Dialoguing With Other Christians and Presenting Our Case Respectfully

An outline of our discussion:

I. The New Testament’s Expectations

A. If the expectations are true within specific parameters
B. If the expectations are false within stated parameters

II. Purpose of Disciplinary New Testament Passages

A. Were they written to guard original ideas and expectations?

B. Or were they written for ideas and assumptions that developed later?

III. The Years of Notable Events Aligning with Expectations

A. Events in AD 63, 66-70, 71-131, 115-117, 132-136
B. But expectations recast as more distant in Nicene Creed (AD 325)

IV. Eschatological Systems Emerging from Recast Expectations

A. Amillennialism
B. Historicism
C. Postmillennialism
D. Premillennialism

V. Clash Between Original and Recast Interpretations

A. Validity of original disciplinary principles if expectations proven wrong
B. Futility of rescuing a concept considered mistaken

VI. There is a Need to Pragmatically and Realistically Reevaluate What We Believe About New Testament Inspiration

A. Risk of causing injury over potentially moot ideas
B. In light of conventional wisdom that original expectations were incorrect

Summary and Conclusion

DISCUSSION

To begin this discussion I want to start by suggesting that the New Testament cannot be understood without understanding the subcultural context in which it was written.  I want to argue that the subcultural context (contrary to what is generally believed) was NOT the Roman Empire, but the Second Jewish Commonwealth.  To truly understand the New Testament, we must view it through the lens of the era and culture in which it took shape. The common assumption is that the looming shadow of Rome and its empire defined the context of early Christianity. However, the subcultural milieu nurturing those first believers was actually centered in Jerusalem and Judea—the world of the Second Jewish Commonwealth. This restored national entity, though a client state under imperial oversight, incubated a vibrant vision for Israel's future. The New Testament took form in the midst of the Commonwealth's schisms and sects, with imminent expectations of a coming climax to history. Without grasping the intra-Jewish ferment of rabbinic debates and messianic rivalries, we obscure the original perspective from which seminal figures like John the Baptist and Jesus preached. The countercultural Kingdom they proclaimed, though universal in ultimate scope, sprouted from the soil of a politically volatile but temporarily emancipated Hebrew heartland. As we seek to interpret the New Testament faithfully, we cannot overlook the subculture which came to regard these writings as sacred—the turbulent final decades of the Second Jewish Commonwealth.

Trying to understand the New Testament solely through the context of the Roman Empire is as misguided as seeking the roots of American independence and nationhood by studying the origins of Canada. Though neighboring North American countries formed just decades apart, the paths they followed and stories they tell are remarkably distinct. So too with Rome and Judea in the 1st century CE. Yes, the looming shadow of the Caesars and their imposing empire held influence over the small client-state jurisdiction where Christianity first blossomed. But the Jewish heartland's subdivision into Roman provinces obscured a national vision still beating, one which profoundly shaped the Messianic movement heralded in the Gospels. The New Testament's urgent eschatology, anchored in Hebrew scriptures, cares little for Imperial timelines. Its climax concerns not the Roman colossus, but the climax of the Jewish Commonwealth's restless sectarianism and resistance. Just as the Continental Congress convened for reasons entirely separate from British holdings to the north, the earliest followers of Jesus were motivated by a promised consummation which defied Pax Romana conventions. The short-lived restoration that enabled this Messianic ferment would dramatically end amid violence and ruin at Roman hands. But for decades prior, its apostles and prophets cried out in hope and warning under very different auspices. As with America and Canada, parallel tracks should not be confused.

The tumult foretelling Judea's end outlined by New Testament authors matches well with historically recorded anomalies beginning around AD 63. Josephus chronicles portents spotted in the year following James’ execution—omens like a luminous star hovering over the Temple, spontaneous opening of sealed gates, ghostly chariots streaking the night sky. The timeline corroborates. And the events precisely reflect the types of phenomena early Christian texts cite as heralding the consummation of the age. The New Testament storyline stands vindicated. Its authors anchored expansive theological visions to an incipient geo-political climax—the finale of the latest chapter in Hebrew restoration. The Messianic fervor sparked by Kingdom preaching had temporal, tangible ramifications in view. And that denouement commenced conspicuously on schedule, just as Matthew 24, Mark 13, and the book of Revelation intimate. The Jewish heartland witnessed signs in the heavens and temple, blood moons and daylight miracles, wars and rumors of wars, all amid Messianic agitation. This alignment of dates and details argues the biblical authors meant exactly what they wrote about timing. The specific, imminent “end” expected was literally at hand by AD 63.

