Q: In Matthew 24:34, Jesus says This generation shall not pass, till all these things be fulfilled. Doesnt this mean that Jesus is a false prophet, since the end of the world did not come within the lifetimes of his disciples?
A: There are at least two ways to resolve this difficulty. The simpler resolution is to note that genea, the word in the Greek text underlying the English word generation, is capable of meaning a particular ethnic group, such as the Jews; it does not always mean a generation in the sense of the people living in a 40-year (or so) span of time. Dr. Gleason Archer mentions this approach, and augments its plausibility by observing that if Jesus was speaking Aramaic on this occasion, then the verbatim term He used was probably sharb-e-ta, which can refer to ethnic groups. He also notes (in Encyclopedia of Bible Difficulties, p. 339) that Although this meaning for genea is not common, it is found as early as Homer and Herodotus and as late as Plutarch.
The other resolution involves a special theory about the arrangement of the eschatological and not-eschatological material in Matthew 24, Mark 13, and Luke 21. When one reads the scene-setting verses in Matthew 24:1-3, it is plain that Jesus disciples ask Him two questions: (1) When will this be -- i.e., when will the stones of the Temple be disassembled? (2) What will be the sign of Your coming and of the close of the age?
Jesus provides answers for both questions. His first answer is, basically: no one knows exactly when this will be, but there will be various indications that the event is about to happen, and He describes several of them. He prefaces this with the material in Matthew 24:4-8 (which is more about what-not-to-look-for than what to look for). Then in 24:9-28, Jesus describes the events which will precede the destruction of the Temple.
His second answer begins at the beginning of 24:29 and continues till the end of 24:31. This implies that the opening phrase Immediately after the tribulation of those days should not be understood to be linked to the immediately-preceding verses, but to the second question which Jesus is answering. (Euqews (pronounced like you-they-us), the Greek word usually translated as Immediately in 24:29, can also mean suddenly.) Then verses 32-36 refer back to the first question (about the destruction of the Temple), and then verses 37-39 refer to the second question (about Christs second coming and the end of the age).
With that distinction-drawing in the background, lets consider Jesus statement in 24:34 that This generation will by no means pass away till all these things take place. With the normal sense of the word genea, it may be interpreted as part of Jesus answer to the first question He was asked: preceding and during the First Jewish Revolt, Christians were persecuted (as predicted in 24:9-10), and false prophets arose (as predicted in 24:11) and many peoples love became cold (as predicted in 24:12), and the gospel was preached in all the world (as predicted in 24:14 -- not the entire globe, but the world of the Roman Empire -- the word here is oikoumene, the same word Luke uses in Luke 2:1 when he reports that a decree went out from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be registed/taxed), and an abomination of desolation appeared on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, as the rebels usurped the Temple (as predicted in 24:15), and Christians in Judea who were aware of Jesus warnings (via their recollection of Jesus Himself, of of the apostles written and oral records of His warnings) fled the area, and there was great tribulation (as predicted in 24:21), and even the axiomatic prediction that wherever the carcass is, there the eagles will be gathered together (in 24:28) was fulfilled as the Roman eagle-insignias surrounded Jerusalem with the troops that bore them.
So, if genea was supposed to be understood to refer to the Jewish nation as a whole in 24:34, then the verse is not problematic, since it is evident that the Jewish nation still exists. And if genea was supposed to be understood to refer to Jesus contemporaries, then Jesus statements in 24:32-34 -- including the phrase all these things -- should be taken as a reference to the things in His answer to the first question (about the destruction of the Temple).
I like the second solution, but I realize that to some readers, it makes the text appear garbled. Jesus refers to events in the first century one minute, and then He describes events at the end of the world, and then describes events in the first century again, and then returns to the subject of events at the end of the world.
I think the text of the discourse looks garbled because it /is/ garbled, in a way -- but this appearance is due more to our distance from the text's original setting than to the text itself. (A typical newspaper, with several stories beginning on the front page and continuing within on different pages, would seem "garbled" to a first-century reader.) Picture the transcript of an interview in which the interviewers asked someone a few questions, to which he gave answers. Now picture that same transcript, except instead of having the questions interspersed with the answers, the questions are collected, condensed, and placed at the front of the interview. The text after those questions = the words of the interviewer. Thats something like what we have here in Matthew 24 (and in the parallel-passages). With someone to help a reader link Question A to the sections that answer Question A, the text is not confusing. But without an awareness of what answer answers what question, readers who are used to sequentially-arranged and separated Q-and-A interview-transcripts will probably be confused.
We dont have the apostles handy to take us on a step-by-step explanation of which parts of Jesus discourse in Matthew 24 answers which of their questions. At the same time, we are not doomed to confusion, either. I approach the Matthew 24 discourse the way a person might approach a picture taken through a telescope or binoculars: in a single frame, the picture contains some things that are up close, and some things that are far away. But the observer who is aware of what is near and what is far is not perplexed by the presence of a duck and the moon in the same field-of-view; all he needs to do is apply his knowledge of what is near, and of what is far, to what he sees, and he can avoid the mistaken conclusion that the duck has flown into outer space and is about to smash into the moon, or that the moon has descended into the ducks domain and is about to smash the duck.
Likewise, when one approaches Matthew 24 with an awareness of what has already happened in the first century, it is much easier to understand -- so much so that when Matthew 24 and the parallel-passages in Mark 13 and Luke 21 are compared and analyzed, the distinct layers of events being prophetically described as Jesus answers two distinct questions may be discerned with enough precision to identify which prophecies have already been fulfilled, which are yet to be fulfilled, and which ones are capable of double-fulfillment.
