I have just taken on an ongoing debate with a Jehovah's Witness (friend and coworker) about biblical prophecies. Anyone know of some good resources?? Thanks, goat-e.

I'm not sure about on-line resources, but if you can get your hands on a copy of Isaac Asimov's Guide to the Bible it is good for understanding the prophesies in their historical context.

yeah-

The one about TYRE being destroyed and never being lived in again

it is a thriving city of 70,000 in Lebanon do an internet search

or argue that if prophesy is valid, and GOD is infallible, YOUR FATE IS ALREADY SEALED, so all the witnessing in the world won't change your fate.

* if prophesy is valid, and GOD is infallible, then there is really no such thing a FREE-WILL , your fate is already written ---- for prophesy to come to pass, the FUTURE must be set in stone, otherwise us humans could change the future (by exercising our free-will) AND GOD'S PROPHESY COULD FAIL TO COME TO PASS --- contradicting both his OMNIPOTENCE and INFALLIBILITY

therefore all future events are PREDESTINED, you are either saved or damned (from the instant of creation) and nothing you or the WITNESSES can do will change your fate.

Opus1

There's some good prophecy stuff on the II website. Someone (Carrier?) wrote a rebuttal to a chapter of McDowell's Evidence that Demands a Verdict all about Biblical prophecy fulfillment. Farrell Till has several articles as well on the website. Or you can go to www.skepticsannotatedbible.com and click on "False Prophecies" for a list of all the prophecies that didn't come true. Finally, the book "Bible Prophecy: Fulfillment or Failure?" covers pretty much all there is to say about the matter. It's in the II bookstore. Of course, JW's are nuts by definition, so no one's going to change their mind no matter what.

Thanks to all of you for the different resources!!!!!

If it's not too late I've got a good one. I'm new here BTW

In Mt. 16:28 Jesus says "Truly I say to you, there are some standing here who will not taste death before they see the son of man coming in his kingdom."

Some might argue that this refers not to the apocolypse, but to the coming of the Spirit at Pentecost. This is a bad argument since nowhere in the NT is Penecost spoken of in terms of the coming of the son of man. It is always refered to as the coming of the Spirit.

Furhtermore, we can put this verse in it's context, (as fundies love to do). Here is the verse that immediately precedes it"For the Son of man is to come with his angels in the glory of his Father, and then he will repay every man for what he has done." (Mt. 16:27). Obviously, Jesus is referring to the end of the world. Now unless you believe that Jesus changed the subject in the middle of his speech, his prediction did not come true.

I bring this one up often on my fundie boards, but I've found it's usually more efficacious to start with Isaiah's or Ezekiel's prophesies. You mention Jesus and the alarms go off.

Excellent boooks on the subject:

Gospel Fictions, by Randel Helms, Prometheus Books, 59 John Glenn Drive, Amherst, NY 14288-2197, 1988.

An Anthology of Atheism and Rationalism, by Gordon Stein, Ph. D., Prometheus Books, 1980, see pp. 125-143, Thomas Paine, from The Age of Reason-Part III.

Check out Why I Am An Agnostic and Biblical Contradictions on my website, www.bobkwebsite.com, which includes the following:

I learned that the Old Testament of the Christian Bible was not the complete writings of the Jewish Bible for the same time period, the time predating the birth of Jesus. Instead, I learned that the Christian Old Testament was compiled to offer prophecies that would be confirmed by the New Testament, and that the New Testament was written and compiled to fulfill the prophecies of the Old Testament, as if to appease the need of Christians that the New Testament would fulfill the old Testament and the Old Testament would predict the New Testament. The proof that the Old Testament and the New Testament were fictional compilations lay in the fact that the prophecies in the Old Testament were prophecies not of the coming of Jesus many, many years later, but of people/things/events in the time period immediate to the prophecy. For example, the Christian New Testament Book of Isaiah, Chapter 7, prophesied that a virgin/young woman would conceive and bear a male
child and call him Immanuel [Emanuel] as a sign to the current King of Judah, Ahaz, that he would be victorious in battle with Rezin, the King of Syria, and Pekah, the King of Israel. Isaiah, in Chapter 8, supposedly in the presence of other men, Uriah, the priest, and Zechariah, says "And I went unto the prophetess [had sexual relations with the virgin/young woman]; and she conceived, and bore a son. Then the Lord said to me, 'Call his name Mahershalalhashbaz.'" I noted that even in Isaiah there is a conflict between calling the child Immanuel and calling him Mahershalalhashbaz. Was Ahaz victorious against Rezin and Pekah? In 2 Kings 16: 5 I read "Rezin ... and Pekah ... besieged Ahaz ... but could not overcome him." But then I read in 2 Chronicles 28: 5-6 Ahaz was taken captive by Rezin and Pekah, meaning the prophecy that he would be victorious in battle was not kept, as if God lied to someone in all of Isaiah's writings and prophecies. The Christian writers of the Christian Old Testament translated the Hebrew word for "young woman" found in the Jewish [Hebrew] version of Isaiah 6: 14 as "virgin,"
and they changed the tense from "a young woman is with child and beareth a son" to "a virgin shall conceive and bear a son." [7] I had to conclude that the prophecy that a virgin would conceive a son to be called Emmanuel and who would be the Savior/Messiah is not to be found in Isaiah, written, as it were, a time period seven hundred years B.C.