The Anti-Prophets : The Challenge of Preterism

Rating:
Summary: A Poor examination of Preterism
Review: Having read this book, I have found that the author spent more time and energy bouncing around different doctrines and issues than what he claims he was going to be treating. Undoubtedly, Preterism does pose some serious thinking and paradigm shifts in Eschatological worldview. The issue is not about Calvinism, Dominion Theology or any other possible doctrine that the author feels need discuss. If I see an Author claim that they are going to provide Biblical response to the claims of Preterism, then I expect to see a point by point refutation. However, I have not seen Dr. Spargimino provide such information. He spends more time skirting the issue at hand. I am currently working on responding to this book and showing forth the inept reasoning in his dealings with Preterism and the lack of information regarding the so called problematic of Preterism

Rating:
Summary: An excellent book refuting preterism
Review: In this book, Dr. Larry Spargimino connects the unbiblical teaching of preterism with the dangerous Kingdom Now/Dominion Theology movement. Then in the latter part of the book he uses Biblical texts to refute preterist claims. Naturally, preterists will not want you to read this book lest their false teachings be exposed in the light of God's eternal holy Word.

Rating:
Summary: An Honest Theological Study
Review: Many "Christians" whom believe in preterism will, without doubt and as already seen, disagree with Larry Spargimino's latest work, "The Anti-Prophets: The Challenge of Preterism." Notwithstanding, this theological study analyzes preterism along with its basic concept and tenants. Preterism believes that Christ will not come back to earth in the future, that He already has around 70AD. Spargimino strips the preteristic belief down to a hermeneutical cause; incorrect exogesis of Scripture. Of course no preterist wants to hear this. The usual preterist recourse is to launch verbal assaults and claim some form of heresy upon the theologian speaking out. This is what the Pharisees did with Christ and His followers.

Larry Spargimino has created an excellent resource that should be the staple of every seminary. His honest and insightful approach shows compassion for those who have become entangled in liberal theology. Christ will surely return and Spargimino details that quite clearly.

Rating:
Summary: An excellent book refuting preterism
Review: Many "Christians" whom believe in preterism will, without doubt and as already seen, disagree with Larry Spargimino's latest work, "The Anti-Prophets: The Challenge of Preterism." Notwithstanding, this theological study analyzes preterism along with its basic concept and tenants. Preterism believes that Christ will not come back to earth in the future, that He already has around 70AD. Spargimino strips the preteristic belief down to a hermeneutical cause; incorrect exogesis of Scripture. Of course no preterist wants to hear this. The usual preterist recourse is to launch verbal assaults and claim some form of heresy upon the theologian speaking out. This is what the Pharisees did with Christ and His followers.

Larry Spargimino has created an excellent resource that should be the staple of every seminary. His honest and insightful approach shows compassion for those who have become entangled in liberal theology. Christ will surely return and Spargimino details that quite clearly.

Rating:
Summary: Why Non-Scholars need to Mind Their Own Business
Review: Those who critique orthodox preterism tend to have the same problem: They read the Bible as though it was written yesterday and for them personally. Spargimino got a doctorate at seminary, but somehow managed not to learn his own lesson, instructing us that the Bible does need to be read with a first century eye. He never got that "eye" himself -- to see what I mean, check out Caird's excellent work, Language and Imagery of the Bible.

Much of the book is spent arguing that a preterist view necessitates a "replacement theology" (the church is the new Israel and subject to all its blessings; Israel as it now exists is irrelevant -- why not say rather that Israel has been expanded to include Christians?) and leads to reconstructionism and a total preterist view. Funny, because I don't subscribe to any of these views and see no need to. Space is also devoted to Spargimino lamenting that when he believed preterism, it made it impossible for him to see any real significance in the day's headlines. Ironically, that is the very problem that preterists: the use of the newspaper as a guide to Biblical interpretation, with the result that dispensational eschatologists have fallen like a line of dominoes, from Lindsey to Van Impe to Whisenant. Will the lesson ever be learned? Not as long as writers like Spargimino let their hearts rule their heads when it comes to exegesis.

This shows in the way Spargimino responds to preterist points on the Olivet Discourse. Preterist exegeis and theory is described in such terms as "evasion" [24], "pathetic" [27], "blatant wresting of Scripture...[preterists must believe] God gave prophecy to confuse, not to reveal," [130] and so on; it's just the same argument: We need to read passages like Olivet in a "literal, straightforward manner" rather than grasping it in its context as symbolic apocalyptic -- which Spargimino disparingly refers to as reading it as "gross exaggerations", which is the sort of spin-doctor description we would expect from uneducated persons who advise us to read the Bible like a newspaper. Yes, apocalyptic WAS "exaggeration" of a sort (actually, more like symbolic excess) -- and that's how those who read it in the first century understood and interpreted it.

When actually confronting preterist arguments on Olivet at least, Spargimino often operates under the shortchange principle. The word "world" in Matt. 24:14 was the word used for the Roman Empire, not the whole earth. Spargimino's response: 1) To the NT writers, the Roman world was the entire world (which only would prove the preterist view! -- but it is false anyway; nations like India and China were known of, but not considered part of the Roman oikoumene; 2) preterists give no way for God to refer to the entire earth and would miss any such message (which is simply false, as Spargimino would know had he read DeMar carefully; the oik-word is a specific term, whereas Jesus' "ends of the earth" command offers a much broader delimitation). Isaiah could not refer in Ch. 13 to the 539 BC destruction of Babylon, in part because the Medes and Persians came from the east, where Isaiah says they will come from the north (13:3 -- as DeMar explains, but Spargimino also apparently missed, all ancient armies approached their city-prey from the north; approach from the east, west, and sometimes south [in the Northern Hemisphere during battle season] and you'll get the sun-in-your-eyes disadvantage). Matthew's end of the age must mean the end of the world (not a word about the two ages believed in by the Jews which frame this reference culturally). It doesn't look like Spargimino took any preterist writer seriously enough to read carefully what they had to say.

It is clear that Spargimino has been blown away by what N. T. Wright calls "the folly of trying to fit the hurricane of first-century Jewish theology into the bottle of late-modern western categories..." His work adds nothing new to the debate other than another reason to worry that the era of inexpensive self-publishing has opened a few doors that would have been better not only left closed, but also nailed shut. I find it no surprise to hear that on his radio show Spargimino features the likes of KJV Onlyist Gail Riplinger. Let the level of scholarship speak for itself.

Rating:
Summary: What do you believe?
Review: To accept the view of this book, one must believe that Jesus and the apostles either did not speak the Word of God, or that they spoke in error, by the Spirit of God. Either way, it would mean that Jesus wasn't God--heresy #1. Whatever the reason, to believe that this book is right is to reject the full inerrancy and God-spiration of Scripture. Either the Bible is right, or Spargimino is right. If Spargimino is right, then it's time to find another religion, for then Christianity would have a book of deceit for its foundation.