We are the children of those........

Am I the only one who see's this
having read many religious texts and none of them
speak of such a long wait.

we are the children of those left behind.

the rapture happened the worthy went to heaven
or Valhalla or wherever.
The great religions were manifested to cover this
up. who could live with such knowledge?
they try to guide us on the straight and narrow
in hopes that the All Mighty will take mercy on us children
Read the Bible Christ's return was expected in months
maybe a few years not centuries. If we were the chosen
at the very least HE would keep his own house in order.
this is the great conspiracy

now theres a new way to look at it..

that god packed up and left, and all we have are evil people on this trashcan for a planet, in this dumpster of a universe?

and nothing matters?

might as well be atheist.. at least then you could say "life sucks because there is no god" instead of "life sucks because god packed up and left"

reply to post by Ancrom



I don't know whether your theory holds water, Ancrom, but I have to hand it to you: it is a novel idea, a fresh approach.

And that's always welcome.


P.S. The Bible never says that Christ's arrival was expected in matter of months. (How could it, anyway? The New Testament was written many decades after Christ's crucifixion.)

What it does say is that nobody will know "the day or the hour", because it will come "stealthily, as a thief in the night" (or something like that).


[edit on 1-1-2008 by Vanitas]

reply to post by Ancrom


I do not think we have been left behind. Also do not worry about being left behind.
Probubly the only religion that would have you in that position would be Jehova's Witness, and even if they were right, Jesus will show up soon enough.

you're going about it wrong...
yes, the bible does show that everyone (including jesus) thought the second coming would be within years at most... but it never happened.

christianity is very apt to cover this up.

reply to post by Ancrom


Interesting conspiracy but it doesn't hold much water when we explore the facts of history. The earliest Christians (and by that I mean within 30-40 years of Jesus' resurrection) had many reasons to believe Jesus could return in their lifetime. The requirements were mostly in place for His return. The Jewish temple would have to be in existence (it was), the Jews would have to occupy the land of Judea (they did), the Jews would have to occupy Jerusalem (they did), etc. But in 70 A.D. all this changed with the destruction of the temple and Jerusalem and the subsequent ejection of Jews from the land.

Thus begins the time gap, or "church age" as we call it. Fast forward 1,900 years when the Jews are back in the land (beginning in 1917), Israel is a sovereign state (as of 1948), and Jerusalem has been returned to Israel (as of 1967). We're only waiting for the temple- which already has most of its required utensils created and priests trained.

I have no problem with past generations thinking Jesus could have returned in their lifetime except for the fact they didn't know their prophecy! The requirements were not in place like they are today for us. Among the major things mentioned above, only we are seeing the other required circumstances being set in place. Check out this interesting analysis for the end time prophecies being fulfilled in our time and for others that have the preparation in place.

We are the only generation since Christ to also witness the technological boom required for many prophecy fulfillments that baffled other generations. For instance, many prophecies state the whole world will witness certain events the instant they occur. This was impossible before the invention of satellites and television. Bible scholars of past generations couldn't figure out how this could occur. Now we know and have the technology to allow this to happen. The first century Christians before the Jewish dispersal also didn't witness the Gospel being preached to the whole world, the earth wasn't populated enough as it is now to fulfill many of John's prophecies, and dozens of other requirements only we are seeing being fulfilled.

But remember Paul's comfort to those at his time who thought the second coming had already occurred and they were left behind: "Let no man deceive you for that day will not come unless the great apostasy occurs and the Antichrist is revealed." But check out the link I gave you. It should help calm your worries of being abandoned.

[edit on 1/1/2008 by AshleyD]

reply to post by AshleyD


30-40 years after the supposed resurrection of jesus the scripture would have hardly been established, let alone the "requirements" known to anyone.

reply to post by madnessinmysoul


Excellent point. There is evidence the Gospels were passed along orally for a few decades before finally being penned- which makes perfect sense considering 95% of the population was illiterate. Spreading the Gospel solely in textual form would have been about as practical as giving sermons in Latin in today's churches. The Gospel of Matthew particularly provides evidence of it being passed along orally due to its structure.