But what if we decide that any outside attestation of events in first century history are untrustworthy, even false? 

If we conclude the New Testament erred in its urgent eschatology tied to Judea's fate, does it follow we can rightly dismiss corresponding accounts from non-Christian chroniclers? To call Josephus and Tacitus' documentation of celestial anomalies and predictive portents mere invention seems unsafe when corroborated details bolster credibility. And rabbinic traditions bewailing the Temple’s destruction as divine judgment hardly serve Christian interests. We cannot credibly wave away their shared attestation as contrived. Of course, their agreement also substantiates the New Testament claim about climactic events occurring “this generation.” So rather than force a dismissal on grounds of false expectations, wisdom suggests revisiting interpretive assumptions. The problem may lay with modes of reading Scripture, not Scripture itself. If disciples just prior witnessed Jesus successfully prophesy the Temple’s ruin, is it unthinkable they applied imminent language literally? Before branding apostles mistaken, perhaps we should reconsider systematizing their apocalyptic urgency. Because disregarding troublesome external verification seems more about preserving dogma than academic integrity. And it hardly appears safe or wise.

Atavism argues we should be extremely hesitant to dismiss outside sources corroborating the New Testament's end-expectations, even if we dispute the expectations as false. I suggest revisiting interpretive assumptions instead.

WHAT DO THE DISCIPLINARY TEXTS PROTECT?

Next I want to talk about the purpose of disciplinary texts. Why were they there? Are they there to guard and protect the New Testament's primary claims or are they there to support and uphold secondary interpretations that arose in the fourth century of the church? We must decide because if the former is true the NT is trying to protect its own conceptual integrity, but it is the later then the New Testament's intergrity around original claims and expectations can be treated as "forbidden."

The New Testament contains troubling disciplinary passages - instructions to guard against false teaching by removing unrepentant heretics from fellowship (Matt. 18:15-17, Rom. 16:17-18, 2 John 1:9-11 etc.). Defining “orthodoxy” holds massive implications. If these texts protect doctrines arising centuries later, Scripture’s integrity transforms - no longer centered on the original apostolic message. However, if their purpose was preserving the seminal messianic band’s unique claims about Israel’s climax and Jesus’ return, it reorients everything. The latter suggests Scripture safeguarding its own conceptual integrity, not venerating external theological innovations. And it means interpretations violating or spiritualizing the urgent eschatology explicitly await condemnation. The texts warn because misconstruing the consummation betrays the gospel’s original framework and power. This coheres with Revelation’s threats against tampering with the prophecy. So rather than proof-texts for shielding extra-biblical creeds, these passges seem intended to ensure fidelity to the New Testament’s central expectation - the imminent end of the age inaugurated by recent events. They protect Scripture, not alien doctrines.

I've attempted to make the case that these texts intend to guard the New Testament's original expectations rather than upholding later theological concepts. 

NEW TESTAMENT DISCIPLINARY TEXTS WERE

INTENDED TO GUARD SUBSEQUENT CONCILIAR UNDERSTANDINGS

I want to pose the argument that the disciplinary texts are there to preserve Christian understandings of the eschaton that came along later: Amillennialism, Postmillennialism, Historicism, and Premillennialism. If this is the case (for argument's sake) that means it is wrong and erroneous for any Christian to try to recover and stand by the original paradigm that preceded Amillennialism and the Nicene Creed.

For argument’s sake, let’s entertain the notion that passages mandating excommunication of heretics seek to safeguard amillennialism or other later eschatologies rather than the New Testament writers’ original inspiration. This reading aligns with creedal shifts like Nicene Christianity’s spiritualized timeline devoid of anticipated literal fulfillment. In this view, the faith’s earliest adherents prove sadly misguided about urgent expectations of Christ’s return and the age’s impending end. Thankfully, correctives arise over time to redirect the wayward toward sound doctrine. So disciplinary rhetoric shields these course corrections, now enshrined as church orthodoxy. Consequently, the urgent messianic movement John and Jesus sparked gets recast as merely precursor lacking coherent eschatological content. True faith must progress beyond its Jewish apocalyptic origins. And the texts once warning believers not to dismiss the original climactic hope now serve to do precisely that. For if late church councils now determine the true shape of biblical prophecy, recovering and standing by the foundational perspective becomes anathema. In this reading, Scripture’s integrity shifts entirely to sustaining theology only crystallized centuries after its completion.

