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The Messy Mathison Responses

Messy Mathison ResponsesIn 2004 a group of authors under the editorship of Keith Mathison published a book called “When Shall These Things Be: A Reformed Response to Hyper-Preterism”.  Since 2004 the “hyper-preterists” have had plans to respond to the response.  The original project was initiated by Edward Stevens of the International Preterist Association.  This project kept being delayed & delayed but the mess goes deeper.
 
Sam Frost, one of the original contributors to the “response to Mathison” project was eventually kicked off the project after a spat with Stevens concerning a debate Stevens & Frost had over Stevens’ first-century Rapture theory. 
 
Then in late 2007, two other contributors to the project, Dave Green & Edward Hassert pulled their contributions citing frustration with the constant delays.  Green then formed another group to author a separate response.  I was originally part of the Green group & was slated to write a response to chapters 2 & 5.  Later, another man named Michael Sullivan was added to the group.
 
The problem was, for about five years before signing on to the project I was already beginning to question many of the “full preterist” premises & conclusions.  Due to my criticisms not only of key premises & conclusions but also of main “leaders” within full preterismi, I was already a pariah within full preterism.
 
I already had most of the material that would make up my part of the response & I merely needed to tweak it.  I was working on this when I asked the Green group what I intended to be more of a rhetorical question.  The question was, “How do they deal with the fact that early post-AD70 Christians didn’t seem to see in the AD70 event, the things full preterists claim?”  There really are only a few possible answers & I expected one of them to come forth.
 
  1. The early Christian writers have been mis-dated & actually wrote pre-AD70
  2. The Church has just been wrong for over 2000 years
  3. Hyper-preterism’s premises & conclusions are wrong
 
Or if you buy Stevens’ first-century Rapture theory, I guess you could say the true Christians having been removed from the planet left only “second-rank” Christians who apparently did not have all the information.
 
I had expected the group to answer, as I had for so long as a hyper-preterist with answer #2, but instead one of the men, Sullivan actually admitted he had never given it much thought. 
 
“I am the last person to ask that question.  I just haven't given myself to a deep study of that subject yet.” (Michael Sullivan on the question of how the early Christians didn’t seem to see the full preterist premises & conclusions)
 
What in the world?  How do these people think they can write such a response if they have never considered how the Church has appeared to have missed their entire premise for so long?  Indeed, if he is the “last person to ask that question” then he is also the last person that should be writing a book on the matter. This was the final straw.  I was already about to renounce hyper-preterism once & for all, but this was the depth of its arrogant delusion.  I removed myself from the project & have been removing myself from all association with hyper-preterism & even from people I still consider friends who are still stuck in that awful “movement”.
 
Meanwhile, the Stevens’ group was continuing to suffer.  Another contributor, Kurt Simmons was booted off the project after Kelly Birks (a replacement contributor) & Stevens wanted all the contributors to sign a statement affirming “eternal conscious punishment”, or more plainly belief in punishment of hell (source).  Simmons refused & was booted off the project. (I believe he wasn’t the only one kicked off the project for this refusal)  Simmons seems to lightly advocate for annihilationism.
 
Simmons also formed a group to respond to Mathison.  Frost joined this group, which also includes Don Preston & William Bell.
 
So now, there are 3 separate responses.  Why?  Because the hyper-preterists are not a cohesive enough group to put together a single response. (Which may be a good sign, since it may portend hyper-preterism’s eventual demise.)
 
But what is even more disturbing about the mess is how many hyper-preterists speak of their books.  For instance, Sullivan promotes his project as if it will be the book to bring the Reformed community into full preterism.
 
“Our book is going to have a major impact upon the eschatological scene of the evangelical and reformed church.  It will be a book that affects church history in the development of eschatology in a positive and healing way.” – Michael Sullivan on his book
 
How does he know this?  What arrogance!  But he is not alone in asserting lofty things about their books.  Another hyper-preterist book by Tim Martin & Jeff Vaughn that advocates Adam as only the first “covenantal man” rather than the first created human also thinks rather highly of itself.
 
“This book is sure to have an impact on the Genesis debate in the months and years to come.” (Promotion of the Martin/Vaughn book)
 
They could at least have the feigned decency to let others make such statements but the blinding arrogance of hyper-preterism, first with its glossing over 2000 years of historic Christian interpretation to hyper-preterism’s concept of everyone is a “private interpreter” version of “Sola Scriptura” is the deadly side-effect of the position.
 
The best advice to Mathison is to just ignore all of these responses if & when they are produced.  If men can’t answer basic questions about how for 2000 plus years, Christians have missed this novel “truth” that the hyper-preterists’ are trying to foist, then no one need take them serious & would only be feeding their arrogant delusion of grandeur by responding to them.  Even my comments here may embolden some of them to think more highly of themselves than they ought.  Rather, let us dwell on Psalm 131:1 –
 
LORD, my heart is not haughty,
         Nor my eyes lofty.
         Neither do I concern myself with great matters,
         Nor with things too profound for me.
 

