Preterism is an Admission That Jesus Failed to Return

[mandym]

Exapologist wrote a Blog entry called One of the Main Reasons Why I Think Christianity Is False, concerning the fact that Jesus failed as an eschatological prophet. In the comments section Paul Manata defends a partial preterism eschatology in the comments section, to which I offer these comments:

I believe preterism, or even partial preterism, is a frank concession of the fact that Jesus did not return as was expected from the earliest days of Christianity until recently. It’s one thing for skeptics to scoff, it's quite another to see Christians re-invent their eschatology to accommodate this glaring problem.

I had already mentioned on the Unchained Radio program and in a Blog entry how believers read the Bible through the lenses of their present experiences when it comes to the creation accounts in Genesis, women's roles in leadership, and slavery. Both Paul Manata and Gene Cook disputed that they do this. But here is a case where Manata has done just that.

Now here's the question for Manata. Why can he do this with the return of Jesus and I cannot do this with the present day lack of miracles when I read the Bible? Manata reinterprets the historical church understanding of eschatology in light of about 2000 years of experiences, including several recent failed predictions of the return of Jesus in 1974, 1988, and 2000. So why is it illegitimate for me to see the creation accounts in Genesis as myth because of present day modern science? All I did as a former believer was to attempt to reconcile modern science with Genesis, just as he does with the failed bodily return of Jesus.

http://debunkingchristianity.blogspot.com/2006/11/preterism-is-admission-that-jesus.html

 

[thomas15]

The reformation brought us the doctrine of sola scriptura, the Bible alone. One area that the reformers didn’t address was eschatology. Instead they continued to restate and refine that which was wildly held for centuries forgetting that much of the other details of doctrines believed by the church were in error Biblically speaking.

As time moved on, a new emphasis on the Bible was placed, focusing on the eschatological teaching in a fresh light. Some found that conventional thinking was lacking and thus systematized the end time teaching of the Bible, same as in every other aspect of the Scriptures.

It is very difficult in my opinion to shout sola scriptura on the one hand and then to rely on the teaching of the reformers and ECFs to explain a theology that is not contained within the Scriptures. Preterism is an attempt to explain the precepts of the Bible in a way that keeps the historical thinking intact and doesn’t offend the 19th century protestant liberals. It accomplishes this by placing end time events on a higher mental plane. Those espousing preterism do so by aggressively overloading the debate with references that do not prove their point, rather they are designed to burden the opposing viewpoint with unnecessary and secondary considerations. This is what separates it (preterism) from conventional reformed theology.

No one reading the Bible as they would any other work of literature would come to the modern preterist conclusion. Covenant theology in general and Preterism in particular do not follow the same rules of interpretation for eschatology that are used for any other aspect of Biblical teaching. If they did, that is, spiritualizing the doctrines of Christ or the church for example; they would not be Christians in the Biblical sense.