Olivet Discourse

INTRODUCTION

The Olivet Discourse is so named because it presumably was delivered by Yeshua on the Mt. of Olives in the evening following his last visit to the temple precincts before his death.  The content of the Olivet Discourse is recorded in the three synoptic gospels, Matthew, Mark, and Luke.  The content and order is similar from one gospel to the next, but it is not identical.  This discourse is significant to Christian theology, because it is the longest presentation from Yeshua during his life concerning the events leading up to his second coming to the earth.  The table below contains the three versions of this discourse in parallel columns.  The content in each column has been separated to make sections of similar content more readily apparent.  Note that even though the three versions do not contain all of the same content, the corresponding passages are in the same order in all three versions.  Because the textual variants in this section of the gospels are mostly insignificant, this aspect of the topic will not be addressed.

Matthew 24:1-31	Mark 13:1-27	Luke 21:5-28
24 Jesus came out from the temple and was going away when His disciples came up to point out the temple buildings to him. 2 And He said to them, “Do you not see all these things? Truly I say to you, not one stone here will be left upon another, which will not be torn down.” 3 As He was sitting on the Mount of Olives, the disciples came to Him privately, saying, “Tell us, when will these things happen, and what will be the sign of Your coming, and of the end of the age?” 4 And Jesus answered and said to them, “See to it that no one misleads you. 5 For many will come in My name, saying, ‘I am the Christ,’ and will mislead many. 6 You will be hearing of wars and rumors of wars. See that you are not frightened, for those things must take place, but that is not yet the end. 7 For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against king-dom, and in various places there will be famines and earthquakes. 8 But all these things are merely the beginning of birth pangs. 9 “Then they will deliver you to tribulation, and will kill you, and you will be hated by all nations because of my name. 10 At that time many will fall away and will betray one another and hate one another. 11 Many false pro-phets will arise and will mislead many. 12 Because lawlessness is increased, most people’s love will grow cold. 13 But the one who endures to the end, he will be saved. 14 This gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all the nations, and then the end will come. 15 “Therefore when you see the abomination of desolation which was spoken of through Daniel the prophet, standing in the holy place (let the reader understand), 16 then those who are in Judea must flee to the mountains. 17 Whoever is on the housetop must not go down to get the things out that are in his house. 18 Whoever is in the field must not turn back to get his cloak. 19 But woe to those who are pregnant and to those who are nursing babies in those days! 20 But pray that your flight will not be in the winter, or on a Sabbath. 21 For then there will be a great tribulation, such as has not occurred since the beginning of the world until now, nor ever will. 22 Unless those days had been cut short, no life would have been saved; but for the sake of the elect those days will be cut short.  23 Then if anyone says to you, ‘Behold, here is the Christ,’ or ‘There He is,’ do not believe him. 24 For false Christs and false prophets will arise and will show great signs and wonders, so as to mislead, if possible, even the elect. 25 Behold, I have told you in advance. 26 So if they say to you, ‘Behold, He is in the wilderness,’ do not go out, or, ‘Behold, He is in the inner rooms,’ do not believe them. 27 For just as the lightning comes from the east and flashes even to the west, so will the coming of the Son of Man be. 28 Wherever the corpse is, there the vultures will gather. 29 “But immediately after the tribulation of those days the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light, and the stars will fall from the sky, and the powers of the heavens will be shaken.  30 And then the sign of the Son of Man will appear in the sky, and then all the tribes of the earth will mourn, and they will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of the sky with power and great glory. 31 And He will send forth His angels with a great trumpet and they will gather together His elect from the four winds, from one end of the sky to the other.	13 As He was going out of the temple, one of His disciples said to Him, “Teacher, behold what wonderful stones and what won-derful buildings!” 2 And Jesus said to him, “Do you see these great buildings? Not one stone will be left upon another which will not be torn down.” 3 As He was sitting on the Mount of Olives opposite the temple, Peter and James and John and Andrew were questioning Him privately, 4 “Tell us, when will these things be, and what will be the sign when all these things are going to be fulfilled?”  5 And Jesus began to say to them, “See to it that no one misleads you. 6 Many will come in My name, saying, ‘I am He!’ and will mislead many.  7 When you hear of wars and rumors of wars, do not be frightened; those things must take place; but that is not yet the end. 8 For nation will rise up against nation, and kingdom against kingdom; there will be earthquakes in various places; there will also be famines. These things are merely the beginning of birth pangs. 