From *The Skeptical Review*, 2002/May-June:
by Farrell Till
Hermeneutics is the science of interpreting written texts, especially those that claim to be sacred, and it seems that our old friend Roger Hutchinson is in need of a lesson in the fundamentals of hermeneutic theory. That Hutchinson would try again to postulate some far-fetched "solution" to a biblical problem is not at all surprising, but I must say that I was surprised that even he would resort to the absurd explanation that he proposed above to one of the many New Testament passages that taught the second coming of Jesus was imminent.
Readers will probably remember that Hutchinson attempted unsuccessfully last year to explain away the prophecy failure in Matthew 24:34, where Jesus said that "this generation will not pass away till all these things be accomplished." One of "these things" that Jesus had just mentioned was a clear description of his second coming, which he said would be accompanied by various astronomical signs and that all the tribes of the earth would see. Clearly that didn't happen in the lifetime of those to whom Jesus was speaking, so Hutchinson tried some of his verbal legerdemain to make this mean that Jesus was really saying that the generation alive whenever Jesus did return would not pass away till it had seen all "these thing," which would include the return of Jesus. Yeah, right. Whenever I read Hutchinson's "explanations" of what disputed biblical texts really meant, I can't help wondering why God didn't providentially arrange for Hutchinson to have been born in biblical times so that God could have chosen him to write at least some books of the Bible. Why, if the omni-one had done that, he wouldn't even have needed to "inspire" Hutchinson, who undoubtedly would have known how to explain everything clearly without divine inspiration.
