12/29/5:

• FREE ONLINE BOOKS: G.A. Henty - For The Temple (1888) Chapter XV - The Siege is Begun "The Jews fought regardless of life; single men dashed into the midst of the Romans and fell there fighting fiercely; John’s compact companies hurled themselves upon the line and broke it. Simon fought desperately at the head of his men, cutting down all who stood in his way. The Romans were wavering and would soon have broken into open flight, when rescue arrived. The general in command had, immediately the Jews had been seen issuing out, sent off a horseman to Titus with the news, and he, putting himself at the head of this body-guard, started instantly to their assistance."
• American Teen Travels to Iraq in Humanitarian Search - "Those terrorists are not human but pure evil. For their goals to be thwarted, decent individuals must answer justice's call for help. Unfortunately altruism is always in short supply. Not enough are willing to set aside the material ambitions of this transient world, put morality first, and risk their lives for the cause of humanity. So I will."
• Reclassified All Archives - Now reflecting four categories: Preterist, Partial Preterist, Futurist, Early Church

12/28/5:

• StudyBible: James 5:8 - "Finite minds, reading what Peter wrote in the first century, have trouble with his saying that "the end of all things is at hand" (1 Peter 4:7). Likewise, they have difficulty with a first century writer saying that "it is the last hour" (1 John 2:18). Similarly, as men count time, a first century announcement that "the coming of the Lord is at hand" could not be true (James 5:8)."
• Rome: Archeology Mag: Review of "Rome" - Is the HBO series Rome's history though the eyes of ordinary men or just an ancient version of Desperate Housewives? On balance, then, as a visualization of ancient Rome, "Rome" is certainly better than most of its genre, but lacks the dramatic tension of that classic series, "I, Claudius".

12/25/5:

• Partial: John Piper - Jesus: Mediator of a Better Covenant "(Christmas) means the replacement of Old Testament shadows with reality. The temple and tabernacle and sacrifices and priesthood and feasts and dietary laws were all shadows and copies of the Reality in heaven, namely, Jesus Christ and his work as our High Priest and our Sacrifice and our focus of worship. Jesus fulfills and replaces the shadows of the Old Testament."
• Critical: Gene Shaparenko: Preterism... the Church's Final Apostacy "Preterists have an uncontrollable penchant for parsing various scriptural words and phrases, relying on what they believe are relevant greek or latin translations which support a prior assumption. Former President Bill Clinton was a master of this parsing process in his evasive testimony regarding his fornication activities in the White House and other locations. Preterists don't seem to be able to grasp the entirety of the Holy Scriptures, rather looking for isolated proof texts upon which to create an entirely new Gospel and eschatology."
• Matthew 16:28: Preterism and Matthew 16:28
• The Upper City During Second Temple Period - "The Burnt House was found buried under a thick layer of destruction. Throughout the house, scattered in disarray among the collapsed walls, ceilings and the second story, were fragments of stone tables and many ceramic, stone and metal vessels, evidence of pillaging by the Roman soldiers. Leaning against a corner of one of the rooms was an iron spear, which apparently had belonged to one of the Jewish fighters who lived here. At the entrance to the side room, the arm bones of a young woman were found, the fingers clutching at the stone threshold. The many iron nails found in the ruins are all that was left of the wooden roof, the shelves and furnishings which were completely burnt. Numerous coins minted during the rebellion against the Romans (66-70 CE) attest to the date of the destruction of this house. In one of the rooms a round stone weight, 10 cm. in diameter, was found. On it, in square Aramaic script was the Hebrew inscription (of) Bar Kathros, indicating that it belonged to the son of a man named Kathros. The "House of Kathros" is known as that of a priestly family, which had abused its position in the Temple. A ditty preserved in talmudic literature speaks of the corruption of these priests:

  Woe is me because of the House of Boethus,
    woe is me because of their slaves.
  Woe is me because of the House of Hanan,
    woe is me because of their incantations.
  Woe is me because of the House of Kathros,
    woe is me because of their pens.
  Woe is me because of the House of Ishmael, son of Phiabi,
    woe is me because of their fists.
  For they are the High Priests, and their sons are treasurers, and their sons-in law are trustees, and their servants beat the people with staves.  (Babylonian Talmud, Pesahim 57, 1 Tosefta, Minhot 13, 21)   Can we assume that the Burnt House was actually the House of Kathros?

• Critical: Was the Jewish "World" Destroyed in AD70? - "The idea that the Roman destruction of Jerusalem in AD70 could be the prophesied end of the world, does not stand up to examination. The Jewish "world" is based in its blood, its scriptures, and its synagogue. None of these was destroyed or abolished in AD70. To make prophecies in the Bible about the second coming of Christ, and the end of the world, refer to events of AD70 misrepresents these prophecies, because nothing was destroyed that had not been destroyed in times past, and nothing was destroyed that was essential to the Jewish world's continuance into the future. "
• N.T. Wright: N.T. Wright Page

• Michael Scheifler: Did Jesus Not Know the Hour of His Second Coming? "Jesus is not saying He is ignorant of the hour of the second coming, but rather, He cannot reveal it, neither can angels, because it is reserved for the Father only to announce the very hour of the second coming. This begs the question, does scripture reveal this announcement, when God the Father Himself declares the impending second coming?"

• Press: Lusting After Apocalpyse: "Barbara Rossing is one Christian scholar who isn't afraid to admit it. "The Rapture is a racket," she accuses unapologetically in her 2004 book The Rapture Exposed. In this bold study, Rossing outlines how the theology of the Left Behind series represents a very real danger because of its promotion of ethnocentric mentalities, irresponsible environmental ethics and a militaristic political agenda in America.

  The most disturbing example she gives is in the realm of Middle East politics. Premillennial dispensationalists believe that the Bible names the rebuilding of Israel as a necessary precursor for Christ's return. So was born an American fundamentalist movement known as Christian Zionism, which unilaterally supports the expansion of the modern state of Israel. This alliance between Christian and Jewish Zionists is deeply ambivalent, however, as the former also believes that Christ will not return until the great suffering of Israel and the eventual conversion of his chosen people. Besides their obvious offensiveness to Jews, Rossing points out that such groups look forward to "tribulation and war in the Middle East, not peace plans."

• Rome: Lessons for America from the Roman Empire - "The founders hoped that, in America, we would see these virtues of ancient Rome, and they knew that under such a constitution the United States would grow into an empire. They already spoke of a rising empire of America. They hoped that Rome of the republic would be our enduring model, but they feared, and rightly so, that one day, perhaps today, our model would be Rome of the Caesars, Rome of the first and second centuries A.D. For Rome of the Caesars and the United States today are the only two absolute superpowers that have existed in history." (somewhat misinformed, but relevant use of Rome as archetype)

12/20/5:

• Free Online Videos: Daily Show: Heaven Can't Wait - "Ed Helms profiles an e-mail service that will notify you when the Rapture happens. Add a 'Rapture Clause' to your will. - 'The rapture is a tendentious reading of the bible.'"
• Free Online Videos: Herod: The Builder King (Length: 27 min.) - The Book of Matthew relates that Herod, King of the Jews, ordered the slaughter of the innocents to eliminate a potential challenger to his throne. Then came the birth of Jesus Christ, marked in our day by Christmas. This video describes the life and times of Herod the Great, builder-king of Judea, who ushered in a new age for Judaism and ironically laid the groundwork for the emergence of Christianity. An enigmatic ruler "with larceny in his heart and blueprints in his veins," King Herod strove to make Judea a showcase of the Roman Empire. "it must be stressed that the Western Wall is not a part of the Temple itself."
• Nero, The Beast: Rain Forces Closure of Nero's Golden House - BBC - "Completed in AD68 - the year Nero committed suicide - the sprawling palace was called the House of Gold because of the amount of gold leaf which adorned much of it. "
• Revelations: ArmageddonChurch.com - "Our mission is to promote Holyland's most ancient Church, recently discovered in Megiddo prison. Armageddon Church.com is intended to address the general public, offering a wide range of articles and interviews. We hope you will enjoy the history, the symbolism, the meaning, and lighter sides of this amazing discovery."

12/18/5:

• Josephus: SocialistWorker: A Judas Who Didn't Betray the Movement -"Two thousand years ago, a Jewish peasant rebellion stirred in the countryside in and around Judaea, an obscure Mediterannean province of the Roman empire. The rebellion would change the face of history. Judas of Galilee was one of its early leaders.  The rebellion, which climaxed in open revolt in 66-70AD, was mercilessly crushed by Roman legions.  The Jewish temple in Jerusalem was destroyed.  Defeat was a catastrophe. Historian Neil Faulkner (Apocalypse: The Great Jewish Revolt Against Rome, AD 66-73 - Tempus, 2002) has summed it up: “Apocalypse” glimpsed but missed, “the revolutionary overthrow of Rome and a passage into the light of a possible sunrise”

12/17/5:

• Press: LA Times: Jesus Skeptics on the Run "ANNE RICE'S "Christ the Lord: Out of Egypt," her novel about the boy Jesus whose family has not gotten around to telling him that he is the messiah, is a national bestseller. That's not surprising. Rice is a seasoned storyteller whose 26 previous novels on subjects ranging from vampires to sadomasochistic erotica have sold more than 75 million copies. With "Christ the Lord," she transferred her flair for the supernatural to a new market of Christian believers who share the faith she has re-embraced.
  
  What is interesting — and portentous — is that just as "Christ the Lord" was nearing release in early September, Robert Funk, founder of the Jesus Seminar, died. The Jesus Seminar is still going strong. But Funk's death and Rice's novel constitute a kind of symbolic marker of the passing of a brand of dogmatic hyper-skepticism toward the Gospels and the rise of a new and more generous biblical scholarship that holds, contra the seminar, that the Gospels and other New Testament writings constitute virtually our only record of what Jesus said and did. These scholars contend that there is no point in trying to deconstruct the Gospels to find the "real" Jesus. They maintain there is nothing in the historical or archeolological record of the 1st century that makes the Gospel accounts of Jesus' life inherently implausible. "

12/11/5:

12/10/5:

• Revelations: A Lost Scrap of Tobit from the Schoyen Collection - From Tobit 14  "Indeed, everything that was spoken by the prophets of Israel, whom God sent, will occur. None of all their words will fail, but all will come true at their appointed times. So it will be safer in Media than in Assyria and Babylon. For I know and believe that whatever God has said will be fulfilled and will come true; not a single word of the prophecies will fail. All of our kindred, inhabitants of the land of Israel, will be scattered and taken as captives from the good land; and the whole land of Israel will be desolate" (3-4)

12/9/10:

• FREE ONLINE BOOKS: The City of Delight: A Love Drama of the Siege and Fall of Jerusalem (1908) "Somewhere in the city a voice that was heard even by the fighting-men on the wall in Akra cried: “The Sacrifice has failed! The Oblation is ceased! There is no Offering for the Altar; none is left to offer it!” The vast gathering heard it, and immediately from the high place of the prophetess came back the words, prompt and effective: “And he shall confirm the covenant with many for one week: and in the midst of the week he shall cause the sacrifice and the oblation to cease!”

• Press: Chicago Tribune - In world of 'Left Behind' end is weird - "From Chicken Little to Charles Manson, outlandish theories abound concerning the end of the world as we know it. But when a particular brand of fictional Armageddon is based on the biblical Book of Revelation, has a co-founder of the Moral Majority as a co-author, and has sold more than 60 million books, it's time to sit up and take notice."
• Press: Jason Miller for Online Journal - The Iron Fist of Jesus - "Fundamentalist Christians, adherents to a nauseating perversion of Christianity (conjured from their twisted imaginations and their distorted interpretations of the Bible) wield a significant amount of power in the United States, socially and politically.  In short, Fundamentalist Christians are the people whom the real Jesus would have hammered with his Iron Fist, if he had had one, and if he had been inclined to use it. Fortunately for them, Warrior Jesus is simply a myth the Christo-Fascist masters use to keep their minions in line. Unfortunately for the rest of us, America's religious extremists are as dangerous as those in the Middle East and around the globe. Just in case there is an Iron Fisted Jesus and an impending Rapture, I am signing off by wishing you a Merry Christmas!"
• Press: Pope to visit Auschwitz - "Referring to a biblical psalm about the destruction of Jerusalem, the Pope said: "It was almost a symbolic foretelling of the extermination camps in which the Jewish people were subjected to as part of infamous project of death which remains an indelible shame on the history of humanity.”

12/8/5:

• Nate4OneNation.com - New Host, New Materials
• BreitBart - Iranian President "Move Israel to Europe" - "Why did you come to give a piece of Islamic land and the territory of the Palestinian people to them?  "You oppressed them, so give a part of Europe to the Zionist regime so they can establish any government they want. We would support it," he said, according to a transcript of his original Farsi-language comments given to AFP. "So, Germany and Austria, come and give one, two or any number of your provinces to the Zionist regime so they can create a country there which all of Europe will support and the problem will be solved at its root," he said. " | U.N. Ceremony Includes map of "Palestine" without Israeli State
• TWIGBI: American life expectancy hits all-time high - "Life expectancy in the U.S. has been rising almost without interruption since 1900, thanks to several factors, including extraordinary advances in medicine and sanitation.."

12/6/5:

• Press: World Socialist Website: The Rise of the Religious Right in Australia - "Maddox outlines the leading strains of Christian fundamentalist thought, including Dominionism and Reconstructionism, whose zealots, according to one insider, ‘consider democracy a manifestation of ungodly pride’. Dominionists (who believe ‘chosen’ Christians must capture all leading public offices in anticipation of Christ’s second coming) and Reconstructionists, (who want the Constitution replacement by strict Biblical law) are influential doctrines with well-documented connections to the Bush-Cheney White House. Former Attorney-General John Ashcroft is a Dominionist, while Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia offers opinion, and legal rulings, clearly influenced by tenets of Reconstructionist thought. (In a 2002 article “God’s Justice and Ours”, from which Maddox quotes, Scalia attacked opponents of the death penalty, denouncing democracy’s tendency to obscure “the divine authority behind government”).
• Press: CounterCurrents: Christian Zionism: Terror in Jesus' Name - "Christian Zionism is a call for global war. The belief that Christianity is the sole truth, that all other faiths are 'Satanic' or 'false', that the Jews must all gather in Palestine to fulfil so-called Biblical prophecies, and that a grand global war will soon erupt leading to the massacre of hundreds of millions and heralding the 'second coming' of Jesus, who will establish his Christian kingdom extending till the four corners of the world, clearly indicate the hate-driven, global expansionist project of Christian Zionism. "
• Jerusalem: Islam's Mystical Claim to Jerusalem - "The third factor, says Nasr, is the Muslim belief in the Second Coming of Christ to Jerusalem. Therefore the city is sacred to Muslims and to Christians—according to Nasr. But this is misleading, for Muslim theology says that Jesus will return as a leader of Muslims and break the cross to show how wrong Christians have been, in following their Lord

12/3/5:

• The Destruction of Jerusalem and the Idea of Redemption in the Syriac Apocalypse of Baruch - "The Syriac Apocalypse of Baruch is a pseudepigraphic apocalyptic work ascribed to Baruch, son of Neriah and the scribe of Jeremiah.  Its overt content concerning the last days of the First Temple period disguises a description of the fall of the Second Temple in 70 C.E.  Contrary to the general scholarly view, this book attempts to show that the internal structure and central ideas of 2 Baruch must be understood in a Christian context.  This theological identity is reflected mainly in traditions which describe the destruction of Jerusalem and the three apocalyptic visions which depict the coming of the Messiah and the eschatological redemption."

12/2/5:

• Press: Baptist Standard - Bumper crop of disasters wratchets up "Rapture Index" - "Not all Christians have jumped on the rapture bandwagon. Many see it as a modern twisting of what they believe biblical prophecy really is--not so much predictive as prescriptive.    Barbara Rossing, a New Testament professor at the Lutheran School of Theology in Chicago, is familiar with the website but doesn't think it holds much appeal for Christians like her who have condemned the Left Behind series and argue the rapture is not a biblical concept. She wrote The Rapture Exposed: The Message of Hope in the Book of Revelation. (Rapture Ready fella Terry) James is familiar with the criticism, and it doesn't shake his confidence in the rapture.  "I'm of the opinion that every Christian will go (in the rapture), regardless of the state of their walk with Jesus," he said. "We're all in God's family."

12/1/5:

• Press: Disasters Increase Interest in End-Time Prophecies - "That said, Lowery believes the hurricanes provide valuable lessons in the context of Revelation and for Christianity as a whole. But it's not anything as titillating as one normally expects from a Revelation specialist. For Lowery, the main value of Revelation is in teaching how to live. It's the "forth-telling," not the foretelling, he said. Said Lowery, "I believe the Bible teaches that we have been living the last days for 2,000 years. ... The last days are leading to the last day."

11/26/5:

• FREE ONLINE BOOKS: G.A. Henty - For The Temple (1888) Chapter XIII The Test of Devotion "Crowds of fugitives were making their way by this road to the city, flying before the advance of the Romans, who were, they said, but a few hours’ march in their rear. Many were men coming to take their part in the defense of the city, but the great proportion were old men, women, and children flying for refuge. John shook his head as he watched the stream of fugitives, for he well knew the horrors that would befall the besieged town."
• Guardian UK: Secret British Document Accuses Israel "The document says stringent Israeli controls on the movement of Palestinians in and out of the city are an attempt to restrict Arab population growth. "When the barrier is completed, Israel will control all access to East Jerusalem, cutting off its Palestinian satellite cities of Bethlehem and Ramallah, and the West Bank beyond. This will have serious ... consequences for the Palestinians," it says. "

11/25/5:

• Books: Redating the New Testament (1976) "One of the oddest facts about the New Testament is that what on any showing would appear to be the single most datable and climactic event of the period - the fall of Jerusalem in AD 70, and with it the collapse of institutional Judaism based on the temple - is never once mentioned as a past fact.  It is, of course, predicted; and these predictions are, in some cases at least, assumed to be written (or written up) after the event.  But the silence is nevertheless as significant as the silence for Sherlock Holmes of the dog that did not bark."