9 “But be on your guard; for they will deliver you to the courts, and you will be flogged in the syna-gogues, and you will stand before governors and kings for My sake, as a testimony to them. 10 The gospel must first be preached to all the nations. 11 When they arrest you and hand you over, do not worry before-hand about what you are to say, but say whatever is given you in that hour; for it is not you who speak, but it is the Holy Spirit. 12 Brother will betray brother to death, and a father his child; and children will rise up against parents and have them put to death. 13 You will be hated by all because of My name, but the one who endures to the end, he will be saved. 14 “But when you see the abomi-nation of desolation standing where it should not be (let the reader understand), then those who are in Judea must flee to the moun-tains. 15 The one who is on the housetop must not go down, or go in to get anything out of his house; 16 and the one who is in the field must not turn back to get his coat. 17 But woe to those who are pregnant and to those who are nursing babies in those days! 18 But pray that it may not happen in the winter. 19 For those days will be a time of tribulation such as has not occurred since the beginning of the creation which God created until now, and never will. 20 Unless the Lord had shortened those days, no life would have been saved; but for the sake of the elect, whom He chose, He shortened the days.  21 And then if anyone says to you, ‘Behold, here is the Christ’; or, ‘Behold, He is there’; do not believe him; 22 for false Christs and false prophets will arise, and will show signs and wonders, in order to lead astray, if possible, the elect. 23 But take heed; behold, I have told you everything in advance.  24 “But in those days, after that tribulation, the sun will be darkened and the moon will not give its light, 25 and the stars be falling from heaven, and the powers that are in the heavens will be shaken. 26 Then they will see the Son of Man coming in clouds with great power and glory. 27 And then He will send forth the angels, and will gather together His elect from the four winds, from the farthest end of the earth to the farthest end of heaven.	5 And while some were talking about the temple, that it was adorned with beautiful stones and votive gifts, He said, 6 “As for these things which you are looking at, the days will come in which there will not be left one stone upon another which will not be torn down.” 7 They questioned Him, saying, “Teacher, when therefore will these things happen? And what will be the sign when these things are about to take place?”  8 And He said, “See to it that you are not misled; for many will come in My name, saying, ‘I am He,’ and, ‘The time is near.’ Do not go after them.  9 When you hear of wars and disturbances, do not be terrified; for these things must take place first, but the end does not follow immediately.”  10 Then He continued by saying to them, “Nation will rise against nation and kingdom against king-dom, 11 and there will be great earthquakes, and in various places plagues and famines; and there will be terrors and great signs from heaven. 12 “But before all these things, they will lay their hands on you and will persecute you, delivering you to the synagogues and prisons, bringing you before kings and governors for My name’s sake. 13 It will lead to an opportunity for your testimony. 14 So make up your minds not to prepare beforehand to defend yourselves; 15 for I will give you utterance and wisdom which none of your opponents will be able to resist or refute. 16 But you will be betrayed even by parents and brothers and relatives and friends, and they will put some of you to death, 17 and you will be hated by all because of My name. 18 Yet not a hair of your head will perish. 19 By your endurance you will gain your lives. 20 “But when you see Jerusa-lem surrounded by armies, then recognize that her desolation is near. 21 Then those who are in Judea must flee to the mountains, and those who are in the midst of the city must leave, and those who are in the country must not enter the city; 22 because these are days of vengeance, so that all things which are written will be fulfilled. 23 Woe to those who are pregnant and to those who are nursing babies in those days; for there will be great distress upon the land and wrath to this people; 24 and they will fall by the edge of the sword, and will be led captive into all the nations; and Jerusalem will be trampled under foot by the Gentiles until the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled. 25 “There will be signs in sun and moon and stars, and on the earth dismay among nations, in perplexity at the roaring of the sea and the waves, 26 men fainting from fear and the expectation of the things which are coming upon the world; for the powers of the heavens will be shaken. 27 Then they will see the Son of Man coming in a cloud with power and great glory. 28 But when these things begin to take place, straighten up and lift up your heads, because your redemption is drawing near.”

