Little Hawk sez: "Stower, you said that 'In the Gospels, Jesus and his followers clearly believed the world would end very soon. Jesus states that would happen within the lifetime of his disciples. He was wrong.'

Hmmm. Well, it depends on how you interpret what they were saying. I think what Jesus was predicting was the end of not 'the world' in the sense of the whole planet...or human societies all over the planet. I think what he was most likely predicting was the end of the Jewish world in Judea...the fall of Jerusalem...the destruction of the Temple, etc. That's what it looks like to me when I read his reputed statements in the New Testament."


Hmm, hmmmm. Don't forget that the four Gospels were written during and after the Roman siege of Jerusalem and the destruction of the Temple. It was very easy for the Gospel writers to say then that Jesus had made predictions about the end of that particular "world" -- so were they simply making up those supposed "predictions", or were they putting that "spin" on the words Jesus said in order to make it appear that he was talking about the fall of Jerusalem?

Remember also that, after the fall, the Romans were the conquering rulers so any Christian who talked openly about Jesus' predictions of entire human societies (such as Roman society) being destroyed was likely to be executed as a seditionist. Therefore, any writings about Jesus' predictions of such destruction had to be coded and couched in oblique terms, in order to save the necks of the writers and the readers/hearers of those words.