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Exactly when are the ‘Times of the Gentiles’ according to the Part-preterist prophetic viewpoint?
“There will be great distress upon the earth and wrath against this people. They will fall by the edge of the sword and be led captive among all nations, and Jerusalem will be trampled underfoot by the Gentiles, until the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled.”
(Luke 21:23-24)
I am looking for precise start and finish dates. What events mark those dates? Also, a brief summary of the Part-preterist thinking concerning this prophecy would be useful.
The time of the gentiles were the years / times that God allowed them to trod down the city of Jerusalem for the time of its destruction. Time, times, and half a time; or 1260 days, or 42 months, or 3-1/2 years. It was the Roman-Jewish wars of AD 67 - 70, and it ended at the destruction of the temple in AD 70.
"For these be the days of vengeance, that all things which are written may be fulfilled." (Luke 21:22, KJV)
"These...days", not our days - but the days in which Christ spoke those words during the first century AD. He was warning His disciples of the tribulation of the persecution under the tyranny of both the Sanhedrin and the Romans who were going to try the patience of the saints (Rev. 13:10).
The end of days prophesied by Gabriel to Daniel was over / finished when the power of the holy people (the Jews) would be scattered or broken (Dan. 12:7). The power of the Sanhedrin was broken when the Romans laid siege to Jerusalem at Passover / Pesach in Nisan AD 70, and completely destroyed when the stones of the temple were completely torn down by the first of Tishri AD 70 - Feast of Trumpets.
After the temple in Jerusalem was destroyed, the Sanhedrin could no longer persecute the Jewish Christian converts. Those converts had fled to Pella and surrounding areas before the siege, and they took the gospel of Christ throughout the rest of the Roman empire, and on to the rest of world. The gospel was given first to the Jew, and then was broadcast from Jerusalem to the rest of the world (Rom. 1:16; Isa. 2:3; Mic. 4:2).
When Christ died on the cross, and was resurrected from the grave the distinction between blood lines of Jew / Gentile was nullified (Gal. 3:28; Col. 2:13). The true line was restored to the faith line of Abraham, as it was always following the faith line. Rahab and Ruth were of the faithful, not the blood line.
So, when the temple was torn down the Mosaic covenant was completely and legally nullified, and all who are in Christ were counted for the seed of Abraham. In other words, all who are in Christ were the true Israel of God that is saved with an everlasting salvation (Isa. 45:17).
"In that he saith, A new covenant, he hath made the fir:s:t old. Now that which decayeth and waxeth old is ready to vanish away." (Heb. 8:13, kJV)
When the law passed - the old heaven and earth - at the destruction of the temple, there was no more distinction between gentile and Jew. So, the times of the gentiles were fulfilled at the destruction of the temple. As YHWH no longer requires a physical, earthly temple (John 4:21-24), and as He already told the disciples that the city of Jerusalem would no longer be necessary (Matt. 21:19) for any worship or sacrifice, then all who are reconciled to the Father through His Son now worship Him in spirit and in truth.
See The Signs of The Feasts - Part II: Christ Told His Disciples When... ShreddingTheVeil
I find the above view an interesting contradiction - why take the times of the gentiles as the period before the gentiles trod in Jerusalem (before the siege ended) rather than after the siege ended when the gentiles actually began treading in Jerusalem? Is this an interpretational stretch to make the 3½ years fit?
The scriptures call out the time - 42 months. It is not an interpretation, but the identification of the trodding down of Jerusalem. In prophesy, the phrase trodding down was used during the invasion of the foreign armies for the time of the war(s). Jud. 20:43; Isa. 25:10; 63:3; Jer. 12:10; Mic. 1:3, etc. It is the time of the fighting, not the occupation. And, most Preterists I have encountered do take this view.
But you r missing the pt. Technically, national ethnicity became unimportant to God at the cross of Christ. Rom. 2:29, circumcision of the heart. So gentile vs Jew is no longer important to God. He sees only in Christ or not in Christ. The line of demarcation was the destruction of the temple. So after AD 70, you have the permanent feast of the nations, Sukkot, where all nations are now welcome for the all those who answer the call. To continue to speak in terms of gentiles vs Jew is to go back under the Law. For God, there r no more gentiles, just as there r no more Jews.
I fully agree that the Times of the Gentiles was completed specifically from 67 to 70 A.D.. The prophecies of Daniel 12 are evidence. Of course, there are residual effects. But the Roman fulfillment has great "apologetic" value in establishing the supra-naturalness of the Bible.
