Bible Prophecy as Evidence of a bible writers trustworthiness

[Audie]

You would have to show the Island fortress before destruction pictures and then you would change your view

The fortress didnt get rebuilt.
Nothing unique there. You ever tour
the castles of Scotland?

I see no fish nets in the photo.

The city is not as predicted.

 

[nPeace]

Human beings have been writing works of fiction for many centuries now.

...and who has been writing truth? Animals?

 

[ElishaElijah]

The fortress didnt get rebuilt.
Nothing unique there. You ever tour
the castles of Scotland?

I see no fish nets in the photo.

The city is not as predicted.

The Island Fortess was completely destroyed and is a peninsula now. Never rebuilt as a fortress, the prophecy said fisherman would cast their nets, so how could that mean no one would occupy or live there. I see this prophecy to mean that the Island Fortress wouldn’t be rebuilt like it was and from what I’ve read the old Island is under water. People do live on the peninsula but to say rebuilt, no way. Definitely not an Island or a fortress.

In approximately A.D. 1170, a Jewish traveler named Benjamin of Tudela published a diary of his travels. “Benjamin began his journey from Saragossa, around the year 1160 and over the course of thirteen years visited over 300 cities in a wide range of places including Greece, Syria, Palestine, Mesopotamia and Persia” (Benjamin of Tudela, n.d.). In his memoirs, a section is included concerning the city of Tyre.

From Sidon it is half a day’s journey to Sarepta (Sarfend), which belongs to Sidon. Thence it is a half-day to New Tyre (Sur), which is a very fine city, with a harbour in its midst…. There is no harbour like this in the whole world. Tyre is a beautiful city…. In the vicinity is found sugar of a high class, for men plant it here, and people come from all lands to buy it. A man can ascend the walls of New Tyre and see ancient Tyre, which the sea has now covered, lying at a stone’s throw from the new city. And should one care to go forth by boat, one can see the castles, market-places, streets, and palaces in the bed of the sea (1907, emp. added.).

From this twelfth-century A.D. text, then, we learn that by that period of time the city known as ancient Tyre lay completely buried beneath the sea and a new city, most likely on some part of the island, had been erected. George Davis, in his book Fulfilled Prophecies that Prove the Bible, included a picture of Syrian fishermen under which the following caption appeared: “Syrian fishermen hauling in their nets on the probable site of ancient Tyre, which perished as predicted by the prophet” (1931, p. 11). In his monumental work on the city of Tyre, Katzenstein mentioned several ancient sources that discussed the position of “Old Tyre.” He wrote: “Later this town was dismantled by Alexander the Great in his famous siege of Tyre and disappeared totally with the change of the coastline brought about by the dike and the alluvial deposits that changed Tyre into a peninsula” (1973, p. 15, emp. added).

 

[Audie]

The Island Fortess was completely destroyed and is a peninsula now. Never rebuilt as a fortress, the prophecy said fisherman would cast their nets, so how could that mean no one would occupy or live there. I see this prophecy to mean that the Island Fortress wouldn’t be rebuilt like it was and from what I’ve read the old Island is under water. People do live on the peninsula but to say rebuilt, no way. Definitely not an Island or a fortress.

In approximately A.D. 1170, a Jewish traveler named Benjamin of Tudela published a diary of his travels. “Benjamin began his journey from Saragossa, around the year 1160 and over the course of thirteen years visited over 300 cities in a wide range of places including Greece, Syria, Palestine, Mesopotamia and Persia” (Benjamin of Tudela, n.d.). In his memoirs, a section is included concerning the city of Tyre.

From Sidon it is half a day’s journey to Sarepta (Sarfend), which belongs to Sidon. Thence it is a half-day to New Tyre (Sur), which is a very fine city, with a harbour in its midst…. There is no harbour like this in the whole world. Tyre is a beautiful city…. In the vicinity is found sugar of a high class, for men plant it here, and people come from all lands to buy it. A man can ascend the walls of New Tyre and see ancient Tyre, which the sea has now covered, lying at a stone’s throw from the new city. And should one care to go forth by boat, one can see the castles, market-places, streets, and palaces in the bed of the sea (1907, emp. added.).

From this twelfth-century A.D. text, then, we learn that by that period of time the city known as ancient Tyre lay completely buried beneath the sea and a new city, most likely on some part of the island, had been erected. George Davis, in his book Fulfilled Prophecies that Prove the Bible, included a picture of Syrian fishermen under which the following caption appeared: “Syrian fishermen hauling in their nets on the probable site of ancient Tyre, which perished as predicted by the prophet” (1931, p. 11). In his monumental work on the city of Tyre, Katzenstein mentioned several ancient sources that discussed the position of “Old Tyre.” He wrote: “Later this town was dismantled by Alexander the Great in his famous siege of Tyre and disappeared totally with the change of the coastline brought about by the dike and the alluvial deposits that changed Tyre into a peninsula” (1973, p. 15, emp. added).

