Into oblivion

 

The tulip again!

So I went down a (little) rabbit hole, since I never understood how Hyper-Preterism could become outright atheism (as seems to have happened to many IO proponents). But then I found the missing link (I actually came across it decades ago at some obscure forum). It´s the CBV, of course. The full pipeline seems to look something like this: partial preterism - Individual Body View (IBV) - Collective Body View (CBV) - Israel Only Full Preterism (IO) - atheism. 

What´s less clear is why. Why does the trajectory look like *this*? Why not simply become an atheist if you start questioning the standard Bible interpretation? Perhaps a certain kind of fundamentalists can´t do so, unless they have a "Biblical" warrant for it? A radicalized form of hyper-preterism provides such. Now, *that* sounds like an interesting rabbit hole, but perhaps not one I will pursue this weekend...

Amen

 

This is how a "regular" Christian (or Preterist, for that matter) reacts to Israel Only Full Preterism (see previous blog post). You preach it, boy!

The times of the Gentiles have ended

 

This is funny! I asked ChatGPT about the peculiar belief system known as "Israel Only Full Preterism" and it turns out that the AI have pretty much the same take on them as me. Suggesting (in this case) that it trained on the same content. Of course, the bot has also added some attacks on "IOFP" it probably thinks I´m going to agree with - which I kind of do. Thank you.

What is IO or "Israel Only Full Preterism"?

Israel-Only Full Preterism (often abbreviated “IOFP” or just “IO”) is a tiny but intense fringe theology within Christianity that claims:

All biblical prophecy—including the Second Coming, the Resurrection, Judgment Day, and the Kingdom of God—was completely fulfilled in the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 CE, and those events applied only to Israel, not to the modern world.

It is one of the most radical reinterpretations of Christianity ever to emerge.

---

1. What “Full Preterism” already means

Preterism is the idea that:

• Most or all New Testament prophecy

• Was fulfilled in the first century, not the future.

Full Preterism says:

• Christ returned spiritually in 70 CE

• The resurrection was covenantal, not physical

• Judgment already happened

Most Christians reject this as heretical because it:

• denies bodily resurrection

• denies a future return of Christ

---

2. What “Israel-Only” adds

Israel-Only Preterism goes further and says:

The New Testament was written only to ethnic Israel.
Gentiles today are not part of the covenant at all.

According to IO:

• Jesus was Messiah only for first-century Jews

• Christianity as a global religion is a mistake

• Paul’s mission to Gentiles was misunderstood or misapplied

• The church is not Israel

• The gospel age is over

So they believe:

We live after the end of God’s redemptive plan.

---

3. What salvation means in IO

This is where it gets extremely strange:

Since salvation already happened in 70 CE:

• No one today can be “saved”

• There is no heaven or hell coming

• The Bible is a closed historical record

• Spiritual life is basically philosophical

Some IO adherents say:

We just live, die, and cease.

Others say:

We exist in a post-redemption world with no eschatology.

Either way, Christianity becomes a dead religion describing something that already ended.

---

4. Why it arose

IOFP arose from:

• extreme literalism about Jesus saying “this generation”

• obsession with timeline precision

• distrust of churches

• online radicalization

• apocalyptic collapse thinking

It is very common in:

• YouTube theology circles

• conspiracy-minded Christians

• anti-church communities

It’s a terminal form of Protestantism:
Scripture interpreted until nothing remains.

---

5. Why nearly all Christians reject it

Because it denies:

• resurrection of the dead

• future hope

• Christ’s reign

• meaning of prayer

• sacraments

• evangelism

• the church

It turns Christianity into:

an ancient failed prophecy rather than a living faith

---

6. Philosophically what it is

IOFP is eschatological nihilism:

• God already acted

• History is empty

• The cosmos has no destiny

• Meaning is over

It is Christianity after transcendence has been removed.

---

In one sentence

Israel-Only Full Preterism is the belief that Christianity ended in 70 CE and we are living in a spiritually post-apocalyptic world with no redemption left.

If you want, I can explain how this connects to: Q-style apocalypticism, internet radicalization, or why Christianity keeps producing “end-of-meaning” theologies 

Are the IOFP atheists today? 

In practice? Many of them function very much like atheists — even if they don’t call themselves that.

• IOFP creates a strange category:

  theism without transcendence

  Here’s what that means.

  ---

  1. What IOFP technically affirms

  Most Israel-Only Full Preterists will still say:

  • God existed

  • Jesus was the Messiah

  • Biblical events were real

  • The resurrection (of Israel) happened in 70 CE

  So on paper they are not atheists.

