666 ?

[Guest]

Damon,
Thank you for your reply, but the main thoughts are not mine but that of the earliest Church Fathers and apologists. As for the rest, well they are conjecture based upon these ancient's work and modern application....it is not dogma...especially about who the future or present Antichrist is.
I have heard that a similar Jerusalem theory...but Second Temple Jerusalem does not have 7 hills....and the modern city has more than seven. 7 hills are 7 dominion heads, 5 had already passed in John's time, one was then extant, and the 7th hill was yet to come, and when it did it would be mortally wounded and revived by the Land Beast. The Sea Beast (i.e. Leviathan) represents the phases of godless human imperial socio-political system, and the Land Beast (i.e. Behemoth) represents the phases of the godless socio-religious system which supports the Sea Beast. Babylon the Great is the City which sits enthroned atop the Sea Beast...and she is hated by that Beast and it's ten allied dominions. It fits pagan Rome and all ancient sources declare it so.
From 64 CE till 313 CE the City of Rome persecuted and killed the Church of the Saints. And She was neglected by the Roman Emperor and the Senate for New Rome in 325 CE (i.e. Contantinople-Byzantium-Istanbul). The Western Emperors reigned from Milan or Ravenna, so the final sacking of Rome in 476 CE was the final coupe de gras. Babylon the Great, the Immoral Harlot of Pagan excess collapsed in on day in 476. It and much of the Western dominions was recovered for some time by Eastern Roman Emperor Justinian...but Rome was no longer a Capitol city....it was ruins. Vatican Hill outside Rome's crumbling walls became the residence of the Roman Patriarch at this time....not Rome proper.

I do not know from what source that the Antichrist is said to reign from Jerusalem, though I do realize that the 2 Martyrs (Enoch & Elijah?) will minister in Isreal for 3.5 years and be murdered in Jerusalem during the Tribulation. But Jerusalem is called the Great City, spiritual Sodom (perversion) and Egypt (bondage)...but not Babylon.
Babylon falls completely in a day, but Jerusalem suffers a cataclysmic earthquake after the resurrection of the 2 Martyrs in which the city's infrastructure is decimated and 7000 citizens perish. It seems that Jerusalem will be the Cup of Reeling foretold by the Prophets, in which the Beast, his ten allies and the forces of the kings of the Orient meet at Har Meggido to fight over.
I realize that many see that Paul's statement about the Son of Perdition declaring himself to be God amidst the Temple of God must mean the AntiChrist enters a rebuilt Jerusalem Temple and desecrates it by declaring himself God....but it could very well mean the Antichrist will arise from within the Church, which is the Temple of God now. If this is so he will be a wolf in the lamb's clothing..seeking to deceive even the Elect if that were possible. This idea falls in line with many ancients as well as a few Protestant Reformers. I am not saying it is the Pope!!! But it could be Benny Hinn! And TBN's Paul Crouch could be his false prophet, restoring his flagging Televangelistic ministry! LOL! Ok..just joking.

Truly, I do not think it will be so scripted, but it will remain a mystery until it begins and many will fall away when they realize they are not raptured and will have to pass through the fire like Shadraq, Meshaq & Abednego. My main point is that false eschatological teachings and false hopes based upon these post Apostolic notions will cause many to stumble either because they thought they'd be taken out of the end of days, or that they were spared it all as it all took place in 70 CE. As you can see I am a blunt and unashamed Historic Apostolic Premillennialist. Historic Amillennialism does foresee a Tribulation, a reign of the Antichrist etc..it is the Teaching of all Apostolic Churches...they are just divided on whether or not what takes place after the Tribulation and return of Messiah is according to Historic Premillennialism or Classic Amillennialism.
Dispendationalism and Praeterism are the rival teams among elements of Anglo-American Protestantism. These two later positions were not the positions of the Roman Catholic Church or their Protestant Reformed offspring...they were both developed by a few Jesuits to counter Protestantism's Classical Amillennialism united to their brand of historicism. But neither views were tolerated by Rome and were oddly enough later adopted by Restorationist Protestants and Calvinist reconstructionists in the 18th & 19th Centuries.

In Messiah,
+Ken Huffman

[Guest]

Hi Ken.

The "seven hills" have nothing to do with physical topography. They represent seven successive governments which are symbolically represented by seven "mountains".