11/23/5:

• Press: Lewis County Chronicle: We might better live our lives as if End Times are with us - "But, again, no one knows for sure if the signs we are seeing now are the beginning of the “birth pangs” signaling the start of the End Times or when the End Times and the Second Coming of Christ will occur.   “It’s possible” or “it might be,” TV evangelist Pat Robertson said of current signs seen as portending the End Times. "

11/22/5:

• Partial Pret: Rich Lusk: A new perspective on the mystery of God - "Jesus stands upon Israel and the nations and swears an oath. He promises to make the kingdoms of this world his own kingdom. When this union of two peoples into one is completed, the mystery of God is finished (cf. Rev. 11:15). (I think this passage is best understood in preterist fashion. The seventh angel in 11:15 announces the final fall of the temple in Jerusalem in 70 A. D. If so, it further reinforces my understanding of "mystery" as the trans-epochal union of Jew and Gentile in Christ. The mystery revealed in the New Covenant is the new shape of the people of God.)" | Theologia

11/20/5:

11/16/5:

• Revelations: Ivory Emperor Emerges From Roman Forum - "Emperor Vespasian (69-79 AD) built the temple in 72 AD to house the spoils from the suppression of the First Jewish Revolt by his son Titus - later emperor 79-81 AD - along with Greek masterpieces collected by Nero (54-68 AD) .  The ivory-statue coup comes shortly after another jackpot find - a huge marble head of Emperor Constantine (305-337 AD) discovered in July at Trajan's Forum . The 60cm-high head, which was found in good condition, showed Constantine in stylised glory, at the time of his triumphant entry into Rome after beating rival Emperor Maxentius at the Battle of the Milvian Bridge (312 AD)."

11/15/5:

• Books: Anne Rice - Christ the Lord: Out of Egypt (2005) "Without ever planning it, I've moved slowly backwards in history, from the nineteenth century, where I felt at home in my first two novels, to the first century, where I sought the answers to enormous questions that became an obsession with me that simply couldn't be ignored. Ultimately, the figure of Jesus Christ was at the heart of this obsession.  More generally, it was the birth of Christianity and the fall of the ancient world.  I wanted to know desperately what happened in the first century, and why people in general never talked about it." (p. 306)

11/11/5:

• Press: Anne Rice believes entire New Testament written prior to AD70 - "The queen of darkness has seen the light.  In her latest book, Christ the Lord, novelist Anne Rice turns away from the doomed souls of her best-selling tales about vampires and witches in favor of a first-person account of the 7-year-old Jesus.  Rice also critiques the widespread dating of the Gospels to between about 60 and 90 A.D., and the theory that they appeared decades apart. Instead, she believes they were produced around the same time, and all before Romans destroyed the Temple in Jerusalem in 70 A.D."
• FREE ONLINE BOOKS: G.A. Henty - For The Temple (1888) Chapter XII - "In the afternoon he head a clash of arms as the sentry gave the military salute, and a moment later Titus entered, accompanied by one whom John instantly recognized as Josephus. John rose to his feet.  “I told you he was but a young man,” Titus said to Josephus; “but now that I can see him more nearly, or at any rate more calmly, I can see that he is little more than a lad, and yet, as you have heard me say, he is a man of valor, and defeated me in a fair fight.”  “I seem to know his face,” Josephus said, and then addressed John in Hebrew.  “Who are you, young man?”  “I am that John whom you saved in the storm on the Sea of Galilee, and who fought with you at Jotapata.” “Is it possible!” Josephus exclaimed in surprise. “I thought that I alone was saved there.”
• Bookstore: Scot McKnight - A New Vision for Israel: The Teachings of Jesus in National Context (Studying the Historical Jesus) (1999) "The most interesting portion of the book is McKnight's discussion of the future kingdom. The future kingdom, which was imminent, involved the overthrow of the Romans, the restoration of the twelve tribes, and the coming of God in full glory. Jesus didn't know exactly when this would occur, but he knew that it would occur within a generation. McKnight argues that Jesus "did not see past 70 A.D." and that his predictions were fulfilled in 70 A.D., when the Romans sacked Jerusalem. This view is often called "preterism" and McKnight's presentation of it in this book is the first presentation by a mainstream publisher of which I'm aware. "

• Nero as Antichrist | St. Jerome: "As for the Antichrist, there is no question but what he is going to fight against the holy covenant, and that when he first makes war against the king of Egypt, he shall straightway be frightened off by the assistance of the Romans. But these events were typically prefigured under Antiochus Epiphanes, so that this abominable king who persecuted God's people foreshadows the Antichrist, who is to persecute the people of Christ. And so there are many of our viewpoint who think that Domitius Nero was the Antichrist because of his outstanding savagery and depravity." (St. Jerome - Commentary on Daniel; notes on Daniel 11:27-30, -- BAKER BOOK HOUSE Grand Rapids 6, Michigan 1958)

11/10/5:

• Press: Peter Sellick for Online Opinion - Apocalypse: Why we shouldn't fear if the end is nigh - "One of the jokes against religion appears in cartoon form, a little raggedy man holding up a sign that says, “The End is Nigh”. There have been a large number of real life doom-sayers in our history, even famous ones like Isaac Newton, who spent years calculating the exact date of the end of the world from biblical texts and came up with the year 2060, so we still have some time left.  Well, he was right about gravity!"
• Press: Steve Eighinger for Quincy Whig - Have we entered the End Times? - "The Rev. Joby Brown of First Christian Church in Quincy does not necessarily subscribe to the current End Times thinking.  "I really don't think any of the recent natural disasters we have seen are tied toward the rapture," Brown said. "We have lots of tragedies each year. Sometimes we see more storms than in other years."  Brown said these tragedies might be unfolding for a different reason.  "God's calling us more to respond to those in need," he said.  Mark Bailey, president of the Dallas Theological Seminary, a conservative evangelical institution, says to be careful when predicting specific times and dates for the ultimate Judgment Day.  "There have been storms throughout history," Bailey said. "To say that any of these that 'this is it' is dangerous speculation."
• Revelations: Move the prison, save the church, archeologists say - "The Israeli Prison System said the experience of helping to excavate the site had gone a long way toward rehabilitating some of the prisoners. More than 60 prisoners (none of them Palestinian security prisoners) worked on the excavations and a few of them were so happy with the work, they have asked for jobs with the Israel Antiquities Authority, when they complete their prison sentence, said IPS spokeswoman Stelser. "If this is not rehabilitation, you tell me what is," Stelser said.

11/8/5:

• Press: Nancy Haught for Oregon Live! - Wars! Earthquakes! Pestilences! - "James knows that not all Christians see scripture and the signs the same way he and Strandberg and the whole Left Behind crowd do. The Web site gets a lot of critical mail, and some of it is posted online. "Some people get really hostile over anything on the site," James says. "To me, that shows the truth of what we're doing."
• Press: Heather Quitos for Badger (Wisc.) Herald - Apocalypse Now in Lecture - “I liked that he talked about the progressive uses of millennial thinking and how people have used it to gain power awareness,” she said. Enstad added she does not believe in the apocalypse, but will attend upcoming lectures to learn about its place in the current world and if it can help her gain insight into her own life."

11/7/5:

• Press: Apocalypse Now? - "Mike Glover is the Pastor at First Assembly of God in Jonesboro (AR). "Some of those last things that Jesus talked about are taking place as I said, in repetition, closer and closer together as a woman would give birth the scripture describes it. The contractions are closer and the intensity becomes greater and that's what we're seeing," said Glover. "
• Revelations: Independent - Early Christian Church Found in Jail Compound | IsraCast - "Biblical Armageddon - where St John the Divine (Revelation 16:16) prophesied the war to end all wars, is now the high-security prison of Megiddo, where the Israelis send the hardest Palestinian cases.   A mosaic floor, inscribed with an ornate Greek dedication to "the God Jesus Christ," was discovered during ground-clearing for a new wing. "  They found three other inscriptions and a medallion decorated with a pair of fish. One inscription was dedicated to Gaianus, a Roman officer who paid for the mosaics out of his own pocket. A second commemorated four women, Primilia, Kiraka, Dorothea and Crista; while a third praised "God-loving" Akeftos, who donated the table as a memorial to Jesus."
• Hermeneutics: Interview with Mordecai Vanunu "The Jewish tribe teaches that there is only one Chosen people of God. They teach of their superiority, taking literally word-by-word the writings in the old bible. "
• Haaretz: There is a hole in the shirt - "The National Theatre in London has in its repertoire a new play by Howard Brenton, "Paul," following the life of Saul of Tarsus, who started as a ferocious fighter against fanatic terrorists who threatened Jewish life in Judea. Following a meeting with Jesus, just risen from the dead, he experienced a change of heart and became an apostle, one of the founders of Christianity. The Romans crucified him for spreading the word.
  
  The last scene of Brenton's play takes place in a jail cell in Rome. Emperor Nero comes to meet Paul and Peter on the eve of their execution, and spells out the bitter truth of religion and politics: "Rituals. Repeated patterns of behavior. To shore up belief. To stop chaotic behavior. In the end, it is the ritual that matters in religion, not what it means, mmm? ... You have long been seen as a political danger to the Imperial State ... because you're leaders of a death cult. Death cults always give the state problems."
  
  Following that, Nero informs them of Rome's plan to destroy Judea and the Temple in Jerusalem: "When Judea is destroyed, your cult will have its chance. It can cut itself off from its Jewish roots ... and when you have priests ... a good hierarchy of bribable gentlemen in fine robes, like any other religion ... why, then you will do business with the state? A hundred, two hundred years from now, Christianity could be the Empire's religion."

11/6/5:

• Revelations: Archaeologists Discover Ancient Church - The dig took place over the past 18 months at the Megiddo prison in northern Israel, with the most significant discoveries taking place in the past two weeks, Tepper said. Scholars believe Megiddo to be the New Testament's Armageddon, the site of a final war between good and evil.

  "Normally we have from this period in our region historical evidence from literature, not archaeological evidence," he said. "There is no structure you can compare it to, it is a very unique find."

  Channel Two said there is speculation that Israel may move the prison and open a tourist attraction in its place. "If it's between a prison and a church, I would like a church," Zias said. "You can put a prison anywhere." | Noah's Ark?

11/5/5:

• Pret: FP: Tami Jelinek - Ye Have Done It Unto Me "Since we have been made in His image, we live that out by displaying who we are in Him to each other. But He was the first. We love only because He first loved us, and we love Him back by loving each other. We are indeed His body, wherefore He says, 'ye have done it unto Me.' So as we consider these applications, we should keep in mind both the reciprocity and intimacy of our communion first with the Lord; then secondarily and by extension, with each other. The two cannot be separated, as one flows from and finds its source in the other. 'Freely ye have received, freely give.' (Matthew 10:8)"

• FREE ONLINE BOOKS: G.A. Henty - For The Temple (1888) Chapter XI - A Tale of Civil Strife “I am quite content to wait here until the day comes that you shall return; and then, though our cause be lost, our country ruined, and God’s Temple destroyed, we can yet feel that God has been good and merciful to us, even if we be driven out of our home, and have to become exiles in a far land.”

10/31/5:

• FREE ONLINE BOOKS: G.A. Henty - For The Temple (1888) Chapter X - Captives “You are all the same,” the Roman replied, scowling upon them. “You speak fair one day, and stab us in the back the next. Pomponius,” he continued, turning to the sergeant, “put these two lads with the rest. They ought to fetch a good price, for they are strong and active. As to the girl, I will make a present of her to the general to send to his wife in Rome. She is the prettiest Jewess I have seen since I entered the country. The old woman can go. She is of no use to any one.”

10/28/5:

• FREE ONLINE BOOKS: G.A. Henty - For The Temple (1888) - Chapter IX - The Storming of Gamala "A sudden idea flashed across John’s brain: he waited till the soldier came out, followed him with silent steps, and then sprang upon him at a bound, hurling him to the ground and burying his knife again and again in his body.  Not a cry had escaped the Roman. "

10/27/5:

• Tisha B'Av: History through a Jewish lens: The War of Tisha B'av  - "This translation comes from my Artscroll edition of the Chumash, pages 1081 and 1085.  First, Devarim/Deuteronomy 28:49-50:   HaShem will carry against you a nation from afar, from the end of the earth, as an eagle will swoop, a nation whose language you will not understand, a brazen nation that will not be respectful to the old nor gracious to the young.  Rambam comments on Deuteronomy 28:49 that Vespasian and his son Titus came from Rome to conquer the Land of Israel and destroy Jerusalem and the Second Temple.  The awful conditions described though verse 57 took place during the siege of Jerusalem.  A yeshiva student studying these lines in Warsaw on the night of Wednesday, August 30, 1939, would have read Rambam in the Hebrew, saying exactly what I quoted you.  However, if he had time to follow the reading of the Torah in shul (synagogue) on September 2 and could concentrate upon it, instead of the screaming of the Luftwaffe overhead, he might have had a very different comprehension of these same lines. "
• FREE ONLINE BOOKS: G.A. Henty - For The Temple (1888) - Chapter VIII - Among the Mountains “Only we must remember that while we desire now to do the Romans as much harm as possible, this is but the beginning of our work, and that we must save ourselves for the future. Gamala is but one town, and we shall have plenty of opportunities for striking at the enemy in the future. We have put our hands to the plow now, and so long as the war lasts we will not look back. It may be that our example may lead others to follow it, and in that case the Romans’ difficulties will thicken every day.

10/24/5:

• Cambridge Scientist: Humans can live for thousands of years - "The 42-year-old English biogerontologist has made his name by claiming that some people alive right now could live for 1,000 years or longer. Maybe much longer. Growing old is not, in his view, an inevitable consequence of the human condition; rather, it is the result of accumulated damage at the cellular and molecular levels that medical advances will soon be able to prevent — or even reverse — allowing people to go on living pretty much indefinitely. We'll still have to worry about angry bears and falling pianos, but aging, the biggest killer of all, will cease to be a threat. Death, as we know it, will die. "  "One hundred and fifty thousand people die every day, and two-thirds of those die of aging in one way or the other," he says, while nursing a pint of fine English ale. "If I speed up the cure for aging by one day, then I've saved 100,000 people."
• Revelations: After 100 Years, Acient Papyrus Returns to UC Berkeley - "The papyri, which come primarily from mummy wrappings in the Egyptian city of Tebtunis, span a period of nearly 600 years when the Egyptian empire was ruled by the Greeks and later the Romans, Faulhaber said. "

10/23/5:

• Christ the Lord: Out of Egypt: "Christ the Lord" - Anne Rice's New Novel based on the Gospels - "I promised," she says, "that from now on I would write only for the Lord." It's the most startling public turnaround since Bob Dylan's "Slow Train Coming" announced that he'd been born again.  But she sees a continuity with her old books, whose compulsive, conscience-stricken evildoers reflect her long spiritual unease. "I mean, I was in despair." In that afterword she calls Christ "the ultimate supernatural hero ... the ultimate immortal of them all."
• Burbank Leader: Is Revelation Relevant?

10/22/5:

• FREE ONLINE BOOKS: G.A. Henty - For The Temple (1888) - Chapter VII - The Massacre on the Lake "Father,” he said that evening, “I had thought to stay quietly with you until the Romans advanced against Jerusalem, but I find I cannot do so. The massacre at Jotapata was bad enough, but the slaughter of defenseless men on the lake is worse. I pray you let me go.”  “Would you go into Gamala and die there, John?” Simon asked. “Better to die at the Temple than to throw away your life here.”

10/20/5:

• New Discussion Board Opened - Let's get acquainted before diving into the work...
• FREE ONLINE BOOKS: G.A. Henty - For The Temple (1888) - Chapter VI  The Fall of the City "Certain it is that no similar act of clemency was show by Vespasian to any other Jew, that no other thought of pity or mercy entered his mind during the campaign, that he spared no man who fell alive into his hands, and that no more ruthless and wholesale extermination than that which he inflicted upon the people of Palestine was ever carried out by the most barbarous of conquerors. To this day the memory of Josephus is hated among the Jews."

10/19/5:

• Press: Mixing Prophecy and Politics in the Holy Land - Jane Lampman for CSM "Ray Sanders and his wife, Sharon, grew up on farms in the American Midwest, but Israel has long been their home. Their journey began in the 1970s, when they read Hal Lindsey's apocalyptic bestseller, "The Late Great Planet Earth," which laid out a scenario for the end of the world according to a literal interpretation of Bible prophecies.  "That awakened our understanding to Israel and its prophetic role in the Last Days," Mr. Sanders explains in his spacious Jerusalem office. "That was a real paradigm shift in our lives."   --  (Premillennial Dispensationalism) divides history into eras (dispensations) based on a complex interpretation of biblical texts in books such as Daniel, Ezekiel, and Revelation. Most other Christian groups view these prophecies as predictions fulfilled long ago or as visions with a purely symbolic or spiritual meaning. But premillennialists insist they will occur on earth in the future."
• Revelations: Cremona Dig Confirms Tacitus - "Excavations in Cremona have confirmed a legendary description of the city's destruction in December 69 AD by the Latin historian Tacitus . "Such was the end of Cremona, 286 years after its foundation," he concluded . The sack of Cremona occurred in the "Year of the Four Emperors", the period of civil war that followed Nero's forced suicide in 68 AD."

10/18/5:

• Press: Sonia Nettnin for Media Monitors - Uses and Abuses of Bible Prophecy (Rossing Influenced by DeMar) - "Mainline Christians left the last book of the Bible, the book of Revelation to the fundamentalists for interpretation. As a result, Revelation theology became the dominant, Christian interpretation - a prophetic, apocalyptic interpretation - that fuels a lucrative prophecy industry. Another interpretation of this passage is in regards to the word “meet.” The following is Rossing’s deconstruction of the interpretation: “the word for ‘meeting’ in 1 Thessalonians 4:17 is from the Greek word ‘apantesis,’ which is used to describe a delegation going out to meet an important dignitary to escort them back. It doesn’t mean going out to meet the dignitary and them leaving with them.”   Rossing references a conservative, evangelical critic by the name of Gary Demar. In his book, “End Times Fiction: A Biblical Consideration of the Left Behind Theology,” he says the dispensationalist script is unsupported because there is no evidence of it in the Bible.
• Press: AP Wire - Evangelicals donated $40,000 to Gaza Evacuees - "Pinchas Wallerstein, a Jewish settler leader, said Monday that all support is "greatly welcomed," as long as it doesn't come from Christian missionaries."
• FREE ONLINE BOOKS: G.A. Henty - For The Temple (1888) - Chapter V - The Siege of Jotapata  “But how are we to make them attack us? We want nothing better.”  “I will think it over,” Josephus said, “and tell you in the morning.”   In the morning, to the surprise of the men, they were ordered to dip large numbers of garments into the precious supply of water, and to hang them on the walls.   Loud were the outcries from the women as they saw the scanty store of water upon which their lives depended so wasted; but the orders were obeyed, and the Romans were astonished at seeing the long line of dripping garments on the wall.   The stratagem had its effect. Vespasian thought that the news he had received that the place was ill supplied with water must be erroneous, and ordered the troops again to take their station on the walls and renew the attack. Great was the exultation among the Jews when they saw movement among the troops, and Josephus, ordering the fighting men together, said that now was their opportunity."

