Friday, December 9, 2011

Jesus, the apocalyptic prophet

In my opinion, one of the most devastating arguments against Christianity is the failed prediction that Jesus made that he would return within the lifetime of his generation. A very informative article on this subject by Edward Babinski is available here. I'm sure there are many books written about it, by Christians, skeptics and others. As someone who is examining whether Christianity is man-made or not, this certainly appears like a tell-tale sign that it is man-made. It seems that almost all of the new testament authors felt that the end was near and I'm sure if you lived during those times you may have felt the same way. Similarly, I've heard that people who lived during world war 1 and 2 felt that the end of the world was imminent. I'd like to do more reading in this area and study how apocalyptic thinking started and how it has affected various civilizations.

I should mention that there are Christians who believe that Jesus already did come back a second time, see Preterism.

I found it interesting that the author of 2 Peter felt compelled to give an explanation of why Christ had not yet returned. 2 Peter is one of the latest writings of the NT and is estimated to have been written around 100-160 A.D. Perhaps it is amazing that Christianity outlived this failed prophecy of Jesus, but similar circumstances have been repeated in history so it is not unique. Even in our times, people still listen to Harold Camping even though he has been wrong repeatedly about the end of the world. A new excuse is made, a new date is set, and people continue to believe. It's kinda sad.

I plan on making some kind of database / spreadsheet that lists all of the evidence and arguments for and against Christianity. I need to use something like this because it's hard for me to remember all of them. Then I plan on giving numbered weights to the strengths and weaknesses of each side. Obviously this will be a subjective exercise (based on my opinions of the weights), but it's the only way I can think of to arrive at some kind of definitive answer about Christianity. I don't know what the end result will be, but it certainly seems like the failed prophecy of Jesus is going to be a tough argument to counteract.

1 comment:

  1. The church I attend just completed a series of sermons on revelation and I found myself listed on the verses that made it seem like it would be in the generation of those living at that time. Do you know who the bible answer man is? Hank Hanagraph (Spelling?) has written a book called the acopolypse code (Spelling error)from the point of view of a partial pretirest (Wow more spelling errors). Looking forward to reading what you find.

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