SIGNIFICANT DIFFERENCES BETWEEN THE VERSIONS

There are numerous differences in wording and content between the three versions, but the content of Matthew and Mark are most similar, the text of Matthew is longest, and the content of Luke is shortest.  Nevertheless, the content of the three discourses is close enough that they all undoubtedly represent different memories of the same event.  Note, however, that none of the authors – Matthew, Mark, or Luke – was present at the time the discourse was delivered.  All three of them heard about it second hand, likely from different sources.  Also, each gospel was written from a different point of view, and so the text may have been adjusted to fit the author’s purpose.  Major differences between the three versions are as follows:

·       Situational Context.  Both Matthew and Mark specifically state that Yeshua and his disciples were leaving the temple at the time when Yeshua told them that every stone of the temple complex would be thrown down.  In Luke, the immediately preceding paragraph describes Yeshua’s response to the poor widow’s contribution of two mites to the temple treasury.  The next verse starts the discourse about what must take place prior to his return.  Matthew and Mark both indicate that they left the temple complex and walked over to the Mount of Olives.  Luke does not indicate where they were when Yeshua delivered this discourse.

·       Audience.  In Matthew the text states that his disciples came to him privately and asked him what would be the sign of his coming and the end of the age.  In Mark the disciples were specifically identified – Peter, James, and John.  In Luke those questioning Yeshua are not identified by anything other than plural verb forms.

·       False Messiahs.  All three accounts include this warning. 

·    Prelude.  The first item of woes mentioned is wars, rumors of wars, earth-quakes, famine, and plagues. 

·       Persecution.  All three gospels have a passage on persecution. 

·      Destruction of Jerusalem.  All three gospels have a passage describing the destruction of Jerusalem and tribulation. 

·       False Prophets and False Messiahs.  This passage is not present in Luke, but the text in Matthew and Mark are similar. 

·    The Return of the Son of Man.  All three gospels describe the return of the Son of Man as an unmistakable event that will be seen by all.

SYNOPTIC PROBLEM

This term refers to a scholarly debate concerning the authorship, dating, and sources for these three gospels.  In brief, the debate arises because of the following factors:

·      All three of these gospels have a similar arrangement from beginning to end.

·      All three gospels have sections with similar style and similar vocabulary.

·    Matthew and Mark exhibit more sections with stylistic and wording similarities than are present in Luke.

·  All three gospels have a considerable number of divergences between one another in internal organization and wording.

Over the years scholars have advanced many different theories to account for both the similarities and the divergences between these three gospels, but none of them has achieved general acceptance.  Probably the most common documentary hypothesis is that all three gospels used one common source document called Q, which may have been written in either Aramaic or Greek.  If the hypothetical “Q” document was originally an Aramaic source, then some of the divergences can be attributed to “translation Greek” as well as to the different purposes of the separate gospels.  Some of the factors that must be kept in mind are as follows:

·    The common language in Judea and Galilee during the first century was Jewish Palestinian Aramaic and Mishnaic Hebrew.  Koine Greek would have been the language of commerce in this region but the common language in much of Anatolia and further west.  Latin was the language of their Roman overlords, but most of the Roman hierarchy also spoke Koine Greek.  (This was a matter of status among the Romans.  Note that Josephus wrote his works in Greek, not Latin, and he indicated that he had to learn Greek.)

