Till:
I'll momentarily interrupt
Turkel's eisegesis of the "Olivet discourse" to
note a recent development in Turkel's attempts to defend the
absurdity of preterism. On the Theology Web, Steven Carr has
been beating Turkel like a steel drum on this subject, and one of the
nails that Carr drove into Turkel's coffin was a thorough
rebuttal of Turkel's claim that Josephus thought that the
Romans had fulfilled Daniel's prophecy about the "abomination
of desolation." Jesus allegedly said in his Olivet
"discourse" that when his disciples saw the abomination
of desolation standing in the Holy Place, those in Judea should
flee to the mountains (Matt. 24:15). In Part
Three of this series, I dismantled Turkel's attempt to make
Josephus a believer in the premise that Daniel's prophecy of
the abomination of desolation referred to the Roman destruction of
Jerusalem. On the Theology Web, post #11, Steven
Carr completely silenced Turkel on this matter. Carr asked Turkel
the following question.
What was the
STANDING
abomination of desolation referred to in Matthew 24:15?
To
help Holding [Turkel], I have started part of his answer here.
"The STANDING abomination of desolation referred to in Matthew 24:15 was....."
All Turkel had to do was fill in the blank, but after a couple of sarcastic posts from Turkel admirers, this was Turkel's reply to Carr's question.
I will make no further comment unless someone else asks for clarification. I have better things to do than educate the permanently dense.
This is a typical Turkel reaction. When one of his assertions is soundly refuted, he reacts with insults, which he seems to think will substitute for argumentation. This apparently works with his choir members, but those with even a speck of critical thinking skills will see through the evasion. Turkel, as we saw earlier in this series, claimed that Josephus thought that the Romans had fulfilled Daniel's prophecy about the abomination of desolation, but when he is pressed to support that claim with evidence, he remarks that he has "better things to do than educate the permanently dense."
Yes, folks--those of you who admire Turkel--this is your hero at work. Now I'll return to my dismantling of his eisegesis of the Olivet "discourse."
Turkel:
Of relevant interest
is the Lukan parallel to [Matthew 24:27], not found at all in Mark,
which is outside of Luke's version of the Olivet teaching:
Till:
Well, gee, Turk, if
this "parallel" is "outside of Luke's version
of the Olivet teaching," then why is it a parallel to Matthew
24:27, which is inside Matthew's version of the Olivet
teaching? I'll say more about this after we have looked
at Luke's "parallel."
Turkel:
Luke 17:24 For as the lightning, that lighteneth out of the one part under heaven, shineth unto the other part under heaven; so shall also the Son of man be in his day.
Till:
Luke's version of
the Olivet account is in chapter 21, verses 21-36, so if the text
above is in Luke 17, why would it be a parallel to Matthew 24:27,
which is clearly within the so-called Olivet "discourse"?
If the context of Luke 17 is examined, one will see that what Jesus allegedly said here was spoken to his disciples as they were passing through the borders of Samaria and Galilee on their way to Jerusalem. The location of the speech on this occasion is identified in verse 11.
Luke 17:11 And it came to pass, as they [Jesus and his disciples] were on the way to Jerusalem, that he was passing along the borders of Samaria and Galilee.
The Olivet "discourse" was spoken on the Mount of Olives, adjacent to Jerusalem, after Jesus and his disciples had gone out of the temple. Hence, Luke 17 pertains to a different "discourse" that was spoken miles away from the Mount of Olives. The speech in Luke 17 was prompted by a question the Pharisees had asked about the coming of the kingdom after Jesus had cured ten lepers (vs:12-22); the speech in Matthew 24 was made after the disciples of Jesus had expressed curiosity about what he had meant when he said that not one stone of the temple would be left upon the other. Why then is Luke 17:24 "parallel" to Matthew 24:27? I personally think that the writer of Luke did attribute to the speech in Luke 17 words that the other synoptic writers attributed to the Olivet "discourse," but that isn't my problem. It is Turkel's. If Luke attributed the statement above to a speech that Jesus made "in the borders of Samaria and Galilee," he cannot for convenience purposes make it Luke's version of what Matthew attributed to Jesus in 24:17. I assure readers that if there were some significant inconsistency between Luke 17:22ff and the context in which Matthew 24:27 appears, Turkel wouldn't hesitate to say that these passages were referring to separate events. However, when he thinks he sees something in Luke 17 that helps his case, he makes Luke 17 and Matthew 24 "parallels."
