The purpose of this thread is to survey the comments of the best exegetical scholars regarding the term 'this generation' in Matthew 23:36.

So far as I know, only one of the scholars I will quote is a preterist — that one being R. T. France.

Here is the first comment:

'This generation has primarily a chronological thrust: it will all happen in the lifetime of the present generation. But since something akin to the Babylonian Exile is being envisaged, an impact on those who make up 'this generation', and not simply the scribes and Pharisees themselves, is to be expected. — John Holland, in The New International Greek Testament Commentary The Gospel of Matthew (Eerdmans: 2005).

This is from the International Critical Commentary series, the authors of which are firmly premillennial in their eschatological perspective (brackets added):

36. This verse may enlarge the prophetic condemnation beyond the scribes and Pharisee: 'this generation', which follows its corrupt leaders, is also corrupt. Perhaps , however, the point is just that judgment will fall now, in the days of 'this generation'. In either case the verse prepares for the lamentation over Jerusalem (v. 37) and anticipates the tribulations of the eschatological discourse.

αμην λεγω υμιν, ηξει ταυτα παντα επι την γενεαν ταυτην [Truly I say to you, all this will come upon this generation]. [...] ταυτα παντα ['all this' (literally, 'all these things')] is Matthean, and its combination with 'this generation' anticipates 24:34, where the sense is eschatological, as here. [...]

'This generation' refers not to 'the "unbelieving and perverted" in the whole of Israel's history' but to the contemporaries of Jesus and his followers. This is clearly the meaning throughout the First Gospel (11:16; 12:41-42, 45; 24:34). Thus it seems likely that Matthew saw a partial or initial fulfillment of 'all this' in the tragedy of AD 70. — W. D. Davies and D. C. Allison, Matthew 19-28 (ICC).

Thank you John!!!!!!!

You are such a PEACH. I definitely will use this material.

This is from The Anchor Bible commentary series:

36. Cf. 24:34; the "coming" of The Man to the Father will certainly happen in this generation, when The Man is exalted in the glory of his passion-resurrection. The coming sufferings Jesus sees as judgment upon official Judaism for its refusal of him and his ministry.

... generation (Greek genea). This word may certainly mean "lifetime," and not simply "generation" in our sense of the term [...]. There is the same fluctuation of meaning in Biblical Hebrew dōr and Syriac dārā. — W. F. Albright and C. S. Mann, Matthew (The Anchor Bible).

I discovered in the 1980s, while surveying all the occurrences of genea in the Greek OT, the fact, noted above by Albright and Mann, that in the New Testament as well as the Old Testament "there is the same fluctuation of meaning" in the usage of the Greek word genea as in the usage of the Hebrew word dōr — the former being the rendering of the latter throughout the Greek version of the OT.

The sense of genea in Matthew as well as throughout the Greek OT is that of dōr (דור), which is defined in A Concise Hebrew and Aramaic Lexicon of the Old Testament, edited by William L. Holladay, thus:

דור — circuit, lifetime, generation (from a man's birth to the birth of his first son; the totality of (adult) contemporaries; a time with its noteworthy events and people).

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