Preterism

[bolianbob]

Anyone familiar with this eschatological view? When I was still an active participant in the faith, I grew so weary of all the end of the world is nigh bullshit. I studied the rapture and found out it was just a bunch of bull and not really biblical at all. This led me to an end times view called preterism. Basically it means, that all of Jesus' predictions in Matthew 24, and the bulk of revelation came to pass in 70 AD when Rome sacked Jerusalem. That was the great end of days, and the true end of the old covenant age. But even after following this, I still had doubts about God. If there are no reliable first hand accounts of the gospels, couldn't it be possible that the authors of those scripts made it look like Jesus was able to prophesize these events? I mean, I have no evidence to support that notion, just theory. Any comments?

 

http://www.americanvision.org/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Preterism

[trashy]

I made a brief stop-off at Preterism before proceeding on to Atheism.

[Shyone]

Anyone familiar with this eschatological view? When I was still an active participant in the faith, I grew so weary of all the end of the world is nigh bullshit. I studied the rapture and found out it was just a bunch of bull and not really biblical at all. This led me to an end times view called preterism. Basically it means, that all of Jesus' predictions in Matthew 24, and the bulk of revelation came to pass in 70 AD when Rome sacked Jerusalem. That was the great end of days, and the true end of the old covenant age. But even after following this, I still had doubts about God. If there are no reliable first hand accounts of the gospels, couldn't it be possible that the authors of those scripts made it look like Jesus was able to prophesize these events? I mean, I have no evidence to support that notion, just theory. Any comments?

 

http://www.americanvision.org/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Preterism

I don't know if this fits the bill, but I first studied prophecy and found it lacking which lead to other explorations.

 

Basically, every prophecy that was accurate and detailed was written after the fact or contrived. Every prophecy that failed or was very vague was written before the presumed prophecied event.

 

The gospels were generally written after 70 AD, so any prophecy about the destruction of Jerusalem is after the fact. Prophecies of Jesus "virgin" birth and anything else where they said, "This was done to fulfill the prophecy of..." are contrived (and may actually be the source of the account).

 

Mark: c. 68–73,[13] c 65-70[2]

Matthew: c. 70–100.[13] c 80-85.[2] Some conservative scholars argue for a pre-70 date, particularly those that do not accept Mark as the first gospel written.

Luke: c. 80–100, with most arguing for somewhere around 85,[13], c 80-85[2]

John: c 90-100,[2] c. 90–110,[14] The majority view is that it was written in stages, so there was no one date of composition.

 

 

The same is true of Daniel - written after the fact but claiming to be written long before the prophecies.

 

So it isn't that the prophecies "came true" and the sacking of Jerusalem was the fulfillment of prophecies made before these events, but they were written after these events but from the perspective of Jesus' life.

 

It's nothing other than pious fraud. I believe that the prophecy of the 1,000 year reign, if that is to have been dated from the destruction of Jerusalem, was also false if we accept preterism.

 

I suggest you read a book on Biblical Criticism to see which passages are 1) interpolated, 2) written after the events they prophecy and 3) fictional (based on events that never happened, but fit some preconceived notion of the Messiah).

 

For example, There was no tax issued by Augustus for the whole Roman Empire. No Tax required people to go to their birth homes (this was done to fulfill a preconceived notion of where the Messiah would be born). Historical figures mentioned were not even contemporaries (and couldn't have been). The Isaiah prophecy was not, in the original language, a virgin. Not all of the gospels have this event, although it would seem to have been something worth mentioning. There is no historical confirmation of any of it (wise men included).

 

Aside from just being a virgin screwed by a ghost, the thing was an impossible fiction because of the text itself.

 

That's just one tiny bit of the biblical criticism available.

 

Prophecy is bunk.

[Ouroboros]

I left both preterism and pretenderism when I left.

[Guest]

I made a brief stop-off at Preterism before proceeding on to Atheism.

 

That's funny, I did too.

[RabbleRabble]

I was taught what was probably a form of preterism. In the version presented to me. Most of the prophecies were fulfilled when Rome sacked Jerusalem, but some of them actually did refer to the great end times Judgment Day. I guess this allowed them to get around the whole "this nation shall not pass away" problem while still holding onto an end times mythology.

[OnceConvinced]

I think it was probably my investigation into preterism back around 2000 was the first step towards my deconversion. It was when I first realised that the majority of Christianity probably had it all completely messed up and that if any of the end times teachings were true they had all happened in the first century AD. Paul's teachings specifically warned that Christ would return in the life times of those at the time. Paul continually preached as if Christ's return was eminent. These things really perplexed me as a Christian who believed Jesus was going to return soon.

 

I kind of sat on the fence with preterism vs futurism, but I think I was more inclined to go with preterism. But it certainly opened my eyes to how Christians twist and distort scripture to suit their own mindsets, while ignoring blatant issues that are staring them in the face. Preterests are clearly more rational and logical than futurists when it comes to their approach to the bible. Sure they still wanted to believe the bible, but at least they didn't try to insist that the bible predictions that were meant to happen "soon" were meant for us 2000 years down the track.

 

Now of course I can see that all those biblical predictions are just a load of crap and will never eventuate, just as they never eventuated for Paul and his followers.

[AC Skeptic]

But yet one more person who a brief flirt with preterism before decoversion. Ptererism is the closest to the honest text and is certainly closest to what was really going on, writers "predicted" future events several years after the fact, and then predicted the end of the world the very next moment (which didn't quite happen).

[nightflight]

I believe preterism, or even partial preterism, is a frank concession of the fact that Jesus did not return as was expected from the earliest days of Christianity until recently. It’s one thing for skeptics to scoff, it's quite another to see Christians re-invent their eschatology to accommodate this glaring problem.

 

http://debunkingchristianity.blogspot.com/2006/11/preterism-is-admission-that-jesus.html