Full or Partial Preterism?

Full or Partial Preterism?

By Richard P. Joseph

I just read a short article by Dr. Ron Rhodes.  His article shows his
unfamiliarity with preterism, scripture, hermeneutics and history.   I will try to
give a short critique of his article.

Rhodes starts out with this statement; “There are two forms of preterism:
moderate (partial) preterism, and extreme (full) preterism.”

I would like to make a correction to all who believe that there are really two
forms of preterism by showing you that there is really one form.  Full preterism
believes the bible at its word without inserting ridiculous semantic
interpretations to what the disciples really heard. In other words if John used
words like soon, shortly, at hand etc in the book of revelation and never used
any long term denotations, then the full preterist believes that John was correct
that those events would take place shortly after they were written, not millenia
later.  There is no reason to believe that anyone who first read that book would
interpret it to mean thousands of years later; period. So a full preterist believes
the bible as it is interpreted from its own context, not the context of someone
living in the United States 2,000 years later. Those that interpret the bible from
a modern time frame and different culture are called futurists.

Futurists are people who insert their own presuppositions into scripture to make
it fit their modern day paradigm.  This is an extremely dangerous thing to do as
there is no limit to what any one person from any particular culture at any given
time in history can come up with.  Scripture should always be interpreted in
context of when it was written, to whom it was written, of which culture it was
written and what purpose it was written. That is how full preterists interpret
scripture (at least the conservative Individual Body View Rapture Preterists do).  
I will not get into the cultish preterists who lean toward universalism called the
corporate body view preterists. So what do futurists and partial preterists have
in common?

Any studious futurist cannot deny that Jesus predicted the fall of Jerusalem
but they interpret that as a separate event as the second coming of Christ.  They
use fanciful hermeneutics in order to come up with something that I have yet to
find in scripture. They put time splits in all of scripture especially in the Olivet
discourse and in the book of Revelation that the apostles never found or
commented on.  The apostles always interpreted it as to occur within their
lifetime. There is not one verse in the entire New Testament that shows the
disciples thinking that the parousia would occur thousands of years later. If
there is I would like to see it. So how does this relate to partial preterists?

Partial preterism is really full futurism.  I personally cannot find any
delineation between the two.  They both believe that Jesus did in fact
predict the fall of Jerusalem and they both believe it was not associated
with the second coming of Christ.    Any difference is really semantical.
Jesus smoothly placed all of the events in one sermon on the mount.
Futurists/partial preterists believe Jesus slipped in tricky and mystical time
splits that none of his disciples were ever able to unravel.  This turns
Jesus into the Wizard of Oz by promising them something that he would
never be able to provide even two thousand years later! It is beyond this
article, but history proves that Jesus really did mean soon. So how does
Rhodes deal with real history and real scripture?

After listing several statements that Jesus and the apostles made
concerning the quick return of Jesus, his answer is; “Many evangelicals
believe...."     Who cares what anyone believes? I am interested in the
proper interpretation of a historical document, not what someone feels it
means to fit their own paradigm.   Since all of the New Testament writers
fully believed that the end was coming in their personal generation of time
then why would I “feel” that a theologian today knows more than Jesus,
Peter, Paul, John, Stephen etc?  In other words, Rhodes believes that the
seminarians are the inspired writers of scripture and the apostles were not.
Stop and process that for a moment!

In conclusion I would like to restate that there is always only one truth and
it is our duty to find it, not create it.  It is clear that Jesus and the apostles
did not make any mistakes and that the parousia did occur between
AD 66-70. We are to now live in the everlasting kingdom that Jesus gave
his blood for and to, not only spread the gospel, but to utilize it in a
functional way to produce a better world and to lead many to Christ and
his eternal heavenly kingdom.