Well, not happy days (yet) for some of the people mentioned at the end of chp 24 and throughout chp 25 (not to say all the nations of the world mourning at 24:30). But, leaving all that aside (once again):
So actually you do believe that some of the events in the verses preceding 24:34 happened, and some of them have not yet happened but still have yet to happen, and some of the things that did happen will be fulfilled again later another way.
Which is exactly, in principle, what the tribulationists believe.
So instead of complaining about how the tribulationists don’t believe it was all completely fulfilled already, why not stick with complaining about the tribulationists believing there’s still tribulation to come? (Which isn’t the same as denying that there’s already been some tribulation fulfillment in the fall of Jerusalem. Which, again, no tribulationist I am aware of has ever denied, but rather has always affirmed.)
Meanwhile, something I was meaning to add in my previous comment but forgot (phone rang):
Nope. I’m expecting to see the Son of Man’s arrival being blatantly obvious to everyone under the sky, as if lightning is flashing from west to east. And I’m also expecting that (per v.34) the {genea}, which can mean a couple of different (though related) things, will not pass away before that’s accomplished.
If I talk consistently about the glorious appearance of Christ in His arrival (which I’ve done, even before that comment), why would you try to reduce the expectation to only seeing lightning? No one, tribulationist or otherwise, expects to see only lightning; and there’s nothing in that verse to indicate that we should expect to see only lightning–or even lightning at all per se! There may be something about that somewhere else–in fact I’m pretty sure there is–but I’m going to bet, without even looking it up yet, that the lightning isn’t the important thing to be paying attention to there, either. 
(Sheesh?)
Also, incidentally, I’m not a dispensationalist. What part of anything I’ve ever written was about dispensational ages or whatever?
On the contrary, dispensationalists would hugely disagree with me about the Trinity acting coherently across all history, insisting instead that the Son has convinced the Father to do something new in regard to us by propitiating the Father on the cross, or something of that sort. I very obviously don’t reckon ages by dispensational shifts in what God counts as salvation, much less in God’s attitude toward sinners–because I deny such shifts even occur.
Wouldn’t it be better to wait until I actually appeal to dispensational shifts in eschatology or eras (e.g. “the end of the Jewish Age” or something like that), especially since I’ve routinely denied such things happen, before describing me as dispensational??
(At least I am some sort of tribulationist, in the sense of expecting some kind of tribulation still to come. Though I’m not particularly particular about the actual particulars of it yet. )
Since this is in reference to vv.26-28, I will suppose you mean the number of Jews killed and enslaved by the Roman armies down through Palestine on the way to Jerusalem.
This still runs entirely against the thrust of 26a. But for what it’s worth I don’t disagree that Jesus was predicting the Romans would destroy Jerusalem and the Temple, and was warning people ahead of time that if they were paying attention they’d have time to get away–don’t trust that God would save Jerusalem and the Temple, because it wasn’t going to happen. (On the contrary, I’ve always affirmed that. I’ll provide a link a little later for an example predating the beginning of this forum.)
What I disagree about is that verses 26-28 primarily apply as a way to warn people to get away from Jerusalem in time. The logic and grammar there just don’t work in that direction. Nor do the larger scale contextual issues concerning the coming/arrival of the Son of Man, which is what those verses are explicitly about.
The prophecies about the forthcoming fall of Jerusalem weren’t “against Athens or Tokyo or Tahiti or the Greeks, Japanese and Polynesians”, of course. But the coming/arrival of the Son of Man in the Day of the Lord isn’t about merely “the end of the Jewish age” either–even though (as in the Isaiah ref I gave–which is being quoted in these verses!) particular military defeats are often described in terms of the climactic Day of YHWH to come. The fall of Jerusalem (generally) and of the Temple (specifically) had been described that way before, back before the first dispersion of the kingdoms of Israel and Judah. But that didn’t mean the climactic Day of the Lord had been altogether fulfilled (or even much fulfilled at all) back then (any more than it had been fulfilled in the Isaiah prophecy by the Medes brutally overthrowing Babylon). It certainly wasn’t in 70CE either; or we wouldn’t be sitting around now discussing whether “all things” were fulfilled.
Actually, there’s good textual evidence that verse 3 isn’t original to GosMatt. Nor is it found in GosMark at all, which relates the same scene.
