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SO, YOU’RE SAYING THEIRS IS A POOR ARGUMENT?

In the first place, their case rests primarily upon a small bit of evidence outside of the inspired remarks – shaky evidence at best.  Even on an intellectual level, it will not stand the test of merely being placed alongside all the contradictory historical external testimony.  The evidence within those inspired writings blows their argument out of the water altogether.  Although they are sincere in what they believe, what they have is a house of cards, built on sand.

YOU’RE SAYING THAT THERE IS BIBLICAL EVIDENCE FOR AN EARLY DATE?

Yes.  It’s everywhere you look.  For example, certain folks within our troupe were concerned that they had overslept and missed my son’s return in judgment.⁷⁷  Think about that.  How could they have believed such if the return was to involve the visible destruction of the planet?

OKAY.  SO WHAT HAPPENED?

We had a certain delegated authority of theirs, whom they highly respected, send them a letter to remind them of a few things and ease their fears.  We included it in the introductory remarks.

REMIND THEM OF WHAT?

The chain of events we had set in motion.  It involved a politically compromised priesthood which served to keep in check an evil individual – unknown to our charges at the time.  The dastardly fellow was a fallen-away leader who was soon to arise from within a splinter group which was violently revolting against the ruling government.  The third link in our chain would be that very government’s armies.  Our emissary reminded those folks in his letter that first the vicious leader must violate the temple, just as Daniel and my son had both predicted.  The evildoer would eliminate those restraining and tilt the political scales, thus, becoming our catalyst for the destruction of the temple at the fall of Jerusalem.  Our charges were reminded that they already knew what was holding back the mystery man.  That evil man, his restrainers, our fearful charges – all served the same generation.⁷⁸

77 “Now brethren, concerning the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, and our gathering together with Him, we ask you, not to be soon shaken in mind or troubled, either by spirit or by word or by letter, as if from one of us, as though the day of Christ had come” (2 Thessalonians 2:1-2).

78 “Paul (and company), to the church of the Thessalonians: Grace to you and peace . . . (for) it is a righteous thing with God to repay with tribulation those who trouble you, and to give you who are troubled rest with us when the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven with His mighty angels . . . when He comes that Day. . . . (But) let no one deceive you by any means; for that Day will not come unless the falling away comes first, and the man of sin is revealed, the son of perdition, who opposes and exalts himself above all that is called God or that is worshiped, so that he sits as God in the temple of God . . . Do you not remember that when I was still with you I told you these things?  And now you know what is restraining, that he may be revealed in his own time.  For the mystery of lawlessness is already at work; only he who now restrains will do so until he is taken out of the way.  And then the lawless one will be revealed, whom the Lord will consume with the breath of His mouth and destroy with the brightness of His coming” (2 Thessalonians 1:1a, 2a, 6-7, 10a; 2:3-8). “Therefore, when you see the ‘abolition of desolation,’ spoken of by Daniel the prophet, standing in the holy place [whoever reads, let him understand], then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains” (Matthew 24:15-16). “And forces shall be mustered by him, and they shall defile the sanctuary fortress; then they shall take away the daily sacrifices, and place there the abomination of desolation” (Daniel 11:31). It’s the author’s belief that the “man of sin” is identified in Jewish historian Josephus’ account of the horrible destruction of the temple as one John, the son of Levi, from the provincial area of Gischala.  This man meets all the criteria.  He led a Zealot faction’s revolt (“the falling away”) against Rome, persuading the people of Jerusalem to make war with the Romans.  He usurped all that represented God in the temple. He ordered the removal of the priesthood (“what is restraining”) and the death of the high priest, (“he who now restrains”), Ananus (“until he is taken out of the way”).  A treacherous man – he had the throats slit of anyone he surmised might be in allegiance with the Romans.  He denigrated the temple, melting down many of the sacred utensils.  Daily sacrifices were ended.  Josephus wrote that “the death of Ananus (who “preferred peace” with Rome “above all things”) was the beginning of the destruction of the city” (Josephus:  Wars VI, p. 313).  The entire siege took three and one-half years.