Review of
Paroschi: Jesus’ Eschatological Legacy
Wilson
Paroschi, NAD, Southern Adventist University “Jesus’
Eschatological Legacy: The Tension between the Nearness of the Second Coming
and the Mission of the Church” Scholars generally agree that eschatology lies
at the very heart of Luke’s purpose in writing his twin volumes. The
predominant concept, sometimes called the “classic” theory, relates that
purpose with the delay of the Parousia. The idea is that the eschatological
consummation announced by Jesus as imminent, and so expected by early
believers, had become such a major source of anxiety for the church that Luke
decided to give a definitive answer for it: he abandoned the belief in Jesus’
soon return altogether and, by conceiving the church’s world mission, pushed
the final consummation into the distant future. This presentation does not
intend to provide a detailed analysis of this theory. Instead, it argues that
though Luke does admit a delayed fulfillment of the church’s hope associated
with the preaching of the gospel, he has not entirely done away with the idea
of an imminent end, and the tension between both concepts was conceived by
Jesus Himself—rather than being redactionally fabricated—to keep the church
healthy and faithful. The discussion centers on the book of Acts.
Source: https://adventistbiblicalresearch.org/sites/default/files/4Conf_Rome_ProgramBook_for_site%20%285-30-18%29.pdf
Van Wyk Notes: The Editor of
the Scriptures is the Holy Spirit and He makes sure that what goes in as
content is not fabricated data by humans or slanted either. It is not
propaganda of their own ideas nor that of their friends or networks or
patriotism. It is what God wants to get across to people. Therefore, one
should guard not to let theories of historiographical methodology and
literature analytical theories come in play with analyzing the Word of God. Luke was
following common practices of doing a thorough historiography of his time. He
did it the way they expected it should be done with care. That is why the Holy
Spirit chose him. He did not
believe that Christ would come quickly and then got disillusioned and abandoned
the short coming for a later one as Albert Schweitzer and his followers are
trying to portray. When he was
writing in Luke 21:21 about the Roman armies around Jerusalem in lingua that
look like Matthew 24:14 about the abomination of desolation being set up, it
was not to make it identical. Rather, Matthew and Mark focused on Daniel 9:27
and Luke on Daniel 9:26. Both 70 A.D. (Daniel 9:26) and 538 A.D.ff. (Daniel
9:27) are relevant. Modern scholars missed the point and try to equalize Luke
21:21 with Matthew 24:14 but careful reading is called for. It will create
kakophonia and chaos if the two are equated and the Word of God will be made a
laughingstock. Readers of the
Word of God are the ones who one should laugh at. They slip up in their
analysis of fine detail and nuances. Finally one sees that they did not conceive
of the end as immanent as R. F. Cottrell argued in his Spectrum article of 1973
for Jesus, Paul, Peter and John but that the analyzers of these texts
misunderstood what they meant. They are using a common expression of those days
that in our language sounds different than what they conceived of it. Semantics
variations due to generation gap (they and us) is the problem here. Not the
original Word of God. Koot van Wyk