When does Jesus say he will return ?

[Trajan]

The end will come within the lifetime of Jesus's listeners.

"Verily I say unto you, There be some standing here, which shall not taste of death, till they see the Son of man coming in his kingdom." -- Matthew16:28

"But I tell you of a truth, there be some standing here, which shall not taste of death, till they see the kingdom of God." -- Luke 9:27

"Verily I say unto you, All these things shall come upon this generation." -- Matthew 23:36

"Verily I say unto you, This generation shall not pass, till all these things be fulfilled." -- Matthew 24:34

"Nevertheless I say unto you, Hereafter shall ye see the Son of man sitting on the right hand of power, and coming in the clouds of heaven." -- Matthew 26:64

"Verily I say unto you, That there be some of them that stand here, which shall not taste of death, till they have seen the kingdom of God come with power." -- Mark 9:1

"Verily I say unto you, that this generation shall not pass, till all these things be done." -- Mark 13:30

"And ye shall see the Son of man sitting on the right hand of power, and coming in the clouds of heaven." -- Mark 14:62

"Verily I say unto you, This generation shall not pass away, till all be fulfilled." -- Luke 21:32

"Jesus saith unto him, If I will that he tarry till I come, what is that to thee?" -- John 21:22


The end will come within the lifetime of the the New Testament authors.

"Waiting for the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ ... that ye may be blameless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ." -- 1 Corinthians 1:7-8

"But this I say, brethren, the time is short: it remaineth, that both they that have wives be as though they had none." -- 1 Corinthians 7:29

"That ye may be sincere and without offence till the day of Christ. -- Philippians 1:10

"Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord." -- 1 Thessalonians 4:17

"I pray God your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ." -- 1 Thessalonians 5:23

"Hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son...." -- Hebrews 1:2

"But now once in the end of the world hath he appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself." -- Hebrews 9:26

"Who verily was foreordained before the foundation of the world, but was manifest in these last times for you." -- 1 Peter 1:20

"But the end of all things is at hand." -- 1 Peter 4:7

"Little children, it is the last time: and as ye have heard that antichrist shall come, even now are there many antichrists; whereby we know that it is the last time." -- 1 John 2:18


The end will come soon. (Within a couple thousand years or so.(?))

"The Lord is at hand." -- Philippians 4:5

"For the coming of the Lord draweth nigh." -- James 5:8

"For yet a little while, and he that shall come will come, and will not tarry." -- Hebrews 10:37

"The Revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave unto him, to shew unto his servants things which must shortly come to pass. -- Revelation 1:1

"The time is at hand." -- Revelation 1:3

"Behold, I come quickly." -- Revelation 3:11, 22:7, 22:12

"Surely I come quickly." -- Revelation 22:20


http://skepticsannotatedbible.com/says_about/end.html

[Rozlee]

1. Yeah, but they can twist logic like a pretzel.

"But, we don't know what Jeebus meant by a 'generation'." "A life time in his span of years might cover 2,000 of our years." Yadda, yadda. They've made more of a religion around the End Times than they have around the Gospel and you'd think if Jeebus was really gawd as well, he'd have known it and just not told them squat. Or maybe, "Hasta la vista, baby."

[Warpy]

2. There are only two possible conclusions

Either it all happened 2000 years ago and we're the offspring of the damned or Jesus found out it was a one way trip just like the rest of us have and will.

[laconicsax]

3. 3rd possible conclusion:

Jesus was an allegorical character that got out of hand in the generations following his introduction.

[Ninjaneer]

4. I think I read somewhere the bible wasn't written until like 3-400 years after his passing.

Assuming he existed. Even the quran wasn't written until about two decades after the death of mohammed. Seeing as stories often don't maintain their structure from one person to the next, I don't understand how people can believe in that stuff after YEARS and YEARS had passed before entering a "permanent" state...

[laconicsax]

5. Gullibility. n/t

[onager]

6. Xians move those goal-posts all over the place.

Naturally, they want the first written mentions of JeeBus to be as early as possible in the First Century. The gospel of Mark is usually accepted as the earliest written gospel, so their experts are always trying to move back the date of its authorship. I'm too lazy to Google, but I think the generally accepted date for Mark is about 60-70 CE.

IIRC, some of Paul's letters were supposedly written earlier than that. But again, laziness intervenes. For me, the important point is that NONE of the people who wrote the New Testament were contemporaries of Jesus - and even a lot of Xian historians admit that.

So all those NT stories were "as told to..." Apparently told by the village idiot, in some cases. Like those wandering Jerusalem zombies in Matthew.

A good book on the subject is "Who Really Wrote The Gospels?" by Randal Helms.

Helms has an interesting theory that the gospel of Luke was probably written by a woman. Some of the stories in Luke are obviously copied, but the protagonist is female instead of male.

e.g., instead of JeeBus resurrecting the young daughter of the Centurion, the resurrection story in Luke is about a poor widow whose only son dies and is brought back to life. Since a widow with no male support would have been left completely destitute, it seems to be more a sad story about society's cruel treatment of women than a religious message. Which is certainly NOT a typical story from the Holey Babble.

IMO, they keep hoping they'll find something like a Dead Sea Scrolls version of the King James Bible, but that ain't gonna happen.

[brooklynite]

7. Just an observation: "quickly" doesn't mean "soon"

Jesus could be twiddling his thumbs for a million years and then show up instantaneously.

[enuegii]

8. And "come" could mean something else, too. nt