However! (whew, this is going to be complex… bear with me.) GosLuke reports Jesus saying something very similar on the road up from Jericho to Jerusalem (7 days before His crucifixion, as far as I can reckon):
"Whenever you see a cloud coming up in the west, immediately you say, ‘A rainstorm is coming!’; and so it happens.
"And whenever it blows from the south, you say, ‘It will be scorching!’; and so it happens.
"Hypocrites!–you know how to judge the appearance of earth and sky, yet you do not know how to judge this time! Now why, even on your own initiative, will you not judge what is fair!?
"For as you are going away with the one who accuses you to the magistrate, take action on the way in order to settle with him!–lest at some time, he may be dragging you to the judge; and the judge give you up to the sheriff; and the sheriff be casting you into jail!
“I am telling you: you absolutely shall not be departing from there, until you will pay up the very last cent.” (Luke 12:54-59; my comparative translation)
GosLuke reports that “on the same occasion” as Jesus giving this saying, some people report to Him about Pilate killing some Galileans. Jesus answers that those Galileans were not greater sinners than any other Galileans, just like those on whom the tower of Siloam fell were not worse debtors than all the men who live in Jerusalem. Nevertheless, unless His listeners repent they will all likewise be destroyed. (Luke 13:1-5)
Luke follows this up with a brief parable of the unfruitful fig tree (13:6-9) being under threat of destruction because its owner had come for three years looking for fruit on it and had found none. And it won’t get many more chances. (While Luke doesn’t include a time/place stamp here, I’m inclined to consider it original to the scene. It’s certainly original to the text.)
Comparing these dire warnings against other more specific warnings (and to OT warnings and figurative language), I agree they’re warning about the forthcoming destruction of Jerusalem.
Luke also reports, immediately preceding that section, a number of sayings basically similar to Jesus’ reply to His disciples about signs of when “these things will happen” on the Mount of Olives after predicting the destruction of the Temple (as reported in the Matthean section we’re discussing, as well as GosMark 13, though far more briefly.) These are all pretty clearly original to Luke’s text, but there’s a good chance he has ported them over into this scene instead of including them in his own Olive Mount Warning scene. His transition into them topically at verse 35 is awfully abrupt. Whereas Luke uses a general transition at verse 54 which can indicate some significant time has passed since the incidents reported in verses 13-34, and previously.
On the other hand, the whole sequence starts at 12:1 onward with some teaching warning both of wrath and destruction to come, and also consolation that God’s intentions toward them are not exhausted by the real threats. (“I will warn you Who to fear!” but also “Do not fear; you are of more value than many sparrows” not one of whom is forgotten before God.) These themes are continued on through parables and sayings (with verbal callbacks) up to verse 34. So even if Luke decided to port 35-53 over to this chapter, it does thematically fit, just like the warnings of vv.12:54-13:9. (And besides, Jesus may have thought to tell this crowd some things that He would later repeat in his Olive Mount Warnings. It’s also possible Matthew is the one who did the porting, though they fit in very well with his uniquely reported warnings from Christ as the end of that scene, about lazy or uncharitable discipleship being punished in the Day of the Lord to come.)
I promise, I’m about to connect this back more directly to that Matt/Mark scene at the south end of Galilee Lake. In fact, Luke very specifically begins with an emphatic (if still not totally specific) time/place cue in 12:1 which involves a saying:
“A crowd of ten thousand was now assembled, so that they were trampling on one another! Under these circumstances, He begins saying to His disciples first: ‘Beware the leaven of the Pharisees and Sadducees!’”
This is a strong indication that this saying is original to the scene, not something Luke ported over from somewhere else in order to make sure it was included topically somewhere. Yet it doesn’t show up anywhere else in GosLuke. In fact, it only shows up in one other scene: a scene Luke doesn’t report. And that’s the scene on the boat, heading back up north along the east coast of Galilee lake, after Jesus refuses the request from the Sadducees for a sign!
Which is the scene that very specifically follows Matt 16:1-4 and Mark 8:11-13, with narrative clear time/place cues, in each text. (The Feeding of the 4000 is important in each report of that incident, too; which may be another reason Luke doesn’t report it: GosLuke skips the 4000 feeding altogether, but it immediately precedes with clear narrative time/place cues the incidents being talked about here in GosMatt and GosMark.)