Yours in Christ,
Waterrock
A: There are at least two ways to resolve this difficulty. The simpler resolution is to note that genea, the word in the Greek text underlying the English word generation, is capable of meaning a particular ethnic group, such as the Jews; it does not always mean a generation in the sense of the people living in a 40-year (or so) span of time. Dr. Gleason Archer mentions this approach, and augments its plausibility by observing that if Jesus was speaking Aramaic on this occasion, then the verbatim term He used was probably sharb-e-ta, which can refer to ethnic groups. He also notes (in Encyclopedia of Bible Difficulties, p. 339) that Although this meaning for genea is not common, it is found as early as Homer and Herodotus and as late as Plutarch.
The other resolution involves a special theory about the arrangement of the eschatological and not-eschatological material in Matthew 24, Mark 13, and Luke 21. When one reads the scene-setting verses in Matthew 24:1-3, it is plain that Jesus disciples ask Him two questions: (1) When will this be -- i.e., when will the stones of the Temple be disassembled? (2) What will be the sign of Your coming and of the close of the age?
Jesus provides answers for both questions. His first answer is, basically: no one knows exactly when this will be, but there will be various indications that the event is about to happen, and He describes several of them. He prefaces this with the material in Matthew 24:4-8 (which is more about what-not-to-look-for than what to look for). Then in 24:9-28, Jesus describes the events which will precede the destruction of the Temple.
His second answer begins at the beginning of 24:29 and continues till the end of 24:31. This implies that the opening phrase Immediately after the tribulation of those days should not be understood to be linked to the immediately-preceding verses, but to the second question which Jesus is answering. (Euqews (pronounced like you-they-us), the Greek word usually translated as Immediately in 24:29, can also mean suddenly.) Then verses 32-36 refer back to the first question (about the destruction of the Temple), and then verses 37-39 refer to the second question (about Christs second coming and the end of the age).
With that distinction-drawing in the background, lets consider Jesus statement in 24:34 that This generation will by no means pass away till all these things take place. With the normal sense of the word genea, it may be interpreted as part of Jesus answer to the first question He was asked: preceding and during the First Jewish Revolt, Christians were persecuted (as predicted in 24:9-10), and false prophets arose (as predicted in 24:11) and many peoples love became cold (as predicted in 24:12), and the gospel was preached in all the world (as predicted in 24:14 -- not the entire globe, but the world of the Roman Empire -- the word here is oikoumene, the same word Luke uses in Luke 2:1 when he reports that a decree went out from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be registed/taxed), and an abomination of desolation appeared on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, as the rebels usurped the Temple (as predicted in 24:15), and Christians in Judea who were aware of Jesus warnings (via their recollection of Jesus Himself, of of the apostles written and oral records of His warnings) fled the area, and there was great tribulation (as predicted in 24:21), and even the axiomatic prediction that wherever the carcass is, there the eagles will be gathered together (in 24:28) was fulfilled as the Roman eagle-insignias surrounded Jerusalem with the troops that bore them.
So, if genea was supposed to be understood to refer to the Jewish nation as a whole in 24:34, then the verse is not problematic, since it is evident that the Jewish nation still exists. And if genea was supposed to be understood to refer to Jesus contemporaries, then Jesus statements in 24:32-34 -- including the phrase all these things -- should be taken as a reference to the things in His answer to the first question (about the destruction of the Temple).
I like the second solution, but I realize that to some readers, it makes the text appear garbled. Jesus refers to events in the first century one minute, and then He describes events at the end of the world, and then describes events in the first century again, and then returns to the subject of events at the end of the world.
I think the text of the discourse looks garbled because it /is/ garbled, in a way -- but this appearance is due more to our distance from the text's original setting than to the text itself. (A typical newspaper, with several stories beginning on the front page and continuing within on different pages, would seem "garbled" to a first-century reader.) Picture the transcript of an interview in which the interviewers asked someone a few questions, to which he gave answers. Now picture that same transcript, except instead of having the questions interspersed with the answers, the questions are collected, condensed, and placed at the front of the interview. The text after those questions = the words of the interviewer. Thats something like what we have here in Matthew 24 (and in the parallel-passages). With someone to help a reader link Question A to the sections that answer Question A, the text is not confusing. But without an awareness of what answer answers what question, readers who are used to sequentially-arranged and separated Q-and-A interview-transcripts will probably be confused.
We dont have the apostles handy to take us on a step-by-step explanation of which parts of Jesus discourse in Matthew 24 answers which of their questions. At the same time, we are not doomed to confusion, either. I approach the Matthew 24 discourse the way a person might approach a picture taken through a telescope or binoculars: in a single frame, the picture contains some things that are up close, and some things that are far away. But the observer who is aware of what is near and what is far is not perplexed by the presence of a duck and the moon in the same field-of-view; all he needs to do is apply his knowledge of what is near, and of what is far, to what he sees, and he can avoid the mistaken conclusion that the duck has flown into outer space and is about to smash into the moon, or that the moon has descended into the ducks domain and is about to smash the duck.
Likewise, when one approaches Matthew 24 with an awareness of what has already happened in the first century, it is much easier to understand -- so much so that when Matthew 24 and the parallel-passages in Mark 13 and Luke 21 are compared and analyzed, the distinct layers of events being prophetically described as Jesus answers two distinct questions may be discerned with enough precision to identify which prophecies have already been fulfilled, which are yet to be fulfilled, and which ones are capable of double-fulfillment.
Yours in Christ,
Waterrock