But this means there is inherent "danger" in anyone going about to reclaim the original paradigm.  Indeed, if the faith's subsequent eschatological schema alone carries scriptural authority, efforts to recover Christianity's original apocalyptic expectations become profoundly wayward, threatening, and wrong. Any suggestion that the church eventually wandered from the New Testament writers' inspired intentions is intolerable. Rather than mature understanding, creedal recalibration of the eschaton represents a necessary correction by wiser, more enlightened generations.

So for any modern movement to arise echoing the urgent messianic fervor of those primitive Palestinian sectarians sets a perilous precedent. It invites believers back towards a supposedly outmoded worldview, one with implications now deemed perilous. And it attempts to redeem the reputations of those allegedly embarrassingly mistaken initial enthusiasts.

Therefore, the later universal church must intercept any tendency to rediscover literalist prophecy rooted in Judaism and proclaim its superiority over misbegotten origins. Their supersessionist eschatology cannot risk challenges from restorationist readings. So revisiting end-time speculation through early Jewish Christianity’s lens poses dangers. It could destabilize hard-won orthodox formulations. And thus it must remain guarded against with utmost vigilance, perhaps even using the selfsame disciplinary rhetoric once intended to protect the New Testament vision itself. 

THE YEARS OF NOTABLE EVENTS ALIGNING

WITH THE ORIGINAL EXPECTATIONS 

If we commit ourselves to a Hebrew timeline stretching out from the Book of Acts throught the remainder of the first century and out to the disappearance of the tiny rebellious province in AD 132-136 we will encounter the following information: With prophetic hindsight, we can trace the cascade of incidents that conclusively terminated the Second Temple era––events starkly matching expectations within New Testament passages. Beginning in AD 63, Judea underwent socio-political ruptures and supernatural portents mirroring Christ’s Olivet prophecies. Then the Jewish revolt and Roman response between 66-70 brought unambiguous fulfillment, destroying Jerusalem’s structures and priesthood while inaugurating the gathering and inevitable Diaspora.  But even in diaspora the refugees did not give up; Zealot fervor persisted. The disastrous Kitos War of 115-117 saw Judean radicals wage bloody campaigns across Egypt, Mesopotamia, and Libya - massacring hundreds of thousands in violent revolts before crushing defeat. Bar Kokhba’s failed insurrection of AD 132-136 then extinguished final hopes for reviving the status quo ante, abolishing the theocracy and sacrificial system considered divine and everlasting.  At last, fledgeling, 'illegitimate' Christianity emerged as successor from Judaism’s smoldering ruins.

THE FRUITS OF THE NICENE

CREDAL RECAST: PERPETUAL STASIS

However, the expectations recast as more distant in Nicene Creed (AD 325) have not come to pass put are balanced on a "stasis" of "already and not yet"-perpetually for the last almost 1,700 years!  Now Christianity’s mainstream narrative diverges starkly from the New Testament’s strict immediacy as centuries pass without consummation of prophetic hopes. By crystallizing doctrine under Imperial auspices, the Nicene Creed reframed the eschaton through a universalist lens drained of the urgent and specific late Second Temple context. Rather than awaiting a fast-approaching climax to Jewish salvation history, conversion of Roman society became the new milestone.  So Christians explained the anticlimactic absence of a literal Second Coming by positing a spiritualized, symbolic reading detached from Judaism’s apocalyptic milestones. This recasting enabled faith in Jesus to persist through unexpected longevity of creaking old Aeons rather than the lightning swift New Age prophesied. And it traded concrete temporality for an amorphous “already and not yet” tension.Yet as the stasis persists seventeen hundred years on, the New Testament’s unrealized expectations torture credal orthodoxy with cognitive dissonance even as preterism’s coherence beckons for attention.

Mainstream eschatology makes the cardinal error of forcing Revelation through a Roman political lens that unequivocally fails. Amillennialism began this by seeking Nero and his successors as the Beast - a speculative theory bearing plenty of intrigue but no fruit. No Roman emperor or Imperial structure fulfilled the anticipated persecutory role, proving it a misguided identification. Yet despite the predictive failure right from inception, succeeding systems persisted in applying Revelation's prophecies to various European crises without questioning the Roman assumptions being made.