I know this is the correct interpretation because it ties in with the ancient biblical symbolism going all the way back to the beginning of human history. The first civilization - that of Sumer (and later Babylon) - used a ziggurat as a sort of artificial mountain representing a link between heaven and earth, a counterfeit of Jacob's stairway which represents Christ. A ziggurat would be placed in the capital city of the empire, where the king ruled from. As time went on, new capital cities would be chosen and new ziggurats erected to mark them as the capital city.

So five counterfeit governments have fallen, one is, and the other is not yet come.

As far as the beasts who rise out of the land and out of the sea, this draws on Creation symbolism. The sea represents the primordial waters from which all of creation sprang (see Gen. 1:2 and 9-10). The earth represents the "place where Creation occurred" which later became the city where the king ruled. Both of these are connected with "messianic" symbolism, and both beasts are thus false messiahs or antichrists. One is a king and the other is a prophet.

As far as the ancient sources declaring that this was Rome, first of all they didn't have the historical perspective that we do today to properly understand this symbolism, and secondly some things weren't meant to be properly understood until the very end, a-la Daniel 12.

As far as the two prophets who will prophesy in Jerusalem, they're Elijah and Moses. And yes, they'll preach there for 3 1/2 years before being killed just prior to Christ's return. That's how we know that the Beast system has nothing to do with Rome in the first century, because Christ didn't return then.

As far as the antichrist desecrating the Church, although there is some truth to that, what he actually does according to 2 Thes. 2:4 is SIT in the Temple of God, showing that he is God.

Question. What is he sitting on?

Go back and look at the Temple architecture and furnishings in 1 Kings 6-7. Do you see any chairs mentioned anywhere? No, right? So what is he sitting on?

The next chapter mentions that the Ark of the Covenant was brought into the Temple. Remember the "Mercy Seat" on the Ark itself? (Ex. 25:17-22) And who was supposed to sit on this "Mercy Seat"? None other than God Himself.

Therefore, whether we're talking symbolically or literally, the antichrist SITS on the Mercy Seat on the Ark of the Covenant, showing himself to be God. That's what that passage in 2 Thessalonians 2:4 means.

Myself, I believe that the Temple will be literally rebuilt and that the Ark of the Covenant will be recovered and placed within the Temple. I believe this because, first of all, I know that the Body of Christ is so divided and fragmented that barely "one stone rests upon another" figuratively speaking. Secondly, some of these sects have this or that part of the original Temple treasures! So, in order to recover all of the Temple treasures and place them in a rebuilt physical Temple, reunifying the spiritual Temple will be a prerequisite.

That seems to be the way God will do it.

Damon

[Guest]

Quoting Priestly
Irenaeus stated that Titan (Gr: TEITAN) the Roman God of the Sun (Sol Invictus) added up to 666, and so did LATEINOC, which means the Latins (I.e. Romans).

Then Irenaeus wrote:

We will not, however, incur the risk of pronouncing positively as to the name of Antichrist; for if it were necessary that his name should be distinctly revealed in this present time, it would have been announced by him who beheld the apocalyptic vision. For that was seen no very long time since, but almost in our day, towards the end of Domitians' reign

But he indicates the number of the name now, that when this man comes we may avoid him, being aware who he is...

It appears that Irenaeus was a futurist.

[Guest]

The Apocalypse was written in Greek for Greek Speaking Christians, whether Hebrew or Gentile....thus the use of Hebrew Gematria by Gentry is nonsense.

I definitely disagree here, as the Apocalypse makes use of multiple Jewish words and symbols.

[Guest]

I definitely disagree here, as the Apocalypse makes use of multiple Jewish words and symbols.

Why was the Apocalypse written to seven chruches in Western Turkey far from Judea? Where were Heiropolis and Collosee and even Antioch left out with others closer to Judea?

[_Steve]

Hi Cameron,

I don't think we can say for sure why the Apocalypse was addressed to the region it was addressed to and not to Jerusalem, but I think the answer may be as simple as this:

Asia was where Ephesus, John's home church, was. He was permitted to send this book of warning and encouragement to the folks "back home," who would haved as much of an interest in the fate of Jerusalem as would any first-century Christians—besides the Jerusalemites themselves, of course.

The reason for not sending this particular book to Jerusalem might be that God had already given the church there precisely the same warning and encouragement in the Olivet Discourse, and He would also send a special oracle, at the proper time, to tell the Christians there when to flee (which happened, according to Eusebius).

