“I tell you the truth, this generation (γενεά) will not pass away until all these things take place.” (Matt 24:34 NET)
Yesterday, I pointed out how preterists promote fake history in their interpretation of Matthew 24:5 regarding “many messiahs.”
Interestingly, today I noticed that preterist Gary DeMar has an article entitled, “Fake news” is not as bad as fake exegesis and fake history that some end-times proponents use.”
Toward the beginning of the article DeMar began promoting his fake exegesis. Over the years as I have read DeMar I have seen him repeatedly abuse the Greek language, committing more exegetical fallacies than their “many messiahs” in Matthew 24:5!
Since I am writing a book on Matthew 24:34 refuting the preterist literalistic and naive interpretation of this verse, I want to respond to the error that DeMar commits in his article. He writes,
There are numerous examples of flawed starting points when it comes to the topic of eschatology. ‘This generation’ becomes ‘this race’ or ‘the generation that sees these signs.’ In the first case, the Greek word for ‘race’ (genos) is not used in Matthew 24:34. Jesus uses the Greek word genea.
At the outset I am not defending the “race” interpretation. I don’t think it is the correct interpretation here. My point here instead is to correct DeMar’s ignorant claim that genea never means “race” within its semantic range.
The most authorative Koine Greek Lexicon, BDAG, cites as its first usage:
γενεά, ᾶς, ἡ (Hom.+; ins, pap, LXX, En; TestSol C 13:7; TestJob, Test12Patr; GrBar 10:3; Philo, Joseph., SibOr, Just., Tat.) a term relating to the product of the act of generating and with special ref. to kinship, frequently used of familial connections and ancestry. Gener. those descended fr. a common ancestor, a ‘clan’ (Pind., P. 10, 42 the Hyperboreans are a ἱερὰ γενεά; Diod. S. 18, 56, 7; Jos., Ant. 17, 220), then
1. those exhibiting common characteristics or interests, race, kind gener. as in Lk 16:8 εἰς τὴν γ. τὴν ἑαυτῶν the people of the world are more prudent in relation to their own kind than are those who lay claim to the light (difft. GBeasley-Murray, A Commentary on Mk 13, ’57, 99–102).
So DeMar is wrong on that front. Then in the same article, DeMar concludes his discussion by citing all the instances of the term in the Gospels. And get this. The one single instance that BDAG cites as meaning “race” in Luke 16:8, DeMar leaves out! Talk about fake exegesis! He mistakenly has Luke 18:8 instead of Luke 16:8, either he did this on purpose or he is sloppy by copying and pasting from his source that contains the error.
Genea always means “generation” (Matt. 1:17), and “this generation” always refers to the generation to whom Jesus was speaking and never “race” (Matt. 1:17; 11:16; 12:39, 41, 42, 45; 16:4; 17:17; 23:36; 24:34; Mark 8:12, 38; 9:19; 13:30; Luke 1:48, 50; 7:31; 9:41; 11:29, 30, 31, 32, 50, 51; 18:8; 17:25; 21:32). -Gary DeMar
This is not some rare mistake on DeMar’s part. He has a pattern for being fast and loose with his preterist “exegesis” and abusing the Greek language.
Okay, that’s all, I just wanted to quickly note his glaring error that he thinks is “fake exegesis,” where ironically it is himself that is committing the fake exegesis.
