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By Merle Hertzler

RA,

I see your latest comment at the blog.

You appear to be sidestepping my point that Mark 13 is spoken directly to the apostles. Peter, James, John and Andrew are said to have met Jesus privately, and they are said to have asked him about the predicted destruction of the temple. The book of Mark reports that, in direct response, Jesus informed them they would experience certain events associated with that destruction. Notice that the words of Mark 13 are reportedly spoken by Jesus to these apostles in private. Again and again Jesus says that "you", that is, the apostles that he is addressing, will experience these things. To see the shear magnitude of this point, let us look at the passage again. The word "you" in the passage is put in bold italics below. Can there be any question that Jesus is saying that the apostles will experience these things? Here is the passage in question:

3 As He was sitting on the Mount of Olives opposite the temple, Peter and James and John and Andrew were questioning Him privately, 4 "Tell us, when will these things be, and what will be the sign when all these things are going to be fulfilled? 5 And Jesus began to say to them, "See to it that no one misleads you. 6 "Many will come in My name, saying, 'I am He!' and will mislead many. 7 "When you hear of wars and rumors of wars, do not be frightened; those things must take place; but that is not yet the end. 8 "For nation will rise up against nation, and kingdom against kingdom; there will be earthquakes in various places; there will also be famines. These things are merely the beginning of birth pangs. 9 "But be on your guard; for they will deliver you to the courts, and you will be flogged in the synagogues, and you will stand before governors and kings for My sake, as a testimony to them. 10 "The gospel must first be preached to all the nations. 11 "When they arrest you and hand you over, do not worry beforehand about what you are to say, but say whatever is given you in that hour; for it is not you who speak, but it is the Holy Spirit. 12 "Brother will betray brother to death, and a father his child; and children will rise up against parents and have them put to death. 13 "You will be hated by all because of My name, but the one who endures to the end, he will be saved. 14 "But when you see the ABOMINATION OF DESOLATION standing where it should not be (let the reader understand), then those who are in Judea must flee to the mountains. 15 "The one who is on the housetop must not go down, or go in to get anything out of his house; 16 and the one who is in the field must not turn back to get his coat. 17 "But woe to those who are pregnant and to those who are nursing babies in those days! 18 "But pray that it may not happen in the winter. 19 "For those days will be a time of tribulation such as has not occurred since the beginning of the creation which God created until now, and never will. 20 "Unless the Lord had shortened those days, no life would have been saved; but for the sake of the elect, whom He chose, He shortened the days. 21 "And then if anyone says to you, 'Behold, here is the Christ'; or, 'Behold, He is there'; do not believe him; 22 for false Christs and false prophets will arise, and will show signs and wonders, in order to lead astray, if possible, the elect. 23 "But take heed; behold, I have told you everything in advance. 24 "But in those days, after that tribulation, THE SUN WILL BE DARKENED AND THE MOON WILL NOT GIVE ITS LIGHT, 25 AND THE STARS WILL BE FALLING from heaven, and the powers that are in the heavens will be shaken. 26 "Then they will see THE SON OF MAN COMING IN CLOUDS with great power and glory. 27 "And then He will send forth the angels, and will gather together His elect from the four winds, from the farthest end of the earth to the farthest end of heaven.28 "Now learn the parable from the fig tree: when its branch has already become tender and puts forth its leaves, you know that summer is near. 29 "Even so, you too, when you see these things happening, recognize that He is near, right at the door. 30 "Truly I say to you, this generation will not pass away until all these things take place.

Can there be any question about what this is saying? He is clearly saying the apostles will experience these events.

Now they did indeed experience the first part of the chapter, which deals with the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 AD. (And no, I didn't find your arguments that this chapter is referring to some far future event to be very convincing.) But the apostles did not experience the stars falling from heaven and the Son of Man descending in the clouds as predicted. That part of the prophecy failed. Could it be that the first part is true, because Mark wrote after those events, but the second part failed because Mark was not a good predictor of the future?

Why does Mark have Jesus continually say the apostles will experience this, if it was not intended to apply to their time, but to a time far in the future? And why does Mark 13 say all of these things will be fulfilled before that generation passed, if that generation passed long before those things were all fulfilled?

Okay, now let's look at your comments.

In direct response to my questions, "Why does Jesus continually say that 'you', that is, the apostles whom he was addressing, would see these things? Why does he say that it would happen in the disciple's generation(v 30)?", you write:

This totally ignores my point. Why not address the questions?

