Tag: 70 A.D.

Deeper Waters Podcast 7/28/2018: Brian Godawa

What’s coming up? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

Around the year 70 A.D. an event happened that forever shaped the spread of Christianity. Before this, it had been seen as a sect of Judaism by some. Now, it could not be. The event was the destruction of the temple in Jerusalem and the city itself by the Romans. It’s also a tragedy that few Christians today seem to know anything about this event.

It also wasn’t just an instant of destruction, like dropping the bomb on Hiroshima. It was a long and drawn out event where the city would also be starved out. People would do anything to get some food to eat. This would often include cannibalism. To be specific, parents would often wind up eating their own children.

The Christians had already known about what was coming. They were ready when Rome showed up, not to fight, but to flee. They knew what Jesus was talking about in passages such as Matthew 24. Israel chose to fight Rome thinking that God would vindicate them in this hour much like other great miracles in their own past. Instead, as the Christians knew, this generation had rejected their Messiah and thus God had rejected them.

My guest has written the third in a series describing the events here. It is a work of historical fiction combining the rise of the beast and the destruction of the temple with the idea of Watchers as well from the Old Testament. It is a series with political intrigue and spiritual action as well. His name is Brian Godawa. So who is he?

According to his bio:

Brian Godawa is an award-winning Hollywood screenwriter (To End All Wars), a controversial movie and culture blogger (www.Godawa.com), an internationally known teacher on faith, worldviews and storytelling (Hollywood Worldviews), an Amazon best-selling author of Biblical fiction (Chronicles of the Nephilim), and provocative theology (God Against the gods). His obsession with God, movies and worldviews, results in theological storytelling that blows your mind while inspiring your soul. And he’s not exaggerating.

We’ll be talking about what it would mean to be a Christian in the time of Jerusalem putting up its resistance to Rome, especially since the book is called Resistant. We’ll discuss the conditions there and what that means to Christians today. We’ll discuss the way prophecy was seen by the people. We could look at how all the factions worked together and against each other including Qumran and Jerusalem and all the people involved there. It’s hard to believe, but even while the Romans were coming against the people of Jerusalem, the people of Jerusalem were still actively fighting against one another.

I hope you’ll be listening for the next episode of the Deeper Waters Podcast. We’re working on making the show better and better for you. It would also mean a lot to me if you would go on iTunes and leave a positive review of the Deeper Waters Podcast. It’s always good to see how much you guys like the show and to hear what you would like to see done on the show and any possible guests you’d like to have on.

In Christ,
Nick Peters

Book Plunge: Resistant

What do I think of Brian Godawa’s latest self-published book? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

Brian Godawa has the next book in his series on the apocalypse with this one focusing on the start of the destruction of Jerusalem. He still has Apollyon and the Watchers at work behind the scenes battling the angels of God seeking to overthrow YHWH. Many of the characters from the earlier books are still there and we get to experience what is going on in their lives.

Honestly, the second book hadn’t seemed as exciting to me, but this one did bring it back. There is intrigue with watching things play out. I find it amazing to see that Brian has taken history and woven it well into a fictional narrative all the while striving to do justice to the history and I think succeeding as well.

He also takes several different themes and weaves them together. You have what’s going on at Qumran and what’s going on with the Watchers and everything else. Brian takes these all and puts them all together and the story fits well cohesively.

In it, you will also find wrestling with great moral issues. Is it ever proper to do the wrong thing because of what is seen as a necessary good? Why would judgment come that would affect children as well? If one repents of a wrong, should they not be redeemed from the suffering of that wrong?

This is all built around the start of the destruction of Jerusalem which is an event that people need to know more about. Very few Christians really know what happened to the temple that was there at the time of Jesus. They don’t know about what a destruction it was for the people involved. They don’t know about cannibalism taking place and political intrigue and even in-fighting among the Jews themselves. Yes. Even while their country and holy city were being destroyed, the Jews were still fighting among themselves.

If there was something I would like more looking at it, it is honor and shame in the Biblical world since so many of the characters seem to be introspective and not as much is said about honor in the Biblical sense. I think this would take this excellent series and make it even better.

Also, if you are someone like me who is skeptical of the idea of Watchers and things of that sort, that doesn’t detract from the novel. I am not convinced, but I can have a sort of suspended disbelief and be intrigued by what the villain Apollyon is doing and enjoy seeing the references to other gods and such as one who grew up enjoying Greek mythology in particular.

