InvestigateTruth
Well-Known Member
Prophecies are fulfilled symbolically.Open ended prophesy? That's vague enough to be Nostradamus .
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Prophecies are fulfilled symbolically.Open ended prophesy? That's vague enough to be Nostradamus .
wizanda said: ↑
David is prophesied as the Messiah across the Tanakh (Ezekiel 34:23-24, Ezekiel 37:24-25, Jeremiah 23:5, Jeremiah 30:8-9, Jeremiah 33:15, Hosea 3:5, Isaiah 55:3, Isaiah 22:22, Isaiah 9:6-7, etc).
Prophecies are fulfilled symbolically.
Yes. Consider, 'destruction', might be a spiritual destruction, as well as war... Jesus said, His return is like the time of Noah. When Noah came, the flood happened, and continued, so is with return of Christ.Consider the prophesies about the destruction of Egypt, Babylon, Damascus and Tyre.. ALL of them are still there.
Yes. Consider, 'destruction', might be a spiritual destruction, as well as war... Jesus said, His return is like the time of Noah. When Noah came, the flood happened, and continued, so is with return of Christ.
Yes, Noah's flood is not a literal flood. It is a figurative story.Noah's global flood is a myth. How is myth LIKE Jesus return?
I don't think foreknowledge means absolute predestination.@IndigoChild5559
@MJFlores
If Prophets were fortune tellers who could predict the future, there would be NO free will.
Prophets aren’t Fortunetellers or Meteorologists (by C. A. Strine)
How does one explain with any intellectual honesty a Second Coming that Jesus said would come soon but didn’t? As Christopher mentioned in the first post, we believe it comes down to how one understands “predictive prophecy.”
We think that the statements about Jesus’ return in the Gospels are prophecies, which aren’t meant to be predictions of future events. Now that really sounds weird.
Except, it isn’t.
When most people read something called prophecy, especially predictive prophecy, they assume that the statements about the future intend to describe accurately what the prophet understands, through divine inspiration, will actually happen in the future.
We tend to think of prophets like divine meteorologists providing a long-term forecast. Predictions of doom and gloom or images of abundant blessing are taken to be statements about what the future will be like. That’s what prophets do: they tell us now about what things will be like then, some time in the future.
Only that’s not what the Old Testament tells us.
The Book of Jeremiah comes closest to giving a model for how predictive prophecy works, and it is rather different than the “predict the future” model.
Indeed, Jeremiah makes it very clear that some predictive prophecy is not meant to come pass at all.
Let’s look at Jeremiah 18:5-10. This passage explains that God reserves the possibility to change course even after the prophet who speaks on God’s behalf predicts blessing or cursing.
Then the word of the LORD came to me: Can I not do with you, O house of Israel, just as this potter has done? says the LORD. Just like the clay in the potter’s hand, so are you in my hand, O house of Israel. At one moment I may declare concerning a nation or a kingdom, that I will pluck up and break down and destroy it, but if that nation, concerning which I have spoken, turns from its evil, I will change my mind about the disaster that I intended to bring on it. And at another moment I may declare concerning a nation or a kingdom that I will build and plant it, but if it does evil in my sight, not listening to my voice, then I will change my mind about the good that I had intended to do to it.
In other words, God may not send the predicted punishment if the people repent, or conversely withhold a predicted blessing if the people do evil in God’s sight.
Statements about the future are descriptions of how bad it might be, or how abundant God’s blessing could be. It all depends on what people do.
Prophecies are conditional statements. Predictive prophecies explain what is on offer, not what has already been decided.
This dynamic is highlighted later in Jeremiah (ch. 26, to be exact). After having prophesied the destruction of the Temple—obviously not a popular position in Jerusalem—the priests, the prophets, and all the people condemn Jeremiah to death (vv. 7-9) because of his prediction of doom.
But then the elders of the land recall that Micah had predicted a similar fate for Jerusalem. They also recall that, on that occasion, Hezekiah (the king reigning at that time) didn’t try to eliminate Micah because he was irked by his dire prophecy; rather, the threat of destruction provoked Hezekiah to plead with God to spare Jerusalem.
And God did. Crisis averted.
Micah’s prophecy didn’t come to pass, but drove Hezekiah to change his ways. And that made him a good prophet. A very good one indeed.
Prophecy does not simply seek to predict the future, but to change the present. The potential of future disaster is meant to change current behavior, to motivate people to repent, to turn back to God, and to live in a way that will persuade God to hold back judgment.
Or, when blessing is promised, prophecy aims to encourage people to persevere in following God’s commands, to do so with all the more conviction, and to remind them that backsliding into rebellion might convince God not to bestow the good things offered to them at all.
