Till:
I have yet to present my detailed explication of 2 Peter 3:1ff, so I will do that before I take Turkel's first article apart in a separate reply and respond to anything that I may have missed in my hardcopy article and this nine-part reply.  That will remove all room for him to claim that I haven't answered some of his arguments.

2 Peter 3:1 Beloved, I now write to you this second epistle (in both of which I stir up your pure minds by way of reminder),

This, of course, was the writer's attempt to give a ring of authority to this epistle by claiming that it was the second one he had written.  Readers would understand this to mean that 1 Peter was the first one, and conclude that the apostle Peter must have written this one too.  Reasons why mainstream scholars reject the Petrine authorship of this epistle have already been discussed, so I won't rehash them here.  Turkel rejects those reasons, of course, and cites a website article by Glenn Miller as the reason for his rejection.  I will leave it to readers to decide for themselves whether Turkel and Miller, whose expertise seems to be limited to cutting and pasting quotations from books and authors who agree with their inerrancy view of the Bible, should be accepted as better authorities in this matter than esteemed scholars like Bruce Metzger.

²that you may be mindful of the words which were spoken before by the holy prophets, and of the commandment of us, the apostles of the Lord and Savior, ³knowing this first: that scoffers will come in the last days, walking according to their own lusts, ⁴and saying, "Where is the promise of His coming? For since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of creation."

Scholars like Metzger refer to the "fathers" who the scoffers said had fallen asleep as evidence of late authorship for this epistle, because the reference indicates that previous generations of Christians, i. e., "the fathers," had died.  In Peter's lifetime, of course, this could not have happened.  Some early Christians would have died but not an entire generation or more, who could have been referred to collectively as "the fathers."

Turkel and cohorts, of course, will argue that "the fathers" here were not the early generations of Christians but the "fathers" who lived in Old Testament times.  This is the position that Glenn Miller took in the website article that Turkel is so excited about, but readers should keep in mind that the meanings of words must be determined by the context in which they appear, and I will show below that the context supports the view that "the fathers" referred to here were the early generations of Christians.  The best way to do this would be to expose the holes in the preterist view and then present reasons why "the fathers" were probably early Christians .

First, the preterist point to the fact that "Peter" told his readers to be "be mindful of the words which were spoken before by the holy prophets."   They will say that the "holy prophets" here were not early Christians but the prophets who had lived in the days of the Old Testament prophets, and I agree with this much of their "argument."  However, New Testament writers claimed in many places that the prophets of old had spoken of Jesus Christ.  On the day of Pentecost, the apostle Peter quoted a prophecy from Joel 2:28ff and a passage from Psalm 16, which he claimed was a prophecy about Jesus, and said that these prophecies had been fulfilled in what the people in his audience had seen and were seeing.  "Peter" even alluded to these prophecies earlier in his second epistle.

2 Peter 1:16 For we did not follow cunningly devised fables when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but were eyewitnesses of His majesty. ¹⁷For He received from God the Father honor and glory when such a voice came to Him from the Excellent Glory: "This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased." ¹⁸And we heard this voice which came from heaven when we were with Him on the holy mountain.

This paragraph is an obvious allusion to the transfiguration scene, recorded in Matthew 17:1ff, a scene that Peter allegedly witnessed.  The voice from heaven on that occasion identified the transfigured Jesus as God's son.  After relating this event, "Peter" then argued that the voice from heaven on that occasion had confirmed the prophecies that had been spoken about Jesus.

¹⁹ And so we have the prophetic word confirmed, which you do well to heed as a light that shines in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts; ²⁰knowing this first, that no prophecy of Scripture is of any private interpretation, ²¹for prophecy never came by the will of man, but holy men of God spoke as they were moved by the Holy Spirit.

Later, as "Peter" was winding down his epistle in chapter three, he referred back to what the prophets had spoken about Jesus and urged his readers to remember the words of those prophets and the commands that the apostles had spoken.  This allusion to the prophets of old, however, would give no reason at all to suppose that "the fathers" who had fallen asleep were the fathers in Old Testament times.  Two points speak against this interpretation: (1)  The concern in this text is the second coming of Jesus.  (2) The prophets of old did not speak of a second coming of the Messiah.  That the Messiah would come into the world but then have to come again is a New Testament idea.  Old Testament writers, especially the minor prophets, referred to a "day of the Lord [Yahweh]," but I know of no text where this term was used in reference to a second coming of a Messiah.  To the Old Testament writers, "the day of the Lord [Yahweh]" would be a day of  massive devastation and destruction.

Joel 1:15 Alas for the day! For the day of the LORD is at hand; it shall come as destruction from the Almighty.

Joel 2:1  Blow the trumpet in Zion, and sound an alarm in My holy mountain! Let all the inhabitants of the land tremble; for the day of the LORD is coming, for it is at hand....

Joel 3:14  Multitudes, multitudes in the valley of decision! For the day of the LORD is near in the valley of decision. ¹⁵The sun and moon will grow dark, and the stars will diminish their brightness.

Obediah 15  For the day of the LORD upon all the nations is near; as you have done, it shall be done to you; your reprisal shall return upon your own head.

Zephaniah 1:14 The great day of the LORD is near; it is near and hastens quickly. The noise of the day of the LORD is bitter; there the mighty men shall cry out. ¹⁵That day is a day of wrath, a day of trouble and distress, a day of devastation and desolation, a day of darkness and gloominess, a day of clouds and thick darkness....

The broader contexts of these and other passages too numerous to quote speak of this "day of the Lord" as a day of terrible punishment and destruction.  One of the most vivid descriptions was given by the prophet Malachi.

Malachi 4:1  "For behold, the day is coming, burning like an oven, and all the proud, yes, all who do wickedly will be stubble. And the day which is coming shall burn them up," Says Yahweh of hosts, "That will leave them neither root nor branch. ²But to you who fear My name the Sun of Righteousness shall arise with healing in His wings; and you shall go out and grow fat like stall-fed calves. ³You shall trample the wicked, for they shall be ashes under the soles of your feet on the day that I do this," says Yahweh  of hosts. ⁴"Remember the Law of Moses, My servant, which I commanded him in Horeb for all Israel, with the statutes and judgments. ⁵Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the LORD.