What would be even more inexplicable than His sending a letter about the fate of Jerusalem to first-century, Asian Christians would be His addressing it to them, as He did, but really meaning for its message to be applicable to the last generation of Christians that would ever live—while providing no way for the final generation to know that they are the very last generation, to whom it applies. This would leave open the possiblility (and likelihood) of every successive generation, after the first, being deceived into thinking that they might be the last, and that the book applies to their own time.

He wisely took steps to prevent this confusion by frequently telling the original readers that the book would be fulfilled immediately.

***********************

Paidion,

I think you are right in saying that Irenaeus was a futurist, as were most of the early fathers. But this statement could be misleading, if it is taken to imply that their futurism was similar to modern futurism.

All Christians (except for that very small minority called "fully-realized preterists) are futurists and preterists at the same time. Since "futurist" means "looking for a future fulfillment," and "preterist" means "recognizing a past fulfillment," every Christian is a "futurist" about some prophecies and a "preterist" about others.

Jesus and the apostles were clearly futurists, concerning the matters that they prophesied (e.g. the fall of Jerusalem in AD 70 and the final resurrection at the end of the world), though they were preterists concerning the majority of Old Testament prophecies (as are all Christians today). Almost all people who believe in the fulfillment of biblical prophecy place some fulfillments in the past and some in the future vis-a-vis their own times.

Thus Isaiah was a preterist with reference to the prophecies made earlier to Abraham, Moses and Joshua that God would give Israel the land of Canaan. These promises had already been fulfilled long before his time. But Isaiah was a futurist with reference to his own prophecies describing the suffering of the coming Messiah.

The apostles, in turn (like ourselves) were preterists concerning Isaiah's prophecies about the suffering of Messiah, but they were futurists concerning Jesus' predictions about the fall of Jesusalem, which few of them lived to see.

We, in our day, are preterists when dealing with Jesus' predictions of the fall of Jerusalem, because that happened centuries ago. However, we are still futurists concerning the second coming and the resurrection of the dead.

Irenaeus and his contemporaries were no different. They saw many Bible prophecies as having been fulfilled, but they saw some as not yet fulfilled. The coming of the "man of sin" was one such prophecy that they viewed as yet to be fulfilled in their future. They believed that the Roman Empire must fall before the man of sin could arise, but the early fathers did not live to see that event, as later generations did.

Many Christians living after the fall of Rome (including the reformers) were preterists with reference to the fall of Rome and the rise of the man of sin (which they identified with the papacy), but still believed in some future fulfillments of other prophetic events, like the second coming of Christ and the resurrection.

Irenaeus was evidently not a preterist with respect to the prophecy of the beast in Revelation. He anticipated a future antichrist. However, we cannot thereby place him in the same camp as modern futurists, since, had he lived later in history, Irenaeus may well have recognized a fulfillment in developments which have occurred later than his own day.

The modern futurist is distinguished by his belief that the fulfillments of Revelation, the Olivet Discourse, and much of Old Testament prophecy, are reserved for the very last few moments of history. This view may or may not have appealed to Irenaeus, had he been exposed to it, but then, for all he knew, the end of all history might well have been only a weeks or months off.

We live almost 2000 years after Irenaeus, and have the advantage of historical hindsight—the same advantage that the early Christians had over the saints of the Old Testament, so that we can recognise the fulfillments of certain prophecies in our past that were still future to the early fathers. The modern Christian, unlike Irenaeus, lives after the unfolding of many centuries of Christian history, and is able to compare what was predicted with what has followed. In the duty of making this compsarison, the modern futurist seems to be remiss, and so he continues to look, unnecessarily, for future events to mimmick those that have already occurred in fulfillment of many of the prophecies.

Having said all of this, I still disagree with Irenaeus' apparent belief in a future individual antichrist—not because I know the future or can deny that a world ruler may arise who will persecute Christians (this scenario, in fact, seems very realistic, to my mind)—but simply because such an individual does not appear to me to be predicted anywhere in scripture. Even if Irenaeus were a full-blown dispensationalist (which he clearly was not), I would not be impressed or convinced to agree with him, unless his views could be shown to be scriptural.

