Vinnie

http://www.after-hourz.net/ri/prophecycriteria.html

Hot off the press. Methodological grid for analyzing alleged futurist prophecies in the Bible and other works. Just common sense for the most part.

If I missed anything or you disagree with any parts.....

Tests for a Prophecy:

1. Cultural Context (the Who, What, Why, and When )?
2. Level of Vagueness?
3. Was the event Fulfilled?
4. Accurately Translated?
5. Textually Stable (did the prophecy precede fulfillment)?
6. Predictability of the Event of Thing

&

7. Mitigating Circumstances

Each criteria is explained inside and some have a few biblical examples.

Vinnie

WinAce

Wow! Great minds think alike. Your criteria are nearly identical to those I described in detail just yesterday on another board. Here's mine, for comparison. A good prophecy must:

• Be clearly identifiable as actual prophecies of the future. This is to prevent the obvious, where you go thru the Bible or another source and pluck out any statement that resembles a modern event, even if it was, say, not a prediction of the future but a flavored goat recipe in context.
• Be demonstrably written before the event. No-brainer. Sylvia Browne or another psychic "predicting" 9/11, with all records of said prediction conveniently dating to 9/12 or later, is no prediction at all.
• Be specific, with little recourse to multiple vague interpretations. A good prophecy will be obvious in its intent before the fact; it shouldn't require oodles of allegorizing and force-fitting some event to its various symbols. As you put it, "Obviously a prophesy that can be applied to a host of things with equal explanatory scope is useless."
• Be fairly unlikely to occur solely via means currently known to humans. This is to guard against the self-fulfilling, fairly likely, educated guesses, etc.
• Demonstrably be fulfilled outside of cult members' imagination. That's a bit harsh, but you get the picture

I had some extra bonus criteria which did not exclude a prophecy, but upped its value if fulfilled--met within reasonable time limits, complete fulfillment of all, as opposed to parts of the prophecy, and so on.

Needless to say, I still don't have an answer from that apologist, despite hammering him on and on about "prophecy fulfillment" being a meaningless claim (like creationist "no new information") if you don't have a methodology for quantifying it.

Vinnie

Its amazing how many apologists think accurate prophecies in the Old Testment would authenticate the New Testament. I ususally start there. Its "Sure I'll discuss the notion that there are prophecies in the OT but even if you show one or a couple what, on the overall scale, does that mean? Surely an accurate prophecy in Isaiah has nothing to do with the accuracy of GMark?"

Thats why I like the seventh critieria. The first six stand alone, The seventh guides the conclusion reached (whatever it may be).

Most if not all of the alleged prophecies of Jesus are just bizarre! Like the virgin birth one. It has NOTHING to do with what Christians use it as. Are they blind? Finding "a double meaning" is uesless after-the-fact thinking. Sure it may be useful in some way top them for spiritual purposes but it should not be used for apologetical ones.

I think Mcdowell is a proven liar after reading his ridiculous prophecy chapter:

"In an absurdly bad chapter on prophecy regarding Jesus in the Old Testament Josh Mcdowell in New Evidence that Demands a Verdict, wrote that Hosea 11:1 is an Old Testament Prediction "literally fulfilled in Christ." (pp. 201-202)."

Vinnie

Sauron

How about a stated, non-infinite timeframe within which it needs to come to pass?

For example, a prophecy that such-and-such a city will fall is pointless. All cities fall, given enough time. They may rise again, of course, but all cities fall. In a way, that would be a variation on predicting the inevitable or the obvious, both of which should be rejected as examples of prophecy.

So a prophecy that - for example - Tyre would fall would obviously come true eventually. But the context of such passages almost always indicates an imminent fall. So when fundies point to the city's fall (or other event) occurring 1500 years after the prophecy, it hardly seems like such a prediction deserves to be called prophecy.

Vinnie

If you read the article I rejected a form of that criteria. I explained why below. I also added a form of it in there. "The city will fall" is undercut by both criteria 2 and number 6.