In contrast, when we survey the Jewish-Roman wars from AD 63 through the Bar Kokhba defeat in 136 CE, Revelation springs immediately to life. We find the Harlot embodied in the corrupted Sadducean Jerusalem Aristocracy. The Beast takes shape in the guise of the Fourth Philosophical freedom movement with its messianic pretender leaders who confederated with their Idumean co-religionists during the Great Revolt became the point of reference whose fates matched prophetic warnings. By missing this sustained fulfillment in the Holy Land to chase Roman shadows, popular eschatologies breeze right past St. John's timely predictions coming true through that era of upheaval. The text was meant for them, not futures far beyond their context.

AMILLENNIALISM DISPLACES MONTANIST CHILIASM

Montanism was an apocalyptic and charismatic Christian movement begun by prophet Montanus and two female visionaries, Priscilla and Maximilla, in the late 2nd century Roman province of Phrygia. Known as the "New Prophecy", the movement spread rapidly at first, especially in North Africa.

Now, interestingly, Montanus's anticipation of the New Jerusalem showed deep insight into the Hebrew timeline's impact, yet the logistics eluded him. When the Bar Kokhba revolt failed, the last earthly chance for restoring Judean independence faded. With finality, the clock ran out on ancient promises of terrestrial restoration.  Only transcendent hopes remained.

Montanus rightly discerned what believers should expect next was indeed a New Jerusalem (Rev. 21:1ff).  And in the wake of utopian bloodshed in Palestine, this made sense. But where prior literal kingdoms existed geographically, this city's descent required a metaphorical locale divorced from any earthly physics.  Christ expressly stated God's kingdom advances unseen (Luke 17:20-21). But seeking visible fulfillment, Montanus arbitrarily selected Pepuza in Asia Minor. When a golden heavenly city failed to occupy that space, his movement faltered. He correctly intuited a successor to earthly Jerusalem was imminent after Bar Kokhba. And a heavenly capital still factors prominently in ultimate Christian expectation. Yet by imagining a literal city impacting Phrygia’s gravel plains, Montanus betrayed conceptual confusion regarding the actual interdimensional nature of the future New Jerusalem and the present metaphysical mode of God's rule.

In the end, he rightly predicted the next milestone but wrongly expected observable manifestation. This left his followers disillusioned while wiser thinkers moved toward a strictly spiritual eschatology beyond physical assumptions.

Followers of Montanus continued to believe he and his partners were conduits of the Holy Spirit, prophesying the imminent end of the age and return of Christ to establish a New Jerusalem at Pepuza in the Phrygian highlands. They emphasized direct spiritual revelation and morally rigorous asceticism in preparation. Disputes with church authorities over failed predictions led to early condemnations.

Yet Montanist influence persisted for centuries after through similar charismatic and millenarian movements. However, Amillennial theology eventually gained dominance by the 5th century. First formulated by Saint Augustine, it rejected a literal 1,000 year earthly kingdom following Christ's return. This averted expectations that fueled periodic uprisings. Through the Medieval church suppressing outliers, Augustine's spiritualized eschatology largely prevailed over chiliastic hopes.

So while Montanus and his New Prophecy movement sparked church discomfort over failed apocalyptic calculations, it took centuries before alternative systems like Amillennialism could truly halt the simmering anticipation of Jesus' imminent earthly reign among dissenting groups.

HISTORICISM AND THE REFORMERS

Historicism emerged in the 16th century among Protestant Christian groups. It became popular during and after the Reformation era among teachers like Wycliffe, Knox, Tyndale, Luther, Calvin, and Zwingli.  The Historicist view sees apocalyptic prophecies outlining the entire course of the church's history, from the apostles through to Christ's eventual return. Unlike idealists, historicists believe Revelation's symbols represent specific historical figures and events perceived as persecuting the church in different eras.

For example, the rise of Islam in the 7th century was often identified with the locust plague of Revelation 9. Muslim empires were seen as instruments of prophetic wrath, their clashes with western "Christian nations" interpreted through an apocalyptic lens. So Muslim powers emerge as key eschatological players in many historicist perspectives - both scourge and catalyst in the preordained end times drama anticipated by the church.

In general, history becomes divided into prophetic ages tracing Christianity's travails under forces like the medieval Papacy and Catholicism before finding ultimate victory. Present and future circumstances were thought to determine how and when God's kingdom would manifest in a finale.