Being that the earliest Christians most likely only knew of the prophecies in Jesus' Olivet Discourse (Israel, Jerusalem, the Temple, the persecution of Christians, etc.) as given in the Gospels, they thought everything was already "set to go" because the Epistles and additional prophecies had not yet been available to them. They didn't know all the signs to look for like we do. Even the earliest Epistles weren't penned until the early 50's A.D. so it created a premature expectancy.

Plain and simple..

Christianity isn't the only Monotheistic Religion expecting a Messiah.

The Jews are, and the Muslims are waiting for Jesus and Mahdi.

When Christ returns, the Jews will accept him as Messiah, how could they not? Especially if he returns as it is written, in a powerful, paranormal nature showing great signs. The Jews would accept him as Moshiach.

But the thing is .. it states, correct me if im wrong Ashley, that the two witnesses (most think these are Enoch and Elijah, to be returned to the planet to live the remainder of their human life and experience death) will prophesy against the nations and show great signs, causing catastrophes to fall upon the nations by prophesy. It states there that even THEN, the people will not believe in God, that they resent the witnesses for the pains they are causing the human nations and strike out against the witnesses.

So this tells me .. even when signs are being performed, people will not be so easily swayed; most will reject the signs as something else, coincidence, fakery, whatever. How one could not believe when the great signs are happening and both witnesses are here is beyond me, but thats what it states. Knowing many attitudes around here, of wrong until proven true, will still be there at that point, as the witnesses and signs wont be totally undisputable, else the people would have to accept what was happening, and accept God, but they do not as it is written.

This means the witnesses will only be convincing to the faithful, and some others, but not all. This pains me to think about .. because it makes me think when Jesus returns, and all the signs of wonder that accompany him occur, that old bitter bias and prejudice still harden the hearts of the people of Israel and make them reject him yet again as not the Messiah. If this occurs, Israel will be smitten.

Touching on Israel, in Old Testament, Israel was just the northern kingdom that fell into idolatry, it was not the tribe of Judah which Jesus comes from, it was not the Levites.. the Aaronite priests, and it was not the tribe of Benjamin. These were the southern kingdom, in Jerusalem.

Israel was carried off into exile permanently and dispersed to never be known again.

The southern tribes were kept in Babylon and eventually sent home to Jerusalem.

So my question for you ALL is, who is the Northern Kingdom spoken of in the Ezekiel and Daniel prophecies, and the Revelation, and who is the Southern Kingdom? Also .. who are the modern day descendants of Esau, the Edomites? The line of Herod? They are supposed to play an integral part in the end, and I think they are supposed to attempt to capture and isolate God's people. Then they are broken out so to speak by Messiah. That is Jewish Apocrypha by the way, not in the Bible.

Who are the modern day Palestinians descendants of?

And who are the Jordanians descended from?

Oh man .. I am going to have to put together a thread attempting to identify the modern descendants of all of the noteworthy biblical peoples. Sounds like a project. Coming soon!

Originally posted by runetang
But the thing is .. it states, correct me if im wrong Ashley, that the two witnesses (most think these are Enoch and Elijah, to be returned to the planet to live the remainder of their human life and experience death)...

Some think it will be Enoch and Elijah and others believe they will be Moses and Elijah (my personal opinion). There is a heated debate in Christian circles about their identity but I don't understand why some are at each other's throats about it. It's about as important as the ongoing debate concerning Jesus' eye color. Both parties agree one will be Elijah but there is a split on whether the other witness will be Enoch or Moses. I have my reasons for believing it's Moses but, again, it's just not important in the scheme of things. Enoch is a good candidate, too. Time will tell.

will prophesy against the nations and show great signs, causing catastrophes to fall upon the nations by prophesy. It states there that even THEN, the people will not believe in God, that they resent the witnesses for the pains they are causing the human nations and strike out against the witnesses.

