Talk:Second Coming

Tucker Ferda says that many have found Allison’s argument for a contingent eschatology convincing. Does this utterance suggest that Jesus's future coming is contingent on positive reception? In other words, is the idea that Jesus will not come again [...] unless the people bless Jesus along the lines of Ps. 118? That is the thesis of an influential essay by Dale Allison, published first in an article in JSNT and later developed further as an essay in The Jesus Tradition in Q. Allison has convinced many, while he still has a few notable detractors^[1]

Allison admits that he subsequently neglected his own finding, but has returned to develop it further after inspiration from Christopher Hays. I already introduced this qualification in an unpublished excursus in my doctoral dissertation (1982) and then in Davies and Allison, Matthew, 2:270–71. That I subsequently neglected what I wrote in those places until recently is likely due to my engagement with John Dominic Crossan and other members of the Jesus Seminar, an engagement that led me, through overreaction, to a one-sided emphasis. Reading Hays et al., When the Son of Man Didn’t Come, was the occasion for returning to and developing my earlier thoughts.^[2]

Your direct quotations of France and Wright do not claim that the view is only found among “among apologists and a few Christian scholars”, so don’t editorialize this into the article.

France: There is no hint in the wording of verse 34 that its fulfillment is conditional or open-ended... Any attempt to insert a hidden contingency into this saying does not arise from the text itself but from later theological concern to mitigate its apparent problem.

Wright: Jesus’ words about ‘this generation’ were not a vague or conditional warning; they were a confident declaration rooted in the prophetic conviction that God’s judgment upon Jerusalem was imminent. To turn this into a timeless or conditional saying is to miss both the literary form and the historical thrust of Jesus’ eschatology Birjeta01 (talk) 14:29, 5 October 2025 (UTC)

@Ashesssss Birjeta01 (talk) 14:30, 5 October 2025 (UTC)

i cited a specific article that said the consensus in academic scholarship is it being a genuine, apocalyptic prophecy with no mention of contingency ^[3]

"

> In contemporary research on the figure of the historical Jesus, the dominant theory is that he was an apocalyptic prophet, heralding the imminent coming of the end of the present world and the coming of the eschatological kingdom of God. Beginning with the work of Albert Schweitzer, this theory is considered the most probable according to most researchers of the origins of Christianity

this is the dominant narrative taught in academically, and is the most supported one

N wright, france and allison specifically claim that the idea of contingency in matthew 24:34 is an apologetic one, with no basis in the syntax or linguistics, simply being descriptive statements, martin walczack talks about the problem this created for systemic theology

france: There is no hint in the wording of verse 34 that its fulfillment is conditional or open-ended... Any attempt to insert a hidden contingency into this saying does not arise from the text itself but from later theological concern to mitigate its apparent problem.

wright: Jesus’ words about ‘this generation’ were not a vague or conditional warning; they were a confident declaration rooted in the prophetic conviction that God’s judgment upon Jerusalem was imminent. To turn this into a timeless or conditional saying is to miss both the literary form and the historical thrust of Jesus’ eschatology

allison: The declaration that ‘this generation will not pass away until all these things have taken place’ (Mark 13:30 = Matt 24:34 = Luke 21:32) lacks any condition, qualification, or ambiguity. Attempts to turn it into a contingent statement or to redefine ‘generation’ have no basis in the syntax or the narrative context; they are apologetic inventions.

Allison's changed view is irrelevant, as he is specifically cited to point out the post hoc apologetic nature of this view

the idea that matthew 24:34 is contingent and failed due to the sinfulness of the israelites is completely baseless, and is very clearly contradicted by another apocalyptic verse, specifically acknowledging the sinfulness of the israelites but not pointing to that stopping the coming parousia, or delaying

bart erhmans view is that Jesus genuinely believed the end was coming, and was preaching so israelites quit their sinfulness, so they are saved, not so the end comes sooner

tucker freda's claim that allisons updated interpretation "convinced many" is not talking about the consensus, it means people in general the dominant view in scholarship remains that it is a genuine non contingent prophecy, and walczack specifically says that it is so

and n wright saying that early christians werent troubled by non occurrence of the parousia is innaccurate, and stems from his non standard view that the eschatological verses are actually referring to the destruction to the second temple, peter specifcally mentions christian communities being troubled by it

Peter 3:4: “Where is the promise of his coming?”

furthermore, the mention of the meaning of "genea" is irrelevant and related to a different outdated edit, citing dubious journals and making dubious claims (the argument was that generation meant different things back then citing the different translations of that word in different language editions of the bible, pretty meaningless) Ashesssss (talk) 03:17, 9 October 2025 (UTC)

So, you’re saying that because contingency happens to not be mentioned in an article abstract, that there somehow exists a majority view among scholarship that the prophecy isn’t contingent.