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“The Messy Mathison Responses” Mess

On August 8, 2008 Roderick responded to the book “When Shall These Things Be: A Reformed Response to Hyper-Preterism”. He presented one group with a rhetorical question : “How do they deal with the fact that early post-AD70 Christians didn’t seem to see in the AD70 event, the things full preterists claim?” Of only a few possible answers He suggested:

  1. The early Christian writers have been mis-dated & actually wrote pre-AD70.
  2. The Chruch has just been wrong for over 2000 years.
  3. Hyper-preterism’s premises & conclusions are wrong.

 

This question puts preterists in a pickle.  In the mid 70’s Christians recognized they were living in the last days since the scripture “saith ‘And it shall come to pass in the last days, that the Lord will deliver up the sheep of His pasture, and their sheep-fold and tower, to destruction.’ And it so happened as the Lord has spoken.” So here you have Christians living shortly after the destruction of the temple, recognizing they are living in the last days, yet they are LIVING, and they recognize there is more to come, SHORTLY. (The Epistle of Barnabas, XVI)

 

This little bit of history not only puts preterists in a pickle, but all other Christians too. Hyper-preterists say the last days could not happen after A.D.70, and the vast majority of Christians today say the last days have not occurred yet. The Christians in the mid 70’s claimed they were living in the last days since the sheep of the Lord’s pasture, their sheep-fold and temple had already been delivered to destruction as the Lord had spoken, and they were living through some of the Lord’s predictions at the moment. Both preterists and traditional Christians must scratch this piece of history.

 

Those same Christians in the Epistle of Barnabas, around A.D.75, expressed grave concerns they were living in the very impending shadow of the final “stumbling-block (or source of danger) approaches”.  Somehow they mustered some solace knowing “For this end the Lord has cut short the times and the days, that His Beloved may hasten: and He will come to the inheritance.” In Chapter IV Barnabas was warning his fellow Christians of the present approaching danger which had been predicted. Providing examples of predictions which had already come to pass, Barnabas assured  Christians they were living the predicted “Last Days.”  He provided these examples of predictions which had already come to pass:

 

“The kingdoms shall reign upon the earth, and a little king shall raise up after them, who shall subdue under one three of the kings”  and a “fourth beast, wicked and powerful, and more savage than all the beasts of the earth, and how from it sprang up ten horns, and out of them a little budding horn, and how it subdued under one three of the great horns.  Ye ought therefore to understand.” … We take earnest heed in these last days …” 

 

Around A.D.75 Barnabas warned fellow Christians THEY were living in the last days. He went on to express:

 

 “now in this wicked time we also withstand coming sources of danger, as becometh the sons of God. That the Black One may find no means of entrance, let us flee from every vanity, let us utterly hate the works of the way of wickedness. … Take heed, lest restling at our ease, as those who are the called (of God) we should fall asleep in our sins, and the wicked prince acquiring power over us, should thrust us away from the kingdom of the Lord…” (the Epistle of Barnabas, IV)

 

This is recorded history neither hyperpreterists nor traditional Christians prefer to see. Must we bury our heads in the sand? Have you ever considered just maybe Barnabas was right???

 

Now back to Roderick’s question, “How do they deal with the fact that early post-AD70 Christians did not seem to see in the AD70 event, the things full preterists claim?” The fact is, post-AD70 Christians did not see in the AD70 event, the things full preterists claim. On the flip side, traditional Christians don’t deal with the things the early post-AD70 Christians did see in the current events happening around them in the mid-70’s.

 

Back to Roderick’s possible answers:

1.      The early Christian writers have been mis-dated & actually wrote pre-AD70.

2.      The Chruch has just been wrong for over 2000 years.

3.      Hyper-preterism’s premises & conclusions are wrong.

 

If Barnabas is right, then

 

  1. The early Christian writers are not mis-dated and wrote post-AD70
  2. The Church has been wrong for over 2000 years.
  3. Hyper-preterism’s premises & conclusions are wrong. And so are those of traditional Christians.

 

How is it possible for 2000 years everyone has missed the actual last days? Caesar always feared a kingly messiah to usurp his power. In like manner he would also fear the Second Coming of a kingly messiah to usurp his power. If you cannot stop the Second Coming and it happens anyway, what to do? In the 70’s there was in fact a black out of history at this time. The major historians of the day, Josephus, Tacitus and Plutarch, wrote history of the late 70’s and early 80’s, and this history is in fact missing.  I do not think this is a coincidence. This missing history is conspicuous by its absence.

 

All the details and documentation of the rest of the story can be found in my book “Prophecy Paradox: the Case for a First Century End time”.

Website: http://members.tripod.com/~Lynnish/index.html

 

Lynn Schuldt