Friday, June 28, 2024

The Idiocy Of Full Preterism

If Revelation was written in 95 AD as many think (not that belief or consensus makes it true, which is exactly why historical evidences never provide absolute certainty), then it could not have predicted the fall of Jerusalem to Titus in 70 AD, and thus the individual claims of the book about the future would be inapplicable to that event.  Aside from the date of its writing, preterism, the idea that some or all eschatological prophecies occurred in 70 AD, including and especially the return of Christ, would have more than just potential errors due to the year Revelation was written.  It would mean much of the Bible is outright false or misleading to the point where eschatological prophecies are absolutely deceitful in their wording since there are no contextual suggestions to the contrary.

On full preterism, Jesus has already returned in full, contradicting how an angel said Jesus would return in the same way he departed in his Ascension (Acts 1:9-11)--by being taken up into heaven, where God resides (compare Isaiah 6:1-5 with Daniel 7:9-14).  The angel said he would return as he left, and his Ascension was a distinctly visible thing according to the text.  Not even counting the details of other passages about a return of Christ (such as John 14:1-2, which I have another eschatological post on scheduled), enormous cataclysms, or a resurrection of the dead and final judgment of the wicked (Daniel 12:2), Acts 1 already refutes full preterism as a Biblically possible doctrine.  According to all historical evidences, there has never been a return of Jesus in such a manner.

Again, according to full preterism, all prophecies have already occurred.  Is the universe to continue onward with no end, supposedly?  How would the cosmos be burned with fire as 2 Peter 3:7 and 10-13 mentions, replaced by a new heavens and new earth as consistent with Revelation 21-22?  None of these things happened as described by the Bible in recorded history, certainly not as some event in 70 AD that was invisible, and thus even further from verifiability than typical sensory events that still cannot be proven to occur outside the mind as opposed to inside it.  If these prophecies are as non-literal as preterists/amillennialists claim, they could never possibly point to Biblical "evidence" for much or any of it since what the text says is according to them not what is supposed to happen!

However, the same epistemological and textual problems with full preterism render partial versions of it with regards to true "last days" eschatology likewise Biblically invalid.  Yes, the parables of Jesus and some aspects of Revelation (like the seven lamp stands of Revelation 1:12 representing the seven churches, which is explicitly clarified in 1:20), for instance, are or are almost certainly symbolic stand-ins for other, literal things.  If the Bible actually teaches that something is allegorical/non-literal, then it absolutely teaches allegory in that particular case.  What it does not do is directly or indirectly teach that Christ's Second Coming and the whole of eschatological predictions have their culmination in a Roman victory in the first century AD, after which the cosmos continues to go on as it had before.

There is no future return of Christ, no resurrection of the dead, no annihilation of the wicked (2 Peter 2:6), and so on under full preterism, yet each of these things is taught Biblically, and in a very literal manner.  These things either "already" happened in ways the Bible is woefully inadequate at describing or full preterism has nothing to do with the Bible.  Much more of the Bible than just Revelation or Matthew 24 is involved with eschatology in some way, and so there could not even be legitimacy in full preterism even if the events of Revelation were supposed to have all occured almost two millennia ago.  It is not as if resurrection or the annihilation of the wicked, among other things, is only taught in Revelation.

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