10/15/5:

• Books: Revelations: Dr. Carsten Peter Thiede - Eyewitness to Jesus: Amazing New Manuscript Evidence About the Origin of the Gospels (1996) "using the new science of papyrology, had redated to roughly 60 CE three papyrus fragments of the Gospel of Matthew, held in Oxford's Magdalen College Library since 1901.  the Magdalen Papyrus corroborates the tradition that St. Matthew actually wrote the Gospel bearing his name, that he wrote it within a generation of Jesus' death, and that the Gospel stories about Jesus are true. "
• FREE ONLINE BOOKS: G.A. Henty - For The Temple (1888) - Chapter IV: The Lull Before the Storm "Vespasian marched first to Gadara, which was undefended, the fighting men having all gone to Jotapata; but although no resistance was offered, Vespasian put all the males to the sword and burned the town and all the villages in the neighborhood, and then advanced against Jotapata. "
• Press: Ben Macintyre for Times UK - As scientists predict scientifict disaster, others foresee Apocalypse "Sales of apocalyptic literature have grown hugely in recent times: the doom boom is nigh. While scientists give warning of scientific disaster — Atlantic hurricanes, a new European ice age as the Gulf Stream dies, the disintegration of the Antarctic ice shelf — others foresee Apocalypse, Armageddon and Rapture, the bodily ascent to Heaven of the saved. A recent poll in Newsweek showed that some 55 per cent of Americans believe in the Rapture, and more than a third believe that the world will end as predicted in the Book of Revelation. The 12 novels in the Left Behind series of Christian apocalyptic fiction have sold more than 63 million copies. "

10/14/5:

• Press: JHW for LifeSite - Vatican Correspondent Says Pope Using Apocalyptic Imagery - "O'Brien points out that Pope Saint Pius X, in his 1903 encyclical, Suprema Apostolatus, wrote, "There is room to fear that we are experiencing the foretaste of the evils that are to come at the end of time. And that the Son of Perdition of whom the apostles speak has already arrived on the earth."
• Press: Greg O'Brien for Codfish Press - End Game for the End Times - "Is anyone listening? Are these signs of the apocalypse detailed in the Book of Daniel, the Gospel of Matthew and the Book of Revelation, or are we just having a global stretch of bad luck? "
• Outside Links: Finding Fulfillment in Finding Prophecy Fully Fulfilled in Jesus Christ  (Ron Wagner)
• Partial Pret: The Anti-Rapture Page - Index Page "...yes, I (Bob) am a normal human being and sane Christian who loves the Lord and believes the Bible to be the inspired Word of God without error. I attended a conservative (Dallas Theo Seminary-type) Bible College where Premillennialism was taught and all other views scorned. Now I'm thinking that preterism is the most sound Biblical approach to prophecy. Why? Read on!" (Archived Websites Project)
  • Biblical Superiority of Preterism
  • Everything Jesus Said About the Rapture
  • 5 Errors of Premillennialists
  • Antichrist Revealed!!
  • Definitions and Advocates
  • What Difference Does It Make?
  • Bibliography - Books you otta read!
  • A Night With the Family --A "must" read!!
  • Daniel's 70 Weeks Future or Fulfilled?
  • Matthew 24 Future or Fulfilled?
  • Scriptures give actual timing of Second Coming!!
  • Mark of the Beast Do You Have It?
  • When does "soon" = "later"? When does "quickly" = "slowly"? When does "at hand" = "future"? 2 Peter 3:8,9

10/13/5:

• FREE ONLINE BOOKS: G.A. Henty - For The Temple (1888) - Chapter 3: The Revolt Against Rome "The terms were accepted and ratified, but as soon as the Roman soldiers marched out and laid down their arms Eleazar and his followers fell upon them and slew them, Metilius himself being alone spared.  “After this terrible massacre a sadness fell on the city; all felt that there was no longer any hope of making condition with Rome."  “On the very day and hour in which the Romans were put to death retribution began to fall upon the nation, for the Greeks of Cæsarea rose suddenly and massacred the Jews. Twenty thousand were slain in a single day. The news of these two massacres drove the whole people to madness. They rose throughout the land, laid waste the country all round the cities of Syria—Philadelphia, Sebonitis, Gerasa, Pella, and Scythopolis—and burned and destroyed many places.  “The Syrians in turn fell upon the Jewish inhabitants of all their towns, and a frightful carnage everywhere took place. Thirteen thousand perished here. In many other cities the same things were done; in Ascalon twenty-five hundred were put to the sword; in Ptolemais two thousand were killed. The land was deluged with blood, and despair fell upon all."  “Even in Alexandria our countrymen suffered.  The Jews fought, but vainly, and fifty thousand men, women, and children fell. "
• MistakenID: FP: Samuel Frost - Israel and the Gentiles "These Gentiles would also be included into the nation of the newly redeemed Israel so that they, too, would be called, " members of Israel." God has only one nation in his kingdom and that nation is Israel, and Israel has been raised from the dead and newly transformed into a son of God so that just as The Son of God is, so they are also."
• Press: Harold Bolinger for The Conservative Voice - More heresies unleashed on Christendom "Indeed the fire-brand preachers that helped found religious freedom in America, such as Rev. Timothy Dwight, Samuel Sherwood, Jonathan Mayhew, and John Wesley, would have viewed such madness as “futurism” or “preterism” as the ranting of an Anti-Christ. "

10/12/5:

• Press: Gary DeMar - Pat Robertson is wrong - Militantly Dispensationalist News Site publishes Preteristic article! "Pat Robertson is making predictions again. He's reading the Bible through current events rather than letting the Bible speak for itself.  In Matthew 24:7, Jesus says that "in various places there will be famines and earthquakes." He says nothing about an increase in their number or intensity. Luke writes, "There will be great earthquakes" (Luke 21:11). Jesus wasn't describing events that would precede the end of our time. Rather, He was describing signs that led up to the destruction of the temple in A.D. 70 that would take place before that first-century generation passed away (Matt. 24:33–34). "
• FREE ONLINE BOOKS: G.A. Henty - For The Temple (1888) - Added Chapter II: A Storm on Galilee "It was indeed the governor. Flavius Josephus, as the Romans afterward called him, came of a noble Jewish family, his father, Matthias, belonging to the highest of the twenty-four classes into which the sacerdotal families were divided. Matthias was eminent for his attainments and piety, and had been one of the leading men in Jerusalem. From his youth Josephus had carefully prepared himself for public life, mastering the doctrines of the three leading sects among the Jews"
• Books: Bookseller - Crown Rights (Mauro Reprints)

10/11/5:

• Books: Joseph Atwill: Caesar's Messiah: The Roman Conspiracy to Invent Jesus (2005) - "During the entire Middle Ages Christians viewed Josephus' depiction of the war between the Romans and the Jews as proof of Christ's divinity.  Icons, carvings on caskets, and religious painting from this era all portrayed the 70 C.E. destruction of Jerusalem as the fulfillment of Jesus' doomsday prophecy.  The importance of Josephus' works to Christians during this period can also be gauged by the fact that some of the Eastern Christian churches of Syria and Armenia actually included his books as part of the handwritten Bible.  In Europe, as well, following the invention of the printing press, Latin editions of the Bible included Antiquities and War of the Jews."   "Though Jesus did not say exactly when the visitatio nof the Son of Man would occur, he did state that he would come before the generation alive during his ministry passed away.   Jews of this era saw a generation as lasting 40 years, so Titus' destruction of Jerusalem in 70 C.E. fit perfectly into the time frame Jesus gave in his prophecy." (Search inside the book) - Book Review
• Jewish Wars: H.H. Chapman: "A Myth for the World" - Early Christian Reception of Infanticide and Cannibalism in Josephus (.pdf) "The Christian Fathers adapt, comment upon, and quote Josephus’s detailed and dramatic description of the destruction of Jerusalem for a variety of literary and theological purposes.1 They cite the scene of Mary’s cannibalism at B.J. 6.199-219 more often than any other from the War because it provides them with vivid evidence to corroborate passages in the scriptures concerning the two destructions of Jerusalem and God’s punishment of his people for sin."
• FREE ONLINE BOOKS: William Paley: Evidences of Christianity (1851) "The general agreement of the description with the event, viz. with the ruin of the Jewish nation, and the capture of Jerusalem under Vespasian, thirty-six years after Christ’s death, is most evident; and the accordancy in various articles of detail and circumstances has been shown by many learned writers. This part of the case is perfectly free from doubt."
• FREE ONLINE BOOKS: Horatius Bonar: The Rent Veil (1875) "The temple was not overthrown till about forty years after the Son of God died on the cross. The type was preserved for a season, that the antitype might be more fully understood. The shadow and the substance were thus for forty years exhibited together. "
• dEmEnTiA: Quakes, Pandemic, Floods = Second Coming? MichNews - "The Church Age will conclude with the Battle of Armageddon in the Valley of Megiddo in the northwestern section of Israel. At height of the Battle, Christ will return to Earth with His angels and the redeemed of all time. They will establish a millennial reign upon the planet. Christ will be regarded as King of Kings and Lord of Lords. 

  All of this is planted in the Scripture and researched by serious Bible students. They can see the Bible come to life daily when hearing the news. They can put "two and two together" as never before. It’s amazing. "

10/10/5:

• Are We Living in the Last Days? - WND Poll: Write pollsuggestions@wnd.com  to suggest Another Option: No, I believe the Last Days were in the First Century from the Cross of Christ to the Fall of Jerusalem in A.D.70
• FREE ONLINE BOOKS: G.A. Henty: For The Temple (1888) - Added Chapter One (More to come this week!)  - This world-famous 'fulfilled eschatology' novel was written for all ages, using the events of the Roman-Jewish war as a backdrop for our hero John of Gamala's coming of age.

  "In all history there is no drama of more terrible interest than that which terminated with the total destruction of Jerusalem."

10/9/5:

10/8/5:

• Press: Manila Times - Ekklesia in Asia: Unfitted Guests - "The groom, the king’s son, is our Lord Jesus Christ.  Special people, the Jews, have been initially invited to the wedding celebrations. The two groups of servants that were sent to insure their coming were the prophets first, then the Christian disciples and missionaries.  The invited guests’ refusal and other preferred concerns, plus their maltreatment and even murder of the servants, dramatize the ferocious rejection of the Christian message on the part of the Jews.  The burning of the city of the unworthy guests refers to the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans in 70 A.D."

• Books: Author Believes Land Fight Between Jews and Arabs No Longer has Spiritual Value - "In A. Bernhard Kuiper’s new book When Bad Things Happen to Good Prophecies, the author poses this question, “If it is believed that the 1948 re-establishment of the state of Israel is in fulfillment of prophecies within the Old Testament, then why did God not oppose the extradition of Jews from the Gaza Strip and Golan Heights?” "

10/5/5:

• FREE ONLINE BOOKS: F.W. Farrar: Seekers after God | The Witness of History to Christ | Christian Writings | Books Set in First Century
• Outside Links: Caspari Center for Biblical and Jewish Studies | Aramaic Study Resources
• See Where Left Behind: World at War is Showing in Your Area

10/4/5:

• Evangelicals Get a Piece of the Promised Land - "on hand was Dr. Paul Crouch, president of Trinity Broadcasting Network, a worldwide giant in Christian broadcasting, and Jay Sekulow, the head of the American Centre for Law & Justice, a Christian-based law firm founded by the Rev. Pat Robertson."
• 14,000 Days Ends Today! "According to this verse; the Jews would be dispersed through out the world and Jerusalem would be trodden, or trampled, by the gentiles, or nations, until "the times of the Gentiles be fulfilled". Exactly 14,000 days from Jesus' proclamation of the destruction of Jerusalem, it happened in AD 70, as Jerusalem was surrounded by Titus Vespasian."   Luke 21:32 Verily I say unto you, This generation shall not pass away, till all be fulfilled. I and many others believe that "This generation" is the generation of June 07, 1967. Take 14,000 days from this date, a biblical generation, and you come to October 04, 2005. This day is also a very significant feast, Rosh Hashana. "

10/3/5:

• Papal Homily speaks of Jewish nation as "unfaithful vineyard" - "Thus we reach the third element in today’s reading. The Lord, in the Old and New Testament alike, pronounces judgement upon the unfaithful vineyard. The judgement that Isaiah foresees comes about in great wars and exile at the hands of the Assyrians and the Babylonians. The judgement announced by the Lord Jesus refers above all to the destruction of Jerusalem in the year 70. But the threat of judgement regards us too, the Church in Europe, Europe and the West in general."
• Ted Byfield: Shouldn't Christians Know Better? - "It's hard to imagine any current fact that better illustrates the disheveled state of Christian education. For by almost any standard of New Testament scholarship, the Da Vinci Code is unmitigated nonsense, and any Christian with the barest knowledge of the history of the New Testament would know this. Yet it has been passed off by the author as historically credible, and many millions of people believe him, an embarrassing number of them practicing Christians. "
• Christian Bible Chat.com - Inviting Preterist discussion threads

9/25/5:

• Location, location, location - "The building of the Third Temple, he says, will be "something wonderful for the Jewish People, and for the world as a whole" – although he does not believe that ritual sacrifice will be reinstated. "

9/24/5:

• Critical: Stephen Cole: Are you ready for Christ's return? - "Although those who hold this view say that they are attempting to deal with the biblical texts, I believe that the extreme Preterists go outside the bounds of orthodoxy and are guilty of heresy."
• Babelemlekei.hu - Gombor Gabor's Hungarian Preterist Site Archived - "Bábel emlékei - preterizmus és arám eredet"
• Mistaken ID: Bat Creek Stone - "Emmert was a relatively uneducated, obscure former Confederate Army private from Bristol,  Tennessee and life-long Democrat who was employed in l884 by the Smithsonian to dig in Indian  mounds in what was a successful attempt to prove that the Mound builders were not descendants of  the lost Tribe of Israel.  That theory was the prevailing belief in the Nineteenth Century.  Old myths die hard.  There are many, including Mormons, who still cling to it.  Some of these believers  use the Bat Creek Stone to support their belief." | Across the Sabbath River

9/23/5:

• Books: Sproul, R.C. - The Last Days According to Jesus: When Did Jesus Say He Would Return? "A trusted theologian analyzes what Jesus said about his return and the last days, with thoughts on the antichrist, the resurrection, and the timing of the millennium. " (Search Within the Book!)

9/22/5:

• Pret: Rene Hedges: Why does Preterism seem to struggle? - "Fascinating how Paul diminishes the idea of earthy things, yet the present day Christian looks forward to more earthly things. However, it is difficult for Christians today, because of their physical reality, to separate the beliefs of a physical kingdom to come and the genuine spiritual existence of the kingdom now. "

• CBS News: Soldiers Spooked By New Orleans: Ghosts/Bibles - "It (Revelation 10 & 11) talks about a great storm that last three days, that washes away a city -- and that there are bodies in the city."
• Books: Easterbrook. Gregg - The Progress Paradox: How Life Gets Better While People Feel Worse "Average Americans and Europeans not only live better than more than 99 percent of the human beings who have ever existed, they live better than more of the royalty of history, if only owing to Antibiotics.  But we don't seem particularly pleased about our lot.  In 1997, 66 percent of Americans told pollsters they believed 'the lot of the average person is getting worse.'"

9/21/5:

• Mysterious "Ball of Fire" seen in sky over Florida - "Dozens of people from Jacksonville to Ft. Pierce flooded the U.S. Coast Guard late Tuesday with calls about a mysterious ball of fire seen flying in the sky, according to a Local 6 News report.  Callers flooded the newsroom of Local 6 News partner Florida Today after they saw the object over the Space Coast Tuesday night." [waiting on dispensationalist comments/books  (Perhaps "Eye-Ball to Eye-Ball")]

9/18/5:

• Mistaken Identity Doctrine - Exploring the Anti-Christ Nationalism of the Christian Identity Movement [Nationalism akin to 1st Century Judaism and Modern Dispensationalism, which is racist in its identification of Israel as a temporal nation]

9/17/5:

• Dave MacPherson: Pre-Trib Rapture Die-hards - "Since the 1970's stunning new data has been surfacing about the pretribulation rapture's long-covered-up beginnings in the 1800's. In recent years several persons associated with Dallas Theological Seminary (which had long been pretribized) have reportedly gone to Britain to check on my research sources and then write books opposing my claims.  In 1990 an Ohio pastor told me that Dr. _____ _____, the most qualified DTS prof, traveled there and came back and wrote nothing! The pastor added that he and some others had a good laugh. But change was coming. "

• FREE ONLINE BOOKS: Douglas Krieger - ANTICHRIST and THE GOG-MAGOG WAR "Sir Robert Anderson clearly spells out that the wording committed in Daniel 9:26 tells us that THE PEOPLE (of the prince who is to come) would destroy the city and the sanctuary—which was done in 70 A.D. under Titus of Rome (but Titus of Rome was not “the prince who is to come”). Titus was among the “people of the prince” who were absolutely Roman and/or Gentiles, who destroyed both Jerusalem and the Temple."

• Kabbalist Urges Jews to Israel Ahead of Upcoming Disasters - Arutz Sheva "”This declaration I find fitting to issue for all of the Jews of the world to hear. It is incumbent upon them to return to the Land of Israel due to terrible natural disasters which threaten the world.  In the future, the Holy One, Blessed be He, will bring about great disasters in the countries of the world to sweeten the judgements of the Land of Israel.   I am ordering the publication of this declaration as a warning, so that Jews in the countries of the world will be aware of the impending danger and will come to the Land of Israel for the buliding of the Temple and revelation of our righteous Mashiach (Messiah).”

