The generational prophecy.

Discussion about the New Testament, apocrypha, gnostics, church fathers, Christian origins, historical Jesus or otherwise, etc.
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Ben C. Smith
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Re: The generational prophecy.

Post by Ben C. Smith »

pavurcn wrote: Sun Jan 21, 2018 10:00 am
Ben C. Smith wrote: Sun Jan 21, 2018 8:59 am This seems to specify the sense which most people read out of Mark 13.10: the gospel will be preached first, before the end will come. But Mark is missing that crucial piece of information about the end.

I know how I am tempted to explain this anomaly. How do you explain it?
The gospel being preached to all nations looks like an insertion that has nothing essential to do with the trial situation of the preceding and following verses. It could have been an independent pericope that got swept into this little set-piece.
That is not dissimilar to my line of thinking. It may even be a very early harmonization from Matthew.
Likewise, I wonder (as others have) about what the original context or reference might be for "before all these things take place" in verse 30. All what things, exactly? There seems to be a difference between (1) "in those days" (of ultimate tribulations) and (2) what you are definitely bound to see before you die (persecutions, false messiahs, wars, rumors of war) when "the end is not yet."
Well, in the text as we now possess it, "all these things" must hearken back to the beginning of the chapter:

Mark 13.1-4, 30: 1 As He was going out of the temple, one of His disciples said to Him, "Teacher, behold what wonderful stones and what wonderful buildings!" 2 And Jesus said to him, "Do you see these great buildings? Not one stone will be left upon another which will not be torn down." 3 As He was sitting on the Mount of Olives opposite the temple, Peter and James and John and Andrew were questioning Him privately, 4 "Tell us, when will these things [ταῦτα] be, and what will be the sign when all these things [ταῦτα... πάντα] are going to be fulfilled?" .... 30 Truly I say to you, this generation will not pass away until all these things [ταῦτα πάντα] take place.

Even the disciples' double question seems to imply information that Mark is not giving us. They have already asked about "these things," presumably things to do with the destruction of the temple, which so far is the only topic on the table. But now they also ask about the fulfillment of "all these things," as if there were more to the topic than just the temple's ruin. Matthew is again much clearer here, making the disciples' second question specifically about Jesus' coming.

But, to answer your question, it seems to me that "all these things" must include, contextually, everything discussed so far from the moment the disciples asked the question. It would seem arbitrary to omit anything from "all these things," I think. Would it not? But that is to take the entire chapter as a unified whole, and I believe you and I are on the same page so far as finding evidence that it is not really a unified whole is concerned.
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Giuseppe
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Re: The generational prophecy.

Post by Giuseppe »

Ben C. Smith wrote: Sun Jan 21, 2018 9:51 am Giuseppe:
The marcionite Jesus ''predicted'' only the destruction of Jerusalem and the ''time of the gentiles''. Not the coming of the Kingdom of God on this earth within the lifetime of the (false) apostles.
The page you are using is outdated, and you evidently did not read that link I gave to Peter Kirby discussing "version 2" in Marcion.
I have reported the prof Vinzent's interpretation: in Marcion there is only the prediction (by Jesus) of the destruction of Jerusalem - deliberately to confute the Danielic prophecy -, not of the coming of God.
Nihil enim in speciem fallacius est quam prava religio. -Liv. xxxix. 16.
Bernard Muller
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Re: The generational prophecy.

Post by Bernard Muller »

to Ben,
No, actually I stated that Paul did not do both of these things. I am basically persuaded that 1 Thessalonians 5.1-11 is an interpolation, as argued by Walker and others. I think that Paul expected the resurrection in his lifetime, essentially within a generation. (Even where Paul imagines himself rhetorically as being among the dead to be raised, in 2 Corinthians 4.7-15, he imagines himself being raised to join the living Corinthians... if that is what this difficult passage means in the first place.) Somebody else added 1 Thessalonians 5.1-11, on the basis of Matthew 24 = Mark 13, so as to buffer that expectation.
The Thessalonians then were not expecting some of them would die before the coming of the Lord and were probably asking Paul for times and seasons. So I do not see anything wrong with 5:1-11: Paul did not give a date or time limit, but certainly suggested the day of the Lord will come soon (as probably he did when he was earlier in Thessalonica in order to make converts). In these circumstances, he certainly was not going to tell them the coming would be before the last ones of them would die.

