Which means you are starting from a closed-mind, already-determined position. Just like the Pharisees and scribes did with Jesus.
Hardly a fair assessment. You know nothing about me, why I believe as I do, or any of my history with topics such as these.
Neither of you two examples are of masses of peoples, only a single family and individual. Whereas what I show in both cases is of assemblies of peoples.
You would then need to demonstrate what that matters.
Because neither prophecy has been fulfilled.
Taken singly, you might have a case. Just as certain prophecies about the First Coming of Jesus, if taken singly, could be argued to have taken place without respect to Jesus. But with the sequential list of many different events I presented, the odds of such being merely coincidence is comparable to all of the multiple prophecies about the First Coming being coincidence. Simply not possible in both cases.
But the Christians in Jerusalem and Judea
did flee. They fled to Petra to escape what was coming to Jerusalem when they saw the Sicarii desecrate the Temple. That's something the history books tell us happened.
On this point, I'd argue it's saying that we have the example of Jesus fulfilling the prophecies concerning the Messiah, but still saying those prophecies remain unfulfilled and we still have to wait for the messiah to come.
But let's instead be courteous: I simply don't share your basic hermeneutical framework. That's really all that this is about.
I hold to a traditional set of Christian interpretations of Scripture, which I believe to be biblically consistent and also which Christians have, quite generally, agreed upon down through the centuries. And, as I said in my last post, I would be more than happy to talk through my processes and offer biblical rationale for the views I have.
Because any objective person can see that these things have not yet taken place. People have to really twist and contort the Word to claim that they have.
Let's look at it from the other angle. You say that any objective person can see that these haven't taken place and have to twist and contort Scripture to claim that. But in order for there still yet to be an abomination that causes desolation, there would need to be a Temple standing in Jerusalem. There isn't. Which is why some try to insist that a new temple will be built in Jerusalem.
I want you to seriously consider that. Inventing scenarios, or inventing new doctrines in order to justify our interpretations of the Bible seems a little weird, doesn't it? Because a chief principle of how to read and understand the Bible is that we should exegete--extract meaning from the text itself; not eisegete--insert meaning we want into the text.
If for my reading of the Bible to "come out right" I have to add this, remove that; turn that other thing around and begin creating fairly elaborate theories, scenarios, etc just for my private opinion about the Bible to be right then at some point I've probably lost the plot.
Only Luke has Jesus' answers both questions. Matthew and Mark only have His answer to the question of when His Parousia. There was no "abomination of desolation placed in the holy place" in 70 AD: therefore, this prophecy is yet to be fulfilled. Likewise, Christ's visible Parousia accompanied by heavenly and earthly signs and cataclysms did not take place in 70 AD.
Except, there was. The Temple was desecrated. We can read about it in contemporary accounts, like that of Josephus. The Temple was desecrated, sacrilege was committed in the Temple.
It wasn't identical to the abomination that happened a couple centuries earlier under Antiochus IV, where a pig was offered as sacrifice to Zeus in the Holy of Holies; but a desecration and sacrilege it very much was.
Complete nonsense:
Matthew 24:29 “Immediately after the tribulation of those days the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light; the stars will fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens will be shaken. 30 Then the sign of the Son of Man will appear in heaven, and then all the tribes of the earth will mourn, and they will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory."
Those aren't signs that tell us we can know when Jesus will return though. If anything, it means that when Jesus returns it will be so loud and obvious that there's no way it can be a secret.
What this doesn't say is that we'll have signs to look at which would tell us that it will happen on this or that day, or on this or that season, or that this, that, and the other thing are all signs that His coming is right around the corner.
There aren't any signs to give us indication about that, because, as Jesus says plainly, no one knows the day or the hour, He comes like a thief in the night, just like the flood in the time of Noah life will just be going on like normal and then suddenly and without warning Judgment. Two will be in the field, one is taken and the other left behind. When Jesus comes in Judgment, the wicked will be taken.
These things haven't happened yet; and when they do, nothing about them will be secret.
When the Lord returns, nothing will be secret. That's right.
Which then would then get us back to the fact that when the Lord returns, it is on the Last Day. Fin, finale, the End. Jesus will come as Judge of the living and the dead. There is no secret coming of Jesus to snatch us into heaven. When He comes, He comes in glory to judge. The dead will be raised, the righteous to life everlasting and the wicked to fire and anguish. And God will make all things new.
If Jesus comes to snatch Christians up into heaven to escape a future period of tribulation, it's either in secret or it's not. If it's not, and everyone quakes in fear, sees Him, knows it's Jesus, and bends the knee to Him then there really isn't anyone on earth who is going to be deceived by the devil or a future antichrist.
Unless, of course, one then adds something, something the Bible doesn't say. In which case, we have that problem.
You began this post by accusing me of being closed-minded and compared me to the Pharisees and scribes.
I am curious, though, how open are you to what I'm saying? Why am I closed minded, but you aren't?
If it's simply because you're right and I'm wrong, then that's just assuming your own rightness and there being an unwillingness to consider alternatives--wouldn't you agree?
For what it's worth, I used to believe as you do now. I grew up in a rapture-beliving, Dispensationalist church. That was my experience from infancy until near-adulthood. And I simply took it all for granted.
When I read The Left Behind books in the 90's when I was in high school, I simply accepted them as biblically accurate accounts of what was going to happen in "the end times".
So I do understand the ideas you're talking about (the Exodus theory, however, is a new one for me I'll be honest). I simply don't share those views anymore, because in time I discovered I could not defend them biblically. I really tried, I really wanted to. But, at least in my case, I had to be honest with myself and realize I simply couldn't defend certain ideas I was raised to believe as biblical. And that, historic Christian beliefs, were more biblically defensible than modern Christian beliefs.
-CryptoLutheran