• Outside Links: Threshold: Eschatology

9/15/5:

• dEmEnTiA: Eye to Eye: Facing the Consequences of Dividing Israel "All of these major catastrophes transpired on the very same day or within 24-hours of U.S. presidents Bush, Clinton and Bush applying pressure on Israel to trade her land for promises of "peace and security," sponsoring major "land for peace" meetings, making major public statements pertaining to Israel's covenant land and/or calling for a Palestinian state. "

9/14/5:

• Books: Gary DeMar: "The Early Church and the "End of the World" will show that some of the earliest writers, most likely writing before the destruction of Jerusalem in A.D. 70, were referring to the judgment coming of Jesus, an event that the gospel writers tell us was to take place before that first-century generation passed away (Matt. 24:34). Adding to the confirmation of this view are the writings of the church’s first historian, Eusebius Pampilus of Caesarea (c. 260–341), whose Ecclesiastical History is a window on the first few centuries of the church. " ($6.95) | Book Review
• Watchdog: Paul Manata: "You Might Be A Hyper-Preterist" - "3. If you say you take the time texts seriously but you don't hold that 1 John was written at 11:00 p.m. on 69 AD since it says, "we know it is the last hour" (1 John 2:18), you might be a hyper-preterist.  10. If you have a blank look on your face, with glassy eyes, you might be a hyper-preterist."
• "What is Your Eschatology?" Quiz
• Outside Links - Blogs: What Saith the Scriptures? | Bill's Bloggins: The Preterist Heresy? | Theology and Biblical Studies | F. Tupper Saussy: Preterism Amplified | Shalom Jerusalem: Preterism | Pressing the Antithesis | Risk Blogger | Biblical Perspective | Nathan Dubois

9/7/5:

• Israel | Current Events: Did God Send Katrina as Judgment for Gaza? - "Katrina, written in Hebrew, has a numerical equivalent of 374, according to a biblical numbering system upheld by all traditional Jewish authorities. Two relevant passages in the Torah share the exact numerical equivalent: "They have done you evil" (Gen. 50:17) and "The sea upon land" (Exodus 14:15)."  "Is this some sort of bizarre coincidence? Not for those who believe in the God of the Bible and the immutability of His Word. What America is about to experience is the lifting of God's hand of protection, the implementation of His judgment on the nation most responsible for endangering the land and people of Israel. "

9/6/5:

• FP: Tami Jelinek: The Kingdoms the Prophets Saw - "And NOW, it’s time!  “In that day”: 11 In that day you shall not be shamed for any of your deeds In which you transgress against Me; For then I will take away from your midst Those who rejoice in your pride, And you shall no longer be haughty In My holy mountain. “In that day”: In the day all the earth will be devoured (vs 8), in the day a pure language is restored to the peoples (vs 9), in the day the daughter of His dispersed ones will bring an offering (vs 10); in that day “you shall not be shamed for any of your deeds which you transgress against Me.”  The day of vengeance = the day of forgiveness = the day of comfort!"

• 'Day' of the Lord: Maybe God is going to cleanse us - "New Orleans City Council President Oliver Thomas after witnessing the horrors first hand and hearing talk of Sodom and Gomorrah commented, "Maybe God's going to cleanse us."   ..However, beyond these speculations is a more general acknowledgement that New Orleans, the epicentre of the disaster, was a "sin city" which harboured few rivals.  The New Orleans "southern decadence" festival which was to take place Labour Day weekend, is described by a French Quarter tourism site as "sort of like a gayer version of Mardi Gras" which is "most famous (or infamous) for (public) displays.. Adjusted for population size, the state ranks third in the number of elected officials convicted of crimes (Mississippi is No. 1)"  | Michael Brown, creator of the immensely popular spiritdaily.com website - popularly known as the Catholic DrudgeReport, has said that Katrina was "definitely" a purification for New Orleans.  Brown points out that the name Katrina itself means "pure" "When you invoke dark spirits, you get a storm. The very word hurricane comes from the Indian hurukan for evil spirit." | Wrath of God.. but why gets many answers
• Outside Links: Bible and Science: Revelation - "Maline and Pilch think that the horses, trumpets, and bowls in Revelation refer to comets that look like these objects (p. 103-106; Tetrabiblos II, 90-91 LCL). There are six notable comets during the reign of Nero. In the last column the higher the number the more important the comet (0-10). The information is from Chronology of Eclipses and Comets AD 1-1000 by D. Justin Schove, 1984 (p. 287) "
• Jewish Wars: Monty Python and the Works of Josephus - REG: Listen. The only people we hate more than the Romans are the [expletive deleted] Judean People's Front.  GROUP: Yeah!  JUDITH: Splitters!  FRANCIS: And the Judean Popular People's Front.  GROUP: Yeah. Splitters!   STAN/LORETTA: And the People's Front of Judea.  GROUP: Splitters!  REG: What?  LORETTA: The People's Front of Judea. Splitters.  REG: We're the People's Front of Judea!

9/3/5:

7/19/5:

• Jerry Mazza: Is the Rapture a Rupture? "But don’t worry. There’s even a Rapture Index based on weekly events, sort of like a Dow Jones of end time happenings. Bless these folks, they think of everything. The question is what do you think about it? Maybe it’s time to look at your Bible. And this time read the small print real close . . . “For these days of vengeance, that all things which are written may be fulfilled . . . for the power of heaven shall be shaken . . . This generation shall not pass away till all be fulfilled.” (Jesus to his disciples in Luke 21:22–32, and with similar wording from Matthew 24:30–34 and Mark 1:24–30).  “Verily I say unto you, There are some of those standing here, who in no wise shall taste of death, until they have seen the Son of Man coming in his kingdom.” (Jesus to his disciples in Matthew 16:28 and also in Mark9:1 and Luke 9:27)   I can only add to this scripture this chestnut that “beauty is in the mind of the beholder.” And in this case so are the meanings of those lines, and the Bible itself. Unfortunately in this battle of compromised meanings, it seems the future of America and the globe itself are precariously balanced.

• A Breach in the Walls - Israel Today "Historian Flavius Josephus, an eyewitness of all that took place, described these scenes in his book The Jewish War, recounting how the Romans made the first breach in the wall of Jerusalem in 70 AD. This was the beginning of the end of the Jewish homeland at that time in history....   But even if the (current) pullout takes place just after the 9th of Av, the proximity to this tragic period is allegorical. The Palestinians are poised to create the first breach into the Promised Land, an event they see as the beginning of the end of Zionism. The question is whether this is the beginning of the end, as it was in 70 AD, or is it simply a turning point? After all, God has promised to change Israel’s destiny for good: “I will gather you from all the nations and places where I have banished you," declares the Lord, “and will bring you back to the place from which I carried you into exile” (Jeremiah 29:14)."

7/5/5:

• Evangelical association caught wrong footed
  Weblogs have been speculating whether megachurch pastor Ted Haggard may have caught off guard National Evangelical Association leadership

  "Haggard told Sharon that the official policy of the organization he represents is "to support the state of Israel come hell or high water. We are staunch supporters. We believe that you were chosen by God to lead the people of Israel in this difficult period. We fully support you, because we believe it is God's will."   ..One view is the dispensationalist - that prophecy in the Bible will be literally fulfilled in the state of Israel.  Amillenialism states that the biblical and historical state of Israel was replaced by a spiritual one with the work of Jesus Christ on earth and this spiritual Israel is where prophecy is being fulfilled. Preterist doctrine holds that biblical prophecy was fulfilled shortly after it was given. "

7/4/5:

• Jan Markell: Evil in the Name of God - Omega Letter - "At the root of this is not just anti-Semitism which is the quick blame. It is also the pop theology (though it is not new) that the Church is the new Israel—Replacement Theology. When church leaders and members believe that Israel has no present or future role or prominence, it is much easier to demonize them, call them oppressors, and urge the above action. They have also tossed out eschatology and emphasized false “end-time” theologies such as Preterism—that all prophecy occurred in 70 AD with the destruction of Jerusalem. Without exception, false eschatological teachings disinherit Jews and Israel from the land and covenants made to them and put them on the level of prominence comparable to the Canary Islands."

• Up Pompeii - Observer "In the Roman world more generally, this was a period which started with a certain optimism, but was racked by successive calamities - the Great Fire of Rome in AD64 was a disaster beside which the eruption of Vesuvius was merely a local tragedy. It was also a period in which a playboy emperor and a clique of irresponsible billionaires pushed the Roman economy into free fall, from which it was only retrieved by the sack of Jerusalem and a vast injection of gold and silver bullion, the temple treasure."

• Roman "Empire" on ABC; 'Rome' coming to HBO

5/31/5:

• Critical: Preterist Time Texts Answered by Scripture - James Ventilato "Within the confines of this relatively short paper, the four key passages of scripture which Preterism (of all stripes) relies upon for the very life-blood of its theory will be taken up: namely, Matt.24:34, Matt.10:23, Matt. 16:28, and Matt. 26:64. As the Lord enables, some of the issues and insurmountable problems involved in its isolated (2 Pet. 1:20), pseudo-literal, eisegesis of these four key texts will be exposed, and the only scripturally tenable view of each passage will be set forth."

5/25/5:

5/23/5:

5/20/5:

• Critical: Edward Hindson: The New Last Days Scoffers - National Liberty Journal "You may be thinking that no sensible person really believes that Jesus already came back.  Well, it may surprise you to know that Preterism is experiencing a new wave of interest these days thanks to the encouragement of popular radio personalities like R.C. Sproul and Hank Hanegraaff...   Preterism rests on a faulty hermeneutic and raises serious concerns for sincere students of Scripture. Consider the following; Preterism:

5/19/5:

• Revelations: NASA science uncovers texts of Trojan Wars, early gospel

5/14/5:

• 666 Wrong Number for Prophetic Beast? - WND "This adds weight to those who believe that it is a reference to Caligula's attempt to desecrate the Temple in Jerusalem, by having his statue erected there as part of the cult of emperor worship.  "There may be a reference to it in Mark [13:14], where he refers to the 'the abomination of desolation.' But this was overlaid by the Neronian persecutions. People believed that you could get from '666' to Nero because in Greek he is the emperor Neron Caesar. And 666 is one number less than the perfect 777. The text [showing 616] is quite legible to the naked eye. It was published in 1999, but it has taken people time to catch up."
• 666 Not So Evil? '616' Revelation Might Bedevil Metalheads - MTV.com "Both Greek and Hebrew letters have numeric values that can be added up to arrive at a total. One common explanation of 666 is that it comes from the numerical value of "Nero" transliterated into Hebrew letters. A small change in the transliteration can result in 616."

5/12/4:

• Pret: John Hedges: The Middle Class Gospel - "There are many sites out there, Preterist and non Preterist alike that do not even have the name Jesus on their ministry web page, or a simple statement of faith. So take away your “must have great deals” and make room for what you do hold true, or perhaps what you once did."

5/7/5:

• AntiChrist Discounted - "So sorry to all the "666" tattoo wearers out there ... its 616 that's the goin' number. Time to head back to the parlor for an update." (Blog)

5/4/5:

5/3/5:

• Press: Revelation!  666 is not the Number of the Beast (It's a devilish 616) - "This is an example of gematria, where numbers are based on the numerical values of letters in people's names. Early Christians would use numbers to hide the identity of people who they were attacking: 616 refers to the Emperor Caligula."  | "satanists responded coolly to the new "Revelation". Peter Gilmore, High Priest of the Church of Satan, based in New York, said: "By using 666 we're using something that the Christians fear. Mind you, if they do switch to 616 being the number of the beast then we'll start using that."

5/2/5:

• Partial: Andrew Corbett: Why the Rapture Has Ruptured - "The seventh trumpet announced the completion of God’s Old Covenant with Israel and the announcement that the Kingdom of Christ had begun (Rev. 11:15). Yet their remains a final trumpet, which we might call the “eighth”."

4/29/5:

4/25/5:

• FREE ONLINE BOOKS: The Moriad; or, The End of the Jewish State - By 'Ben Asaph, a Christian Jew of the Third Century' - 'Translated from the Syriac Hebrew by Anselm Korlstoff' (1857) "And now, O Branch, (on earth called Christ,) descend,  And bring the Second Institution to an end.   Sweep from the land the wretched Jewish State,   Their temple burn, and yield them to their fate.   To spirit-baptism they will not aspire,    So let Jerusalem be baptized with fire!"
• Papyrus Reveals New Clues to Ancient World - National Geographic News "..the Oxyrhynchus collection holds a lot of information about the rise of Christianity during the Roman period. (Egypt became part of the Roman Empire after Cleopatra's fleet was defeated at the battle of Actium in 31 B.C.). "[Christianity] starts out as a small social phenomenon, then just takes over everything," Obbink said. "You can see other cultural sea changes taking place—changes in taxes, changes in rule. It's all reflected in the papyrus."

4/22/5:

• FREE ONLINE BOOKS: David P. Crews: Prophecy Fulfilled: God's Perfect Church (1994) "We have briefly mentioned the prophecy passage that comprises Matthew 24 and its parallel recordings in Mark 13 and Luke 21. Now we can take a detailed, in–depth look at this great prophecy, spoken by Jesus Christ himself and see how it fits into the events of the times.  Many people have understood that portions of this passage refer to the destruction of Jerusalem in A.D. 70, but they have made divisions in the prophecy in order to assign some parts of it to the far future. Our purpose here is to examine the prophecy in fine detail to see how it fits the events of the destruction of the Jewish nation, and to see how such man–made divisions in the text are unjustifiably imposed. "

• The Jewish Struggle Against Roman Control - A Coin of Freedom for the Holy Land

4/21/5:

• Press: I'll gladly stay behind - Seattle P-I "A neighbor recently insisted I read the Left Behind series. "Especially now after 9/11," he said, "and the blessed countdown for the Rapture has begun." "Why are you so ... well, cheerful, about the end of the Earth?" I asked him."

4/20/5:

• Seventy Weeks: Refutation of the Dispensational Approach to Daniel's Visions "There is no further Temple to be rebuilt in Jerusalem with G-ds' Authorization. YESHUA Fulfilled all of that in Himself being Raised from the dead (He Fulfilled His Prophecy of the Temple being rebuilt in three days) and He is The ONLY New Temple anyone will ever need to Believe in both now and Forevermore. See Amos 9:11 and Acts 15:16 and many other passages. Any attempt to build "another Temple" would only be an attempt at a lawless usurpation of His Temple that is Now Eternal."
• How Will the World End? - National Catholic Reporter "First of all, Revelation, written not by John the Evangelist but perhaps by someone using his name around 80 A.D., is a form of apocalyptic literature, a highly poetic and symbolic tract drawing on literary forms from Greek and Latin mythology, other contemporary pagan sources and the Old Testament, especially the prophets and the Book of Daniel. Apocalyptic literature was composed to deal indirectly with the crises of its immediate readers: here, the persecution of Christians under Nero. Thus, terms like “whore” and “fornication” refer to economic and political corruption in the Roman Empire, and “Babylon” refers to Rome. Its picture of the triumph of a Messiah riding a white horse into battle against Satan inspires first-century Christians facing possible death to hold on.
• Eerie Prophecies Predicted Benedict XVI - "The selection of this pope seems to be intertwined with an "end times” biblical view. "
• Classical Holy Grail or Unholy Hype? "So as of right now, the rest of the papyrological community is waiting to hear Dirk Obbink at Oxford either back up for disavow the claims made in the article. At the very best, the Independent's reporters are covering some kind of new imaging breakthrough in an extremely hyperbolic fashion. And at the worst, they're trying to make a major story out of 20-year-old news. " | Brautigan and Oxy - "I'm sure Brautigan wouldn't have wanted his spoof to be treated this seriously, but I like this idea of the fragments, and falling in love with the sound of them, and with the ghost of what was lost. In this case, and in that of the Oxyrhynchus materials, so little remained that the words could be nothing more than tantalizing. With the discovery of more text for things that were incomplete, some of that mystery will disappear, some of the possibilities will be closed off. " | BBC History
• 666: Oxy Online | Number of the Beast "The newest volume of Oxyrhynchus Papyri contains a fragmentary papyrus of Revelation which is the earliest known witness to some sections (late third / early fourth century). A detailed discussion of its place in the MS tradition is given in the printed volume. One feature of particular interest is the number that this papyrus assigns to the Beast: 616, rather than the usual 666. (665 is also found.) "

4/19/5:

• Critical: Why No Orthodox Person Should Ever Switch to Hyper-Preterism - "It is true that hyper-preterists can, with an overactive imagination, reinterpret any verse to fit its conceptual box (something it shares in common with Gnosticism and Arianism). It must be pointed out that hyper-preterists cannot show that the orthodox paradigm is irrational. Remember, so long as there is one verse that could logically be interpreted as still referring to a Second Coming then reason alone cannot decide which paradigm to choose. Given these facts, I can only conclude that there is not one rational reason to prefer hyper-preterism to orthodoxy, but there are plenty of reasons to continue to trust the Holy Spirit’s guidance of the Church, as revealed in the Creeds."
• Outside Study Links: Preterist Site (http://www.preteristsite.com/)- Great Anti-Preterist Site

4/18/5:

• Cardinal who warned of Antichrist rising in odds - "Biffi told a conference meeting in Bologna that the Antichrist was a prominent philanthropist who advocated causes like human rights, the environment and ecumenicism. Biffi said that this man – who he never identified – had a "fascinating personality" and espoused causes like vegetarianism, pacifism, environmentalism and animal rights. Biffi added that this Antichrist would be a Bible expert who would discard its truths to prosletyze for "vague and fashionable spiritual values."

4/17/5:

• History: Decoded at last: the 'classical holy grail' that may rewrite the history of the world - "In the past four days alone, Oxford's classicists have used it to make a series of astonishing discoveries, including writing by Sophocles, Euripides, Hesiod and other literary giants of the ancient world, lost for millennia. They even believe they are likely to find lost Christian gospels, the originals of which were written around the time of the earliest books of the New Testament." | Apocalypse of Baruch Discovered at Oxyrhynchus

4/16/5:

• Critical: Jan Markell: Deception, Discernment, Delusion 2005 - Omega Letter "The newest "pop theology" on the block is Preterism which teaches that all Bible prophecy is history: It happened in 70 AD with the destruction of Jerusalem."
• Press: Santa Cruz Sentinel: Caught up in the end times "Others say it was written to the fledgling church as it faced persecution by the Romans, a battle that ensued until the Roman emperor Constantine decided in the 4th century that Christianity should become the religion of the realm."

4/14/5:

• FP: Samuel Frost: Propositions of Preterism - "The Church must receive what is incontrovertible, but reject what raises serious problems in order to work out a solution within its own traditions that best resolves these problems for the sake of maintaining biblical truth (even if this means eliminating older paradigms which have created the problems in the first place). There will be, and always have been, cries of “heresy” from self-proclaimed “purists” and “keepers of the traditions”. This is to be expected. But, the ever faithful, and, in Luther’s case, the faithful few, keep raising the issues and pointing out the hypocrisy, arbitrariness, and inconsistency until such a voice is raised within the holy church that the “few” become the “many.”

