03/10/2024
What we weren't taught about Bible prophecy.
In May AD66 two non-Christian historians Josephus and Tacitus described a supernatural vision of armies in the clouds above Israel. Three and a half years later in AD70 Titus desecrated and destroyed Jerusalem Temple.
This was predicted by Jesus some 33 years previous when speaking to his disciples (see Matthew 24:2).
Many if not most Christians have been taught that Matt. 24 is mostly about the far distant future i.e. now, supposedly "the last days".
In Matt. 24 when Jesus is asked by his disciples "what are the signs of your coming and the end of the age?" he outlines a whole series of signs, natural and spiritual (symbolic).
He then says (verse 34) "Truly, I say to you, this generation will not pass away until all these things take place."
I was taught, like many, that "this generation" actually means a future generation. The suggestion is that Jesus did not mean what he actually said because "obviously all these things haven't happened".
Historical and biblical research suggests the opposite and this idea that all prophecy is in the far distant future from when it was written has only become popular since the publication of Scofield's Reference Bible in 1909. Scofield was simply passing on the earlier teachings of John Nelson Darby i.e. dispensationalism.
Whenever the state of Israel starts warring with its neighbours (which it has done for the past 75 years) Christians start getting excited about "the second coming" "the rapture" and "the tribulation" and argue endlessly about which order they happen in.
What if I told you that it was all fulfilled in the 1st Century AD, around the desecration and destruction of the temple in Jerusalem.
Here's part of the story from historians of the time, Josephus and Tacitus (who saw the event) and later historians who testified to it.
Josephus, The Wars of the Jews 6.5.3
[O]n the twenty-first day of the month of Artemisius [Jyar], a certain prodigious and incredible phenomenon appeared; I suppose the account of it would seem to be a fable, were it not related by those that saw it, and were not the events that followed it of so considerable a nature as to deserve such signals; for, before sunsetting, chariots and troops of soldiers in their armor were seen running about among the clouds, and surrounding of cities.
Tacitus: The Histories 5.13
“In the sky appeared a vision of armies in conflict, of glittering armour.”
Pseudo-Hegesippus 44: “A certain figure appeared of tremendous size, which many saw, just as the books of the Jews have disclosed, and before the setting of the sun there were suddenly seen in the clouds chariots in the clouds and armed battle arrays by which the cities of all Iudaea and its territories were invaded.”
Sepher Yosippon: A Mediaeval History of Ancient Israel translated from the Hebrew by Steven B. Bowman. Excerpts from Chapter 87 “Burning of the Temple” cited in http://fulfilledtheology.ning.com/forum/topics/historical-records-with-some (9/16/2014) “Moreover, in those days were seen chariots of fire and horsemen, a great force flying across the sky near to the ground coming against Jerusalem and all the land of Judah, all of them horses of fire and riders of fire.”4 The parallels between these three accounts and Revelation 19 are striking. However, in Yosippon’s account one can see how 2 Thessalonians 1:7 was explicitly and LITERALLY fulfilled in A.D. 66: “This will happen when the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven in blazing fire with his powerful angels.”