·      Many scholars have asserted that most or all four of the gospels were originally written in Aramaic (or Syriac) and subsequently translated into Koine Greek.  This hypothesis has two major flaws.  First, not a single Aramaic fragment of New Covenant text has been preserved from the first or second century CE.  Additionally, the Syriac Peshitta dates from around the third century CE, and the earliest New Covenant fragments (Koine Greek and Latin) date from the early second century.  (Syriac is an Aramaic dialect, but it is not the same as Jewish Palestinian Aramaic or Biblical Aramaic.)  Second, information was primarily communicated orally rather than in book form.  The majority of early gentile Christians were not literate, and few of the people who were literate could afford to purchase books (scrolls at that time).

·      The traditional ascription of authorship for the gospels means at very lest that the text was written down under the authority of the individual identified.  The first four verses of the gospel of Luke assert that the author investigated facts of the matter from testimonies of eyewitnesses and ‘servants of the word’ to establish the truth, but nowhere does he identify himself as Luke.  In contrast, Paul, James (Yacob), and Peter (Cepha) identify themselves at the beginning of each book attributed to them.

The authors – or the scribes that wrote the words down for the first time – assuredly used sources, oral and/or written.  The significant point is not the content of sources that have not been preserved but how that content was assembled into the individual texts that have been preserved.

SYNTHESIS OF ACCOUNTS

The account of the Olivet Discourse begins with Yeshua’s comment about the total destruction of the temple complex as he and his followers were leaving Jerusalem.  This occurred two or three days before Passover, and evidently it was the last time that Yeshua went to the temple before his death.  They crossed over the Kidron Valley to the Mount of Olives, a location where they had often camped during their trips to Jerusalem.  At some point that evening, Peter, James, and John came privately and asked him to clarify two things: when would the temple precinct be destroyed, and what would be the sign of his coming and the end of the age.  Apparently, these three disciples had come to the realization that Yeshua’s ascendancy would not be immediate; but when it came about, it would end the world power structure as they had known it in the present age.  Yeshua’s response consists of seven parts, all future from their perspective; but some clearly apply to their immediate future, some specifically apply to the distant future, and some may apply to both.

1.   False Messiahs.  Yeshua asserted in the coming days many would arise claiming his name for authority.   Because of the ambiguity in the way Koine Greek expresses direct versus reported speech, the text could be understood in one of two ways: 1) Such individuals would claim faith in Yeshua and use that as authority to teach false doctrine;  2) Such individuals would claim to be the risen messiah.   Over the past 2000 years, a number of Jews have been acclaimed to be the messiah, but none of them ever fit the prophetic profile for messiah.  Over the past 200 years a number of sectarian ‘Christian’ leaders have arisen and propagated what has generally been considered false doctrine about Yeshua, and in the past 50 years several individuals have claimed to be the risen Christ.  As predicted by Yeshua, many have been misled by such individuals – some to their death (e.g., Jonestown).

2.   Wars, famine, earthquakes, terrors, plagues, and celestial signs.  Social disruption will be caused by a combination of war and natural disasters of various types.  Yeshua asserted that all this must take place, but it would be merely a prelude, not the end itself.  There is no time that has been free of such events, but over the past 100 or so years, the frequency, scope, and severity of them has increased dramatically.  Speculation about the tribulation and the return of Yeshua really exploded following the Six-Day war in 1967 when Israel regained control of Jerusalem.

