Answering the critics
People send me articles with a note that says "this ends it." I read every one. Here are the ones I've answered, the ones I'm working on, and the rule I answer them by: take the strongest version of the argument, answer only the verses the author actually cited, and say where my reading is a reading.
If you have an article, a book, or a challenge that isn't here, send it to HereticalHorseman@gmail.com or drop it on the page. I'd rather answer the best case against this reading than the worst one.
Answered
Reggie Kelly, "Preterism's Achilles' Heel"
Mystery of Israel · post-tribulational futurism, Art Katz school
The best futurist article people send me. His argument is that the tribulation, the Antichrist, the coming, the resurrection, and Israel's deliverance are one indivisible package, and that preterists split it. I agree the package can't be split. It has a date on it: Daniel 12:7, Matthew 24:34, Luke 21:22, Acts 2:40.
My reply · His article
An open challenge: ten "future" events
A challenger on the Facebook page · premillennial
A ten-item challenge posted on my page: prove each of ten "future" events happened in the first century and show the historical record. The answer became a book. Every verse he cited, in the King James he cited it from, with Josephus, Tacitus, Suetonius, and Eusebius beside it, and a plainly marked section in every chapter on where the reading is contestable. He is anonymous in the book by my choice.
Ten "Future" Events That Already Happened (free PDF) · About the book
Pete Wierzbicki, Dynamic Prophecy
Present Kingdom · double fulfillment / typological escalation
The claim that AD 70 was a shadow and the real fulfillment is still ahead. The book answers it chapter by chapter, grants everything true in it (typology is real, the New Testament does reuse the prophets), and asks the one question the system never answers: where does Scripture take a fulfilled New Testament prophecy and move it forward again? Its title comes from the verse his book never quotes.
The Most Embarrassing Verse in the Bible (free PDF) · About the book
"This generation means the Jewish race"
The Scofield note on Matthew 24:34 · dispensational
Not one article but the most repeated objection I get, traceable to a 1909 study-Bible note. Answered on the hard-texts page with every use of the phrase in Matthew, Mark, Luke, Acts, and Hebrews, and with R. T. France, no preterist, conceding that 24:34 means Jesus' contemporaries.
The card · All the signs already happened
"Irenaeus says Revelation was written in AD 95"
The standard opening move · every futurist school
One sentence, one ambiguous verb, read against its own logic, versus a book that dates itself five ways. Answered with the Greek of the Irenaeus sentence, the Temple standing in 11:1–2, the sixth king in 17:10, 666 as Nero, and the "where this is contestable" the futurist articles leave out.
The post · The card
In the queue
Written against this view, read, and not yet answered in full. If you want one moved up, say so.
Kenneth Gentry, Have We Missed the Second Coming?
Partial preterist, postmillennial · the Reformed critique
The short critique by the man whose work on Revelation's date and the Olivet Discourse I lean on everywhere else. The strongest version of the "you went one step too far" argument, from inside the AD 70 camp. His longer treatment is a chapter in Keith Mathison's When Shall These Things Be?
His position · On the Voices page
Sam Waldron, on "hyper-preterism"
Reformed Baptist · 2025
A confessional critique that concedes, on the record, that Matthew 24:34 is the then-living generation and that giving the end of the age to AD 70 "leads directly" to where I am. Travis Drum has answered it in two parts at Cruickshank's Corner; I'll add my own.
Drum's reply, Part 1 · Part 2
Reggie Kelly, the rest of the "Opposing Views: Preterism" category
Mystery of Israel
"Achilles' Heel" is one of several. "The Olivet Key to Daniel's Prophecy of the End" and "Pinpointing the Day of the Lord" are next, because they carry the same package argument into Daniel's seventieth week.
The category
"What is preterism?" explainers from the big apologetics sites
GotQuestions, CARM, and the like
Short, widely read, and usually built on 2 Timothy 2:18 and Acts 1:11 with no engagement of the time statements. Worth one careful reply because of how many people read them first.
Standing rule for every reply on this page: answer only the verses the author cited, grant what is true, name what is a reading, and end with the one question the author has to answer. If I break that rule anywhere, tell me.