At any rate, let's notice that Turkel's contrived parallel does nothing to help his case.
Turkel:
Luke here apparently
equates the "day" of the Son of Man with Matthew's
"coming" of the Son of Man.
Till:
Uh, oh, I see a big
problem for Turkel. He has said that Matthew's "coming"
[parousia] of the son of man was very visible. In a
feeble attempt to answer my first replies to him on the preterist
issue, Turkel posted a little jewel entitled "Spitting
into the Hurricane as Your Clothes Get Blown Off" in which
he made the statement below (with emphasis added).
To begin, he [Till] describes preterism as the belief that "Jesus returned rather inconspicuously in 70 AD..." Inconspicuously? McTill must miss it when that phalanx of Hell's Angels drives through his living room every morning. The 70 "return" ("advent" would be a better word) was vastly conspicuous, involving the destruction of a people (nearly) and a nation, the end of the "age of the law" by Christian understanding, and the ushering in of the age of the Messiah. McTill must be some kind of anti-Semite if he brays off the events of 70 as "inconspicuous". [sic]
Readers may go here to see my complete rebuttal of this paragraph, but for now, I want to call the readers' attention to Turkel's claim that "(t)he 70 'return' ('advent' would be a better word) was vastly conspicuous." Well, okay, if the alleged "return" of Jesus in AD 70, which would be better described as an "advent," was vastly conspicuous," it would have been observable, wouldn't it have? How then does Turkel reconcile that claim with Jesus's answer to the Pharisee's question about when the kingdom of God would come in the verses immediately preceding the one that Turkel cited above (Luke 17:24)?
Luke 17:20 Now when He was asked by the Pharisees when the kingdom of God would come, He answered them and said, "The kingdom of God does not come with observation; 21nor will they say, 'See here!' or 'See there!' For indeed, the kingdom of God is within you."
Turkel slings the word advent around as if it had some kind of special significance, so this word needs to be defined so that readers will understand what he means when he says that advent would be a better word for "the 70 'return.'" Advent is a theological term that simply means coming or arrival, and it is generally used in reference to the "coming of Christ" for the purpose of establishing a kingdom or beginning a reign. That Turkel is using the word in that sense is evident from what he said later in "Spitting into the Hurricane" (cited above).
Both forms of preterism actually say that the advent (not "return", [sic] which is not what parousia means) of the kingdom of God was visibly and with painful obviousness shown with the destruction of the religious and political framework of the Jewish nation. If McTill can't even get the position right, why is he worth listening to when he critiques it?
So Turkel says (1) that the parousia occurred in AD 70 when the Romans destroyed Jerusalem, (2) that this parousia was an advent that brought about the reign of Christ in his kingdom, and (3) that both forms of preterism (full and partial) say that this advent or parousia or coming of the kingdom was visibly and painfully obvious, yet Jesus said in the text quoted above that the kingdom of God would not come with observation. In other words, Jesus said that when the kingdom of God came, "they" would not say, "See here," or, "See there," because the coming of the kingdom would not be a conspicuous event, but Turkel says the exact opposite, that the coming of the kingdom was "vastly conspicuous." If so, then it would have been an event about which one could have said, "See here," or "See there"; in fact, this is exactly what Turkel is saying, i. e., the coming, parousia, advent, or whatever he wishes to call it was something that was observable. We seem to have a point of disagreement, but, of course, those who read Turkel's website probably understand that whenever it is a case of believing what Turkel said as opposed to what Jesus said, there is really no contest. They are supposed to believe what Turkel said.
