Is the Book of Revelation History or Prophecy?
Understanding Preterism One of the most common attacks from skeptics against the Bible goes something like this: "Jesus promised he would come back 'soon.' He told his disciples that 'this generation' would not pass away before the end came. Well, it’s been 2,000 years. That generation is long dead. Jesus was wrong." Even some famous Christian thinkers, like C.S. Lewis, admitted that Matthew 24:34 (where Jesus predicts these things) was "the most embarrassing verse in the Bible." But what if Jesus wasn't wrong? What if the problem isn't with Jesus' timeline, but with our interpretation? This brings us to a theological view known as Preterism. The word comes from the Latin praeter , meaning "past." In short, Preterism is the view that many of the prophecies in the New Testament—specifically those about the "end of the age," the "Great Tribulation," and the "coming on the clouds"—were fulfi...