A source "directly supports" a given piece of material if the information is present explicitly in the source, so that using this source to support the material is not a violation of Wikipedia:No original research. WP:BURDEN-Emphasis mine

And Ferda cites scholars, not people in general.

See, e.g., Chance (1998), Tan (1997) Chouinard (1997), Gibbs (2000, though ‘not endorsing all of Allison’s conclusions’), Turner (2008: Jesus will return only when Israel in true repentance utters the words that were uttered without adequate understanding by in Matt. 21.9’), Talbert (2010), Mitch and Sri (2010), Vlach (2016) Birjeta01 (talk) 04:30, 9 October 2025 (UTC)

> In contemporary research on the figure of historical Jesus, the dominant theory is that he was an apocalyptic prophet, heralding the imminent coming of the end of the present world and the coming of the eschatological kingdom of God.

from Oxford languages

Imminent: about to happen.

not contingent, thats the universally accepted consensus, and theories about the eschatological verses describing the temple's destruction or being failed contingent prophecies are minorty views largely stemming from attempts at reconciling the issues with the text, apologism

Freda's many was an offhand statement, several scholars, but doesnt talk about the consensus in the field, who arent even particularly influential

besides, the whole argument collapses in on itself when you read Jesus' eschatological saying specifically acknowledging the sinfulness of this generation, Ehrman says the end was coming regardless of the sinfulness of the israelites, and that jesus was preaching in hope of saving them Ashesssss (talk) 05:28, 9 October 2025 (UTC)

A "dominant theory" is not a "consensus" and the the passages in discussion are clearly much debated. Allison's change of view further strengthens this point. And as @Birjeta01 points out here, the idea of imminence isn't up for debate. If recent and/or reputable sources are making the case for contingency, then they deserve to be included. I also think it is unreliable to cite R.T. France and N.T. Wright as authorities against the view of contingency for the Second Coming when they makes such arguments from the perspective of the prophecies being about the destruction of the Temple and not the Second Coming. Divus303 (talk) 14:40, 9 October 2025 (UTC)

Indeed, if a theory is consensus the source can simply state it that way.

The crux of the dispute, though, seems to be whether Ferda claims many scholars (my rendering) see conditional prophecy or if the majority view among scholarship is the understanding that Jesus and the apostles didn't view it as a contingent prophecy (@Ashesssss’s version, visible on main space right now).

The quote I posted for Ferda is rather clear that contingent eschatology has many supporters and only a few detractors, but Ashesssss seems to think that France and Wright’s disagreement and Walczak’s abstract imply that most scholars reject conditional prophecy, which may actually the inverse of the reality. Birjeta01 (talk) 18:56, 9 October 2025 (UTC)

Your rendering is probably the best of the two, especially when Ehrman is given most of the weight to "contradict" the contingency view even though the source attributed to him is much older than the more recent research which supports contingency. The only majority view, it seems, is that Jesus was an apocalyptic prophet, which isn't a view directly concerned with the subject of contingency. As I also mentioned, Wright and France are mainly opposed to the contingency view on the basis that they reject in the first place that the passages referenced are even about the Second Coming. These should certainly be noted though, but in context of the actual interpretations of these scholars. Divus303 (talk) 19:43, 9 October 2025 (UTC)

I appreciate your input. Seems like acknowledging Jesus’s apocalypticism without getting into the weeds about the relative weight of various views within its framework could be a decent “compromise” of sorts. Do you think it’s a good time to make edits, or maybe take it to the Wikipedia:No original research/Noticeboard instead? Birjeta01 (talk) 20:53, 9 October 2025 (UTC)

Yeah I'd opine its fine to make the edits now, you source everything pretty great so I can't find anything to dispute. Divus303 (talk) 21:05, 9 October 2025 (UTC)

