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Challenge/question for "No Man Knows the Day or Hour"

I am sorry but you are mistaken in your claim in your article "No Man Knows the Day or Hour"  that Matthew 24:36 means that no one knows YET and that therefore we  or some other, can know this. This is rendered the case by Acts 1:6-8  "it is not for you to know the times the Father has set by His authority"  and Luke 12:39 where Jesus said that if the strong man (ie Satan) knew when the thief was to come he would stop him. If we know or can know then Satan can, therefore we  cannot  know, not in advance.

It is also confirmed by the Greek of the passage.

I too have a concordance and an interlinear before me. I also have a Liddel Scott lexicon, which to Greek scholars is the ne plus ultra  of authoritative tomes;  and I looked up oude

There is no sense of yet in the sense  of something yet to come in the greek word oudeis  (start of the sentence) and later oude. THe Greek word oude and its varous forms is a NEGATIVE, and even if a translation used the word yet it carries the sense of  "no one knows, not yet  (ie not even) the angels, nor the son"

So yet here carries no sense of future, even if it is admissable  in the sense of "not even"

A .little knowledge is a dangerous thing and I have seen grievous error preached by those who have little or no knowledge of Greek and are armed with an interlinear.

My Greek is rusty, and if you can convince me I am in error here  I will bow to superior knowledge, but only superior knowledge of Greek, mark you. But I do believe, even with what little Greek remains with me, that you have commited a classic blunder  that can come with careless use of an interlinear. I do not presume to correct your science but here I see an elementary error in the realm of languages

For if know one indeed can ever know the time  in advance then astronomical events are not relevant. Certainly if we can figure out the Coming of the Lord  from astronomical signs then Satan can, for everyone holds he is more intelligent than us

Yours in Christ, as I do not wish to see error arising from faulty exegesis.

Setterfield: Many Thanks for your e-mail with its recommendations; they are appreciated.

You mentioned Acts 1:6-8 as proving that no-one knew the day or the hour. However, the point that I was trying to make in my article was that it was not at the time of the Ascension, but only near the close of the first century (when the Jewish response across the Roman empire had been made), that the Father revealed to Jesus the ultimate outcome and timing of these end events. He then gave it to John to document for us in the book of Revelation.. At the time He ascended into heaven, these matters were not yet determined as the Jewish response had not been made.

As far as the Greek is concerned, I checked my source, "The Sacred Scriptures, The Concordant Version" with its Greek and English interlinear. I did this with your comments in mind, and there is no question that the translation team included the "yet" in the translation on the basis of the Greek. So I went further to try and decipher what they had done. The word used in Matthew 24:36 is usually given as OUDEIS as in Strongs 3762. The Greek text the Concordant team are using is claimed to be a copy of the original as it was all in capitals with no spacing between the words. What they have done is to take the EIS and translate it as "one" which is legitimate and the OUD as "not yet".

I did a cross check in several other instances and this approach has been used consistently throughout this version. So I looked up John 7:8 and 7:9 where the "not yet" is specifically given in most other translations. There the "not yet" is OUPO (Strongs 3768) and is translated by the Concordant version as "not as yet". I could go on, but apparently the translation team are taking the OUD as a form of OUP and consistently translating OUD as "not yet" throughout their version. The EIS ending is then taken as meaning "one" and is not being applied to make the word OUDEIS as "not even".

The legitimacy of this procedure is hard to gauge as the continuous text they are using can legitimately be split up that way. The usual texts we have, split up the words in advance for us, but that process may be a matter of tradition rather than what was originally intended. However, I put all that aside for the moment, because you seem to be missing one key point in the article on our website.

You seem to be assuming that the coincident dates obtained from the Blood Moons and the building of the  Wall of Jerusalem refers specifically to the Rapture. As a result you claim that I am in error since, if Satan knew the time, he would do everything to stop it. Please note that I personally do not believe that these dates refer to the Rapture. In fact I went to the trouble to point out that a variety of options exist as to the meaning of the dates given in this time range. Let me reiterate that they could refer to a Mid-East war that either involved Israel or had consequences that affected Israel. One such war is mentioned in Isaiah 17 and associate passages in Amos 1, Zechariah 9, Zephaniah 2 etc. Another possibility in view of events in The Ukraine and nearby areas, might be Ezekiel 38. Some even suggest Psalm 83. There is also the possibility of the appearance of Elijah, who should appear before the Tribulation begins in accord with Malachi 4. The Jews are waiting for this event every Passover, but it need not occur then.

Then I mention what I consider the most likely possibility, namely the rise of Antichrist. In the context of Daniel 8 and 11. These chapters indicate that Antichrist comes from the land controlled by the Seleucid Empire which had Turkey, Iraq and Syria as its main territory after the death of Alexander the Great. Events in Turkey seem to indicate that such an event is very close. The 10 nation Mediterranean Union has Turkey as its backbone. Turkey has the second largest army in NATO next to the USA. The Prime Minister of Turkey, Mr Erdogan, has controlled the Muslim Brotherhood throughout the Mid-East and overthrown 3 of the rulers who were initially in the Mediterranean Union. He is also supporting the ISIS group (currently rampaging through Syria and Iraq) financially and militarily. He controls the water supply to both those countries by the dams on the Euphrates and Tigris in Turkey and has assisted in the outcome of the ISIS invasion by cutting the supply of water to those countries.

