Dealing with (Parousia) Delay:
A critique of Christian coping.
By Randall Otto
Biblical Theology Bulletin; 12/22/2004
"The Roman destruction of the Jewish temple
in the Jewish war of 66-70 CE alone satisfies the temporal requirements for
the immanency of the Parousia and the historical requirements for the transformation
of relations wrought by God ushering in a new reality of the church as the
Eschatology is nebulous, because theologians
have not sufficiently grappled with the historical validation of eschatological
claims. Eschatology remains dehistoricized and largely a temporal. This study
will survey attempts in twentieth-century eschatological interpretation for
dealing with the problem of "the delay of the Parousia," including the first
Quest of the Historical Jesus (Schweitzer), existential theology (Bultmann,
Barth), realized eschatology (Dodd), the theology of hope (Pannenberg, Moltmann),
the third Quest (N. T. Wright), and evangelical theology. In each of these paradigms,
the Parousia is either unrealized in history despite the New Testament's temporal
parameters or an existential event realized in the moment despite the New Testament's
historical parameters. An alternative approach meeting both the historical and
temporal parameters is proposed: the Roman destruction of
**********
The twentieth century will be remembered in the history of theology for its rediscovery of the centrality of eschatology in the message of Jesus and early Christianity. But it reached no consensus on the shape and
meaning of eschatology [Braaten & Jenson 2002: vii].
The First Quest of the Historical
Jesus
The opening up to eschatology
came from Johannes Weiss (1863-1914), who saw Jesus not just as a great ethical
teacher (as Albrecht Ritschl), but the proclaimer of a new era, the
Albert Schweitzer went beyond
Weiss's emphasis on Jesus' proclamation of the imminent kingdom to contend that
Jesus' entire life was dominated by the in-breaking of this apocalyptic transformation.
Confident the in-breaking of this kingdom was so close it could be said to be
present, Jesus sent out the disciples in Matthew 10 to give the "lost sheep
of the house of
In the knowledge that He is the coming Son of Man [Jesus] lays hold of the wheel of the world to set it moving on that last revolution which is to bring all ordinary history to a close. It refuses to turn, and He throws
Himself upon it. Then it does turn; and crushes Him. Instead of bringing in the eschatological conditions, He has destroyed them. The wheel rolls onward, and the mangled body of the one immeasurably great Man,
who was strong enough to think of Himself as the spiritual ruler of mankind and to bend history to His purpose, is hanging upon it still. That is His victory and His reign [Schweitzer: 370 71].
While Schweitzer and Weiss
did much to restore the eschatological emphasis of Jesus, their Jesus is a tragic,
mistaken hero whose eschatological yearnings were foolhardy.
Schweitzer's consequent eschatology entails a consequent liberal Christology; his formal championing of eschatology actually becomes a liquidation of eschatology; his ethics remains a moralism which is even
farther removed from true Christianity than was Ritschl's ethicism [Holmstrom 1936: 89].
Existential Theology
In 1919 Karl Barth published
the first edition of his ROMERBRIEF, in which, having renounced as sinful autonomy
humanity's "historical" thinking, he spoke of God's history breaking through
into so-called history in Christ, filling time with eternity in an "eternal
Now" of actual history. The second edition assumed a more eschatological character,
owing to the influence of Franz Overbeck, as well as Plato, Kant, and Kierkegaard.
Barth would famously say, "If Christianity be not altogether thoroughgoing eschatology,
there remains in it no relationship whatever with Christ" (Barth: 314). Eschatology
here has little to do with last things in any historical sense and more to do
with ultimate things in an existential sense as God intersects the plane of
history tangentially in the Moment of Krisis, effecting revelation in the existential
I-Thou encounter. Because for Barth revelation cannot be a predicate of history,
"the point on the line of intersection is no more extended onto the known plane
than is the unknown plane of which it proclaims the existence" (Barth: 29).
The revelatory history of God (Geschichte) could intersect, but not extend onto,
the ordinary history of humanity (Historic). By sublimating the historical actuality
of the Parousia into the existential Moment, Barth could summarily dismiss all
talk of "the delay of the Parousia":
Will there never be an end of all our ceaseless talk about the delay of the Parousia? How can the coming of that which doth not enter in ever be delayed? The End of which the New Testament speaks is no temporal
event, no legendary "destruction" of the world; it has nothing to do with any historical, or "telluric," or cosmic catastrophe. The end of which the New Testament speaks is really the End; so utterly the End, that in the
measuring of nearness or distance our nineteen hundred years are not merely of little, but of no importance [Barth: 500]. Because "we do stand at every moment on the frontier of time," each individual who embraces
Christ lays
hold of "the Beginning in the End" and experiences the Parousia.