The concept of a "great and dreadful day of the LORD" was appropriated by New Testament writers and applied to the second coming of Jesus, and "Peter" could well have had this in mind in a verse of his text coming up.  In the previous sections of this series of replies, several scriptures have been quoted that showed a belief that "the day of the Lord" would be a day of judgment and punishment.  Paul warned those who were treasuring up to themselves wrath "in the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God," who would render to each one according to his deeds (Rom. 2:5).  In 1 Thessalonians 4:14ff, he told his readers that those of them who were yet alive "at the coming of the Lord" would not go before those who had already died, because the dead in Christ would rise first, and then those who were alive would be "caught up in the clouds"--there are those darned clouds again--to meet the Lord in the air and would then be forever with the Lord.  He then warned them that "the day of the Lord" would come as a thief in the night--the same analogy that Jesus and Peter used--so they should not let that day overtake them as a thief. 

The apostles, then, had repeatedly warned the first generation of Christians that Jesus was coming soon--so soon that some living in that generation would still be alive to meet him in the air. At that time, the "dead in Christ" would be resurrected, those living on the earth would be caught up in the air to "meet the Lord," and judgment would be rendered to every man according to his works. When did the resurrection of the dead in Christ take place in AD 70 and when were the Christians in Jerusalem "caught up" to meet the Lord in the air?  These are details that Turkel has conveniently been very quiet about.

All through the New Testament, the writers had warned of an imminent second coming, which the "prophets of old" had not spoken about.  The prophets of old had simply foretold that Jesus, the Messiah, would come, or at least the New Testament writers claimed.  I'm prepared to argue, if Turkel wishes to suffer further humiliation, that no Old Testament prophecies actually told of the coming of Jesus of Nazareth.  New Testament writers simply twisted certain prophecies to give them that spin, but I know of no New Testament writer who claimed that the "prophets of old" had actually prophesied that Jesus would come once and then come again. Thus, it is far more likely that the "fathers" in 2 Peter 3:4 were the fathers who had lived in the time of the apostles and had heard them promise that Jesus would return soon. "Peter" was admonishing his readers to remember the commands of the apostles. The failure of Jesus to return as promised had given rise to scoffers within the church, who were asking when this was going to happen, because "all things" were continuing as they were from the time that the fathers, who had first received this promise, had fallen asleep.

⁵For this they willfully forget: that by the word of God the heavens were of old, and the earth standing out of water and in the water, ⁶by which the world that then existed perished, being flooded with water. ⁷But the heavens and the earth which are now preserved by the same word, are reserved for fire until the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men.

Here is the analogy that gave Turkel so much trouble.  In my reply to his first article, I pointed out that the Bible presented Noah's flood as a literal flood that destroyed the world, so if the first destruction of the world was a literal destruction, why would the second destruction not be literal too?  This was his answer.

This is actually just another case of McTill being analogically impaired. Peter's analogy draws solely upon the human reaction to the Flood; it says zip about how they compare in terms of expression. Keep in mind that the Flood was not the "end of an age" and was not ever described using apocalyptic imagery as the destruction of Babylon, etc. was, and that again, these OT oracles freely mixed literal and figurative images, so that one can't merely argue "guilt by association" to make the fire part out as literal as the Flood part.

I have already dismantled these quibbles in Part Eight, so I will put the finishing touches on them now and let readers judge who the analogically impaired one is.  Unless Turkel is completely devoid of any ability to interpret literature, he should be able to see that "Peter's" purpose in this section of chapter 3 was to discredit the scoffing of those who were ridiculing belief in the second coming on the grounds that all things continue to be as they were "from the beginning of creation."  His tactic was to say, in effect, "All things haven't quite continued as they were from the beginning of creation, because these scoffers are forgetting that the world was created and then afterwards destroyed by water."  From there, he went on to argue that this same world will be destroyed once more but by fire this time. If this "world" that was going to be destroyed by fire was only a city and the fire was only symbolic, the analogy would become meaningless.  If Peter meant for his readers to understand that the "world" reserved for destruction by fire [figurative fire, of course] was only a city, then why did he choose the destruction of the entire world as a basis for his analogy when there were examples of cities and limited regions that had been destroyed by fire that he could have used in his comparison.  Sodom and Gomorrah come immediately to mind, because they were so often used in the Bible in warnings about the impending destruction of cities and limited regions.  Genesis 19:24-25 described the complete destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah by fire and brimstone, which Yahweh rained down from heaven.  Later, Jeremiah used Sodom and Gomorrah to convey what Yahweh would do when he overthrew the cities of Edom.

Jeremiah 49:18  As in the overthrow of Sodom and Gomorrah and the neighbor cities thereof, saith Jehovah, no man shall dwell there, neither shall any son of man sojourn therein.

Amos compared Yahweh's destruction of cities in Samaria to the overthrow of Sodom and Gomorrah.

Amos 4:11  "I overthrew some of you, as God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah, and you were like a firebrand plucked from the burning...."

The destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah was used to prophesy what was going to happen to Moab and Ammon.

Zephaniah 2:9  "Therefore, as I live," says Yahweh of hosts, the God of Israel, "Surely Moab shall be like Sodom, and the people of Ammon like Gomorrah—overrun with weeds and saltpits, and a perpetual desolation."

Isaiah used the same comparison in his prophecy of the destruction of Babylon.

Isaiah 13:19  And Babylon, the glory of kingdoms, the beauty of the Chaldeans' pride, will be as when God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah.  ²⁰It will never be inhabited, nor will it be settled from generation to generation....

One has to wonder, then, why "Peter," if he was predicting only the destruction of Jerusalem, with perhaps the surrounding area of Judea thrown in for good measure, didn't use the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah or Babylon as the first part of his analogy.  In fact, one could even wonder why he didn't just use Jerusalem itself, because his readers would have surely known about the destruction of Jerusalem when the Babylonians sacked it.  Jeremiah 52:12-14 and 2 Kings 25:8-9, in virtually identical passages, recorded that destruction.

⁸And in the fifth month, on the seventh day of the month (which was the nineteenth year of King Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon), Nebuzaradan the captain of the guard, a servant of the king of Babylon, came to Jerusalem. ⁹He burned the house of Yahweh and the king's house; all the houses of Jerusalem, that is, all the houses of the great, he burned with fire. ¹⁰And all the army of the Chaldeans who were with the captain of the guard broke down the walls of Jerusalem all around.

If "Peter" had really meant what Turkel claims, just look at the opportunity he had to give his readers a perfect analogy.  Here is how he could have written the analogy.

1 Till 3:5-7 For this they [the scoffers] willfully forget: that Jerusalem was once destroyed by the Babylonians; its walls were broken down, and the temple of the LORD and all the houses in the city were burned. ⁷ This same city is now preserved by the same word of God  and reserved for fire once more at the coming of the day of the LORD.

