70 ad refers to the destruction of the temple and jerusalem. Their thinking is this: Other times that jerusalem or the jews were conquered God would send someone to reistate them and since Jesus said that he was cmoing back;
This to some extent agrees with what I had believed also. From my very limited understanding, the greek word translated as "generation" is (according to strong's lexicon, which may or may not be totally accurate):
ghen-eh-ah'
From (a presumed derivative of) G1085; a generation; by implication an age (the period or the persons): - age, generation, nation, time.
It says from a presumed derivative of G1085 (another greek word):
ghen'-os
From G1096; “kin” (abstractly or concretely, literally or figuratively, individually or collectively): - born, country (-man), diversity, generation, kind (-red), nation, offspring, stock.
Some scholars believe the "generation" to mean Jerusalem.
My own personal opinion is yet uncertain.
I think that "this generation" refers to Christ's church
This could be too, since the word appears to also mean "nation" or "offspring"...the church being the "offspring" of Christ could qualify.
These previous verses give me pause for thought also...
Mat 24:14
And this gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world for a witness unto all nations;
and then shall the end come.
Mat 24:21
For then shall be great tribulation, such as was not since the beginning of the world to this time, no, nor ever shall be. I'm not much on the grammatical stuff, but 24:21 sort of gives a pretty open time period: from the beginning to "this time" (which time? the time of His telling of it or the time He speaks of, which would make it future?), and it ends with "nor ever shall be".
....pause
Gracey †
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