the jesus mistake?

Originally posted by dizzyfingers
Glad to see someone did their homework.
I read some of C.S. Lewis' works shortly after I became a Christian, like, The Great Divorce, Mere Christianity, The Four Loves, the Narnia series, and some of the science-fiction trilogy (Perelandra, That Hideous Strength, ... I forget the other title). I have recently picked up "The Abolition of Man."
I admir ...[text shortened]... but I've also read his Reflections on the Psalms, and soon realized he was no Bible scholar.

Neither, apparently, are you.

Originally posted by knightmeister
In Matthew 24:34 (I think) Jesus says “Verily I say unto you, This generation shall not pass, till all these things be fulfilled.”

CS LEWIS comments on this - “Say what you like," we shall be told, "the apocalyptic beliefs of the first Christians have been proved to be false. It is clear from the New Testament that they all expected the Second Co ...[text shortened]... ust went a bit far in his predictions. Even the best public speaker makes mistakes?

I asked my pastor about this, He said that the mistake is oft made that Jesus referred here to a generation being 20 or so years. In fact, He was speaking of the church age (church generation), which started with Christ and is still underway today.

Originally posted by knightmeister
I don't rate pascal's wager myself. I think it's a kop out.

Yet everyone falls victim to it at some time or another. If you remember just after 9/11 lots of people stopped flying. Statistically, it was still safer to fly than to cross the road, but when you see a small probability of an event with dire consequences you tend to give the dire consequences more than their due weight. Its the same effect as the lottery phenomena but with a bad prize not a good one. In a lottery people allow a large life changing prize to blind them to how small the odds are.

My best guess is that there was a slight game of chinese whispers and the odd word got changed or emphasised to change the meaning.
But that is my point. Why are you more concerned about Chinese whispers of a prophesy than you are about Jesus' ancestors? Don't forget too that Jesus' ancestors are in fact quoted solely in an attempt to prove that Jesus fulfills a prophesy.
Is it because you are afraid that if something 'big' like that was got wrong then other big things could be wrong?

Originally posted by PinkFloyd
I asked my pastor about this, He said that the mistake is oft made that Jesus referred here to a generation being 20 or so years. In fact, He was speaking of the church age (church generation), which started with Christ and is still underway today.

I remember bringing this up a while back in these forums. If God happily uses words which to us mean one thing and to him mean another then we have no hope of understanding the Bible. For example people often say 'To God a day is a thousand years" and then proceed to put a thousand years wherever it says 'day' in the Bible. Now you are telling us that 'generation' means something non-standard.
How can we know when which word means what? Obviously the answer to my question is simple. Whenever the text doesn't make sense then it must mean something else. Hence the Bible can never be wrong.

Originally posted by PinkFloyd
I asked my pastor about this, He said that the mistake is oft made that Jesus referred here to a generation being 20 or so years. In fact, He was speaking of the church age (church generation), which started with Christ and is still underway today.

I have two problems with this. Firstly , what's the point of saying this? It's a basic truism that his church will be around when it happens. It would be a bit like saying "all these things will happen on earth" ( to which the response would be - "thank you jesus , but I'm sure I didn't think they would happen on venus" )

Secondly , it's a bit like trying to fit a square peg in a round hole because it's not what the early church believed he meant and he is talking directly to the disciples . There's a whole feeling of iminence in these words if you look at the context of them.

Originally posted by dizzyfingers
One more time folks, ... ThinkOfOne had it right.
You all need to do your homework. I am trying to be patient with some of you, because over and over again, you are acting like you think that by your intellectual prowess you are going to shame us poor, stupid, uneducated, un-thinking Christians! But all you are doing is arrogantly spouting opinions the rest of you who want to continue to argue the point, ... your ignorance is showing 😳

My mistake about the CS lewis quote. I don't think all of it was Lewis. But does it really matter who said it? The point is still valid. The big problem I have with it (and I say this as a christian not as someone looking to knock the faith) is that at best it's highly missleading. I find myself wanting the disciples to ask more questions like - "so do you mean this will happen in our lifetime?" Surely they would have asked him and surely he would have sensed what they were thinking. We know that they got the impression that it was coming very soon. They wanted to know . He wanted to tell them. How did the whole thing go so badly wrong? Did they mis-hear him?


The whole early church was based around an imminent second coming but it didn't happen. Why was there not more clarity here? I can't believe that Jesus would have been happy that many people got completely the wrong idea from what he said. Afterall , this is a highly significant event we are talking about here. Jesus is not predicting if it will snow at Xmas or not! LOL

Originally posted by knightmeister
What's more , we are asked as Christians to judge a prophet on the accuracy of his prophecies.

I believe that John the Baptist also believed that the world would end within his life time (as did a number of the disciples). I don't know if he actually said so, but if he did, does that mean you must ignore what John the Baptist had to say? Clearly the gospel writers thought that his confirmation of Jesus as the messiah was important.
There are other prophesies in the Old Testament that also did not come true. Should we through out those books?