For Rudolf Bultmann, as
for the early Barth, historical criticism could not provide a basis for faith,
since faith cannot have any objective basis. History is a closed continuum,
whereas faith is the existential questioning of life based on the eschatological
opening up of possibilities for decision. Bultmann asserted that the New Testament
salvation scenario is entirely mythological. "What is expressed in myth is the
faith that the familiar and disposable world in which we live does not have
its ground and aim in itself but that its ground and limit lie beyond all that
is familiar" (Bultmann 1984: 10). Demythologizing aimed to get behind the objectivizing
representations to discover myth's true significance in speaking of a transcendent
power to which all are subject and which calls all to make a decision of openness
to the future, as in Heidegger's philosophy. Mythological representations are
thus eschatological possibilities calling for decision in the moment of proclamation.
"The eschatological event," said Bultmann,
is not to be understood as a dramatic cosmic catastrophe but as happening within history, beginning with the appearance of Jesus Christ and in continuity with this occurring again and again in history, but not as the
kind of historical development which can be confirmed by any historian. It becomes an event repeatedly in preaching and faith. Jesus Christ is the eschatological event not as an established fact of past time but as
repeatedly present, as addressing you and me here and now in preaching [Bultmann 1957: 151-52].
Thus, while Bultmann opens
his NEW TESTAMENT THEOLOGY with "the eschatological message" of Jesus' expectation
of the "impending irruption" of God's reign in which God "will destroy the present
course of the world" and wipe out all that is opposed to God, the true significance
of "Jesus' call is the call to decision" (Bultmann 1951: 4-9). For Bultmann,
as for Barth, the historical and chronological interest in a culminating event
called the Parousia gives way to an atemporal, ahistorical, and continuous event
that occurs in the Moment of existential decision or encounter. This existential
view of the delay and Parousia persisted in the New Hermeneutic and second Quest
of the Historical Jesus. For instance, Ernst Fuchs contended that "the problem
of the so-called delay of the Parousia is not a genuine theological problem,"
since the "'so-called near expectation' belongs neither to theology or proclamation,
being merely psychological data, as is also the Easter experience" (Fuchs: 83-84).
Realized Eschatology
With his "realized eschatology,"
C. H. Dodd (1884-1973) overtly rejected all attempts to dehistoricize and existentialize
eschatology. Instead, he argued that in the ministry of Jesus the
Theologies of Hope
Among the "hope school,"
those influenced by the Jewish Marxist philosopher Ernst Bloch, Wolfhart Pannenberg
is more interested in the historical grounding of Christian faith than Jurgen
Moltmann. In REVELATION AS HISTORY, Pannenberg and others upended Barth's dictum
that revelation could not be a predicate of history by saying that revelation
is history. Building on Hegel, they maintained that knowledge, as history, is
always open-ended and can thus be understood only from the end, when history
is complete. The resurrection of Jesus Christ is a glimpse of the end in the
midst of history, what Pannenberg calls "a proleptic end."
Through an extraordinary vision the apocalyptic writer sees head to the end of all things. The historical plan of God was disclosed to him ahead of time. However, wasn't the apocalyptic view itself corrected by the
further course of history? In contrast, the witness of the New Testament is that in the fate of Jesus Christ the end is not only seen ahead of time, but is experienced by means of a foretaste. For, in him, the
resurrection of the dead has already taken place, though to all other men this is still something yet to be experienced
[Pannenberg 1968:141].
If the resurrection of the
dead is coterminous with the end of history, then the resurrection of Jesus
Christ signals the end of history in the midst of history. Though "the oldest
community counted on the speedy conclusion of the series of end events that
had already begun in Jesus' resurrection," "for us, in contrast, the conclusion
of the end events still will not arrive for an uncertain period of time" (1977:
106). Pannenberg maintains that "neither the two-thousand-year interval from
the time of Jesus' earthly appearance nor its continuing quantitative growth
is sufficient in itself to let the connection between the activity and fate
of Jesus and the expected end of all things discovered then to become untenable,"
for "only in connection with the end of the world that still remains to come
can what has happened in Jesus through his resurrection from the dead possess
and retain the character of revelation for us also" (1977: 107). The delay of
the end events, then, is not, for Pannenberg, a refutation of the Christian
hope or of revelation
as long as the unity between what happened in Jesus and the eschatological future is maintained. However, the Christian perception of what happened in Jesus will always retain an openness to the future. The
ultimate divine confirmation of Jesus will take place only in the occurrence of his return [1977:107-08]. In other words, the resurrection of Jesus cannot be validated until Christ returns, though "what happened in
Jesus" is proleptic and thus revelatory of what is to come. Both events
appear to "hang in the air," interdependent on the end of history for
validation.
