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I know I haven’t given you anything new in about a month-and-a-half, so I might as well let you know I’m still here (just working on 4 highly-interconnected posts in my critique series) and more thoroughly explain something I just explained quickly in another post. I mentioned what the phrase “this generation” meant when Jesus used it during his Passion Week, but omitted the seven pages of discussion in my upcoming book where I justify that definition in detail. Since that book is still in the “proposal writing” phase, I figured I’d give you the full discussion here, so you can just direct a preterist here if they challenge you to defend it. So here it is: the full discussion from my upcoming book — Footnotes and all — on what “this generation” refers to in not only Matthew 24, Mark 13, & Luke 21, but throughout the Bible.
But for now, there’s one point his book brought up early on that I really should address at some point in this work regardless: the meaning of the phrase “this generation” in the Olivet Discourse. I’ve seen people categorize eschatological systems based on how those systems interpret this phrase in this one sentence — that’s how much it changes everything! I’ve even seen one poor, misguided soul (misguided by his family and by other influences) use this verse to “prove” that Jesus was a liar, noting that a literal fulfillment of all the events in the Olivet Discourse didn’t happen by the time all the people who lived at the same time as Jesus died.1386 Preterists actually accept this definition and insist that all the events of the Olivet Discourse were fulfilled in the second destruction of Jerusalem,1387 but they explain away the remark about the sun and moon darkening by claiming it’s a metaphor for great judgment, symbolizes that the whole world will know about Jerusalem’s destruction because the event will be unmissable, or something else along those lines.
English translations easily give the impression that the term refers to all of Jesus’ contemporaries, since that’s the most common sense of the English word “generation”. But the truth is that the Greek word for “generation”, γενεά (genea, pronounced geh-neh-AH; Strong’s Number G1074), more often means “passively, that which has been begotten, men of the same stock, a family… metaphorically, a race of men very like each other in endowments, pursuits, character; and especially in a bad sense a perverse race“.1388 So the phrase “this generation” more likely refers to a group of people of the same stock or having a common characteristic, and Jesus was saying people of that stock or with that characteristic will always be around “until all these things [mentioned in the Olivet Discourse] take place.” (Matthew 24:34c, Mark 13:30c NASB) Moreover, while Matthew & Luke record Jesus’ (probably Aramaic) word for “until” with the phrase ἕως ἂν (properly, “till whenever”), Mark uses μέχρις, which emphasizes a point in time when something stops being the case (as opposed to the period beforehand when it still is the case; I already discussed the word μέχρι on pages 742-743 in Appendix D). This word choice on Mark’s part forces us to conclude that this category of people will “pass away” the moment the very last of “all these things” occurs. Since there were obviously contemporaries of Jesus who were still alive after the second destruction of Jerusalem, such as the Apostle John (even if you define “this generation” as Jews who were from Jerusalem and/or rejected Jesus and/or lived to witness Jerusalem’s destruction, Flavius Josephus fits all of these criteria and continued living for roughly 30 years after Jerusalem’s destruction; he even records that the Romans spared many captives from the siege and destruction who “were in their flourishing age”1389 — which would’ve included people who were teenagers or children when Jesus was crucified, and fit all of the same criteria as Josephus himself), the phrase “this generation” obviously can’t have any of the definitions posed in this sentence (even within a Preterist framework).
So now the question is, what stock or characteristic(s) did Jesus have in mind? One reason entire eschatological camps can be distinguished by how they interpret this phrase is because the stocks or characteristics in question have a rather wide range of conceivable possibilities (and the book that preacher gave me brought out this point regarding the Hebrew word `owlam, rightly concluding that what meaning is intended in Genesis 17:8 must be determined in light of other Biblical statements; of course, I’ve already done this in Footnote 87 in Chapter 6). In fact, the broadest possible meaning of the word genea in the sense of “stock” is the set of all people who are descended from a particular person; in the most extreme case, the person in question could be Adam, in which case “this generation” would refer to the human race! But I can narrow things down — to the point of making an overwhelming case for my definition of this phrase — by considering Biblical precedent. Earlier, I determined the meaning of the phrase “My Father’s house” in John 14:2 by looking at how Jesus himself had used that phrase earlier and how the phrase “the house of the LORD” was used throughout the OT. Why don’t we try a similar study on the word genea? Let’s start (kinda) small by only considering instances where it was paired with an inflection of the word for “this” in Matthew 24:34, οὗτος (hoytos, pronounced HOO-toss; Strong’s Number G3778); I’ll expand the search further as we go along.
