So why cathedrals?
Is that a good use of our resources? Maybe not, but it would be a shame to knock them down. So we're off on a cathedral tour of the South West soon - Gloucester, Exeter, Salisbury, Winchester, and back via Coventry. Maybe get to Hereford, Bristol and any others around.
It's easy to find all the information to do this - when is evensong, why are the disabled toilets closed, how long does the cafe stay open, what's on the restaurant's menu? Cathedrals have websites. They even tell you where they are so you can satnav to them (except for a couple - you foolish cathedrals! It's really annoying when you don't put the postcode on your website!)
What did we do before we could get all that information? Would you just go down to Winchester because someone told you there's a cathedral there, and hope you could get in? Was life more exciting then? I don't remember, and it's only 10 years ago or so. How did we know anything? I know everything important is in the Bible, but there's plenty of other stuff that's pretty useful too!
Matthew 24
1 As Jesus was leaving the Temple grounds, his disciples pointed out to him the various Temple buildings. 2 But he responded, “Do you see all these buildings? I tell you the truth, they will be completely demolished. Not one stone will be left on top of another!”
One wonders if this is the fate of our cathedrals. I would be a little surprised though.
Why connect Jesus' reply to the destruction of the temple at all? Yes, they are marvelling at the earthly glory of the temple but Jesus makes a wider point that these 'buildings' are merely buildings which will not last forever. He wants to point people to God's word which, when flowers (and temple glory) fade, will last forever.
ReplyDeleteScholars have no valid reason to link the words to the destruction of the temple.
When they do, they presume this statement is a fulfilled prophecy.
They then presume it must have been invented around the time of the destruction of the temple when it was either bound to happen or had just happened.
They then begin to presume the Gospels cannot have been written long before 70AD.
They then conclude that the people who wrote the Gospels cannot have done so because they would have been dead so they start to invent new 'author' communities.
They then wonder what material predated these post-70AD Gospels so they presume and 'recreate' their ideas of 'lost' (Q) sources.
They then use these sources to demonstrate that Christian teaching was basically Judaism until the Gospels were written and that Jesus' resurrection was something of an afterthought in their teaching because the early sources (which they invented) do not mention a resurrection.
Now there's a 'building' based on sand which needs knocking down!
I think it makes perfect sense to connect Jesus' reply to the destruction of the temple. The word used there, kataluo, carries the sense of active destruction rather than just fading away. (It's the same word used of the man who tears down his barns in order to build bigger ones.)
ReplyDeleteThere are scholars and there are scholars. If a scholar starts with the presupposition that Jesus can't be making a prophecy here because prophecies can't happen, then they will have to date the gospel to after 70AD. Thankfully there are many scholars who are also Christian believers who would date the synoptics to the 60s, 50s, even 40sAD.
Hi,
ReplyDeleteBy 'no valid reason' I meant that they have no proof other than it seems possible.
Jesus quotes of the end times that 'the heavenly bodies will be shaken' and the 'stars will fall from the sky' so being 'thrown down' fits his picture - I can imagine "the flowers fade" but not fading stones! :-)
Yes, I agree about the presumption that prophecy cannot happen but I think it goes further than that, in that scholars have built huge theories pretty much on this one verse. In so doing they have had to presume a great deal of early tradition is false. They prefer to knock that down when actually they need to realise that their own theories are the problem - they don't stand up! :-)
Even without having to accept fulfilled prophecies, scholars will find nothing in the Gospels which prevents them from being dated in the 40's 50's and 60's.