Fwd: [asa] A theology question (imminent return of Christ)

Heya Bernie.

I think David O. And Murray Hogg are providing some good explanations of why
what you think is 'obvious' here is anything but. Quite a lot of your
concern hinges on assumptions of Christ explicitly and unquestionably giving
a timeframe for His return, that teaching not being related in the gospels,
it being specific and correctly understood, etc - it requires a lot of
unknowns lining up properly, and the possibility doesn't seem particularly
strong even taking Ed's cites. Especially not when compared to the
alternative - that the timing of the return was out and out ambiguous in
teaching while the return itself was certain. Therefore you would naturally
have preparation, hope, and maybe even fear that the return would be very
soon (Within one's lifetime) while at the same time seeing actions
consistent with the possibility of a distant return (Building communities,
teachings about dealing with sinners and nonbelievers and pre-return life,
etc.) If Christ gave a very ambiguous timing for His return - and I think
the evidence strongly points in that direction - then what we see in the
gospels and the extrabiblical record fits. The assumption of 'the only way
the disciples or anyone else could expect a return that's very soon is if
Christ taught this explicitly and personally' is just too weak given the
alternatives.
(And my apologies, Bernie, I accidentally sent this right to your email -
still learning the ways of this list.)

On Tue, Oct 14, 2008 at 12:42 PM, Dehler, Bernie <bernie.dehler@intel.com>wrote:

> Hi Schwarzwald-
>
>
>
> I think one of the disagreements I have with you is that you are only
> considering Christ's words from the Bible. I'm considering the 10x to 1000x
> more He taught them verbally. We can't get in the same mindset as the early
> disciples by simply reading some tidbits of Christ's teaching, as recorded
> in Scripture. They would have been saturated in Christ's verbal teaching;
> so if they expected Christ's return in their day, I'm supposing Christ
> taught.
>
>
>
>

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Received on Wed Oct 15 19:36:35 2008