mbjones

I’m about 3/4 of the way through a book called [The Coming of the Son of Man][1] by a fellow by the name of Andrew Perriman (the editor of [opensourcetheology.net][2]). It’s subtitle is *New Testament Eschatology for an Emerging Church* and it’s essentially the authors reading of the apocalyptic language of Jesus, Paul and others in the New Testament and how they relate to us today.

What’s intriguing about it is the perspective it comes from — preterism. Preterism is the belief that eschatological events described in the Bible occurred in the first century, shortly after the time of Jesus. Partial preterism (destruction of the temple, collapse of Rome, etc describe some but not all of NT apocalyptic) has always fallen within the bounds of orthodoxy, but full preterism generally hasn’t. And having never read anything about either, this text intrigued.

When I first started it, I presumed it would fall in the “partial” category but as I’ve been reading it seems to lean heavily towards “full”. While disappointing in part, I’m curious to see how things end. It would seem to me that a full preterist view would eliminate a lot of hope in the eventual parousia of Christ and I’m curious to see what might happen in a belief minus that hope. It also seems to force a stretching in interpretation of some NT passages, which didn’t sit super well with me. As such, I’m reserving final judgement til the end. I can say though, with 3/4 of it knocked out, that it is an intriguing read and certainly thought provoking. I’ll also say that I plan on interacting with it some here over the coming days and weeks.

[1]:http://www.amazon.com/Coming-Son-Man-Testament-Eschatology/dp/1842272993/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1208547682&sr=8-1
[2]:http://www.opensourcetheology.net/