Gary R. Habermas in his book, The Risen Jesus and Future Hope (Plymouth, UK: Rowman and Littlefield Publishers, Inc., 2003), 129-31 (emphasis in original), addressed the question as to whether Jesus was mistaken as to the time of his coming:
Was Jesus Mistaken concerning the Time of His Coming?
. . .One continuing influence of consistent eschatology is that some scholars still think Jesus believed in the imminent coming of God’s Kingdom, and that he mistakenly held that it would culminate very shortly. The support for this view is usually an appeal to Mark 9:1, 13:30 and/or Matthew 10:23.
For example, Schweitzer, about a century ago, proclaimed that Jesus expected that the Kingdom would appear imminently. Schweitzer thought that, for Jesus, the coming of the Son of Man was “temporally identical with the dawn of the Kingdom,” and that these events would transpire quickly. He concluded, “The whole of ‘Christianity’ down to the present day . . . is based on the delay of the Parousia, the non-occurrence of the Parousia.” We have already seen that Bultmann concludes similarly: “Jesus’ expectation of the near end of the world turned out to be an illusion.”
This objection may be addressed variously. Initially, as Witherington points out repeatedly, none of the passages unequivocally teach that the coming of either Jesus or the Kingdom of God must be soon. At most, these texts indicate that the Kingdom could come at any time, or even a long time hence. While it is impossible here to do more than make a few summarizing comments, it is obvious that many other scholars in recent decades agree with Witherington. Jesus’s remark in Mark 9:1 (cf. Mt 16:28; Lk 9:27) is often taken to refer either to the transfiguration, which follows directly in each of these narratives, or to the resurrection.
It is difficult to take Mark 13:30 as Jesus’s comment that his generation would definitely witness his return, since, just two verses later (13:32), Jesus specifically asserts that he did not even know when he would return. One of the most common responses is that Jesus is addressing two major questions in this discourse, the fall of the Jerusalem and the temple, and his return (Mt 24:1-3). The answer to the first is that it will occur in this present generation (Mk 13:30), while the answer to the second question regarding his coming is that Jesus did not know the time (Mk 13:32).
Concerning Matthew 10:23, it is often noted that it would have been physically impossible for the disciples to have ministered in every city of Israel even during the remainder of Jesus’s earthly life, let alone before the end of this particular missionary trip. Further, few knew better than the author of the first Gospel that Jesus did not return before the deaths of at least most of the apostles. If so, then why would he have reproduced such a spurious report, and on an incisive topic? So it is likely that Jesus’s instruction here refers not simply to his immediate disciples and this particular trip, but extends to further Christian missionary work.
At least two other considerations make it very unlikely that Jesus taught that the Kingdom must come shortly. First, there are many texts that clearly indicate that this event would not come quickly, but at a much later time. The disciples would die for their faith (Mt 24:39; Jn 16:2), the Gospel message would be preached to the whole world (Mk 13:10), Jerusalem would be under the control of the Gentiles for an unspecified amount of time, and the Jewish people would be dispersed throughout the world (Lk 21:24). Obviously, most of these items could not take place in a short time span. In more than one parable, we are also told that the master delayed his coming for a long time (Mt 24:48; 25:19). One intriguing saying reports both that there was more than one day of the Son of Man, and that, while the disciples would long to experience one, they would not do so (Lk 17:22). So in addition to alternative meanings of the texts in question, other passages make it very difficult to conclude that Jesus could only have meant that the Kingdom would come immediately.
Second and very crucially, according to the dating of the vast majority of critical scholars, the Gospels of Matthew and Luke were written about five or six decades after Jesus’s proclamations concerning the time of the Kingdom. On the interpretation that Jesus was mistaken regarding the imminent coming of the Kingdom, it certainly should have appeared at least between his death and the fall of Jerusalem in A.D.70, especially since these events are somehow linked (Mt 24:1-3; Lk 21:20-32). Given that the Kingdom never arrived, Matthew and Luke would knowingly have been declaring (even repeatedly so) that Jesus was mistaken. This is an exceedingly problematic position, especially given the prominence of the Kingdom in their Gospels (44). Moreover, even highly critical scholars have generally held that especially Luke historicized Mark’s interpretation and placed Jesus’s coming in the indefinite future. So at least the third Gospel, in particular, would not have interpreted these same texts to mean that Jesus had wrongly predicted the timing of the Kingdom. It would seemingly be quite troublesome for Matthew, as well, and so is probably not the intent of either of these Gospel writers.
If even these critical scholars think that these texts in Luke and perhaps Matthew do not mean that Jesus would return soon, why must even Mark include the mistaken teaching? After all, not only was Mark written near the close of the generation, as well, and so probably was aware of the same troublesome issues, but he (and probably Mt 24:36) is the author who specifically explained that Jesus disavowed knowledge of when he would return (13:32)! So it seems exceptionally difficult to press the point that the Gospels must have taught that Jesus would return soon.
Note for the Above:
(44) Even given the thesis, supported by some scholars, that Matthew and Luke were composed in the 60s A.D., we would still have some serious problems here. These writings still would be at (or very nearly at) the end of the generation to whom Jesus preached, without Jesus having returned (Mt 24:34; Lk 21:32). As the disciples began dying, it would seem that these Gospel authors would be even more apprehensive about repeating such teachings. But more importantly, on the earlier date, why would Luke (as in 21:12-24) need to historicize Mark at all if the events in question had not even occurred yet? Then there would be a real conflict here between Luke not feeling any pressure from coming to the end of the generation, as indicated by 21:32, but historicizing Jesus’s teachings, and both in the same text! On the supposition that Luke (and perhaps Matthew) did detect the problem and meant for the entire subject to be historicized, we are precisely back at the points I am making in the text.