If "Peter" had used this perfect analogy, comparing the city about to be destroyed with its previous destruction, everyone would agree on what this disputed text meant, and we would not be having this debate.  I'll say once more that things have come to a sorry state of affairs when an ordinary, everyday, very fallible fellow like me can communicate more clearly than someone who was inspired by an omniscient, omnipotent deity.

I have no doubt that readers who don't have any pet doctrine to defend will have no problem understanding what "Peter" meant in this passage I am explicating.  He was clearly saying to his readers that those who are scoffing at the promised return of Jesus willfully forget that the entire world was once destroyed by God, so they should not find it hard to believe that it was going to be destroyed once again.  To say that "Peter" was merely comparing in this passage the destruction of the whole world to a figurative destruction of Jerusalem by fire is to be... well, analogically impaired. 

⁸But, beloved, do not forget this one thing, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day. ⁹The Lord is not slack concerning His promise, as some count slackness, but is longsuffering toward us, not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance.

This passage was covered in detail in Part Eight, so there is no need to plow the same ground twice.  The writer of 1 Peter, if written by the apostle Peter, had warned around AD 60-64 that "the end of all things is at hand" (4:7), but decades had passed with no indication that the end was near.  Damage control was necessary, so a second epistle, attributed to Peter, was written to give an explanation for the delay.  That explanation was that the Lord is not slack concerning this promise but was just longsuffering so that more opportunity for repentance could be given to people, who should meanwhile remember that "at hand" or "soon" to the Lord doesn't mean the same thing that it does to ordinary people.  One day to the Lord is as a thousand years, and a thousand years is as one day, so whenever the end of all things finally does come, it could be said that it had been at hand all along as far as the Lord was concerned.

It was, as I said, damage control, which rivals some of the "explanations" of biblical problems that we encounter today.  Since my purpose here is to explicate the meaning of 2 Peter 3, I will limit my comments about the credibility of "Peter's" excuse to a simple observation.  If the Bible is God's inspired word to mankind, then it was written for the benefit of humans.  We would therefore expect that the language it was written in would have been language intended for human beings, but "Peter's" excuse for the delay in the return of Jesus would mean that when he and other New Testament writers had said that the end was at hand or would "shortly come to pass," they were using time language that would have been meaningful only to God, so we have to wonder why an omniscient, omnipotent deity would have inspired his chosen ones to write for him rather than the humans who needed the "salvation" that would come from understanding the "inspired" word.  Wouldn't an omniscient, omnipotent deity have already known when the "coming of the Lord" would be?  The New Testament claims that he did: "But of that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, but My Father only" (Matt. 24:36).  So if the omniscient, omnipotent one already knew all about the return of the Lord, why would he have inspired Peter to write about the time factor in language that would have been meaningful only to him?

That problem aside, it remains clear to all who don't have pet beliefs to protect that this passage was saying that the entire world was going to be destroyed by fire just as the entire world had once been destroyed by water.

¹⁰But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night, in which the heavens will pass away with a great noise, and the elements will melt with fervent heat; both the earth and the works that are in it will be burned up.

Turkel and his preterist cohorts say that this was just figurative fire, apocalyptic language, which meant only that Jerusalem would be destroyed to bring the "age of law" to an end, yet neither Jerusalem nor the law are mentioned anywhere in this text.  The preterists have nothing on their side except flagrant assertions for which they cannot offer any linguistic evidence.  Turkel said in his first article on this issue that preterism had a "much longer pedigree" than dispensationalism and that the idea that the Olivet discourse referred to events of AD 70 dates back to commentators like Lightfoot (1859), Newton (1754), and Gill (1809).  Admittedly, dispensationalism and its idea of a "rapture" are recent concepts, but if Matthew 24 and 2 Peter 3 really meant what Turkel and his preterist cohorts claim, he should be able to quote early church writers like Clement I, Ignatius, Justin Martyr, Tertullian, Irenaeus, and others who made it clear in their writings that they understood  the conflagration described by "Peter" and the astronomical signs described by Jesus in the Olivet discourse to be just figurative, apocalyptic descriptions of the end of "the age of law" through the destruction of Jerusalem.  Why hasn't Turkel produced such early testimony as this?

To show that I'm not asking Turkel to do anything that I'm not willing to do myself, I will now show that early writers clearly depicted in their writings that there would be an imminent destruction of the world by fire, which would be accompanied by the second coming of Jesus and a final judgment.  Turkel likes to pretend that he knows all about the "Semitic mind" and never tires of accusing his adversaries of misunderstanding the Bible because they are not familiar with the ancient cultures in which the Bible originated, but if he were even one tenth the expert in this field that he claims, he would know that destruction of the world by fire was deeply embedded in Persian, Grecian, Roman, and even Hebrew philosophy.   This belief was taught by Zeno and propagated by the stoics from the first century BC to the third century AD, and the theme of a final conflagration was recurrent in the Sibylline Oracles, which dated from the second century BC to the seventh century AD.  During this interval, ten Sybils, who were all presented as aged seers, lived and wrote their prophecies.  Their "oracles" addressed various biblical subjects, including eschatology, in which oracles the theme of final destruction and punishment by fire was recurrent.  The following passage is in Book 2: lines 196-213.

And then a great river of blazing fire
will flow from heaven, and will consume every place,
land and great ocean and gleaming sea,
lakes and rivers, springs and implacable Hades
and the heavenly vault.  But the heavenly luminaries
will crash together, also into an utterly desolate form.
For the stars will fall together from heaven on the sea.
All the souls of men will gnash their teeth,
burning in a river, and brimstone and a rush of fire
in a fiery plain, and ashes will cover all.
And then all the elements of the world will be bereft--
air, land, sea, light, vault of heaven, days, nights.
No longer will innumerable birds fly in the air.
Swimming creatures will no longer swim the sea at all.
No laden ship will voyage on the waves,
No guiding oxen will plow the soil.
No sound of trees under the winds.  But at once all
will melt into one and separate into clean air.

Book 3, in a passage thought to refer to Cleopatra, the famous first-century BC Egyptian queen, presents a similar description of the end of the world (lines 75-90).