" i see it to mean" is key to retrofitting
prophecy. Works for Nostradamus and 9-11.
Look at google earth. The island and penindula
are both heavily built up. They kept a small area of Roman ruins.

Does your "prove the bibke" fellow also
do Noahs ark? Better try to prove world wide flood too.

 

[ElishaElijah]

" i see it to mean" is key to retrofitting
prophecy. Works for Nostradamus and 9-11.
Look at google earth. The island and penindula
are both heavily built up. They kept a small area of Roman ruins.

Does your "prove the bibke" fellow also
do Noahs ark? Better try to prove world wide flood too.

Well, hermeneutically speaking, that’s how I see it, an amazingly accurate prophecy.

 

[Redemptionsong]

Do thec" teachings" of Paul,include his absurdly false snake story?

As for the Jews, AD 70, it was the,Romans who
were " displessed".

The 'absurd' story that you refer to has its prophetic counterpart in the sayings of Jesus:
Mark 16:18. ' They shall take up serpents; and if they drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them;'
Luke 10:19. 'Behold, l give unto you power to tread on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy: and nothing shall by any means hurt you.'

So, the story of Paul being bitten by a venomous snake and he shaking it off unharmed is not out of place in the NT. Jesus spoke of these things before their occurence. If you think Acts [Acts 28:3-5] is not compatible with the teaching of Jesus, then think again!

 

[blü 2]

What you call a 'dud prophecy' reflects a dud understanding, lMO.

I simply read the words. They are attributed to Jesus in all three versions. They say the Kingdom of God on earth will be instituted in the lifetime of some of Jesus' audience.

So EITHER there are some 2000 year old Judeans living quietly in Tel Aviv or New York and still expecting the Second Coming OR the prophecy is a dud, a complete failure ─ which I suggest is why the author of John in the 90s CE avoids mentioning it.

For a start, the portrait of the Messiah provided by Torah Jews takes no account of the 'suffering servant' scriptures. These have been conveniently swept into a bin called 'lsrael the suffering nation'.

The Suffering Servant is the nation of Israel according to both Jewish and Christian scholars.

Likewise the young woman who shall conceive a son in Isaiah 7:14 does so in that chapter and the son is born and also mentioned in Isaiah 8. That isn't Jesus, whose name is Yeshua rather than Immanuel into the bargain.

You may, or may not know, that Jews today expect the Messiah to be the son of David, born of two human parents.

In the NT, the Jesus of Paul pre-exists in heaven with God, creates the material universe, and arrives on earth in an unexplained manner, but since he's said to be descended from David we can assume he had Jewish parents.

The Jesus of Mark, by contrast, is just an ordinary Jew until he's baptized, at which point the heavens open and God adopts him as [his] son on the model of Psalm 2:7. He's not descended from David.

The Jesus of Matthew and the Jesus of Luke did not pre-exist in heaven, are born from the divine insemination of a virgin (and therefore have God's Y-chromosome), and are the subject of incompatible and false genealogies saying, absurdly, that Joseph is their father.

And the Jesus of John, like the Jesus of Paul, also pre-existed in heaven, also created the material universe, also came to earth in an undescribed manner and also is said to be a descendant of David.

The Gospels of Matthew and Luke, on the other hand, provide a genealogy that allows for legal and royal legitimacy without Joseph being the natural father of Jesus.

No, they provide two incompatible and imaginary genealogies which tread on their own toes since those Jesuses are the genetic son of God.

And, as for the teaching of Paul, whose mission to the Gentiles is a story of God's unbounded mercy [see 2 Peter 3:9], his Gospel of grace follows naturally from the rejection of the 'suffering servant' (and Messiah) by the Jewish nation.

Nope. That's an unhistorical perversion of the story of the Suffering Servant. And as I said, no Jew would have any reason to recognize Jesus as a messiah of any kind.

Why do you think the Jews were expelled from their capital and land after 70 CE?

Because they had an armed rebellion against Rome. And theologically, I dare say because at the time they must have lacked a messiah, since one thing a messiah is good for is liberating the Jews from subjugation and restoring their national independence.

Do you think God was pleased with their decision to reject their Messiah? [Hosea 5:15]

As I keep pointing out to you, the Jews had no reason at all to think a person of Jesus' description was a messiah.