3.    Persecution.  All three gospels include a passage on persecution, but their focus is different.  Luke adds the assertion that the persecution would take place before all the wars and the natural catastrophes previously mentioned.  This description appears to relate most closely to the persecution of the Jewish believers by the Jewish authorities.  Matthew and Mark seem to indicate that betrayal and generalized persecution among the nations would occur after the start of the above catastrophes.  Both Matthew and Mark assert that the gospel must be preached to all nations before the end would come.  Historically, official persecution of believing Jews by Jewish authorities began shortly after the death of Yeshua and generally persisted until the fall of Jerusalem.  After that event the remaining Jewish leaders renounced the Jewish believers as followers of a different religion.  Then the official Roman persecution of Christians began and persisted until the ascendancy of Constatine.  After Constantine made Christianity the official religion of the Roman Empire, the Christian hierarchy progressively became persecutors of any who did not follow their interpretation of the gospels.  In more recent times, Christians and Messianic Jews have again become the objects of opposition and persecution for their faith, sometimes with animosity toward one another.

4.   Destruction of Jerusalem and Tribulation. The passages in Matthew and Mark are verbally quite similar, but that in Luke is distinctively different.

·       Luke.  The passage begins with “When you see Jerusalem surrounded by armies …” as the sign that judgment and destruction are about to fall.  This prediction fits the destruction of Jerusalem under Titus in 70 CE.  The prophesy goes on to predict that Jerusalem would continue to be trampled underfoot until the time of the gentiles was fulfilled.  Many Christian interpreters assert that this (the end of the time of the gentiles) took place when Israel regained control of the Old City during the Six Day War in 1967.

·       Matthew-Mark.  These two gospels make the appearance of the Abomination of Desolation in the holy place to be the ultimate sign.  This occurred for the first time during the time of the Maccabees when Antiochus Epiphanes defiled the temple, but this passage is presented as a future event from the perspective of the disciples.  The Romans did destroy the temple, and subsequently the Romans, Christians, and finally the Muslims built places of worship on the site of the temple.  The final structure – the Dome of the Rock – remains there to this day along with a subterranean mosque below the location where the Ark of the Covenant had been situated.  Even though no third temple is now present in Jerusalem, these mosques are a plausible fulfillment of Yeshua’s words – they are an abomination on the site of YHWH’s temple.  Additionally, Matthew and Mark both predict a Great Tribulation whose scope would exceed anything else ever experienced from the time of creation forward.  In fact, this tribulation would have the capability of destroying all life, but God would cut it short for the sake of the elect.  After development of the atomic and hydrogen bombs, mankind now has the capacity to annihilate all life on earth, something that had never previously existed.

5.     False Messiahs and False Prophets.  This passage is not present in Luke, but both Matthew and Mark repeat the prediction concerning the coming of many false messiahs and false prophets.  From the ancient Semitic point of view, repetition is one of the major methods for expressing emphasis.  Yeshua is here asserting that this is important.  Many false teachers and imposters will arise and propagate corrupted or completely false versions of his message.  This situation is now present and has been present for a considerable amount of time.

6.     Sign of Messiah.  This passage is present only in Matthew and it serves as a key for identifying false messiahs.  It consists of two proverbs.  The first is based on lightning.  Any time that lightning occurs, it flashes across the sky and everyone on the ground – and in space for that matter – will see it.  The second is based on the activity of vultures.  Whenever something is dead or dying, vultures circle overhead.  Anyone on the ground will see the vultures and know what is occurring.  Just so, a secret return of Meshiach Yeshua just will not happen.

7.  Coming of Messiah. Matthew and Mark indicate that his return will occur after the Great Tribulation, and all three gospels indicate that it will be preceded by signs in heaven – the sun, moon, and stars.  The manner of his return will be with the “clouds of heaven.”  This imagery is taken from Daniel 7:13 where one like a son of man comes up to the Ancient of Days to receive dominion, glory, and rule over all nations.  This return will not be secret or hidden – everybody will see it.  According to the text in Luke, these signs indicate that the salvation of the elect is drawing near.  The text in Matthew and Mark states that Yeshua will send his spirit messengers (now called angels) out to collect the elect from throughout the earth.  If this reference corresponds to the "rapture of the Church," then it occurs at the end of the Great Tribulation and not before it starts.