Times of the Gentiles

[weeder]

Hello.
I have you preterests in mind as i write this, but all are welcome to express their opinion.

Luke 21:24
1-) Woe to those who are pregnant and to those who are nursing babies in those days;
for there will be great distress upon the land and wrath to this people;
24 and they will fall by the edge of the sword, and will be led captive into all the nations;
and Jerusalem will be trampled under foot by the Gentiles until the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled.

The above is one of 3 accounts of Jesus discourse on the temples destruction , Jewish exile and his promised coming at the end of days....see also Matt 24 and Mk 13.


What will bring an end to the times of the Gentiles over Jerusalem?( one of the signs of the Lords coming at the end of this discourse ,would include this event).


My thoughts,

Exile resulted in the Gentiles trampling Jerusalem, so will Jewish return to Jerusalem put an end to the times of the Gentiles? What else could?

The Gospel is to be preached to all peoples of the earth, and then the end will come.
This end would then have something to do with Jewish control of Jerusalem / Times of the Gentiles over Jerusalem being fulfilled.

Is there a satisfactory answer of the trampling of Gentiles ending in 70AD?
Didnt it rather begin in 70AD?


Please attempt to answer the question before addressing any other issues you may have concerning my post...cheers.

[Richard Amiel McGough]

Hello.
I have you preterests in mind as i write this, but all are welcome to express their opinion.

Luke 21:24
1-) Woe to those who are pregnant and to those who are nursing babies in those days;
for there will be great distress upon the land and wrath to this people;
24 and they will fall by the edge of the sword, and will be led captive into all the nations;
and Jerusalem will be trampled under foot by the Gentiles until the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled.

The above is one of 3 accounts of Jesus discourse on the temples destruction , Jewish exile and his promised coming at the end of days....see also Matt 24 and Mk 13.


What will bring an end to the times of the Gentiles over Jerusalem?( one of the signs of the Lords coming at the end of this discourse ,would include this event).


My thoughts,

Exile resulted in the Gentiles trampling Jerusalem, so will Jewish return to Jerusalem put an end to the times of the Gentiles? What else could?

The Gospel is to be preached to all peoples of the earth, and then the end will come.
This end would then have something to do with Jewish control of Jerusalem / Times of the Gentiles over Jerusalem being fulfilled.

Is there a satisfactory answer of the trampling of Gentiles ending in 70AD?
Didnt it rather begin in 70AD?


Please attempt to answer the question before addressing any other issues you may have concerning my post...cheers.

Great question!

The meaning of the "times of the Gentiles" is unknown because the Bible doesn't say. So people speculate. And all speculations are based upon assumptions that fit a person's preferred eschatological position so they are useless for discerning between competing eschatological systems like Futurism and Preterism. The first task for anyone who wants to know what the Bible really teaches is to AVOID ALL SPECULATION and first establish the "Big Picture" that can be confirmed by many witnesses (mutually confirming verses). When this is done, you can then speculate about the things that are not clearly established by many clear and unambiguous verses.

If you follow this simple rule, you will see that the Futurist eschatology crumbles to dust before your very eyes.

Take a look at my review of the three synoptic versions of the Olivet Discourse called The Synoptic Apocalypse (because it speaks of the same events as Revelation) and let me know what you think. A good place to leave comments would be on the thread I started on this topic back in April 2008 of the same name. Here is my opinion about the "times of the Gentiles" that I wrote for that article:

This prophecy is unique to Luke's record. It is extremely significant because it links directly to Daniel's prophecy that states everything would be fulfilled when the Jews were scattered out of the Holy Land (see the preceding comments as well as above).