One has to be more specific about the city will fall. The second criteria includes the concept of a time frame--whether its "explicitly stated" or "implicitly and without equivocation described" or otherwise known for whatever reason (e.g. "John will do x" where John is an existing purpose and thus a general time frame is known). The best way I found to descibe this criteria was not in an "abritrary x years must pass" but to simply require the prophecy be specific.

We must know what it is about. Vague prophecies are ruled out. A prophecy with an exact time is less vague than another without it. So I think I have this criteria covered by number 2 in the article.

""""But the context of such passages almost always indicates an imminent fall. """"

And then this would fall victim to the first criteria as well if the alleged fufillment was not imminent itself.

Vinnie

Freodin

Added to these criteria could be the implied time-limit the OT sets on "true prophecy".

According to the OT (sorry, no quotes, can´t look it up at the moment), a prophet can be tested to be a "true" prophet by checking whether his prophecies come true. On false prophets there is the usual punishment - he gets killed.

Of course that would imply that any prophecy a "true prophet" could make had to happen within a time limit where it could be checked. A prophecied event happening in 1000 years would be uncheckable, and thus outside the scope of the rules.

Vinnie

That falls under number three: "Was the event fufilled". If the prophecy is imminent (criteria 1) it needs to be fufilled in an imminent fashion (numnber 3).

Everything is included. I suppose I could add a note on this under one of the criteria already listed though to make it more explicit.

Vinnie

Vorkosigan

Supernatural prophecy is annihilated by the methodological criteria not listed herein -- it is a violation of natural law, and in any case, bad scholarly methodology. No criteria can get around the problem of its impossibility.

Vorkosigan

Vinnie

Several responses:

1) That doesn't stop us from evaluating it on its own terms. Its more meaningful when communicating with some theists than saying "oh thats impossibe, next."

2) Some people believe in a supernatural God who can do supernatural things. They believe in this God possibly because of the accurate prophecies. Thus, your rejection of the criteria is entirely premature. YOu reached your conclusion somehow. Others have to reach their own. Thus, it is a useful tool in the debate.

3) I strongly doubt you can prove miracles (including predictive prophecy) are utterly impossible. I challenge you to try and will not accept the mere assumption of atheism as the proof. I find strong forms of atheism or theism entirely ridiculous. Sure these prophecies would be unexplainable as thats what "miracles" tend to be but I simply lack belief in them since I see no evidence in favor of them and mainly, I lack belief in an intervning God for theological purposes as explained in my article on the problem of evil and the fact that I am an open view theists who thinks the future is actually open and that God does not possess exhaustive definititve foreknowledge prevents me from accepting the possibility of supernatural knowledge of the future by an entity that has allegedly seen it. I doubt there is such a beast.

But you can't actually show that miracles are impossible. To do so you have to disprove classical theism (I actually think this can be achieved but it misses the point of the criteria). It would require much more knoweldge and a fuller understanding of reality than you or I can hope to come up with in 10 lifetimes to be so smug as to ignore all such things. The skepticism is arrogant.

Thus, I propose a way of evaluating claimed prophecies by theists. Thats what these criteria themselves will do and "if" ("impossible or not") by any chance there is accurate predictive prophecy, if it can be detected, these criteria will detect it.

I suggest the "lacking belief" approach over "x does not exist" given these types of negatives are rather difficult to prove...

Vinnie

Godless Wonder

Is it prophecy fulfillment if a person is aware of the prophecy and decides to fulfill it himself?

If I, being somewhat insane, predict that a man wearing a bozo the clown suit will show up in Times Square driving a 1967 VW beetle painted lime green at noon on april 1, 2004, and furthermore, this man is our savior and he will toss out magic candy to the crowd, and we will worship him, and by my charisma and speaking abilities manage to convince hundreds of people of this, and one person who hears this maybe isn't convinced, but decides to take advantage of the situation. So he goes out and buys himself a 1967 VW beetle, has it painted lime green, gets himself a bozo-suit and some candy, and dutifully shows up at the appointed hour to be greeted by me and my idiots as savior, me being as amazed as anyone that my prediction came true. Now Bozo takes over and makes us all his slaves.

Is that prophecy fulfillment?