What's so mysterious about "generation" (genea) in Matthew?

by kepler 36 Replies latest watchtower bible

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  kepler

  There are variations in this text from extant Hebrew versions beyond the scope of this discussion, but translators to Greek had to decide when to use the term "genea" and how. Maybe there is a clue there.

  Sulla,

  You are right that this does not warrant much more discussion. Neither of us buy the notion. It's a foreign idea I started to explore never having been a JW and see it only as a strange calamity that fell on my household. And as you said, you have already argued over this with a thousand others. However, ...

  If Matthew was aware of when Jerusalem fell to the Babylonians, then there was an implicit notion of what 14 generations spread over nearly 600 years implies for the length of a generation. I can't say if he knew that was six centuries ago, but it possible. I suspect Josephus did. But the successive WT definitions employed over the past century now violate all common sense. Rationalizing them is leaning over backwards.

  What was the resemblance?

  What made Rome different from the Persians who ruled Judea for a couple hundred years? Or what made Rome different from the Seleucid rulers two centuries earlier that violated the temple as described in Maccabees I & II? They destroyed the Temple and sent the population off into slavery. The trouble was, Peter had already passed away as far as anyone knows. It's an anachronism in the text. The NWT appendix claims these epistles were written from Babylon - which the elder and overseer that visited my house on Saturdays a couple years ago kept claiming had been destroyed already forever. A writer's retreat?

  As to the other matters: the Septuagint or comparing the other synoptic gospels, that's simply what you do if you run an investigation. If this were archeology we would be sifting through sand with trowels rather than excavators. Patterns do emerge. In one gospel, Christ speaks of the "kingdom of heaven'; in another it's "my father's kingdom". On the cross to the good thief, it was "paradise" he would enter with him that day.

  Talking to people of other faiths, like the one in which I grew up, for some the notion is that Christ's words are meant to throw people off balance; that the Gospels are meant to stir things up, to make people think twice or find in them something the reader hadn't seen before at age twelve, twenty or forty-five. ...I've even heard people say that of Tol'stoy too,contemporary of Russell and Rutherford in some ways, but he made a better writer than a cult founder... But the odd situation we have here is that we are debating a pretended static presentation of the Scriptures in their entirety ( inerrant, predictive of the future, explained and enforced by the authority) which gets revised even as we watch.

  With regard to that process of establishing authority via witnessing invisible events, I've been thinking about another topic...
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  Cacky

  Interesting thoughts here. I recently had a meeting with two elders and my two remaining jw daughters. I agreed to it because I felt the need for an oppoortunity to tell them all the things I'd learned with their full attention. At the end of the meeting, I passed around a picture of me, my other daughter, and her daughter, and I asked each person, "How many generations of people do you see in this photo?" They all said, "Three, the two girls (aged 26) and both elders present. I would have thought the elders would have caught on, but they didn't.

  So I told them, "You're all wrong. According to Watchtower's new definition of generation, you were looking at a picture of just one generation of people. Then the one elder said, "You're right." And tried to defend it. I told them that it was like saying my grandpa was of the same generation as Abraham Lincoln, because my grandpa was alive when his grandpa was alive, and his grandpa was living when Abraham Lincoln was still alive. Again, the elder said that would be correct!! They just don't see, or won't admit, the idiocy of it all. It didnt' do anything for my girls, either. I believe they took it as an whole frontal attack from Satan coming from their own mother, so I dont' know if I made things worse, but just had the need to have their attention to go over my discoveries once and for all. They wouldn't listen before.
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  yadda yadda 2

  This thread is a keeper and should be put in the "Best of" catergory. Who decides on what should go in that category anyway? Is there any systematic process for this?
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  OldGenerationDude

  Sorry for the late post, but I just got all my info in.

  Checking with both rabbinical sources at my disposal as well as some dear fellows in religious academia, I do have a few more things to add that might be interesting.

  “This generation” in Matthew 24 is likely difficult to interpret on purpose. Like many other prophecies of Holy Writ, the ambiguity should be worked into the exegete’s understanding on its own merits. In other words, instead of finding one meaning for the fulfillment during parousia, why not accept that one isn’t intended.

  Kepler, I do have to humbly admit that you were on to something after seeing what my friends in theology had to offer for me. According to them you are correct in your calculations—but only if you are applying it to its first application, namely the destruction of the Temple. Respected American theologian, Albert Barnes (1798-1870) pointed out that a “generation” usually refers to the adult-span of human experience, namely 30 to 40 years. He noted that this span also fit the approximate 40 years from the time Jesus should have made the prophecy until the Temple fell at the hands of the Romans in the year 70. His understanding is still generally accepted or at least honored by Christian scholars and exegetes today.

  Does it apply to the future understanding? Apparently not. The difficulty has to do with where the expression “this generation” is situated in the prophecy (something the Witnesses generally don’t care to discuss). Both Matthew and Mark follow the expression “this generation” with Jesus stating that ‘the day and hour’ cannot be calculated. (Matthew 24:34,36; Mark13:30,32) So whatever “generation” meant in years in regard to the Temple’s destruction has no meaning in the face of the coming of the Son of Man.

  This is what makes the understanding of “generation” difficult to ascertain for scholars and exegetes, but only in reference to the parousia. If no one could know the time of the parousia, why mention a time-indicator like “generation”?

