From: Larry Swain (lswain@wln.com)
Date: Fri Sep 01 1995 - 19:13:59 EDT
On Fri, 1 Sep 1995 Jan.Haugland@uib.no wrote:
> Larry Swain said:
> With "desolation" I take you mean the "abomination" or "desolationg sacrilege",
> spoken of in Daniel (v15). Is that correct?
Most of those who study Matthew are in concurrance that Matthew here is
referring to Daniel, yes. However my immediate referent was to the
Matthean text.
> > 1. At the time of this tribulation there will be false Christs.
>
> I will agree. At the time of the siege of Jerusalem there will be false
> Christs.
You again, as you did with Carl, overstate your case. First, because you
can't agree with me, since my suggestion has to do with the structure of
the passage and the use of TOTE, and not anything about the content of
the passage. You are trying to get your plum to agree that it is an apple.
> Another detail: v21 describes the great tribulation as "such as has not been
> from the beginning of the world until now, no, and never will be." If we take
> these words to mean what they say, it will exclude any and all interpretations
> with more than one such "tribulation". If we agree it refers to the siege of
> Jerusalem, and in Matthew I can't imagine you can get by that, then this is the
> only tribulation Jesus foretold according to Matthew.
Well, let me play devil's advocate here. 70AD is not worse than 585 BC
or 132 AD. The Babylonian Captivity not only destroyed the city and the
Temple, but scattered the Israelites among the "nations", 70 did not. In
fact if the Mishnah is to be believed sacrifices continued to be offered
at the Temple and on the reconsecrated altar after 70. The aftermath of
the bar Kochba revolt, which actually did have a "proclaimed" messiah,
proclaimed at least by Akiva, the Jews were prohibited from entering the
Holy City, no sacrifices were offered thereafter. It seems a) that the
Babylonian captivity was on a much worse scale than 70 historically, and
b) that the Bar Kochba revolt fits your interpretation better.
Finally I do disagree that it refers to Jerusalem, I am one of a minority
who would date Matthew before 70, in fact as early as 62. There it is.
So that for me is not taken for granted.
On a related subject, Jan, you are still arguing issues of faith on a
list devoted to issues of scholarship. Our purpose here is neither to
confirm you faith statements nor to deride them. They in this discussin
are moot.
Larry Swain
Parmly Billings Library
lswain@wln.com
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