The Bible is Mistaken

"It is probably true that the disciples thought of the three events (the destruction of the temple, the second coming, and the end of the age) as one event. But as was almost always the case, they were wrong."
(House and Ice, Dominion Theology, p. 271)

The Preterist Position & Infidels

See Also : Regressive Preterism : "If Preterism is not true, then the Bible is wrong."

"It is undeniable that Paul, with the whole of primitive Christianity, erred about the imminently expected parousia." (H.J. Schoeps, The Theology of the Apostle in the Light of Jewish Religious History, p. 46)

The above conclusion is totally unacceptable, though made by a highly respected man, and echoed by many others. This belief in the error of the doctrine of the writers of the New Testament renders the doctrine of Scripture inaccurate. Because there is no middle ground in this issue as, ultimately, there is no denying that the fulfillment of prophecy about "the end" was imminently expected, only two choices are available:

1. That which was expected and, consequently, written in the New Testament took place.
2. The doctrine of the Word of God are totally unreliable, and the Scriptures are rendered impotent.

Below are various quotations from men who, in fact, deem Scripture unreliable due to this perceived non-occurrence of prophecy.

VARIOUS SOURCES, BEGINNING WITH JUDAISM

3/1/4: Prophets and Prophecy - "Jesus specifically told his disciples that he would return within their lifetimes. "This generation shall not pass, till all these things be fulfilled." Paul also predicted that Jesus would return within their lifetimes.. So, we can see that Paul predicted an event that did not come about...  Moses taught us that this is how we know that people like Paul were false prophets."

Jewish view of failure of Christ's return - "Jesus did not come back "quickly," as promised, to judge mankind. The time has long past that one can claim Jesus will come back "quickly." Thus, what we have in Revelation 22:20 is a false prophecy." Jews for Judaism
 - "These various statements reveal that the myth of the "second coming" was explained in different ways as the interval following Jesus' death lengthened." Jews for Judaism
-  "Apparently, the early Christian community was convinced of the imminent return of Jesus, as the Messiah, and the inauguration of the kingdom of God. It never happened." Jews for Judaism
 - "The expectation of Paul and the other New Testament authors was for the speedy arrival of the second coming in their generation. The use of "for yet a little while," "shortly," "the time is near," and "I am coming quickly" point to the utter failure of the predictions that Jesus was coming a second time to do what he did not accomplish the first time." Jews for Judaism
 - "There was to be fulfillment within the lifetimes of certain individuals alive at the time Jesus made the promise and following upon certain cataclysmic events which were to be witnessed by that generation. These events never occurred and the time for their occurrence has long since passed." Jews for Judaism
 - "The second epistle of Peter is a late attempt to explain away the obvious fact that the second coming did not arrive at its appointed time." Jews for Judaism
 - "It should be noted that these "tribulations" were not fulfilled in the events of the years 66-73 C.E., the period of the First Jewish-Roman War. Jesus' own statement shows that the culmination of the "tribulation period" was to see the parousia, the second coming of Jesus (Mark 13:26; Matthew 24:3, 30), which certainly did not occur during the war nor subsequently." Jews for Judaism

Max I. Dimont (1971)
"Like the Christians, who continually had to postpone Judgment Day because Jesus failed to keep his appointment for a second coming, so the Jews, from century to century, had to postpone the arrival date of their messiah by new calculation." (The Indestructible Jews, p. 174)

John P. Meier
"And he said to them, 'Truly, I say to you, there are some standing here who will not taste death before they see that the kingdom of God has come with power [en dunamei]'."   - Mark 9:1 (Matthew 16:28 // Luke 9:27)

"(This saying was) most likely...produced by early Christians who sought to reassure themselves of Christ's coming in glory as the years passed by with no parousia in sight." (John P. Meier, A Marginal Jew - Rethinking the Historical Jesus, Vol. 2.)

Francis William Newman (1890)
"2. The prophecies of the New Testament are not many. First, we have that of Jesus in Matt xxiv. concerning the destruction of Jerusalem. It is marvellously exact, down to the capture of the city and miserable enslavement of the population; but at this point it becomes clearly and hopelessly false: namely, it declares, that "_immediately after_ that tribulation, the sun shall be darkened, &c. &c., 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 and great glory. And he shall send his angels with a great sound of a trumpet, and they shall gather together his elect," &c. This is a manifest description of the Great Day of Judgment: and the prophecy goes on to add: "Verily I say unto you, This generation shall not pass, till all these things be fulfilled." When we thus find a prediction to break down suddenly in the middle, we have the well-known mark of its earlier part being written after the event: and it becomes unreasonable to doubt that the detailed annunciations of this 24th chapter of Matthew, were first composed _very soon after_ the war of Titus, and never came from the lips of Jesus at all. Next: we have the prophecies of the Apocalypse. Not one of these can be interpreted certainly of any human affairs, except one in the 17th chapter, which the writer himself has explained to apply to the emperors of Rome: and that is proved false by the event.--Farther, we have Paul's prophecies concerning the apostacy of the Christian Church. These are very striking, as they indicate his deep insight into the moral tendencies of the community in which he moved. They are high testimonies to the prophetic soul of Paul; and as such, I cannot have any desire to weaken their force. But there is nothing in them that can establish the theory of supernaturalism, in the face of his great mistake as to the speedy return of Christ from heaven." (Phases of Faith
Passages from the History of My Creed)