Moltmann believes the overcoming
of the delay of the Parousia by the first generation of Christians led to the
transfer of
Historical activity for the Zukunft arises from an alliance of what man knows with what man hopes, what he can do with what he wants to do. Therefore, it makes good sense that our word Zu kunft encompasses
extrapolation and anticipation, Futurum and Adventus [Moltmann 1967b: 212].
The combination here of
what humanity knows and hopes is a glaring demonstration of anthropocentricity
in Moltmann's theology. Gerhard Sauter sees little consequence in Moltmann's
distinction, saying, "Futurum and adventus merge indistinguishably into one
another" (Sauter:131).
"From first to last, and
not merely in the epilogue, Christianity is eschatology, is hope, forward looking
and forward moving, and therefore also revolutionizing and transforming the
present" (Moltmann 1967a: 16). The latencies of future pregnant in "God's promises"
and in the history of
The Third Quest of the Historical
Jesus
N. T. Wright sees himself
as taking up Schweitzer's effort to promote Jesus' Jewish eschatology, joining
forces with scepticism to confront naive traditionalism, then defeating scepticism
with appropriate historical reconstruction. Wright believes a full reappraisal
of the nature and place of eschatology within early Christianity is called for.
He views the expectation of an imminent end of the world and subsequent disappointment
as a misconception, for Jewish eschatology did not look for the end of the world,
but rather the dawning of a new age. Wright advocates viewing
eschatology as the climax of Israel
quite different phase within space-time history [Wright 1996: 208].
Jewish eschatology in the
It was not only Jesus who would be vindicated when the Temple Temple
destruction would be their salvation. Mark 13 said as much. It seems to me highly likely that one of the main early Christian meanings of the word "salvation" had to do with historical liberation from the great city
that had been persecuting those who transferred its claim, to be the place of Yahweh’s dwelling, on to their crucified essiah-figure and thence on to themselves. Granted the presence in all three synoptic gospels of the
powerful discourse of Mark 13 and parallels, most people within the earliest Christian groups seem to have believed that their movement was somehow bound up with Jerusalem
(Wright 1992: 459-60).
I concur with Wright's general
thrust, though I think he fails to carry it through to the end. For instance,
Wright says Mark 13 has nothing to do with the Parousia, but makes perfect sense
in the context of the destruction of
Wright's assertion that
"there is no suggestion that the Lord's return must happen within a generation"
(1992: 463) is utterly bewildering in view of Mark 13:30: "Truly I tell you,
this generation will not pass away until all these things have taken place."
Wright refers Mark 13 only to the destruction of
Classical Theology
Classical theology has the
most at stake regarding the problem of eschatology and the delay of the Parousia.
This is because orthodoxy refuses the possibility that Jesus, as the incarnate
Son of God, was mistaken as to his coming again. This also applies to the prophets
and apostles who, as the inspired writers of Scripture, spoke the very words
of God as they were moved by the Holy Spirit (2 Tim. 3:16; 2 Pet. 1:20-21).
The fundamentalist movement emerging from the 1920s strongly emphasized the
imminent second coming of Christ as well as the inerrancy of Scripture, holding
both as "fundamental doctrines" despite their apparent tension. An intellectual
crisis stemming from evolutionary theory, the rise of biblical criticism, and
the new social sciences combined with the socio-economic issues surrounding
the rise of the city after the Civil War and rapid industrialization, cast doubt
upon traditional theological views. The reaction spawned a recrudescence of
adventism, most notably in the respective movements led by William Miller in
the 1840s and John N. Darby in the 1880s accenting the immanency of Christ's
second coming. Puritan and
How have fundamentalism
and evangelicalism maintained belief in the inerrancy of Scripture while at
the same time affirming the imminent coming of Christ? Fundamentalism, here
distinguished by its adherence to Dispensationalism, has generally maintained
an ahistoricality regarding the grammar and milieu of New Testament adventism
to such an extent that ancient Old Testament battles with ancient weapons, such
as horses, clubs, swords, and spears, are turned into impending battles with
modern weaponry, such as intercontinental ballistic missiles and nuclear-equipped
MiG fighters. This "total disregard for the historical meaning" (Hanson: 55)
of the biblical texts is accomplished while insisting on the centrality of literal
interpretation! The contemporaneity of the biblical text here rivals the existentialism
of Bultmann and the early Barth in the revivalistic call for decision in the
moment of crisis.
