An apologist has pointed out the inconsistencies and errors in an atheist's book touching on church history and the gospels. One of the "problems" the atheist must have raised was Christ's allegedly unfulfilled prophecies in Matthew 24 - Bertrand Russell anyone? Even notable Christians have supposedly seen problems with "literalism" in these passages (C. S. Lewis, William Lane Craig etc). The apologist dropped the magic word "genre." I skipped over the shots fired at popular futuristic premillennialism as I was more interested in the next segment.
No, futuristic premils don't have problems with "unfulfilled" prophecy in the Olivet Discourse. Invoking "genre" and name-dropping Gary DeMar and R. C. Sproul, along with the fallibility of popular-prophecy teachers (often true) doesn't cut it. If you want to fairly critique or refute a system, engage its best presenters and arguments.
Futuristic premillennialists understand apocalyptic-prophetic genre very well. But I rather suspect that genre is a useful tool used by amillennialists and postmillennialists (Covenant Theology) in order to get around troublesome passages which don't comply with the church-is-new-spiritual-Israel narrative in all its stripes. I know...that was a mouthful of a sentence!
Some links addressing aspects of this subject (by no means exhaustive)...
Tony Garland:
The Genre of the Book of Revelation
Interpreting Symbols
Systems of Interpretation
Paul Henebury:
The Apocalyptic Wrong Turn (Part 1)
The Apocalyptic Wrong Turn (Part 2)
The Apocalyptic Wrong Turn (Part 3)
The Apocalyptic Wrong Turn (Part 4)
The Apocalyptic Wrong Turn (Part 5)
Falling Through the Porch (1)
Falling Through the Porch (2)
Falling Through the Porch (3)
Falling Through the Porch (4)
Zeteo 3:16:
Preterism and Prophetic Scripture
Dan Phillips (always a favorite):
25 Stupid Reasons for Dissing Dispensationalism
14 hours ago
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