Then indeed the world will be governed under the hands of a woman,
and be obedient in everything.
Then when a widow reigns over the whole world,
and throws gold and silver into the wondrous brine
and casts the bronze and iron of ephemeral men
into the sea, then all the elements of the universe
will be bereft, when God who dwells in the sky
rolls up the heaven as a scroll is rolled,
and the whole variegated vault of heaven falls
on the wondrous earth and ocean.  An undying cataract
of raging fire will flow, and burn earth, burn sea,
and melt the heavenly vault and days and creation itself
into one and separate them into clear air.
There will no longer be twinkling spheres of luminaries,
no night, no dawn, no numerous days of care,
no spring, no summer, no winter, no autumn.
And then indeed the judgment of the great God
will come into the midst of the great world, when all these things happen.

This passage would shed light on Isaiah 34:4, one of Turkel's "apocalyptic" proof texts, which spoke of the "host of heaven" being "dissolved" and the heavens being "rolled together as a scroll."  The language is strikingly similar to lines 81-83 above in a context too clear not to understand that this "sybil" was predicting the destruction of the world by fire.  Another eschatological description similar to these, with more emphasis on the punishment phase, is in Book 8, lines 337-358.

Then in time all the elements of the world will be bereft,
air, land, sea, light of blazing fire,
and heavenly dome and night and all days
will rush together into one, into an utterly desolate form.
For all the stars of luminaries will fall from heaven
and no longer will well-winged birds fly on the air
nor will there be walking on earth, for all wild beasts will perish.
There will be no voices of men, or beasts, or birds.
The world, in disorder, will hear no useful sound.
The deep sea will resound with a great sound of threat.
All the swimming creatures of the sea will die, trembling.
No longer will a ship bearing cargo sail on the waves.
The earth being bloodied by wars, will bellow.
All the souls of men will gnash their teeth.
With the wailings and panic of the lawless souls,
dissolving with thirst and famine and pestilence and murders,
and they will call death fair and it will evade them
For no longer will death give rest to those, or night.
Often they make request of God who rules on high, in vain,
and then he will manifestly turn away his face from them.
For he gave seven days of ages for repentance
to erring men, through the intercession of the holy virgin. 

There are too many references in these "oracles" to an end of the world by fire to look at them all, so I will quote just one more from Book 7 (lines 118-131), which is one of the most vivid descriptions of  the final conflagration that was so commonly believed in this era.

Woe to you, wretched one, woe, evil-spirited sea.
You will be devoured by fire, and you will destroy people with brine.
For there will be as much fire raging on the earth
as water, and it will flow and destroy the whole earth.
It will burn up mountains, burn rivers and empty springs.
The world will be chaos when men perish.
Then wretched men, burning badly, will look
on heaven, void of stars but overcome by fire.
They will not be destroyed quickly but, being burned in spirit
by their perishing flesh for the years of ages
forever, they will know, by dire tortures, that it is not possible
to deceive the law of God.  The earth, under constraint
has perceived that whichever of the gods she dared to accept
in falsehood on her altars was smoke, misty through the sky.

The Sibylline concepts of a final destruction of the earth with fire so intense that it will dissolve the elements of the earth and cause the heavens to collapse were obviously echoed in 2 Peter 3:1ff, but Turkel and his cohorts will no doubt say that the Sibylline Oracles have nothing to do with 2 Peter, because the oracles were not "inspired" and Peter was.  Never mind that the oracles and other literature of the time clearly showed a  belief in the final destruction of the earth by fire in the very time period in which 2 Peter was written, regardless of whether we date it before or after AD 70.  Those who have emotionally important beliefs to defend aren't a bit shy about engaging in special pleading to protect their pet doctrines, so in anticipation of such quibbles as this, I guess I will have to resort to overkill.

The Apocalypse of Peter was considered "canonical" by some of the early church fathers. It was listed in both the second-century Muratorian and the fourth-century Claramontan canons. In his Prophetical Extracts (ca. 190), Clement of Alexandria quoted the Apocalypse of Peter, which would necessarily imply an early date of authorship. The early date was further indicated by Theophilus of Antioch's quotation of the Akhmîm fragment of the Apocalypse in ca. 180. The source of Clement's quotations are unequivocal, because he clearly identified it.

The Scripture says that the children exposed by parents are delivered to a protecting angel, by whom they are brought up and nourished. And they shall be, it says, as the faithful of a hundred years old here. Wherefore Peter also says in his Apocalypse, "and a flash of fire, coming from their children and smiting the eyes of the women" (41:1).

The providence of God doth not light upon them only that are in the flesh. For example, Peter in the Apocalypse saith that the children born out of due time (abortively) that would have been of the better part (i. e., would have been saved if they had lived)--these are delivered to a care-taking angel, that they may partake of knowledge and obtain the better abode, having suffered what they would have suffered had they been in the body. But the others (i.e., those who would not have been saved, had they lived) shall only obtain salvation, as beings that have been injured and had mercy shown to them, and shall continue without torment, receiving that as a reward.  "But the milk of the mothers which flows from their breasts and congeals," says Peter in the Apocalypse, "shall beget tiny flesh-eating beasts and they shall run over them and devour them"--which teaches that the punishments will come to pass by reason of the  sins.  (48:1 ).

If Clement quoted the Apocalypse of Peter, then it had to have been written fairly early in the Christian era.  Some mainstream biblical scholars assign it a date earlier than  2 Peter, and some even think that it was written before the book of Revelation. Regardless of its date, notice that in the first quotation from Clement's Prophetical Extracts (above), he called the Apocalypse of Peter "scripture."  That indicates the esteem that this famous bishop had for the book.

There are variations in the copies of this "apocalypse," just as there are variations in the existing biblical manuscripts.  Clement quoted the Ethiopic version, so the section I quote below will be taken from it (translation by H. Duensing).  It can be found in many of the books that contain apocryphal literature but is accessible on the internet. Its introduction is significant because it purports to contain revelations about the second coming.  Notice that the introduction clearly associated the second coming of Jesus with the resurrection from the dead.

The Second Coming of Christ and Resurrection of the Dead (which Christ revealed unto Peter) who died because of their sins, for that they kept not the commandment of God their creator.

This work purports to contain information that Peter received directly from Jesus on the mount of Olives, and the allusions to statements that are in Matthew 24 and its parallel accounts indicate that its author intended it to be understand as additional information not contained in the synoptic accounts.  The introduction that relates this material to the "second coming of Christ and the resurrection of the dead" provides very strong evidence that the early church associated the second coming with the resurrection and judgment so frequently referred to in the New Testament.

And he (Peter) pondered thereon, that he might perceive the mystery of the Son of God, the merciful and lover of mercy.

And when the Lord was seated upon the Mount of Olives, his disciples came unto him.