And you haven't explained to me why God would send a messiah to found a religious sect that would rapaciously and murderously persecute [his] chosen people for two thousand years and counting.

 

[Audie]

The 'absurd' story that you refer to has its prophetic counterpart in the sayings of Jesus:
Mark 16:18. ' They shall take up serpents; and if they drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them;'
Luke 10:19. 'Behold, l give unto you power to tread on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy: and nothing shall by any means hurt you.'

So, the story of Paul being bitten by a venomous snake and he shaking it off unharmed is not out of place in the NT. Jesus spoke of these things before their occurence. If you think Acts [Acts 28:3-5] is not compatible with the teaching of Jesus, then think again!

Oh, its in keeping, with talking animals and the flood.

If one analyzes pauls snake story
the absurdity comes clear.
You know how detectives hearing a story
want the exact details?
I could walk you through it.
Just for one lil detail there are no poisonous
snakes on that island.
But i expect you are as unshakeable as the
mother whose darling boy would never ever
rob a 7-11, surveillance video be darned!

If so say so and i wont bother.

 

[nPeace]

Years ago, there were snakes where I live. Today there are none.
I wonder why unbelievers do that - talk about ancient times like it's today?
I don't get it.

Is it because they think they know everything?

 

[Audie]

Years ago, there were snakes where I live. Today there are none.
I wonder why unbelievers do that - talk about ancient times like it's today?
I don't get it.

Is it because they think they know everything?

Are you so eager to criticize,atheists that its
ok to make things up?

 

[nPeace]

Are you so eager to criticize,atheists that its
ok to make things up?

Do you mean as eager as you are to criticize Christians? No. ...and no. I am not eager to criticize Atheists.
Eager to speak the truth, and my thoughts concerning this, yes.
What did I make up... that Atheists here keep applying the here and now to ancient times? That's true. Not made up.
That it baffles me? That's true too.
That they think they know everything? That's true in a relative sense, but I didn't make that up. I asked a question.

 

[ppp]

Do you mean as eager as you are to criticize Christians? No. ...and no. I am not eager to criticize Atheists.
Eager to speak the truth, and my thoughts concerning this, yes.
What did I make up... that Atheists here keep applying the here and now to ancient times? That's true. Not made up.
That it baffles me? That's true too.
That they think they know everything? That's true in a relative sense, but I didn't make that up. I asked a question.

Did you know that just asking questions (also known as JAQing off) is a way of attempting to make wild accusations reasonable by framing them as questions rather than statements?

 

[Hockeycowboy]

Satan and the fallen angels…..who could be more stupid than the guy who rebels against an omnipotent and omniscient being?

With regards to Satan…I agree, in the end it’s pretty stupid. But he raised issues in Eden that he knew would take time to be settled. So it belayed his destruction, as he (at the time) probably thought it would, being familiar with Jehovah God’s patient, merciful nature & sense of justice. It worked.

Sometimes, desires become so strong that even intelligent beings do ultimately stupid things.
Like smoking, or addictive drugs. Knowing the harm doesn’t stop some of them, does it?

The other angels, though, were enticed by different, unnatural desires. Their actions were still stupid. Maybe they are all hoping for God’s mercy?

(Didn’t I read on here that you studied the Bible w/ JWs at one time? Im sorry, but if you studied for a length of time where you gained much knowledge, that informs me as to the motives which you say you don’t have.)

Best wishes.

 

[Hockeycowboy]

Not really. Texts can not be dated by the text itself. That is a fallacy.

How do you date it?

So…you think the authors are lying?

If that is true, how did these writings gain such deep respect? Contemporaries would have discarded them!

As you well know, those original manuscripts are long gone… but there are copies, which are dated. Old versions of the LXX are quite ancient.
And the originals had to be before that.

 

[viole]

With regards to Satan…I agree, in the end it’s pretty stupid. But he raised issues in Eden that he knew would take time to be settled. So it belayed his destruction, as he (at the time) probably thought it would, being familiar with Jehovah God’s patient, merciful nature & sense of justice. It worked.

Sometimes, desires become so strong that even intelligent beings do ultimately stupid things.
Like smoking, or addictive drugs. Knowing the harm doesn’t stop some of them, does it?

The other angels, though, were enticed by different, unnatural desires. Their actions were still stupid. Maybe they are all hoping for God’s mercy?

(Didn’t I read on here that you studied the Bible w/ JWs at one time? Im sorry, but if you studied for a length of time where you gained much knowledge, that informs me as to the motives which you say you don’t have.)

Best wishes.

My motives to leave Christianity? I can assure you they were not due to an over restriction of the Bible to my liberty. That would be equivalent to reject belief in the police because I like drugs, as we have seen.

