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Publié par
Date de parution
01 septembre 2011
Nombre de lectures
1
EAN13
9781441232007
Langue
English
Publié par
Date de parution
01 septembre 2011
EAN13
9781441232007
Langue
English
Start Reading
© 2011 by Walter C. Kaiser Jr.
Published by Baker Academic
a division of Baker Publishing Group
P.O. Box 6287, Grand Rapids, MI 49516-6287
www.bakeracademic.com
Ebook edition created 2011
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—for example, electronic, photocopy, recording—without the prior written permission of the publisher. The only exception is brief quotations in printed reviews.
ISBN 978-1-58558-387-4
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is on file at the Library of Congress, Washington, DC.
Scripture quotations are from The Holy Bible, New International Version®. NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.™ Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide. www.zondervan.com
Scripture quotations marked KJV are taken from the King James Version of the Bible.
Scripture quotations marked NASB are taken from the New American Standard Bible®, copyright © 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. ( www.lockman.org )
Scripture quotations marked RSV are taken from the Revised Standard Version of the Bible, copyright 1952 [2nd edition, 1971] by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
To Richard A. Armstrong,
who served with distinction
as chair of the Board of Trustees
at Gordon Conwell Theological Seminary (1998–2006),
and his wife Miriam
And to Herbert P. Hess,
who serves with distinction
as treasurer of the Board of Trustees
at Gordon Conwell Theological Seminary (1977–present),
and his wife Betty Jane (B.J.)
With deep appreciation
and thanksgiving to our God
for the joy of working together from 1997–2006
1 Corinthians 2:9
Contents
Cover
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
Preface
Introduction
Part 1: The Individual and General Eschatology in the Old Testament
1. Life and Death in the Old Testament
2. The Resurrection of Mortals in the Old Testament
Part 2: The Nation Israel in Old Testament Eschatology
3. The Everlasting Promises Made to Israel
4. The Future Resurrection and Reunification of the Nation
5. The Future Return of Israel to the Land of Promise
Part 3: The New Davidic King and the City of the Great King in the Old Testament
6. The Branch of the Lord and the New Zion
7. The Extent of Messiah’s Rule and Reign
Part 4: The Day of the Lord and the Beginning of the Nations’ Struggle with Israel
8. The Arrival of the Day of the Lord
9. Gog and Magog
Part 5: The Events of the Last Seven Years and the Arrival of the Western Confederacy
10. The Seventy Weeks of Daniel
11. The New Coming Third Temple in Jerusalem
13. The Battle of Armageddon
Part 6: The Coming Millennial Rule of Christ and the Arrival of the Eternal State
14. The Millennial Rule and Reign of God
15. The New Creation
Selected Bibliography
Notes
Author Index
Subject Index
Scripture Index
Preface
Introducing a topic such as Preaching and Teaching the Last Things is a dangerous step for anyone who wants to be seen as sane and reasonable. This is especially true in a day and age when more than just a few have taken it upon themselves to offer a specific date for the second coming of our Lord Jesus. Fortunately, however, since those dates have come and gone without the expected appearance of our Lord, those books are now on the sale racks—or subject to even worse fates than that!
But when almost one-half of the teaching of Scripture focuses on disclosures about “last things” and prophecy, to continue to avoid and disparage this area of biblical studies would result in a loss of a good deal of the “whole counsel of God.” There is no doubt that such teaching on prophetic themes is susceptible to tons of extraneous ideas, but we would be disobedient to the call of our Lord if we left aside large portions of his Word to us in our thinking and living. I treat more of the contemporary objections to teaching and preaching in this area in my introduction, but for now note that this area of study cannot be left as the exclusive domain of extremists. Therefore, note especially that the uniqueness of the approach I have taken in this book, similar to several that have preceded it, is to do expositions of whole blocks of text, usually a chapter or more. This helps avoid the error of some, which is to make a statement or two and then throw an avalanche of references at the reader, expecting that the contexts of all those citations are well known. So, do enjoy the expositions and see if they are not fairly rendered in our discussions.
