{The Eschatological Discourses}[14th July 1989]

[Redbook6:153][19890714:1855]{The Eschatological Discourses}[14th July 1989]

19890714.1855

The eschatological discourses attributed to Jesus at the end of the Synoptic Gospels and in places within them, and particularly the sense of timing continued therein, have been explained in various ways.

One approach is simply to identify different strands from different sources relating to different events (eg the fall of Jerusalem, which may even have preceded some of the accounts, and the End of the Age). This is the most likely explanation of the inconsistencies, but there is no way that it can be reconciled (as the N[ew] J[erusalem] B[ible] notes seem to imply that it can) with a definite attribution to the Son-part of an omniscient Trinity God. Either on this account Jesus was not such a Son of God, or he did not utter these statements.

Another approach internalises the End of Days and the Coming of the Son of Man as an inner experience. I like the theology, but in this instance it stretches the language beyond the likely intentions of its authors.

There is one explanation, however, for the inconsistencies of time and the general conflation of experiences, which is consistent with a heightened degree of divine awareness in Jesus at this time: and it is simply that this prophetic view, being taken from outside Time,* has lost all (or nearly all) sense of time [sic], seeing, as God must, all Time in an instant.**

*per [2]

**This is not quite the same, I think, as the Theory of Prophetic Perspective (per E[ncyclopaedia] Bib[lica], Prophecy) which likens the prophetic vision to a view over an expanse of country – as I understand it: I could not read the Latin very well. <890718>

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