Thanks a lot man! The eschatology page on Wikipedia represents most views pretty well, so I think moving some to this page would do the job. Birjeta01 (talk) 21:22, 9 October 2025 (UTC)

when freda mentioned many supporters he specifically cited the people referring to, which were only a few obsecure researchers that dont really have a big presence in the field, and the detractors he cited was just one person

its more likely he was specifically talking about the Allison's direct supporters and direct critics and not the status of the field in general, if he was, he wouldve brought a lot more names in the field who specifcally deny contingent eschatology although never directly engaged with allisons argument for it personally

contingent eschatology is a modern construction and its has a few obsecure supporters in the field, and the arguments for it are rather weak, how is it that the parousia was delayed due to the sinfulness of the israelites, when Jesus specifically acknowledges their sinfulness when speaking of it, Mark 8:38-9:1 Ashesssss (talk) 20:31, 9 October 2025 (UTC)

they are debated all that much academically, the walczack paper specifcally talks about the problems arising from the non happening of the parousia which was seen as imminent to systematic theology, not academic new testament studies, and i already quoted several other researchers (france, wright, allison) specifcally pointing out that the idea of contingency arose from apologetic attempts at fixing the problems with a failed prophecy Ashesssss (talk) 20:23, 9 October 2025 (UTC)

Nope, Allison supports the conditional interpretation of Matt:23-37-39//Luke:13:34-35 in his recent 2020s publications. Constructing Jesus (2010) is what is not relevant here.

My view is instead that of Origen and Jerome: the sentence is conditional. It indeed conveys a contingent eschatology. On this reading, the passage means not, when the Messiah comes, his people will bless him, but rather, when his people bless him, the Messiah will come: redemption waits on Israel recognizing Jesus’s messianic status. Ἕως can, especially after a negation, function to express contingency: the state depicted in the first half of a sentence lasts only until the state depicted in the second half is realized.158 In such cases, the meaning of ἕως is often not purely temporal (“until”) but properly conditional and so close to “unless.”Moreover, given that Luke 13:34–35 is attributed to Jesus, one should add that the Hebrew or Aramaic עד—which the LXX so often renders with ἕως—sometimes signifies more than the inevitable passing of a temporal span: it can, just like ἕως, state a precondition that may or may not be met. Birjeta01 (talk) 20:30, 9 October 2025 (UTC)

The prophecy being imminent is not up for debate here. Christopher Hays, Dale Allison, etc. agree with Schweitzer on Jesus’s near-expectation of the end and its lack of fulfillment. The distinguishing issue is whether it would occur no matter what, so to speak, and that is where the contingent explanation is more common among interpreters than the deterministic one.

even though Schweitzer, Allison, and Ehrman are essentially correct that Jesus

prophesied the consummation of the kingdom of God (judgment resurrection, punishment, and reward) to occur within striking distance of his earthly ministry (certainly within several decades),

it is our thesis that the delay of the Parousia is entirely consonant with the

way ancient prophecy works…Jesus’s eschatological prophecies were only the latest in a series of prophetic non-fulfillments, partial-fulfillments, and deferrals

other New Testament texts explicitly affirm that the timing of the consummation of the eschaton could be (and was)

delayed as a consequence of human action. The return of Christ and the final judgment are said to have been deferred because of the insufficiency of human repentance.^[4]

If you are still confused, Dale Allison’s explanation of the The Book of Jonah should suffice. In the text, God/Jonah prophesizes that he will destroy Nineveh in 40 days, but this never ends up happening. Why? In text the people repent.

The book of Jonah supplies a narrative counterpart. God commanded Jonah to go to Nineveh and cry out against the people: “Yet forty days and Nineveh will be destroyed” (3:4). The prophecy was never fulfilled. The reason is that “the people of Nineveh believed God, proclaimed a fast, and put on sackcloth, from the greatest of them unto the least” (3:5). The king himself arose from his throne, tore his robes, covered himself with sackcloth, sat in ashes, and issued a decree that all should fast and turn from evil and violence (3:6–8). As Matt 12:41 // Luke 11:32 observes, the people repented—and “God saw their deeds, that they turned from their evil ways, and God repented of the evil that he had said he would do against them, and he did it not” (Jonah 3:10). Although Jonah’s prophecy was spoken without condition (3:4), the course of the story reveals that it was contingent all along.