Originally posted by knightmeister
My best guess is that there was a slight game of chinese whispers and the odd word got changed or emphasised to change the meaning.

And that highlights a major problem that all Christians must face. How to deal with errors in the Bible. Some deal with it by denying the existence of errors (as is clearly evidenced in this thread). Some try to keep them to a minimum -as you are clearly doing.
The problem is that admission of just one error must logically lead you to question the whole book. Why do you believe any of it? How do you decide which parts to believe? I find it interesting that you go for Chinese whispers and avoid the obvious possibility that Jesus might not have actually said it.
Why are you so sure that what is attributed to Jesus was in general actually said by him? The only reasonable answer you can give is that you believe that God made sure that the information was passed on correctly. But if that is the case then what about the Chinese whispers? What about the translation errors? What about the ancestors of Jesus? When exactly did God stop safeguarding the text?
That is the real problem that you fear.

Originally posted by knightmeister
I can't believe that Jesus would have been happy that many people got completely the wrong idea from what he said.

Considering the number of denominations and the diversity of opinions on what Jesus or Paul meant when they said various things one can only conclude that most people are wrong about a lot of stuff and Jesus is one very unhappy man.

If "this generation" doesn't mean the generation addressed by Jesus and/or the Evangelists, it has no rhetorical force. Why put a time-line on your predictions if it is not really a time-line at all? It would have been better to just say nothing. A good interpretive rule of thumb is to avoid readings that render portions of texts superfluous and irrelevant to their first hearers.

Originally posted by twhitehead
Considering the number of denominations and the diversity of opinions on what Jesus or Paul meant when they said various things one can only conclude that most people are wrong about a lot of stuff and Jesus is one very unhappy man.

It's a good job that scripture isn't the only way of getting to know him then isn't it.

Originally posted by twhitehead
And that highlights a major problem that all Christians must face. How to deal with errors in the Bible. Some deal with it by denying the existence of errors (as is clearly evidenced in this thread). Some try to keep them to a minimum -as you are clearly doing.
The problem is that admission of just one error must logically lead you to question the whole ...[text shortened]... Jesus? When exactly did God stop safeguarding the text?
That is the real problem that you fear.

It depends if you build your faith totally on some book like a highway code telling you what to do. Many of the early church could not read and had no Bible as such. I wonder what it was that was driving them on?

Originally posted by twhitehead
I believe that John the Baptist also believed that the world would end within his life time (as did a number of the disciples). I don't know if he actually said so, but if he did, does that mean you must ignore what John the Baptist had to say? Clearly the gospel writers thought that his confirmation of Jesus as the messiah was important.
There are other ...[text shortened]... prophesies in the Old Testament that also did not come true. Should we through out those books?

I do hope you are not succombing to the temptation to grind an axe at my expense here. The question was raised in good faith in the expectation that some Atheists might jump on the bandwagon and take advantage of it.

The fact is that Christians do actually ask these questions. We don't always come up with neat answers and there are always loose ends left untied. If you want something watertight then don't look to Christianity. But does a faith having loose ends mean it's bunk? Personally I quite like the fact it's a bit messy. If it was all sorted I think I would get quite nervous about it.

Originally posted by knightmeister
It depends if you build your faith totally on some book like a highway code telling you what to do. Many of the early church could not read and had no Bible as such. I wonder what it was that was driving them on?

Many people today don't read the Bible either. And those who do clearly cant understand most of it.
So, if you do not build your faith totally on some book like a highway code you should have no problem admitting that in all likelihood the writer of Mathew had no idea what Jesus said on that particular day. Yet you seem extremely reluctant to do so. Don't worry, the highway patrol don't monitor these forums.

Originally posted by knightmeister
I do hope you are not succombing to the temptation to grind an axe at my expense here. The question was raised in good faith in the expectation that some Atheists might jump on the bandwagon and take advantage of it.

I wouldn't describe it as grinding an axe. I am:
1. trying to find out your views on the matter.
2. pointing out that the issue is far greater than the one verse you gave.
3. and yes, taking advantage of the fact that someone actually wants to talk about it (though maybe not with us atheists?). Usually when I bring up a sensitive topic like that all the theists go quiet.

The fact is that Christians do actually ask these questions. We don't always come up with neat answers and there are always loose ends left untied. If you want something watertight then don't look to Christianity. But does a faith having loose ends mean it's bunk? Personally I quite like the fact it's a bit messy. If it was all sorted I think I would get quite nervous about it.
Then you wouldn't like Islaam - from what I hear the Qu'ran is much better organized than the Bible and the fact that there is far less division in the Islamic religion is evidence for that.
One is of course left to wonder why you like having a messy faith and why you thing God wants such confusion to reign. In fact you yourself said you didn't think Jesus would be happy about it, so why does he disagree with God?

The fact is that Christians do actually ask these questions.
But you pussyfoot around the core issue and never really tackle the questions head on. I see the same behavior when it comes to discussing the soul.
Do you really ever honestly ask yourself "Why do I trust the validity of the text in the Bible?"? Do you ever discuss it openly with anyone other than people you know will affirm your beliefs?