Jesus vs Joseph Smith?

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Today I was in a short debate with a former Orthodox Jew who had left his faith and is currently contemplating Catholicism.

A major hang-up for him was Jesus’s statement in Matthew 24:34, that “this generation shall not pass away until all these things happen.”

To him, this signified that Jesus should have returned within 40 years time, and since he did not, he was a false prophet.

I gave it my best shot, explaining how the passage has been interpreted by some scholars to not be predicting the end of the world, but only the fall of Jerusalem, or how the early Church saw no need for embarrassment over this scandal, and saw Jesus vindicated by the fall of the Temple. I also pointed out how some saints interpreted “this generation” in a spiritual sense (after all, do we not all pray to one “Father” and refer to Mary, a 1st Century Jewish woman, as our Mother?).

But he said that these apologetics reminded him of tactics that Mormons use to defend the prophecies of Joseph Smith. For example, Joseph Smith accurately predicted that a civil war would erupt in the US starting in South Carolina. However, he went on to say that this war would engulf all nations. Mormons “fudge” on this part by saying “oh that was a prophecy of WW1 and WW2 lumped in there”.

So my questions for the group are:
  1. What are better ways to defend Jesus’ prophecy, and how do we vindicate him as true prophet for these sorts of questioners?
  2. How can we show Jesus as different from the prophecies like the one I mentioned from Joseph Smith?
In other words, we need to be able to answer these questions simply, without much mental gymnastics, if we are to convince people.
 
I think the “these things” Jesus listed clearly hadn’t occurred yet, so clearly the “generation” he was discussing wasn’t the one among him - it was the future one that will be alive when “these things” occur. I cant recall what “these things” were off top of my head.
 
I believe Jesus was speaking of the generation of the tribulation. He was speaking about them just before 24:34.

I would be curious to know about the original Greek in the oldest copies. He makes reference to the particulars from Old Testament scripture, and I’d also be curious to know about the original Hebrew in the oldest copies.

We should probably also keep in mind that even the gospels weren’t written as exact courtroom style recordings of conversations. I tend to think that way myself in 2018, but people didn’t write that way historically.

The gospels were, however, written to give the good news(the meaning of the word gospel) to other people. Considering that the scripture was divinely inspired and illuminated, it’s very possible for the word “You” to be of God’s own design. In Mark’s version of this event, he says “Be watchful! I have told it all to you beforehand.” Maybe he’s breaking the 4th wall, like James Montgomery Flagg:
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There is an excellent book, “What Jesus Really Said about the End of the World.” which delves into this passage in great detail.

To put it briefly, everything in that passage has already happened. It happened around A.D. 70, just before Rome obliterate Jerusalem and destroyed the temple once and for all. That was, ultimately, the end of the Jewish world of OT sacrifice.

However, there is also the sense in which the passage echos into the future, when all of these things will happen again on a global scale. Then we will see the end of the world and the second coming. The passage makes use of some Jewish literary tools to get this point across, and that gets lost in modern translations because we’re no longer familiar with those tools. I forget the name of this tool, but essentially the passage is split in two, with the primary point being in the middle, and the two halves echoing each other, one dealing with the immediate future, and the other dealing with the far future, but both referencing each other.

It’s a really good book, I highly recommend it. It should clear up most of your concerns and help you give a better defense to your friend.
 
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BananaManSuite said:
A major hang-up for him was Jesus’s statement in Matthew 24:34, that “this generation shall not pass away until all these things happen.”

To him, this signified that Jesus should have returned within 40 years time, and since he did not, he was a false prophet.
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At that time Jerusalem was an apocalyptic nation. Everyone expected the Messiah to come and destroy the current order and restore the Jews to their rightful place, and this was going to be bloody and a great calamity. Jesus preached that Gods kingdom was already here and near and it was going to be peaceful.

Jesus is speaking in language they understood , the language of apolyptic expectation , and its fulfilment.

Jesus indeed did herald in the Kingdom of God and a change with the new Covenant.
 
I can’t renember where I read this (can’t find it in my study Bible, at least not now), but I remember reading that somewhere in the Jerusalem Temple was an image of the sun, moon and stars (which Jesus says in this passage will fall). It may have even been the Temple veil. If true, it would further strengthen the argument that Jesus was not speaking of a literal end of the world here.
 
My father explained this to me: you know how there are many things in our society that we consider “too big to fail?” That if they collapsed, we might say the world (as we know it) would end.

For a Jew, the Temple in Jersuslem was like this, that the destruction of this a Temple would be the destruction of the world. This is why the Jews freaked out immediately when Jesus talked about the destruction of the Temple.

This is why the prophecy seems to talk about both the destruction of the Temple and the end of the world: because they were one and the same and related.

But even deeper, the destruction of the Temple also refers to Christ’s body, because the Temple is where God takes resident, and Christ is the Son of God who took on flesh. A fortiori, th destruction of Christ’s body is the destruction of the world even more than the destruction of the Temple “made by human hands.” The world died on Calvary, the old creation has passed away. But the world was reborn on the third day, remade in the Image and likeness of God, Christ. The New Testiment Scripture is saturated with this theme.

So, I think we should approach the prophecy as comparing the destruction of the earthy Temple and the destruction of Christ. And that generation did experience these things completed. That’s why things like the sky went dark during the Cruxifiction, while the prophecy talks about the heavenly lights ending, and so forth.
 
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Joseph Smith didn’t have any prophesies. The sooner we realize that the better. He was a fraud.
 
BananaManSuite said:
A major hang-up for him was Jesus’s statement in Matthew 24:34, that “this generation shall not pass away until all these things happen.”
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D-R Bible, Haydock Commentary:

Ver. 34. This generation; i.e. the nation of the Jews shall not cease to exist, until all these things shall be accomplished: thus we see the nation of the Jews still continue, and will certainly continue to the end of the world. (Tirinus) — Then the cross, which has been a scandal to the Jew, and a stumbling-block to the Gentile, shall appear in the heavens, for the consolation of the good Christian. Hoc signum crucis erit in cœlo, cum Dominus ad judicandum venerit. — If it be to be understood of the destruction of Jerusalem, the sense may be, this race of men now living; if of the last day of judgment, this generation of the faithful, saith Theophylactus,[4] shall be continued: i.e. the Church of Christ, to the end of the world. (Witham) — This race, I tell you in very truth, shall not pass away till all this be finally accomplished in the ruin of Jerusalem, the most express figure of the destruction and end of the world. (Bible de Vence) — By generation, our Saviour does not mean the people that were in existence at that time, but the faithful of his Church; thus says the psalmist: this is the generation of them that seek the Lord. (Psalm xxiii, ver. 6.) (St. Chrysostom, hom. lxxvii.)
 
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