Christians need to have a better understanding of Biblical prophecy in relation to the “end-times” and this book series is an excellent way to bring it about. I find the story to be gripping so that I stayed up a little bit later than normal last night working to finish it and see what happened. I highly recommend it.

In Christ,
Nick Peters

Book Plunge: From Jesus To Christ

What do I think of Paula Fredriksen’s book published by Yale University Press? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

Recently I was debating issues of the New Testament with someone on Facebook who thought I was obviously unfamiliar with research on the New Testament, so he recommended I get this old book. I am always eager to do such and so I went straight to the library to get a copy. As I read through, I didn’t really see anything I was unfamiliar with. Fredriksen does at times bring up interesting questions that we should spend time thinking about, like why exactly was Paul persecuting the church so much and why do we not have any records of others doing such? Of course, part of that is the argument from silence, but that’s not the point of this review.

Something I find about many works that argue from a more liberal perspective is that some starting conclusions are never argued for. Those positions could be right of course hypothetically, but I would like to see an argument for them. Why should I think that Mark and the rest of the Gospels were written after 70 A.D.? In fact, I find Fredriksen’s talk of this issue to be a major problem in her interpretation.

When Fredriksen gets to a passage like the Olivet Discourse, it’s consistently interpreted as if it means the end of the world. This could be understandable as a lot of people do see it this way, but as my readers know, it’s simply wrong. Jesus is not predicting the end of the world. (What good would fleeing to the mountains do if the world was coming to an end?) Instead, Jesus is describing judgment on the Temple and that it will come within one generation.

When the talk is made of the parousia, that is the coming of Jesus, it is assumed that this means Jesus is coming to the Earth and ending it all. That’s not what he means. In Matthew, the text specifically points to Daniel. Look at the coming of the Son of Man in that book. He’s not coming to the Earth. He’s coming to the Ancient of Days. He’s taking His heavenly throne to sit at the right hand of God.

Unfortunately, Fredriksen seems to make this a centerpiece of her thinking on Jesus. She will say that it’s odd that writers would include this false prophecy and that Christians had been sure the end of the world was coming. One has to wonder why a prophecy would be included if it was knowingly false? The Gospels are thought to be after 70 A.D. because this is predictive prophecy and somehow, we know that doesn’t happen, but then the prophecy predicted was wrong. It’s something that doesn’t make sense.

For Fredriksen, this leaves the rest of the Christians confused. They thought the end was coming. This included Paul. The reference for this is 1 Thess. 4:17 with the “we who remain” passage, but there’s no reason why this we had to include Paul. If Paul is speaking about Christians, then Paul could generically say “We Christians who remain.” Paul could very well not say “Those who remain” either because he again did not know when the return of Christ would take place. (Not the parousia. The return. These are two different things.) Maybe it would take place in his lifetime. Maybe not.

Fredriksen also says the resurrection would be spiritual since flesh and blood cannot inherit the Kingdom of Heaven. Why should I not see this as a Jewish idiom? In this case, Paul is saying mortal and sinful humanity cannot inherit the Kingdom. That is why we must all be changed.

I also find it problematic to keep pointing to what the communities needed to hear that the Gospels were written to understand why the writers wrote what they wrote. What we have immediate access to is the writing itself. We don’t have access to the communities or even proof that there was a “Matthean community” or a “Lukan community.”

One way I find this problematic also is that she says that Matthew knew about the tradition that Jesus had to be virgin born so here comes Isaiah 7:14. So what is this tradition? Do we have any record of it? Does it exist in the Dead Sea Scrolls? Do we have any knowledge that Christians thought the Messiah would be virgin born? It’s as if it’s unthinkable to some that these things happened not because prophecy had to be fulfilled so the events were made up, but maybe because, well, they actually did happen and indeed, I do affirm that this virgin birth happened.

The benefit is even when Fredriksen doesn’t agree, it’s not like reading Ehrman. When one reads Ehrman, it’s like he has a vendetta to debunk the past Christian fundamentalism he used to embrace. (Note: He still embraces the methodology. Just not the outcome.) Fredriksen does raise good questions as pointed out and they should be discussed, but I just find the attempts to explain Jesus to be unconvincing.

In Christ,
Nick Peters

Book Plunge: The Destruction of Jerusalem

What hath 70 A.D. to do with Christianity? Let’s talk about it on Deeper Waters.

Awhile back I posted on Jehovah’s Witnesses and Doomsday and stated that I am an orthodox Preterist in that post. What that means I believe that much of prophecy has been fulfilled, including the Olivet Discourse found in Matthew 24, Mark 13, and Luke 21. I look forward to the bodily return of Christ and the bodily resurrection from the dead. It’s my thinking that God will redeem the Earth for man to live on forever with Christ ruling as king.