You say your exegesis of  “let him who hears understand.” answers this. Well, notice first, that the phrase, "let him who hears understand" that you supposedly did an exegesis on does not even appear in this chapter!. You are probably referring to the place where Mark inserts the parenthetical, "let the reader understand". Obviously this was inserted by Mark, and was not spoken by Jesus. Had Jesus said this in person, he would have said, "Let him who hears understand." He would have been speaking to hearers, not writing to readers. This parenthetical expression addresses readers. Obviously, Mark inserted it. Now if this phrase so clearly expresses a "simultaneous near-future historical event" (as you put it) why did Jesus not tell the disciples that the word "you" is overridden by this parenthetical expression that would later be inserted by Mark, and that the word "you" doesn't really mean that "you" will experience these things?

And you say your exegesis of this phrase answers my argument? You said little more about this phrase other than, "If the note '(let the reader understand)' is an expression of a simultaneous near-future historical event and apocalypse, there isn't much of a problem." You have offered no proof that this note could mean "near-future historical event and apocalypse" And you call this an exegesis?

The phrase about this generation passing is indeed after the part about the temple, but where does the chapter say anything about it being far into the future? It couldn't be long after the destruction of the temple, for generations don't last very long. And the chapter says that all of these things will be fulfilled before "this generation", that is, the generation that hears, passes away. RA, that generation has long passed, and all these things were not fulfilled. Will you simply ignore that point?

Wow! This exchange began when you wrote, "By that time it was far too late for anyone in Judea to take to the hills, which had been in enemy hands since the end of 67" Notice that you said, "Judea", not "Jerusalem". And I have been explaining to you that people in Judea could indeed have fled to the hills, and that these words of Mark are indeed relevant to the first century. And now you tell me that Judea doesn't mean Judea, but that it means Jerusalem? So to prove the interpretation of this chapter doesn't fit into the first century, you take out the word Judea, insert Jerusalem, and then declare that the chapter as you modify it doesn't fit well with the first century? But you had to modify the chapter to make your point! How can that be a valid argument?

How can the fact that Jesus is speaking of the doom of the temple possibly mean that Mark cannot include warnings that are relevant to the nation as a whole? After all, the whole nation was affected by the catastrophe.

Even IF (and these ifs are not small at all) 1 Clement is post 110, and Ignatius is placed late (as opposed to 100-110 AD), and Polycarp is placed at 130 instead of 110. The four Gospels therefore being unknown is as little demonstratable as being known.

Straw man. I never suggested that Mark thought the Second Coming would be in 70 AD.

What I said is that Mark said that Jesus would come back soon after 70 AD, within the generation of the apostles. So the prophecy did not fail until the apostles and their generation died. It was not a failed prophecy at the moment it was written.

Mark did seem to imply that the Second Coming would come 3 1/2 years after 70 AD, for he implies that the abomination of desolation occurred in 70 AD, and Daniel tells us the coming of the Messiah will occur 3 1/2 years after the abomination of desolation. So he seems to be predicting a Second Coming in 73 AD. If Matthew and Luke wrote after 73 AD, they perhaps did not understand that Mark was using Daniel to imply a second coming by 73 AD, or they had a different interpretation of Daniel to allow for a few more years.

By the middle of the second century, when the synoptics became popular, the prophecy of Mark had faded into the background. The events of 70 AD were no longer the people's primary concern, and the failure of Mark to predict what would happen soon after 70 AD could have been easily interpreted away or ignored.

Really? Ancient Greece and Rome were filled with myths of gods, sons of gods, and savior gods. How can you possibly suggest that there was no such thing?

In fact, a very good case can be made that Mark was simply a rewrite of the epics of Homer, Judaizing the hero and placing him around Jerusalem. (See Review of The Homeric Epics and the Gospel of Mark.) So yes, there were novels about gods and savior gods long before Mark.

If the realm of salvation is in the spiritual, why was the earthly Jesus even necessary? If Paul can write several years after the supposed events of the gospels, and seem little concerned about those events, why was the earthly ministry and earthly crucifixion even necessary?  Couldn't Jesus have done everything in heaven, as Paul seems to suggest?