He is changing Turkey to a Presidential system of government and the first President will be elected in August this year. At the moment, Erdogan is the only candidate standing for election to that position. He will be in power as president for 9 years. He could then make a 7 year covenant with Israel. As Prime Minister he could not as he only had 4 year terms in office.  If his party gains power again in the 2015 elections, Erdogan will have complete control of Turkey, the army, and basically the Mediterranean Union. His election as President in August and the return of his party to power in 2015 covers the exact time base for both the Blood Moons and the Wall of Jerusalem data.

In view of this, it is not correct to state that I am setting a date for the Rapture. There are a number of other key options which hold equal priority. The Rapture could occur any time, even tonight. However, Erdogan's Presidential election is fixed as are the party elections next year.

I hope this clarifies the whole situation for you.

Response:

looking into this I see that the bible and greek scholarship of someone, if not you, is utterly appalling. . They have ignored broader context, that is to say other uses of the word oudeis which clearly, even in exactly the same spelling as regards the squiggles , marks and accents, means no one and nothing else (eg Rev 2:17) ; moreover to say that eis means "one" is to totally ignore the little marks that sit above the greek letters. eis in oudies does not and absolutely does not mean "one". the marks over it are totally different to those over the word one

they are incompetent if they do not know this. the different marks over the letters one include a rough breathing. Do you know what that is?  it changes eis to heis,  for they do not have a letter h. instead the Greeks put a comma with a tail pointing one way (pointing the other way it is different yet again) to serve where we use "h". to say the word for one   is the same word as eis in this context is like saying one is hone when the h is added, for an h is added here

and as for selective re spelling of the text, I cannot see honesty in this

I fear you have been foxed by a poor concordance put together by either dishonest minds with an agenda or by incompetents

as for not talking about the second coming  you cannot  say this about Matthew 24 where Jesus most specifically and defintielvy was talking about this, so to say no one yet knows the day or hour is to specifically to talk about the second coming, so to refer to that passagfe is to give the clear indication that this is wha t is being talked about, so you cannot mistranslate the passage then use it to set times for other events, for this is to take it out of context

sometimes traditional interpretations are correct despite being traditional. the greek of no one knows the day or hour is plain, but time and time again i see people who wil do anything to wiggle out of the plain meaning here

your attempt at defending your position convinced me you are completely wrong and have trusted incompetent scholars

the context of matthew 24:36 is the second coming and the contextual usages of certain words rule out certain translations of  the same word as, in this instance, with oudeis. it means no one and nothing else

it was using this principle that i was able to explode the idea that aiwon twn aionwn  (w is the greek omega) did not mean forever and ever, as some try yto argue tyo get out of the awful punishment which is hell

I believe i have simply uysed the same principle here 

let us keep this brief

i do distinguish between absolute timing and relative. we can know the order of events (I call this relative), and indeed should, but to know the dates beforehand (an absolute chronology) is rank presumption in defiance of scripture. we are to recognize events as the happend, not predict them before time

I expect to die of old age in bed. I am 55, it wont be long now. I have not believed we are the last generation for , well, a generation, for i was 25 when i came to this and now my kid brother is a grandfather

the rapture is not imminent if one is post trib, and I am

yours, hoping to have been civil, for i am really offended by the scholarship, for want of a better word,  of these people

I would appeal to you to go to a university and speak to a greek lecturer or professor. I regret that my greek teacher left the country  years ago and may not even be alive now  for she was not young 30 years ago when i did greek

Setterfield:

You state that the Greek scholarship of the Concordant translators is "utterly appalling" because it totally ignores the accents and breathings above or associated with the Greek letters. These marks, as you rightly point out, allow a difference to be made between words of the same spelling.

It is here that your misunderstanding of what was in the original Greek manuscripts of the New Testament becomes evident. These manuscripts had all capital letters with no spacing between words and were unaccented and unaspirated. Furthermore, some commonly used words were abbreviated. So the Concordant text, with its Greek all in capitals, with nospacing and unaccented and unaspirated is exactly what we have the original manuscripts. Without these additional features, the Concordant translation is in fact excellent scholarship. It points to the fact that some of our translations have been done on the basis of tradition rather than following all possibilities for the original Greek text. What they have done is, under these circumstances, an excellent translation. These facts about the original Greek manuscripts are emphasized in the following quote about all the original Greek texts used for the New Testament:

"All of the Greek New Testament originals were written in ALL CAPITAL LETTERS with no spaces and probably no punctuation, and all of the earlier manuscripts are in this style, whether on parchment or papyrus. This is because the Greek alphabet did not have punctuation until at least the II century, and there were no minscule (lower case) letters until much later. The surviving manuscripts on papyrus are classed by themselves: papyri. The parchment manuscripts written in all capitals are called uncials, and those written later (IX century on) using upper and lower case letters are called miniscules. Various commonly written words were often abbreviated."

That comment can be found in an article entitled "The Transmission of the Greek New Testament" found here.

Therefore, I conclude that the Concordant translation is indeed valid since accents and breathings were not in the original and the Concordant text follows the originals exactly. As a consequence, the source of your objection has been removed.

The rationale behind  your criticism may also have become apparent when you state that you are a Post-Tribulation believer. My only response to that is to quote the Lord Jesus who, in Luke 21 was talking about the Tribulation and the Rapture in verses 34-36 when He said: "That day [the Tribulation] will come on you unexpectedly. For as a snare it will come on all those who dwell on the face of the whole earth. Watch therefore, and pray always that you may be counted worthy to escape all these things that will come to pass, and to stand [instead] before the Son of Man." That, to my mind, indicates the Rapture occurs before the Tribulation. There are other passages like it in Revelation 3:10 etc. But I expect that you have taken them into account in coming to your position.

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