“You will see the Son of Man . . . coming with the Clouds of Heaven”: These Two Accounts of the Second Coming are not the Result of Christian Interpolation. As non-Christians living in a culture in which Christianity was a very new religion with a very small number of adherents, Josephus and Tacitus were almost certainly unaware of Biblical details concerning the second coming. The fact that Jesus is not explicitly stated to be at the head of this angelic army recorded by Josephus and Tacitus makes these accounts more historically reliable in that it makes it unlikely that Tacitus’ and Josephus’ accounts of the second coming were the product of later counterfeit Christian insertions. Christians have almost certainly tampered with part of Josephus’ writings. Josephus’ account of the life of Jesus Christ is a prime example.[9] Here Christian interpolators have shown themselves to be quite obvious when meddling with historical material. In The Antiquities of the Jews several laudatory accolades are given Christ which Josephus–a non-Christian Jew–would probably not write. Not only do these two accounts of the heavenly army contain no such praises, no explicit significance or meaning is given to the event that may aid the reader in tying these two accounts to the second coming of Christ. Neither account is written in an apologetic tone, a good indication that these two sections of text have remained unmolested by Christian copyists. “You will see the Son of Man . . . coming on the Clouds of Heaven”: Did Christians Recognize Jesus at His Return? In v. 12, Jesus “has a name written on him that no one knows but he himself.” Without a nametag would Jesus’ followers recognize him at his return? Just as Jesus’ disciples did not recognize him initially after his resurrection, many Jews and Christians, it would seem, also did not recognize Jesus coming on the clouds of heaven at the head of this army. Jesus’ appearance may have been slightly altered after his resurrection, perhaps partially explaining why his followers did not recognized him at his resurrection or when he came on the clouds during his second coming. In addition, his presence on the clouds would have further obscured his identity, his individual features being blurred by distance and cloud cover. Perhaps these facts partially explain why many Christians today still await the return of the Messiah? But these are not the only reasons.
Posted on: Tue, 24 Jun 2014 23:01:09 +0000
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