But to what shall I compare this generation? It is like children sitting in the market places, who call out to the other children, and say, ‘We played the flute for you, and you did not dance; we sang a dirge, and you did not mourn.’ For John came neither eating nor drinking, and they say, ‘He has a demon!’ The Son of Man came eating and drinking, and they say, ‘Behold, a gluttonous man and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners!’ Yet wisdom is vindicated by her deeds. (Matthew 11:16-19 NASB, emphasis added; see also Luke 7:29-35, where Luke leads into his parallel account of this occasion with the following: “When all the people and the tax collectors heard this, they acknowledged God’s justice, having been baptized with the baptism of John. But the Pharisees and the lawyers rejected God’s purpose for themselves, not having been baptized by John.” — verses 29-30 NASB, underlining added)
Then some of the scribes and Pharisees answered, saying, “Teacher, we want to see a sign from You.”
But He answered and said to them, “An evil and adulterous generation seeks after a sign, and no sign will be given to it except the sign of the prophet Jonah. For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the great fish, so will the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth. The men of Nineveh will rise up in the judgment with this generation and condemn it, because they repented at the preaching of Jonah; and indeed a greater than Jonah is here. The queen of the South will rise up in the judgment with this generation and condemn it, for she came from the ends of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon; and indeed a greater than Solomon is here.
“When an unclean spirit goes out of a man, he goes through dry places, seeking rest, and finds none. Then he says, ‘I will return to my house from which I came.’ And when he comes, he finds it empty, swept, and put in order. Then he goes and takes with him seven other spirits more wicked than himself, and they enter and dwell there; and the last state of that man is worse than the first. So shall it also be with this wicked generation.” (Matthew 12:39-45 NKJV, underlining and emphases added)
And while the crowds were thickly gathered together, He began to say, “This is an evil generation. It seeks a sign, and no sign will be given to it except the sign of Jonah the prophet. For as Jonah became a sign to the Ninevites, so also the Son of Man will be to this generation. The queen of the South will rise up in the judgment with the men of this generation and condemn them, for she came from the ends of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon; and indeed a greater than Solomon is here. The men of Nineveh will rise up in the judgment with this generation and condemn it, for they repented at the preaching of Jonah; and indeed a greater than Jonah is here. (Luke 11:29-32 NKJV, underlining and emphases added)
Note that when discussing the “sign of Jonah”, Jesus used “this generation” as shorthand for “An evil and adulterous generation”, “this wicked generation”, and “an evil generation”. Moreover, while the scribes and Pharisees prompted Jesus to make these statements, his words were also directed to the crowd around them. Now consider when the Pharisees badgered him about this again later, and Mark added “adulterous and sinful” to the list of, shall we say, colorful qualifiers for “this generation”:
The Pharisees came and began to argue with him, seeking from him a sign from heaven to test him. And he sighed deeply in his spirit and said, “Why does this generation seek a sign? Truly, I say to you, no [literally, “if a”] sign will be given to this generation.…
And calling the crowd to him with his disciples, he said to them, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.… For whoever is ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of him will the Son of Man also be ashamed when he comes in the glory of his Father with the holy angels.” (Mark 8:11-12, 34, 38 ESV, underlining and emphases added)
And He said to the disciples, “The days will come when you will long to see one of the days of the Son of Man, and you will not see it. They will say to you, ‘Look there! Look here!’ Do not go away, and do not run after them. For just like the lightning, when it flashes out of one part of the sky, shines to the other part of the sky, so will the Son of Man be in His day. But first He must suffer many things and be rejected by this generation. And just as it happened in the days of Noah, so it will be also in the days of the Son of Man: they were eating, they were drinking, they were marrying, they were being given in marriage, until the day that Noah entered the ark, and the flood came and destroyed them all. (Luke 17:22-27 NASB, underlining and emphasis added)
Aside from the obvious occasions in Matthew 24:34, Mark 13:30, & Luke 21:32, there’s another passage from the Synoptics I’ve skipped (genea never appears in John’s Gospel). You might already have some idea of what I’m implying the definition of “this generation” to be, but now’s the time for us to start taking OT uses of the word “generation” into consideration. Let’s lead into our first example with the Gospel passages that allude to it: the Woes on the Scribes & Pharisees. This passage is long, so I’ll just include the snippet from Luke that includes the relevant Greek terms before quoting the entire passage from Matthew:
Therefore also the Wisdom of God said, ‘I will send them prophets and apostles, some of whom they will kill and persecute,’ so that the blood of all the prophets, shed from the foundation of the world, may be charged against this generation, from the blood of Abel to the blood of Zechariah, who perished between the altar and the sanctuary. Yes, I tell you, it will be required of this generation. (Luke 11:49-51 ESV, emphases added)
“But woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you shut up the kingdom of heaven against men; for you neither go in yourselves, nor do you allow those who are entering to go in. Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you devour widows’ houses, and for a pretense make long prayers. Therefore you will receive greater condemnation.