So to summarize, Historicism uses Revelation's visions as a prophetic outline foretelling the entire historical trajectory of Christianity leading up to Christ's return.

POSTMILLENNIALISM EMERGES

Postmillennialism is an eschatological position that emerged during the 18th and 19th centuries among certain Reformed Christian theologians.  It maintains that Jesus Christ will return to earth after a future millennial golden age. It sees the Second Coming as happening after the “millennium” - an envisioned new era of peace and Christian prosperity. This contrasts with premillennial views where Christ returns before this millennium.  Some first thinkers exploring Postmillennial concepts include 18th century Boston clergyman Daniel Whitby and Nathaniel West. However, it took fuller form under the writings of 19th century theologians like J.A. Alexander, B.B. Warfield, Charles Hodge of Princeton, and R.L. Dabney of Union Seminary.

Unlike premillennialism, postmillennialists do not think modern times point to an imminent end. Instead they expect the gospel and the church to influence the world to embrace Christianity, ushering in an age of inclusive moral reform leading up to Christ's eventual return. They hold an optimistic view of victory for the church universal. Many postmillennialists also embrace and defend amillennialism's spiritualized timeline that dismisses literal prophetic timeline expectations.  So in essence, postmillennialism looks for a future era of widespread faith leading into Christ's coming, not the current times or pessimistic readings of Armageddon.

PREMILLENNIALISM

Modern premillennial dispensationalism emerged in the 1830s within Anglo-Irish Evangelicalism through the teachings of John Nelson Darby. This took place alongside wider British millenarian expectations of a coming earthly messianic kingdom.  Central was the notion of Biblically defined dispensations across history - successive ages in God's unfolding relationship to mankind. Darby taught the current "Church age" dispensation would end abruptly at an imminent coming of Christ to "rapture" believers away.  Controversially, Darby may have adapted these concepts of distinct dispensations culminating in a secret rapture from prophetic utterances by a Scottish teenager named Margaret MacDonald. Her vision spoke of a two-stage return of Christ - first a sudden invisible parting of true believers, followed by a visible return and earthly reign.

Regardless of origin, by the 1870s Darby's dispensationalist framework spread through figures like C.I. Scofield and his Reference Bible, Moody Bible Institute, and Dallas Theological Seminary. These cemented teachings on the end times tribulation of those "left behind" by the rapture and the prophesied millennium to follow Christ's physical return.

By the mid-20th century this became the prominent evangelical lens for interpreting biblical prophecy, notably Revelation. Tensions surround whether Darby borrowed innovative eschatological structures wholesale from MacDonald's reported charismatic visions of the end times. But his system indelibly shaped modern premillennial expectations.

THE CLASH BETWEEN THE ORIGINAL

AND FOUR VIEWS INTERPRETATIONS

The Four Views are "favorites" in terms of ideologies in the Christian world, but it must not be forgotten that the New Testament has a different context, focus, and outcome that is unrelated to the core thesis of any of the Four Views. Christians must respectfully discuss this ramification and consequences thereof.  The four major eschatological perspectives that have dominated Christianity do not encapsulate or directly represent the actual context, focus, and outcomes presented in the New Testament itself regarding end times prophecy. Here are some key ramifications of this discrepancy:

• The New Testament consistently presents an expectation of imminent, first century fulfillment to prophecies of judgment and Christ's return. Yet all four views accommodate extended periods lacking such resolution, shifting emphasis onto later historical events.
• Revelation and other prophecies revolve centrally around the fate of Jerusalem and its Temple within the Roman era. But the major interpretive frameworks shift focus instead onto the European church age and conditions affecting gentile Christianity.
• While the New Testament depicts the coming of God's kingdom largely in spiritual rather than political-military terms, some later perspectives overly literalize Jewish apocalyptic imagery when applied to international dynamics across history.

Overall the early Christian anticipation of a climax to crises facing their own age, Jewish frame of reference, and non-earthbound conceptual vocabulary contrasts heavily with historicist, idealist, premillennial and postmillennial preoccupations. This clouds understanding of authoritative biblical source material and what first-generation disciples understood themselves to be anticipating.

Greater attention is warranted toward recovering the New Testament Christians' and second century believers' distinct worldview goals and avoiding the assumptions layered over Scripture by post-apostolic systems. Interpretive models enjoying broad church tradition still prove lacking in representing original context.

