[This is a
far from comprehensive introduction to an important topic. It is hoped though
that it might pique the interest of some to do the in-depth research and study
recommended here.]
Preterism
puts a huge emphasis on the prophecy of Matthew 24 and it’s particular
interpretation of this prophecy. While I would argue that there is an awful lot else that is
wrong in the presuppositions and interpretations made by Preterism, I think
that as Matthew 24 is so central to the Preterist position it is worth some
investigation to show that it can not bear the weight placed on it.
Before
investigating Matthew 24 I would like to present some of my own presuppositions
that I bring to the table.
Firstly, as
I have outlined in some detail elsewhere (see for example ‘The Times of Yeshua’ and in my book ‘The Greek NT: The Hebrew Behind the Greek’), I believe that
Prof David Flusser and the Jerusalem School of Synoptic Research, have
demonstrated fairly conclusively that Luke’s Gospel was the first of the Gospel
accounts (though some ‘Life of Yeshua’ scrolls in Hebrew were already in
circulation before this Gospel was written), and that Luke has remained the
most authentic and apparently least redacted (edited) and interpolated Gospel.
The techniques
used by Flusser and the Jerusalem School have shown this quite conclusively.
It is also
vital to appreciate the main technique used to determine the authenticity of a
phrase or passage in the Gospels. With an outstanding knowledge of Hebrew, Aramaic
and Greek and a second to none knowledge of the Jewish ‘common-place’, that is,
a great grasp of the Jewish inter-testamental writings as well as the Jewish
canon (the Tanakh), Flusser in particular, and his team were able to translate
the Greek back into Hebrew. Where this translation gave idiomatic Hebrew and
Hebrew phrases or stories that already existed in other writings, they were
able to vouch for the particular verses. Where this ‘back-translation’ gave
sayings that were far from idiomatic Hebrew and instead were only Greek
constructions, they were able to ascertain which verses were redactions or interpolations
(that is added into the text)[1].
With this
approach, Flusser was able to demonstrate the following with respect to the apocalyptic
Luke 21 narrative:
“What is sure is that Luke 21:25-26 constitutes an interruption between vv. 21:24 and 21:28; moreover, the passage about the Son of Man is purely Greek and does not betray any traces of Hebraisms (or even pseudo-Hebraisms). It is more natural to see that the words, "When all this begins to happen" (v. 28) are a continuation of v. 24, "When the times of the Gentiles will begin to be completed, then your liberation will draw near." One should also pay attention to the disagreement between the detailed description of the coming of the Son of Man in the "Synoptic Apocalypse," and Jesus' view that the day of the Son of Man will come like a thief in the night (see 1 Thess. 4:2). Jesus himself clearly expressed his position in Luke 17:22-37 (verses 25 and 33 are evidently interpolated, and possibly also verse 31). Matthew saw the identity of the theme between the two passages, but did not recognize that they are contradictory (see Matt. 24:26-28)!”
To explain a little the reference here to Luke 21:24-28,
here is the passage with the interpolations shown in brackets and italics:
Luke 21:
20 “But when you see Jerusalem surrounded by armies, then know
that its desolation has come near.
21 Then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains, and
let those who are inside the city depart, and let not those who are out in the
country enter it,
22 for these are days of vengeance, to fulfill all that is
written.
23 Alas for women who are pregnant and for those who are
nursing infants in those days! For there will be great distress upon the earth
and wrath against this people.
24 They will fall by the edge of the sword and be led captive
among all nations, and Jerusalem will be trampled underfoot by the Gentiles,
until the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled.
(25
“And there will be signs in sun and moon and stars, and on the earth distress
of nations in perplexity because of the roaring of the sea and the waves,
26
people fainting with fear and with foreboding of what is coming on the world.
For the powers of the heavens will be shaken.
27
And then they will see the Son of Man coming in a cloud with power and great
glory.)
28 Now when these things begin to take place, straighten up
and raise your heads, because your redemption is drawing near.
Obviously reading only the translated versions of this
passage in English would never bring us to such a conclusion, even though,
given Yeshua’s clear Jewish, Torah and Jerusalem[2]
focus, the removal of verses 25-27 does illustrate how verse 24 flows onto
verse 28.