Rudolph Bultmann (1961)
"The mythical eschatology is untenable for the simple reason that the parousia of Christ never took place as the New Testament expected.. (Kerygma and Myth, p.5)

Nils Alstrup Dahl (1977)
"Today, nineteen hundred years later, we know that the future did not unfold as Paul had hoped and expected. His journey to Jerusalem with the collection he had gathered did not excite the envy of his compatriots in the way he had hoped. Israel has not accepted Christ, the parousia has not yet occurred." (Studies in Paul, p. 157)

House and Thomas Ice
"It is probably true that the disciples thought of the three events (the destruction of the temple, the second coming, and the end of the age) as one event. But as was almost always the case, they were wrong." (House and Ice, Dominion Theology, p. 271)

W. G. Kummell (1957)
"Therefore it is impossible to eliminate the concepts of time and with it the 'futurist' eschatology from the eschatological message of Jesus (and from the New Testament altogether);.. Jesus does not only proclaim in quite general terms the future coming of the Kingdom of God, but also its imminence. What is more: on the one hand he emphasized this so concretely that he limited it to the lifetime of his hearers' generation; yet on the other hand he only expected a part of them to live to experience this eschatological event; so he did not wish to limit its proximity too closely. It is perfectly clear that this prediction of Jesus was not realized and it is therefore impossible to assert that Jesus was not mistaken about this." (Promise and Fulfillment, p. 148, 149)

C.S. Lewis (1960)
"Say what you like," we shall be told, "the apocalyptic beliefs of the first Christians have been proved to be false. It is clear from the New Testament that they all expected the Second Coming in their own lifetime. And, worse still, they had a reason, and one which you will find very embarrassing. Their Master had told them so. He shared, and indeed created, their delusion. He said in so many words, 'this generation shall not pass till all these things be done.' And he was wrong. He clearly knew no more about the end of the world than anyone else."

It is certainly the most embarrassing verse in the Bible. Yet how teasing, also, that within fourteen words of it should come the statement "But of that day and hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels which are in heaven, neither the Son, but the Father." The one exhibition of error and the one confession of ignorance grow side by side....

The facts, then, are these: that Jesus professed himself (in some sense) ignorant, and within a moment showed that he really was so. To believe in the Incarnation, to believe that he is God, makes it hard to understand how he could be ignorant; but also makes it certain that, if he said he could be ignorant, then ignorant he could really be. For a God who can be ignorant is less baffling than a God who falsely professes ignorance. The answer of theologians is that the God-Man was omniscient as God, and ignorant as Man. This, no doubt, is true, though it cannot be imagined." (Essay "The World's Last Night" (1960), found in The Essential C.S. Lewis, p. 385)

Olshausen
"As regards the contents of the discourse, a great difficulty lies in its placing in apparent juxtaposition circumstances which, according to the history, are separated by wide intervals. Obvious descriptions of the approaching overthrow of Jerusalem and the Jewish polity are blended with no less evident representations of the second coming of the Lord to his kingdom. . . We do not hesitate to adopt the simple interpretation, and the only one consistent with the text, that Jesus did intend to represent his coming as contemporaneous with the destruction of Jerusalem and the overthrow of the Jewish polity." — Com.,vol. ii, pp. 221, 222.

The Pulpit Commentary (On 1 John 2:18)
"The last hour can only mean the last hour before the second coming of Christ. Nothing but the unwillingness of Christians to admit that an apostle, and especially the apostle St. john, could seem to be much in error about the nearness of the day of judgment, could have raised a question about language so plain.. But it may very reasonably and reverently be asked, What becomes of the inspiration of Scripture if an inspired writer tells the church that the end of the world is near, when it is not near? The question of inspiration must follow that of interpretation, not lead it. Let us patiently examine the facts, and then try to frame a theory of inspiration that will cover them; not first frame our theory, and then force the facts to agree with it."

H. J. Schoeps (1961)
"It is undeniable that Paul, with the whole of primitive Christianity, erred about the imminently expected parousia." (The Theology of the Apostle in the Light of Jewish Religious History, p. 46)

"the objective course of world history has belied New Testament eschatology." (ibid. p 46)