• dEmEnTiA: John Zens: Dispensationalism and the Bible "The book of Hebrews levels to the ground the false conception and crucial starting point of Dispensationalism, that God has two purposes, one earthly and one heavenly. All that was ever connected with Israel’s history and institutions is in the final analysis directed toward heaven, not earth. Even the entering into the land of promise was only a type of that heavenly rest which Israel then and Christians now must labor to enter by faith (3:7-4:11). "
• Press: Omnium Finis Imminet "I was going to end with the words that close the Book of Revelation: "The one who testifies to these things says, 'Surely I am coming soon.' " But to glance at the entertainment news, it looks like He's already here."
• Study: Geneva Bible Notes Daniel 11:30 (h) That is, the Romaine power shal come

4/13/5:

• PreteristArchive.com Message Board:
• Hanegraaff and Schmidt vs Tommy Ice on interpretation of Revelation on MSNBC's 'Scarborough Country' FREDERICK SCHMIDT, SOUTHERN METHODIST UNIVERSITY: What this kind of reading of scripture really represents is a sectarian and fairly narrow approach to the Book of Revelation in particular.  And what it invites the reader to suppose is that someone in the 1st century wrote a book that was unintelligible to the people of the 1st century, but would be intelligible to people of the 20th century, which is just not a plausible reading of the book.  SCARBOROUGH:  Thomas Ice, do you agree? THOMAS ICE, AUTHOR, “CHARTING THE END TIMES”:  No, I don‘t. .. HANEGRAAFF: So, Jesus uses the language of the Old Testament prophets and now applies it to a near future event, which is the fall of Jerusalem.  So, he uses final eschaton language and applies it to a near future event.  In fact, if you read the Book of Revelation, it‘s the revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave him to show him, his servants, the things that must soon take place.  Soon means soon.  Soon does not mean far. 
• FREE ONLINE BOOKS: Maurice A. Williams: Prophet and Historian: John and Josephus: "I think the Four Winds and Three Woes in the Apocalypse took place long ago. Nero sent Vespasian to subdue Judea. His son, Titus, destroyed the Temple. I quote Josephus, Tacitus, and Suetonius describing this. This destruction fulfills the Four Winds and Two of the three Woes."

4/11/5:

• First look: Kingdom of Heaven - The Ridley Scott-directed movie, starring actors Orlando Bloom and Liam Neeson, depict a 12th-century Muslim-Christian battle for Jerusalem during the Third Crusade.
• Left Behind Authors Blast "Revelations" as "Unbiblical, Weird" "I believe in end-times events, and I want to see the subject of the return of Christ remain on the table of public discourse for as long as possible," said Jenkins, whose latest end-times thriller "The Rising" was No. 1 on last week's "New York Times" fiction best-seller list. "

4/10/5:

• Israelis keep protestors out of holy site - "Extremist Jews who make up a new group called "Revava," a biblical word that means 10,000, stated openly that their goal is to storm the sensitive site in July, when thousands of Israeli police and soldiers are in Gaza to evacuate 9,000 settlers - forcing Israel's leaders to pull the forces from Gaza, send them to Jerusalem and, in that way, stop the pullout. The Sunday protest, they said, was just a test."

4/8/5:

• Fulfilled Redemption Blog - The New Covenant is a Fulfilled Hope
• 'Revelations' tapping into high anxiety
• Scholars urge Roman villa excavation "The villa, buried in the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 A.D., contained the only known intact library of classical texts, carbonized but still readable although difficult to decipher. Serious examination of the Greek texts found so far began in the 1970s." (..interested in finding earliest known version of Josephus)

4/7/5:

• FP: Samuel Frost: Saint Athanasius and Preterism "as our dear saint has noted, we are without “vision and prophet.”  We are not guided by burning bushes, splitting Red Seas, clouds by day and fire by night.  These are things seen.  Yet, because redemption had not yet come, the children of Israel needed a schoolmaster."  "the church is perfect according to the word of God, and not according to what we SEE.  That is judging the church as a child, wanting to go back to Egypt.  Modern day yearning for the good old days sound like this: “wouldn’t it be easier if Jesus just came back and did some really cool miracles?  Wouldn’t it be easier if we just discovered the ark of Noah?  Wouldn’t it be easier if we could have incontrovertible proof that Jesus returned in A.D. 70?"

• Revelations miniseries: Christ-centered or Christ-haunted? - "Mysterious and disastrous signs that signal the end of the world as described in the Book of Revelation are everywhere. An organization hires a nun, Sister Josepha Montefiore (Natascha McElhone), to track, record and analyze the episodes of religious phenomena. So far, the data indicates that Armageddon is immanent. "

4/3/5:

• LaHaye, Hanegraaff: The End: Best-selling books don't see it alike - "It's about much more than selling books, scholars say. The high-stakes publishing battle between the two men comes on the heels of the millennial fervor surrounding the year 2000, and feeds a stream of fear rippling just below the surface of public consciousness. "  "To Hanegraaff, Revelation was written before the destruction of the Jerusalem temple to encourage persecuted Christians. He says the "end-time model presented in Left Behind is hermeneutically false in that it attributes powers to the beast that belong only to God, but it is historically false because it places the beast in the 21st century."

4/2/5:

• The Bushes and the Jews - The President's Philo-Semitism - Slate "The charges against Sen. Prescott Bush, the grandfather of the current president, went beyond the disdain for Jews and discriminatory practices that were characteristic of New England WASP culture in his day. Prescott Bush was a director of a New York bank where rich Germans who supported the Nazis stashed millions in personal wealth."

4/1/5:

• Matthew 24:14: Added to verse list for "gospel preached in all the world" - 1Timothy 3:16 "Great indeed, we confess, is the mystery of godliness: He was manifested in the flesh, vindicated by the Spirit, seen by angels, proclaimed among the nations, believed on in the world, taken up in glory. "

3/31/5:

• Jerry Falwell: Taken off of critical list "Doctors upgraded the Rev. Jerry Falwell's condition from critical to stable on Wednesday and removed the Moral Majority founder from a ventilator."
• New Heavens and Earth: The New Heavens and Earth
• Koran scholar: US will cease to exist in 2007 "And Firon [Pharaoh] said: O chiefs! I do not know of any god for you besides myself; therefore kindle a fire for me And he was unjustly proud in the land, he and his hosts, and they deemed that they would not be brought back to Us. So We caught hold of him and his hosts, then We cast them into the sea, and see how was the end of the unjust [Sura 38-40]."

3/29/5:

• British scholars call for the excavation of the Villa of the Paryri - March 11, 2005 "Controversy has erupted over Herculaneum’s Villa of the Papyri and whether it should be excavated now or left untouched for future generations. The villa, which was buried by the eruption of Vesuvius in AD 79, was partly excavated in the 1750s, when archaeologists discovered the only intact library of texts from the Classical era. The texts already found are Greek, but the hope is that Latin texts by some of the greatest Roman authors may also be waiting to be discovered.  The 1,800 carbonised scrolls were very difficult to decipher and serious study of them only began in the 1970s. In the early 1990s further excavations at the villa were undertaken, but work was halted in 1998, when it was argued that resources should be put into the preservation of what had already been uncovered elsewhere at Herculaneum, just south of Naples. " | Friends of Herculaneum Society
• Hunt for Treasures at the Villa of Papyri "When Mount Vesuvius erupted in AD 79, a sprawling Roman villa, once inhabited by Julius Caesar's father-in-law, disappeared beneath a sea of lava.  Now Italian archaeologists are about to begin unearthing the ruins, one of the most important Roman sites in the country. They hope to uncover a priceless library of papyrus scrolls." | How did VoP get into this state? | Unknown Treasures at VoP "These rolls of papyri were, for many years, very hard to decipher, and it was only in the 1970s that they began to receive proper scientific study from an international team of scholars, led by Professor Marcello Gigante of the University of Naples. Hundreds of lost works of Greek philosophy - including half of Epicurus's entire opus, missing for 2,300 years - and some Roman poetry were read for the first time. The author most commonly represented turned out to be Philodemus, an Epicurean philosopher attached to Piso's household, who certainly taught the greatest Latin poet, Virgil, and probably also Horace. "
• Ancient Worlds: Rome

• FP: Rick Clark: Heaven Now: A Timeless Dimension - "At the risk of oversimplifying, let me say that primarily the “heavenly realm” is the same as the “spiritual realm,” which is everywhere present with us now and forever. If we are “in Christ” we live in heaven now, though I am not saying that our assignments and perspectives will not change some as we transition from these temporary bodies into spiritual bodies. There is a future heavenly life, and for this I am grateful, but there is also heaven in the now of which we can fully appreciate. As we understand that the entirety of the Bible was written and fulfilled by 70 A.D., we see the “new heaven and earth” through a different lens."

3/28/5:

• Jesus the False Prophet?: The Fundamentalist Christian mindset and the problem it presents for America - "Jesus failed at prophecy when he told his disciples that some would not taste death until they saw the Son of man coming in his kingdom Mt 16:27-28. If Jesus prophesied truthfully, some of Jesus' disciples would still be alive today since we're still waiting for his return. "
• DSS: Dead Sea Scrolls reflect belief in coming messiah, eternal life "The Essenes at Qumran rejected the dominant temple Judaism of the time that Jesus was a part of, and isolated themselves in caves in the desert, many scholars believe. Their writings reflect the end-times expectations of the era, shared by Jesus' followers. "Jesus preaching that the Kingdom is at hand is an apocalyptic vision," Meyer said.

3/27/5:

• Critical: Vurel Vick: The Second Coming of Christ - Did It Occur in AD70? "It is taught that Jesus came invisibly, in power and fulfillment of scripture which relates to His second coming, in the army of Titus when He besieged and destroyed Jerusalem in A. D. 70. Thus a "spiritual" application is made with all the scriptures which refer to it. In taking the liberty to "interpret" the scriptures for us, some say they have it all figured out for us."

3/26/5:

• Press: Waiting for the Sky Taxi - "Oh, those wacky Rapture-maniacs.  How we love to mock them, with their bizarre "countdown clocks" and their tacky literature and their oh-so-mockable bumper stickers. And there is much within the bizarre range of pre-millenialist theology that would be comical, if it weren't for the astonishing numbers of humorlessly devout believers in this nihilistic mutation of Christian eschatology."
• Critical: Otto Nordgreen: The Problems of a Pre-AD70 Date of the Apocalypse - "The date of the Book of Revelation (Rev) has been as disputed as its authorship. The dates proposed for the composition oscillate between, on the one hand, the time before or during the so-called Jewish War (66-77 CE) and, on the other hand, the time of Emperor Trajan, viz. late 1st century (Aune 1997:lvii). Traditionally, the prevailing view has been that Rev was written sometime during the reign of Emperor Domitian (81-96 CE); more specifically (and in harmony with the ancient testimony of Irenaeus ) towards the end of his reign, viz. ca. 94/95 CE. "
• Critical: Revelation 1:7 Study Archive: Tony Garland: Revelation 1:7: Past or Future? - "John wrote that "every eye will see Him" and that "all the tribes of the earth will mourn" when He appears. Did Jesus "appear" to the Jewish tribes at the destruction of Jerusalem in A.D. 70 as preterism maintains? Or are there reasons for understanding this passage to teach a future event of world-wide impact?  Thankfully, we need not be overly concerned about the persistence of preterism because the plain meaning of the Biblical text stands opposed to its foundational teachings." | Preterism "Full or consistent preterism is heterodox " | A Denial of Reality "The CTS repudiates the theories of Preterism. Preterism is an eschatological viewpoint that places many or all Eschatological events in the past, especially during the destruction of Jerusalem in A.D. 70. Preterism, in it’s full or “consistent” form asserts that Christ’s second coming has already occurred, that the Scriptures do not speak of any future eschatological events, and that we are now living in the New Heavens and the New Earth. The CTS believes that the Preterist view is exegetically unsupportable and represents a compromise with Liberal Theology by downgrading the veracity of prophetic scriptures. "
• Significance of A.D.70: Toutee's Cyril: "St. Chrysostom shows that the destruction of Jerusalem is to be ascribed, not to the power of the Romans, for God had often delivered it from no less dangers; but to a special providence which was pleased to put it out of the power of human perversity to delay or respite the extinction of those ceremonial observances."
• Israel's New Sanhedrin Begins Temple Talk - "Equally amazing are Jews seriously discussing renewed Temple Sacrifices and a renewed Passover animal sacrifice! "
• Doctrine.net - New Look!

3/24/5:

• Pret: Nathan DuBois: My Response to Ed Stevens' Book "Expectations Demand a Rapture" "I promised Ed Stevens my critique on his book and I will do my utmost to be thorough and precise in everything he has written and everything I espouse. I will respond in the order that Ed has presented the arguments in this book, from preface to conclusion. I, from the beginning, admit this is an area where I have a strong stance against a physical rapture. As I have stated to many of my friends in correspondence and debate, a proper understanding of exactly what the first century Christians did expect is important in our understanding of the whole gospel and it's place in our lives toady. This is an important issue, not to salvation, but to the knowledge of our Lord God and His plan for mankind in this world, which human kind will inhabit forever." | The Problem of Silence Not a Problem
• Eric Bolden: Revelation: A Bible Interprets Bible View - "Preterism is very convincing, but just as its advocates show problems in pure futurist and historicist interpretation, there are likewise serious problems with a pure preterist interpretation, which actually insists that all events in this book are past, including the second Coming, resurrection of all, and eternal Kingdom. So a dual position seems to be the best one, which fills in all of the difficulties. However, preterism can be very helpful in understanding how the future antitypical fulfillments will come to pass." | The Preterist View

3/23/5:

• Press: Apocalypse, inc. "For the past five decades, every decade has increased the number of earthquakes, killer earthquakes we're talking about," said Tim LaHaye, co-author of the Left Behind novel series, speaking in January on MSNBC, as reported on the network's Web site. "And the good thing about all of this is, it points out that man really has to get right before God, because the time is short."
• Armageddon comes to Prime Time

3/22/5:

• Olympic pest barred from London marathon - "Claiming he did not wish to oppose the order, he said: "I have taken the Bible to the world stage on two great sporting events. I won’t need to do it a third time because the gospel requires me to do it just twice. "I am quite happy to declare that my public mission is over in that sense." He said it was time for people to focus on his spiritual message rather than his protest antics - he is convinced there will be a second coming and that Jesus Christ will reign in Jerusalem for 1,000 years.

3/21/5:

• Press: Announcing the Formation of Regnum Christi Ministries - Samuel M. Frost, M.A.R. President, Regnum Christi Ministries, Inc. Holy Week, 2005
• Critical: John Stevenson: Why I am Not a Preterist "But such an interpretation would demand that the Jews who suffered through the A.D. 70 event would have recognized that their sufferings were a punishment for their treatment of Jesus since the prophecy is not merely that they would mourn, but that they would mourn "over Him." Just as there is no evidence that anyone in the church ever recognized the fall of Jerusalem as the return of Jesus, so also there is a complete absence of evidence that the Jews ever recognized the coming of Jesus in those events."
• Killings shed light on church - "Armstrong and his ministers always preached that the end of time was near, to be followed by the second coming of Christ. But they drew major attention with an unusually specific prediction that the end-time was coming in 1975."

3/20/5:

• The War of the Jews and the Fall of Jerusalem - "And when Pilate saw that he was accomplishing nothing, but rather a riot was starting, he took water and washed his hands in front of the multitude, saying, "I am innocent of this Man's blood; see to that yourselves." And all the people answered and said, "His blood be on us and on our children." The crowd called for a curse to be brought upon themselves and their children. It would be in this same courtyard that the Romans would break through in 70 A.D. and slaughter the unbelieving Jews of Jerusalem."
• Visual History of Roman-Jewish War: The Temple as it appeared in A.D.66

3/18/5:

• Square Halo Books: Problems With Preterism "Just about everything in Matthew 24 is taken by Preterists to be hyperbole because none of the descriptions in Matthew 24 literally fit the Roman destruction of Jerusalem."