Birjeta01 (talk) 06:32, 9 October 2025 (UTC)

imminence means that something will happen soon, and that is what early Christians believed in, if the walczack paper somehow acknowledges a contingent reading of Jesus' eschatology (which it doesnt, at all) then how would it be a problem to theology? the whole point of the article is the issue it poses to theology, if it failed due to god's demands being fulfilled then it it wouldnt be a problem Ashesssss (talk) 20:38, 9 October 2025 (UTC)

and about allison, i specifically cited him because he previously acknowledged the apologetic and dissident nature of contingent readings of nt eschatology Ashesssss (talk) 20:39, 9 October 2025 (UTC)

Proposed change:

Most scholars participating in the third quest for the historical Jesus view Jesus as an eschatological prophet preaching an imminent coming “Kingdom of God". Some see Jesus's predictions of an imminent parousia as mistaken, while others view it from the perspective of the conditional nature of judgement prophecy. A number of interpretations of the term "Kingdom of God" have thus appeared in its eschatological context, e.g., apocalyptic, realized or inaugurated eschatologies, yet no consensus has emerged among scholars.

While the notion of an apocalyptic Jesus remains a mainstream view among scholars, it has been challenged by proponents of other portraits. Scholars of the Jesus Seminar attribute apocalyptic expectations to the early Church rather than the historical Jesus. Some argued that the earlier traditions in the Q Source and Gospel of Thomas showed that apocalyptic eschatology was not present in earlier layers of the Jesus tradition. The approach by the Jesus Seminar is not short of many critics. Recent scholarship has re-evaluated the apocalyptic ideas in the early Christian gospels not as a literal prediction of the end times, but as relating to the destruction of the Jewish Temple in 70 AD. For ancient Jews, the Temple was treated as a symbolic or even literal meeting point between Heaven and Earth, thereby its destruction would have wider cosmic consequences. Similarly, apocalyptic language was used throughout the Hebrew Bible to describe political and historical catastrophes, and not the end of the world. Thus, scholars such as R.T. France and N.T. Wright argue that the Gospels use apocalyptic language borrowed from the Old Testament to describe the destruction of the Temple in 70 AD, and passages such as Mark 13:26 concerning the "coming" of the Son of Man (as described in Daniel 7) are not about the Second Coming, but rather about the vindication and enthronement of the Son of Man at the Right Hand of God, where he is bestowed new authority with the Temple's destruction. Birjeta01 (talk) 21:23, 9 October 2025 (UTC)

Yes, this is a much more nuanced and fair change. Divus303 (talk) 22:40, 9 October 2025 (UTC)

Great! I’d like to thank you once again for your thoughtful contributions here and on other pages regarding Christian eschatology. I think you originally wrote a fair bit of the content in my proposal here. Birjeta01 (talk) 23:05, 9 October 2025 (UTC)

It's all good, and yes, I think I vaguely recall this now you mention it. Divus303 (talk) 23:07, 9 October 2025 (UTC)

Cool, and sorry for keeping you up man. It’s past midnight in the UK right now Birjeta01 (talk) 23:26, 9 October 2025 (UTC)

just seems rather unnecessary and putting a lot of weight on very fringe ideas in the field, which we know largely stem from apologism, the idea of contingency came out of that and is widely rejected in the field, it mostly relies on misreading the text and haphazardly linking unrelated old testament stories to it, the association of NT eschatology with the destruction of the second temple is even worse, as an idea it arose around the 18th century and is absolutely disconnected from the explicitly global nature of the events described in matthew and other verses

Matthew 24:30-31

And then the sign of the Son of Man will appear in the sky, and then all the tribes of the earth will mourn, and they will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of the sky with power and great glory. 31 And He will send forth His angels with a great trumpet blast, and they will gather together His elect from the four winds, from one end of the sky to the other.

Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away, the comparsion with the floor narrative, etc, it doesnt say the Romans will come and sack your temple, it says all the earth will witness the events described. because of this NT wright is basically the only relevant modern scholar espousing this theory academically Ashesssss (talk) 05:09, 10 October 2025 (UTC)

As the scholarly quotes show there is no consensus on eschatology, and contingent views are common and perhaps outnumber the alternative. See WP:OR for your original interpretations of Walczak’s abstract and your ruminations against contingency. The idea was present not only in the Hebrew Bible but was widespread in the later rabbinic texts, not to mention contemporary Second Temple writings.

I begin my attempt at an answer with a catena of rabbinic texts. These reveal that contingent eschatology was well known in later Jewish circles…R. Eliezer’s view—the eschatological redemption will occur when Israel repents—appears to have been dominant among the Amoraim^[5] Birjeta01 (talk) 05:58, 10 October 2025 (UTC)

The viewing of Bahá’u’lláh’s photo is extremely offensive to Baha’is and should be removed from the page. The photo’s usage doesn’t serve a purpose equal to the level of real distress it causes. ~2025-34440-98 (talk) 23:30, 17 November 2025 (UTC)