Evangelicalism, here distinguished
by greater sensitivity to grammatical and historical exegesis, has utilized
several hermeneutical devices to salvage simultaneously the veracity of Scripture
(though not necessarily its inerrancy) and the future Parousia of Christ. Some
have endeavored to divide the Olivet Discourse into that which is fulfilled
in the destruction of Jerusalem and that which is to take place at the end of
the world (Turner: 3-27). This falters on several grounds. First, it is generally
acknowledged that Mark 13 has to do with the destruction of
The two events of both the end of the age and the end of the temple are totally interlocked by the author of Matthew.... The attempt to drive a wedge between Matthew 24:2 (understood as eschatological time until the
Fall of Jerusalem in 70 CE) and 24:3 viewed as a reference to the future sign of the Parousia and the end of the age [is] ... not warranted by the text [McNicoll: 75].
The effort to divide the
discourse into the imminent destruction of
Finally, many evangelical
and conservative interpreters invoke a hermeneutical device called "prophetic
perspective," whereby, it is said, the prophets merged immediate events with
those far away, as the distances between great mountain peaks appear indistinguishable.
I have attempted elsewhere to demonstrate this to be an invalid hermeneutical
device that ignores the prophets' strong interest and concern for the timing
of what they said, since there were at stake both their prophetic character
and immediate events requiring a word from the Lord. Whereas Stephen Smalley,
for instance, finds in G. B. Caird's suggestion
of this "stereoscopic vision" "an important principle to have in mind when looking
at the eschatology of Paul," seeing in it "help to unify the Pauline outlook
in general" and "to account for the continuing effects of the tension between
the imminent and delayed Parousia" (Smalley: 53), we would take it to be largely
a case of special pleading. Similarly, Geddert's
"agnosticized" use of prophetic perspective, in
which "the two events [the destruction of Jerusalem and the Parousia] might,
but need not, be considered as one," i.e., "the disciples' linking of the two
events in [Mark] 13.4 can be neither affirmed nor denied" (Geddert:
234), makes Jesus sound more like a modern lawyer seeking to preserve a client's
reputation than a prophet speaking words of warning to the exigencies of his
day. "'Prophetic perspective' does not derive from biblical exegesis but from
apologetic commitments that seek to validate the future fulfillment of specific
predictions that were either not fulfilled within the prophet's lifetime or
not fulfilled to the interpreter's expectation" (Otto 2001 : 220-21).
Much the same can be said
of the "already/not yet" schema so prominent particularly in Dutch Reformed
thought, perhaps due to the influence of Geerhardus
Vos (Beale: 20). In Hoekema's
view, for instance, this tension is "what specifically characterizes New Testament
eschatology," making it "impossible to understand New Testament eschatology
apart from this tension" (Hoekema: 68). It cannot
be denied that there is an "already/not yet" tension in the New Testament, but
this exists precisely because the culminating events associated with the Parousia
and the coming of the kingdom were viewed by the New Testament writers as imminent
in time. Although "imminence" is a word inherently related to "nearness in time,"
the relationship of "imminence" to "time" must be emphasized because there are
some for whom imminence and time appear disconnected. For instance, while
Cranfield can say, "insistence on the nearness of
the end, on the shortness of the time which remains, is characteristic of the
NT as a whole," he can equally (and oppositely!) assert, "It was not a matter
of Jesus', or of the early Church's, confidently expecting that the end would
necessarily occur within a very short time, but of the clear recognition of
the ministry-death-resurrection-ascension of Jesus as the decisive event of
history" (Cranfield 1982: 510). If always means
"all the time" and imminent means "about to happen in a short time," it is a
meaningless contradiction in terms for Cranfield
to say the Parousia can "always be imminent" (Cranfield
1977: 683).
For others, such as Ben
Witherington, "the key" to unraveling Paul's eschatology
is to jettison "the paradigm of imminence-delay" and talk instead of "already
and not yet, as Paul himself does." This, however, appears to be largely a semantic
maneuver intended to avoid (however unsuccessfully) uncomfortable terms, for
as Witherington next says, "Fervency comes from
the confidence in the certainty of and, to a lesser degree, from the possible
imminence of Christ's return" (Witherington: 182).
