Note 92 — Chapter I · RELATION OF JESUS TO THE IDEA OF A SUFFERING AND DYING MESSIAH; HIS DISCOURSES ON HIS DEATH, RESURRECTION, AND SECOND ADVENT.
George Eliot translation
But have we no other grounds for questioning that Jesus really uttered the predictions contained in Matt xxiv. and xxv. parall.? In pursuing this inquiry, we may first take our stand on the assertion of supranaturalistic theologians, that what Jesus here predicts, he could not know in the natural way of reasonable calculation, but only in a supernatural manner.92 Even the main fact, that the temple would be destroyed and Jerusalem laid waste, could not, according to this opinion, be so certainly foreknown. Who could conjecture, it is asked, that the Jews would carry their frantic obstinacy so far as to render such an issue inevitable? Who could calculate, that precisely such emperors, would send such procurators, as would provoke insurrection by their baseness and pusillanimity? Still more remarkable is it, that many particular incidents which Jesus foretold actually occurred. The wars, pestilence, earthquakes, famines, which he prophesied, may be shown in the history of the succeeding times; the persecution of his followers really took place; the prediction that there would be false prophets, and even such as would, by promises of miracles, allure the people into the wilderness (Matt. xxiv. 11, 24 ff. parall.), may be compared with a strikingly similar passage from Josephus, describing the last times of the Jewish state;93 the encompassing of Jerusalem with armies, mentioned by Luke, with the trench, χάραξ, which he elsewhere (xix. 43 f.) speaks of as being cast about the city, may be recognized in the circumstance recorded by Josephus, that Titus caused Jerusalem to be enclosed by a wall;94 lastly it may also excite astonishment that the declarations, there shall not be left one stone upon another, οὐκ ἀφεθήσεται λίθος ἐπὶ λίθῳ, in relation to the temple, and they shall lay thee even with the ground, ἐδαφιοῦσί σε, (Luke xix. 44), in relation to the city, were fulfilled to the letter.95