[Guest]

Hi Steve,
Thanks for the reply. But do we know factually, that Heiropolis and Collosee were not also part of the Ephesus region?
Secondly, the message was not from John to the flock under his oversee in the Ephesus region. Rather it is a letter from Jesus to the seven churches (Rev. 1:11) that John records that just so happen to be to a flock that he was intimately part of up until his exile. Therefore, one must ask why Jesus chose to write to these seven churches in a book that is supposedly about Jerusalem and 70 AD. It is a leap to add the assumption that it was Jesus’ way to communicate these events through the seven churches in Western Turkey.

When we look at the letters in detail, we find that Jesus is speaking directly to them and their church issues and that He is coming suddenly directly to them. In one instance, he says He is coming to them like a thief.

Rev 3:3 Remember, then, what you received and heard. Keep it, and repent. If you will not wake up, I will come like a thief, and you will not know at what hour I will come against you.

Is it not true that even some partial preterists would generally apply the “thief in the night” idiom and the “no one knows the day and hour” idiom to the 2nd Coming? Are they not synoptic idioms? Maybe, maybe not, but this brings up a bigger issue:

Were these seven churches crushed under the boot of Titus at the same time that Jerusalem was suffering in 68-70 AD? Why is Jesus telling them things like:

Rev 2:5 Remember therefore from where you have fallen; repent, and do the works you did at first. If not, I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place, unless you repent.

If he did not “come” to them figuratively qualified elsewhere as “ in the clouds” or even literally? What is the point? This is specific dialogue to specific churches regarding specific issues:

Rev 2:6 Yet this you have: you hate the works of the Nicolaitans, which I also hate.

So as I’ve said before, it is IMHO it is an insertion of a paradigm into the text that makes this letter (or 7 letters) specifically apply to Jerusalem.

So then, we come to the “inexplicable” supposition that Jesus may have intended this book to apply to a last generation sometime in the future. Is it really that inexplicable when many of these seven letters have references to the 2nd Coming?

Rev 2:25 Only hold fast what you have until I come.

He wisely took steps to prevent this confusion by frequently telling the original readers that the book would be fulfilled immediately.

And yet I have to question this statement based up these “soon” statements used throughout the book of the Revelation of Jesus Christ

Rev 16:15 ("Behold, I am coming like a thief! Blessed is the one who stays awake, keeping his garments on, that he may not go about naked and be seen exposed!")

Rev 22:12 "Behold, I am coming soon, bringing my recompense with me, to repay everyone for what he has done.
Rev 22:13 I am the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end."
Rev 22:14 Blessed are those who wash their robes, so that they may have the right to the tree of life and that they may enter the city by the gates.
Rev 22:15 Outside are the dogs and sorcerers and the sexually immoral and murderers and idolaters, and everyone who loves and practices falsehood.

Is this all not in the context of the eternal state? Yes, it is the close of the letter, but yet, He sees fit to tie this soon coming into the results of the Ultimate End / The Beginning of the Eternally Restored Relationship. That doesn’t seem to fit with partial preterism.

[Guest]

The modern futurist is distinguished by his belief that the fulfillments of Revelation, the Olivet Discourse, and much of Old Testament prophecy, are reserved for the very last few moments of history. This view may or may not have appealed to Irenaeus, had he been exposed to it, but then, for all he knew, the end of all history might well have been only a weeks or months off.

Steve,
This is a great way of putting your perspective and I appreciate it. Your thoughts make me think about what I believe and why.

However, I wonder is it is right to limit Irenaeus in this manner. Of course, all we can do is second guess, but can we suggest that Irenaeus would have also had a limited view on who the “Harlot” and the “Bride” of Revelation were? I’ve heard partial-preterists speak of Jerusalem as the “Harlot” and they offer up a few OT passages to which I offer up a few others that speak of Ninevah, Egypt, Samaria and Tyre as being harlots too.

The idea, I believe, that is offered up in Revelation as to the ID of the “Harlot” is to be understood in dichotomy with the “Bride”. Sure I understand and even agree with the Matthew 23 allusion to the “harlot” and even agree, but I also see Isaiah 24s even more direct parallels with Revelation 18 and in Isaiah 24, the “city of confusion” is the earth a.k.a. mankind, particularly the wicked variety. The earth (man’s fallen systems) and its enticements and end are described very similarly to that of the “Harlot”. In fact, I would say that the operative term “great” is the key to seeing the Harlot / City/ Babylon/ Euphrates in Revelation 16-18 as referring to something “greater” and more ultimate than just one city. I would hazard a guess that this type of understanding would be more 1st Century than modern dispensationalism, which has a literal Babylon, etc.

