Sven

For your amusement:

http://www.iidb.org/vbb/showthread.p...62#post1637962
http://www.iidb.org/vbb/showthread.p...45#post1640745

I especially liked the part where he refuted a prophecy himself which I not even mentioned!

GermanHeretic

Wow, CONTEXT, you actually read the CONTEXT

Magdlyn

Deutoronomy 18 is not a definition, IMHO. It is one prophet talking about how to judge whether a prophet's preachings are true. And what to do if you think s/he is talking out of his/her hat.

If you read the Prophets, (as I am sure you have), their use for the nation is as a voice of HaShem, first and foremost. Their ability to tell the future is questionable.

In 1 Kings 22 there is a story about a battle, where prophets are shown to be telling the king what they think he wants to hear. One says one thing as a prediction, then its opposite. The king is perturbed. YHWH even "puts a lying spirit" into the mouths of prophets.

The tendency of the authors of the Christian Scriptures to take verses from the prophets and psalms of the Tanakh and use them to "foretell" the life of Christ, as if they were all infallible, as if they were all true (or relevant), is a problem. We are led to believe they are quoted b/c everything in the Hebrew Scriptures is historically, infallible correct. But of course, it isn't.

dado

"all" i have is 3000 years of tradition. if someone insists on reading Hebrew texts and concluding anything and everything is a predicition about the future, there is nothing i can do about it.

Javaman

We, again, are in agreement. Many Christians try so hard to fit OT passages into some sort of valid claim for their chosen leader that it, in my opinion, weakens their whole argument. I will add, though, that I'm certainly not learned in these matters.
I didn't mean my post to sound like a challenge (although "defend" probably wasn't the best choice). I actually wanted some more background on your statement as I'm interested in what you have to say. Not to put your beliefs necessarily on a higher plane than the other belief structures but... For some reason I have more respect for Judaism than other religions. Perhaps it's a childhood thing. I grew up in Cincinnati as a non-beliver in a border neighborhood fairly evenly-divided between Catholics and Jews... the Jews never beat me up. The Catholics, however...

funinspace

As being one of the "others" being also entertained in the alter thread, I would say I have not seen a credible explanation of this failed prophecy. I don't tend to quible with literalists on things like prophecy. Where there's a will there's a way to twist the meaning of such verses. Like others have pointed to Tyre is another of these broken prophecies. Some like to make it not time limited, but that also streches all credibility to the point of "what's the point again". The Emperor is naked, so the true believers put on real dark shades and pretend. I prefer to takle the issues on simpler grounds if they will engage...

DK

dado

prophecy in Judaism...big subject. lots of views.

in Judaism there are prophets, prophets everywhere. the homeless guy on the corner with a cardboard sign saying "Feed the Hungry" is a prophet. Bob Dylan was - is, again - a prophet. add Leonard Cohen and a host of others. there are literally hundreds of thousands of prophets: some are prophets for life, some are limited to a prophetic moment of great insight, some are intermittent prophets all their lives. the vast majority of prophets have a message for their time and place and people. nor are prophets restricted to The Tribe - it is explicity acknowledged Gentiles have prophets as well.

i'm not sure what people imagine when they think of a biblical prophet, but someone like Amos almost certainly came across as a nutjob who "decent people" felt compelled to chase away from their meeting places. there is a guy outside the main produce market here, sells something called the "The Grapevine" newspaper. it's basically a weekly collection of homeless/destitute poetry printed on ultracheap paper and given away for a donation. poetry like...

you get the picture? raw, down and out, angry, hurt poetry. in a word, prophecy. this is the kind of paper Amos would have been distributing. there is huge irony that the same people yapping about Isaiah wouldn't give Isaiah the time of day if he showed up at their door, they'd be dialing 911 before the doorbell stopped ringing complaining about a deranged lunatic trying to break in. look no further than how mainstream America treats its Angry Young Men & Women for specific examples.

anyway, when a person like this makes a "prediction" about the future - about walls coming down and buildings being razed and fields being salted and kingdoms descending from the sky etc - it can be taken fatalistically - as a vision of THE future - predetermined - or as a purple-prosed warning of where we are headed as a society and as a vision of a POSSIBLE future. there job is tell us that which we don't really want to hear - from that perspective, the only truly successful prophet is the one we listen to and thus invalidate the "predicitions".

successful prophecy is failed prophecy. accurate prophecy implies a failed prophet.

here is Jewish prophesy in nutshell: prophesy says HaMashiak ("the" Messiah, there are lots of "little" messiahs) will come when we are ready for him/her. the plot twist? if we are ready, we no longer need the prophesied HaMashiak.

hope that helps...

Magdlyn

Sorry dado, I am editing b/c I don't want to follow up your eloquent post with a simple question to someone else. I didn't see you had posted.

I want to add Paul Simon to your list of Jewish prophets. And John Lennon, who, while not Jewish, was bigger than Jesus Christ! LOL

And now I ask:

Sven, to whom are you talking? And to what context are you referring?

Sven

WinAce brought up the Tyre prophecies. I just gave an example for someone who really thinks that these are fulfilled prophecies and gave the two links for your amusement. If your question is to whom I'm talking in this thread: to no one specifically (perhaps to WinAce). If your question is to whom I'm talking in the linked threads: just follow the links.
I never mentioned the word "context", I don't know why GermanHeretic brought this up. Ask him, not me.

dado

i agree, Lennon belongs in everybody's pantheon of prophetdom. and Lou Reed, too. i keep looking for a youngster with the same kind of fire who might grow into one with a bit more life experience, but nobody is jumping out at me.

you know what i heard for the first time the other day? "Bridge over Troubled Water", which i thought was a love song, is about heroin!