What do you think about Lewis' argument that this and Jesus' words on the cross indicate historical reliability (presumably with respect to the authorial intention)?
It makes sense as an argument once more fixed views about Christ's divine nature had been generally settled. Would you say this is the case for the late 1st century Christians?
Do the conventions of ancient bioi have anything to say on this matter i.e are such additions of ignorance etc unusual for hero stories etc at the time?
I always found this a tricky verse to respond to aswell. I often find explanations that try to deny delayed parousia as apologetic backtracking that ignore the obvious. But, you may be interested to read N.T Wright’s article of delayed parousia. I genuinely think this is a very sound piece of scholarship that adequately sets Jesus in his respective Jewish context.
If Jews thought the temple was the literal microcosm of heaven and earth joined together (the garden of eden imagery engrained into the temple construction in Exodus says as much), then it only makes sense that the destruction of such a temple mirrors expressions that represent the collapse of such a heaven and earth.
If the pre-exilic prophets have used such terminology to describe temple destruction in the past, then I don’t see why a temple destruction framework would be so radically different since Jesus’ ministry mirrors a lot of the prophetic behaviours and vocabulary (ie: “a prophet is without honour in his hometown”).
This framework (I reject the label “preterism”) is not without issues of course, but for too long has scholarship missed some of the genuine insights of Jewish context in the gospels. The Jewishness of Jesus is still a relatively new development and clearly the Olivet discourse needs catching up.
I am not taken by Wright's view (at a popular level, Thom Stark has a good review of Wright's position in his book, The Human Faces of God), but this is a helpful resource, thank you!
What do you think about Lewis' argument that this and Jesus' words on the cross indicate historical reliability (presumably with respect to the authorial intention)?
It makes sense as an argument once more fixed views about Christ's divine nature had been generally settled. Would you say this is the case for the late 1st century Christians?
Do the conventions of ancient bioi have anything to say on this matter i.e are such additions of ignorance etc unusual for hero stories etc at the time?
Thanks!
I always found this a tricky verse to respond to aswell. I often find explanations that try to deny delayed parousia as apologetic backtracking that ignore the obvious. But, you may be interested to read N.T Wright’s article of delayed parousia. I genuinely think this is a very sound piece of scholarship that adequately sets Jesus in his respective Jewish context.
If Jews thought the temple was the literal microcosm of heaven and earth joined together (the garden of eden imagery engrained into the temple construction in Exodus says as much), then it only makes sense that the destruction of such a temple mirrors expressions that represent the collapse of such a heaven and earth.
If the pre-exilic prophets have used such terminology to describe temple destruction in the past, then I don’t see why a temple destruction framework would be so radically different since Jesus’ ministry mirrors a lot of the prophetic behaviours and vocabulary (ie: “a prophet is without honour in his hometown”).
This framework (I reject the label “preterism”) is not without issues of course, but for too long has scholarship missed some of the genuine insights of Jewish context in the gospels. The Jewishness of Jesus is still a relatively new development and clearly the Olivet discourse needs catching up.
Wright’s article: https://research-repository.st-andrews.ac.uk/bitstream/handle/10023/17178/Wright_2018_EC_Hopedeferred_37.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y
I am not taken by Wright's view (at a popular level, Thom Stark has a good review of Wright's position in his book, The Human Faces of God), but this is a helpful resource, thank you!