ESCHATOLOGICAL HERMENEUTICS

PROPER HERMENEUTICS AND THE FOLLY OF THE "TWO CONVERSATION" ARGUMENT

Studying the Grammar and Contextual Flow of the Olivet Discourse
To Disprove the Doctrine of Dispensationalism

PART 10
Mike Blume
November 2010

It is at Luke 21:25 that futurists claim Luke catches up with Matthew and Mark and writes of the conversation on top of the Mount of Olives, whereas previous to this verse Luke only recounted another different conversation that took place at the temple. But Luke only catches up with the Mount of Olives discussion partway through it at the point of the (6) CELESTIAL SIGNS from Matthew’s and Mark’s accounts and all three go on and mention (7) FIG TREE PARABLE from this point.

This poses a huge embarrassment to the dispensationalist when anyone notices something about it all.

Everything written before this point in Luke 21:25 is supposed to be from a totally different conversation than that of Matthew and Mark, and yet the sequence of(1) REGIONAL EVENTS, (2) PERSONAL EVENTS, (3) SIGN TO FLEE, (4) WARNINGS TO THOSE IN FLIGHT and (5) REASONS FOR THE FLIGHT before this point in Luke matches the same sequence in Matthew and Mark! And after Matthew and Mark relate the Mountaintop conversation’s five elements I just listed, they begin speaking of the CELESTIAL EVENTS and FIG TREE PARABLE, just as Luke catches up with that mountaintop chat at the CELESTIAL EVENTS and then the mentions the FIG TREE PARABLE. Hmmm…

So, Matthew and Mark show one conversation with the same sequence of events Luke lists from another conversation. After the fifth element listed in the series, Matthew and Mark begin to list CELESTIAL SIGNS – which we can call the sixth listed element. Luke begins his account of the mountaintop conversation at Matthew’s and Mark’s SIXTH ELEMENT. Strangely enough, Luke happens to mention the SIXTH and SEVENTH elements of the mountaintop conversation after he wrote of five elements that were so “similar” to the first five elements found in the other two gospels.

So, we have two conversations that are very similar but meant to be fulfilled thousands of years apart from one another with exactly the same overall basic elements throughout each! And yet dispies say they are accounts of two different conversations! Dispies claim Matthew and Mark wrote of a mountaintop conversation to be fulfilled two thousand years plus from the day Jesus spoke it, and Luke wrote of a temple conversation fulfilled in AD70. But dispies admit that the series of the first five elements of events are SIMILAR, if not IDENTICAL, between the two conversations.

How convenient is it for the futurist to say that, when the entire three full accounts parallel from top to bottom?! It just so happened, they claim, that the two different conversations conveniently matched in their first five elements, and Luke stopped at the fifth element from the first chat and started at the sixth element of the second chat! Meanwhile all seven elements of all accounts match! That should cause one to stop and holler, “Wait a minute! It’s awfully coincidental that Luke’s account of the first conversation ends with the same series of five elements found in Matthew’s and Mark’s second conversation, and Luke continues with the second conversation at the sixth element of Matthew’s and Mark’s second conversation, if they're not one and the same conversation!”

Look at it this way:

Matthew’s and Mark’s SECOND MOUNTAINTOP CONVERSATION:

(1) REGIONAL EVENTS
(2) PERSONAL EVENTS
(3) SIGN TO FLEE
(4) WARNINGS TO THOSE IN FLIGHT
(5) REASONS FOR THE FLIGHT

Luke’s FIRST TEMPLE CONVERSATION:

(1) REGIONAL EVENTS
(2) PERSONAL EVENTS
(3) SIGN TO FLEE
(4) WARNINGS TO THOSE IN FLIGHT
(5) REASONS FOR THE FLIGHT

Matthew, Mark and Luke’s SECOND MOUNTAINTOP CONVERSATION:

(6) CELESTIAL SIGNS
(7) FIG TREE PARABLE

The red words are claimed by futurists to refer to the mountaintop conversation. Luke’s blue words are from a different temple conversation. Yet Luke’s blue words of the temple conversation match in very sequence with the red words from Matthew’s and Mark’s mountaintop conversation.

Dispies claim these are not one and the same conversation, although, Luke’s entire record has the same elements that Matthew’s and Mark’s accounts have overall. It is absolutely beyond ridiculous to say Luke wrote two conversations that together just so happened to parallel an overall single conversation in Matthew and Mark. If Luke at least wrote of the five elements of the alleged temple conversation that parallel the mountaintop conversation in similarity and very sequence of events, and then wrote of one or two of the parallel events afterwards, followed by the remaining mountaintop events, then we would fully agree two conversations merely mirrored each other. But he does not do that.

The situation in the dispensationalist mind is similar to this picture. Three people witness a single accident. They each write down their accounts of the accident. Two of them mention the same detail of what time it occurred. The third witness fails to mention the time, but mentions other details the other two missed. Police are handed three reports and remark how similar the reports are. But one police officer argues they are evidence of two totally different accidents. Why? Two of them who wrote of the same accident mentioned the time it occurred, and the third one did not and mentioned things the other two did not mention. So the third account is a different accident altogether.