Johnny Skeptic

Genesis 17:8 says "17:8 And I will give unto thee, and to thy seed after thee, the land wherein thou art a stranger, all the land of Canaan, for an everlasting possession; and I will be their God."

The key words are "all," and "everlasting." The partition of Palestine in 1948 could not possibly have been the restoration of what was promised in Genesis 17:8 because it was not "all" of the ancient land of Canaan, and it could not possibly have been part of an "everlasting" covenant because an everlasting covenant requires that the Jews occupy "all" of the land of ancient Canaan.

Genesis 17:8 does not say anything about occupying Jerusalem. All that it mentions is occupying "all" of Canaan. Today, if the Jews occupied all of Palestine except for Jerusalem, would sugarhitman claim that that was or was not a fulfillment of prophecy?

Genesis 17:8 does not say anything about God's protection of Jews being conditional upon good behavior. Even if it did, that would have meant that God is immoral because he would have been punishing babies because of their parents' disobedience. Today, would the government put a baby boy in prison because his father committed a crime?

Arnoldo realized the difficulty that the word "everlasting" presents to Christians because he knows that if the Jews ever occupied all of Canaan, that would have been the beginning of an everlasting covenant, which obviously did not happen. So, arnoldo made a convenient, uncorroborated guess that Jews have never occupied all of Palestine. A much more logical explanation, or at least an equally plausible explanation, is that the writer of Genesis 17:8 believed that Abraham and his descendants would always occupy all of the land of ancient Canaan, and that when, contrary to expectations, the Jews were kicked out of Canaan, the contrived explanation was that God's protection of the Jews was conditional upon good behavior, that the Jews would be scattered, and that they would eventually return to their homeland. It is up to Christian to reasonably disprove my hypothesis.

Now what sense would it have made for God to tell Abraham that he was going to give HIM all of the land of Canaan knowing that it would take over 4,000 years for Jews to occupy all of the land of Canaan?

If God's promise to protect the Jews was conditional upon good behavior, and Jews have never occupied all of the land of Canaan, that means that God made a land promise to Abraham and his descendants knowing that Jews would never be obedient for over 4,000 years, thereby misleadingly creating false hope, and causing the Jews to wonder what it would take to please God since God never specifically stated all that it would take to please him, and what percentage of Jews having good behavior it would take. Of course, the "good behavior" argument is patently absurd because no matter how good the Jews acted, God would still have injured and killed them, and their innocent animals, by various means such as storms, droughts, famines, and parasites. With parasites alone, God has killed more people than all of the wars in history. No moral being would ever injure or kill the same beings who he promised to protect. On the other hand, if the God of the Bible does not exist, that explains why hurricanes indiscriminately kill people regardless of whether or not they are devout Christians. If the God of the Bible does exist, his use of hurricanes to indiscriminately kill people is good evidence that he is evil, amoral, mentally incompetent, or a benevolent but inept bungler who failed in his attempts to create a much better world than the world that he created.

There is nothing that has happened in Jewish history that cannot be reasonably explained by using secular arguments. Biblical predictions about Jews will not do unless Christians can reasonably prove that the predictions indicate divine inspiration. Predicting that a people will be scattered will not do. Neither will claiming that the PARTIAL partition of Palestine was a restoration of a homeland that arnolo claims has never fully been occupied. A restoration of all of the land of Canaan cannot happen if it was never fully occupied.

At any rate, since God broke his promise to give Egypt to Nebuchadnezzar as a compensation for his failure to defeat Tyre, he might not fulfill all his promise to the Jews either.

Johnny Skeptic

Please state one example.

It is preposterous for you to claim that God wants people to believe that he can predict the future. If he did, all that he would have needed to do would have been to predict when and where some natural disasters would occur. By "when," I mean month, day, and year. Please, let's get serious. You don't need to make jokes.

arnoldo

God predicted Israel would return as a nation many times, and yet people still do not believe, IMHO prophecy is more of a sign to believers rather than unbelievers.

Johnny Skeptic

Message to arnolo: Your continued refusal to disuss my arguments means that you know that you are not a good debater, and that you do not believe that God will give you the wisdom to adequately refute my arguments.

But Genesis 17:8 does not say anything about a nation. Genesis 17:8 is the foundational prophecy for all subsequent debates about the history of the Jewish people, and the verse DOES NOT jive with subsequent events in Jewish history. Genesis 17:8 says "17:8 And I will give unto thee, and to thy seed after thee, the land wherein thou art a stranger, all the land of Canaan, for an everlasting possession; and I will be their God." If the verse actually refers to a nation, then that nation has to mean ALL of the land of Canaan. Otherwise, all that it would take to convince you that a restoration had occurred would be if the Jews occupied once acre of Palestine. Today, Jews do not nearly occupy ALL of the land of Canaan, and it certainly will not be everlasting if they get kicked out of Palestine again, which I predict they will.
If the Jews did get kicked out of Palestine again, would you give up Christianity? Please answer the question.