“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you travel land and sea to win one proselyte, and when he is won, you make him twice as much a son of hell as yourselves.
“Woe to you, blind guides, who say, ‘Whoever swears by the temple, it is nothing; but whoever swears by the gold of the temple, he is obliged to perform it.’ Fools and blind! For which is greater, the gold or the temple that sanctifies the gold? And, ‘Whoever swears by the altar, it is nothing; but whoever swears by the gift that is on it, he is obliged to perform it.’ Fools and blind! For which is greater, the gift or the altar that sanctifies the gift? Therefore he who swears by the altar, swears by it and by all things on it. He who swears by the temple, swears by it and by Him who dwells in it. And he who swears by heaven, swears by the throne of God and by Him who sits on it.
“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you pay tithe of mint and anise and cummin, and have neglected the weightier matters of the law: justice and mercy and faith. These you ought to have done, without leaving the others undone. Blind guides, who strain out a gnat and swallow a camel!
“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you cleanse the outside of the cup and dish, but inside they are full of extortion and self-indulgence. Blind Pharisee, first cleanse the inside of the cup and dish, that the outside of them may be clean also.
“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs which indeed appear beautiful outwardly, but inside are full of dead men’s bones and all uncleanness. Even so you also outwardly appear righteous to men, but inside you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness.
“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! Because you build the tombs of the prophets and adorn the monuments of the righteous, and say, ‘If we had lived in the days of our fathers, we would not have been partakers with them in the blood of the prophets.’
“Therefore you are witnesses against yourselves that you are sons of those who murdered the prophets. Fill up, then, the measure of your fathers’ guilt. Serpents, brood of vipers! How can you escape the condemnation of hell? Therefore, indeed, I send you prophets, wise men, and scribes: some of them you will kill and crucify, and some of them you will scourge in your synagogues and persecute from city to city, that on you may come all the righteous blood shed on the earth, from the blood of righteous Abel to the blood of Zechariah, son of Berechiah, whom you murdered between the temple and the altar. Assuredly, I say to you, all these things will come upon this generation. (Matthew 23:13-36 NKJV, emphasis added)
Note that Matthew’s Gospel has Jesus concluding this scathing monologue only 7 verses before the beginning of the Olivet Discourse. I’ve seen at least 2 people (including that preacher in his book!) claim that “this generation” in Matthew 23:36 refers to people who lived at the same time as Jesus (obviously based on the definition of the English word “generation”), insisting that the instance of the phrase in 24:34 must have the same meaning as the instance in 23:36 because they’re contextually connected.1390 But they don’t seem to consider that 23:36 is the only additional Biblical precedent Matthew 24:34 has behind it that 23:36 doesn’t have (with the possible exception of Luke 21:32, since the Great Temple Discourse might have occurred between verses 36 & 37 of Matthew 23, or between Matthew 23 & 24; of course, “this generation” obviously means the same thing in both Discourses, since this phrase occurs after the lists of signs of Jesus’ second coming in both Discourses)! In other words, why shouldn’t the instance in Matthew 23:36 in turn be interpreted in light of earlier uses of the term? In addition to all the other instances already mentioned, check out this OT passage that’s strikingly akin to the Woes on the Scribes & Pharisees:
There is a generation that curseth their father, and doth not bless their mother.
There is a generation that are pure in their own eyes, and yet is not washed from their filthiness.
There is a generation, O how lofty are their eyes! and their eyelids are lifted up.