Turkel gets himself into predicaments like this because he hasn't bothered to learn the Bible well enough to know when he is taking a position on a given text that contradicts other texts on the same subject. The coming of the kingdom and the return or second coming of Christ were two different things to New Testament writers. The former did indeed come with little fanfare, and as I noted at the end of Part Four of this series, the apostle Peter (according to Luke) claimed that Jesus was reigning at the right hand of God in fulfillment of Old Testament "prophecies" (Acts 2:29-36). This section also explicated other texts written before AD 70 where clear references were made to the reign of Christ, so New Testament writers clearly believed that the "advent" of Jesus had begun long before AD 70.
After answering the question of the Pharisees, Jesus then turned to admonishing his disciples about his return (coming, parousia, whatever Turkel wishes to call it), an event that was different from the coming of the kingdom. An examination of the full context of this admonishment will show that Turkel is quoting just one verse out of context to try to give it a spin favorable to his preterist heresy.
Luke 17:22 Then He said to the disciples, "The days will come when you will desire to see one of the days of the Son of Man, and you will not see it. 23And they will say to you, 'Look here!' or 'Look there!'
In other words, Jesus--or at least Luke's Jesus--was telling his disciples that the days would come when they would desire to see the return of the "son of man." The idea here is probably a retrospective "prediction" that people would one day wonder when the promised return of Jesus would happen. Luke, therefore, had Jesus advising his disciples not to be deceived by those who might come later and say that the return had happened "here" or "there." If this should happen, Luke's Jesus said, the disciples should understand that it was a false claim, because when he did return, it would be an event so visible that no one would fail to see it.
Do not go after them or follow them. 24For as the lightning that flashes out of one part under heaven shines to the other part under heaven, so also the Son of Man will be in His day.
The idea here is parallel to the statement by Matthew's Jesus in 24:27, which I have already explicated midway in Part Four, so I need here only to remind readers that the lightning simile was intended to convey that the "coming" of the son of man would be an event that was universally visible and not something that would be seen just by those in and around Jerusalem. I'll have more to say about this later, but first let's look at Turkel's twist on what Jesus meant when he referred to "his day" in Luke 17:24.
Turkel:
The
relevance of this may be seen in our essay on the phrase "the
day of the Lord". This phrase was associated with final
judgment, but more often by far with an immediate judgment upon one
nation at one point in time, or any time that God acted decisively.
This would suggest that Luke did not understand the "day"
of the Son of Man as a final judgment of necessity.
Till:
It is singular that
Turkel didn't even attempt to support his claim that "the
day of the Lord" was usually an expression used to denote
"immediate judgment upon one nation at one point in time,"
so let's just look at how this expression was used by New
Testament writers. Any reasonable person who examines the
relevant passages in context should have no difficulty seeing that
"the day of the Lord" was an expression that New
Testament writers used in reference to the day of final judgment.
I'll begin with one that I have already explicated at the
beginning of Part Two of this
series.
1 Thessalonians 2:19 For what is our hope, or joy, or crown of rejoicing? Is it not even you in the presence of our Lord Jesus Christ at His coming [parousia]?
This text doesn't use the expression "the day of the Lord," but it does make a reference to the "coming" [parousia], which is relevant to Turkel's claim that the "parousia" occurred when the Romans destroyed Jerusalem. I showed in Part Two, cited above, that this claim is inconsistent with what Paul said in the text quoted above. To save time, I'll just quote my previous comments about this verse.
Paul told the Thessalonians that they would be his "hope, joy, or crown of rejoicing" in the presence of the Lord at his coming [parousia]. In other words, Paul was saying that the Thessalonian Christians would be a source of pride for him when the Lord came, but this text is rather hard to understand if the "coming of the Lord" that Paul mentioned was just that mystical or spiritual coming that would occur when Jerusalem was destroyed, because Thessalonica was in Greece, about 500 miles across the Mediterranean Sea from Jerusalem. How could the Thessalonians have been a source of pride for Paul (who was already dead by AD 70) during the localized destruction of a city 500 miles away from Thessalonica? This statement makes no sense if the "coming of the Lord" is interpreted to mean just a local event that would happen on a tiny area of the earth, but if the "coming of the Lord" is seen as a universally observable scene, which early Christians believed was going to happen in their lifetime and be seen by "every eye," the statement makes perfectly good sense.
