>>>But i have not the energy now to get into this extensively, but can ping some others who may want to.<<<
Great! Maybe we can have a lively debate.
>>>And Gentiles which survived the Tribulation will be tested in being required to keep the feasts, etc. <<<
Just a minor point: I believe the “Great Tribulation” occurred in the lifetime of the disciples, exactly during the time Christ said it would; which would place it most likely between 67 and 70 AD when there was famine, starvation and cannibalism in Jerusalem.
Philip
There were no huge hail stones mixed with blood, nor was there a beast system that confronted two preternatural witnesses (who had the power of deep heaven that could shut off the rain or consume men with fire who should attempt to kill them) during the time period in which you speak. Mt Vesuvius was to blow up in 79 AD but that was the only real historic cataclysm of the time period. No instances where the day /night period was shortened by 6 hours and that the moon no longer showed her light. The mountains of the world have not been flattened and there is no river of fresh water flowing east AND west out of the Holy land...all of these things of which were to be seen during the tribulation and afterwards. Revelation speaks of the entire WORLD(not just Israel of the 70 ad time period) as going thru a tribulation such that, had never happened before nor would again. Had the tribulation occurred as you suggested...then Christ would have set up his 1000 year kingdom...the great final rebellion would have occurred and God’s white throne judgment would have happened. We would all be living now in God’s new heaven and new Earth.
While Revelation uses symbolic language in part, it is black and white about specific key events that mark the tribulation period as well as final 3.5 years often known as “the days of wrath”, marked by a final blood bath at Armageddon. The time period you cite with its historic events just doesn’t fit with Biblical prophecy which describes the days of the coming of the Son of Man.
Unless you are prepared to set the book of Revelation entirely at naught, you can’t show me any period in history marked by 7 years of world wide earth shattering judgments, plagues, or an economic system that forces all men of all classes to take a mark and worship an image, a false prophet, and the beast, the son of perdition as described in Thessalonians. Are you prepared to deny the coming two witnesses?
Phil I believe your title alone disqualifies this thread as “ecumenical.” Ecumenical threads to my knowledge are a low flame environment and by attributing “error” to an opposing view tells me one cannot argue their view on its own merits. I have seen your posts and others from the prederist view and as with other groups you can only point out alleged errors of others to present parts and pieces of your own views.
If you cannot present your case without comparison or multiple web links to the ideas of others then why bother? I have yet to see a prederist lay out their view without starting with why futurists are wrong. Perhaps your ecumenical thread should cover your prederist theory.
In all honesty when you post you use the same approach the JWs use to “prove” the trinity wrong. They find out of context verses, switch hermeneutics within a passage from literal to symbolic to allegory and back to literal again to stuff their arguments neatly in the kit bag. Yet when asked for their unadulterated view in opposition all they give is more “proof” why the other view is wrong. This goes on for hundreds of posts and you never find out what they stand for other than they think the other side is in error. Frankly that is your approach as well.
So my advice is to present your case for prederism and see if it can stand without trying to compare it to other views. That would be a first. But I don’t think it can be done. The theory relies on so many shifting hermeneutics within passages and denials of centuries of historic external evidence.