There is a generation, whose teeth are as swords, and their jaw teeth as knives, to devour the poor from off the earth, and the needy from among men. (Proverbs 30:11-14 KJV, emphases added)
Granted, this passage uses a word other then genea in the LXX, but the Hebrew word in all 4 instances is דּוֹר (dôr, pronounced DORR; Strong’s Number H1755), the word that LXX uses of genea are often translated from. So now let’s consider the other OT uses of dôr (other than uses qualified by a number or in the phrases “from generation to generation” or simply “the generation”, since Jesus is never recorded using the term “generation” in those ways). Another passage that uses dôr but not genea is the following:
“Then the LORD heard the sound of your words, and He was angry and took an oath, saying, ‘Not one of these men, this evil generation, shall see the good land which I swore to give your fathers, except Caleb the son of Jephunneh; he shall see it, and to him and to his sons I will give the land on which he has set foot, because he has followed the LORD fully.’ The LORD was angry with me [Moses] also on your account, saying, ‘Not even you shall enter there. Joshua the son of Nun, who stands before you, he shall enter there; encourage him, for he will cause Israel to inherit it. (Deuteronomy 1:34-38 NASB, emphases and underlining added)
Interestingly, another passage in Matthew uses the word “generation” without “this”, and reveals another connection:
When they came to the crowd, a man came up to Jesus, falling on his knees before Him and saying, “Lord, have mercy on my son, for he is a lunatic and is very ill; for he often falls into the fire and often into the water. I brought him to Your disciples, and they could not cure him.” And Jesus answered and said, “You unbelieving and perverted generation, how long shall I be with you? How long shall I put up with you? Bring him here to Me.” And Jesus rebuked him, and the demon came out of him, and the boy was cured at once. (Matthew 17:14-18 NASB, underlining and emphasis added)
Luke’s parallel account also has “You unbelieving and perverted generation” (9:41b NASB, underlining and emphasis added), while Mark’s has Jesus’ answer starting with “O unbelieving generation” (Mark 9:19b NASB, underlining and emphasis added). The word for “perverted” in Matthew 17:17 & Luke 9:41 is the same word used early in Moses’ song in the LXX (the first word rendered “perverse” below), which is most likely the passage Jesus had in mind whenever he used those “colorful qualifiers” with genea (meaning this OT passage sets an especially important Biblical precedent for defining the term “this generation” in the Great Temple & Olivet Discourses — indeed, in every Biblical passage written since the Pentateuch! — pay special attention to the phrases that are simultaneously emphasized and underlined!):
“They have sinned, not pleasing him [literally, “not in Him”]; spotted children, a froward [literally, “crooked“] and perverse generation [genea; Masoretic Text dôr]… And the Lord saw, and was jealous; and was provoked by [literally, “through”] the anger [or “wrath”, or “violent passion”] of his sons and daughters, and said, I will turn away my face from them, and will show what shall happen to them in the last days; for it is a perverse [literally, “self-subverted“] generation [genea; Masoretic Text dôr], sons in whom is no faith.” (Deuteronomy 32:5, 19-20 BLXX, underlining and emphases added)
In case you’re wondering, the Hebrew word corresponding to “self-subverted” means “perversity”. Moreover, the Greek words for “perverse” and “self-subverted” are both perfect-tense participles in the middle voice — they’d done it to themselves! The adjective here for “froward”/”crooked” went on to be used in the same way by Peter at Pentecost of A.D. 30: “And with many other words did he testify and exhort, saying, Save yourselves from this untoward generation.” (Acts 2:40 KJV, underlining and emphases added) So now, here’s every example from the Psalms:
“Because of the devastation of the afflicted, because of the groaning of the needy,
Now I will arise,” says the LORD; “I will set him in the safety for which he longs.”
The words of the LORD are pure words;
As silver tried in a furnace on the earth, refined seven times.
You, O LORD, will keep them;
You will preserve him from this generation [LXX genea hoytos] forever.
The wicked strut about on every side
When vileness is exalted among the sons of men. (Psalm 12:5-8 NASB, underlining and emphasis added)
For He established a testimony in Jacob
And appointed a law in Israel,
Which He commanded our fathers
That they should teach them to their children,
That the generation to come might know, even the children yet to be born,
That they may arise and tell them to their children,
That they should put their confidence in God
And not forget the works of God,
But keep His commandments,
And not be like their fathers,
A stubborn and rebellious generation [LXX genea],
A generation [LXX genea] that did not prepare its heart
And whose spirit was not faithful to God. (Psalm 78:5-8 NASB, underlining and emphases added)
Are you noticing a trend here? Jeremiah reinforces it:
“But where are your gods
Which you made for yourself?
Let them arise, if they can save you
In the time of your trouble;
For according to the number of your cities
Are your gods, O Judah.
“Why do you contend with Me?
You have all transgressed against Me,” declares the LORD.
“In vain I have struck your sons;
They accepted no chastening.
Your sword has devoured your prophets
Like a destroying lion.
“O generation, heed the word of the LORD.
Have I been a wilderness to Israel,
Or a land of thick darkness?
Why do My people say, ‘We are free to roam;
We will no longer come to You‘? (Jeremiah 2:28-31 NASB, underlining and emphasis added)
“You shall speak all these words to them, but they will not listen to you; and you shall call to them, but they will not answer you. You shall say to them, ‘This is the nation that did not obey the voice of the LORD their God or accept correction; truth has perished and has been cut off from their mouth.
