John Edward Cooper’s Notes

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Notes, written ca. April 1975

1975

[Recently written notes are indicated by brackets […].]

T. Francis Glasson The Second Advent (Epworth
Press) 1947 p10

Many scholars take the line that we must
in honesty admit that Jesus was mistaken;
He expected the end of the world to take
place in a short time and it did not occur.
This, however, does not impair (it is said) the
greatness of His teaching, nor need it imperil
the Catholic doctrine of His Person. References
to the Davidic authorship of Psalm CX or the
Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch are
similarly explained; indeed, Jesus would not
have lived a truly human life unless He had
accepted certain limitations in knowledge.

[“He expected the end of the world to take place”, e.g. in the passage in the Synoptic Gospels known as “the Olivet Discourse” or “the Little Apocalypse”. Other books I consulted at that time regarded “the Little Apocalypse” not as a genuine discourse of Jesus but as a spurious intrusion largely cobbled together from passages in the Septuagint. One author (unidentified in my notes), however, conceded that:]

Some sayings in [the] Little Apocalypse are genuine.

[I had already encountered the notion of non-Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch (and, indeed, non-Danielic authorship of Daniel) — see Notes, written ca. March 1975 — but non-Davidic authorship of Psalm 110 was new to me. Even the conservative A Bible Commentary for Today (London and Glasgow: Pickering & Inglis, 1979) says:

In origin this was a royal psalm uttered by a court poet in honour of the Davidic king, evidently on some notable occasion such as his coronation.

However, the also-conservative New Bible Commentary (Leicester: Inter-Varsity Press, 1970) is satisfied to state that

The Davidic authorship, divine inspiration and Messianic meaning of this psalm are clearly maintained in the New Testament…]

Premises:

God speaks to man
Jesus Christ is the mediator
of my salvation, bringing
me forgiveness of sins,
reconciliation with God and
eternal life
by his sacrificial death
and his bodily historical
resurrection from death

Questions:

What is the means by which
God speaks to man?
Did the Saviour ever make
mistakes?
Is Jesus Christ coming back again?

Question 1 may be rephrased:
Is any statement in the Bible
reliable for providing information
about the nature of God, spiritual
things and moral precepts?
With what qualification?

Question 2 revolves round the
question of Mosaic authorship,
Davidic authorship, Danielic
authorship,
and hence
Question 3
is Jesus coming back again?

Supposing Jesus did make a mistake
in interpreting Daniel, wouldn’t
he have realised this after the
resurrection when he was no longer
just a mortal man? Or else,
after he had ascended to the
Father — he would surely realise his
mistake then! — wouldn’t the Spirit
of Truth, whom He would send as
His Representative — to teach them
All Things, lead them into All Truth
— put them right? But what do
we see? The hope of his coming is
prominent in Peter and Paul, the
gospels which were written later
than Paul’s early epistles have the
hope expressed in them.

posted by John Edward Cooper # 7/25/2012 09:26:00 pm

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