Answering Two Objections That Jesus Was a Failed Apocalyptic Prophet

Two objections to my chapter 12 in The Christian Delusion have surfaced. You can read a summary of it right here, but keep in mind that dealing with a summary of a chapter is not dealing with the case I present in that chapter. Let me answer these two objections.

In the comments to this post Bogdan wrote:
John, What is your best response to someone whom says that Jesus did not preach the imminence of the end times because in Mark 13:10 He points out that the gospel has to be preached to all the nations first. This idea is repeated in the other synoptics as well.
My response:

Bogdan, Mark's gospel was probably written just after the destruction of Jerusalem to assure Gentile believers in the Roman world that the eschaton was to arrive shortly. According to the NT Paul was dead by this time and he had already preached to the nations. Regardless, Mark thought the eschaton was to appear in his generation so missionary efforts must have been in full swing. Many scholars think the author was one of them and that he wrote his gospel from Rome, so the preaching to all nations was nearly complete by the time he wrote.

But Jesus never actually said this. The gospel authors regularly re-wrote episodes in the life of Jesus to help the church in its ongoing mission. Mark's gospel was a deliberate attempt to re-assure Gentile believers after the destruction of Jerusalem that the time was nearer than ever before.

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Another objection can be seen here:
Loftus provides examples where later Christians apparently took the apocalyptic language of Jesus literally as opposed to metaphorically as N.T. Wright does in Jesus and the Victory of God. It would have been nice to hear Loftus’ explanation of 2 Thessalonians 2:1-2: “Concerning the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our being gathered to him, we ask you, brothers, not to become easily unsettled or alarmed by some prophecy, report or letter supposed to have come from us, saying that the day of the Lord has already come.” Apparently the Thessalonians thought the day of the Lord could arrive without cosmic signs.
My response:

In the first place there is a problem with the word ἐνέστηκεν used in "has already come." Other translations use the phrase "is at hand" (KJV, ASV). Whenever we see translators differ then how they choose to translate a word depends upon prior theological convictions and I'm not impressed much with the NIV translators who were all conservatives.

But 2nd Thessalonians is a late 1st century document (or early 2nd second), and some in the church (how many we just don’t know) sought to explain away this failed prophecy by claiming Jesus had returned. But then there were Christians in Corinth who did not believe in a resurrection too (I Corinthians 15). The fact is that Christianity from the beginning had a wide assortment of opinions, which proves David Eller’s point in chapter one of TCD. This says nothing about what came to be orthodoxy and 2 Thessalonians emphatically denied what these minority voices were saying. Who knows exactly what they thought about this event? For all we know they were Gnostics who believed Jesus came back spiritually like the Jehovah’s Witnesses. Besides, as I showed in my chapter the overwhelming dominant opinion was that at the eschaton there would be a cataclysmic upheaval. An exception like this cannot overcome what is clearly the rule.

In my chapter I recommended Edward Adam’s book Stars Will Fall from Heaven: Cosmic Catastrophe in the New Testament and Its World. I have it. You should get it at the library. It is a systematic and thorough refutation of N.T. Wright, the likes of which there can be no effective answer. So before you pronounce my chapter ineffective read his book. Until then, you have not researched into the topic enough to say it isn’t.

8 comments:

Breckmin said...

you can color these either way because there are so many specifics to choose from


If you understand that Jesus was without sin you would know that He did not give a false prophecy.

Besides, how do you know that Mark wrote Jesus' words verbatim? Or that any of the gospel writers quoted Christ's exact words perfectly(or intended to). We don't have the actual words of Jesus - what we have is a testimony of what was said...It was common to be loose with quoting someone and it was NOT considered error because they didn't have the ridiculous hyper-technical culture we live in today.

Clarification: I am not claiming that an incorrect quote is the answer to the issue. There are plenty of explanations to choose from.

Chuck said...

Ooooh Breck, a new spin on your inscrutable language strategy or, to a humble and honest intellect, an argument from ignorance.

Breckmin said...

Chuck,
I heard this argument 30 years ago. It didn't seem like a new spin then and it certainly doesn't seem like a new spin now.

Just a logical one. Quoting was always paraphrased.

Anonymous said...

Though I believe "ἐνέστηκεν" is a perfect verb, which means an action that occurred in the past and has present effect. To this extent, the correct translation of the action of "coming" would be "has come," which is how the NASB translates it. the already here could be implied, since any action in the past has logically "already" happened, we just don't have the emphatic "ἤδη" which is used for emphasis if needed. So I agree that translating it as "has already come" is not perfectly accurate, but the idea is still that the action has already occurred. Just that in this case, the present effect of the past action is worry or fear that Christ had returned prior to the present time in which Paul was writing.

But of course, this does not save his "refutation." But a point I would like to make is that it also seems that Christ taught that it would be a long time until His return, given his parable of the master leaving, and his servants thinking that he must have been delayed. This seems to imply that he expected a long period of time, or in the least, it would be longer than many originally thought. I would love to hear your comments on this.

Chuck said...

Breck you miss my point. Your just arguing to ignorance as a defense of your superstitions and acting as if it is informative. Don't you get tired of your pretense to knowledge that is neither parsimonious nor intelligible?

Chuck said...

I think DM is an anti-comic of the Andy Kaufman school. One can only hope he dies an early death like Mr. Kaufman.

Anonymous said...

I get around to deleting DM's idiocy eventually. He's either mentally incompetent or his faith makes him so.

Anonymous said...

gnosiskaisophia, thanks for your comment. 1) Matthew strings together the parables and stories of Jesus in an order that works with regard to his over-all kingly theme. Redaction criticism helps us see the themes in each of the gospels. 2) We do not have the original context for the parable of the talents or most of the sayings. 3) We know that the gospels were written with an eye on the present needs of the church.

So, the original parable was probably meant to stress faithfulness unrelated to an apocalyptic end, if Jesus said it at all. There are clues to think this too, for in Mark's earlier gospel this parable is not found in this same place after the Olivet discourse, and it seems safe to say the church was losing patience that the eschaton had not taken place yet.