Being an owner of a Kindle now, one advantage is that old books are so easy to come by. You can get several for free. The one I’m reviewing today is not free, but recently a Christmas gift didn’t work out and I was told in exchange “Get on Amazon and buy within this price range.” So I did. One book I got was one that my friend DeeDee Warren, of the Preterist Podcast, recommended to me. It’s called “The Destruction of Jerusalem: An Absolute and Irresistable Proof of the Divine Origin of Christianity”, by George Holford

Something else important about this book. It wasn’t free. Many old books are, but it wasn’t. I suspect it’s because it is reprinted a number of times. In fact, the original one was written in 1805. This is not a new idea that is being presented. If anything, the futurist idea that is most common today is the new kid on the block. In responding to objections even, Holford doesn’t even mention anything about not taking the text literally or something of that sort. There is no mention of a futurist idea.

What do we have instead? We have a description of the destruction of Jerusalem. Our main source if Josephus, but Holford gives a good basic run down. I can warn people that if you are squeamish, this is not the book for you. In fact, if you are really that bad, this might not even be the blog post for you. We can look and say “Jerusalem got destroyed. Was it really that bad?”

Let’s see. Blood pouring through the temple. Trees being cut down just so everyone could be crucified. Bodies being cut open just so that thieves could get to the precious metals that people swallowed hoping to pass out through their system later. Mothers having to cook their children just so that they could have something to eat.

Yes. It was that bad.

And that’s just a minor sample of it.

So what has this to do with Christianity being true?

All of this was prophecied by Jesus. Jesus was seen as just a carpenter’s son. He was not a statesman or a politician. He was a teacher and yet, he made this prophecy. What it says about Him then is that He had divine knowledge about what would happen, which was never amended with “Thus says the Lord.”

Instead, Jesus spoke as if in the place of God. Why was the temple destroyed? Because Jesus was the Messiah and in rejecting Jesus, the Jews at the time broke the covenant with YHWH and thus, He abandoned the temple and left it to be destroyed by the Romans.

This would mean that Jesus was who He claimed to be and the charge of rejecting Him was incredibly serious. Of course, Holford deals with objections to his idea such as maybe Jesus was just fortunate or maybe the accounts were written after the events took place. For the latter, we today have the blessing of further scholarship which can make a powerful case that the accounts are indeed written before the fall of Jerusalem.

A negative point is that Holford does make a point about Israel not being reinstated until they repent. Unfortunately, they have been reestablished as a nation. It is my contention that this has zip to do with prophecy. Why? Check the OT. The requirement for returning to the land and restoring the covenant was national repentance. Has anyone seen repentance on the part of Israel on a national level and them turning to their Messiah?

As an aside to this, I will stress that I do support the nation of Israel still, but not for theological reasons. I support them for political reasons. I see Islam as a threat and I see Israel as a buffer to them over there. I don’t center all my policies on Israel, but I certainly don’t think America should abandon such a strong ally.

Also, I think if you have a good defense of the resurrection, that would be an excellent supplement to this book, but I would hope something like this could at least open the door to the possibility that maybe Jesus had some divine insight and maybe if Jerusalem was destroyed in this way, the claims should be taken seriously.

Skeptics need to read this book in order to get an understanding of what exactly happened and consider the possibility that maybe prophecy be real. This is especially true in a day and age where so many skeptics say “Jesus could not have been the Messiah since He even got wrong the time of His return.” (I would contend He said zip about His return. He was talking about His coming to His throne.)

Futurists should read this book in order to consider the possibility that maybe the Preterists have a point. I meet too many futurists who think they don’t need to read anything on Preterism because we don’t take the Bible literally there and so it’s ipso facto absurd. (For interpretation, the best resource is Last Days Madness by Gary DeMar.) If you have a view you think is true, you should have the courage to read one who disagrees.

Preterists need to read this in order to have a good explanation of why this is so important. One blessing with this is our futurist friends can read this book in a day. I did. In fact, it’s just 69 pages long. You could read it in a couple of hours. Also, if you are unfamiliar with DeeDee Warren who recommended this book, I will include a link to the Preteristsite which also has a link to the Preterist Podcast.

I highly recommend this book. It’s a good short read that would be a complement to any library.

In Christ,
Nick Peters

The book can be found for sale here

The Preteristsite can be found here