Featured The Meaning of "parousia" in Greek

So you say, but you haven't convinced me.

 

In all honesty, no disrespect intended, in fact I have much respect for your skills, BUT, IMO, you've made a mountain out of a molehill over one Greek word in an attempt to...what? Stamp out preterism? You strain out the proverbial gnat and swallow the proverbial camel with your tunnel vision focus on the one Greek word 'parousia' while totally disregarding the timeline that's given within all three accounts of the Olivet Discourse:

Verily I say unto you, This generation shall not pass away, till all these things be accomplished. Mt 24:34

Verily I say unto you, This generation shall not pass away, until all these things be accomplished. Mk 13:30

Verily I say unto you, This generation shall not pass away, till all things be accomplished. Lk 21:32

You accuse me of 'mixing King with Kingdom' when it's exactly what the writers of the gospels do:

28 Verily I say unto you, there are some of them that stand here, who shall in no wise taste of death, till they see the Son of man coming in his kingdom. Mt 16

64 Jesus said unto him, Thou hast said: nevertheless I say unto you, Henceforth ye shall see the Son of man sitting at the right hand of Power, and coming on the clouds of heaven. Mt 26

20 And being asked by the Pharisees, when the kingdom of God cometh, he answered them and said, The kingdom of God cometh not with observation:
21 neither shall they say, Lo, here! or, There! for lo, the kingdom of God is within you.
22 And he said unto the disciples, The days will come, when ye shall desire to see one of the days of the Son of man, and ye shall not see it.
23 And they shall say to you, Lo, there! Lo, here! go not away, nor follow after them:
24 for as the lightning, when it lighteneth out of the one part under the heaven, shineth unto the other part under heaven; so shall the Son of man be in his day.
25 But first must he suffer many things and be rejected of this generation. Lu 17

The very first words of preaching from the King and His herald were:

2 Repent ye; for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. Mt 3

15....The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand: repent ye, and believe in the gospel. Mk 1

(incidently, notice one says kingdom of heaven, the other says kingdom of God? You have some gnats to strain out there also?)

 

That particular generation of Christ's day was a peculiar generation in that it had been foretold of through prophecy such as the Song of Moses [Dt 31:16 - Dt 32], which also is quoted from several times in the NT. Only minutes earlier in the temple had Christ prophesied again concerning that particular generation:

33 Ye serpents, ye offspring of vipers, how shall ye escape the judgment of hell?
34 Therefore, behold, I send unto you prophets, and wise men, and scribes: some of them shall ye kill and crucify; and some of them shall ye scourge in your synagogues, and persecute from city to city:
35 that upon you may come all the righteous blood shed on the earth, from the blood of Abel the righteous unto the blood of Zachariah son of Barachiah, whom ye slew between the sanctuary and the altar.
36 Verily I say unto you, All these things shall come upon this generation.
37 O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, that killeth the prophets, and stoneth them that are sent unto her! how often would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would not!
38 Behold, your house is left unto you desolate. Mt 23

Christ is still referring to that particular generation in the Olivet Discourse.

The 'preunderstanding of the Modern Linguistics school' that you are again demonstrating complicates and disconnects, and in this instance destroys the underlying continuity of the scriptures concerning that very wicked generation. They're called serpents and offspring of vipers by Christ and John the Baptist and specifically singled out by Moses some 1400 years earlier where he plainly states “they are not His children”:

21 And it shall come to pass, when many evils and troubles are come upon them, that this song shall testify before them as a witness; for it shall not be forgotten out of the mouths of their seed: for I know their imagination which they frame this day, before I have brought them into the land which I sware.
22 So Moses wrote this song the same day, and taught it the children of Israel.
29 For I know that after my death ye will utterly corrupt yourselves, and turn aside from the way which I have commanded you; and evil will befall you in the latter days; because ye will do that which is evil in the sight of Jehovah, to provoke him to anger through the work of your hands. Dt 31
5 They have dealt corruptly with him, they are not his children, it is their blemish; They are a perverse and crooked generation.
20 And he said, I will hide my face from them, I will see what their end shall be: For they are a very perverse generation, Children in whom is no faithfulness.
21 They have moved me to jealousy with that which is not God; They have provoked me to anger with their vanities: And I will move them to jealousy with those that are not a people; I will provoke them to anger with a foolish nation. Dt 32

8 Then certain of the scribes and Pharisees answered him, saying, Teacher, we would see a sign from thee.
39 But he answered and said unto them, An evil and adulterous generation seeketh after a sign; and there shall no sign be given it but the sign of Jonah the prophet:
40 for as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the whale; so shall the Son of man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.
41 The men of Nineveh shall stand up in the judgment with this generation, and shall condemn it: for they repented at the preaching of Jonah; and behold, a greater than Jonah is here.
42 The queen of the south shall rise up in the judgment with this generation, and shall condemn it: for she came from the ends of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon; and behold, a greater than Solomon is here.
43 But the unclean spirit, when he is gone out of the man, passeth through waterless places, seeking rest, and findeth it not.
44 Then he saith, I will return into my house whence I came out; and when he is come, he findeth it empty, swept, and garnished.
45 Then goeth he, and taketh with himself seven other spirits more evil than himself, and they enter in and dwell there: and the last state of that man becometh worse than the first. Even so shall it be also unto this evil generation. Mt 12