So! {inhale!} 
(Sorry it took me so long to work back around to this, but the data is pretty complex.) Even if Matt 16:2b-3 isn’t original to the text, there’s strong textual evidence that Jesus later calls His disciples’ attention back to that incident as a prelude to consolations and warnings concerning the destruction of Jerusalem (in the relative short run; but the coming judgment of Christ on all the world in the long run).
Which would go a long way toward explaining why a scribe might want to put a version of that parable there in the text, even though if wasn’t original there. Especially since the qualifier “except the sign of Jonah” is (by all evidence) original to the GosMatt text at verse 4.
Now, that qualifier isn’t found in GosMark. However, GosMatt elsewhere includes a remark about the sign of Jonah interpreting it as the resurrection of Christ in parallel to Jonah being in the belly of the sea monster–which GosLuke doesn’t include when relating the exact same incident elsewhere. In the story of Jonah, the only sign that Ninevah actually received was Jonah going in and proclaiming its destruction in 40 days (before turning around and marching right back out again to wait for the zorching ). The sea monster thing happened far away from there, and there’s no evidence Jonah ever said anything about it–on the contrary the point of that story is that his preaching is intentionally ridiculously minimal, actually leaving out some things God meant for him to say, so that Ninevah wouldn’t repent and thus would be destroyed by God. But Ninevah repents anyway. That means there’s a pretty good chance Matthew, or GosMatt’s Greek original editor, added the part about the sea monster and the resurrection as an explanatory gloss–which the grammar would support. But without that explanation, the obvious fit at 16:4 would be ‘40 periods until Ninevah is destroyed’. I expect GosMatt’s inclusion of the ‘sign of Jonah’ at verse 4, therefore, is original to his knowledge of the story; not a gloss he inserted. That weighs toward it being an accurate piece of extra historical info, just not included by Mark in his report of the incident.
Be that as it may, one way or another the reference to ‘the sign of Jonah’ fits the notion that, in that place, Jesus was telling the Pharisee and Sadducean deputation (meaning it was probably from the Sanhedrin) that the only sign they were going to get was the destruction of Jerusalem in 40 periods of time.
But there’s at least one more reason to connect that incident as a prophecy of the forthcoming downfall of Israel.
This incident has interesting but very quiet parallels to a tragic event that would happen later during the Jewish War. For the route chosen by Jesus along Lake Galilee also became the route of the Roman armies of Titus and Vespasian, flanking the nationalistic Galilee territory in their march toward Jerusalem. Eventually a great battle was fought on the southeastern shoreline near the fort of Tarichoea, known today as Kerak, placed to guard where the river Jordan exits Lake Galilee. After the defeat of 6500 defenders of the fort, their bodies were thrown into Lake Galilee, famously bloodying the water. (Incidentally, the historian Josephus, a general of the Israeli troops, betrayed refugees from this battle by suggesting they take refuge in the ‘circus’ of nearby Tiberius, allowing them to be trapped, the weak and old slaughtered, and the rest sold into slavery by the Romans whom he joined.)
I talked about this (and some other surrounding contexts) here back in March 2008. 
Thank you for finally providing the reference. Yep, it’s the quote I expected. (I didn’t want to guess, because for all I knew you might have found something else.)
The full text can be found here; the fastest way to get to the relevant paragraph will be to search for the phrase “Thus were the miserable people” (which starts that paragraph of that chapter.) It’s a big paragraph, and the portion you quoted is smack in the middle of it, beginning with “Besides these, a few days after that feast”. (The pdf article Ran provided relates most of that paragraph, too, by the way, in case anyone is wondering. I’m just providing a direct reference in case anyone wants to cross check.)
It’s certainly a nifty anecdote. But it has some problems being applied as a fulfillment of Matt 24:27 and/or 24:29-31. (Which is what you presented it as applying to. Unlike one of the authors in the pdf article you linked to, by the way. More on that later.)
The first problem is that Josephus says this takes place (along with several other signs on that particular Passover holiday) no less than three years before the fall of Jerusalem and maybe longer. Specifically, “before the Jews’ rebellion, and before those commotions which preceded the war”. When Josephus references “a few days after that feast”, he means that feast (of Passover) previously mentioned in the paragraph.
