The primary purpose for using the term genea, or generation, in the New Testament was to identify a group of people sharing common characteristics who lived in a particular time period. This could be a race of people, but more often, it referred to a group of like-minded individuals who coincidentally could be identified with a specific culture or race of people.
Examples of the use of the term genea include: "an evil and adulterous generation" (Matt. 12:39), "this wicked generation" (Matt. 12:45), and "O faithless and perverse generation" (Luke 9:41).
While Jesus usually spoke to Jews when He said these things, He did not mean that they were evil because they were Jews but that they, whether Jew or not, were evil because they all shared the common trait of being and doing evil. In context, Jesus physically spoke to a group of people living in the first century. He described them as being evil, wicked, and faithless. They were an evil generation. They were, coincidentally, Jews, but this did not make Jews, as a race, an evil generation or suggest that people of other races could not also be evil.
Rainey correctly concluded that genea can refer to a group of people who were contemporary to the events of the passage. A genea would comprise those people who witnessed or participated in certain common events that united them together as a generation. The key, then, to determining the time in which a generation lived is to determine when the events described in the passage occur.
Let's take an example.
Wherefore, behold, I send unto you prophets, and wise men, and scribes: and some of them ye shall kill and crucify; and some of them shall ye scourge in your synagogues, and persecute them from city to city: That upon you may come all the righteous blood shed upon the earth, from the blood of righteous Abel unto the blood of Zacharias son of Barachias, whom ye slew between the temple and the altar. Verily I say unto you, All these things shall come upon this generation" (Matt.23:34-36).
Jesus says of those to whom He is speaking that they will kill prophets that will come in the future as they had already killed Zacharias, son of Barachias. Zacharias appears to have been a priest contemporary to the scribes and Pharisees whom they had conspired to kill. In this case, Jesus identifies His audience as a generation of people who shared in the killing of Zacharias and who would later share in the killing of future prophets.
Each person, individually, would not have to directly participate in these activities, but collectively, they contribute to these things since they are like-minded and therefore, accessories to the events. Some could die the next day, but collectively, they comprised a generation that would go on to kill the prophets that were to come. The period of time covered by this generation would begin with the event marking the death of Zacharias and extend over that period of time in which the future prophets would be killed. The generation would end when this activity had ceased.
In another instance, Jesus said, "A wicked and adulterous generation seeketh after a sign; and there shall no sign be given unto it, but the sign of the prophet Jonas" (Matt. 16:4). Here, Jesus used a generic term that he applied at that particular point in time to the people to whom He spoke. Those to whom Jesus was speaking were not the first people to seek a sign that the Messiah had come. This had been a common characteristic of Jews for many years as they eagerly looked for the coming of the Messiah. They would seek a sign to validate the claim of any man declaring that he was the Messiah. Consequently, we have a generic description of people over an extended period of time. Those living at one particular time would be contemporaries with like-minded people who lived at earlier times who shared the common trait of looking for a sign of the Messiah.
In the historical setting, Jesus may have been speaking to an audience comprised of grandfathers, fathers, and grandsons, and He called them a wicked generation. Such a generation would span a period of time extending from the youth of the grandfather to the old age of the grandson. Consequently, a generation cannot always be strictly defined as a 40-year period and limited to people of about the same age, as it is with the baby-boomers or generation X.
Rainey correctly determined that genea identifies with a period of time that was unique not because of the people involved but because of the common events in which a group of people shared. If we can identify clearly the events common to a group of people, then we can identify a generation by those events. This is the situation we find in Matthew 24:34. "Verily I say unto you, This generation shall not pass, till all these things be fulfilled."
Here, the term generation points to all those people who would witness certain events (i.e., all these things). So, the generation would begin at that point in time in which the first event (or the first of these things) occurred and include the fulfillment of the last of these events. If we can identify the things or events to which Jesus was referring, then we can identify a generation associated with those events and then the period of time in which that generation would live.
Rainey does not do this; he violates his own rule at this point. His rule states that a generation is that group of people contemporary to the events of the passage. We identify the event and then link it with the generation. Rainey, however, mysteriously turns this around. He requires that the events of Matthew 24 be contemporary with the disciples of Jesus. He makes the disciples the generation in view and argues that we must force fit the events into the time in which they lived. This is a grievous error.
Because the events Jesus described did not occur in the first century, Rainey erroneously concludes that the prophecy is false. He then embarks on a tirade against fundamentalists for engaging in some unspecified, but supposedly fallacious, exegetical tactics to get a passage to say what they want it to say. Yet, it is he that has manipulated the analysis and not the fundamentalists.
Let's now analyze Matthew 24:34 according to the rule that Rainey developed. The first issue is whether "all these things" of verse 34 could be events to which the disciples might be witnesses. In Matthew 24:14, Jesus says that "this gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world for a witness unto all nations; and then shall the end come." It does not seem likely that this would have happened in the lifetimes of the disciples given the enormity of the task. Regardless, the gospel expanded rapidly after the death of Christ, so that people in the first century could conclude that it had spread to all the Roman world and even beyond. However, this event merely marked the beginning of, or was a precursor to, other events to be experienced by the generation that Jesus had in view. The generation to which Jesus referred would witness the fulfillment of all the events beginning in verse 15.
One of the key events Jesus describes is in verse 29. Here we see that the sun will be darkened and the stars will fall from the heavens. This is language similar to that found in Revelation 6:12-13. The language describes the end of the world. These events have not occurred and certainly did not occur in the first century. Consequently, the generation that is contemporary to these events could not yet have lived. The events described in Matthew 24:15-31 will all be experienced by one generation. That generation will be living when the world comes to an end.
Rainey started out well. He identified genea as a group of people at a particular point in time, contemporary to the events of the passage. He erred in his analysis of Matthew 24:34 by trying to force events to fit a first century scenario. A proper analysis would allow the events themselves to determine the period of time in which they will occur.
(Roger Hutchinson, 11904 Lafayette Drive, Silver Spring,
MD 20902; e-mail, RHutchin@AOL.com)
