SEYMOUR KREEVICH
ORIGIN: “The Apocalyptic Discourse” in Matthew 24 creates a huge problem for Christians. In it, Jesus makes several spectacular prophecies regarding “the End Time”: The sun will be darkened, the moon will not shine, the stars will fall from heaven (V.29), Jesus will come in the sky, all the tribes of the earth will see him coming (V.30), and the angels will gather the elect (V.31). [This seems to connect to the Last Judgment in 16:27 and 25:31-31.]
The problem lies in 24:34—”This generation will not pass, till all these things be fulfilled.”
In Scriptural terms, a generation is taken to mean a 40 year span. Starting from the premise that Jesus cannot possibly be wrong, Preterists invented an imaginary fulfillment. To Preterists, all these amazing events already occurred! They treat it as an historical occurrence despite the total lack of evidence that it has! And despite what verse 30 says about all the tribes of the earth seeing his Second Coming, an event that would shine from horizon east to horizon west (V.27). No culture on Earth has any record or recollection of these events, amazingly. Not very helpful, is it?
Yet Preterists confidently assert the reality of events that lack even a trace of substantiation. This must be classified as delusional thinking, and delusional thinking is one of the principal attributes of psychosis. (It would be saner to conclude that Jesus was plain wrong, but that’s an impossibility for them. Psychotics cannot let go of their delusion.)
Of course, when Christianity itself inculcates delusional thinking in a fundamental way, we should not be surprised when a faction within Christianity, a small and justly derided one, concocts their own new wrinkle to the entire delusional tableau.
And we should give them credit for inventiveness. Other Christians try to escape from the failure of Jesus to return as promised by resorting to absurd quibbles, like “generation”not meaning what it indicates, or that Jesus was not really speaking to the people he was speaking to, but to that generation that happened to be around when the END TIME (whether Second, or for Preterists, THIRD Coming) finally comes, an expectation now 2000 years and counting, with no Jesus in sight. Don’t hold your breath, Christians.
Or on second thought, DO!
MORE MISTAKES BY JESUS. Were Christians not suffering from their collective delusion, they would be able to recognize and admit it when Jesus made other mistakes. Like Matthew 23:35, where Jesus refers to “Zachariah the son of Berechiah” who was murdered between the Temple and the altar. 2 Chronicles 24:20-21 says this Zechariah was the son of Jehoiada. Jesus was confusing this Zezhariah with Zechariah the prophet, who was the son of Berechiah (Zech 1:1) And they are not the same person. They lived centuries apart. And there’s no record that the prophet was murdered.
JESUS WAS WRONG. Jesus was wrong when he said that the mustard seed was the smallest of seeds (Matthew 13:31-32) and that it becomes a tree (V.32). Or thinking that first-century Jewish women could initiate divorce (Mark 10:12). Or thinking that a fruit tree could bear fruit out of season (Mark 11: 12-14). [No miracle here!] Jesus quotes a non-existent Scripture in John 7:41). And he tells his soon-to-be martyred apostles, “Nothing shall by any means hurt you (Luke 10:19). Oops! Imagine the mental contortions required to explain these goofs away. It would test the credulousness of even Preterist loonies.