Flusser also did some collaborative work with RL Lindsey from which
they concluded that:
“although all the sources of the
so-called ‘synoptic apocalypse’ of Mark
13 spoke about the future, only a small part of the speech in Luke describes the last days. Luke knew very well that
he was speaking about various
periods of the future after the crucifixion.
He himself indicates explicitly the several points of time when
he writes, ‘This must first
take place, but the end will not be at once
(21:9). . . But before all this (21:12) . . .But when you see
(21:20) . . . then (21:21) . . .
until the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled
(21:24) . . . Now when these things begin to take place
(21:28)."
Luke presents the following distinct periods of
time:
- the destruction of the Temple (21:5-6);
- the future appearance of false chiliastic prophets (21:7-8);
- catastrophes of the last days (21:9-11);
- persecutions of the disciples after the crucifixion (21:12-19);
- the Roman conquest of Jerusalem, the tribulation of Israel, and the period of its dispersion (21:20-24);
- the eschatological coming of the Son of Man (21:25-23);
- ‘your liberation’ (21:28).”
There is also another question that should be asked. Was the
prophecy of the destruction of Jerusalem in Luke 21:20-23 written after the
real catastrophe, or can it be that these were Yeshua's own words?
A number of leading scholars such as CH Dodd have shown that
these words were most likely original words of the historical Yeshua. In fact,
a number of prophets before him had predicted the same things. For example
Judah of Galilee was so sure in 6 CE that he and his followers stood on the Mt
of Olives waiting for the destruction to occur! (see ‘A History of the Jews’ by
Paul Johnson p 122)
“After having said that the liberation of his
people is drawing near, Yeshua concluded (in Matt. 24:32-33; Mark 13:28-29;
Luke 21:29-31) his vision of the future by saying, "Now learn the lesson
from the fig tree. As soon as it puts forth fruit, you can see for yourselves
and know that summer is near. Even so,
when you see these things happening, you know that it is near, right at the door." Yeshua alludes here
to the fig tree in Song of Songs 2:13, in accordance with the common Jewish
opinion that the whole passage (2:11-13) speaks about the redemption of Israel.
Also, according to the apocryphal Psalms of Solomon
(17:21-22) the Son of David will ‘purge Jerusalem from Gentiles who trample her.’ “
This was written shortly after the
conquest of Jerusalem by Pompey in 63 BCE.
Let us now turn to a few of Flusser’s comments on Matthew.
“This lament over
Jerusalem is the only passage common to Matthew and Luke that does not
appear in Mark. Otherwise, Matthew follows Mark in his almost
complete silence about Jerusalem. Nevertheless, in Matthew the lament
over Jerusalem is misplaced —not unintentionally. While Luke (13:34-35) places the lament
following the Pharisees' warning, in Matthew (23:37-39)
the lament is presented—before the announcement of the destruction of the
Temple of Jerusalem (Matt. 24:1-2) —as a final conclusion of Jesus' invectives
against the Pharisees! Matthew's transposition of the setting implies that the
Pharisees themselves are those "who kill the prophets." In Jesus' day it is certain
that they neither killed nor persecuted the visionaries (Matt. 23:29-31).
Similarly in Fifth Esdras (2:10-13) – a 2nd
Century CE book[3]
, this is what the Lord says to Ezra: "Inform my people that I will give
them the kingdom of Jerusalem which I have given to Israel . . . the kingdom is
already prepared for you”.
Elsewhere I have tried to show that the final redactor
of the Gospel of Matthew embraced the same
opinions as Fifth Esdras and the
eschatology contained in Justin Martyr's Dialogue, and that there are even literary motifs
common to the three sources. Here it must suffice to bring two Matthean passages. "Therefore I
tell you that the kingdom of God will be
taken from you and given to a people who will produce its fruit" (Matt. 21:43). "Many, I
tell you, will come to feast with Abraham,
Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of Heaven. But those who were born to the kingdom will be driven out into the dark, the place
of wailing and gnashing of teeth" (Matt. 8:11-12).”
The unhappy development from Luke to Mark and
from there to the final redactor of Matthew can be shown by the synoptic
history of Luke 4:32. According to this
saying in its earliest form, when Jesus began his ministry in the synagogue at
Capernaum, his hearers were astonished because "his word was with
authority" (Luke 4:32).