Witherington's assertion that fervency and confidence
derive from the delay of the Parousia is a coping mechanism caused by the dissonance
Festinger et al. analyzed; Witherington's use of
it lends some validity to Festinger's thesis (31)
of "increased fervor following the disconfirmation of a belief. Instead of reexamining
the disconfirmed belief and its basis, Witherington
and many others in the religious realm attempt to convince others of the validity
of their rationalization and its value (for certainty of faith and fervency
of witness, e.g.), though comparable disconfirmation in any other realm of life
would fail to exert the same effect. When, for example, we see a sign on a lot
saying a favorite department store will be built there and "is coming soon,"
we expect to see it within a period of time justifiably called "soon," say within
a year or two (barring construction, financing, or zoning delays which would
then be publicly acknowledged as causing delay and mitigating the imminent expectation).
If, on the other hand, the sign remains saying the store "is coming soon," but
no activity takes place there over the years, is our confidence and excitement
(i.e., fervor) about its opening heightened? Of course not! We lose interest
and expect nothing to happen. Certainty and fervor do not justifiably derive
from delay; rather, assertions of such are mechanisms for coping with a religious
belief that has been shown to be mistaken.
The attempt to extend this
"already/not" idea beyond the time constraints of the New Testament to centuries
and millennia cannot be considered in keeping either with authorial intention
or with the demands of grammatical-historical exegesis. It is not meaningful.
Cullmann maintains that God chooses "periods of
time for the realization of his plan of salvation, and does so in such a way
that the joining of them in the light of his plan forms a meaningful time line"
(Cullmann: 44). Yet, having asserted that "the basic
presuppositions of all New Testament theology" are "the New Testament conception
of time and history" (26), Cullmann then appears
to dismiss history altogether, suggesting that "the entire complex of questions
concerning the expectation of the imminent end and the delay of the Parousia"
possesses importance only "from a psychological point of view, but not in its
theological bearing" (89-90). The correlation in language here between
Cullmann, whose work is readily accepted by evangelicals,
and Fuchs, whose existentialism is largely dismissed, should not be overlooked.
Cullmann goes on, saying,
Narratives concerning the origin and the end of the entire process are only prophecy, inasmuch as objectively they are only the object of revelation and subjectively only the object of faith. A confirmation through
human historical determination of the facts is not possible here [98].
History, the realm of factuality
in which we all live, here appears to give way to something more akin to the
theological view of history known as Geschichte, in which there is no possibility
of factuality or historical validation, it being a psychologized,
existential realm in which the individual arrives at the
fulness of meaning. Cullmann's
perspective devolves into a view of salvation history not far from what most
conservatives deplored in Barth and Bultmann.
Furthermore,
Cullmann's famous analogy from World War II, in
which the decisive battle Christ fought on the cross is compared to D-Day, with
the enemy's defeat guaranteed in the VE-Day second coming of Christ, between
which there remain many battles for the church, cannot bear the weight that
has been placed upon it by apologists for a still future advent. If anything,
his analogy requires an imminent coming of Christ in time and does nothing to
justify its ongoing delay. As Berkouwer observes,
The longer one reflects on Cullmann's analogy, the less convincing it becomes. On D-Day the strength of the Allied military position was apparent to all. It was from this position of strength that the people took
course. But the certainty of ultimate victory, which is the focal point of the analogy, was still very much in question [Berkouwer: 75].
It was because Victory in
Europe Day (VE-Day) occurred on May 8, 1945, less than a year after D-Day (June
6, 1944), that D-Day could be said to have been so decisive. If VE-Day had not
occurred, which is what those looking for a future advent admit is true of Christ's
second advent, or had not occurred for hundreds or thousands of years, would
anyone have considered D-Day in any way decisive? The decisiveness of a battle
owes in large part to the swirl conclusion of the war, not its prolongation
and apparent interminability. Cullmann's analogy
appears under closer scrutiny to be yet another coping mechanism offered by
sufferers of cognitive dissonance to justify a belief that has failed historical
confirmation. Klaus Koch has rightly said,
Where New Testament scholars expound the dialectical formula "now already--not yet," they do so in such varying ways, and the interpretations correspond so closely to the respective private theologies of the
commentators themselves, that from this angle the formula itself becomes a dubious one [Koch: 70-71].
Clarifying Eschatology and
Diffusing Delay
Eschatology "refers to a
time in the future when the course of history will be changed to such an extent
that one can speak of an entirely new state of reality" (Peterson: 575). "Such
assertions are eschatological which point to a future in which the relations
of history, i.e., the world, are so transformed that one can speak of a new
condition of things, of something 'entirely different'" (Lindblom:
32; cf. also Schreiner: 206; Dingermann: 229).