1 And the Pharisees and Sadducees came, and trying him asked him to show them a sign from heaven.
2 But he answered and said unto them, When it is evening, ye say, It will be fair weather: for the heaven is red.
3 And in the morning, It will be foul weather to-day: for the heaven is red and lowering. Ye know how to discern the face of the heaven; but ye cannot discern the signs of the times.
4 An evil and adulterous generation seeketh after a sign; and there shall no sign be given unto it, but the sign of Jonah. And he left them, and departed. Mt 16

24 for as the lightning, when it lighteneth out of the one part under the heaven, shineth unto the other part under heaven; so shall the Son of man be in his day.
25 But first must he suffer many things and be rejected of this generation. Lu 17

22 For these are days of vengeance, that all things which are written may be fulfilled.
23 Woe unto them that are with child and to them that give suck in those days! for there shall be great distress upon the land, and wrath unto this people.
24 And they shall fall by the edge of the sword, and shall be led captive into all the nations: and Jerusalem shall be trodden down of the Gentiles, until the times of the Gentiles be fulfilled.
32 Verily I say unto you, This generation shall not pass away, till all things be accomplished. Lk 21

16 But whereunto shall I liken this generation? It is like unto children sitting in the marketplaces, who call unto their fellows
17 and say, We piped unto you, and ye did not dance; we wailed, and ye did not mourn.
18 For John came neither eating nor drinking, and they say, He hath a demon.
19 The Son of man came eating and drinking, and they say, Behold, a gluttonous man and a winebibber, a friend of publicans and sinners! And wisdom is justified by her works. Mt 11

40 And with many other words he testified, and exhorted them, saying, Save yourselves from this crooked generation. Acts 2

And Josephus certainly had nothing good to say of 'that generation':

“It is therefore impossible to go distinctly over every instance of these men's iniquity. I shall therefore speak my mind here at once briefly: - That neither did any other city ever suffer such miseries, nor did any age ever breed a generation more fruitful in wickedness than this was, from the beginning of the world.....” Book 5, ch 10, sec. 5

“.. I suppose, that had the Romans made any longer delay in coming against these villains, that the city would either have been swallowed up by the ground opening upon them, or been overflowed by water, or else been destroyed by such thunder as the country of Sodom (20) perished by, for it had brought forth a generation of men much more atheistical than were those that suffered such punishments; for by their madness it was that all the people came to be destroyed....” Book 5, ch. 13, sec. 6

“....and I cannot but think that it was because God had doomed this city to destruction, as a polluted city, and was resolved to purge his sanctuary by fire, that he cut off these their great defenders and well-wishers, while those that a little before had worn the sacred garments, and had presided over the public worship; and had been esteemed venerable by those that dwelt on the whole habitable earth when they came into our city, were cast out naked, and seen to be the food of dogs and wild beasts. And I cannot but imagine that virtue itself groaned at these men's case, and lamented that she was here so terribly conquered by wickedness.....” Book 4, ch. 5, sec. 2[/QUOTE]

 

I'm pretty sure this essay is of 'post 19th century' origin, so it ought to be eligible for consideration by the 'Modern Linguistics' camp.

"...The word Matthew uses is parousia, and Matthew alone among the Gospels uses this word. The word means presence or arrival. Here is how it is used in an "everyday" sense:

2 Cor. 10:10 For his letters, say they, are weighty and powerful; but his bodily presence is weak, and his speech contemptible.

1 Cor. 16:17 I am glad of the coming of Stephanas and Fortunatus and Achaicus: for that which was lacking on your part they have supplied.
Some observations on this word:

*Prior to the NT and into the second century, the word was used "for the arrival of a ruler, king or emperor." It is used for example of a special visit by Nero to Corinth, when coins were cast in honor of his visit.

*However, the term was also used in Hellenistic contexts to refer to a theophany, or a manifestation of deity. In the Greek form of several Jewish apocryphal works (Testament of the Twelve Patriarchs, Testament of Judah, Testament of Levi) it is "used to refer to the final coming of God." Josephus uses the term to refer to OT theophanies (Ant. 3.80, 202-3; 9:55).

In our examination of the Pauline use of this word, we will be tying together some issues and Paul's own use of parousia to refer to the time of the resurrection. For now, it should be remembered that parousia has several shades of meaning (including an "everyday" meaning whose "everyday" use by Paul suggests that it is not a technical term referring to one event), and is also clearly a word choice of Matthew. I believe that these word choices were made independently and may have caused the confusion referred to by Paul in the Thessalonian church."
http://www.tektonics.org/esch/olivet01.html

 

Was John Gill a preterist?

 

I doubt he had ever heard the term. What he was, he was an astute student of the word that was astute and objective enough to realize when prophecy had been realized.

That's all preterism means, 'realized eschatology'.

 

So would you say that Gill believed and wrote that all of, or perhaps maybe 99% of the prophecies mentioned in the Bible were fufilled in AD 70? Did he write that Jesus returned in the first century and that Titus 2:9-14 (looking for the blessed hope) are not applicable to us today?

Titus 2:9-14 "For the grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all men. It teaches us to say “No” to ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright and godly lives in this present age, while we wait for the blessed hope—the glorious appearing of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ, who gave himself for us to redeem us from all wickedness and to purify for himself a people that are his very own, eager to do what is good."

 

Read him your own self, make your own decisions.

 

Percho, I say it's the 'incoming of the Gentiles', or, 'the enlargement of Israel'.

http://www.baptistboard.com/showthread.php?p=1548960#post1548960

 

???????

I'm puzzled.

 

So if he had said 'contemporary use' (as you did) instead of 'everyday use' it would be OK and you would accept it instead of criticizing it?

 

Maybe you should start a thread on the meaning of the word 'contemporary'.