The Antichrist Legend
Continued from last post↑
From The Antichrist Legend: A Chapter in Christian and Jewish Folklore (1895), by Wilhelm Bousset (pages 22-23):
I turn to a third allied passage, the section of the Lord's discourse in Matthew xxiv. and Mark xiii. on the Second Coming, and I assume, with many recent expositors, that the distinctly apocalyptic part is a fragment of foreign origin introduced amid genuine utterances of the Lord. It is also evident that compared with that of Mark the text of Matthew is the original. Here we have again the same phenomenon of short mysterious forebodings. The writer speaks of the "abomination of desolation" in the holy place, followed by the flight of the faithful (one scarcely knows from what) ; of a shortening of the days (we know not what days, or whether any definite period of time is meant) ; of the "sign of the Son of man," which still remains a puzzle, although treated lightly by most expositors. In any case the view is steadily gaining ground that the allusion to the siege of Jerusalem and the flight of the Christians to Pella is an explanation introduced as an afterthought into Revelation. Yet one is reluctant to understand the passage except in association with the time of Caligula. How then is to be explained the flight after the pollution of the Temple? Was the writer one of the advocates of peace, who wished to dissuade his fellow-countrymen from taking arms? But if so, he might have spoken in plainer language. A life-and-death struggle would after all seem probably to have taken place before the setting up of the emperor's statue.
To be continued...
Continued from last post↑
From The Antichrist Legend: A Chapter in Christian and Jewish Folklore (1895), by Wilhelm Bousset (pages 22-23):
Chapter II Statement of the Problem
I turn to a third allied passage, the section of the Lord's discourse in Matthew xxiv. and Mark xiii. on the Second Coming, and I assume, with many recent expositors, that the distinctly apocalyptic part is a fragment of foreign origin introduced amid genuine utterances of the Lord. It is also evident that compared with that of Mark the text of Matthew is the original. Here we have again the same phenomenon of short mysterious forebodings. The writer speaks of the "abomination of desolation" in the holy place, followed by the flight of the faithful (one scarcely knows from what) ; of a shortening of the days (we know not what days, or whether any definite period of time is meant) ; of the "sign of the Son of man," which still remains a puzzle, although treated lightly by most expositors. In any case the view is steadily gaining ground that the allusion to the siege of Jerusalem and the flight of the Christians to Pella is an explanation introduced as an afterthought into Revelation. Yet one is reluctant to understand the passage except in association with the time of Caligula. How then is to be explained the flight after the pollution of the Temple? Was the writer one of the advocates of peace, who wished to dissuade his fellow-countrymen from taking arms? But if so, he might have spoken in plainer language. A life-and-death struggle would after all seem probably to have taken place before the setting up of the emperor's statue.
To be continued...
Comment