While the emergence of apocalyptic
produces a shift in accent from prophetic eschatology, "the difference is more
one of degree than of kind (Hill: 64). Because the roots of apocalyptic are
in the exilic and post-exilic prophets themselves, "the biblical prophets anticipated
a future much like" that of the apocalyptists (ibid.).
That future is focused on God's relationship in history with his people embodied
in a remnant which finds its security and peace, not in the temple and Jerusalem
but in faithful obedience to God himself as he was revealed "in these last days....
by his Son" (Heb. 1:2) and constitutes in himself a new temple and center of
identity.
As the "center" of Old Testament
eschatology is
The belief that God "has
acted climactically, and not merely paradigmatically, in Jesus of Nazareth"
"will drive the Christian to history, as a hypothesis drives the scientist to
the modifications and adaptations necessary if the hypothesis is to stand the
test of reality" (Wright 1992: 136). Theology has often "used eschatology to
move into speculations about a virtual reality, something that science will
not readily accept. In this way, theologians have tried to immune their claim
from the judgment of the sciences" (Polkinghorne
& Welker: 2). Ridderbos's assertion: "The meaning
of history ... is not to start from the 'problem of the delay of the Parousia,'
but rather from this all-embracing motif of fulfillment" (496) evinces a
petitio principii and
fideism that is not allowed in any other science. There can be no assumption
of fulfillment. There must be verification of fulfillment within the constraints
of authorial intention and grammatical-historical bounds; without such verification,
the hypothesis is empty.
Let us briefly consider
some objections. What of the visibility of Christ at his Parousia? Since I have
already dealt with this elsewhere (Otto 1994), I confine myself here to a syllogism:
if it is impossible for any mortal to see God in his glory and live (Exod
33:20), and if Christ comes in the glory of the Father (Mark 8:38), having resumed
his pre-incarnate glory (John 17:5), then it is impossible for anyone to behold
Christ at his second coming and live apart from the veil of clouds on which
he is said to descend, whether personally or instrumentally. The clouds thus
serve to veil the divine glory, which no human can see, as in other
theophanies. Luke 21:27 says, "They will see the
Son of Man coming in a cloud with power and great glory" when
What of its purported universality?
Matthew 24:30 says, "All the nations of the earth will mourn" when they see
the Son of Man coming on the clouds with power and great glory. It is not possible,
even with contemporary nano-second technological
media, for everyone everywhere to see any one event at any one time. Clearly,
this is hyperbole accenting the significance of an event limited to the area
surrounding
How does the destruction
of the temple have universal significance? Some have said Wright's emphasis
on the destruction of
The objection that Jesus'
coming in the destruction of
If the return from Babylonian
exile was the beginning of a new age and the "day of the Lord" opened a new
era on earth because it pointed to the triumph of Yahweh, how much more the
return from exile in sin and the day of the Lord's vengeance upon the world
of sin. "The judgment [of 586 BCE] does not mean the end [of time], but rather
a turn of universal proportions to a transformed existence as a new heaven and
new earth (Isa 65:17; 66:22)" (Gross: 225). It speaks
of "the intervention of Yahweh in great acts of judgment (= "day of Yahweh")
in which only a part of the people, a remnant, will remain. Following from the
total falsity of the present way, life in this final dominion of Yahweh, as
something entirely new and very different from previous existence, is introduced
according to Yahweh's will by a special representative of Yahweh ("messiah")
(Schunk: 467). The wealth of nations will pour into
"What is so important about
the destruction of
Conclusion
If it would assume status
as a science, theology must accept a rigorous demand for publicly warranted
truth claims. Otherwise, existentialized eschatology
reduces to a cipher of inner self-consciousness, while the rationalizations
of the cognitively dissonant reduce to further instances of
petitio principii and
fideism, incapable of falsification or validation. The fundamental problem with
eschatology is that it has dehistoricized and atemporalized
the New Testament data. Eschatological claims require historical validation
to be considered true.
as of 9-2006
Name: Dr.
Clifford Durousseau
Email Address:
c_durousseau@yahoo.com
Date: September 05, 2007
Time: 02:46:20 AM
Comments
Otto's solution to the problem is not the solution. What we have to face up to is that fact the Jerusalem was destroyed and Jesus did not come 'immediately after' (Matt. 24) 'in those days in that time of distress' (Mark 13:24) on the clouds of heaven. All of his 'I am coming soon' promises found on the last page of Revelation (22: 7, 12, 20) ring hollow and false now and prove him mistaken and a false prophet and a failed messiah. -- Hermann Samuel Reimarus recognized this centuries ago, but Christian scholars have not yet grasped his penetrating insights.