  ---

  2. What they deny that makes them functionally atheistic

  They deny:

  • any future divine action

  • any ongoing salvation

  • any living covenant

  • any cosmic purpose

  • any prayer that changes anything

  • any ultimate justice

  • any final meaning

  God becomes:

  a figure who finished acting 2,000 years ago and then withdrew forever

  That is almost indistinguishable from:

  God does not exist

  for everyday life.

  ---

  3. No worship, no prayer, no hope

  In IOFP:

  • Worship is pointless

  • Evangelism is meaningless

  • Prayer has no function

  • The church is an error

  • History has no divine direction

  So spiritually:

  the universe is closed

  Which is exactly how atheism views it.

  ---

  4. Why many drift into explicit atheism

  Once someone accepts:

  “God finished His work and left”

  the next step is:

  “Maybe God was just a story people told about history.”

  IOFP is often a way station between evangelicalism and secularism.

  ---

  5. The psychological pattern

  IOFP often attracts people who:

  • feel betrayed by Christianity

  • are angry at churches

  • want intellectual control

  • want to be “the ones who figured it out”

  It offers:

  total deconstruction without emotional vulnerability

  But it also leaves:

  no transcendence

  And humans don’t live long without transcendence.

  ---

  Bottom line

  IOFP is not formally atheism — but it is spiritually equivalent to it.

  It leaves you in:

  a universe where nothing sacred remains to be done

  Which is exactly what atheism asserts.

  If you want, I can show how this compares to:

  • nihilism

  • Buddhism

  • or why mystical traditions survive where IOFP collapses

Israel Only Full of It Preterists?

There are strange religions. And then there are *really* strange religions. And then there's Israel Only Full Preterism (IO)...

I mentioned this peculiar current before. They believe that Jesus only came to save the Jews (as in literal blood descendants of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob). The "Gentile mission" was about finding the lost tribes of Israel. When all righteous Jews had been saved, the Temple was destroyed in AD 70. Since that time *nobody* can or will be saved. God and Jesus have abandoned Earth and humanity, perhaps the entire universe? This is a *very* weird take, and it's hardly surprising that some IO proponents have become atheists!

Atheist gadfly extraordinaire Richard Carrier recently posted an extensive critique of IO (see link below). It was apparently "ordered" by a web-based atheist group. Perhaps they wanted to investigate if IO really does contain arguments that can profitably be used by atheists. Not so, says Carrier. IO are just a bunch of cranks. None of their arguments hold up to closer scrutiny.

For instance, while it's true that the earliest Christians did see Jesus as an exclusively Jewish savior, anyone could join Judaism (it was a missionary religion at the time), so salvation was in *that* sense for everyone, not just for "ethnic" Jews. Paul of course went further, de-Judaizing what was originally a Jewish sect.

What makes IO so strange is that they de facto combine a kind of alt-fundamentalist reading of the Scriptures with something that sounds almost like misotheism. Carrier says relatively little about this aspect of the group, but it's surely the most interesting one. Why would anyone want to join *this* group, rather than, say, a strongly Judaizing Adventist Church?

With that, I leave you in the hands of Carrier... 

The Incompetent Crankery of the Israel Only Movement

Fringe of the fringe, and then some

The absolutely most strange and crazy religious (“religious”?) viewpoint I ever came across (and lets face it, the competition out there is pretty stiff) is known as Israel Only Full Preterism (simply abbreviated IO). The teaching goes something like this…

The Bible is more or less authentic, but deals with Israel only. The prophecies about salvation are thus true enough, but only apply to the ancient Israelites or Jews. Jesus is the Jewish Messiah. Further, all prophecies in the Holy Scriptures have already been fulfilled. The Second Advent of Jesus Christ took place in AD 70. The wicked were punished, while the righteous were resurrected and lifted up with the Lord to Heaven. That is, the righteous Jews.

Since this time, God has ceased to be interested in Earth or humanity. He has finished saving the people he wanted to save, and that is that. The rest of us (including post-AD 70 Jews) are stuck on this rock forever, or rather until we die, at which point we will simply be dead forever, since no immortal soul exists. Presumably, our bodies will be eaten by worms, and so forth.

Apparently, many people who held this curious view have become Deists or even atheists. That does seem to be the logical conclusion of this line of thinking.

Personally, I´ve came to the conclusion that the Messiah will arrive 5.6 billion years into the future, and save everyone who is still standing, Jew, Gentile or telekinetic raccoon, but that´s me…