I think it is quite plausible that Irenaeus held a view similar to post-trib or prewrath premillennialsm. I agree with you that dispensationalism would be quite out of the question for Irenaeus since he and others did continue to look for a future Antichrist to persecute the Church.

You suggest that the Church gave up these views in favor of amillennialsim due to their greater perspective. Well, couldn’t one argue also that the church gave up chillaism due to a combination of their distance from the source in time and the fact that Israel had seemingly disappeared as a physical nation as the Church continued to grow and take over the known world? It seems to me that amillennialsim would be a natural, rather than spiritual response to the successes of Christianity and wastelands of the Jewish nation.

This premillennial perspective resurged in the Church even before the unthinkable from the 5th Century happened; the future founding of another Jewish state in the “Promise Land”. I suspect that there would have been some hesitation on the acceptance of amillennialsim as the dominant eschatology if Augustine had known of the future. In fact, I would suggest that premillennism would have remained dominant had the 5th Century Church been aware of 1948.

[_Steve]

Cameron,

You raised quite a few new questions (new to you, that is. Most of them have been discussed elsewhere on the forum).

You wrote:

"But do we know factually, that Heiropolis and Collosee were not also part of the Ephesus region?"

No, actually those cities were also in the region, as was Troas. There were churches in all of these cities at one point. We don't know what their level of faithfulness may have been during this period. Paul said that, at one point, all who were in Asia (Turkey) had turned from him. In Revelation, we read that five of the seven churches addressed there were in bad shape. The churches in Troas, Hierapolis and Colosse may have been worse-off still, so bad that Jesus did not even grace them with a letter here. Or the opposite may be true. Perhaps these three churches were doing so well that they needed no correction or warnings. Who knows. We certainly do not. The reason for selecting seven churches in Asia instead of ten may simply have been to maintain the motif of "sevens" that seems to be so significant in the Book of Revelation.

You wrote:

"Secondly, the message was not from John to the flock under his oversee in the Ephesus region. Rather it is a letter from Jesus to the seven churches (Rev. 1:11) that John records that just so happen to be to a flock that he was intimately part of up until his exile. Therefore, one must ask why Jesus chose to write to these seven churches in a book that is supposedly about Jerusalem and 70 AD. It is a leap to add the assumption that it was Jesus’ way to communicate these events through the seven churches in Western Turkey."

There is no leaping here. It is true that the letter is from Jesus and not from John. However, it was John to whom it was given, and it seems most reasonable for a message to the churches, written and sent out by John, would be delivered to churches with whom he had some kind of relationship. What other churches (other than Jerusalem, which had earlier received the same warnings directly from Christ, and did not need to hear them again) would be more appropriate to be chosen to receive a letter from John's hand, than the churches that personally knew him? Indeed, much of what Jesus had to communicate through John was especially relevant to those seven congregations (ch.2-3).

You wrote:

"When we look at the letters in detail, we find that Jesus is speaking directly to them and their church issues and that He is coming suddenly directly to them. In one instance, he says He is coming to them like a thief...[cites 3:3]...Is it not true that even some partial preterists would generally apply the “thief in the night” idiom and the “no one knows the day and hour” idiom to the 2nd Coming? Are they not synoptic idioms? Maybe, maybe not, but this brings up a bigger issue:

Were these seven churches crushed under the boot of Titus at the same time that Jerusalem was suffering in 68-70 AD? Why is Jesus telling them things like [cites 2:5]...

I am not entitled to speak for most "preterists," since no two of them are likely to believe every detail alike (just as futurists do not all believe the same thing in detail). Speaking only as a Bible teacher without an agenda, I can say that the expression "coming" has many applications in scripture when applied to God or Christ.

He told the Ephesian church that, if they did not repent, He would "come" to them and remove their lampstand. He told the remnant in Laodicea that He would "come" into them and sup with them. He told the church of Pergamos that, if they would not repent, He would "come" and destroy them with the sword of His mouth. These three instances alone seem to speak of Christ "coming" in three different senses, do they not? Why suggest that Jesus was promising His second coming in any of these statements? All three of those churches thus addressed are now extinct. Jesus will not be "coming" to them at His second coming. We have to assume that He kept His word sometime in the lifetime of those churches.