The coming of the Son of Man, though, happens (by pretty much everyone’s interpretation, including your own so far) well after the Jews’ rebellion has begun, and also thus (by chronology) even longer after the commotions that preceded the war. “But immediately after the tribulation of those days,” which by implication can be described by the vultures eating corpses in v.28, “the sun will be darkened [etc.] and then [after the cosmic catastrophe thingies] the sign of the Son of Man will appear in the sky.”
So the timing is all wrong. Which should have been obvious anyway: the whole point to Josephus recounting his sign (or signs rather) is that people had years to figure out that they were doomed and escape. By the time of the sign of the Son of Man in the sky in GosMatt (and pretty much every other place in the Bible that talks about it), the tribulation has been roaring along for a while and in fact is capping off with this. It’s far far far too late to run by the time the sign of the Son of Man is seen; on the contrary, that’s the time to finally hope that it’s over! (Except for how scary that and its subsequent judgment is going to be for a lot of people–which absolutely can’t be run from or escaped. And those details are all part of the text, too, within and in close proximity to the verses preceding v.34.)
Which, not-incidentally, is why Matthew doesn’t present that sign as a warning to escape early. He presents the sign of the Abomination of Desolation being set up in the Temple, as the sign to run the heck away asap. (24:15-22) The events of 23ff, including 27-31, happen after that. “Then,” after the tribulation has started, in 21-21, or at least after the Abom is set up in v.15, “if anyone says to you [Christ is here or there, or is to be found by going here or there], do not believe.” Why? Because when Christ actually arrives, it’ll be extremely obvious to everyone, in a cosmically awesome fashion; and the tribulation will climax and end. (Except for those under judgment by Christ.)
Second, Josephus isn’t relating a sky-sign about God Himself (and/or the Messiah) appearing in judgment over Jerusalem. He’s describing troops and chariots running around. These are totally missing in GosMatt (even though they can be found in other Biblical expectations of the coming of the Son of Man–where they won’t just be harmlessly running around in the sky and maybe in the fog among the suburbs late one peaceful afternoon at sunset). The details don’t match up at all, aside from both being generally ‘militant’ in some fashion. Nor is there any good reason why Josephus would have omitted or substituted the details (nor the people of good repute that he had heard this from–which he could scarcely believe himself).
Third, while Josephus reports a star standing over the city and a comet (and a comet?) that shone in the sky for a whole year, those are only vaguely similar to the cosmic catastrophes described (pretty typically) in verse 29. Stars are mentioned in both places, but that’s it. Josephus doesn’t even reference falling stars per se. Also, the timing seems very wrong again: even though Josephus doesn’t tell when those star-signs happened, his placement of them in the paragraph and more importantly his reason for mentioning them at all (as evidence that the city was doomed and people had plenty of time to flee) would tend to imply they were early enough that (duh) people had time to interpret them as a bad omen and flee. But by the time the cosmic catastrophes occur with the coming of the Son of Man, it’s far too late to run away from the tribulation (which is actually climaxing and finishing up).
Fourth: Josephus doesn’t identify the voices (heard at Pentacost) with the apparitional troops seen (not heard) a few days after Passover; and I expect he has a good reason for that. Namely, they occur several weeks apart, and are doing different things! (The troops aren’t leaving, they’re milling around for war.)
Fifth (and perhaps least): while the voices could easily be a warning to God’s loyal congregation to leave (or a representation of them doing so)–which is certainly how Josephus interpreted it–there is no indication from the event, even by Josephus (who was well versed in the OT and its Temple lore), that this involved God leaving the Temple. (Which Josephus would have linked to OT denunciations and departures of the Visible Presence and thus an even stronger warning, maybe the strongest possible, that the Temple was being abandoned to its punishment by God. Which in turn would have served his apologetic interests exactly. Compare with his upgraded report later in the 3rd chapter of the fifth book of the Antiquities; though even there it isn’t God leaving the temple but ‘the gods’. On the other hand, since that wouldn’t have been originally in Greek, maybe it was supposed to mean God’s own plural name. It’s rather flashier than his previous report in JW.)