3/17/5:

• End of Time theories still fascinate - "A belief in end-time prophecies relies on two assumptions, Bolin said. “First, all these prophecies are talking about the end of the whole world. Second, the time is read in ‘our’ time so they are things that will happen in the readers’ future.” “It’s based on a world that is becoming more evil, a world that is disintegrating and the only solution is that God has to rescue us,” added Brad McIntyre, who teaches world religions at Silver Lake College, Manitowoc. “If you really think the world is bad and depraved and God is going to step in and save it, you don’t want to wait. It’s easy to see things are coming to pass now.”
• Sharon Repudiates "Road Map" - "Ariel Sharon, the Israeli prime minister, has admitted for the first time that his government does not intend to honour the American-backed "road map" to peace. "

3/15/5:

• Evangelicals "highly important allies" to Israel says Rabbi Eckstein - Agape Press "[T]he influence of the evangelicals on the decision-making process in Washington, and particularly on the now-dominant Republican Party, is several times greater than the influence of U.S. Jewry," he says.
• Born-Again Bunkum - Australian Press "Visiting the US I once heard Reagan on a fundamentalist radio show chatting happily about the grim prognostications in the Book of Revelation, the arrival of the Antichrist and the imminent second coming and you couldn't help but wonder if he was the right man to have his finger on the button. For once Alzheimer's was a good thing for, by his second term, he seemed to have forgotten all about it. "

3/13/5:

• Church Shooter Upset Over Sermon - "The Living Church of God, based in Charlotte, N.C., places a strong emphasis on using world events to prove the end of the world is near.  Earlier this year, the group's leader, Dr. Roderick C. Meredith, wrote that events prophesied in the Bible are "beginning to occur with increasing frequency." "We are not talking about decades in the future. We are talking about Bible prophesies that will intensify within the next five to 15 years of your life," he wrote in the church's magazine, Tomorrow's World."
• Revealed: Israel plans attack on Iranian nuke plant

3/12/5:

• Critical: John Stevenson: Why I Am Not A Preterist "Notice that it was "this generation" that murdered Zechariah, the son of Berechiah." The problem is that this murder took place 400 years earlier as recorded in 2 Chronicles 24:20-21. This tells us that Matthew’s use of the term "generation" means something different than a mere life span of the people who were living at that time. "
• Jewish Wars: Section IV, 5, 4 - On Zecharias: "and as they intended to have Zacharias, the son of Baruch, one of the most eminent of the citizens, slain, so what provoked them against him was, that hatred of wickedness and love of liberty which were so eminent in him: he was also a rich man, so that by taking him off, they did not only hope to seize his effects, but also to get rid of a man that had great power to destroy them. "
• MP: In A Green Tree; In A Dry "Babylon the great is fallen, is fallen! How can Babylon hinder New Jerusalem? It cannot. We need to be reminded of this fact; Babylon is fallen, God dwells within us, so whom should we fear? We who dwell in New Jerusalem live in the city of God. The prophets earnestly desired to see what we have now."
• Outside Study Links: OnTimeJournal.com (Thomas K. Burk) "The first conflict facing the Early Church was whether or not Jesus was God; today it is whether Jesus' "soon coming" has yet to take place. The purpose of OnTime Journal is to exalt the truths of Jesus Christ, the one true God, and to show that He did come—OnTime—within His First Century Generation, just like the Bible said He would!"
• FREE ONLINE BOOKS: W.O.E. Oesterly: The Doctrine of Last Things "This is an analysis of Judeo-Christian eschatology that delves into the Jewish roots of the Christian concept of the end of the world. He begins in the Jewish writings of antiquity, particularly the Tanach and the non-deuterocanonical apocrypha such as The Book of Enoch and The Book of Jubilees. Traces the development from a 'Particularist' apocalypse in the Jewish Bible and Apocrypha (limited to Jewish people), to a 'Universalist' apocalypse in Christian belief, in which everyone is judged equally. " | Jacob Abbott: Nero | Alfred Church: The Burning of Rome | Pictures from Roman Life | H.A. Guerber: The Story of the Romans | A.B. Poland, John H. Haaren: Famous Men of Rome | Charles Morris: Roman Historical Tales
• Larry White: New Heaven and New Earth - "So we see that the end of the age would be marked by the destruction of the temple, and that it would happen in their lifetime. We know from history that the Roman armies came against Jerusalem and razed it to the ground in AD 70. I believe that this middle time period of 40 years is the time of the war in heaven. (Rev.12) In fact, I believe that this period includes most of the book of Revelation, if not all of it, along with the prophesies that Jesus gave about this time in Mt.24, Mk.13 and Lk.21, concerning the destruction of Jerusalem.  Now Jerusalem was not just destroyed in AD 70, it was replaced and superceded or transcended by a New Jerusalem - a heavenly Jerusalem as opposed to an earthly, physical Jerusalem. We all know this heavenly Jerusalem to be the church from Heb.12:18-23." (Originally delivered in Eagle Point, OR. August 12, 1984)

3/11/5:

• Outside Study Links: NewJerusalemCommunity.com - Alternative News
• Partial Preterism, Preterism: Updated with Hyper-Preterist Classification - "In his book The Last Days According to Jesus, Dr. Sproul narrows down preterists to two main divisions: "Full Preterism and Partial Preterism."  Reduced to the most significant distinction between them, a full preterist is one who believes all prophecy was fulfilled at the destruction of Jerusalem in A.D.70, including the second coming of Jesus.  Partial preterists such as Sproul and Gentry believe that even though Matthew 24 and the book of Revelation have largely been fulfilled, they still understand some Bible passages to teach a future second coming (Acts 1:9-11; 1 Corinthians 15:51-52; 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18).  They see the second coming of Jesus, the resurrection of the dead, the Judgment Seat of Christ, and heaven as yet future." - Tim LaHaye (TDD: To clarify, Full Preterists generally believe that all eschatology was fulfilled, not all prophecy - cf. Rev. 22:2, Isa. 27:6, Ezek 47:1-12, much etc.  This site labels as Hyper-Preterist those who believe that there is no ongoing application of prophecy in the New Covenant age, nor applicability of the Scriptures to the world.)
• Dr. Tim LaHaye: Updated - "Many Bible-believing Christians find it astounding that anyone would teach that our Lord Jesus Christ has already returned to earth and that we are now living in the kingdom age predicted throughout the Bible.  Yet that is what preterists believe and teach.  And surprisingly, their numbers are growing -- not because their arguments for what they are trying to believe are so convincing, but because many of their new followers have only heard one side of the argument." (p.7; cf. Critical Article Archive)
• Dr. John Walvoord: Updated - "Consequently, there is laid up for him in heaven a crown of righteousness which the Lord will give him in that day for he "loved His appearance" and did everything he could to help others share that love and anticipation. We are honored to call him friend and mentor." - Dr. Tim LaHaye, Dr. Thomas Ice, and all the contributors to (End Times Controversy)

3/10/5:

• Dead Sea Scrolls: Historical Witness to Fulfillment of Biblical Eschatology - Expanded

3/8/5:

• Gary DeMar: A Revived Ten-Nation Error: But Who's Counting? "Oswald J. Smith did what no modern-day prophetic speculator has dared to do when he learned through historical events that he was wrong in his identification of the antichrist. He apologized for his highly speculative prophetic writings, and "after the fall of Mussolini, Smith himself tried to buy up all remaining copies of the [Is the Antichrist at Hand?] to destroy them."

3/5/5:

• Welcome to Doomsday - Bill Moyers, New York Times Magazine "There are times when what we journalists see and intend to write about dispassionately sends a shiver down the spine, shaking us from our neutrality. This has been happening to me frequently of late as one story after another drives home the fact that the delusional is no longer marginal but has come in from the fringe to influence the seats of power. We are witnessing today a coupling of ideology and theology that threatens our ability to meet the growing ecological crisis. Theology asserts propositions that need not be proven true, while ideologues hold stoutly to a world view despite being contradicted by what is generally accepted as reality. The combination can make it impossible for a democracy to fashion real-world solutions to otherwise intractable challenges."
• ChristianZionism.org - Premillennialism and Christian Zionism in American Culture and the Church - A Seminar on the Christian Right, Israel, and Dispensational Theology - April 14/15

2/24/5:

• Gary DeMar: Hal Lindsey is Making Predictions -- Again | Hal Lindsey Redux

2/23/5:

• Leaving the Rapture Behind: The Man Of Lawlessness - Larry Pechawer "Assuming that the Olivet Discourse was known by Paul, and it almost certainly was, SOMETHING IMPORTANT IS MISSING HERE!   It is A.D. 52, and the Thessalonians are worried about missing the Day of the Lord.   But remember, Jesus had given ONE CLEAR SIGN that had to occur before He would return–the A.D. 70 destruction of Jerusalem!   Why have we missed this?   I guess because it’s hard to think of ourselves on the other side of Jerusalem’s fall.   How could the Second Coming occur when Jerusalem’s fall, a sign for that generation, had not yet happened?   I am convinced that Paul received even further revelation about this monumentally important event and that 2 Thessalonians 2 is a type of “A.D. 70 oracle”   "But what about the idea of the “apostasy,” the APOSTASIA (verse 3)?   Well, the New International Version got it right when it rendered it “rebellion,” but not for the right reason!   Would you believe that the term APOSTASIA and its twin APOSTASIS are the words regularly used by Josephus to describe the Jewish revolt against Rome!   They occur dozens of times.   Commentators have missed the possibility that the term is being used here in its political, not religious sense. "

2/22/5:

• Hal Lindsey Is Wrong – The 'Temple' Will Not Be Rebuilt - Bill Barnwell "The desire for a new temple is a smack in the face to the work of Christ and shows little regard or concern for the people who would be caught up in false temple worship. Instead of showing concern for the Jewish people, this and other areas of dispensationalism simply make them pawns in a fantasy game of what appears to be fictional theology. "
• Hal Lindsey: Revived Sanhedrin discusses temple "The fact that a re-established Sanhedrin is now considering the rebuilding of the Temple after 2,000 years is extremely important to students of Bible prophecy. I believe that we are very near the final climactic events that end with the Second Coming of Christ. "

2/12/5:

• In Defense of the Faith - Jan Markell, OmegaLetter "The Bible says in II Thessalonians that there will be a great “falling away” from sound doctrine. Perhaps that explains the surge of the trendy theology called “Preterism” which teaches that all or most of prophecy is history."

1/26/5:

• Study Archive: The Christian Flight to Pella "The approach of His general judgment ended the persecution; and when the godly were provided for at Pella, the unbelievers perished by the Roman sword." (Thomas Manton)
• Outside Study Links: AtavistChristian.com (Markos Mountjoy) "Atavism, in the context of our discussion of Christian theology, is a genre of Realized Eschatology. Futurism, in the context of Christian theology, is an ideology which looks forward to an expected fulfillment of Bible prophecy."

1/25/5:

• Critical: Michael Adams' Anti-Preterist Articles - Matthew 24: The Achilles Heel of Full Preterism, Full Preterism and the Lord's Supper
• Critical: Steve Lehrer's Articles - Questions for Full Preterists
• Conspiracy: Dr. W. D. Moorer continues late brother's crusade - He is trying to fully reveal the betrayal behind the Israeli attack June 8, 1967, on a U.S. ship. "When America didn't strongly respond to Israel's attack on USS Liberty, Israel knew there was nothing they could do that would draw reprisal from America."

1/23/5:

• Critical: A.D. Preterism's Prophetic Dead End in "Israel My Glory" - Randall Price "Christ returned in A.D. 70, the Jewish people have no future, and almost all prophecy has been fulfilled.  You don't believe that?  Then you're not a preterist."
• FREE ONLINE BOOKS: Stephen Sizer, The Rebuilding of the Jewish Temple in Christian Zionism (2004) "Far from demonstrating a ministry of reconciliation to all nations, which is at the heart of the Christian faith, Zionism perpetuates religious intolerance and incites ethnic violence. Fuelled by a fatalistic conviction of an imminent apocalyptic war, Christian Zionists are indeed, 'anxious for Armageddon."
• FREE ONLINE BOOKS: Stephen Sizer, Theology of the Land: A History of Dispensational Approaches "The basic text upon which dispensationalism is based is the Authorised translation of 2 Timothy 2:15, where the Apostle Paul calls upon Timothy to ‘... rightly divide the word of truth.’ Scofield took this verse as the title for his first book which is a defence of this way of ‘dividing’ Scripture into discrete dispensations."
• Press: In the Works: Jerusalem Temple - "Therefore, with this US Republican Congresswoman strongly entrenched in her project, evangelical Christians, all along, are watching most interestingly for they consider such occurrences as part of biblical prophecy unfolding. And the more biblical signs unfold, the more evangelical Christians perceive the onrush toward the Second Coming of Christ. The evangelicals keep researching their Scriptures, sharing notes and scanning the daily news headlines. The erection of the next temple would certainly fit in grandly with all of that."
• Press: Letters to the Editor on "The Gods Must Be Crazy" "After reading this excellent article, now I understand. And I'm scared to death. These radical evangelical Christians actually believe that the faster we destroy the earth and our environment, the faster the "second coming of Christ" will happen. I no longer believe in a "second coming" (although I do believe in God and an afterlife, just not in the black-and-white way that fundamentalists view it). But with 50 million Americans, according to this article, and 231 U.S. senators and representatives believing in this crazy "End Times" theology, all working to hasten the end of the earth, they just might pull the rest of us along with them down the path of environmental destruction and the end of the ability of the earth to sustain life."
• Luke Chapter 21 - David Stern "Here Yeshua predicts the destruction of Yerushalayim by the Roman armies in 66-70 C.E. The days of vengeance (v. 22) are spoken of in Deuteronomy 32:35..And Yerushalayim will be trampled down by the Goyim until the age (literally, "seasons") of the Goyim has run its course. Consider this prophecy in the light of Psalm 79:1 ("O God, Goyim have come into your inheritance; they have defiled your holy Temple; they have laid Yerushalayim in heaps"), Isaiah 63:18 ("...our adversaries have trampled down your sanctuary") and Daniel 9:26 ("After sixty-two sevens Messiah will be cut off, with nothing left to him; and the people of a prince yet to come will destroy the city and the sanctuary....")."
• Legion Six Victorious - Greater Los Angeles area's premier Roman reenactment society. Our time frame is AD 130-160, during the reigns of the Emperors Hadrian and Antoninus Pius.

1/22/5:

• Outside Study Links: AustralianPreterist.com - Forum | Modified Preterism: Second Advent in AD70, Restoration of Israel next on" prophetic clock"
• FREE ONLINE BOOKS: Babylonian Talmud and the students of the Talmud - "Three and a half million words of the uncensored Talmud on line, with discussions on its place in the modern world by Elizabeth Dilling, Rabbi Dr. J. H. Hertz, Rabbi Dr. I. Epstein, Rabbi Michael Rodkinson, Rabbi Israel Brodie, Rabbi Dr. Louis Finkelstein, and many other Talmud luminaries, Orthodox, Conservative, and Reform — and your hostess, Carol A. Valentine. This website is inspired by Rabbi Professor Jonathan Sacks, Chief Rabbi of the British Commonwealth, and to a lesser extent, the current President of the United States, George Bush. We are dedicated to bringing about understanding between people of different faiths."
• The Sieges of Jerusalem (Appendix 53 From The Companion Bible.) - The history of the city has been a record of its sieges. No fewer than twenty-seven go to complete the list.   This number is striking in the light of Appendix number; being composed of 3 x 9, the factors being those of Divine completeness (3), and judgment (9) respectively (=3).

1/20/5:

• Press: Tim LaHaye: LaHaye's Tribulation "The Last Disciple was coauthored by Hank Hanegraaff and Sigmund Brouwer, and teaches that most prophecies in Revelation have already been fulfilled. The Left Behind series, however, is grounded in a premillennial, dispensationalist view of the end times, which includes a pre-Tribulation Rapture. "I guess you would say I am disappointed, perplexed, and confused," LaHaye told Christianity Today.

  Ron Beers, Tyndale's senior vice president and publisher, said his company wants to promote healthy dialogue on eschatology. Beers said, "We haven't come up with a consensus on end-times issues."

1/19/5:

• Outside Study Links: Eschatology Today "The main eschatology watch I've been on for the past 25 years (I am a US Army nuclear missile battalion veteran of the Soviet Cold War) has been for the tumultuous conditions the region is now experiencing. And for the peace Daniel 9:27 prophesies that will be broken midweek. "Navigating the Politically Correct, Mideast Questions the Pundits Aren't Asking" addresses the lapses in our present world culture from the truth of God's Word."

1/18/5:

• Study Archive: Reclassified Steve Gregg - Editor, Revelation: Four Views (Futurist to Partial Preterist)
• http://www.squarehalobooks.com/preterism.htm

1/17/5:

• Study Archive: Satan vs. Jesus: Who is the Ruler of the World? - Demonstrating that Satan is NOT the "god of this world", and that the blinding of Israel was due to God's hardening, al a Roman 11:7-8
• Satan vs. Jesus: Do you have to give up Olam Hazeh, to get to Olam Habo? "As we will see, this is not so. Not only don't you have to give up This World, but amazingly, only those who strive for the Next World can really enjoy This World."
• dEmEnTiA: Galatians 6:16 "The Israel of God" - Michael Marlowe "The phrase has become controversial because the traditional interpretation conflicts with principles of interpretation associated with Dispensationalism. Dispensationalists are interested in maintaining a sharp distinction between "Israel" and "the Church" across a whole range of theological matters pertaining to prophecy, ecclesiology, and soteriology. They are not comfortable with the idea that here Paul is using the phrase "Israel of God" in a sense that includes Gentiles, because this undermines their contention that "the Church" is always carefully distinguished from "Israel" in Scripture."

1/16/5:

• FP: Water and Reformed Futurism - Corey Schultz "CANON V.-If any one saith, that baptism is free, that is, not necessary unto salvation; let him be anathema. (The Seventh Session of the Council of Trent)"
• FREE ONLINE BOOKS: Mrs. M.A. Hallock - Children's History of the Fall of Jerusalem (1869) (Chapter Four) Paul said, 'King Agrippa, believest thou the prophets? I know that thou believest.' Then Agrippa said unto Paul, 'Almost thou persuadest me to be a Christian.'"  "Father," asked Jennie, "was he ever a Christian?" "I think not," replied Mr. Sherman. "He put it off, like many other people; and after the destruction of Jerusalem, he and his sister went to Rome, where he died, at the age of seventy.
• Mosques stand alone amid Tsunami damage - "Johan said he was amazed that so many mosques survived, but added that he believed countless other mosques were surely destroyed. "All the mosques built by imams are saved. The ones ruined were built by regular people," said Johan. "Those built by the imams are graced with strong foundations."
• The Problem with Millennialism - David Yount "It is apparent from other New Testament accounts that the earliest Christians were inclined to anticipate the end of the world during their own lifetimes. When that didn't happen, the conviction that the end is imminent has continued to be cherished by some believers in every age."
• Welcome to the Holy Land Experience - "The Official Website of the Holy Land Experience"

1/14/5:

• Visual Timeline of the Roman-Jewish War | Rome Pictures - Added Many New Pictures
• Pope sees Apocalypse about to be fulfilled - "Satan, the original adversary, who accused our brothers in the heavenly court, has now been cast down from heaven and therefore no longer has great power. He knows he has not much time left because history is about to see a radical turning point in freedom from evil and therefore he is reacting full of great fury. "And then the resurrected Christ will rise up, whose blood is the principle of salvation and who received from the Father royal power over the entire universe; in Him are centered salvation, strength and the kingdom of our God."