Mark 1:22 makes the meaning clearer, "The
people were astonished because he taught them as one who had authority, and unlike the scribes." Matthew (7:28-29) repeats Mark's wording. He
further "clarifies" the situation, speaking about " their
scribes," but he also purposely transfers the astonishment of Jesus'
hearers to another situation. "When Jesus had finished his
discourse, the people were astonished at his teaching, because he taught them
as one who had authority, and unlike their
scribes." And what is "the discourse" that Jesus,
according to the Matthean final redactor, finished at that moment? The "Sermon on the Mount" which
in reality resembles
very much the "teaching of the scribes." One is intrigued at the subtle tendencies in the metamorphosis
of the sentence. It is likely that Mark did not foresee where his
literary changes would lead. On the
other hand, it is difficult to deny that even in the Gospel of Mark, these later centrifugal forces were
already at work.
Thus we cannot avoid the conclusion that Matthew was not a Jewish
Christian but a Gentile who wrote his Gospel after the destruction of the
Temple It seems that the Gentile origin of the Evangelist can also be shown with the help of those few passages which record events of which
only he had heard and which do not depend on a written source. All these
passages are written in a very vulgar popular Greek; they do not reveal any Jewish knowledge on the part of the author, and I could not even
detect in them any knowledge of the Greek Bible [the LXX]. Thus we have to abandon speculations about Matthew as a
representative of Jewish Christianity; he was evidently a Gentile and is the
oldest witness of a vulgar approach which caused much harm to the Jews and did
not promote a true understanding of the very essence of the Christian message.
Not only in Matthew but also in the other
synoptic Gospels the essential changes from the original tradition of Jesus's
disciples were introduced only at the Greek stage of its development. This
applies also to all the passages where tension against Jews and Judaism is felt.
In my opinion, Matthew is the only synoptic Gospel which speaks of the
condemnation of Israel as a whole. The veracity of the early tradition in the
synoptic Gospels, which can be detected by scholarly methods, and the fact that
tendentious tension against Jews and Judaism came into being only in the Greek
stage of their development, are important not only for the Christian faith but
also for the so-called Jewish-Christian dialogue.”
What I hope
these few quotes from some of Prof. Flusser’s brilliant work illustrate is that, to put so much reliance on a portion of Matthew, specifically chapter 24, which
Flusser argues was written after the fall of Jerusalem in 70 CE, is to in
turn make outlandish and unmerited claims about an event that was not anywhere near as unique
as Preterists claim.
If this
brief reflection on Matthew 24 has given you pause for thought, and the
Preterist doctrine is something that you find some merit in, then I would
strongly urge you to read ‘Judaism and
the Origins of Christianity’ by
David Flusser, and in particular chapter 35 ‘Two Anti-Jewish Montages in
Matthew’ and chapter 36 ‘Matthew's "Verus Israel"’.
For a little more on my response to Preterism
generally, here is a link to a short article I wrote a few years ago – Preterism-
A Brief Reply
Update: For a more comprehensive commentary on Preterism, see 'Preterism: Not even on Judaism's radar'
Update: For a more comprehensive commentary on Preterism, see 'Preterism: Not even on Judaism's radar'
December
2012
[1] “If one knows both Hebrew and Greek, and is able
to apply the method of literary criticism to the analysis of the synoptic
Gospels, one finds that
probably all the passages expressing an anti-Jewish tension came into being
only in the Greek stage of those Gospels, and one notices that in most cases
these changes in the original Hebrew narratives and sayings appear in only
one of the three Gospels or are the work
of one Evangelist” (namely Matthew) – ‘Judaism and the Origins of Christianity’ by
David Flusser p 582
[2] “According
to Luke, Jesus was accompanied along his last way by the sympathy of his own
people. By contrast, according to Mark—who is accepted by Matthew—he was
abandoned by all, with the exception of those who formed the kernel of the
future Church. Here we want to show that the tendentiousness of Mark is also
palpable in his virtual elimination of Jesus' expression of his strong ties
with Jerusalem and its tragic future. While Luke's passion narrative often
speaks (Luke 13:34-35; 19:41-44; 21:28; 23:27-31) about Jesus' attachment to
the "city of the great king" (Matt. 5:35), only his prediction of the
destruction of the Temple (Luke 21:5-7) is paralleled by Mark 13:2-4 (and Matt.
24:1-3).” – ‘Judaism
and the Origins of Christianity’ by David Flusser
[3] Fifth Esdras retains some very harsh views, concerning the
Jewish people and their sins before God.
No comments:
Post a Comment