The key words are "all," and "everlasting." The partition of Palestine in 1948 could not possibly have been the restoration of what was promised in Genesis 17:8 because it was not "all" of the ancient land of Canaan, and it could not possibly have been part of an "everlasting" covenant because an everlasting covenant requires that the Jews occupy "all" of the land of ancient Canaan.

Genesis 17:8 does not say anything about occupying Jerusalem. All that it mentions is occupying "all" of Canaan. Today, if the Jews occupied all of Palestine except for Jerusalem, would sugarhitman claim that that was or was not a fulfillment of prophecy?

Genesis 17:8 does not say anything about God's protection of Jews being conditional upon good behavior. Even if it did, that would have meant that God is immoral because he would have been punishing babies because of their parents' disobedience. Today, would the government put a baby boy in prison because his father committed a crime?

You realized the difficulty that the word "everlasting" presents to Christians because he knows that if the Jews ever occupied all of Canaan, that would have been the beginning of an everlasting covenant, which obviously did not happen. So, arnoldo made a convenient, uncorroborated guess that Jews have never occupied all of Palestine. A much more logical explanation, or at least an equally plausible explanation, is that the writer of Genesis 17:8 believed that Abraham and his descendants would always occupy all of the land of ancient Canaan, and that when, contrary to expectations, the Jews were kicked out of Canaan, the contrived explanation was that God's protection of the Jews was conditional upon good behavior, that the Jews would be scattered, and that they would eventually return to their homeland. It is up to Christian to reasonably disprove my hypothesis.

Now what sense would it have made for God to tell Abraham that he was going to give HIM all of the land of Canaan knowing that it would take over 4,000 years for Jews to occupy all of the land of Canaan?

If God's promise to protect the Jews was conditional upon good behavior, and Jews have never occupied all of the land of Canaan, that means that God made a land promise to Abraham and his descendants knowing that Jews would never be obedient for over 4,000 years, thereby misleadingly creating false hope, and causing the Jews to wonder what it would take to please God since God never specifically stated all that it would take to please him, and what percentage of Jews having good behavior it would take. Of course, the "good behavior" argument is patently absurd because no matter how good the Jews acted, God would still have injured and killed them, and their innocent animals, by various means such as storms, droughts, famines, and parasites. With parasites alone, God has killed more people than all of the wars in history. No moral being would ever injure or kill the same beings who he promised to protect. On the other hand, if the God of the Bible does not exist, that explains why hurricanes indiscriminately kill people regardless of whether or not they are devout Christians. If the God of the Bible does exist, his use of hurricanes to indiscriminately kill people is good evidence that he is evil, amoral, mentally incompetent, or a benevolent but inept bungler who failed in his attempts to create a much better world than the world that he created.

There is nothing that has happened in Jewish history that cannot be reasonably explained by using secular arguments. Biblical predictions about Jews will not do unless Christians can reasonably prove that the predictions indicate divine inspiration. Predicting that a people will be scattered will not do. Neither will claiming that the PARTIAL partition of Palestine was a restoration of a homeland that arnolo claims has never fully been occupied. A restoration of all of the land of Canaan cannot happen if it was never fully occupied.

At any rate, since God broke his promise to give Egypt to Nebuchadnezzar as a compensation for his failure to defeat Tyre, he might not fulfill all his promise to the Jews either.

Johnny Skeptic

No it isn't. Genesis 17:8 says that God would give Abraham and his descendants ALL of the land of Canaan as an EVERLASTING covenant. According to you, none of that has ever happened, and yet you are arguing against yourself by claiming that it has happened.

The predictions that the Jews would be scattered were not predictions at all. They were made AFTER THE FACT, meaning that those supposed predictions were made after the Jews had already been kicked out of Canaan.

makerowner

I was pointing out that his question was stupid. Israel never disappeared as a nation, since there have always been millions of Jews around. There just happens to be a lot more of them in Palestine these days.

makerowner

People have been saying that exact thing for 2000+ years, and they've all been wrong. Why should I believe that you're right? Even your buddy Jesus got this one wrong: "Truly, I say to you, this generation will not pass away till all these things take place. " (Matt. 24:34 RSV)

Sheshonq

No, you have to demonstrate with historical facts that things happened the way you claim they did.

If the only way you can support yourself is with other scriptures, that is called a "circular argument" and doesn't hold water. Try again.

And again: preaching deleted.

Sheshonq

No, just vastly better informed than you are.

Even when the majority of Jews don't live in Israel?

On the contrary. A study of those votes demonstrates exactly the opposite of your claim.

Care to try again?

Sheshonq

It proves that any prophecy about "wandering Jews" would have a 100% chance of coming true both before and after any conquest, since Jews have been wandering their entire history.

It also shows that wandering wasn't related to the conquest, since it happened before the conquest ever occurred.

Both of which invalidate any claim to fulfilled prophecy.

Except that:

1. the word "nation" does not mean "political entity" in the bible;

2. it's hard to claim that any group of people have "returned" to a particular place, whne the majority of those people prefer to live elsewhere.