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"Do you cherish that of God within you, that his power growing in you may rule your life? Do you seek to follow Jesus who shows us the Father and teaches us the Way?" (Christian Faith & Practice, London Yearly Meeting, 1960)
June 07, 2007
Mark 13.1-2
As he was leaving the Temple, one of his disciples exclaimed, "Look, Master, what huge stones! What fine buildings!"
Jesus said to him, "You see these great buildings? Not one stone will be left upon another; all will be thrown down."
It took some thirty-odd years for this to take place. Modern scholars therefore date this saying to sometime around 70 AD, assuming that Jesus himself couldn't have known. (So much for the assumptions of modern scholars.)
Of course this saying did not prove true of the outer courtyard walls, one of which still remains as "the Wailing Wall."
Josephus speaks of another Jesus, a peasant who came to Jerusalem some time closer to the event, and cried out prophecies of destruction uncontrollably until brought before the authorities, who had him scourged at first but released him as "mad" when this failed to silence his outbursts. Josephus has him there on the wall during the siege, saying his last words "and woe to me!" just before a stone from a Roman catapult smashes him dead.
People tend to take this whole chapter as predicting "The End of the World," whereas this initial piece is plainly speaking of a concrete (though world-shattering!) historical event.
Does the rest of it go back to Jesus, or was it added by later followers? And does it, too, refer to the historical devastation of the Holy Land? Or is it, as it appears to be in places, largely about a worldwide upheaval some thousands of years later?--which generations of Christians, from Paul on, have continued to expect in their own times? What's going on, with this?
1 comment:
It took some thirty-odd years for this to take place. Modern scholars therefore date this saying to sometime around 70 AD, assuming that Jesus himself couldn't have known. (So much for the assumptions of modern scholars.)
Of course this saying did not prove true of the outer courtyard walls, one of which still remains as "the Wailing Wall."
Josephus speaks of another Jesus, a peasant who came to Jerusalem some time closer to the event, and cried out prophecies of destruction uncontrollably until brought before the authorities, who had him scourged at first but released him as "mad" when this failed to silence his outbursts. Josephus has him there on the wall during the siege, saying his last words "and woe to me!" just before a stone from a Roman catapult smashes him dead.
People tend to take this whole chapter as predicting "The End of the World," whereas this initial piece is plainly speaking of a concrete (though world-shattering!) historical event.
Does the rest of it go back to Jesus, or was it added by later followers? And does it, too, refer to the historical devastation of the Holy Land? Or is it, as it appears to be in places, largely about a worldwide upheaval some thousands of years later?--which generations of Christians, from Paul on, have continued to expect in their own times? What's going on, with this?
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