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Not One Stone Left Upon Another : The catastrophic fall of Jerusalem in A.D. 70 forever changed the face of Judaism—and the fate of Christians in the Holy Land

"Jesus predicted it 37 years before it happened. Herod Agrippa II and his sister Bernice, who heard Paul's testimony at Caesarea (Acts 26), tried hard to prevent it, as did the Jewish historian Flavius Josephus (our main source of first-century information). But the fall of Jerusalem and the burning of the Temple in A.D. 70 happened nevertheless, and it was a catastrophe with almost unparalleled consequences for Jews, Christians, and, indeed, all of subsequent history."


Early Christian Preterism
 (CHRISTIAN WRITINGS FROM AD70 TO 1000)


JEWISH/CHRISTIAN BIBLICAL STUDIES (1500BC-AD70) | EARLY CHRISTIAN PRETERISM (AD70-1000) | FREE ONLINE BOOKS  (AD1000-2008)


Dispensational premillennialist Tommy Ice: "I would never say that there is no one in the early church who taught preterism. . . . Don't be foolish enough to say that nothing is out there in church history, because you never know. . . . There is early preterism in people like Eusebius. In fact, his work The Proof of the Gospel is full of preterism in relationship to the Olivet Discourse." ("Update on Pre-Darby Rapture Statements and Other Issues": audio tape December 1995).

Church History's "Preterist Assumption" | Popular Preterism | Biblical Minimalism and "The History of Preterism" | The Early Church and the End of the World | Sketches of Church History : Chapter One - Age of the Apostles | Bible History Online | The First Century: Destruction of Jerusalem | History of the Christian Church | Additional Church Fathers Not Available Elsewhere

EARLY CHURCH (EC) - A) Views espoused by all Christian sources during the first thousand years of church history, during which the only systematizing being done was in Catholic and Orthodox circles.  B) This class includes all the earliest church fathers, historians and pseudepigraphic writers, dating back to the writings of the New Testament.  C) Sources could be considered "Historicist" or "Futurist" but very rarely "Preterist" in any developed way (Eusebius would be the most likely to be considered Preterist)  (Broadest in Years, Broadest in Doctrine - First Thousand Years of Church History - Pret-related comments color-coded with "Historical Preterism" due to similarities)


 THE "SILENT ERA"
(approx. 70-150)
 

EARLY CHURCH FATHERS
Early Church Fathers Clearinghouse

(approx. 150-500)
 


LATER WORKS
(500-1000)
 
     

Robinson's Dates Used When Able

Alan Patrick Boyd :  "The majority of the writers/writings in this period [A.D. 70-165] completely identify Israel with the Church." (Boyd, "Dispensational Premillennial Analysis," p. 47.)

Gary Demar : "Some of the earliest writers commenting on the Olivet Discourse, 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"

OTHER WORKS FROM THIS PERIOD

 

St. Chrysostom
(4th Century)

"Having in remembrance, therefore, this saving commandment and all those things which have come to pass for us: the Cross, the Grave, the Resurrection on the third day, the Ascension into heaven, the Sitting at the right hand, and the second and glorious Coming" (St. Chrysostom's Liturgy)

 

Proof of the Gospel
(314)
Eusebius of Caesarea
"..how can we deny that the prophecies of long ago have at last been fulfilled?"

 

  • 500: Andreas "And I saw, when he had opened the sixth seal, and behold there was a great earthquake, and the sun became as black as sackcloth of hair, and the whole moon became as blood. And the stars from heaven fell upon the earth, as a fig-tree casteth its green figs when it is shaken by the wind." [Apocalypse 6:12-13] "There are not wanting those who apply this passage to the siege and destruction of Jerusalem by Titus."

  • 507: Joshua the Stylite - Syriac Chronicle "On the region of Mesopotamia also, in which we dwell, great calamities weighed heavily in this year, so that the things which Christ our Lord decreed in His Gospel against Jerusalem, and actually brought to pass.." (XLIX)

  • 540: Arethas

  • 550: St. Remigius - Commentary (On Rev. 7:1) "Here, then, were manifestly shown to the Evangelist what things were to befall the Jews in their war against the Romans, in the way of avenging the sufferings inflicted upon Christ."

  • 600: Veronica" - The Avenging of the Saviour

  • 725: Irish Book of Questions on the Gospels  "One commentary, an Irish Book of Questions on the Gospels, written about 725, interpreted Christ's coming in Matthew 24 in light of the Judean war, as a coming in judgment through the Roman armies." Quoted in Gary DeMar and Francis X. Gumerlock: The Early Church and the End of the World

  • 731: Venerable Bede

  • 851: Maurus Rabanus

  • 999: St. Symeon

 

 

"During the period extending from Gregory the Great to the time of Luther (A.D. 600 to A.D. 1500), the true exegetical spirit could scarcely be expected to maintain itself, or produce works of great merit. The monasteries became the principle seats of learning, and the treasuries of theological literature gradually found their way to them as to so many asylums. Superstition and ignorance effectually hindered the progress of critical inquiry." (Biblical Hermeneutics, p. 661)

"Shreds of Preterism" Among First Century Writers "Much of the debate over preterism comes down to when the document was written.  This is especially true for the book of Revelation.  If a document was written prior to the destruction of Jerusalem which occurred in A.D. 70, then any statement about future prophetic events could be a reference to that event." | Theology Adrift: The Early Church Fathers and Their Views of Eschatology - "In 1962, philosopher-scientist Thomas Kuhn coined the term "paradigm shift" to signal a massive change in the way a community thinks about a particular topic..  With the first destruction of Jerusalem in AD 70 and the expulsion of Jews from Jerusalem as a result of the second Jewish revolt in AD 132-135, the early Christians began to see these defeats as evidence of not only God's displeasure on Judaism, but also God's vindication of Christianity. The early Christians thus abandoned any hope for the restoration of the nation of Israel.. "

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