And we besought and entreated him severally and prayed him, saying unto him: Declare unto us what are the signs of thy coming and of the end of the world, that we may perceive and mark the time of thy coming and instruct them that come after us, unto whom we preach the word of thy gospel, and whom we set over (in) thy church, that they when they hear it may take heed to themselves and mark the time of thy coming.

 And our Lord answered us, saying: Take heed that no man deceive you, and that ye be not doubters and serve other gods. Many shall come in my name, saying: I am the Christ. Believe them not, neither draw near unto them. For the coming of the Son of God shall not be plain (i.,e., foreseen); but as the lightning that shineth from the east unto the west, so will I come upon the clouds of heaven with a great host in my majesty; with my cross going before my face will I come in my majesty, shining sevenfold more than the sun will I come in my majesty with all my saints, mine angels (mine holy angels). And my Father shall set a crown upon mine head, that I may judge the quick and the dead and recompense every man according to his works.

This introduction to the Apocalypse clearly shows its connection to the Olivet discourse on which Turkel and his cohorts base their preterist views.  The statements I have emphasized in bold print show that this work was clearly concerned with signs of the coming of Jesus and the end of the world, at which time the coming of the "son of God" would be a highly visible event taking place in the "clouds of heaven" in the company of a "great host."  Preterists could argue that these references were just more examples of "apocalyptic" language that wasn't intended to be understood literally any more than the language in the synoptic gospels, but please notice the last statement in the quotation.  When this coming takes place, Jesus was to "judge the quick and the dead and recompense every man according to his works."  This is more specific than the synoptic accounts, which said only that the angels accompanying Jesus would "gather together his elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other."  Turkel et al claim that this simply meant that the "elect" would be gathered by the preaching of the gospel, but the Apocalypse stated that Jesus at this time would judge the quick and the dead.  This more clearly describes the biblical concept of a final judgment that would accompany the second coming and the destruction of the world.  How would preterists say that the judging of the dead occurred when Jerusalem was destroyed to end the "age of the law"?  Perhaps they would just engage in a bit of special pleading and say that they don't need to explain it because the Apocalypse of Peter wasn't inspired.  I'll get back to this possible quibble later after we have looked at an extended passage in this work that undeniably presented a belief that the world would be destroyed by fire.  I am quoting this from the website identified above.  Because of defects in the manuscript, there are some places where the translator assumed what was meant in the missing fragments.  These are indicated in parentheses.  The quotation begins after a section where "Peter" had described how God at the coming of the "son of man" would bring to life again even animals and vegetation in a manner described in the way that the "Son of man" was told to "prophesy upon the several bones," a probable allusion to Ezekiel 37.  The important thing to notice in this passage is the explicit description of the destruction of the world by fire in language too graphic to be just figurative.

How much more shall God raise up on the day of decision them that believe in him and are chosen of him, for whose sake he made the world? And all things shall the earth restore on the day of decision, for it also shall be judged with them, and the heaven with it.

And this shall come at the day of judgment upon them that have fallen away from faith in God and that have committed sin: Floods (cataracts) of fire shall be let loose; and darkness and obscurity shall come up and clothe and veil the whole world and the waters shall be changed and turned into coals of fire and all that is in them shall burn, and the sea shall become fire. Under the heaven shall be a sharp fire that cannot be quenched and floweth to fulfill the judgment of wrath. And the stars shall fly in pieces by flames of fire, as if they had not been created and the powers (firmaments) of the heaven shall pass away for lack of water and shall be as though they had not been. And the lightnings of heaven shall be no more, and by their enchantment they shall affright the world (probably: The heaven shall turn to lightning and the lightnings thereof shall affright the world.) The spirits also of the dead bodies shall be like unto them (the lightnings?) and shall become fire at the commandment of God.

And so soon as the whole creation dissolveth, the men that are in the east shall flee unto the west, unto the east; they that are in the south shall flee to the north, and they that are in the south. And in all places shall the wrath of a fearful fire overtake them and an unquenchable flame driving them shall bring them unto the judgement of wrath, unto the stream of unquenchable fire that floweth, flaming with fire, and when the waves thereof part themselves one from another, burning, there shall be a great gnashing of teeth among the children of men.

Then shall they all behold me coming upon an eternal cloud of brightness: and the angels of God that are with me shall sit (prob. And I shall sit) upon the throne of my glory at the right hand of my Heavenly Father; and he shall set a crown upon mine head. And when the nations behold it, they shall weep, every nation apart.

Then shall he command them to enter into the river of fire while the works of every one of them shall stand before them (something is wanting) to every man according to his deeds. As for the elect that have done good, they shall come unto me and not see death by the devouring fire. But the unrighteous, the sinners, and the hypocrites shall stand in the depths of darkness that shall not pass away, and their chastisement is the fire, and angels bring forward their sins and prepare for them a place wherein they shall be punished forever (every one according to his transgression).

Uriel (Urael) the angel of God shall bring forth the souls of those sinners (every one according to his transgression: perhaps this clause should end the preceding paragraph: so Grebaut takes it) who perished in the flood, and of all that dwelt in all idols, in every molten image, in every (object of) love, and in pictures, and of those that dwelt on all hills and in stones and by the wayside, whom men called gods: they shall burn them with them (the objects in which they dwelt, or their worshippers?) in everlasting fire; and after that all of them with their dwelling places are destroyed, they shall be punished eternally. 

At this point the Apocalypse began a description of the agonies of hell that await the unjust on this day of judgment.  From this extended quotation, those who do not have a pet belief to defend should be able to see the following points:  (1)  These were revelations that Jesus allegedly gave to Peter at the time of his "Olivet discourse."  (2)  Peter had asked for signs of the coming of Jesus and the end of the world.  (3)  Jesus told Peter that his coming would be in the clouds with the "angels of God."  (4)  His coming would be preceded by the destruction of the earth and heavens by intense fire.  (5)  His coming would mark the resurrection of the dead and bring about a final judgment that would condemn the wicked to suffer punishment in the fires of hell. 

In view of the early authorship of the Apocalypse of Peter and the esteem in which it was held by Clement and other early church fathers, we have to wonder why the writer of this work didn't know that the son of man had already come in AD 70 and that the world had already been destroyed by figurative fire.  To say that this work was not "inspired" is to engage in special pleading, but more than that it would be a blatant evasion of a huge problem that Turkel must explain.  Even if the Apocalypse of Peter were not "inspired," how can preterists account for the fact that a work written as early as this one showed an unawareness of the preterist version of the "coming of the son of man"?  If the preterist position is correct, those living in the time of the writer of this book would surely have known that fulfillment of the promise of an imminent return of Jesus had already happened.  This esteemed work, however, shows a total ignorance of any such claim.