After we finish our discussion of the dating of the gospels, we can perhaps move on to see if Paul really did refer to the earthly Jesus in those few verses you were able to find. A good case can be made that he was not speaking of an earthly Jesus. But that is beyond the scope of this discussion. For now, I think we can both agree that the vast majority of Paul's writings have nothing to do with the earthly life and sayings of Jesus.

But how do you know that the writer of "Luke" was named Luke? Nobody mentions that name as the writer of that book until 180 AD.

If there was a Christian presence as early as the mid 40’s in Rome, there certainly was one in Jerusalem. Whether this was Luke’s purpose [showing how the gospel got to Rome] is irrelevant to the dating of the Gospels, the internal evidence of which I’ve presented for an early date, you seem to continually ignore.

You state that there had to be a Christian presence in Jerusalem, but on what do you base this? Are you getting this from the gospels and the book of Acts? But that is the very point in question! Are those books reliable? You cannot assume the point in question to prove the point we are debating.

If those books are not reliable, then there appears to have been very few Christians around Jerusalem at the end of the first century, for nobody seems to know anything about them. That is why "Luke" might have tried to explain why the centers of Christianity are established far from Jerusalem, in spite of the fact that the gospels speaks of an earthly Jesus in Jerusalem.

What internal evidence do you think I am ignoring? I have answered your argument that Acts ends before the death of Paul several times. I have answered your argument that the synoptics do not detail the events of 70 AD. So I have indeed addressed your arguments. Which other argument would you like me to address in more detail?

Why can there be no doubt that Papias was referring to the second gospel? So far you have offered no evidence that Papias was referring to the book we now call Mark, or to anything close to Mark. If you give no evidence, then there must surely be reason to doubt your claim! Where is your evidence?

I have given you a good reason to doubt that Papias was referring to the second gospel: Papias describes the writings of Mark as recollections of Mark that are not in order. This hardly describes the book of Mark. Papias could simply have been referring to some collection of stories.

Yes, Papias, is quoted early, but the passage in question is not quoted until Eusibius quotes it two centuries later. The problem is that Eusebius is notoriously unreliable. Also there could have been errors in transmission over the two centuries leading to Eusebius. We have no verification that Eusebius had it right. This does not prove that Eusebius was wrong, but we cannot be sure that Papias said what Eusebius tells us he said.

Papias wrote:

If, then, any one who had attended on the elders came, I asked minutely after their sayings,--what Andrew or Peter said, or what was said by Philip, or by Thomas, or by James, or by John, or by Matthew, or by any other of the Lord's disciples: which things Aristion and the presbyter John, the disciples of the Lord, say. For I imagined that what was to be got from books was not so profitable to me as what came from the living and abiding voice. [See Fragments of Papias]

So Papias considered second hand hearsay to be superior to what he could learn from the unspecified writings of Matthew and Mark to which he refers. This is hardly testimony to the reliability of those books. In fact, Papias does not tell us what is in those books, but only speculates on what he might find in them were he to read them. Apparently Papias never even saw those books. How can Papias be used as testimony that those books are reliable?

Why does Kümmel say that Papias considered Mark an authority? Does Kümmel have any evidence of that at all? If Papias thought Mark had authority, why didn't Papias seek out his book? Why does he merely mention that somebody told him that Mark had written some things, and then continue to use his hearsay sources that he thought were better than anything he imagined might be in writing?

Please show me where Ignatius quotes Matthew 3:15 directly. Are you making this stuff up?

You can look here and see where your source claims that Ignatius refers to Matthew. I think our readers will observe that Ignatius said some phrases that are somewhat similar to things that Mathew reports that Jesus said, but Ignatius does not say that these are quotes of Jesus. Even if he is quoting Jesus, he does not attempt to tell us his source. He could have had many sources. So this is hardly evidence that the book of Matthew was widely known in 100 AD and was Ignatius's source..

I have addressed your argument that Acts does not mention the death of Paul. I have addressed your argument that Luke does not refer to events of 70 AD. Why have you not been able to see my attempts to answer? Should I use a bigger font?

Oh, excuse me. Where did I ever say that something is true because most people believe it or because some authority says it?  

If the majority of people are uninformed, and the majority agree simply because most other people say it is true, then that is not proof that something is true. If you want to prove that the book of Luke is written by Luke, then you will need a better argument then the fact that many uninformed people assume it is true.

We are dealing with a lot of issues here. You made the assertion that John identifies himself as the writer of the fourth gospel. That statement is false. If your false statement is posted at my site, then I have the right to point out that this statement is false.