1/12/5:

• Partial: Letter to Some Brethren on 2 Peter 3 Regarding the Destruction of the Heavens and the Earth - Tom Huber "Due to the recent discussion on 2 Peter 3, I felt I should present my understandings in a verse by verse format. I believe this will present my opinions in a clearer manner. I hope that what I have presented below is received as a reasonable understanding of these texts. I just want to show that there is a credible basis for what I believe to be true, and that nothing in what follows is against sound doctrine. Thank you for your time, and patience."
• Partial: Revisers of the Pre-Trib Rapture Theory - Dave MacPherson "The Dutch heroine Corrie ten Boom declared in a 1974 article that when communism took over in China "millions of Christians were tortured to death" who had previously been assured: "Don't worry, before the tribulation comes you will be translated----raptured."
• Arianna Huffington: America's Finite Future? - "I guess after the Rapture, debts of all kinds will be forgiven. The White House is promoting a similar "What Me Worry?" attitude with our live-for-the-moment energy policy. America currently spends $13 million per hour on foreign oil — a number that will only increase as U.S. oil production peaks within the next five years just as consumption by industrializing nations doubles over the next 25 years.   Keep in mind: This nutty notion is not a fringe belief being espoused by some street corner Jeremiah wearing a "The End Is Nigh!" sandwich board. End-Timers have repeatedly made the "Left Behind" series of apocalyptic books among America's best-selling titles, with over 60 million copies sold."
• Forgery found in antiquities exhibition “Based on its inscription, the pomegranate has been considered the only known relic from the First Temple in Jerusalem. The new study shows that the object itself dates to the Late Bronze Period (14th-13th century BCE), but its inscription is not ancient,” museum director James Snyder said in an e-mail.
• FREE ONLINE BOOKS: Roman Britain: Gallantry of Titus, Misgovernment of Nero - Edward Conybeare "Under Nero the unhappy Britons first realized what it was to be Roman provincials. Though Julius Caesar and Augustus had checked the grossest abuses of the Republican proconsulates, yet enough of the evil tradition remained to make those abuses flourish with renewed vigour under such a ruler as Nero. The state of things which ensued can only be paralleled with that so vividly described by Macaulay in his lurid picture of the oppression of Bengal under Warren Hastings." | Enemies of Books
• FREE ONLINE BOOKS: The Gospels in the Second Century (1875) - William Sanday "In the relation of the Gospels to the growth of the Christian society and the development of Christian doctrine, and especially to the great turning-point in the history, the taking of Jerusalem, there is very considerable internal evidence for determining the date within which they must have been composed.
• FREE ONLINE BOOKS: A History of Roman Literature (1877) - Thomas Cruttwell The Reigns of the Flavian Emperors_ (69-96 A.D.). - A new literary epoch--Marked by common characteristics--Decay of national genius
• FREE ONLINE BOOKS: Life in the Roman World of Nero and St. Paul (1924) T.G. Tucker

1/11/5:

• Modern Israel in Prophecy? - Trevor Chandler "The hope of Israel is not in a natural kingdom. They wanted victory over Rome. They could not understand a spiritual Kingdom that was being ushered in, and the danger is that we will fall into the same trap, and not see that the issues are largely spiritual! It was a spiritual Kingdom that Jesus came to bring.   The true character of God's Kingdom is spiritual. The hope of Israel is Jesus Christ!" (Beginning of Sorrows?  "The seven hills are also seven political rulers, “five of whom have fallen, one is, the other has not yet come, and when he comes he must remain only a little while. . .” (Rev 17:10) The five rulerships that are past tense are the Chaldeans, Egyptians, Babylonians, Medes-Persians and Gracians. The one that “is” is Rome of John’s day (the apostle John being the recipient of Christ’s revelatory vision). The one that has “yet to come” is the revived Roman Empire of the Antichrist rule.")

1/10/5:

• Study Archive: II Peter 1:16 - To which coming does Peter refer? "No one doubts that Peter has in mind the transfiguration in 2 Peter 1:16-18."
• Books: John Dominic Crossan - Who Killed Jesus? "For after thepassion of Christ there overtook you even captivity and dispersion, predicted before through the Holy Spirit. (An Answer to the Jews 10; Roberts et al 3.167; my italics). Does your head spin a little and your eyes glaze over in following that last argument?  It is very difficult to read such scholarly exegesis, but that is what passion prophecy looked like before and continued to look like after it had been turned into passion narrative for a more popular audience.  Exegesis is for experts, story is for everyone."
• FREE ONLINE BOOKS: Mrs. M.A. Hallock - Children's History of the Fall of Jerusalem (1869) (Chapter Three) "Christ," said Jennie, "wept over Jerusalem, for he saw how much misery was shortly to come upon it."
• Tsunami -- Why, God, Why? - Mark Creech for Agape Press "Of course, this doesn't mean believers in Christ should simply sit around ignoring the tribulations of their neighbor, while they wait for Christ's second coming. Because trouble wasn't God's original intent, Christians ought to endeavor to ease or eliminate it. Natural disasters and the like will never be stopped until God's plan of redemption is complete."

1/9/5:

• Duncan McKenzie: Babylon was not First-Century Jerusalem - "Seeing the harlot as the old covenant temple system helps to explain Revelation 18:21 (that says Babylon would not rise again).  The city of Jerusalem has risen again; the old covenant temple system has not risen again (and won’t).  By the way if you look at the merchandise of Babylon (Rev. 18:11-13) it is the items used in the building and offerings of the Temple.  The harlot city is dressed in clothes of the high priest.  Carrington said the following on the merchandise of Babylon “The long list of merchandise in [Rev.] 18:11-13 is surely a catalogue of materials for building the Temple, and stores for maintaining it.”
• BaptistBoard: Preterism Heretical?
• Heeft Christus zich in de toekomst vergist? A.C.I.Langevel - Apocalypticisme en preterisme (Danish?)

1/8/5:

• Milton S. Terry: Continuous Development of the Kingdom of Christ "It is not said that we must all appear at one and the same moment before the judgment seat of Christ.  This second appearing of Christ, apart from sin, to them that wait for him unto salvation, as well as the judgment here spoken of, is something to come to each man after death.  Thus in a very true and holy sense were they caught away to a meeting of the Lord in the air. Such a departing to be with Christ is not to be deemed incompatible with the Lord's coming to receive them unto himself. And this glorious process is continually going on, and has been since the time when Stephen saw the heavens opened, and beheld the glory of God,   That day is the day or time of his departure (ver. 6). For why should we commit this scripture to the notion that even now, after nearly two thousand years, Paul is still waiting and longing for the crown of righteousness!"
• "Jesus and The Temple in Jerusalem" and more - James Charlesworth, Adolfo Roitman, Sean Freyne at Rocky Mountain College on Jan. 24-26 to speak on the "Historical Jesus in the 21st Century."

1/7/5:

Preterism in Arkansas Gazette

"I refer to an entity called 'The Beast'. I feel I am describing the world that we live in right now. To me 'The Beast' is the modern world that we live in."
Madonna

Added to Rome as Kittim

"All these manuscripts, taken together, might be read as the recorded faith of a community of alienated, dispossessed Jewish priests and their followers who remained true to the strictest possible interpretation of the biblical laws.  They also remained true to the hope for national redemption from the yoke of the people they called the Kittim -- and we call the Romans -- idolatrous invaders from across the sea "who trample the earth with their horses and beasts." (Neil Silberman, The Hidden Scrolls, p. 3)

"Then comes prophecy, which is a real and yet a fitful and often delusive form of mediumship -- never so delusive as among the early Christians, who seem all to have mistaken the approaching fall of Jerusalem and the destruction of the Temple, which they could dimly see, as being the end of the world. This mistake is repeated so often and so clearly that it is really not honest to ignore or deny it. " Arthur Conan Doyle (1919, The Vital Message)

ISRAEL'S LAND PROMISES FULFILLED   

"And the Lord gave unto Israel all the land which He sware to give unto their fathers; and they possessed it, and dwelt therein.

"And the Lord gave them rest round about, according to all that He sware unto their fathers: and there stood not a man of all their enemies before them; the Lord delivered all their enemies into their hand.

"There failed not ought of any good thing which the Lord had spoken unto the house of Israel; all came to pass" (Josh. 21:43-45).

---

Pentecostal scholars got together to write on Preterism. Major denomination United Pentecostal Church International stands against
Preterism.

Upholding Our Future Hope: An Apostolic Response to Preterism

Available on http://www.ebay.com
(search word: Preterism)

William Warburton - "For as God's reign over the Jews, entirely ended with the abolition of the temple, so the reign of Christ, in spirit and in truth, had then its first beginning.  This was the true establishment of Christianity, not that effected by the donations or conversions of Constantine. Till the Jewish law was abolished, over which the Father presided as king, the reign of the Son could not take place; because the sovranty of Christ over Mankind, was that very sovranty of God, transferred, and more largely extended.  This therefore being one of the most important aeras in the economy of grace, and the most awful revolution in all God's religious dispensations; we see the elegance and propriety of the terms in question, to denote so great an event, together with the destruction of Jerusalem by which it was effected." (Warburton's Julian, book i, chap. 1.)

Neturei Karta - Orthodox Jews United Against Zionism

F.W. Farrar
(1831-1903)

Chaplain to Queen Victoria, 1871-1876 | Headmaster of Marlborough College | Canon of Westminster Abbey | Rector of St. Margaret’s, Westminster | Archdeacon of Westminster | Dean of Canterbury

THE APOCALYPSE | FALL OF JERUSALEM | PRÆTERIST INTERPRETATION

Harmony Primitive Baptist Church

"It is wrong to think that 70 AD only marks a judgment on Jerusalem. The wicked husbandmen were certainly punished. In fact, the entire world was judged. The Greek word ethnos translated nations, carries the meaning a races of peoples. In many passages it refers to non-Jewish, or the Gentile races. The disciples were in fact commissioned to go "into all the world" and preach the gospel. The purpose of the judgement was to separate the sheep from the goats. It is important to remember that Jews were broadly dispersed throughout the known world. Most chose not to return from the Babylonian captivity, being more comfortable in Hellenistic (Gentile) civilizations."

Serious Concerns about Full Preterism - Tim Stoudt "Full Preterism, also called Fulfilled Eschatology, is the doctrine that the Lord Jesus Christ has already returned and that all of Biblical prophecy concerning future events has been fulfilled. Although the doctrine seems strange from a conventional viewpoint, it has recently acquired a number of adherents. The author believes that a similar doctrine plagued the early church and that the modern-day movement is a resurfacing of the same ideas. God Himself gave in Scripture severe warnings about the doctrine, to which we today should heed. The attached article is specifically written for the person who is just becoming acquainted with the doctrine and wants to know more about it. It is intended to be a strong warning with sufficient analysis to justify the strength of the warning."

Geneva Bible Notes

 Daniel 11:30 (h) That is, the Romaine power shal come

Johnny Cash

MATTHEW 24
(IS KNOCKING AT THE DOOR)
1973, On "Johnny Cash and His Woman"

I heard on the radio there's rumors of war
People gettin' ready for battle and there may be just one more
I heard about an earthquake and the toll it took away
These are the signs of the times we're in today

Matthew 24 is knocking at the door
And there can't be too much more to come to past (come to past)
Matthew 24 is knockin' at the door and today or one day more could be the last
[ guitar ]
The great bear from the Northland has risen from his sleep
And the army ranks in red are near two hundred million deep
The young and old now prophesy a coming prince of peace
And last night I dreamed of lightening in the East

Matthew 24 is knocking at the door...

"We live in days such as delineated in 2 Timothy 3:1-5.  The evidence is astoundingly abundant to anyone not wishing to be a foolish, deceived, brute beast but rather desiring to seek to be wise unto salvation." - William T. James (Storming Towards Armageddon, p. 45)

Who is to Blame?
"In the Simpsons episode “A Streetcar Named Marge,” the citizens of Springfield perform a musical version of Tennessee Williams’s A Streetcar Named Desire. The show opens with the cast performing in front of the Superdome, singing the opening number, “New Orleans!”

Long before the Superdome,
Where the Saints of football play,
Lived a city that the damned called home,
Hear their hellish roundelay…

New Orleeeans…
Home of pirates, drunks, and whores!
New Orleeeans…
Tacky, overpriced, souvenir stores!
If you want to go to Hell, you should make that trip
To the Sodom and Gomorrah on the Mississipp’!

New Orleeeans…
Stinking, rotten, vomiting, vile!
New Orleaaans…
Putrid, brackish, maggoty, foul!
New Orleeeans…
Crummy, lousy, rancid, and rank!

New Orleeeans!

REVELATIONS

Ancient Biblical Scroll Discovered in Israel

Leviticus 23:38-39, 44

³⁸ These offerings are in addition to those for the LORD's Sabbaths and in addition to your gifts and whatever you have vowed and all the freewill offerings you give to the LORD.

    ³⁹ " 'So beginning with the fifteenth day of the seventh month, after you have gathered the crops of the land, celebrate the festival to the LORD for seven days; the first day is a day of rest, and the eighth day also is a day of rest.

⁴⁰ On the first day you are to take choice fruit from the trees, and palm fronds, leafy branches and poplars, and rejoice before the LORD your God for seven days. ⁴¹ Celebrate this as a festival to the LORD for seven days each year. This is to be a lasting ordinance for the generations to come; celebrate it in the seventh month. ⁴² Live in booths for seven days: All native-born Israelites are to live in booths ⁴³ so your descendants will know that I had the Israelites live in booths when I brought them out of Egypt. I am the LORD your God.' "

    ⁴⁴ So Moses announced to the Israelites the appointed feasts of the LORD.

Leviticus 24:16-18

¹⁶ anyone who blasphemes the name of the LORD must be put to death. The entire assembly must stone him. Whether an alien or native-born, when he blasphemes the Name, he must be put to death.

    ¹⁷ " 'If anyone takes the life of a human being, he must be put to death. ¹⁸ Anyone who takes the life of someone's animal must make restitution—life for life.

Apostolic Preterist Conference
March 14-16 2006
Hosted by Apostolic Lighthouse Church - Pastor, R. Alexander Wooddell

"Today I met a preterist. I am a born and bred dispensationalist and an associate pastor. I had read an article refuting preterism two months ago and taught a bible study defending pre-trib dispensationalism in response. However my conversation today showed me I knew little about the preterist point of view. I was intrigued by all the scriptures he pointed out that I never really took notice of. Especially Matt 10:23, however I have so many unanswered questions. What can I read that addresses all of my dispensationalist doctrine? signed, seeker of truth"

Emperor Nero, The Beast
Revelation 13:8 666/616

Number of the Beast
Found at Oxyrhynchus!
P.Oxy. LVI 4499

Papyrus Reveals New Clues to Ancient World - National Geographic News

"The latest volume includes details of fragments showing third- and fourth-century versions of the Book of Revelations. Intriguingly, the number assigned to "the Beast" of Revelations isn't the usual 666, but 616. "

Beast's Real Mark Devalued to 616 "Dr. Aitken said, however, that scholars now believe the number in question has very little to do the devil. It was actually a complicated numerical riddle in Greek, meant to represent someone's name, she said. "It's a number puzzle -- the majority opinion seems to be that it refers to [the Roman emperor] Nero."

666 and Nero - "The preterist takes a relatively uncommon form of Nero's name, Nero Cæsar or Cæsar Nero, and adds an "n", resulting in Neron Cæsar. Next the Latin is transliterated into Aramaic, resulting in nrwn qsr, which when using the numeric equivalent of the letters, then adds up to 666 as follows:

An example of this spelling has apparently been recently discovered in one of the Dead Sea scrolls. (If you use the same process, but without the added "n" the result is 616. Interestingly, some early manuscripts of the Bible have 616 rather than 666, but even scholars such as Irenæus attribute the 616 to only a copyist error.)

666, 616 and NERO
"The textual variant is Latin, and the Latinized version of Nero’s name is different than the Hebrew, which goes to 666, but the Latinized name goes to 616. The variant probably existed to keep consistent the meaning of Nero as the Beast. "

"Todd, I have been blessed tonight! I haven't quite finished studying the formats and information about this site, but from what I have seen so far I am thrilled. I can't wait for my husband to get home so he can read what I have. Thank you so much for keeping me in your archives!"

"The Ambrosian MS includes the Old Testament, 4 Ezra, Book 6 of Josephus' Jewish War, and the Apocalypse of Baruch, three works related to the conquest of Jerusalem by the Romans in 70 CE.  The number of the manuscript is Codex Ambrosianus 13.21 inf (folio 257a-265b)." (The Destruction of Jerusalem and the Idea of Redemption in the Syriac Apocalypse of Baruch)

Dear Jesus! 'tis Thy Holy Face
         Is here the star that guides my way;
Thy countenance, so full of grace,
         Is heaven on earth, for me, to-day.
And love finds holy charms for me
         In Thy sweet eyes with tear-drops wet;
Through mine own tears I smile at Thee,
         And in Thy griefs my pains forget.
         ... Thérèse of Lisieux
 

"Well I'm amazed! I haven't embraced the pre-trib rapture theory in years but now I'm confused. I need to know so much in light of what has been shown to me since studying your viewpoint. Could you please help me out here! I have only begun this study and have so much to learn. My question is in regards to what happens next. What is God doing and going to do in the near future in regards to human events. What is next in God's timescale.

British scholars call for the excavation of the Villa of the Paryri
March 11, 2005



The end of a carbonized papyrus roll with small umbilicus, the central stick around which the papyrus was wound.

Friends of Herculaneum Society

David Roberts' Destruction of Jerusalem
Suitable to "Set as Background"

CIA Factbook on Israel

"Now this vast multitude is indeed collected out of remote places, but the entire nation was now shut up by fate as in prison, and the Roman army encompassed the city when it was crowded with inhabitants. Accordingly, the multitude of those that therein perished exceeded all the destructions that either men or God ever brought upon the world;" (War of the Jews, 6-9-4)

Cf. Mt 24:21 "For then there will be great tribulation, such as has not been since the beginning of the world until this time, no, nor ever shall be."

(Dr. Tim LaHaye on Revelation 1:7) “Note again the reference John cited from Jesus' words: "every eye will see Him, even those who pierced Him".  All men will see the Lord Jesus Christ at His coming -- those in heaven, those on earth, and evidently, those under the earth "who pierced Him."  Again, this cannot refer to anything short of a physical, literal second coming." (End Times Controversy, p. 9)

The temple as "heaven and earth" in Josephus - "However, this proportion of the measures of the tabernacle proved to be an imitation of the system of the world; for that third part thereof which was within the four pillars, to which the priests were not admitted, is, as it were, a heaven peculiar to God. But the space of the twenty cubits, is, as it were, sea and land, on which men live, and so this part is peculiar to the priests only." (Antiquities of the Jews, Book III, Chapter 6, Section 4)

"the years A.D. 31-71 were probably the most dramatic in the history of western civilization"
James D. Snyder (All God's Children, ix.)

The Sack of Jerusalem by the Romans, 1824  François-Joseph Heim (French, 1787–1865)   Oil on canvas; 14 x 15 in. (35.6 x 38.1 cm)  Catharine Lorillard Wolfe Collection, Wolfe Fund, 2002 (2002.69)

"WHEREAS the war which the Jews made with the Romans hath been the greatest of all those, not only that have been in our times, but, in a manner, of those that ever were heard of" (Josephus' Opening Remarks in The Wars of the Jews)

Michael Adams' Anti-Preterist Articles

Tim LaHaye "We may expect the Second Coming before we see the final book," he said. "I'm looking forward to the end." (Revelation Revolution keeps spinning)

Visual History of the Roman-Jewish War | The Jewish Revolt Against the Romans | Map of Ancient Israel | Legion Six Victorious

"There is no evidence that the altar that stood before the temple was similarly desecrated in Jesus' time. After the temple was destroyed in 70 C.E., however, Roman soldiers celebrated their victory by raising their standards, which bore the image of the emperor, on the holy place. Scholars are inclined to the view that Mark 13:14 was inspired by the Roman event, although it employs the language of Daniel and Maccabees, which has been occasioned by the earlier event." - Robert W. Funk, Roy W. Hoover, and the Jesus Seminar, The Five Gospels

GENEVA BIBLE AND NOTES

Grace: Matthew 16:28 -- "Verily I say unto you, There be some standing here, which shall not taste of death, till they see the Son of man coming in his kingdom."

