Did Jesus return around 70 AD?

[Spiritual Israelite]

Luke 13:33: "It is NOT possible that a prophet would perish OUTSIDE of Jerusalem."

So you are saying Jesus was not a prophet?

How many times do I have to explain what that verse means? Other verses like John 19:20 and Hebrews 13:12 say that He was crucified outside of the city of Jerusalem. Do you not accept what those verses indicate? Read the verse after Luke 13:33. When Jesus referred to Jerusalem there He was talking about the people of Jerusalem. The ones who killed the prophets. He was saying that no prophet would perish except at the hands of the people of Jerusalem, whether they killed the prophets themselves or had them killed, such as was the case with the Jewish leaders sentencing Jesus to death and having the Romans actually do it. Jesus was not saying that a prophet could only perish within the city limits of physical Jerusalem. That would be contradictory.

John the Baptist was a prophet.

Luke 7:28 For I say to you, among those born of women there is not a greater prophet than John the Baptist; but he who is least in the kingdom of God is greater than he.”

Yet, John the Baptist was killed outside of Jerusalem. According to the Jewish historian Josephus, John the Baptist was killed at the hilltop palace-fortress of Machaerus (known as Mukawer), which was located east of the Dead Sea in modern-day Jordan.

So, how do you reconcile your understanding of Luke 13:33 with the fact that the prophet John the Baptist perished outside of the city limits of Jerusalem?

 

[Spiritual Israelite]

After reading your reply, I can admit that I misunderstood what you were meaning by that. Sorry. My bad then. I then retract everything I argued including the straw man I built in regard to you misrepresenting someone's view, in this particular case. I'm human which means I'm capable of making mistakes. I then have a choice.

It's fine. Thank you for admitting that.

I can either own up to them when it is pointed out that I made a mistake, or I can be prideful and act like I'm above making mistakes, that it is a mistake on your part to think I made a mistake, not on my part. But only meaning when it has been clearly pointed out.

Yeah, it's fine. Don't worry about it.

But don't take that to mean in other cases I'm just too prideful to admit I made a mistake and won't own up to it. In some cases where you accuse me of wrong doing, such as I am misrepresenting Amil, is not what I'm doing, not even remotely.

Yes, you are, but you are ignorant about Amil so you just don't realize what you're doing. As an Amil I know when someone is accurately representing my beliefs or not. Whether you admit it or not, there is a lot about Amil that you just don't understand, so you end up misrepresenting it. I'm not saying you do it on purpose, though.

You just don't grasp how I reason/argue through things at times. I know how my mind operates, you certainty don't.

I know what you actually say and whether it accurately lines up with Amil or not. If you're not saying what you are intending to say, then I can't help that, obviously.

 

[Spiritual Israelite]

I believe he was hung on the cross outside the wall of Jerusalem in 30AD. I believe Golgotha was inside the third wall of Jerusalem when Revelation 11 was written. Take it for what it’s worth.

The verses which talk about where Jesus was crucified relate to what was the case when He was crucified. That should be obvious. The city boundaries being later extended is irrelevant.

I was just pointing out your inconsistencies in how you interpret the scriptures

LOL. You are imagining these inconsistencies. You have no idea of what you're talking about. I go to great lengths to avoid inconsistencies while making the effort to prevent scripture from contradicting itself. You, on the other hand, are resorting to changing the context of scripture by saying that verses are talking about Jesus being crucified within the city at the time a verse was written when nothing in the context indicates that at all. There's no reason to think it's talking about anything except for what was the case at the time He was crucified. John 19:20 and Hebrews 13:12 are explicitly clear that He was crucified outside of the city of Jerusalem. Because of your false preterist beliefs you have to find a way to somehow make it so that He was crucified within the city of Jerusalem, so you go out of your way to try to make that be the case.

. I see you as a person trying to hold onto your view to the point that you disallow others from using the same interpretation methods you use yourself.