As we go through the texts that actually used the expression "day of the Lord," we will see that Turkel has the same problem. If this expression did not mean the day of final judgment, as Turkel asserted in his spin on Luke 17:24, then it is hard to understand the verses quoted below where New Testament writers referred to the "day of the Lord" to readers who were far removed from Jerusalem and environs.
2 Corinthians 1:13 For we are not writing any other things to you than what you read or understand. Now I trust you will understand, even to the end 14(as also you have understood us in part), that we are your boast as you also are ours, in the day of the Lord Jesus.
This text is parallel to 1 Thessalonians 2:19, where Paul said that the Thessalonian Christians would be his hope, joy, and crown of rejoicing at the "coming" [parousia] of Jesus. Just as a Christian community living across the sea from Jerusalem could hardly have been an occasion of hope and joy for Paul when that city was destroyed by the Romans, the Corinthian Christians could not have given Paul an occasion to boast when Jerusalem was destroyed. If, however, "the day of the Lord Jesus" is understood to be a reference to the day when Jesus would return to render final judgment to all men (regardless of nationality or location) according to their works (Rom. 2:6), this statement makes perfectly good sense.
1 Corinthians 1:4 I thank my God always concerning you for the grace of God which was given to you by Christ Jesus, 5that you were enriched in everything by Him in all utterance and all knowledge, 6even as the testimony of Christ was confirmed in you, 7so that you come short in no gift, eagerly waiting for the revelation of our Lord Jesus Christ, 8who will also confirm you to the end, that you may be blameless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ.
To say that "the day of our Lord Jesus Christ" in this context had reference to a figurative coming of Jesus when the Romans destroyed Jerusalem is so far-fetched that only someone desperate to prove a pet doctrine could make such a claim, because the Corinthians, like the Thessalonians, were across the Mediterranean Sea from Jerusalem. They would have been unaware of what was going on in Jerusalem. The statement makes sense only if "the day of our Lord Jesus Christ" is understood to be a reference to the day of final judgment, because those who were "blameless" on that day would be rewarded with eternal life, but to think that Paul was expressing hope that the Corinthian Christians would be "blameless" at the time when Jesus figuratively returned during the destruction of Jerusalem is too absurd for reasonable people to contemplate.
1 Corinthians 5:3 In the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, when you are gathered together, along with my spirit, with the power of our Lord Jesus Christ, 5deliver such a one [a man living with his father's wife] to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, that his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus.
Once again, I will point out that this epistle was written to Christians living across the sea from Jerusalem, so who can seriously believe that Paul was here expressing the desire that the man living in an adulterous relationship with his father's wife would be saved when the Romans destroyed Jerusalem? That interpretation would be ludicrous, but it is very sensible to understand the text to mean that Paul was expressing the hope that disciplining the adulterer would cause him to repent so that his spirit would be saved when Jesus returned to judge the living and the dead (1 Peter 4:5).
Philippians 1:3 I thank my God upon every remembrance of you, 4always in every prayer of mine making request for you all with joy, 5for your fellowship in the gospel from the first day until now, 6being confident of this very thing, that He who has begun a good work in you will complete it until the day of Jesus Christ....
Philippi was located on the Aegean coast in southern Macedonia, even farther from Jerusalem than Thessalonica and Corinth, so what kind of twisted reasoning would one have to use to think that Paul was here expressing the desire that the good work that he had done in Philippi would be completed until the day that Jerusalem was destroyed? To put this spin on the verse would make it mean that Paul wanted the good work begun in Philippi to continue until the Romans destroyed Jerusalem, but then after that, it wouldn't really matter to him what happen to the church in Philippi. If, however, "the day of Jesus Christ" is understood to be the day of final judgment, the statement makes perfectly good sense. He was expressing hope that his good work in Philippi would continue until the day of final judgment, which he expected to come in his lifetime.
Philippians 1:30 And this I pray, that your love may abound still more and more in knowledge and all discernment, 10that you may approve the things that are excellent, that you may be sincere and without offense till the day of Christ....