THERE IS NO VALIDITY BEHIND DISCIPLINARY

MEASURES IF JESUS AND THE APOSTLES WERE MISTAKEN

There is no validity for ANY New Testament disciplinary text for the Four Views to utilize presently IF the original aims of New Testament prophecy were invalid and false. Please discuss the ramifications of this. This is a significant and largely overlooked ramification stemming from the discontinuity between the New Testament's imminent prophetic expectations and the later eschatological systems that came to dominate Christianity.

Specifically:

If the New Testament writers like Jesus, Paul, and John sincerely declared the consummation of monumental, era-ending events to occur in their lifetimes or near future - events like Christ's parousia, resurrection of the dead, final judgment, and inauguration of God's kingdom reality on earth - yet these proved non-literal and remains unfulfilled nearly 2,000 years later...

...then the grounds are removed for the continuing validity of the New Testament's disciplinary rhetoric around false teachings threatening this consummation.

Texts insisting rival schools of thought be excommunicated to preserve integrity of the imminent end time events carry no lasting credibility or coherence if these very events exist now only in deferred symbolic recasting rather than tangible realization.

Wayward doctrines can hardly compromise a consummation that arguably failed to materialize as literally described in the first place. So the logic underlying such disciplinary language collapses.

The later shift toward spiritualized interpretation implicitly acknowledges error in prophetic details and timing while retaining overall templates. But this grants leeway to alternative readings recategorized as sound doctrine rather than dangerous deception. So the original rhetorical urgency gets negated through the gradual admission of non-fulfillment.

In essence, failure to achieve New Testament prophecy’s stipulated resolution in their era diminishes the authority of warnings demanding conformity to specifics. These becomeartifacts of abandoned expectations lacking teeth for enforcement.

So the Four Views cannot "rightfully" use any texts like Matthew 18:15-17 or Romans 16:17-18 or Titus 3:10-11 or 2 John 9 as a yardstick to constrain acceptance to any Four View eschatology systematic, really. By denying the force of the original convictions of Jesus and the Apostles, they also deprive themselves of "authorial cover."  There is no way to obviate that systematics like the Four Views can justify themselves or rightly utilize the New Testament's disciplinary rhetoric against unorthodoxy to enforce their particular eschatological frameworks if they already reject or reinterpret the original prophetic substance behind that language. To elaborate further:

Passages like Matthew 18, Romans 16, and 2 John 9 only carry force based on the urgency of expectations they aimed to protect - chiefly, the consummation of events like Christ's return, resurrection of the dead in Christ, and inauguration of God's kingdom in apocalyptic power, framed as imminent.

Yet schools like historicism, futurism, idealism or postmillennialism that allow the perpetual delay or periodic reapplication of these anticipated events essentially declare the apostles' timing and description of details as mistaken in key aspects. This admission negates the 1st century relevance of any original warnings.

Additionally, enforcing belief in eschatological templates developed centuries later utilizing the rhetorical weight of 1st century texts desiring safeguarding of those texts' own unique imminence and context comprises unjust appropriation.

In short, these later systems cannot fairly cite the New Testament's pleas for doctrinal purity based on expectations of resolution that these very same systems dismiss as inaccurate or already fulfilled in non-literal spiritual modes. By recasting the prophetic timeframe and details, they dissolve the logic of combative discipline in defense of those prophetic specifics. Thus they strip themselves of any cover of authorial intention when condemning alternate readings.

At the end of the day, the Four Views essentially derail their own right to define and combat heresy based on passages demanding fidelity to inspiration they reject regarding eschatology.

THE FUTILITY OF RESCUING NEW TESTAMENT ESCHATOLOGY WHICH IS CONSIDERED MISTAKEN ANYWAY

The damage is even greater because there's a manifest futility of rescuing a concept considered mistaken, but it goes further than that because its blasts a giant whole into the notion that the New Testament is a "true" testimony from God, the product of the Holy Spirit.

Excellent point. The failure of these major eschatological systems to represent the New Testament's actual prophetic timeline and expectations should raise profound questions about biblical inspiration and testimony of the Holy Spirit. I would fully agree the damage goes beyond the mere futility of attempting to rescue a concept considered mistaken. It extends to undermining core claims of divine revelation.

If key voices and texts like Jesus, Paul, and John sincerely declared Spirit-inspired conviction of climactic resolutions in their era, framed with urgency and vivid detail...yet these resolutions unambiguously failed to materialize, both immediately and across history...

