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To: xzins; P-Marlowe; blue-duncan; Corin Stormhands
Good find. I'd thought about posting something similar to one of the other "preterist" threads, but I got distracted.

Preterism utterly fails on multiple fronts, but the dating of the Revelation is the final nail in the coffin.

5 posted on 09/19/2005 9:26:24 AM PDT by Buggman (L'chaim b'Yeshua HaMashiach!<p>)
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To: Buggman; xzins; P-Marlowe; blue-duncan; Corin Stormhands
Preterism utterly fails on multiple fronts, but the dating of the Revelation is the final nail in the coffin.

Curious that y'all would hang your hopes on a human tradition, and a very thin one at that. Not to mention that this tradition comes from the very same church fathers that you apparently do not hold in very high regard for the way theey destroyed "authentic Christianity".

Irenaeus wrote:

"Since, then, the law originated with Moses, it terminated with John as a necessary consequence. Christ had come to fulfil it: wherefore "the law and the prophets were" with them "until John." And therefore Jerusalem, taking its commencement from David, and fulfilling its own times, must have an end of legislation when the new covenant was revealed. For God does all things by measure and in order; nothing is unmeasured with Him, because nothing is out of order. Well spake he, who said that the unmeasurable Father was Himself subjected to measure in the Son; for the Son is the measure of the Father, since He also comprehends Him. But that the administration of them (the Jews) was temporary, Esaias says: "And the daughter of Zion shall be left as a cottage in a vineyard, and as a lodge in a garden of cucumbers." And when shall these things be left behind? Is it not when the fruit shall be taken away, and the leaves alone shall be left, which now have no power of producing fruit?"

"God, then, was made man, and the Lord did Himself save us, giving us the token of the Virgin. But not as some allege, among those now presuming to expound the Scripture, [thus:] "Behold, a young woman shall conceive, and bring forth a son," as Theodotion the Ephesian has interpreted, and Aquila of Pontus, both Jewish proselytes. The Ebionites, following these, assert that He was begotten by Joseph; thus destroying, as far as in them lies, such a marvellous dispensation of God, and setting aside the testimony of the prophets which proceeded from God. For truly this prediction was uttered before the removal of the people to Babylon; that is, anterior to the supremacy acquired by the Medes and Persians. But it was interpreted into Greek by the Jews themselves, much before the period of our Lord's advent, that there might remain no suspicion that perchance the Jews, complying with our humour, did put this interpretation upon these words. They indeed, had they been cognizant of our future existence, and that we should use these proofs from the Scriptures, would themselves never have hesitated to burn their own Scriptures, which do declare that all other nations partake of [eternal] life, and show that they who boast themselves as being the house of Jacob and the people of Israel, am disinherited from the grace of God."

Note in the last quote how he attacks the notion, apparently common among Jewish proselytes and Ebionites, that Jesus was born of Joseph.

24 posted on 09/19/2005 1:14:46 PM PDT by topcat54
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