Prophets want to activate certain behaviors in their audiences, not prognosticate future events. They are like parents warning children against foolish behavior and encouraging good behavior, not weather forecasters attempting to tell you whether or not you’ll need an umbrella at noontime tomorrow.
This is the case around the ancient world and the Old Testament (as we discuss in the book).
Think, for instance, of the book of Jonah. This prophet is no doubt a comic figure, in a comical book, but surely one with a serious point.
C. A. (Casey) Strine
Why does Jonah resist going to Nineveh? Precisely because he knew that alerting the people of this foreign nation to the potential of God’s punishment would cause them to change their ways (Jon 4:1-4). Jonah wanted God to punish Nineveh; he knew his “prediction” of punishment could change their behavior and avoid that outcome; so he ran away.
In the book we show how this same view of prophecy lies beneath passages in Isaiah, 2 Samuel, early Jewish texts, and, as Christopher will explain in the next post, the New Testament too.
In the book we show how this same view of prophecy lies beneath passages in Isaiah, 2 Samuel, early Jewish texts, and, as Christopher will explain in the next post, the New Testament too.
Prophets are not fortunetellers or weather forecasters. They are not claiming to predict an inevitable, unchanging future, but to change the way that people live in the present.
When we read predictive prophecy—in the Old Testament, the Gospels, or elsewhere—we need to ask what it wants to activate us to do, not what it might prognosticate about the future.
As we’ll see in our next post, this is just what New Testament shows us.
[Part 3 coming tomorrow . . . ]
See some of Pete’s popular books: The Bible Tells Me So (HarperOne, 2014), Inspiration and Incarnation (Baker 2005/2015), and The Sin of Certainty (HarperOne, 2016).
Prophecies Aren’t Predictions of the Future (You Can Look It Up)
I'm looking for more info on the "School of the Prophets". Can you help with that @sooda?
Which is why vague open ended prophecies are always failed prophecies since more than one event could have "fulfilled" them.Open ended prophesy? That's vague enough to be Nostradamus .
Which also makes them failed prophecies. Any event can be reinterpreted as fulfilling a prophecy. If a prophecy will be fulfilled no matter what it is of no value.Prophecies are fulfilled symbolically.
I don't think foreknowledge means absolute predestination.
For example, let's say I'm a pedestrian at a stop light. I see a car with their left blinker on speeding up on a yellow too late, and the light turns green. As the other cars begin, I can SEE that an accident will occur. But that doesn't mean it HAD to happen. The first car CHOSE to speed up for the yellow.
Prophets aren’t Fortunetellers or Meteorologists (by C. A. Strine)
How does one explain with any intellectual honesty a Second Coming that Jesus said would come soon but didn’t?
As Christopher mentioned in the first post, we believe it comes down to how one understands “predictive prophecy.”
We think that the statements about Jesus’ return in the Gospels are prophecies, which aren’t meant to be predictions of future events. Now that really sounds weird. Except, it isn’t.
'How does one explain' is easily explained by Jesus' intellectual words found at Luke 19:11-15.
Please notice at Luke 19:11 Jesus explains with intelligence the kingdom would Not immediately or suddenly appear.
Luke continues explaining at Acts of the Apostles 1:6-8 that before Jesus would return the good news (Matthew 24:14) would first be proclaimed to the uttermost or remote parts of the Earth.
In other words, emphasis was placed on how extensive (international) the work would be as it is being done today.
This follows along with that pattern as found at 1 Thessalonians 5:2-3.
Before Jesus returns the ' powers that be ' will be saying, " Peace and Security..." as the precursor to the coming great tribulation of Revelation 7:14, 9 before Jesus, as Prince of Peace, ushers in global Peace on Earth among persons of goodwill.
Nothing weird about such coming future events to take place, and starting with the soon coming ' time of separation ' to take place on Earth as mentioned at Matthew 25:31-33,37,40.
First, I find the Bible teaches that the Earth will abide forever - Ecclesiastes 1:4 BDo you think Jesus meant the whole earth or their world?
Primarily because the story of Jonah can be understood in the category of Challenge Parables. According to Dominic Crossan who explains the different types of parables found and used in the Bible and by Jesus. The basic types are riddle parables, typically with deadly consequences; example parables which are used to illustrate moral lessons, and challenge parables, which are intended to disrupt current beliefs and views by turning the story on its head, and the bad guy is good, and the good guys are bad. The Good Samaritan is an example of challenge parable. Most of Jesus' parables were that.Why does Jonah resist going to Nineveh?
I'm still waiting to hear a prophecy that either isn't so vague it could mean virtually anything or was no different than an accurate prediction.