The prophet Daniel specifically gave 1290 days for the Trampling Down, with an extension to 1330 days. These days are confirmed by history: Vespasian and Titus drew a noose around Jerusalem for three and a half years, conquering all the supply routes to the City. At the end, they attacked the City for a final death strangle. (See Flavius Josephus, "Wars of the Jews")
The month extension referred to the last holdout (one of Herod's palace strongholds) which mysteriously surrendered on its own accord forty five days after the rest of the city had collapsed.
So Jerusalem was indeed "trampled" for a long time, and not just a few days at the end of the Judaean war. Notice that Jesus warned his disciples to "flee Judea", not just Jerusalem! The Roman army annihilated village after village to cut off any help to Jerusalem. The Romans were "fattening the plum" by causing the Jews to flee to the city of Jerusalem, with the consequence that millions perished and/or were captured as slave to work in the copper mines, or row in the galley ships.
In A.D.70 the major trampling was accomplished, with a few mopping up incidents left over (e.g. Masada).
To be more specific for the CAUSE of the the start of the "Times of the Gentiles" we refer to the initial surrounding of Jerusalem by the General Cestius...and then his mysterious retreat. He had been sent to Jerusalem to quell the riotous Jews. When he up and pulled away, the cantankerous Zealot guerilla fighters attacked him like hornets coming and going, all the way back to his headquarters. (Note that this was the sign Jesus had given for His disciples to "flee Judea." (not just Jerusalem)
When the emperor Nero found out about this, he sent Vespasian in 67 A.D. to put an end to this nonsense! The Beginning of the 1260 days (the start of the TIMES OF THE GENTILES) was the Spring of 67 A.D. Vespasian's legions, therefore, marched up and down Palestine from Dan to Beersheba trampling down one village after another. This lasted for three and a half years! These were the "birth pangs" Jesus warned about, but the "end" was not yet.
The specific End of These Times of the Gentiles was the Fall of 70 A.D. when the last stronghold of the Zealots surrendered at the end of 1335 days. (All of this is recorded in the writings of an eye-witness, General Flavius Josephus, "The Wars of the Jews")
By this time 4 or 5 Legions were involved in the massacre...and note that the make-up of these Legions were mercenaries from many nations that had been conquered by the Romans. So it was accurate for Jesus to use the term Gentiles (nations, pl.).
This is the partial-preterist view of Jesus's prophecy in Matthew 23-25, from all the resources (advocates) I have consulted. And it also agrees with the full-preterist exegesis of this passage. The only difference between partial and full preterist being that preterist stops at the first century as far as New Testament prophecy fulfillments go; but the partial advocates recognize several more prophetic fulfillments to occur at the Second Coming. For more research see the writings of: O. Allis, B. Jones, P. Mauro, C. Keil, Jerome, W. Cox, P. Fairbairn, J. Russell (full-preterist), R. Woodrow, N. Kraus.
In any case, the Olivet Discourse, laying out the Times of the Gentiles---
a Time designated by Daniel in chapter 12--- is an amazing Divine insight into history and Providence in the affairs of men!
For a blow-by-blow description by an eye-witness historian of these 31/2 years of devastation, culminating in the fulfillment of Jesus's words about the Temple, Not one stone here will be left on another; every one will be thrown down, read the thorough, The Wars of the Jews, by Flavius Josephus. He even applied the Old Testament phrase that Jesus used, to this conquest: For then there will be great distress unequaled from the beginning of the world until now--and never to be equaled again. (Matthew 24:21)
For in depth verse-by-verse exposition of the Olivet Discourse in which these verses are, see Raymond Grant, TIMES, THEY ARE A'CHANGING, or Marcellus Kik, MATTHEW TWENTY-FOUR.
Have you considered Romans 11:25 which states that "a partial hardening has come upon Israel, until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in. And in this way all Israel will be saved." There is good reason to align Luke 21:24 and Romans 11:25. Luke 21:24 ends with "...until the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled."
The Jewish age ended, and the Gentile Times started in 70 AD. In 1967, Israel as a nation took back Jerusalem for the first time since 70 AD, but even today it controls only half, with Arabs the other half. Technically the Gentiles are still trampling Jerusalem with its Temple Dome. The Gentile Times therefore only end when Jerusalem is set free and entirely controlled by Jews. This is more a counterpoint to the Preterist view rather than an explanation of what the Preterist accepts, naturally.
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