  As for whether or not Jesus stated this or whether or not this was an invention unique to Matthew’s gospel is clear, however. It is not from the “M” source— the material unique to “Matthew” (the latest popular theory is that the gospel was originally written in Greek by disciples of the congregation founded by Matthew the Apostle, from his own recollections and interpretations of them which he passed on in the Hebrew/Aramaic tongue). The expression is captured almost word-for-word in Mark, and there are no academic accepted views or theories that Mark used Matthew as a source of any kind.

  While Luke does mention “generation” in his version of this prophecy (Chapter 21), it is not linked to the parousia as adamantly as in Matthew or Mark. Being that Luke is a product later than Matthew (which followed Mark), the prophecy is reworked to fit it with Luke’s reason for writing his gospel. For Luke, the importance of meeting Christ at his return was not as important as the theme of the day-to-day following of Jesus. By Luke’s time the Christian community had come to terms that there was a “delay” to the expectation that the parousia was as immediate as the Temple’s destruction. Luke removes the apocalyptic setting to the sermon and separates the historical destruction of Jerusalem from the signs of the coming of the Son of Man by a period that he refers to as “the times of the Gentiles.”—Luke 21:24.

  This is likely the key to comprehension regarding “generation.” After the discussion of the Temple and Gentile times, the prophecy of the Son of Man in Luke is clearly symbolic. It is within this context that “this generation” comes into play.

  This means that by Luke’s time, the early Christians understood Jesus’ references to his parousia as symbolic, not literal. While Kepler and Barnes are seemingly correct in reference to the meaning of “generation” in reference to the Temple, an actual count of years has no place in a discussion of the “coming of the Son of Man.” As Mark and Matthew bring out, that coming cannot be calculated. Therefore it is very likely that the reason “this generation” is so ambiguous in reference to the parousia is that it is supposed to be. It is likely just as symbolic a reference as the “signs” in the heavenly bodies are meant to forebode.

  Lastly, the rabbinical understanding of one of the reasons why Jesus fails to be the Messiah in their view is this prophecy. “This generation” does not work to explain why he did not come in a parousia (which meant “visit of a dignitary or of royalty to a city or state”) when the Temple fell in 70 CE. To the Jews, giving “this generation” a “second” fulfillment is grasping at straws. They see Luke’s “re-working” of it into the symbolic part of the prophecy as proof that the Christians were trying to cover things up or readjust the prophecy due to disappointment that their Lord did not appear when the Temple came down.

  This is not the way the Christians see it, of course. But this does show that even the Jews acknowledge that “this generation” has been held by Christians since the time of Luke as no longer capable of having a literal explanation in years.

  Whatever our current convictions, theist, atheist, Christian, or Jew, the end result is the same: Jehovah’s Witnesses obsession with “this generation” and their claim that it applies to a specific time is unfounded. It doesn’t represent what the text or the audience or the contemporaries of that ancient audience understood it to mean, something symbolic in reference to Jesus’ return.

  (Kudos to Bobcat who obviously saw some of these things as well.)
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  soft+gentle

  Kepler

  re your opening post and Matt1:17

  One can make a significant point to a witness with that verse
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  Bobcat

  OGD and Kepler:

  Thank you both for your research and views!
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  kepler

  OGD and several others,

  Thank you for your contributions based on your experience and analysis. As to the answer to the rhetorical question of the topic, maybe I should concede that the answer is, "Plenty." After signing off and thinking about some objections raised to my initial approach to this ( taking out an historical tape measure and dividing by generations), I could see what was bothering some people. I had a spacing for generations, but I had no indication of when a generation would literally die off. And if in many cases "this nation" or "this people" could be inserted into translation instead, that posed another problem. So I was looking back over my shoulder as well. I think OGD and others have examined this matter well. In addition, there is illustration of how the Synoptic Gospels could have taken different slants (OGD above) on given events or sermons. I stop short of saying "in fact", because we can only guess what the Gospel writers were thinking - unless they someday give interviews on Charlie Rose.

  But with so much other material in the Gospel text related to the prediction of the circa 70 AD siege and destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple, I would not dismiss possiblity of two editorial revisions: one to point toward 70 AD; and another to point toward a more distant time. Luke's inclusion of the discussion between the good thief and Christ was an indicator of something not so much based on return but a Kingdom transcendant, another such glimpse being Mark 12:17-21: "...For when they arise from the dead... they are like the angels in heaven."

  But John of Patmos had a "dream" and we all know the rest.

  We also talk of generations in our own day. There's the Baby Good, Generation X, etc. There might remain one or two veterans of World War I in this country. I was surprised by how many Russian Revolution veterans seem to show up in recent documentaries... but that's a three or four year bias. They are all essentially gone. A GB member giving a speech as "this generation" being one year old at the time, is in violation of the principle. He is part of the "next generation". His parents were part of "this generation". So we are left with the notion that to fulfill a numerological 19th century prophecy regarding a 2520 year span, 1913 babies handing off a torch to the children of the Generatio-X is what Christ had meant nearly 2000 years ago.

  Case rests.
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  King Solomon

  To remove any confusion over generation, Jesus referring to the same event, said this in Matt 16:28.

  "Truly, I say to you, there are some standing here who will not taste death until they see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom.”
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  Phizzy

  Thanks K.Sol, and if you want a laugh and to see exegetical gymnastics performed to Olmpic standards just look at the WT's attempt to explain away that scripture.
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  peacefulpete

  Likely a bit late for the discussion, however, I've been impressed with the suggestion that elements within the mini-apocalyse material regarding the "sign" as it were, and subsequent declaration of the return of Jesus happening upon that generation, was the work of redactors immediately prior the Bar-Kochba revolt (132-36CE). Some other time perhaps it would be a topic to open with.