Futurist often interpret the "times of the Gentiles" mentioned here as implying that there will be a future restoration of Biblical Israel. Their view can not be confirmed because there are no other passages in the Bible that speak specifically of the "time of the Gentiles" or of a future restoration. But there is a passage that speaks of Jerusalem as being "tread under foot" by the Gentiles, and this reference is found in Revelation which is an expansion on the Olivet Discourse, a kind of "parallel passage" if you will: And there was given me a reed like unto a rod: and the angel stood, saying, Rise, and measure the temple of God, and the altar, and them that worship therein. But the court which is without the temple leave out, and measure it not; for it is given unto the Gentiles: and the holy city shall they tread under foot forty and two months. Revelation 11:1-2

Thus the "time of the Gentiles" appears to have lasted about three and a half years (forty two months). Another posibility is that it ended was an ongoing period of many cernturies beginning with the Babylonian exile unti it ended with the three and one half years of the Great Tribulation of 66-70 AD. In any case, it is of central importance to realize that God did not leave us a clear and unambigous witness as to the meaning of this passage, so it can not be used in the foundation of any eschatological system (see The Fundamental Principle of Biblical Heremeneutics).

[duxrow]

Time, times(pl), and still a millennium ahead! Amen? And a thousand years are as One Day to the Lord, don't forget!

[Richard Amiel McGough]

Time, times(pl), and still a millennium ahead! Amen? And a thousand years are as One Day to the Lord, don't forget!

I can see why you would be impressed by that timeline, but I think the real reason is because you are living at the time that the pattern suggests the millennium would start. Why didn't folks make diagrams like that a thousand years ago? Because they were hoping the millennium would start in their lifetimes so they said that Christ should return in 1000 AD! Oops.

Date-suggesting is just as wrong as date-setting. Everyone who has ever done it has been proven wrong. That's a 2000 year record of perfect error. I can't think of any idea that has been more soundly refuted. Why would you want to hook your trailer to such a fallacious train?

[duxrow]

I can see why you would be impressed by that timeline, but I think the real reason is because you are living at the time that the pattern suggests the millennium would start. Why didn't folks make diagrams like that a thousand years ago? Because they were hoping the millennium would start in their lifetimes so they said that Christ should return in 1000 AD! Oops.

Date-suggesting is just as wrong as date-setting. Everyone who has ever done it has been proven wrong. That's a 2000 year record of perfect error. I can't think of any idea that has been more soundly refuted. Why would you want to hook your trailer to such a fallacious train?

May help you, Richard, to remember the 7 years for Rachel and Leah are examples of the 20 centuries for the Old and New Covenants.

The 7 years of Good Harvest is example of [storing] the Times of the Jews being a school teacher for the times of the Gentiles, when we must feed off the words of Scripture.

But hey! Whatever suits your fancy... Life can be beautiful, eh?

[Richard Amiel McGough]

May help you, Richard, to remember the 7 years for Rachel and Leah are examples of the 20 centuries for the Old and New Covenants.

The 7 years of Good Harvest is example of [storing] the Times of the Jews being a school teacher for the times of the Gentiles, when we must feed off the words of Scripture.

But hey! Whatever suits your fancy... Life can be beautiful, eh?

I can see some justification for the typology of Leah/Jews and Rachel/Christians. We have the precedent with Paul's use of Hagar and Sarah as analogies for the two covenants. And I can see why you would be impressed by the three sequences of roughly 2000 years. But the simple fact is that I think the pattern will break when you see that the years continue to roll on without the millennium happening. No one has ever used such methods of interpretation to discern any objective truth. That's why it all seems rather vain to me. After 2000 years of fitting patterns to the Bible, no one has ever successfully predicted anything.

[sylvius]

Ha, Ratzinger (in "Jesus of Nazareth II"):

[sylvius]

I say it's the same as what is expressed by "The kingdom of God has drawn near" (the Gospel in a nutshell)
See:


http://www.biblewheel.com/forum/show...7435#post47435

[Richard Amiel McGough]

Ha, Ratzinger (in "Jesus of Nazareth II"):

"Ha" indeed!

Ratzinger doesn't understand what "world" meant to the first century Jews who wrote the NT.

[sylvius]

"Ha" indeed!

Ratzinger doesn't understand what "world" meant to the first century Jews who wrote the NT.

That's true.

I do live in a region of Holland with it's own dialect.

There is some Christian, even a professor, who thinks thet Jesus only will return when the bible has been translated in all the languages, even all the dialects, of the whole world.

That's why he translated the bible, even the whole 66-book bible, into our local dialect.

Which I think is stupid.

Also making the bible an idol.