Saturday, September 13, 2008

A Case for Historic Premillennialism

Another book on my hit list for the future is the Case for Historic Premillennialism edited by Craig Blomberg and Sung Wook Chung (due out in February, published by Baker). The blurb reads:

"Many evangelical readers who have learned the basics of eschatology from popular authors and more recently from novelists assume that dispensational premillennialism, with its distinctive teachings about the pretribulation rapture of the church, is the only reliable view of the end times and the return of Christ. This volume, however, offers a compelling case for an alternative perspective--one that was widely prevalent throughout church history. The contributors, all respected scholars in their respective fields, suggest that classic premillennialism offers believers a more coherent and viable approach to understanding eschatology. Their studies, which examine eschatology from biblical, theological, historical, and missiological approaches, provide a broadly accessible argument for returning to the perspectives of historic premillennial eschatology."

Although I wouldn't bet my house on it, I still think a historic premillenial position is the one that best accounts for 1 Cor. 15.20-28 and Rev. 20.1-10 (with some good support from Papias and Justin Martyr - see Andrew Chester's study of millennarianism in the early church in his book Messiah and Exaltation) Besides short volumes by Ladd and Gundry, there aren't too many decent books that give a good exposition of historic premillennialism which is, despite protestations of my presbbie friends, quite different from dispensational millennialism (see the charts here).

1 comment:

Rocky2 said...

One reason why many still won't open up their minds to alternative approaches is the constant repetition of pretribulationism coming from its leading diehards such as "Doctor" Thomas Ice. For those curious about him Google has some enlightening articles including "Thomas Ice (Bloopers)," "Thomas Ice (Hired Gun)," "Pretrib Rapture Diehards" (especially the latter part) and another by MacPherson titled "Deceiving and Being Deceived" which sheds light on the supposedly valid degrees that Tyndale Theological Seminary has been issuing to Ice etc.
Rocky2