The conclusion is inescapable for those who have no pet belief to defend.  Second Peter 3 presented a prevailing view of the time, which was that the earth would be destroyed in a catastrophic conflagration that would melt the elements and cause the heavens to collapse with a great noise.  The coming of Jesus and the final judgment would accompany that conflagration.

In a word, Turkel's preterist position is wrong.  It is, as I have repeatedly said, just another attempt to try to explain that the prophecies of Jesus's imminent return did not fail. 

In addition to its vivid descriptions of the end of the world by fire, apocryphal literature written after AD 70 also indicates that the writers knew nothing about a "coming of the Lord" that had already happened.  Clement I, not to be confused with Clement of Alexandria mention above, wrote two epistles to the Corinthians.  The Anchor Bible Dictionary (v. 1, p. 1060) assigned 95 or 96 AD as the most likely date of this epistle. 

The epistle is customarily dated to the end of the reign of Domitian (95 or 96 C.E.). In the first sentence of the letter, the author explains that the Roman church has been delayed in turning its attention to the dispute at Corinth by "sudden and repeated misfortunes and hindrances which have befallen us" (1:1). This statement is usually interpreted as an allusion to a persecution through which the church at Rome has just been passing. Since chap. 5 speaks of the Neronian persecution as something long past, the sporadic assaults of Domitian must be meant.

The dating of 1 Clement after AD 70 poses a problem for the preterist position, because Clement referred to the coming of the Lord as an event yet to happen.

1 Clement 16:2-4  We must therefore be ready and forward in well doing; for from him are all things.  And thus he foretells us, behold the Lord cometh, and his reward is with him, even before his face, to render to everyone according to his work.  He warns us therefore beforehand, with all his heart to this end, that we should not be slothful and negligent in well doing.

1 Clement 11:14-15  Of a truth, yet a little while and his will shall suddenly be accomplished.  The Holy Scripture itself bearing witness that He shall quickly come and not tarry, and the Lord shall suddenly come to his temple, even the holy ones whom ye look for.

These passages echo the warnings to be prepared that are found in New Testament passages like the Olivet discourse and 2 Peter 3:1ff, so it is strange why Clement, writing well after the date that Turkel claims that the Lord came didn't seem to know that it had happened.

The Epistle of Barnabas, apocryphally attributed to the missionary companion of the apostle Paul, has been dated as late as 135, although some scholars think it was written earlier.  I have seen none who date it earlier than AD 70.  In this epistle, "Barnabas" also referred to the "coming" as an event that was yet to happen.

Barnabas 15:10-13  For the day is at hand in which all things shall be destroyed together with the wicked one.  The Lord is near, and his reward is with him.

The reference to the destruction of "all things" being "at hand" echoed "Peter's" warning in 1 Peter 4:7, and the warning that the "Lord is near, and his reward is with him," is almost identical to Revelation 22:12, which Turkel and his preterist cohorts claim was fulfilled in AD 70 with the destruction of Jerusalem.

"And behold, I am coming quickly, and My reward is with Me, to give to every one according to his work."

Whoever wrote the Epistle of Barnabas was surely a Christian of some conviction, so it is a bit strange that this person did not know that the Lord had already come and brought his reward with him.

Now I'll continue explicating the text in 2 Peter 3.

¹¹Therefore, since all these things will be dissolved, what manner of persons ought you to be in holy conduct and godliness, ¹²looking for and hastening the coming of the day of God, because of which the heavens will be dissolved, being on fire, and the elements will melt with fervent heat?

The literature that I have quoted from this period, which was only a fraction of what was written on the subject, support the view that "Peter" was speaking literally here.  The elements of the earth would literally dissolve in fervent heat and the heavens would collapse with a great noise.  The prevailing view was that this conflagration would be accompanied by the second coming of Jesus, in the clouds of heaven with his angels, at which time he would judge the living and the dead.  Hence, Peter was rhetorically admonishing his readers to be prepared for this cataclysmic event that would end the world and usher in their judgment.

¹³Nevertheless we, according to His promise, look for new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells.

This verse is referring to what will follow the final cataclysm, so it isn't really important to my premise that this text was describing a literal destruction of the world by fire.  However, I will take time to state my opinion.  At this time, there was a belief that a "regeneration" [paliggenesia] would follow the end of the world, and "Peter" seemed to be expressing his belief that this would happen.  Jesus alluded to this "regeneration" in a comment to Peter.

Matthew 19:17  Then Peter answered and said to Him, "See, we have left all and followed You. Therefore what shall we have?" ²⁸So Jesus said to them, "Assuredly I say to you, that in the regeneration [paliggenesia], when the Son of Man sits on the throne of His glory, you who have followed Me will also sit on twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel. ²⁹And everyone who has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or wife or children or lands, for My name's sake, shall receive a hundredfold, and inherit eternal life. ³⁰But many who are first will be last, and the last first."

Such texts as this suggested a belief that after the destruction of the world, it will be renewed or regenerated.   Peter may have been expressing this belief, but, as I said, this is not really relevant to the issue at hand, for if Peter did mean that a "regeneration" of the earth and heavens would occur, this would take place after the destruction of the world. Before a "regeneration" could occur a destruction would have to happen.

I have taken the time to write a detailed explication of this text, which is at the center of the preterist controversy.  Turkel has an obligation to analyze this explication and show where I have erred in my exegesis of the passage.  I predict that he will not do that.   I predict, in fact, that he will ignore 90% of my rebuttal arguments in this series of replies to him.  He has too much pride, of course, to ignore everything, but any replies that he makes will probably be typical of his past performances.  He will wave at some of my comments in passing and call that responding.  Of course, he will try to camouflage his inability to reply by slinging about a few "McTills" and other derogatory comments.

The conclusion to 2 Peter 3 deserves consideration before I close this part of my replies to Turkel's preterist legerdemain.

¹⁴Therefore, beloved, looking forward to these things, be diligent to be found by Him in peace, without spot and blameless; ¹⁵and consider that the longsuffering of our Lord is salvation—as also our beloved brother Paul, according to the wisdom given to him, has written to you, ¹⁶as also in all his epistles, speaking in them of these things, in which are some things hard to understand, which untaught and unstable people twist to their own destruction, as they do also the rest of the Scriptures.

