Actually Paidion history has recorded it… Josephus was but one. The prêterist view understands “all tribes of the earth” to mean all the tribes of the land γε] of Israel, i.e., the 12 tribes… thus the “every eye” was pertinent to them then of Jesus’ “this generation”. Again, the apocalyptic ‘cloud coming’ language is straight out of the OT relative to Yahweh’s coming in judgement; typically “a day of clouds” Ezek 30:3 aka the NT’s “the time of the gentiles” Lk 21:24 etc.
Hi Paidion
You say:
This would certainly make more sense as clearly light from the sunrise shines rather than flashes, but in the various translations, some 7 or 8, that I quickly consulted they all translated as ‘lightning’. The Strong’s seems to imply lightning.
Could you elaborate a bit more on the original Greek and why it should mean lighting.
Thanks, Sturmy
Oh certainly! – the problem Lewis noted is that they thought it was going to happen a lot sooner, in their own lifetimes, and it didn’t.
That’s really the main ground of the preterist position: see, they weren’t wrong (especially not Jesus), it did happen. Which in principle fits well with Jesus predicting the coming fall of Jerusalem within a generation (not so much in detail as in principle again. Which is good because otherwise it would look more like prophecy-after-the-fact, which sceptics tend to treat it as anyway, not being very familiar with what after-the-fact prophesying looks like as a literary genre. 
)
In practice I don’t find the full preterist position fits some very important non-incidental details well enough, or even at all. I wouldn’t mind if full preterism was true, but the attempt to get there strains my credulity past the breaking point every time.
Still, as is commonly pointed out (by preterists and others), even non-preterists are partial preterists because we do recognize the fall of Jerusalem as having in fact happened. And I very much sympathize with preterist complaints that this leaves the apostles and even Jesus Himself making educated guesses which turned out wrong. But since that kind of thing can still fit within the bounds of the trinitarian theology and two-natures Christology I accept, I don’t worry about it too much. On the contrary, I make positive appeal to it, where I find it helpfully applicable: the whole situation might have even been designed expressly for the purpose of exploding sceptical ‘ex eventu’ dismissals, for example.
Yes, I agree. 
It seems to be the translators’ choice as to whether the word be translated as “lighting” or “lightning”. It seems that the word is used for both. Here is one example where it CANNOT be “lightning”. Jesus said:
If then your whole body is full of light, having no part dark, the whole body will be full of light, as when the bright shining of a lamp gives you light.(Luke 11:36 NKJV)
In this verse, the word is translated as “shining”; clearly “lightning” would make no sense.
Though in many cases, the word does refer to lightning, it seems more sensible to translate it as “lighting” in Matt 24:27, since it seems to refer to the shining of the sun.
Thanks Paidion
Your reply:
…Particularly as lightning isn’t, I would have thought guaranteed to come out of the east, whereas sunrise always does. In this Matt 24 passage the meaning then is more that of ‘universally seen’ as opposed to ‘suddenness’.
Cheers S
Good point.
Let’s not miss the purpose of the teachings of the rapture and second coming. They are there to admonish us to not procrastinate a close walk with God. Who knows how it will all work out except God Himself. Our message should be that in Christ there is healing to those imprisoned by sin.
Great thread - thanks all.
which I share