‘Cut off your hair and cast it away,
And take up a lamentation on the bare heights;
For the LORD has rejected and forsaken
The generation [LXX genea] of His wrath.’
For the sons of Judah have done that which is evil in My sight,” declares the LORD, “they have set their detestable things in the house which is called by My name, to defile it. They have built the high places of Topheth, which is in the valley of the son of Hinnom, to burn their sons and their daughters in the fire, which I did not command, and it did not come into My mind. (Jeremiah 7:27-31 NASB, emphasis and underlining added)
Finally, while obviously not referring to wicked Israelites (as all the other instances above clearly do, with the possible exception of Psalm 12:7), the first instance of this phrase in the entire Bible still blatantly refers to a group of wicked people: “And the LORD said unto Noah, Come thou and all thy house into the ark; for thee have I seen righteous before me in this generation [LXX genea hoytos].” (Genesis 7:1 KJV, emphasis added) And even this passage was invoked by Jesus in Luke 17:25-27, quoted 4 pages ago.
The evidence that the earliest Christians (who, before the Gospel was brought to the Samaritans in Acts 8, were all Jews who were intimately familiar with all the OT passages quoted above — Samaritans accepted the books of Moses, but rejected the rest of the OT; so they would’ve accepted the passages from Genesis & Deuteronomy quoted above, but rejected all the other OT quotes), starting with the Apostles, would’ve understood the phrase “this generation” in Matthew 24:34, Mark 13:30, & Luke 21:32 to mean wicked Israelites, those who reject God’s word (a set of people that still has living members to this day, implying that at least some of the events described in the Olivet Discourse and the Great Temple Discourse must still be future) is overwhelming! (And I didn’t even get into the contrast between “the children of God” and “the children of the devil” in 1 John 3:10 NIV.) If you disagree with this interpretation, you have the burden of proof to make a more robust case for your position than the case I’ve presented here.
1386“This ONE Verse PROVES JESUS LIED? The END TIMES” <www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kh3sdeJpR1U> MorgueOfficial. Posted on youtube.com October 10, 2020, accessed August 7, 2023. Ironically, at the 6:46 mark he gets close to answering his own challenge when adding in the lower-left corner of the screen: “SOME ALSO CLAIM IT’S A TRANSLATION ERROR” (although he doesn’t actually address this possibility at all in the video). While the translation isn’t technically erroneous, you’ll see here that the problem is partly due to something getting lost in translation.
1387Full Preterists claim all prophecies in the Bible were fulfilled by A.D. 70; but that would require us to conclude that the Curse has already been removed, among other absurdities. Partial Preterists are a bit more reasonable and claim only most Biblical prophecies were fulfilled by then; but I have yet to see any of them compellingly draw a consistent, non-arbitrary line between which Biblical prophecies have allegorical fulfillments versus literal ones (said another way, what hermeneutical principle is there to stop Partial Preterism from degrading into Full Preterism?). This is probably why non-futurist views of Revelation have survived for so long; if you’re imaginative enough, you can “explain away” just about any not-yet-fulfilled Biblical prophecy just by claiming an otherwise-unfulfilled detail symbolizes something that has happened!
1388G1074 – genea – Strong’s Greek Lexicon (kjv) <www.blueletterbible.org/lexicon/g1074> Blue Letter Bible. Accessed July 20, 2023. Scroll to “Thayer’s Greek Lexicon”. Emphases in original. The word’s primary meaning is actually “a begetting, birth, [or] nativity”, but Thayer notes that it’s only ever used this way in the secular Greek literature; and in any case, that meaning hardly makes sense in these contexts.
1389Josephus, Flavius. Wars of the Jews. Book 6, Chapter 9, Section 2. William Whiston’s 1737 English translation of this book may be read at <http://penelope.uchicago.edu/josephus/war-6.html>. Accessed August 5, 2023.
1390The other example I can remember is at: Anon. Revelation, Matthew 24 and Why Context is Crucial <www.bereanpatriot.com/revelation-matthew-24-and-why-context-is-crucial> Berean Patriot. Posted on bereanpatriot.com September 12, 2017, modified January 5, 2023, accessed August 7, 2023. Ironically, the author exposes his own view (Partial Preterism) as totally foreign to the earliest post-Revelation Christians by linking to the Wikipedia article for “Preterism”, which acknowledges that this school of thought on Biblical prophecy has only existed since the Counter-Reformation period (A.D. 1545-1648)!
{HIDMF. 810-817. Italics, boldface, underlining, content in brackets, and Footnote numbering in original.}
Thoughts?