Nope. My motives are mainly intellectual. When I started analysing my beliefs outside of the system, that is by suspending faith momentarily, I realised they made no sense whatsoever.

Ciao

- viole

 

[Hockeycowboy]

My motives to leave Christianity? I can assure you they were not due to an over restriction of the Bible to my liberty. That would be equivalent to reject belief in the police because I like drugs, as we have seen.

Nope. My motives are mainly intellectual. When I started analysing my beliefs outside of the system, that is by suspending faith momentarily, I realised they made no sense whatsoever.

Ciao

- viole

If I may ask…what beliefs, specifically, did you analyze?

 

[firedragon]

So…you think the authors are lying?

If that is true, how did these writings gain such deep respect? Contemporaries would have discarded them!

As you well know, those original manuscripts are long gone… but there are copies, which are dated. Old versions of the LXX are quite ancient.
And the originals had to be before that.

LXX? Which manuscript are you referring to?

 

[firedragon]

So…you think the authors are lying?

Which particular book are you referring to? Who is the author? How do you know the author? And why would you trust him so much to have passed down his original writing down the line and who are these people who passed it down? What are their names and biographies?

 

[Sheldon]

It’s interesting that naysayers of the Biblical prophecies almost always point out seeming discrepancies within these prophecies, or at least what seems to be, but with other prophecies where they can’t find inaccuracies, they almost always say, “Well, these were written after the fact.”

Basically, this amounts to accusations of deliberate fraud perpetrated by these ancient Israelite/Jewish authors.

But if that were so, these ancient Biblical books would not have been held in such respect and esteem by their ancient contemporaries, who would’ve known the truth, and future generations as they have... these books would have been severely censured as fraudulent.

But this so-called “Higher criticism“ has only occurred within the last 200 years or so.

If Isaiah, Jeremiah and others had been written “after the fact,” why would they have spent so much effort in writing many pages & begging the Israelites/Jews to turn around & repent so that such discipline / punishment not come upon them from Assyria, Babylon, etc....if the events had already happened?

What motive could there possibly be from these writers? It certainly wasn’t money.
And these Israelite/Jewish authors as individuals weren’t doing it to promote Jehovah to the world....they were happy with their own tribes & way of life, known to avoid interaction with other nations.

The authors of these Biblical prophecies, if writing solely to mislead, would’ve had some pretty dark motives for such a clandestine effort!

Of course, many of us are aware of the motives of a few Biblical detractors: the Bible sets forth some guidelines that “interfered with our sexual freedom,” as Aldous Huxley stated in “Ends and Means” & a lot of people don’t want to follow these guidelines, and others set forth in Scripture.

I would suggest that in the interests of accuracy, detractors should re-examine their own motives, and apply some critical thinking and reasoning to what is assumed, and what is actually known.

Examining the writings of Sir Frederic G. Kenyon, would be a fine start.

@Bree , good thread. I leave it with you, my sister.

How does an accurate prediction of a future event, no matter how extraordinary, evidence any deity?

 

[Sheldon]

What motive could there possibly be from these writers? It certainly wasn’t money.
And these Israelite/Jewish authors as individuals weren’t doing it to promote Jehovah to the world....they were happy with their own tribes & way of life, known to avoid interaction with other nations.

The authors of these Biblical prophecies, if writing solely to mislead, would’ve had some pretty dark motives for such a clandestine effort!

Of course, many of us are aware of the motives of a few Biblical detractors: the Bible sets forth some guidelines that “interfered with our sexual freedom,” as Aldous Huxley stated in “Ends and Means” & a lot of people don’t want to follow these guidelines, and others set forth in Scripture.

So religious motives must be pure, and atheist motives must be depraved. I don't think such obvious bias requires too much emphasis. Only to point out the fact that anyone making any claims of a prophesy, carries the entire burden of proof on themselves. this would involve 3 separate claims.

1. A prediction of a future event so specific that there could be absolutely no room for doubt, and the event so unlikely or rare that there was literally no room for such a chance event.

2. Unequivocal objective evidence that the event occurred exactly as described, and in a time that leaves absolutely no doubt it was predicted accurately beforehand.

3. Sufficient objective evidence that the prediction and the later event could only have been known and caused by divine inspiration.

I have yet to see a claim satisfy either of the first 2 criteria, let alone provide any objective evidence for the 3rd.

However since you have ratcheted up the hyperbole for biblical prophesy in a public debate forum, seem pretty confident you think you can, so off you go. I shall read your claim with an open mind, and avoid the obvious bias your posts have indulged, at least.