The same comments would apply here too. Why would Paul have prayed that the Philippians, who lived over 500 miles from Jerusalem, would be without offense until the day of Jerusalem's destruction? That spin on the passage makes no sense, but if the "day or Christ" is understood to be the day of his return to administer final judgment to the entire world, the statement makes perfectly good sense.
1 Thessalonians 5:1 But concerning the times and the seasons, brethren, you have no need that I should write to you. 2For you yourselves know perfectly that the day of the Lord so comes as a thief in the night. 3For when they say, "Peace and safety!" then sudden destruction comes upon them, as labor pains upon a pregnant woman. And they shall not escape. 4But you, brethren, are not in darkness, so that this Day should overtake you as a thief.
Keep in mind that Christians in the Thessalonian community were located across the sea from Jerusalem, so why would Paul have been warning them that "the day of the Lord" would come like a thief in the night if that day was simply the destruction of a city 500 miles away. They would have been unaware of such an event, and it would have posed no danger to them that they would have needed to be on guard against. However, if the "day of the Lord" was the day of his coming to render final judgment on the whole world, that would certainly have been something that the Philippians should have been concerned about.
Furthermore, the thief-in-the-night simile in 1 Thessalonians 5:2 is reminiscent of the warning attributed to Jesus in Matthew 24:36 ff.
Matthew 24:36 "But of that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, but My Father only. 37But as the days of Noah were, so also will the coming of the Son of Man be. 38For as in the days before the flood, they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noah entered the ark, 39and did not know until the flood came and took them all away, so also will the coming of the Son of Man be. 40Then two men will be in the field: one will be taken and the other left. 41Two women will be grinding at the mill: one will be taken and the other left. 42Watch therefore, for you do not know what hour your Lord is coming. 43But know this, that if the master of the house had known what hour the thief would come, he would have watched and not allowed his house to be broken into. 44Therefore you also be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an hour you do not expect."
The days-before-the-flood imagery here is also similar to the remaining part of Luke 17, which Turkel is trying to twist into a proof text for his preterist claim that the "day of the Lord" was simply God's judgment against the Jews, which he rendered to them through the destruction of Jerusalem
Luke 17:25 But first He [the son of man] must suffer many things and be rejected by this generation. 26And as it was in the days of Noah, so it will be also in the days of the Son of Man: 27They ate, they drank, they married wives, they were given in marriage, until the day that Noah entered the ark, and the flood came and destroyed them all. 28Likewise as it was also in the days of Lot: They ate, they drank, they bought, they sold, they planted, they built; 29but on the day that Lot went out of Sodom it rained fire and brimstone from heaven and destroyed them all. 30Even so will it be in the day when the Son of Man is revealed."
The "day of the Lord [Christ]" was a term that was used to admonish the Corinthian, Thessalonian, and Philippian Christians, who were far removed from Jerusalem, to be prepared for the "coming" of Jesus, but as noted in my analyses of these texts, it makes no sense at all to think that Paul was warning these Christians across the sea to be prepared for the destruction of a city 500 miles away. Hence, reasonable readers, who have no pet doctrine to defend, will recognize that these warnings related to the coming of the Lord to render final judgment. Hence, contrary to Turkel's unsupported claim, Luke did "understand the day of the son of man" to be the day when Jesus would render final judgment on the world. That he used the days-of-Noah imagery as a simile to warn his readers to be prepared for that day is strong support for the view that Matthew was using the same imagery for the same purpose (24:36ff) and that "Peter" was doing the same in 2 Peter 3:5ff when he compared "the day of judgment" to the destruction of the world by water in the time of Noah. He also used the thief imagery in verse 7.
