained intrigued and perplexed by the voluminous conjectural dogmas surrounding the list of first-century time sensitive texts that I presented in the previous post (in footnote #74). All of those, if one looks back, relate to Jesus and his claims about the so-called "end of the world" in some future. Most Christians nowadays imagine it referred to our future, and not merely the near future of that generation in which Jesus and his apostles lived (i.e. the first century). 

Scholars nowadays have combed through each and every one of those time-sensitive statements and have cataloged reasons why some statements were about our future, and others were not. Pseudo-explanations range between why those statements were made, to what culturally sensitive memories were behind or underneath the final edit. Needless to say, there once was a day when such conjecture was considered both silly and dangerous. Yet it is no longer considered deviant to honestly believe and promote the dogma that all predictive references to AD70 and the events leading up to it throughout the Scriptures were vaticinium ex eventu. Accordingly, none of them must be or can be definitively asserted to be part of Jesus' genuine gospel, and therefore it is probable that they were not.2 Such prophesies, instead, were "likely" Christian reflections of a later era, imposed upon much clearer, more reliable apocalyptic messages about the end of the physical cosmos.

So then, what I want to do next is play with that idea. Let's take one example and toy with it accordingly. 

Let's take for granted that the Gospel of Matthew is a Jewish-Christian scribal amalgamation, and the final redacted form (or composition) was truly after the destruction of Jerusalem and its Temple. We then select Jesus' Olivet Discourse as a specimen. We look at the texts of Mark chapter 13 and compare them with Matthew 24. After examining them carefully, we conclude, along with F.F. Bruce and countless others over the last hundred years of western civilization, that the Markan form of Jesus' Olivet Discourse is earlier than AD 70, as indicated by those modifications of it in the Gospel of Matthew, which reflect the situation after AD 70.3 We also conclude, based on our lack of absolute certainty, that "Mark" was likely not even alive prior to AD 70, nor did he know Jesus' apostles (as older, sacred tradition asserts). 

Indeed, we conclude that based on the raw data left to us now, almost two thousand years ex eventu, that it is highly improbable that the Markan form of the Gospel was composed prior to AD70. In the very best and most idealized circumstances, it is merely the Olivet Discourse contained in the Markan form which could possibly be authentically reported from sources prior to AD70. As F. F. Bruce dogmatically asserted, such deductions seem to be self-evident. Regarding the ex eventu composition of Matthew 24 in relation to Mark 13, he mentions that:
In the Markan form of the question they apparently belong to the same temporal complex as the destruction of the Temple. But in Matthew the question is re-worded so that the destruction of the Temple is separated from the events of the end-time: 'Tell us, when will this be [the destruction of the Temple], and what will be the sign of your coming and of the close of the age?' (Matt 24:3). For, when Matthew's Gospel was written, the destruction of the Temple had taken place, but the parousia and the 'close of the age' were still future. A distinction which was patent after A.D. 70 was not so obvious at an earlier stage, and it is such an earlier stage that is implied in Mark's wording.4

Below are some questions in my mind, to serve as a little push-back to these popular ex eventu assertions. 

1) Because the entirety of the New Testament texts indicate a seamless historical context anticipating imminent events to take place within the first century (see the previous post), why not assume that the authors or redactor after AD70 edited the texts to make future readers think Jesus did actually refer to AD70 and the events leading up to it? 

2) Why do we, in the 21st century, imagine some dude (tradition calls him "Matthew") changed or inserted “prophecies” about the so-called “end of the world” into discourses about AD70 and the events leading up to it? 

3) Given the consistent first century, soon-coming emphasis of the entire New Testament corpus (as I illustrated plainly in the previous post), why not imagine Matthew (and all the NT authors) edited just those statements that appear to pertain to the “end of the world”, and not those pertaining to AD70? 

4) Given the nature of contemporary source-critical ventures and the liberty available within such enterprises, why not imagine that the Matthean "form" of the Olivet Discourse was composed to communicate the truly reliable and fulfilled (past) events of AD70 alongside an imaginary and contrived (yet psychologically hopeful) view about Jesus teaching a “literal” end of the world as his Parousia and as the 'close of the age'? 

