The world was more violent 2000 years ago. After Rome conquered Carthage, the entire populace was enslaved. Dissidents were killed using increasingly brutal methods--which they had mostly learned from the Persian Empire, which existed several hundreds years B.C. In A.D. 70, Rome finally decided they had enough with Jerusalem, so not only did they destroy the city, but an estimated 1 million Jews were killed and the rest, in typical Roman fashion, were enslaved and dispersed throughout the empire.
In their violent world, Jesus still came peacefully.
During the time of the Reformation, not only was the entire Christian church rampant with worldly imperialist corruption, but we also had the Bubonic Plague that killed 1/3 of Europe over 300 years. And wars? They were literally incessant. If it wasn't the 300 years of Crusades, it was the Hundred Years War. And if it wasn't that, a monarch that just woke up out of the wrong side of the bed one day could very well just decide to start a war. And it happened for such illogical reasons, not to mention the Inquisition. The Papal Inquisition engaged in mindnumbingly cruel torture methods.
In their violent world, Jesus didn't come.
If violence is somehow the "meter" of how we expect "the end" to happen, then Jesus should have come 500 years ago. The present, despite all the religious fearmongering, is perhaps the most peaceful and conscionable of all history.
I'm mostly interested in how Paul treated the next coming of Christ, since the Book of ********** wasn't in existence during his lifetime. Paul was genuinely optimistic, but told his impatient followers to live their lives normally. I tend to think that he did not believe in all that "gloom and doom" of **********.
Melon