This text is another indication that 2 Peter was written well after AD 70, because the writer alluded to the epistles of Paul and called them "scriptures" to indicate that at the time this epistle was written, Paul's writings had acquired general recognition of being "scriptures," but competent scholars see no evidence that the writings of Paul had been so esteemed within the lifetime of Peter.  However, I quoted this passage not to present further proof of late authorship but to make a point about the writer's reference to the "twisting" of scriptures.  In my debates with biblical inerrantists, I have encountered many who twist and distort the meanings of various scriptures in order to find some way to explain away discrepancies, but I have to say that Turkel is the king of the heap in this respect.  I have yet to meet anyone who will resort to distortions to the degree that he does.  In browsing the internet, I once encountered the following list of ways that one can tell when someone is twisting the scriptures.  It was written by a Bible-believer, of course, who was taking aim at those who didn't agree with his doctrinal beliefs, but I think that his points are worth consideration here.  Everyone should be able to see immediately how fittingly they describe Turkel's debating antics.

Some symptoms of scripture twisting are:

1. If you require the verse to have a "deeper meaning" that goes contrary to the plain meaning everyone would understand that the author intended. If this was tolerated, then every verse that commands or says something a person does not like, just might have an alleged "real meaning" contrary to what God plainly is saying.

2. You are required to say that the Greek or Hebrew has a particular meaning that no native speaker of Greek or Hebrew would not recognize.

3. If the meaning you want to give a scripture goes against other scriptures and the general tone of the rest of the Bible.

4. If you are more concerned with explaining away a scripture than explaining a scripture. In contrast, it is better if your theology not only explains [away] a scripture, but requires the truth of that scripture.

5. In the extreme, your interpretation means that God kept hidden from every believer for almost 2,000 years a special, secret meaning that he has now revealed to you.

How many times have we seen Turkel resort to all of these and especially numbers 1, 2, 3, and 5.  Someone sent to me the URL of a website article that I thought was particularly perceptive in assessing the flaws in Turkel's apologetic methods. After discussing Turkel's lack of humility and his pervasive "use of ad hominem attacks, his sneering demeanor, his contemptuous and dismissive tone, his scorn and derision of anyone who differs from him," which he resorts to in order to "camouflage arguments that are patently weak, faulty, or irrelevant," the writer then presented the following assessment of Turkel's apologetic methods.   Readers will see that the writer echoed my own observations of Turkel's apologetics, which I had posted in various articles before I saw this one. Turkel's phony name was used in the article.

In regards to more substantive material, it is my impression that Mr. Holding essentially has only one argument, only one defense to skeptical attacks and charges of contradiction. This defense recurs throughout his site, phrased in a variety of different ways and appearing in a number of different guises, but it always boils down to the same thing. This defense, as I have pointed out before, is essentially, "The Bible doesn't mean what it says."

Naturally, though, Mr. Holding is never this blatant about saying so, and he has devised a wide variety of ways to say it so as not to appear that he is repeating himself. He might say that the Bible can't be "read like a newspaper." He might say that statements in it are "paradoxical" or "in tension," but they are never contradictory. It's not true that God doesn't know everything, but nevertheless there are some verses where he "feigns ignorance" and acts as if he doesn't. It's not true that two gospels depict the same event as having happened at different times--that's just an example of "dischronologized narrative." If a blanket statement contradicts some other verses, that statement is "proverbial literature" and thus non-absolute; or else there were exceptions "implicit in the social context." Or else that statement is a "strong, colorful expression," an "outrageous, rhetorical teaching technique," or an "exaggeration for emphasis," the product of a mindset that was "given to expressing itself in hyperbole and extremes." If an entire book contains many such blanket statements, it is a symbolic "discourse of a man who lives without knowledge of God" and we're supposed to realize that nothing in it can be taken literally. If a statement contradicts other statements by saying "don't do X," it's a "negation idiom," and what it means is "do do X." And if all else fails, Mr. Holding simply declares the contradiction "intentional," which "puts [it] beyond the measure of 'contradiction' and into the semantic realm of artistic license." After all, a Van Gogh painting can hardly be construed as "contradicting" a Picasso.

(I hear some major corporations have been using similar tactics in court lately--arguing that the blatant errors and discrepancies in their books were "intentional," which puts them beyond simple-minded measures of "legality" and into the semantic realm of artistic license. If only the investors had done their homework and learned to view reality through the eyes and mindset of a modern executive, they wouldn't have foolishly assumed these balance statements were intended to be true in all places and at all  times!)

My comments above about Mr. Holding's straining for any explanation rather than admit the errancy of the Bible apply with force here. In his bid to defend this book, which he believes to be the true Word of God, he has indeed actually declared some of the contradictions in it "artistic license." While the ludicrousness of the lengths he will go to may provoke laughter, the fact remains that he is deadly serious, and can offer such incredibly forced arguments without irony. This is, of course, another symptom of fundamentalist religious indoctrination, that memetic virus which has locked itself around the minds of Mr. Holding and those like him, preventing them from viewing the world through any lens but their own rigid preconceptions, and removing their ability to ever admit error or uncertainty in any matter of theological significance. (A clear case of Morton's Demon in action.)

Of course, I know what Mr. Holding would say in response to this. No doubt he would again charge me with failing to understand the Bible--arguing that it was originally written in different languages to reflect the different needs and cultural mores of the time, that not just anyone can sit down, crack it open and understand everything it says, and that the skeptics who try to do this and from there derive contradiction are naively imposing their ignorant, ethnocentric expectations on a text far more subtle and complicated than anything they could comprehend. In the past, he has directly accused me of failing to "do my homework" and stated quite bluntly that I am not qualified to comment on the Bible.

However, what Mr. Holding does not seem to realize is that, through his claims about the detailed study required to understand Christianity, he is accomplishing nothing except depriving his own faith of the universality that has always been claimed to be one of its biggest points of appeal.

Is he saying that only his level of knowledge is sufficient to truly understand Christianity? If so, then I will have to excuse myself and regretfully announce that I will never be a Christian, since I have no intention of devoting myself to a course of study in millennia-old languages and literary forms. I do have other things I want to do with my life. Or am I supposed to believe in Christianity without understanding it? Ironically, even if Mr. Holding is right about everything he's said, then all he's succeeded in doing is moving the Word of God further out of my reach.