________________________________________
Works Cited
Barth, K. 1933. THE EPISTLE
TO THE ROMANS
Beale, G. K. 1997. The Eschatological
Conception of New Testament Theology." Pp. 11-52 in ESCHATOLOGY IN BIBLE & THEOLOGY:
EVANGELICAL ESSAYS AT THE DAWN OF A NEW MILLENNIUM, edited by K. E. Brower &
M. W. Elliott.
Berkouwer,
G. C. 1972. THE RETURN OF CHRIST.
Bultmann, R. 1984. THE NEW
TESTAMENT AND MYTHOLOGY
1957. HISTORY AND ESCHATOLOGY.
1951, 1955. THEOLOGY OF
THE NEW TESTAMENT. 2 vols.;
Braaten, C. E., & R. W.
Jenson. 2002. Preface. Pp. vii-ix in THE LAST THINGS: BIBLICAL & THEOLOGICAL
PERSPECTIVES ON ESCHATOLOGY, edited by Braaten & Jenson.
Brandon, S. G. F. 1951.
THE FALL OF
Cranfield,
C. E. B. 1982. New Testament Eschatology. SCOTTISH JOURNAL OF THEOLOGY 35:497-512.
1977. ROMANS IX-XVI. ICC;
Cullman, O. 1964. CHRIST
AND TIME
Dingermann,
F. 1978. Israels Hoffnung
auf Gott und sein Reich.
in ESCHATOLOGIE IM ALTEN TESTAMENT, edited by H. D. Preuss.
Dodd, C. H. 1936. THE APOSTOLIC
PREACHING AND ITS DEVELOPMENTS.
Eddy, P. R. 1999. The
WRight Jesus: Eschatological
Festinger, L., et al. 2000
[1956]. Unfulfilled Prophecies and Disappointed Messiahs. Pp. 31-54 in EXPECTING
ARMAGEDDON: ESSENTIAL READINGS IN FAILED PROPHECIES, edited by J. R. Stone.
Frost, S. B. 1952. OLD TESTAMENT
APOCALYPTIC: ITS ORIGINS AND GROWTH.
Fuchs, E. 1969. On the Task
of a Christian Theology. JOURNAL FOR THEOLOGY AND THE CHURCH 6: 69-98.
Geddert,
Timothy J. 1989. WATCHWORDS: MARK 13 IN MARKAN ESCHATOLOGY.
JSNTSup 26;
Gowan,
D. E. 1986. ESCHATOLOGY IN THE OLD TESTAMENT.
Gross, H. 1978. Die
Entwicklng der
alttestamentlichen Heilshoffnung.
in ESCHATOLOGIE IM ALTEN TESTAMENT, edited by H. D. Preuss.
Hanson, P. 1987. OLD TESTAMENT
APOCALYPTIC.
Hill, C. C. 2002. IN GOD'S
TIME: THE BIBLE AND THE FUTURE.
Hoekema,
A. A. 1979. THE BIBLE AND THE FUTURE.
Holmstrom, F. 1936. DAS
ESCHATOLOGISCHE DENKEN DER GEGENWART.
Hoppe, L. J. 2000. THE
Koch, K. 1972. THE REDISCOVERY
OF APOCALYPTIC.
Levenson,
J. D. 1985. SINAI & ZION: AN ENTRY INTO THE JEWISH BIBLE.
Lindblom,
J. 1978. Gibt es
eine Eschatolgie bet
den altestamentlichen Prophelen?
Pp. 31-72 in ESCHATOLOGIE IM ALTEN TESTAMENT, edited by H. D.
Preuss.
Moltmann, J. 1967a. THEOLOGY
OF HOPE: ON THE GROUNDS AND IMPLICATIONS OF A CHRISTIAN ESCHATOLOGY.
1967b.
Antwort auf die Kritik
der Theologie
der Hoffnung. Pp. 210-38
in DISKUSSION UBER DIE "THEOLOGIE DER HOFFNUNG," edited by W.-D.
Marsch.
McNicoll, A.J. 1996. JESUS'
DIRECTIONS FOR THE FUTURE: A SOURCE AND REDACTION-HISTORY STUDY OF THE USE OF
THE ESCHATOLOGICAL TRADITIONS IN PAUL AND IN THE SYNOPTIC ACCOUNTS OF JESUS'
LAST ESCHATOLOGICAL DISCOURSE.