As you prepare to begin studying the Scriptures by using this book, I must also conclude these opening remarks with a special note of appreciation Dwight Baker, president of Baker Publishing Group, Bob Hosack, executive editor, and Robert Hand, editor at Baker Academic and Brazos Press. In particular, Robert has been most encouraging and helpful.
Introduction
Old Testament Eschatology
About the Word Eschatology
It may come as a surprise for most to learn that the word “eschatology” is a fairly recent term. Similar to some other theological terms, such as “the Trinity,” it does not occur as a stated theological word in the text of either the Old or New Testament. Abraham Calovius coined the term in his dogmatic theology titled Systema locorum theologicorium tomus duodecimus et ultimus eschatologia sacra (1677). [1] Later George Bush used the term in his book titled Anastasis [“Resurrection”] in 1845. In 1909, Shalier Matthews defined “eschatology” in the Hastings’ Dictionary of the Bible as “that department of theology which is concerned with ‘last things,’ that is, with the state of the individual after death, and with the course of human history when the present order of things has been brought to a close.” [2]
Even so, Van der Ploeg [3] noted that Catholic and Protestant theologians tended to avoid the term eschatology for a long time, until it appeared in some of the documents of the Second Vatican Council (four separate sessions lasting from October 11, 1962, through December 8, 1964). More recently the term eschatology has become a popular term used by the media and journalists to mean “the quality of the period of the end,” a sense that the Greek word eschatos never had.
Simply stated, eschatology as applied to biblical and Jewish apocalyptic writings refers to the consummation of the cosmos and the present world order as history comes to an end and the eternal era of God’s salvation is ushered in. That is approximately how Sigmund Mowinckel defines it as well:
[Eschatology is] a doctrine or a complex of ideas about “the last things.” . . . Every eschatology includes in some form or other a dualistic conception of the course of history, and implies that the present state of things and the present world order will suddenly come to an end and be superseded by another of an essentially different kind. [4]
Some feel this definition does not allow for a great deal of Old Testament eschatology, since God’s purpose is also fulfilled within history as much as it is fulfilled outside of history. But that is to forget that the two biblical ages, the “now” and “not yet” (see below for a further description), are just as much a part of an Old as well as a New Testament description of the future and of last things. To be sure, this idea of “two ages” is developed in later apocalyptic writings of the intertestamental period, but the concept is already present in the Old Testament as well, even if the terms “now” and “not yet” are not used in the Old Testament.
About the Growth of Eschatological Hope in the Old Testament
There is no support today for the occasional claim of scholars, such as those made by H. Gressman and H. Gunkel at the beginning of the twentieth century, that Israel’s eschatological hope came from foreign ancient Near Eastern sources. As John Bright affirms:
Israel’s eschatological hope cannot itself be explained in terms of borrowing, if only because not one of the ancient paganisms, from which such concepts were supposedly borrowed, ever developed anything that can properly be spoken of as an eschatology. Being polytheisms, keyed to the rhythm of nature, dedicated to serve the well-being of the existing order, without a sense of a divine guidance of history toward a goal . . . they could hardly have done so. [5]
Over against the rigid determinism of paganism from ancient or modern times, the prophets of the Old Testament faced forward in time and anticipated a time beyond the coming divine judgment when God would resume his promises to his people as he ushered in a new age in which justice, righteousness, and peace would characterize his own reign over the whole earth. The roots for such a hope are deeply embedded in the promises of the Abrahamic and the Davidic covenants of old. But they begin to come into clear expression in the prophetic writings from the ninth- and eighth-century prophets onward—the works of Joel, Obadiah, Hosea, Amos, Micah, and Isaiah.
“The Day of the Lord,” “In That Day,” “The Latter Days”
Where, then, did this hope of a day of the Lord, a future judgment, and a time of deliverance arise? Most will want to locate it first in the eighth-century prophets, usually crediting Amos 5:18 as its earliest appearance:
Woe to you who long
for the day of the Lord !
Why do you long for the day of the Lord ?
That day will be darkness, not light.
It will be as though a man fled from a lion
only to meet a bear,
as though he entered his house
and rested his hand on the wall
only to have a snake bite him.
But both Obadiah and Joel, ninth-century prophets, focus on “the day of the Lord.” Those prophets who followed them in the eighth through fifth centuries provide a