Relatedly, Jesus had already decisively left the Temple, a couple of days before His crucifixion (in terms and imagery of the Visible Presence of YHWH leaving the Temple)–the apocalyptic warnings of GosMatt (and GosMark) are given right after that, in answer to questions about that! He was brought back into it temporarily for the brief formal trial Friday morning, but obviously had to leave again (and couldn’t have been said to have returned at that time anyway, in any relevantly meaningful fashion).
Still, if you kept it to the sound of His church leaving, that would fit well enough.
The rest of it, though, simply doesn’t fit at all (except in the most tangential ways imaginable).
Out of curiosity, I read the pdf you attached. I was especially interested to see the attempt to connect the great light shining around the altar and the holy house for half an hour one night during that same Passover holiday (at least three years before the fall of the Temple) with the prophecies of how in the final Day of the Lord to come “when He binds up the fracture of His people and heals the bruise of His blow” (Isaiah 30:26) “there will be neither day nor night but it will come about that at evening time there will be light” (Zech 14:7) and “the light of the moon will be like the light of the sun, and the light of the sun will be seven times (brighter) like the light of seven days.” (Is 30:26 again) Indeed, I hardly know quite what to say about that. Other than to point out that what Josephus reports, aside from having something to do with miraculous light somehow, is totally different from the prophecies (“the plain teaching of the Bible”?) adduced by the author. 
Dan Hardin can’t be said to have addressed the issues in the detail I just did. (Though he somehow thinks the “imagery is exactly the same”.)
Ernest Martin’s connection of Josephus’ report of spectral armies with Luke 21:20 is much better–at least it gets the relevant imagery right! It might even get the timing right (or right enough), since Luke’s account doesn’t feature quite the urgency to get away without the least delay. (But that might be rhetorical emphasis in GosMatt and GosMark, admittedly.) It doesn’t synch up in the least with the parallel Synoptics warning there about the Abom being put in the Temple, though; combined together, the impression would be that an occupying army has encamped around the city while its leader violates the Temple and set himself up on par with God Most High. That would in fact be a great time to leave; the army might even allow it (since they’re only encamping, not besieging–they’d probably much prefer the general population be gone in case their boss provokes an uprising!) But one hardly needs spectral armies seen for a few minutes around sunset for that.
Mr. Martin, by the way, agrees the spectral army vision occurred no less than three years before the fall of the Temple. (He puts the date at 66AD, actually.) I have no problem believing Eusebius’ (much much later) report that the Christians and apostles (if there were any apostles in Jerusalem at that time, which seems doubtful) packed up after those two incidents and moved to Pella. But the two things (together or apart) still don’t actually fit the scriptural data there very well. Mr. Martin is stretching things pretty far to say that angelic/spectral troops (and a voice or voices declaring it’s time to leave) is “precisely what Christ Jesus said to watch for in His Olivet Prophecy.”
The article from Gary North adds exactly nothing to the present argument–but it has other things to talk about, so I doubt it was included for that purpose anyway.
Incidentally, I agree about RevJohn having been most likely written pre-70; though it might have been first publicly published later. Mr. North’s application of Psalm 110 is peculiar to say the least, considering that he himself points out it’s quoted a lot in the New Testament. But it’s never quoted in the New Testament to mean that “a legitimate role of God’s people is to rule in the midst of our spiritual enemies and opponents”! (Or if so, it’s so rare that all I can remember are the all the other times when it refers to the continuing and eternal rule of Jesus. Which continuing and eternal rule doesn’t bother rapturists and/or tribbers and/or millenialists, or not trinitarian ones anyway, a single whit more than it bothers them when considering the Incarnation in the first place. Be that as it may.)
That seems to be all so far! Your turn.
Is it possible that the Christians were harpazo’d (caught up) and it wouldn’t have been noticed? The ones living near Jerusalem wouldn’t be noticed surely, as there was so much turmoil going on, and as there were only little pockets of believers scattered throughout the world, maybe they went unnoticed too? Paul’s warnings about things not being long to wait etc, only make sense if those he was speaking to were expecting things in their life times. I assume none of the early Church Father’s have mentioned anyone disappearing, and so this is rejected??? Do you know anything about this [tag]Sobornost[/tag] and [tag]JasonPratt[/tag] 
The pmail system has been screwy for a while – I just stumbled on the thread somewhat by accident.