Explain what you're talking about here. Don't make claims like this with no explanation at all of what you mean.

And BTW you’re not the only one, there is another person on this forum that does the very same thing when he over-spiritualizes the Bible.

What "very same thing" would that be exactly?

 

[Spiritual Israelite]

My point with Luke 13:33, is that Jesus says he must press on because it is not possible for a prophet to perish “outside Jerusalem” (exō Ierousalēm). That is a locational phrase, but Luke does not apply it at the level of the city walls. The very next verse addresses the city as an agent: “Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets.” Jerusalem here stands for its rulers, its institutions, and the people responsible for such deaths.

Okay, so do you think He was saying that a prophet cannot perish outside the physical city of Jerusalem or that He was saying that a prophet cannot perish apart from Jerusalem in relation to "its rulers, its institutions, and the people responsible for such deaths"?

Luke also says the crucifixion happened “in Jerusalem” (Luke 24:18; Acts 10:39) while placing it at “the Skull” (Luke 23:33), so he evidently did not treat Golgotha’s position beyond the walls as a contradiction.

You can compare this to how something can happen in a suburb of a big city, like, for example, Detroit, and someone will say it happened in Detroit even though it actually happened in a suburb of Detroit like, say, Novi or Farmington Hills. Golgotha was not within the city limits of Jerusalem. Otherwise, John 19:20 and Hebrews 13:12 would not be true.

John 19:20 says Jesus was crucified “near the city,” and Hebrews 13:12 says he suffered “outside the gate.” These describe his position relative to the walls. They do not say he died outside Jerusalem in the sense Luke 13:33 uses the word.

Do you think "near the city" means "in the city"? Do you think "outside the gate" means "inside the gate"? Those verses clearly indicate that Jesus was crucified outside of the city of Jerusalem, but you're not willing to accept that because it doesn't agree with your interpretation of Revelation 11:8.

People don't even think about why Jesus was crucified outside of the city of Jerusalem. I believe that happened purposely by God's design.

Look at this text...

Hebrews 13:10 We have an altar from which those who serve the tabernacle have no right to eat. 11 For the bodies of those animals, whose blood is brought into the sanctuary by the high priest for sin, are burned outside the camp. 12 Therefore Jesus also, that He might sanctify the people with His own blood, suffered outside the gate.

If you want to claim that Jesus was not actually crucified outside of the city of Jerusalem, then,, to be consistent, you'd have to also claim that the bodies of sacrificed animals were not actually "burned outside the camp", but were rather burned inside the camp. But, the text explicitly says they were burned outside the camp. Why was that? Because anything associated with sin had to be burned outside of the place that was considered holy. Similarly, Jesus had to be crucified outside of what was at the time the holy city in order to take the sins of the world upon Himself.

BOTH statements can be true at once: Jesus died physically outside the walls and yet died in Jerusalem, in the sense of being condemned and killed by Jerusalem.

Yes, I agree, but what does this have to do with Revelation 11:8 which speaks of WHERE Jesus was crucified, not WHO actually crucified Him?

If you agree both can be true, which you agreed earlier, your nitpicking about the “city walls” in regards to revelation 11:8,
is inconsistent.

No, it's not. You're apparently not looking carefully at what Revelation 11:8 is actually saying.

 

[Spiritual Israelite]

Why can’t Revelation 11:8 be understood in the same manner as Luke 13:33? In other words, Luke 13:33 says a prophet cannot perish outside Jerusalem. That is a locational phrase, yet Jesus died outside the walls (John 19:20; Heb 13:12), and Luke himself calls the crucifixion something that happened ‘in Jerusalem’ (Luke 24:18; Acts 10:39). So ‘outside the walls’ does not take a death out of Jerusalem. Luke 13:34 then shows the city also carries a representational sense: ‘Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets.’ Luke holds the locational and the representational together without strain.

