Kata Markon

["Phil Campbell" <philcam AT tpg.com.au>]

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One brief comment - whichever "end" we're debating the immanece of, surely
in its context it must be an END OF ISRAEL. Background like Ezekiel 32:7-8
use the same apocalyptic imagery to talk about the snuffing out of Israel...

"7  When I snuff you out, I will cover the heavens and darken their stars; I
will cover the sun with a cloud, and the moon will not give its light.
8  All the shining lights in the heavens I will darken over you; I will
bring darkness over your land, declares the Sovereign LORD."

More to the point, Jesus and the disciples as ISRAELITES are talking about
the demise of the TEMPLE... the prospect of the "end of the world" as a
whole is not really on view.

Phil Campbell


----- Original Message -----
From: "Hudson Barton" <hhbv AT highwinds.com>
To: "Kata Markon" <gmark AT franklin.oit.unc.edu>
Sent: Saturday, 6 January 2001 7:34 am
Subject: [gmark] Re: Chaper 13


> >Professor L.W. Hurtado" wrote:
> >
> >>  Well, it does seem likely that the author of Mark expected/hoped
> >>  for the coming of the Son of Man sooner than has proven to be the
> >>  case!!  But, on the other hand, the dominant thrust of chap 13 is to
> >>  REFUTE and DISCOURAGE any notion that the end is immediate
> >>  (13:5-8, 10, 13b, 21-23), but must be preceded by (1) all sorts of
> >>  traumas that are merely what characterizes an indefinite time
> >>  period (the single most repeated theme is warning against being
> >  > led astray and alarmed at the disasters)
> >
>
> Yes.  The passage warns of predictions which move the date of this
> "end"  either forward or backward..."Take heed, watch, for you do not
> know when..."  The point Jesus is making is to recommend that his
> disciples interpret clues about the "end" with faith and not by
> sight.  Jesus here is engaged in his well understood habit of
> obscuring facts for exactly the purpose of teaching his disciples how
> to walk by faith.  It may be reasonable to conclude that Jesus
> himself felt unsure of the end's details in his early ministry, but
> this would merely point to the fact that he himself was attempting to
> "walk by faith."
>
> Mark 13 also presents a simile of a man leaving his servants in
> charge of his affairs as he departs on a journey... "It is like a man
> going on a journey, when he leaves home and puts his servants in
> charge..."  The man provides no prediction of when he will return.
> Indeed, even he may not know the hour when...  If this "master" dies
> while he is away and his heir returns to claim the inheritance, the
> law is clear that the servants (and/or their heirs) have a duty to
> turn over the property to the rightful owner.
>
> Therefore, I see no problem with Mark 13 being about the final "end",
> even an immanent one.  At the very least it is a layer of meaning
> that cannot be avoided.  To make sense of it, the word "generation"
> should be taken in its broadest sense to include all servants (and
> heirs of servants) who have been entrusted with the Master's property.
>
> Finally, this obsession with marking time, to know the exact hour of
> everything, is even more an issue with modern man than it was with
> those whom Jesus warned.... but I digress.
>
>
> Hudson Barton
>
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