However, about 5 years later (in 1 Co 15), with the day of the Lord still to come, Paul had to set a time limit for that arrival which allow for more years. That would still give hope that some or most Christians (contemporaries of Paul) would still be alive at the coming of the Kingdom.

And about 2 more years later, it seems that Paul shortened that time limit because it was rather too long for the waiting and impatient Christians:
Romans 13:11 "Besides this you know what hour it is, how it is full time now for you to wake from sleep. For salvation is nearer to us now than when we first believed;"

Paul was making it as he went along according to what his Christians were hoping for at different times.

Cordially, Bernard
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Paul the Uncertain
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Re: The generational prophecy.

Post by Paul the Uncertain »

Ben
Where do you put Matthew in all of this?
It's conventional, I think, to break Matthew's apocalypse into two pieces: 24:1-42, which depends heavily on Mark, and 24:43 on through the end of 25, which has largely non-Marcan material, leading off with a thief in the night offered as analogous to Jesus in glory (24:43).
There are far more parallels between Matthew 24-25 and 1 Thessalonians 4.13-5.11 than there are between the latter and Mark 13.
That could well be. I think Mark read Paul and found some of Paul's ideas worth exploring. Those shared interests wouldn't necessarily produce remarkable formal parallels.
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Post by JoeWallack »

JW:
9
1 And he said unto them, Verily I say unto you, There are some here of them that stand [by], who shall in no wise taste of death, till they see the kingdom of God come with power.

2 And after six days Jesus taketh with him Peter, and James, and John, and bringeth them up into a high mountain apart by themselves: and he was transfigured before them;

3 and his garments became glistering, exceeding white, so as no fuller on earth can whiten them.
Literally "Mark's" (author) Jesus' prophecy is fulfilled and with it there is no need to speculate on future fulfillment. This would be well within the range of "Mark's" literary style and ironic prophecy fulfillment. Another candidate for author intent is that "Mark" wanted this ironic literal fulfillment and a future prediction. Regarding the likelihood of intended future prophecy we have no extant evidence of any previous Gospel narrative that "Mark's" Jesus was referring to. What is extant is Paul, a major source for GMark, who famously predicted that Jesus' Kingdom would come near to Paul's time. GMark was written about two generations after Paul wrote, again indicating that "Mark" only intended the literal fulfillment of 9:1 within his narrative.


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Ben C. Smith
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Re:

Post by Ben C. Smith »

JoeWallack wrote: Sun Jan 21, 2018 5:19 pm JW:
9
1 And he said unto them, Verily I say unto you, There are some here of them that stand [by], who shall in no wise taste of death, till they see the kingdom of God come with power.

2 And after six days Jesus taketh with him Peter, and James, and John, and bringeth them up into a high mountain apart by themselves: and he was transfigured before them;