Revelation 11:8 can work the same way. ‘The city where their Lord was crucified’ is locational, and ‘spiritually called Sodom and Egypt’ is representational, a pattern the prophets already apply to Jerusalem (Isa 1:10; Ezek 16). If the walls don’t disqualify Jerusalem in Luke 13:33, they can’t disqualify it in Revelation.

John the Baptist was a prophet and was not killed in Jerusalem or in a place outside the city walls that anyone would still call Jerusalem, so how do you reconcile that with your understanding of Luke 13:33 and Revelation 11:8?

 

[Spiritual Israelite]

The city of Jerusalem was not limited to it's walls. The outer area was still Jerusalem.

Wrong. The walls represented the boundaries of the city of Jerusalem.

You and others here make the verses which say that Jesus was crucified outside of the city meaningless (John 19:20, Hebrews 13:12). He was crucified outside of the city of Jerusalem for a reason. A similar reason to why the dead bodies of sacrificed animals were burned outside the camp (Hebrews 13:10-12) which was because they represented sin and had to be burned outside of the place that was considered holy. Similarly, Jesus had to be crucified outside of Jerusalem because He was taking the sins of the world upon Himself and that has to be done outside of the place that was considered holy at the time.

 

[Spiritual Israelite]

This same Google AI then responded to what you posted per this. BTW, I had already rated your post 'Like' bfore I submitted what you wrote, to to this same Google AI.

This same Google AI:

To give you the bigger picture, both perspectives are actually correct because my analysis and the Preterist were answering two entirely different questions. Here is how they harmoniously fit together:

The Two Halves of a Whole Truth

• The Historical/Ritual Perspective (Your Initial Point): You were looking at the literal, physical reality of the event. Jesus was physically cast out. In terms of Jewish ritual law, ancient geography, and Roman custom, the cross was not inside the borders of the city. This literal distinction is what the author of Hebrews relies on to make a point about Jesus being rejected and acting as a sacrifice.

• The Literary/Representational Perspective (The Preterist’s Point): They were looking at how people talk about major events. Even though the execution happened a few hundred yards outside the city gates, it was ordered by Jerusalem's leaders, carried out under Jerusalem's jurisdiction, and permanently tied to Jerusalem's identity.

In short: Jesus was physically crucified outside the city limits, but he was legally and reputationally crucified in Jerusalem.

Why This Matters in Bible Debates

The Preterist brought this up because it solves a puzzle for their specific view of end-times prophecy:

• The Puzzle: Revelation 11:8 speaks of a "great city" where the Lord was crucified.

• The Debate: Some interpreters try to argue, "Well, it can't mean Jerusalem, because Jesus wasn't crucified inside Jerusalem; he was outside the walls!" They use this line of thinking to suggest the "great city" might be Rome (the empire that killed him) or a symbolic global city.

• The Preterist's Solution: By pointing to Luke and Acts, the Preterist successfully proves that the biblical writers themselves didn't let a physical wall get in the way of saying Jesus died in Jerusalem.

The Bottom Line

The initial analysis wasn't "wrong"—it accurately described the physical and ritual mechanics of the crucifixion. The Preterist simply added a necessary layer of literary context, demonstrating that the Bible seamlessly holds both realities together. Jesus suffered outside the gate (Hebrews 13) so that the sin of the city inside the gate (Luke 13) could be dealt with.

None of this takes into account the fact that John the Baptist was a prophet and did not die within the city walls of Jerusalem or in the nearby vicinity of Jerusalem. If Revelation 11:8 was saying that Jesus was crucified within a physical location that can be considered Jerusalem and if Luke 13:33 was saying that a prophet can only die within that physical location, then that would contradict the fact that John the Baptist was killed outside of that physical location.

 

[Spiritual Israelite]

God doesn't care about man's legal definition for the city's boundaries.

He does care that His word says that Jesus was crucified outside of the city of Jerusalem (John 19:20, Hebrews 13:12). But, some of you are trying desperately to get around that because of your understanding of the identity of Babylon in Revelation.