II PETER 3:1-7

Q: Isn't it true that Jews at the time understood the phrase “heaven and earth” to mean the temple, according to Josephus?

If you read those passages in Josephus, you will see that nowhere in it does he refer to the temple as "Heaven(s) and Earth." That is a comment added by some preterist sources. Instead, portions of the temple are described as "signifying, imitating, representing, 'as it were,' declaring, denoting, showing and resembling" the creation. I don't believe you can point to any single ancient source in or out of the Bible in which it says that the Jews called the temple "heaven and earth."

Another damning argument disproving the equation of Heaven and Earth equaling the temple is a matter of simple Greek grammar. Literally, verse 5 reads "present heavens and the earth" while verse 13 reads "new heavens and a new earth." The use of an adjective for heavens and the definite article for earth in verse 5 denotes two separate entities, not one. The same is true in verse 13 where the adjective "new" is repeated. If it were the temple being referred to, the usage in Greek would be "present heavens and earth" and "new heavens and earth," respectively.

Actually, it would almost be heresy for them to speak in such a manner. God mocks those who feel that He can somehow be encompassed in the bounds of the temple: "Heaven is my throne and the earth is my footstool; what is the house that you would build for me, and what is my resting place?" (Isaiah 66:1)

And in the NT, "The God who made the world and everything in it, he who is Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in shrines made by human hands." In both cases, man-made temples are compared very unfavorably to the heaven and earth of creation.

So let me follow the preterist reasoning regarding II Peter 3. Scoffers doubt that Christ will come again because they point out that the physical creation has been around forever. (That much is pretty obvious from verses 3-4) So Peter's rebuttal to them is that God created the physical universe and demonstrated in the flood that he could totally disrupt it any time he wants to (verse 5). Therefore the present temple ("heaven and earth") can be and will be destroyed along with godless people (who live in Jerusalem?) any time God wants to (verse 6). But in accordance with his promise, we wait for a new temple ("heaven and earth") where righteousness is at home (verse 13). When will that new temple be built? Doesn't that idea prove that the dispensationalists are correct in stating that the Jews in present Israel will rebuild the temple in Jerusalem before the end times?

I can't for the life of me follow the overall logic in such an interpretation. The only thing that would drive such a purposeful twisting of language (as well as the preterist insistence that 1-2 Peter must be written to Jews) is an overwhelming desire to push a specific doctrinal agenda.