"This was fulfilled in his resurrection which was as an entrie into his kingdome, and was also confirmed by sending the holie Gost, whereby he wroght so great and sondrie miracles.""

Visual Timeline of the Roman-Jewish War

Trino Sandoval, Essential Espanol

"When used in the preterite (past) tense, the verb conocer changes meaning. When used in the present tense, conocer means "to know," but the meaning changes to "met for the first time" when used in the preterite.

Por ejemplo:

1.Juan conoce a la gobernadora. - Juan knows the governor.

2.Juan conoció a la gobernadora. - Juan met the governor."

"In Zechariah 14.. their flesh dissolves away, because of the plague hitting them for coming against the Jews in Jerusalem.  When did that happen? I've never read when flesh dissolved; it can now, because of necrotizing fasciitis, or the neutron bomb, but not in 70AD." - Jack Van Impe (1/8/5) "When did He come? When did he set up that kingdom?"

"The rite of circumcision, I say, was binding on all the descendants of Abraham through Isaac for all time even to the end of the world; but the whole law of Moses was binding on the Jewish Christians till the heaven and the earth--that is, the Jewish priesthood and the state--had passed away in the destruction of the temple and city; and the Apostles observed every tittle of the Law."

Samuel Taylor Coleridge, 1838

"In general, apocalypses were
written in times of great distress for God's people, and represented the deliverance which should usher in God's kingdom as near at hand. One feature of them is a complete lack of perspective in the picture of the future. It may be that this fact will in part account for one great perplexity in the apocalyptic sayings of Jesus. In the chief of these (Mark xiii. and parallels), predictions of the destruction of Jerusalem
are so mingled with promises of his own second coming and the end of all things that many have sought to resolve the difficulty by separating the discourse into two different ones,--one a short Jewish apocalypse predicting the destruction of Jerusalem and the coming of the Son of Man
within the life of that generation; the other, Jesus' own prediction of
the end of all things, concerning which he warns his disciples that they be not deceived, but watch diligently and patiently for God's full salvation. The difficulties of this discourse as it stands are so great that any solution which accounts for all the facts must be welcomed."

Rush Rees, Life of Jesus of Nazareth, 1902 (246)

Seeking Preterist Missions Support "for the purpose of starting churches, spreading the gospel, to disciple new members and educating them with a Biblical preterist view." Charles "Chuck" Varner

Added to Pret Charts

Arthur Ogden
The Avenging of the Apostles and Prophets

Children's History of the Fall of Jerusalem (1869)

"Christ," said Jennie, "wept over Jerusalem, for he saw how much misery was shortly to come upon it."

FUTURIST HYMNS

JESUS PAID IN PART
(sung to the refrain of JESUS PAID IT ALL)

Jesus paid in part
Thanks to him, I say.
Sin had left a crimson stain,
He washed it somewhat gray.

John Robbins
Trinity Foundation

Matthew 24:30 And then shall appear the sign of the Son of man in heaven: and then shall all the tribes of the earth mourn, and they shall see the Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven with power <1411> and great glory.

"DUNAMIS: (Strong's numbering 1411) " Demonstrative Power" From which we get our word for dynamite. It speaks of actual power as in a wrestling match. It is physical or real strength, not figurative strength. It stands for his mighty works, as opposed to his mighty words. It is also this power that is referred to when miracles, signs and wonders are mentioned. It speaks of one's ability over the opponent's strivings. It is explosive power. It is to that power our Lord refers when speaking of His coming in great power <1411> and glory."

Terry Blake

Geneva Bible - Marginal Notes (1560) "For within fiftie yeres after, Jerusalem was destroied: the godlie were persecuted, false teachers seduced the people, religion was polluted, so that the worlde semed to be at an end."

The Armageddon Books Prophecy Poll Question for December was: What four kingdoms are symbolized in Daniel 2 & 7?

Babylon, Media, Persia, Greece 7%
Babylon, Medo-Persia, Greece, Rome 84%
Other 4%
Don't Know 5%

When through the deep waters I call thee to go, The rivers of sorrow shall not overflow; For I will be with thee thy troubles to bless, And sanctify to thee thy deepest distress. - ANON.

Daily Strength for Daily Needs
Mary Tileston (1896)

A temple there has been upon earth, a spiritual Temple, made up of living
stones; a Temple, as I may say, composed of souls; a Temple with God for its light, and Christ for the high priest; with wings of angels for its
arches, with saints and teachers for its pillars, and with worshippers for
its pavement. Wherever there is faith and love, this Temple is.

J. H. NEWMAN., Jan 5

Dr. Francis Nigel Lee

"That  coming  of  the  Son  of  man,  then,  is  not His Final Coming at the end of World History.  That  coming was His invisible return at the head of the visible Roman armies, to punish the Judaists in A.D. 70-  for  their  rejection  of  Jesus  during  that  generation.    On  this  point,  see:  Daniel  8:9-14;  9:26f;  12:1-7f; Matthew 10:23; Mark 13:1-30; Luke 17:22-37 & 21:20-27; John 3:19; Second Corinthians 4:6; Revelation 7:2  &  14:14-20;  Josephus's  Antiquities  XVIII:3:3  &  5:2  cf.  his  Wars  V:2:1  to  VI:9:4f.   Thus too: John Calvin;  the  Geneva  Bible;  the  Dordt  Dutch  Bible;  Matthew  Henry;  Adam  Clarke;  Rudolf  Stier,  Albert Barnes; R.C.H. Lenski; Marcellus Kik; B.H. Carroll; and many others. "

The Olivet  Discourse and the Destruction of Jerusalem in prophecy (2000)

Henry Hammond - Introduction to the book of Revelation: 

"Having gone through all the other parts of the New Testament, I came to this last of the Apocalypse, as to a rock that many had miscarried and split upon, with a full resolution not to venture on the expounding of one word in it, but onely to perform one office to it, common to the rest, the review of the Translation : But it pleased God otherwise to dispose of it ; for before I had read (with the design of translating only) to the end of the first verse of the book, these words, which must come to pass presently, had such an impression on my mind, offering themselves as a key to the whole prophecie, (in like manner as, this generation shall not passe till all these things be fulfilled, Matt. 24.34. have demonstrated infallibly to what coming of Christ the whole Chapter did belong) that I could not resist the force of them.."

Douay-Rheims Version of the Holy Bible Commentary (1586) | Rome, Revolts, and the Destruction of Jerusalem

Emperor Julian and the Attempt to Rebuild the Temple in A.D. 363
"Although the pagans were not well-disposed towards the Jews, yet they assisted them in this enterprise, because they reckoned upon its ultimate success, and hoped by this means to falsify the prophecies of Christ..  The Jews entered upon the undertaking, without reflecting that, according to the prediction of the holy prophets, it could not be accomplished."

Why Don't We Rebuild the Temple? - BeingJewish.com "When these things have taken place, and we have made lasting peace with our enemies; when all Jews have returned to the Holy Land of Israel, and religious Jews have complete temporal and religious control over the land, then we will know that our Final Redemption has begun, and we can then turn our thoughts towards rebuilding the Holy Temple."

"But I must insist on your paying some nice attention to the prophesies of Christ concerning the destruction of Jerusalem. This prophesy is recorded very circumstantially in the 24th of Matt. Be so good, sir, as to compare this prophesy with the history written by Josephus and let candor decide whether the author of that prophesy was divinely inspired, or whether he was a poor deceived enthusiast." "In Defense of the Divine, Hosea Ballou (1820)

"Is there not," said his Lordship (Byron), "a prophecy in the New Testament which it is alleged has not been fulfilled, although it was declared that the end of the world would come before the generation then existing should pass away?"--"The prediction," said Dr Kennedy, "related to the destruction of Jerusalem, which certainly took place within the time assigned; though some of the expressions descriptive of the signs of that remarkable event are of such a nature as to appear to apply to Christ's coming to judge the world at the end of time." The Life of Lord Byron, John Galt

"Sir Thomas More.--Remember that the Evangelists, in predicting that kingdom, announce a dreadful advent! ..Montesinos.--To this I must reply, that the fulfilment of those calamitous events predicted in the Gospels may safely be referred, as it usually is, and by the best Biblical scholars, to the destruction of Jerusalem." Colloquies on Society, Robert Southy  (1824)

"I shall merely refer to what Joseph us declares, that the temple was opened before the city was destroyed by Titus. But though that history may be true, and it seems to me probable, it does not hence follow that this prophecy was then fulfilled, according to what is said of Rabbi Jonathan, who then exclaimed, "Lo! the prophecy of Zechariah; for he foretold that the temple would be burnt, and that the gates would be previously opened." Zecariah 11, John Calvin (1550)

"I said to myself in thought, "Behold the people who lost Jerusalem, when Mary struck her beak into her son. (The story of this wretched woman is told by Josephus in his narrative of the siege of Jerusalem by Titus: De Bello Jud., vi. 3.)" Divine Comedy, Dante Aligheiri (1265-1321)

"The pride of ownership in real estate was one of the peculiarities of the Hebrews until after their final dispersion. After the fall of Jerusalem by Titus, personal property came to be more valued than real estate, and the Jews became the money lenders and the bankers of the world." Beacon Lights of History, John Lord (1921)

"After the final destruction of the temple by the arms of Titus and Hadrian, a ploughshare was drawn over the consecrated ground, as a sign of perpetual interdiction." Edward Gibbon, Decline and Fall of Roman Empire (1776)

"The rite of circumcision, I say, was binding on all the descendants of Abraham through Isaac for all time even to the end of the world; but the whole law of Moses was binding on the Jewish Christians till the heaven and the earth--that is, the Jewish priesthood and the state--had passed away in the destruction of the temple and city; and the Apostles observed every tittle of the Law." Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1828)

"It is therefore impossible to go distinctly over every instance of these men's iniquity. I shall therefore speak my mind here at once briefly: - That neither did any other city ever suffer such miseries, nor did any age ever breed a generation more fruitful in wickedness than this was, from the beginning of the world." Josephus  (Wars 5. 10. 5)

George MacDonald
Help me, my Father, in whatever dismay, Whatever terror in whatever shape, To hold the faster by thy garment's hem; When my heart sinks, oh, lift it up, I pray; Thy child should never fear though hell should gape,
Not blench though all the ills that men affray Stood round him like the Roman round Jerusalem.
Diary of an Old Soul

A Crack in the Theory
"Archeological finds all over the Judean desert show that Jews throughout the Roman conquest were fleeing towards the Dead Sea area and were bringing and hiding their valuables there."

"The members of the Jerusalem church by means of an oracle, given by revelation to acceptable persons there, were ordered to leave the city before the war began and settle in a town in Peraea called Pella." (Eusebius: Book III, 5:4)

Did Christians flee due East from Jerusalem?  If so, they likely passed right by Dead Sea Scroll Caves -- possibly depositing some..

"Qumran was for its time fairly accessible, the archeologists argue. There were two donkey-accessible main roads, one directly to Jerusalem, and another to Jericho and on to Jerusalem."

Cave Four scrolls reflect Jamesian Christianity According to Eisenman and Wise - At least, a "holiness" splinter group following "The Teacher of Righteousness"

Freewill Preterist Christian Message Board - "Trinitarian. Baptismal regenerational. A.D.30-A.D.140 Judean Eschaton. House churches."

"Preterist in its purest term.. means that Jesus' Second Coming has already occurred." - Ron Beers, Publisher of "The Last Disciple"

“The Romans were not content to simply defeat the Jews.  They pursued a policy of deliberate devastation, eradicating not only Jerusalem’s central religious institution but the city’s fortifications, public buildings and large residential quarters.  Those Jews who managed to survive the long siege were later massacred by Roman soldiers or, in some cases, led into captivity and sold as slaves.” (Hillel Geva)

Vanunu plans new book on life in prison

Therefore because of you Zion shall be plowed as a field; Jerusalem shall become a heap of ruins, and the mountain of the house a wooded height.
Micah 3:12

"The Talmud and Maimonides record that at the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans under Titus, Terentius Rufus, who was left in command of the army, with a ploughshare tore up the foundations of the temple."  (Micah 3:12, Jamieson, Fausset and Brown, 1871).

The Word on the Street

Old: "Behold, he is coming with the clouds, and every eye will see him." New: "Look up! Is it a bird? Is it a plane? Is it a computer game gone 3D? No it's HIM, surfing the clouds, full orbit so everyone gets to see."

Was the "Coming of Christ in AD70" a Real Coming?

"Christ came at the destruction of Jerusalem." Rev J. Day Thompson (1897)

"He also came in judgment on the Jews at the destruction of Jerusalem."
"Until after Jerusalem was destroyed the churches waited, as though the Lord would soon be revealed."
 B.W. Johnson (1891)

"Christ came at the destruction of Jerusalem." Mal Couch (1977, Controversy over Religion)

"When Christ came to destroy the Jews, he came to redeem the Christians that were persecuted and oppressed by them; and then had the churches rest." Matthew Henry

"I design then, to give a concise description of the event, in which Jesus Christ came in awful judgement upon the infidel Jews, and vindicated his cause against his persecutors and murderers." Ethan Smith (1825)

Eisenman/Wise - The Dead Sea Scrolls Uncovered (1992)

The First Complete Translation And Interpretation of 50 Key Documents Withheld For Over 35 Years

From Cave 4

"And we recognize that some of the blessings and curses have come, (24) those written in the Bo[ok of Mo]ses; therefore this is the End of Days"

(Second Letter on Works Reckoned as Righteousness; Terminology used "in Palestine from the 40s to the 60s" )

Bishop Jacques Benigne Bossuet "The Eagle of Meaux"

Jerusalem at the time of the Siege by Titus (1911 Encyclopedia)

Recent Letters:

"Life changing! What a refreshing difference from the knee jerk, reactionary, dumb slogan thinking that pervades the preaching and teaching of the "Church Leaders" of today. A real scholarly work that is as dynamic as it is compelling!!! This volume is daunting in its scope and challenging in scale but if you are willing to press through and read the whole book you can only be blessed!!!! Thank you for this web site!!!" San Jose CA

 "I am 19 and have come to a Full Preterist position, so us "young 'uns" are converting too!!  I am really working on a way to present this to my family and friends, but most are turned off by my proposition that JESUS has returned and don't even want to discuss it.  I am praying more and more that their hearts and minds will be open."

(James Jordan on "Full Preterism") "I don't use the word heresy anymore. I apologize for using it in the past.. Please forgive me if you were ever offended by that." (2004 Christ Covenant Church Conference, Session 5a)

"The Last Disciple.. has sold 50,000 copies in six weeks (vs. 85,000 for Left Behind in its first year). But LaHaye says he isn't worried. He plans to deliver the four books he owes Tyndale and let readers decide how this story ends." (TIME)

"Intravenous drug use would be common during the Millennium and that this would be used by The Christ (the 144,000 and Jesus) to help mankind become perfect, free of all diseases" The Golden Age, March 17, 1920, p. 808

Pesher Habakkuk | DSS Timeline


 "Preterist Interpretation" Scroll
Written "Prior to 68 B.C."

Syriac Preterist interpretation on Greek Old Testament in DSS

Daniel 11:30 Instead of 'ships of Kittim will come' it has “And the Romans will come”

News: "Dead Sea Scrolls" | Israeli Antiquities Authority

Rome as Kittim
Gen 10:4 - Kittim are Japethites

If Kittim is Rome in this early instance, then the full scope of Balaam's prophecy ends with reference to Rome:

Numbers 24:24 "But ships will come from the coast of Kittim to subdue Ashur and subdue 'Ever, but they too will come to destruction. 25 Then Bil'am got up, left and returned to his home; and Balak too went his way.."

And if Daniel 11:30 refers to Rome likewise:

"For ships of Kittim shall come against him; therefore he shall be grieved, and shall return, and have indignation against the holy covenant, and shall do [his pleasure]: he shall even return, and have regard to those who forsake the holy covenant.

And if Habakkuk refers to Rome likewise:

Habakkuk 1:6 "For, behold, I raise up the Kasdim, that bitter and hasty nation, that march through the breadth of the eretz, to possess dwelling places that are not theirs." (Jewish Names Bible)

F.F. Bruce: New Testament History (Kittim is Rome) "They believed that the iniquities of the Wicked Priest and his associates would bring the judgement of God upon them.  As time went on, they came to see clearly who would be the instruments of God's judgement.  God was raising up the 'Kittim' for this purpose, and by the 'Kittim', as has been said above, they probably meant the Romans.  It was indeed the Romans who, by their occupation of Judaea in 63 B.C., put an end to Hasmonaean domination; but the Qumran community could see the shape of things to come before that date.  They also saw that the Romans would exceed the terms of their commission and incur the divine judgement themselves because of their impiety and rapacity."

Origines discovered scrolls!

Origen consulted scrolls found in caves near Jericho for his "Hexapla," a comprehensive redaction of the Hebrew Scriptures completed in the first half of the third century C.E. 

In the . . . edition of the Psalms . . . [Origen reported] again how he found one of [the translations] at Jericho in a tunnel in the time of Antoninus the son of Severus.

Eusebius Auncient ecclesiasticall histories ... (London, 1585) Printed book. Rare Book and Special Collections Division, Library of Congress

10 PEOPLE LOOKING FOR PRET PASTOR EAST OF L.A. - contact info

LIGHTHOUSE MINISTRIES W/ JOHN ANDERSON - SUNDAY SHOW

Now a Partial Preterist Show!

FRANKLIN GRAHAM

'Certainly. I think Judgment Day is approaching fast. I think there are major prophecies that have been fulfilled. The rebirth of Israel. All of this was foretold. The great tribulation will come then. And this world will be judged for rejecting Jesus Christ. In America now, you cannot mention His name on television, you cannot teach the Bible in school, but you can talk of Muhammad all you want. Why is that? Because the great tribulation is coming. The true followers of Jesus will be taken up and the remainder left behind." (source)