Semi-Random Musings (53)

This 2021 post documented how, in not much more than a single generation, Jewish religious leaders went from burning the prophecies of Jeremiah — and physically abusing him for making them — to preserving and circulating those same predictions for posterity, such that Daniel in exile had his own copy of what eventually became Jeremiah 25.

In fewer than 66 years, Jeremiah went from pariah and public menace to one of Israel’s most respected prognosticators, though he probably didn’t live long enough to see his career re-evaluated.

How did that happen? I’ve often wondered what tipped the balance of public opinion about Jeremiah. After all, his signature prophecy of Jerusalem’s imminent destruction by Nebuchadnezzar was essentially a 50/50 proposition. Two sides were at war and only one could win, Judah or the Chaldean army. Predicting a brutal loss was not the way to make friends and influence people, but it also wasn’t a huge reach. Judah was wildly outnumbered, and Nebuchadnezzar’s armies were undefeated at the time. Any man in Jerusalem could easily have made that prediction on the evidence of his own eyes as he looked over the walls at the size of the besieging army. All he needed was sufficient courage to say what he thought. If we had only the prediction for which Jeremiah was most famous, it’s hard to imagine why public opinion about him shifted so quickly and radically in his favor … even after that prediction proved true.

A less-well-known prediction may have started the re-evaluation process rolling. It appears in Jeremiah 28. That chapter chronicles how a false prophet named Hananiah predicted that within two years, Nebuchadnezzar would return the vessels he had stolen from the temple in Jerusalem during his first invasion of Judah, along with the captives he had taken at that time, including Judah’s former king. It was a reckless and thoroughly falsifiable prophecy, and one wonders what — other than perhaps an evil spirit — might possess anyone to make it.

Some time in August or September of that same year, God told Jeremiah to respond to Hananiah face to face. “Thus says the Lord,” said Jeremiah (one of his most frequently repeated lines), “Behold, I will remove you from the face of the earth. This year you shall die, because you have uttered rebellion against the Lord.”

Weeks later, the false prophet was every bit as dead as Jeremiah foretold. That’s not a 50/50 guess or a decent reading of the tea leaves. That’s a message from God. If I were a Jew in those days, my opinion of Jeremiah would have started shifting right then.

*   *   *   *   *

The so-called “father of dispensationalism and futurism”, JN Darby, lived and wrote from 1830 through to his death in 1882. So says Wikipedia, among others. In fact, dispensationalism did not begin with Darby, though he certainly turned it into a popular theological system. He also did not “invent” the Rapture, as some claim.

Another thing Darby most definitely did not do was to tie the return of Jesus Christ to the establishment of modern Israel. How could he? Darby died 66 years before modern Israel’s establishment in 1948. In the mid-19th century, nobody could anticipate the urgent push for the creation of a Jewish homeland that would follow WWII. Credit for the dubious connection between dispensationalism and the so-called “starting gun for the Rapture” ought to go to a group of enthusiastic-but-reckless prophecy popularizers of the mid-20th century, many of whom taught that the fig tree putting out its leaves in Matthew 24:34 was a figurative reference to Israel’s reestablishment in their homeland. When I was a youngster, many believed that our Lord’s assertion that “this generation will not pass away until all these things take place” referred to the generation living in 1948 who witnessed these events, and “all these things” to the coming of the Son of Man. Further, if a biblical “generation” is 40 years, as some also claimed, then we could look for the Lord’s return by the late 1980s. Later, the duration of “generation” was somewhat arbitrarily extended to 70-80 years (referencing Psalm 90:10), putting the window for Christ’s return in the current decade.

I never liked that sort of date-setting, but dispensationalists have to concede it certainly took place, despite the fact that it could only be accomplished by piling assumption on assumption. As time has passed, such speculation has had the unfortunate consequence of providing fuel for critics eager to discredit a system of dividing the “word of truth” that for nearly a century made no such extravagant claim for Matthew 24:34, and does not require it.

Even Al Mohler is alleged to have declared recently that dispensationalism has “timed out”, though I have been unable to find a direct quote to that effect. If he did, that’s unfortunate. What has actually “timed out” are a few barnacles on the boat, not the system itself.

Our own IC and I discussed the Mohler quote on the phone yesterday, and he mentioned that there are other legitimate scriptural ways to define a generation. I’ll let him make the case:

This Strong’s entry is, I think, the fairest, most concise summary of what “generation” (γενεαὶ) refers to in scripture generally:

1074. genea: Generation

Topical Lexicon
Scope of Meaning in Scripture

The term refers to a lineage or cohort linked by birth, but Scripture broadens it to any identifiable group bound by time, heritage, or shared moral traits. Context decides whether the emphasis is chronological (successive descendants), contemporaneous (people now living), or qualitative (those marked by particular spiritual disposition).

As you can imagine, the problem comes from that fact that “generation” is capable of more than one (related though different) meaning, so that context and the speaker’s intent are absolutely crucial; for instance, when the idea of “40 years” or whatever is applied to contexts in which that is highly unlikely to be the speaker’s intention.

For example, when Peter, in his message to the Jews at Pentecost, says, “Save yourselves from this crooked generation”, is he exhorting them to save themselves from a particularly wicked 40 years’ worth of their fellow Jews, or from the entire mass of unbelieving Jewish ancestry? But if it’s only the 40-year thing, what do we make of Hebrews 3:10, when the Lord condemns “this generation” as “always go[ing] astray in their hearts?” Were there now two particularly notable 40 years’ worth of unbelievers the Lord rejects, separated by centuries, the rest being better than they? Or in Luke 11:51, is Christ charging the blood of all the prophets from Abel to Zechariah against a 40-year cohort of Jews, or against the unbelieving Jewish nation as a whole?

The Hal Lindsay set had no right to demand that “generation” meant 40 years. But the Mohler set has no more justification in participating in exactly the same error. Both rejoiced far too early. The scripture simply will not support the reading both expect us to take.

Agreed. No objection to specific interpretive claims for Matthew 24:34 can invalidate a well-established understanding of prophetic scripture that predates those claims by nearly a century. Dispensationalism does not stand or fall on one verse. If the popularity of the system is declining, it’s not because of any failing in the basic schema, but because interpreting the Bible through the lens of current events has always been a bad idea.