Otto, R. E. 2001. The Prophets
and Their Perspective. CATHOLIC BIBLICAL QUARTERLY 63:219-40.
1994. COMING IN THE CLOUDS:
AN EVANGELICAL CASE FOR THE INVISIBILITY OF CHRIST AT HIS SECOND COMING.
1991. THE GOD OF HOPE: THE
TRINITARIAN VISION OF JURGEN MOLTMANN.
Pannenberg, W. 1977. JESUS--GOD
AND MAN.
1968. Dogmatic Theses on
the Doctrine of Revelation. Pp. 123-58 in REVELATION AS HISTORY, edited by W.
Pannenberg.
Peterson, D. L. 1992. Eschatology
OT. in ABD 2:575-79.
Polkinghorne,
J., & M. Welker. 2000. Introduction: Science and Theology on the End of the
World and the Ends of God. Pp. 1-13 in THE END OF THE WORLD AND THE ENDS OF
GOD, edited by J. Polkinghorne and M. Welker.
Reddish, M. G. 1990. Introduction.
Pp. 19-38 in APOCALYPTIC LITERATURE: A READER, edited by M. G. Reddish.
Reicke, B. 1972. Synoptic
Prophecies on the Destruction of
Ridderbos, H. N. 1975. PAUL:
AN OUTLINE OF HIS THEOLOGY.
Rigaux,
B. 1956.
Robinson, J. A. T. 1976.
REDATING THE NEW TESTAMENT.
Russell, J. S. 1983 [1887].
THE PAROUSIA: A STUDY OF THE NEW TESTAMENT DOCTRINE OF OUR LORD'S SECOND COMING.
Sauter, G. 1969. The Future:
A Question for the Christian-Marxist Dialogue. Pp. 125-34 in THE PROBLEM OF
ESCHATOLOGY, edited by E. Schillebeeckx & B.
Willems. Concilium 41;
Schreiner, J. 1978. Das
Ende der
Tage. Pp. 198-216 in ESCHATOLOGIE IM ALTEN TESTAMENT,
edited by H. D. Preuss.
Schunk,
K.-D. 1978. Die Eschatologie
der Propheten des
Alten Testaments und ihre
Wandlung in exilisch-nachexilischer
Zeit. Pp. 462-80 in ESCHATOLOGIE IM ALTEN TESTAMENT,
edited by H. D. Preuss.
Smalley, S. 1984. The Delay
of the Parousia. JOURNAL OF BIBLICAL LITERATURE 83:41-54.
Snodgrass, K. R. 1999. Reading
& Overreading the Parables in JESUS AND THE VICTORY
OF GOD. Pp. 61-76 in JESUS & THE RESTORATION OF ISRAEL: A CRITICAL ASSESSMENT
OF N. T. WRIGHT'S JESUS AND THE VICTORY OF GOD, edited by C. C. Newman.
Terry, M. S. 1988. [1898].
BIBLICAL APOCALYPTICS: A STUDY OF THE MOST NOTABLE REVELATIONS OF GOD AND OF
CHRIST.
Turner, D. L. 1989. The
Structure and Sequence of Matthew 24:1-41. GRACE THEOLOGICAL JOURNAL 10: 3-27.
Walker, P. W. L. 1996. JESUS
AND THE
Weiss, J. 1964. DIE PREDIGT
JESU VOM REICH GOTTES.
Witherington,
III B. 1997. Transcending Imminence: The Gordian Knot of Pauline Eschatology.
Pp. 171-86 in ESCHATOLOGY IN BIBLE & THEOLOGY: EVANGELICAL ESSAYS AT THE DAWN
OF A NEW MILLENNIUM, edited by K. E. Brower & M. W. Elliott.
Wright, N. T. 2001. Farewell
to the rapture: little did Paul Know how his colorful metaphors for Jesus' second
coming would be misunderstood two millennia later. BIBLICAL RESEARCH 17: 8,
52.
1996. JESUS AND THE VICTORY
OF GOD.
1992. THE NEW TESTAMENT
AND THE PEOPLE OF GOD.
Randall Otto, Ph.D. (Westminster
Theological Seminary) is affiliate faculty in religion and philosophy at
COPYRIGHT 2004 Biblical
Theology Bulletin, Inc
This material is published
under license from the publisher through the Gale Group,
For permission to reprint this article, contact the Copyright Clearance Center.