Posted on 08/07/2006 6:18:10 AM PDT by topcat54
David Brog has written Standing with Israel: Why Christians Support the Jewish State. The ten reviews I read on Amazon were quite favorable, and it is being advertised on WorldNetDaily. The fact that the Foreword was written by John Hagee, author of Jerusalem Countdown, From Daniel to Doomsday, Beginning of the End, and Final Dawn over Jerusalem, is a clear indication that the book’s thesis fits with the modern-day prophetic system known as dispensational premillennialism. I doubt that the book covers what this article reveals.
In my debate with Tommy Ice at American Vision’s Worldview Super Conference (May 26, 2006), Ice pointed out that one of the unique features of the dispensational system is that near the end of a future, post-rapture, seven-year tribulation period, Israel will be rescued by God. After nearly 2000 years of delayed promises, God will once again come to the rescue of His favored nation. Ice and other dispensationalists imply by this doctrine that they are Israel’s best friend, and anyone who does not adopt their way of interpreting the Bible is either anti-Semitic (Hal Lindsey) or a methodological naturalist (Tommy Ice).
In the debate, I wanted Tommy to explain how a belief in Israel’s glorious future results in the slaughter of two-thirds of the Jews living at the time the Great Tribulation nears the end of its seven-year run. I quoted the following dispensational writers to show that there is no glorious future for “all Jews who are under siege,” to use Tommy’s words, in the dispensational version of the Great Tribulation.
There are geopolitical implications to the dispensational system that some people have picked up on.
Dispensational theology as it relates to Israel is alarming to some Jewish leaders as well. Rabbi David Saperstein, director of the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism, asks, “To what extent will a theological view that calls for Armageddon in the Middle East lead [evangelicals] to support policies that may move in that direction, rather than toward stability and peaceful coexistence?”(2) The most probable scenario is that prophetic futurists will sit back and do nothing as they see Israel go up in smoke since the Bible predicts an inevitable holocaust. It is time to recognize that these so-called end-time biblical prophecies have been fulfilled, and Zechariah 13:7–9 is certainly one of them. Those Jews living in Judea prior to the destruction of Jerusalem in A.D. 70 and who fled before the assault on the temple were saved (Matt. 24:15–22).Convinced that a nuclear Armageddon is an inevitable event within the divine scheme of things, many evangelical dispensationalists have committed themselves to a course for Israel that, by their own admission, will lead directly to a holocaust indescribably more savage and widespread than any vision of carnage that could have generated in Adolf Hitler’s criminal mind.(1)
1. Grace Halsell, Prophecy and Politics: Militant Evangelists on the Road to Nuclear War (Westport, CT: Lawrence Hill & Co., 1986), 195.
2. Quoted in Jeffery L. Sheler, “Odd Bedfellows,” U.S. News & World Report (August 12, 2002), 35.
Gary DeMar is president of American Vision and the author of more than 20 books. His latest is Myths, Lies, and Half Truths.
Permission to reprint granted by American Vision P.O. Box 220, Powder Springs, GA 30127, 800-628-9460.
I would to God that this were the case! Wrestling with old Adam every day keeps a man humbly aware that his walk with God is entirely of grace!
Let's just say that one eschatological view often leads to lunacy, the other, to sanity. One view brings undeserved mockery upon the gospel -- see the wonderful Left Below Simpson's episode. The other motivates us to ADORN the gospel by excellent and significant service to God and neighbor.
One view makes it easier to live wisely. The other view makes it easier to live foolishly.
Oh, I agree completely (and I think I just overkilled the dating issue), though I leave room for a prophecy that looks both backwards and forwards.
Then there's my position and your position. They are right, of course, because we are neeners. :>)
My position on most of the questions about Scripture that have been points of contention between Biblical Christians for centuries is, "Yes." :-P
Why do you insist on softening Peter's language? He does not say they "played a role". He says they "killed the Prince of life". You sound more like a psychologist trying to help the Jews deal with their "feelings".
Peter was preaching the gospel. He was talking about sin, and repentance, and forgiveness in Christ. The Jews realized the heinousness of their sin against Almighty God and the King of kings. They repented and came into the kingdom of Christ.
Whether they had participated directly or indirectly in the crucifixion would have no bearing whatsoever on whether or not they were eternally lost.
You obviously missed the point, which was that by the preaching of truth, and demonstrating the particular sin of killing Christ, many Jews were converted to Him. Peter didn't have to appeal to "original sin". He could point to something quite concrete that all his hearers could identify with. They heard and repented.
They did not take his life, He laid it down for them.
Take it up with Peter. Why not both? As I'm sure our friend buggman would point out, such an either/or position is a decidely Greek way of looking at the thing.
And I suspect you think that you think you are a better Christian for your eschatology than us Pre-mils? ... We now have at least two who have shown that attitude.
Give it a rest. It sounds like just so much whining.
You need to do more research. Your single "overwhelming" source for all this is Irenaeus. All church tradition flows through him.
You rely too much on "tradition". Unless you are given to assuming that the church fathers infallibly understood his rather cryptic words on the subject.
Your position is contingent upon a pre-70AD book of Revelation. Ours is not. You can denigrate the evidence we present all you want, but the fact is that you have no evidence at all.
If you are looking for Cobra helicopters and RFID chips, then you are absolutely correct. IOW, if you assume a futurist bias, then Revelation only makes sense in the context you are expecting.
