What is "preterism"

n. (context theology English) A Christian eschatological view that interprets Biblical prophecy as events which happened in the first century (A.D.).

Preterism as a Christian eschatological view interprets some (Partial Preterism) or all (Full Preterism) prophecies of the Bible as events which have already happened. This school of thought interprets the Book of Daniel as referring to events that happened in the 2nd century BC, while seeing the prophecies of Revelation as events that happened in the first century AD. Preterism holds that Ancient Israel finds its continuation or fulfillment in the Christian church at the destruction of Jerusalem in AD 70.

The term preterism comes from the Latin praeter, which Webster's 1913 dictionary lists as a prefix denoting that something is "past" or "beyond". Adherents of preterism are commonly known as preterists. Preterism teaches that either all (Full Preterism) or a majority (Partial Preterism) of the Olivet discourse had come to pass by AD 70.

Historically, preterists and non-preterists have generally agreed that the Jesuit Luis de Alcasar (1554–1613) wrote the first systematic preterist exposition of prophecy - Vestigatio arcani sensus in Apocalypsi (published in 1614) - during the Counter-Reformation.