In reality, one is hard-pressed to imagine what possible reason God would have for making his word so obscure, if his desire was that everyone would be saved. Mr. Holding's position is like that of a Muslim apologist who says that no one is qualified to understand or comment on Islam and the Qur'an unless they are fluent in Arabic. Or, for that matter, like a Scientologist who says no one has any right to criticize his church unless that person has first paid it tens of thousands of dollars to learn its teachings. If Mr. Holding actually holds to his own standard, he would have to admit that he has no right to pass judgment on the validity of either of those religions. (He might say he knows enough about Christianity to know that it's true and that all other religions are false, but couldn't the Muslim or the Scientologist make the same claim about his own beliefs?)

I think Mr. Holding is trying to create a false dilemma when he insists the Bible has to be comprehensible either to modern people such as me or to ancient people who were alive at the time of its writing. Could his omnipotent God not create a message that was universally understandable? Even if differing cultural norms made this logically impossible, why couldn't God have just sent some more recent prophets to guide the production of an authorized updated version, or better yet, why couldn't he personally oversee modern-day translations to make sure they conveyed exactly the message he wanted to get across? (This is, in fact, the position of what I suspect is the majority of conservative Christians, those whom Mr. Holding disparagingly calls "KJV-Onlyists" and frequently denigrates.)

I don't think this is a selfish or unreasonable expectation on my part. I'm merely saying that, if God wants his message of salvation to be heeded by all generations, he should make sure his message of salvation can be understood by all generations, and he should not unfairly require one generation to go through detailed study and education to be able to understand it while another can access it with relative ease. Is Mr. Holding disputing this statement? Does he claim that making his Word comprehensible is not God's highest priority?

The KJV-Onlyist position does have a few points in its favor, despite its deficiency in most areas. At least they claim that anyone can understand the Bible with little or no special training, whereas if Mr. Holding is correct, I shudder to think of the vast numbers unknowingly marching towards damnation because God's Word has been placed far beyond their intellectual grasp. Mr. Holding's constantly castigating skeptics for failing to understand the Bible just further goes to show how many souls are slipping away because, according to him, God has made his message to mankind confusing, obscure and inaccessible to most. And judging by the time Mr. Holding spends correcting his fellow believers--which is far less than the time he spends tearing into skeptics, but no matter--even most Christians can't understand the Bible. (Since the population is far larger today than it was when the Bible was written, if only one generation would get to understand it in their native lingo, shouldn't it have been us? More souls would have been saved that way....)

As far as I can see, Mr. Holding's place on the Christian spectrum has put him on the horns of a unique dilemma. He's liberal enough to claim that the Bible is the product of its time and place of origin, that it reflects the culture of the societies that produced it, and that modern lay readers probably won't be able to understand it for that reason. But he's conservative enough to argue that the Bible really is the only way to salvation and that those who reject it because they don't understand it will be lost. Needless to say, this is a very awkward position for him to occupy. If he were a bit more conservative, he might say that the Bible is universally accessible, that anyone who reads it can understand it and so those who reject it have no excuse. Alternatively, if he were a bit more liberal, he could say that the Bible isn't the only way to salvation and that those who reject it may still come to find God through other paths. Either of these options would give him a much more internally consistent theology; but he will have neither of them, and so he is trapped, balancing where he is.

Those who have followed my exchanges with Turkel probably recognized that I have repeatedly made some of these same observations.  Turkel has refused to address them, so my arguments stand unimpeached until he can explain to us just why an omniscient, omnipotent deity revealed to mankind a plan of salvation that will damn to eternal punishment in hell those who don't "obey" it but revealed it in such a way that, according to Turkel, one must devote years of his life to researching the "Semitic mind," Hebrew idioms, and ancient Near Eastern cultures in order to understand it.  As the article above asked, why couldn't such a deity have revealed the information in the Bible in a way that would have made it readily accessible to all?  Turkel has yet to give a satisfactory answer to this problem. 

The Philippian jailor, superstitiously terrified after a "great earthquake," asked Silas and the apostle Paul, "Sirs, what must I do to be saved."  Their answer was simple: "Believe on the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved" (Acts 16:29-31).  If someone asked Turkel that question, his answer, if it reflected everything he has written in his website articles, would have to be something like this: "Begin an intensive study of ancient Near Eastern cultures, languages, Hebrew nuances and idioms, Grecian and Roman socio-economic customs and then come ask me about anything you don't understand."  As the article above aptly demonstrated, Turkel's apologetics makes his so-called "word of God" inaccessible except to the intellectually elite, of whom, of course, he absurdly considers himself to be one.

The preterist debate is a prime example of the kind of Bible that Turkel claims his god revealed to us.  Information about the "day of the Lord" or the "coming of the Lord," whatever Turkel wishes to call it, was cloaked in language so figurative that it has spawned debates that have divided Christendom into warring camps that label themselves dispensationalists and preterists, the latter of which has divided itself into partial-preterists and full-preterists, each of which considers the other "heretical."  Is that any way for an omniscient, omnipotent deity to reveal his eternal will to mankind?

Turkel's elitist position about what it takes to understand the Bible runs completely contrary to what the Bible itself says about this subject.

Matthew 11:25  At that time Jesus answered and said, "I thank You, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that You have hidden these things from the wise and prudent and have revealed them to babes. ²⁶Even so, Father, for so it seemed good in Your sight."

1 Corinthians 1:26  For you see your calling, brethren, that not many wise according to the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble, are called. ²⁷But God has chosen the foolish things of the world to put to shame the wise, and God has chosen the weak things of the world to put to shame the things which are mighty; ²⁸and the base things of the world and the things which are despised God has chosen, and the things which are not, to bring to nothing the things that are, ²⁹that no flesh should glory in His presence.

These passages express the exact opposite of Turkel's position.  He claims that one must study ancient languages, cultures, and idioms in order to understand what God has revealed to mankind, but the Bible itself claims that what God has revealed is hidden from the wise but made known to "babes."  In the dispensationalist/preterist disputes, each side claims that it is the one who has the "babes" with the special insights needed to understand the biblical passages that spoke of the "coming" of the Lord.

I submit to readers that I have shown to the satisfaction of any reasonable person that neither dispensationalists nor preterists are right in this matter.  There was a first-century belief that the end was... well, at hand.  Christians, believing that Jesus was the Messiah who would usher in that end, and the final judgment to follow, predicted that he would come again, in a spectacle of heavenly signs, and judge the world in the lifetime of that generation.  When it didn't happen, believers in the incredible have done what they have always done.  They looked for some way to explain that the prophecies didn't really mean what they plainly said.  They were just figurative.

At this time, I have a work in progress that will take readers through Turkel's "Olivet Discourse" to make sure that all of his unproven assertions in his first article on the subject have been answered.  It will be posted under the title "Tying Together the Loose Ends."