5) Why not instead imagine that the original intent behind the composition or redaction of Matthew 24 was entirely about AD70 and the events leading up to it, and that whatever modifications were ever made to it based on earlier sources, those are evidently indicated by later imaginary scribal conventions and folklore about the literal end of the world



* * * * * * *


Here is my point behind all of these questions:

Given one's commitment to the slipperiness of redaction criticism, "Matthew" very likely left us with chapter 24 in order to highlight the truth that Jesus really did prophesy, preach, teach, and emphasize the upcoming turmoils, persecutions, and trials leading up to and culminating in the destruction of Jerusalem in AD70. Even if the destruction of the Temple had taken place in the past by the time Matthew's gospel was written, that does not mean he wrote about the Parousia or the 'close of the age' as something in our future (or his future, after AD70). Even if Matthew was not a contemporary of Jesus or his apostles at all, the final form as we have it today (and we have no other Matthean form of the Olivet Discourse, by the way) would likely have been designed to portray Jesus and his message as it was truly believed, as it was understood to be. That's the whole point of Matthew's Gospel: to present a believable message, one that is both historically reliable and rhetorically coherent. And that message, regardless of whether it was composed before or after AD70, need not be that Jesus taught about AD 70 and then, afterward, about the literal end of the “world” a few millennia beyond AD70, all within the same discourse. 

As I have pointed out in detail elsewhere, there is no noticeable form of the Olivet Discourse among the Synoptics that makes a sharp or clear distinction between the destruction of the Temple and events after AD70 (i.e. events which could potentially be in our future, thousands of years after the discourse).

So then, here I am, being all deviant. Please don't waste your time trying to crucify me on social media (or privately) for thinking out loud on my own blog. Although it certainly is in vogue nowadays, it's certainly not godly to crucify Christians for simply pointing out what Jesus taught. I'm aware that this paradigm of first century fulfillment is perceived nowadays to be heterodox. It actually is not, either hermeneutically or factually because I don't think philosophical commitments to Christian dogmas about the "end of the world" absolutely must be proof-texted from the "Bible." There are lots of Christian dogmas that are derived philosophically from sources outside the "Bible" to justify what they believe is also taught within the Bible, yet their case from inside isn't as tightly sealed as they imagine. 

I happen to believe such is the case surrounding preterist convictions, too. Two significant reasons why I think Christians nowadays imagine first century fulfillment to be heterodox (or they overreact in rage against imagined trajectories toward other heterodoxies) is because catalogs of sacred traditions and confessional standards have so much dogma surrounding these texts that serious, detailed attention to first century fulfillment of the entire Olivet Discourse has continued, in large measure, to be completely overlooked, ignored, or deflected over the last 500 years; adding to that gaping chasm of presumption, other paradigms have been inserted to fill in and reorient public perspectives about that gap (like "already-not-yet" templates), as an attempt to synthesize sacred traditions of Reformational and Counter-Reformational dogmas with the crystal clear first century time-sensitive statements. But i'll save a detailed discussion about all of that for the future. 













1. See Outi Lehtipuu, Debates Over The Resurrection Of The Dead: Constructing Early Christian Identity [Oxford Early Christian Studies] (2015). Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, pp. 67-108
2. For a specimen of such views, carelessly asserting autobiographical remarks about the certainty of vaticinium ex eventu scribal redaction throughout the New Testament, see G.H.W. Lampe, "A.D. 70 in Christian Reflection" in Jesus And The Politics Of His Day [Edited by Ernst Bammel & C.F.D. Moule] (1992 Reprint). New York, NY: Press Syndicate of the University of Cambridge, pp. 153-71 
3. F.F. Bruce, "The date and character of Mark" in Jesus And The Politics Of His Day [Edited by Ernst Bammel & C.F.D. Moule] (1992 Reprint). New York, NY: Press Syndicate of the University of Cambridge, p. 81
4. Ibid.