This Generation Shall Not Pass

What did Jesus mean when he said:

Mark 13:30 Truly I tell you, this generation will certainly not pass away until all these things have happened. 31 Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will never pass away.

Mark was written around 70 AD; Jesus' generation was pretty much at an end. Note that pretty much every Bible translates it this way (all twenty eight of these). Why did Mark have Jesus say a prophecy that was wrong?

The destruction of the temple happened in 70 AD at the hands of the Romans in retaliation for the Jewish revolt. The author of Mark lived through that - though possibly at a distance. For him, the end of the world had arrived! He therefore had no problem putting words in Jesus mouth.

The Previous Chapter

We shall start with the previous chapter. In Matthew, Jesus spends pretty much all of chapter 23 saying woe to the Pharisees, accusing them of hypocrisy. The author of Matthew knew that woe would indeed come to them when the temple was destroyed. In contrast, Mark has just three verses (Luke is very similar to Mark), though the message is the same:

Mark 12:38 As he taught, Jesus said, “Watch out for the teachers of the law. They like to walk around in flowing robes and be greeted with respect in the marketplaces, 39 and have the most important seats in the synagogues and the places of honor at banquets. 40 They devour widows’ houses and for a show make lengthy prayers. These men will be punished most severely.”

We will dip in towards the end of Matthew 23:

Matthew 23:33 “You snakes! You brood of vipers! How will you escape being condemned to hell? 34 Therefore I am sending you prophets and sages and teachers. Some of them you will kill and crucify; others you will flog in your synagogues and pursue from town to town. 35 And so upon you will come all the righteous blood that has been shed on earth, from the blood of righteous Abel to the blood of Zechariah son of Berekiah, whom you murdered between the temple and the altar. 36 Truly I tell you, all this will come on this generation.

The "prophets and sages and teachers" Jesus is talking about are his followers, who were often persecuted between his death and 70 AD by the Pharisees. They were banned from synagogues in 85 AD, and the verses might be referencing that too (perhaps that is why Matthew dedicates so much space to insulting the Pharisees, while Mark does not).

Matthew 23:37 “Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you were not willing. 38 Look, your house is left to you desolate. 39 For I tell you, you will not see me again until you say, ‘Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.’[c]”

The "your house is left to you desolate" could be a reference to the temple, but could as easily be figurative. However, when we get to chapter 24, this is certainly literal (Mark, Matthew and Luke are pretty much the same here onward):

Matthew 24:1 Jesus left the temple and was walking away when his disciples came up to him to call his attention to its buildings. 2 “Do you see all these things?” he asked. “Truly I tell you, not one stone here will be left on another; every one will be thrown down.”

The "prophecy" continues:

Mark 13:14 “When you see ‘the abomination that causes desolation’[a] standing where it[b] does not belong—let the reader understand—then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains. 15 Let no one on the housetop go down or enter the house to take anything out. 16 Let no one in the field go back to get their cloak. 17 How dreadful it will be in those days for pregnant women and nursing mothers! 18 Pray that this will not take place in winter, 19 because those will be days of distress unequaled from the beginning, when God created the world, until now—and never to be equaled again.

This is typical Matthew, though in this case it is also in Mark (but not Luke; did he understand Daniel better?), taking an OT reference out of context. The "the abomination that causes desolation" was Antiochus defiling the temple. Of course, later prophecies in Daniel failed to come true, so they would have been re-interpreting that for over two hundred years by this point, and the author is suggesting this is referring to the destruction of the temple.

The events described could be the "Flight to Pella", though it is quite possible that was itself just a myth. That it is in the prophecy makes me think it really happened. Luke indicates it was prompted by the city being surrounded by the Roman army; it is likely, in my view, that the Christians could see the writing on the wall, or perhaps had a tip off, and so a number of them fled.

Luke 21:20 “When you see Jerusalem being surrounded by armies, you will know that its desolation is near.

Back to Matthew:

Mat 24:22 “If those days had not been cut short, no one would survive, but for the sake of the elect those days will be shortened. 23 At that time if anyone says to you, ‘Look, here is the Messiah!’ or, ‘There he is!’ do not believe it. 24 For false messiahs and false prophets will appear and perform great signs and wonders to deceive, if possible, even the elect. 25 See, I have told you ahead of time.

26 “So if anyone tells you, ‘There he is, out in the wilderness,’ do not go out; or, ‘Here he is, in the inner rooms,’ do not believe it. 27 For as lightning that comes from the east is visible even in the west, so will be the coming of the Son of Man. 28 Wherever there is a carcass, there the vultures will gather.

Part of the point of chapter 24 is to convince the wavering to stick with Christianity, and not to follow any of the competing prophets and messiahs who undoubtedly appeared as the Jews revolted (possibly leading the revolt) and the Romans retaliated. For anyone living in Jerusalem at that time it must have felt like the end of the world had arrived, and prophets saying just that would have been a dime a dozen.

So the gospel has Jesus predict them, and thus their existence can serve to promote Christianity, even as they threaten to steal the followers.

The author of Mark was likewise convinced the end of the world was nigh, and so we read:

24 “But in those days, following that distress,
“‘the sun will be darkened,
    and the moon will not give its light;
25 the stars will fall from the sky,
    and the heavenly bodies will be shaken.’[c]
26 “At that time people will see the Son of Man coming in clouds with great power and glory. 27 And he will send his angels and gather his elect from the four winds, from the ends of the earth to the ends of the heavens.

This was what the author expected to see soon. The city of Jerusalem was in ruins, the temple destroyed, surely it was only a matter of time before Jesus arrived. Note that this was in the author's future, so at this point he was relying on scripture for would happened, rather than his own memory. Thus he uses Isaiah 13:10 and 34:4 as inspiration:

Isaiah 13:10 The stars of heaven and their constellations
    will not show their light.
The rising sun will be darkened
    and the moon will not give its light.

Isaiah 34:4 All the stars in the sky will be dissolved
    and the heavens rolled up like a scroll;
all the starry host will fall
    like withered leaves from the vine,
    like shriveled figs from the fig tree.

The fig tree motif appears in the next verse, presumably drawing from the same inspiration, but used for something quite different:

Mark 13:28 “Now learn this lesson from the fig tree: As soon as its twigs get tender and its leaves come out, you know that summer is near. 29 Even so, when you see these things happening, you know that it[d] is near, right at the door.

Of course, these things did not happen.

So why did the authors of Luke and Matthew have Jesus say these things would happen within a generation, if, by the time they were writing, they knew it was not true? We can only speculate, but I would suggest a desire to faithfully record the words of Jesus was at least a part of it.