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1. Jesus is talking to His disciples, not to you. (tho the result of the events mean everything to us) They had just left Herod’s temple. They hadn’t walked out of a 2025+ future temple devoid of genealogies or a priesthood
2. They are POINTING to Herod’s temple, not a different one, when Jesus says the temple would be destroyed and not one stone left upon another (not a different temple)
3. After Jesus said Herod’s temple will be destroyed, 4 disciples (Andrew, Peter, James, and John) asked WHEN Herod’s temple would be destroyed. This was to be concurrent with His coming (for Jesus had previously said that HE would destroy that temple), and concurrent with the end of the “age,” not “world” as some versions mistranslate. (Three of these 4 would write about His answer in other epistles that would become part of the Bible. And they would literally say “it’s time for judgment to begin at the house of God” a few decades later, for they had heard it themselves from Jesus’ mouth)
4. Jesus tells His disciples that THEY will be delivered to SYNAGOGUES and flogged (additionally, Jesus told the then-current pharisees that THEY would do the flogging)
5. The disciples’ testimony before governors would spread the gospel to the nations/ethnos/peoples/gentiles, meaning this must be happen when Judea is under Gentile control. Judea was a Roman province in the 1st century
6. The judgment is escapable … one just needs to flee to the Judean mountains. Therefore, it can’t mean the end of space/time/matter or the planet
7. People would be on rooftops – this is 1st century Judean residential housing with flat roofs that they would often go up on, including for the annual Feast of Booths
8. Jesus connects His prophecy to that of Daniel, who foretells the building of a city and sanctuary whose destruction would come with a war.
9. Jesus tells them at this time NOT to enter the large fortified city during war. Why? Because He doesn’t want them to follow the conventional wisdom of the 1st century
10. Jesus said that their escape would harder in the winter. Why? Because it would involve Judean mountains
11. Jesus said their escape would be harder during a Jewish holy day. Why? Because it’s about Judea
12. Jesus said the escape would be harder for pregnant women. Why? Because it would be on foot
13. Many of the judged are led captive into other nations, therefore other nations still exist to receive the captive. It’s not the end of the planet
14. It has to be a local judgment, because Jerusalem would be trodden down by Gentiles. The trodden are not being troddened at the same time
15. Jesus says the “taken” will be the ones that suffer JUDGEMENT, and will be thrown into a pile of dead bodies. Contrary to popular opinions, the taken do NOT have a good fortune here.
16. The apocalyptic language that mirrors Isaiah 13/14 when judgment by God was prophesied on physical Babylon in the 500’s BC is leveraged by Jesus in yet another claim to deity to prophesy judgment on “Babylon the great,” which Revelation identifies as Jerusalem – the city who killed the prophets and would kill Jesus as well. This cannot be a transition to a different time, as “but immediately after the tribulation” and “in those days, after that tribulation” are used, meaning this is chronologically the next event, but it happens right then with the previous events.
17. Last but not remotely least, Jesus confirms the passages 1st sixteen pieces of evidence buy telling His disciples in NO uncertain terms, “Verily I say unto you, this generation shall not pass away, till all these things be accomplished.”
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Conclusion, my money’s on Jesus, not other teachers. Furthermore, history has already revealed Jesus was right.
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Want to learn about it? Look into the Jewish Revolt of AD 66 and the resulting Civil War and famine, the Judean Provisional Government, the 1st Roman Judean War, the Nero-appointed Vespasian Campaign from Rome, the Siege of the Temple by Titus, and the Desolation of Jerusalem in AD 70