If, on the other hand, you take seriously the opening words that "Blessed is he who reads and those who hear the words of this prophecy, and keep those things which are written in it; for the time is near," then you might come to a different appreciation of events in the book.
Futurists must ignore the obvious implication of those words. It's as if the book dropped out of heaven into our laps without regard to those people.
Why do you insist on softening Peter's language? He does not say they "played a role". He says they "killed the Prince of life".
What makes the discussion more fun is that the vast majority of Kefa's (Peter's) audience was most likely not in Jerusalem for Pesach. While the Torah demanded that all Jewish males within the land come up to Jerusalem three times a year, most only made it once a year, and those from outside of Judea far less often than that.
"Gee, that's not fair that he accused them of something they hadn't even been there for!" No, it was all within the Hebrew collective mentality: The whole nation bore collective responsibility for what was done in the name of the nation. And see how they responded to it! Three thousand Jewish men (not counting the women and children) who came to faith in the Messiah in a day!
Now if only the Church showed such repentence for its collective sins, instead of making the excuse, "Well, that wasn't me! And those weren't real Christians!"
"Is not! Is not!" is not an answer or an argument, TC. Come, show us all of your evidence for a pre-70 AD date for the Revelation.
I'm sure your studied Ken Gentry's book, Before Jerusalem Fell: Dating the Book of Revelation or John AT Robinson's Redating the New Testament in order to stand behind your assertion. If not, why don't you give them a shot and then we can discuss the subject more intelligently.
See my comment to Marlowe.
Simply citing whole books is not an answer or an argument either, TC. If you've read them, please feel free to present their arguments for consideration.
But the first few chapter do deal with the things which are "at hand". They are the letters to the seven churches. Those are the words they were expected to hear and to keep.
Notice that the book deals with the past, present and future:
Write the things which thou hast seen, and the things which are, and the things which shall be hereafter; (Revelation 1:19 KJV)
The last word which is translated "hereafter" is literally translated as "after these things". So the book is to be read in its current context for those who are in receipt of it in 96AD when it was written and it is also written for the benefit of those who came after so that we could recognize, hear and keep the words of prophecy of those things which occurred "after these things."
So the book deals with what was, what is, and what is to come. It will continue to have relevance to all who read it until "that which is perfect" is come.
Is there a fragment left of the original book of Revelation?
Carbon dating could work. Pretty accurate within a couple of thousand years.
I just perused Gentry's book under the topic of "Extrinsic Evidence" and rather than provide his own extrinsic evidence, he simply did the Johnny Cochran method of attacking the evidence that exists rather than provide any of his own. So the extrinsic evidence that Gentry "relies upon" is illusory. There simply is not any "extrinsic evidence" to support a 70AD Book of Revelation. There is extrinsic evidence of a 96AD book of Revelation, but Gentry simply attempts to discredit it-- apparently for no other reason than that it does not fit his eschatological viewpoint -- which if you think that makes you more "obedient" than a futurist, might be a good reason, I supppose.
And what are the "plain and simple facts"?
While I defer to your superior understanding of "All Things Hebrew" (tm), I must respectfully disagree. The context of Acts 2:5 makes it clear that these men we Jerusalem dwellers (gr. katoikeo); "Now there were Jews living in Jerusalem, devout men from every nation under heaven." They we not mere visitors for the feast. The only ones speficially identified as visitors were the Romans (v. 10).
However, unlike chapter 2, the time context in chapter 3 is not as clear. Some period of time may have elapsed from chapter 2 to chapter 3 (cf. 2:42-47). Whether or not we are still in the time of Pentecost was not clear, or whether these men were the same "dwellers" as chapter 2 is not clear.
Based on the information presented I'm not sure we can conclude that these men were not in Jerusalem at the time of Passover. The context of chapter 3 seems to indicate that Peter and John's visit to the temple was part of their normal routine they had developed to bring the gospel to the Jews. However, the fact of their actual presence in Jerusalem at the time of that fateful Passover seems immaterial to the presentation by Peter.
Since Gentry's material is freely available online, I prefer not to be a conduit and possibly muck up his excellent presentation. IOW, don't take my word on it, or anyone else's for that matter.
At this point the only evidence we have on whether or not Revelation was written before AD 96 is your word. We do not have any extrinsic evidence. And apparently neither does Gentry.
Now if you can point us to the evidence that Gentry relies upon, that would be helpful. Otherwise will you be honest enough to admit that you simply don't have any such evidence?
Indeed, and there is no reason, at least in the context of the book, to artificially apply "at hand" to some of the material and not the rest.
Also, we not only have the "at hand" statement, we are also told these are things that "must shortly take place" (v. 1:1). So, some of the things were a present reality, and some things must take place in a relatively short period of time from the hearer's standpoint.
The same idea is reinforced at the end of the book, where the seer is told, "And the Lord God of the holy prophets sent His angel to show His servants the things which must shortly take place." (22:6).
So we have the entire Revelation bracketed by these time statements indicating that the entire book, not just portions, has immediate bearing on the the 1st century audience.
Whether or not all the material was fulfilled in the 1st century needs to be discerned by carefully comparing Scripture with Scripture. For example, I think Rev. 20 about the "thousand years" is a telescoping of the entire gospel period. And I think chapters 21 and 22 are a vision of reality after the second coming in eternity future. But the details in the majority of the book is about things that had immediate impact on the lives of the audience in that time.
"Blessed is he who reads and those who hear the words of this prophecy, and keep those things which are written in it; for the time is near."
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