You wrote:

"If he did not 'come' to them figuratively qualified elsewhere as 'in the clouds' or even literally? What is the point? This is specific dialogue to specific churches regarding specific issues...So as I’ve said before, it is IMHO it is an insertion of a paradigm into the text that makes this letter (or 7 letters) specifically apply to Jerusalem. "

The question of whether Jerusalem is the subject matter of any part of the Book of Revelation must be decided upon its material contents, not upon the identification of the recipients. If the fall of Jerusalem would have a spiritual impact on Christians around the world (as it did), what objection can be presented to Christ talking about it to these or any other churches?

That Jerusalem is in view hardly seems controversial, since the temple is seen—and predicted to be delivered over to the Gentiles, as occurred in AD 70 (11:1-2), and the oft-mentioned "great city" (symbolically called "Babylon"—14:8/16:19/ 17:18/ 18:10, 18) is identified as being "where our Lord was crucified" (11:8), which histoically was Jerusalem. That city is also called "the Harlot," which is a term for Jerusalem (Isaiah 1:21/Jer.3:1, 6, 8/ Ezek.16:15, 35; etc.).

That John wrote about Jerusalem seems indisputable. That he wrote to the churches in Asia is also indisputable. It is idle to insist upon knowing the reason why these churches were selected to receive the message about Jerusalem. What is more to our purpose is to discover when these predictions were intended to be fulfilled.

As I pointed out earlier, they are unambiguously said to be on the verge of fulfillment at the time of writing (e.g., 1:1, 3; 21:10). What remains the most peculiar suggestion is that which thinks that Jesus predicted the end of the world and directed the message to seven churches that would be extinct before this would ever happen, and whose concern, therefore, it could not in any sense be.

You wrote:
"However, I wonder is it is right to limit Irenaeus in this manner."

I don't think I have placed any particular limits upon Irenaeus, other than to say that he was human, and therefore fallible. Your concerns about preterism and amillennialism (which you don't appear to recognise as two separate things) are arguments, primarily, from appeal to historic beliefs of the fathers. My interest is in exegeting relevant biblical texts. I did not become amillennial by reading any amillennial fathers or modern amillennial writers. I became amillennial by studying the scriptures. I became preterist after having other preterists point out to me the historical events that clearly fulfilled biblical passages that I had mistakenly been applying to future events. The beliefs of other teachers (whether they are ancient men or modern) is of little importance to me comparatively. If I wish to follow the teachings of men, there is no obvious qualification that would set one man higher as an authority than another. "All flesh is as grass." The word of the Lord, however, is true.

You wondered whether amillennialism would ever have arisen had Augustine been able to foresee the events of 1948. I suppose we will never know "what would have been," but I can't see why it would have made any difference. It is the futurists that practice "newspaper exegesis." Those who follow scripture would not be swayed by events not predicted there. I live after 1948, and was very much aware of the rebirth of the State of Israel at the time that I became an amillennialist. That particular event is not mentioned in scripture, so its occurrance has no impact on my interpretation of biblical prophecy.

I don't have time to expound on Isaiah 24, but much confusion has been occasioned by the translators' inconsistency in translating "erets," sometimes as "land" (e.g. vv.3, 13) and sometimes as "earth" (e.g., vv.1, 4, 5, 6, 17, 19, 20, 21). If you read this same chapter translating "erets" consistently as "land" (that is, read "land" where your translation reads "earth"), it should become clear enough that the destruction of Jerusalem ("the city of confusion"—v.10) and the depopulation of the land of Judah is what is in view here—not the end of the world. Of course, this requires at least a passing familiarity with the common symbolism of the prophets. For a thorough analysis of the prophetic symbolism, I commend to you my lecture series entitled "Topical Isaiah"—available for free down load at my website: www.thenarrowpath.com.

By the way, Augustine was not a preterist, though he was amillennial.

[Guest]

This premillennial perspective resurged in the Church even before the unthinkable from the 5th Century happened; the future founding of another Jewish state in the “Promise Land”. I suspect that there would have been some hesitation on the acceptance of amillennialsim as the dominant eschatology if Augustine had known of the future. In fact, I would suggest that premillennism would have remained dominant had the 5th Century Church been aware of 1948.

That's the real key isn't it. Is the modern state of Israel a political move (with beginnings before 1948) allowed by God or is it a fulfillment of prophecy? It seems like you are saying that they didn't see the prophecies in the OT about another regathering of Israel in Palistine.

What is the Biblical significance of 1948?