So this tells me .. even when signs are being performed, people will not be so easily swayed; most will reject the signs as something else, coincidence, fakery, whatever. How one could not believe when the great signs are happening and both witnesses are here is beyond me, but thats what it states.

No, you're absolutely correct. It mentions the ungodly people hating the two witnesses. rejoicing and passing around gifts upon their death, and humiliating their corpses by refusing them burial. Then, three days later it says they come back to life and then some people finally believe and repent while others still refuse to accept the facts.

Who are the modern day Palestinians descendants of?

Exactly. Just another fact the Bible gets right and another prophecy continually fulfilled. We're specifically told the descendants of Ishmael (maybe Esau as well but I'd have to check my facts) will be in conflict with the descendants of Isaac until the end of this age. Everyone knows the Hebrews believe they are direct descendants of Isaac while the Arabs believe they are the direct descendants of Ishmael. Watching the news we can see this is accurate. No two races have a longer and intense contention between them like the Jews and Arabs.

[edit on 1/2/2008 by AshleyD]

We are not the forgotten children of God, but God is the forgotten father. As for the long wait. According to the Vedas we are only a couple 1000 years into Kali-Yuga or the last of the 4 Yugas and have many more 1000s of years to go. In the first Yuga the earth is all one continent (as we are taught in school) and all the people are very intelligent (with out the help of our so called modern technology), very pious, very beautiful and extremely religious. All of the inhabitants of the earth are brahmacharies and have unlimted knowledge of Shastra, God, and the soul. But as the Yugas wear on people began to become less genuine and more unpious.
They move away from the spiritual and toward the material. Kali-Yuga (the Yuga we are currently in) is the shortest and fastest (in terms of how we percieve time) of the 4 Yugas. By the end of this Yuga we will have turned completely away from God (as you can see happening now) and have become so technologicaly advanced that we will destroy our invironment. The world will be extemely hot and the oceans will boil. The pollution will be so bad that we will evolve into very tiny people to compensate for the lack of pure oxygen. And in the end of the Yuga God will return to destroy the material world and all the souls who did not return to the spiritual realm before this will return to Gods internal energy where they will stay until the material universe is recreated.

reply to post by AshleyD


show me the evidence that the gospel was passed on orally...
and show me where you got the number that 95% of the population was illiterate.

Originally posted by madnessinmysoul
show me the evidence that the gospel was passed on orally...

You can dig around for external evidence but the easiest way to know is to examine the New Testament. Matthew, for instance, often uses a structure that is easy to commit to memory (by his division of the genealogies into sets of 14 compared to Luke, his brevity of the parables compared to other Gospels, paraphrasing Messianic prophetic fulfillment from the Old Testament, etc.).

There are other allusions to doctrine being passed orally before finally being penned by either the apostles or their scribes (Example: Mark was Peter's associate who transcribed Peter's eye witness account in what we know as the Gospel of Mark).

There's also numerous references throughout the New Testament stating this. The most obvious way to look at this is knowing that secular and biblical scholars both agree some of the Epistles preceded some of the written Gospel accounts and quoted oral tradition that was already in circulation (like Jesus' resurrection, salvation through Jesus' death, the crucifixion, virgin birth etc.).

It's pretty obvious when you see the references to the information contained in the Gospels were referenced in the earlier Epistles. The authors obviously weren't able to take their information through the written Gospel accounts but they were able to reference the oral tradition.

But don't let this be a snag thinking that somehow the facts were diluted through oral methods. The original apostles and witnesses were still alive to write and confirm the information in the Gospels for preservation. It wasn't like they relied only on oral tradition for centuries and the accounts were finally written down after everyone was dead and gone. They were still alive and many either penned them by themselves or had their associate act as a scribe.

and show me where you got the number that 95% of the population was illiterate.

High literacy rates are a pretty modern concept popularized by the West if you want a logical argument. In antiquity (and in many modern third world countries as well), literacy was reserved for the educated elite and was irrelevant to the common man. If this is still an issue and you need some facts, I'd consult an expert on the ANE. Although it's pretty much common knowledge, they might be able to provide with you some educated statistics.