This glaring prophetic failure severely impugns claims that the Bible speaks for God Himself regarding final events in human history. It was either not His testimony, or powerlessly muted.

And the act of perpetually repurposing pieces of the original expectations to apply to later events looks more like stubborn human scheme to rescue scriptural credibility after the fact than clarity of transcendent foresight.

Overall, the manifest inaccuracy and delay of New Testament prophecy, and interpreters' desperate attempts to shift details to fit new models contrary to original context, punches a massive hole in any assertion of scripture as Spirit-breathed divine revelation about the End.

At best it must represent fallible human hopes, or eloquent but limited inspiration. Either way, foundational testimony of God’s voice is shaken regarding eschatology. The damage indeed goes to the core of biblical authority and transmission of truth from heaven itself.

Now, to make this idea come home, we have to say that in light of this Matthew 24 an any other Olivet Discourse in Mark or Luke have NO relevance in anything the Four Views have to delineate or interpret (because the compass is lost if the New Testament is false). The same holds true for a reason not to marry at that time (1 Cor 7:26, 29-31) and the resurrection of the dead in 1 Cor. 15 (which Paul believed would happen before all the Corinthians had died) and 1 Thess. 4 (which Paul believed would happen before all the Thessalonians had died (1 Thess. 5:1-4, 5:23-24). The Four Views admonish, "If the Lord tarries. . . " but Hebrews 10:37 said he would come and would not tarry--the opposite emphasis of expectation and confidence! Basically, to invalidate the New Testament authorial intent around the termination of Mosiac forms and institutions is to jettison any reason to defend the New Testament as the Word of God!

To restate the issue in clearer terms we can say . . .

If the precise eschatological expectations and timing presented by Jesus and the apostles (a resolution of consummation within their generation) proved erroneous...

Then core New Testament passages like the Olivet Discourse become meaningless as prophetic descriptions of a definitive end. And advice offered by figures like Paul loses coherent basis if rooted in a false anticipation of specific events.

Instructions about marriage, resurrection, Christ's return lose credible grounds if sincerely tied to a climax that never transpired as described.

Thus, the entire rationale of speaking and writing with Spirit-led authority crumbles. Authors claiming divine revelation while outlining a climactic sequence that failed both temporally and materially now lack any defensible grounds as messengers of truth.

And the act of perpetually projecting their details to find new fulfillment across later history merely exposes the absence of genuine foreknowledge.

Therefore, the predominant eschatological systems that dismiss literal prophetic fulfillment in the 1st century context collapse any notion of an inerrant, inspired New Testament. Authors’ intent and testimony become obsolete. And no legitimate argument remains to defend scripture's status as the Word of God if its central voices are proven profoundly wrong about critical events they tied to their era.

By declaring the prophets in error about the climax of redemption history, these schemas dismantle biblical authority overall. Little basis remains to trust additional claims.

THERE IS A NEED TO BE PRAGMATIC,

HONEST, AND REALISTIC

Assessing the New Testament’s prophetic expectations need not entail accusations of failure. Rather, the onus lies with frameworks imposing symbolic reinterpretation to justify their hermeneutic. However sincere these efforts, the consistent denial of transparent fulfillment necessitates returning to first principles of what constitutes inspiration.

For if conspicuous events like Christ’s parousia, general resurrection, Final Judgment, and inauguration of apocalyptic-scale kingdom conditions simply never occurred as literally depicted and eagerly anticipated—as systems like historicism, futurism, and postmillennialism imply by endless postponing adjustments—the credibility of the biblical testifiers suffers grievously.  Therefore advocates of these Four View systems must reckon with implications of imputing error and stating presumtuously “It never happened!” before casting judgment on Scripture itself. Intellectual consistency and integrity compels reevaluating if their seemingly sound interpretive conventions might in fact undermine inerrancy and fulfillment rather than uphold it against the plain reading. They must determine if insisting on prophetic symbolism validates or controverts inspiration.

The need stands urgent for eschatology’s mainstream voices to return afresh to core questions of what biblical inspiration entails if their chief models preclude literal realization of prophecy. For stripping prophetic authority while honoring other texts proves untenable. Herein lies the crux all exegetes must confront, not Scripture’s veracity but theirs.