3 and his garments became glistering, exceeding white, so as no fuller on earth can whiten them.
Literally "Mark's" (author) Jesus' prophecy is fulfilled and with it there is no need to speculate on future fulfillment. This would be well within the range of "Mark's" literary style and ironic prophecy fulfillment.
Is it a coincidence, then, that the contours of this prediction (that some would be alive to see the fulfillment, but others would not) line up with those of Mark 13.30, which cannot be predicting the Transfiguration? What is the connection?
Another candidate for author intent is that "Mark" wanted this ironic literal fulfillment and a future prediction. .... What is extant is Paul, a major source for GMark, who famously predicted that Jesus' Kingdom would come near to Paul's time. GMark was written about two generations after Paul wrote, again indicating that "Mark" only intended the literal fulfillment of 9:1 within his narrative.
What is the fulfillment, then, of Mark 13.27? When did the angels gather the elect, and what does gathering the elect mean?
Regarding the likelihood of intended future prophecy we have no extant evidence of any previous Gospel narrative that "Mark's" Jesus was referring to.
I believe what you mean by "extant evidence" is that we have no external evidence of any gospel previous to Mark. On the other hand, neither do we have any external evidence that Mark's is the first gospel (unless you can point me to some). The conclusion that Mark wrote before the other extant gospels is a conclusion derived from internal evidence, the same exact kind of internal evidence (which is extant) that I have been using to demonstrate that Mark is not the first gospel text, at least not in its extant form. Why is the internal evidence good enough for one conclusion but not for the other? Where have I been going wrong?
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JoeWallack wrote: Sun Jan 21, 2018 5:19 pmWhat is extant is Paul, a major source for GMark, who famously predicted that Jesus' Kingdom would come near to Paul's time. GMark was written about two generations after Paul wrote, again indicating that "Mark" only intended the literal fulfillment of 9:1 within his narrative.
Even though Paul wrote around 20 years after the purported transfiguration event?
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Re: The generational prophecy.

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I may have missed it, but has anyone attempted to explain how Jesus prophecy that the high priest would see Jesus coming in glory on clouds fits in with the question of the OP? Or if it doesn't have relevance, why it doesn't?
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Re: Re:

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neilgodfrey wrote: Mon Jan 22, 2018 3:07 am
JoeWallack wrote: Sun Jan 21, 2018 5:19 pmWhat is extant is Paul, a major source for GMark, who famously predicted that Jesus' Kingdom would come near to Paul's time. GMark was written about two generations after Paul wrote, again indicating that "Mark" only intended the literal fulfillment of 9:1 within his narrative.
Even though Paul wrote around 20 years after the purported transfiguration event?
gMark does not claim Jesus' Kingdom would come near to Paul's time.


In gMark it is claimed that Jesus preached about the gospel [the good news] of the Kingdom of God.


Mark 1:14
Now after that John was put in prison, Jesus came into Galilee, preaching the gospel of the kingdom of God.

The Epistles could not have been a source for gMark when it is seen that not one of the miracles in gMark is found in the Pauline Epistles and that the post resurrection visits in the supposed letters are completely unknown in gMark.

There is also no teaching in gMark that salvation can only be achieved by the resurrection. gMark's Jesus supposedly preached his gospel while he was alive. Paul's gospel must be preached only after the resurrection.

1 Corinthians 15:17
And if Christ be not raised, your faith is vain; ye are yet in your sins.

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Re: The generational prophecy.

Post by Paul the Uncertain »

neil
I may have missed it, but has anyone attempted to explain how Jesus prophecy that the high priest would see Jesus coming in glory on clouds fits in with the question of the OP? Or if it doesn't have relevance, why it doesn't?
It came up recently in a related thread, IIRC.

Accepting the premise that Jesus is placing a time limit, I believe I remarked that since Mark's Jesus is on record as teaching that there are two kinds of death (the recruting speech that climaxes in the prophecy of 9:1; I might also have added that he accepts a general resurrection which undoes natural death, 12:18ff), Jesus' prophecy to the high priest, even taken literally, doesn't necessarily limit the glorious event to the priest's natural lifetime (nor that of the court members collectively; the verb is plural).

One could also reject the premise, and hold instead that the sense of sight may idiomatically refer to any cognitive apprehension whatsoever. As Wolfgang Pauli might have put it, such common-as-dirt usage is not even figurative.

One could also reject that "you'll see" is tightly bound to the specific second person(s) being addressed, or that it conveys anything at all except the speaker's confidence in the prediction being made, despite whatever disagreement might obtain. Whether those kinds of usage are better classified as figurative or idiomatic is above my pay grade.
Last edited by Paul the Uncertain on Mon Jan 22, 2018 4:51 am, edited 1 time in total.
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