The problem for Turkel and his preterist cohorts is simple. Various texts [all previously quoted or cited] referred to the "coming" or "day of the Lord" to issue warnings to Christian groups far removed from Jerusalem to be prepared for this "day" or "coming," but it makes no sense at all to think that these were warnings for them to be prepared for the destruction of Jerusalem, which when it was happening they would have been completely unaware of. These were obviously intended as warnings to be prepared for the coming of the Lord to render final judgment, which was an event that New Testament writers thought was imminent. In issuing these warnings, they--Paul, Peter, Luke, Matthew--used the thief-in-the-night imagery and the destruction of the world by flooding as examples to bring home to their readers the urgent need to be prepared for a final judgment that was going to come suddenly and soon. For reasons noted above, such warnings would have been meaningless to people far removed from Jerusalem if the warnings had, as Turkel claims, pertained only to the destruction of Jerusalem.
Turkel:
Matthew 24:28 For wheresoever the carcase is, there will the eagles be gathered together (Luke 17:37).
Jesus here alludes to Jeremiah 7:33, "And the carcases of this people shall be meat for the fowls of the heaven, and for the beasts of the earth; and none shall fray them away."--a warning to Judah of the coming destruction at the hands of the Babylonians.
Till:
And just how does
Turkel know that the statement in Matthew 24 "alludes" to
Jeremiah 7:33, which has no similarity except for the references to
scavenging birds eating dead carcasses? That imagery, however,
was not at all uncommon in the Bible. Why not say that it was
an allusion to Jeremiah 16:4?
"They shall die gruesome deaths; they shall not be lamented nor shall they be buried, but they shall be like refuse on the face of the earth. They shall be consumed by the sword and by famine, and their corpses shall be meat for the birds of heaven and for the beasts of the earth."
Why not say that it was an allusion to Jeremiah 19:7?
And I will make void the counsel of Judah and Jerusalem in this place, and I will cause them to fall by the sword before their enemies and by the hands of those who seek their lives; their corpses I will give as meat for the birds of the heaven and for the beasts of the earth.
Why not say that it was an allusion to Jeremiah 34:20?
I will give them into the hand of their enemies and into the hand of those who seek their life. Their dead bodies shall be for meat for the birds of the heaven and the beasts of the earth.
Why not say that it was an allusion to Ezekiel 29:5?
I have given you as food to the beasts of the field and to the birds of the heavens.
Why not say that it was an allusion to 1 Samuel 17:44?
And the Philistine said to David, "Come to me, and I will give your flesh to the birds of the air and the beasts of the field!"
I could go on and quote other examples, but these are sufficient to make the point. Turkel talks a great deal about "fluff" in my articles, and then he puts stuff like this into his. Why did he do this? Well, it was his way of saying to his readers, "Hey, look at what I know; Matthew 24:28 mentioned birds gathering where the carcasses lay, and I know that the same imagery was used in Jeremiah 7:33."
For the sake of argument, let's just assume that Matthew 24:28 unequivocally alluded to Jeremiah 7:33. So what? What would it prove? How would a commonly used biblical image prove the truth of Turkel's preterist position? It wouldn't, so he has done nothing but waste our time in a vain attempt to impress his readers. I suspect that if the truth were known, however, the allusion in Jeremiah 7:33 to birds preying on carcasses was not something that Turkel just happened to know. He saw it in whatever references works he was cutting and pasting from and threw it in to make his readers think that he has a comprehensive knowledge of the Bible. Believe me when I say that his knowledge of the Bible is far from comprehensive.
Turkel:
This verse too fits
both a dispensational and a preterist scenario.
Till:
So why wag it in?
Turkel's task is to prove to us the truth of the preterist
position, so if this verse would fit either the dispensationalist or
preterist scenario, it doesn't prove anything.
Turkel:
Most commentators
regardless of orientation would render "eagles" as
vultures, though the word, aetos, seems to refer to any big
bird and elsewhere would suggest an eagle (Rev. 4:7, 12:14). Perhaps
both are in mind--with the Roman eagle (it's national symbol,
like ours) doing double duty as a scavenger over the dead.
Till:
I have just one comment
to make here. So what? If Matthew had vultures in mind
instead of eagles, how would that prove anything about the preterist
position?
Didn't Turkel say something about "fluff" and "irrelevant distractions" in my articles?
I'll continue to dismantle Turkel's preterist position in Part Six.