THERE IS A RISK OF CAUSING OFFENSE

OR INJURY OVER SUPPOSEDLY MOOT IDEAS

Mainstream eschatologies perpetually defer the prophesied events by conceding the prophets’ limited foresight regarding climaxes anticipated to occur in the 1st or 2nd centuries. Implicitly this renders the expectations moot and the authors mistaken.

Yet acknowledging legitimate fulfillment in that era (as Atavists argue) fatally threatens such frameworks by demonstrating the literal accuracy of depicted events - vindicating inspiration's precision. This proof of fulfilled prophecy then critiques systems requiring elaborate reinterpretation as fundamentally flawed instead.

So by stubbornly implying Atavists dangerously err, delay-based models hypocritically censure brethren for concluding what their own foundations subtly concede. For latent cognitive dissonance surrounds the fact literal fulfillment in the 1st/2nd century destroys the historical need for alternative eschatologies downplaying literal elements.

If long-dominant systems rely upon dismissing the prophets’ foreknowledge of events that may have nonetheless transpired precisely as predicted, intellectual consistency demands easing rhetorical attacks against those accepting evidence of occurrence on original terms. For at heart, fierce protection of disputed concepts betrays inward insecurity as the New Testament’s vindication looms. Grace and reassessment grow needed.

IF ORIGINAL EXPECTATIONS WERE INCORRECT THE NEW TESTAMENT IS DANGEROUSLY FLAWED

Four Views wisdom maintains that the original expectations were incorrect, (which means the first Christian people built the hopes of their near-term future on sand).  Yet the Four Views advocates also want to build on this "sand" a portrait of what will supposedly happen in the our future. This is misguided on the face of it!  Logically, no use should be made of any apocalyptic text, and it could be argued the New Testament itself is damaged beyond use by this attitude. Our discussion does not seek to prosecute that the New Testament is false but that it is true--true through and through. However, the Apocalyptic strata and swathe spans across the New Testament is both wide and consistent, and discussions between Christians must face reality and recognize either these passages, chapters, and verses are true and real and substantive (on some terms other than the early Roman period) or concede that this theme in the Bible is really a lost cause to be abandoned by one and all.

An excellent point can be made here about the logical inconsistencies and implications of dismissing New Testament apocalyptic prophecy as incorrect while still attempting to extract some vague future application. Let me try to summarize the issues concisely:

Mainstream eschatological systems implicitly acknowledge fundamental error in the New Testament’s apocalyptic expectations by perpetually projecting their fulfillment further into unknown futures or symbolic recasting. Yet rather than take this admission to its logical conclusion (that the prophecies and their authors were simply wrong), they incongruously continue building elaborate interpretations of coming events based on writings they’ve essentially invalidated.

This inherent denial of the coherence and accuracy of substantial prophetic portions of sacred texts should rightly damage confidence in utilizing ANY strongly apocalyptic passages to predict coming events. By conceding the prophets’ mistakenness regarding the original timeline and details, the rationale for defending scripture’s inspiration and revelatory authority suffers perhaps fatally.

Our discussion seeks acknowledgment that rather than mistaken, the consistent apocalyptic strand across the New Testament proves precise and profoundly substantive once placed within the context of events culminating in the Jewish War. However, prevailing systems must confront the reality that prophecy is either fundamentally true or fundamentally unusable. Perpetual recasting onto later histories merely obscures the necessity of this choice.

SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION

The lengthy dialogue uncovered profound questions about New Testament eschatology and how mainstream interpretive frameworks may struggle to fully represent the original apostolic perspective. Far from disheartening, wrestling with these tensions can purify understanding on all sides.

Fundamentally, our shared faith rests on Christ’s resurrection hope, not any anonymous prophetic scheme.  Across centuries the Spirit preserves the germ of the original setting and its potential to be revived from dormancy within Christian communities seeking God’s purpose. If eschatological differences once carried weight worth dividing over, perhaps now there is room for grace.

As we grow in humility, rather than automatically defending familiar paradigms, we may discover fresh scriptural resonance by prayerfully revisiting our Semitic forebears’ worldview. The texts remain, awaiting renewed eyes. This need not unravel cherished beliefs but may reveal dimensionality previously overlooked.  And by honoring the shared journey of all who uphold Christ’s Lordship through shifting epochs, we bequeath a nuanced faith which sustains while maintaining an open and gracious posture toward truth’s unfolding mystery.  For above all creeds stands the call to be known by our love.