Freethought & Rationalism Archive

Jack the Bodiless · 12-06-2004, 09:32 AM

A link to the SAB's False Prophecies, Broken Promises, and Misquotes in the Bible would be appropriate here, methinks.

It specifically mentions the "Bethlehem" non-prophecy, among others.

BTW, John 7 says that Jesus was NOT born in Bethlehem, even though this was expected:

Quote:

7:40 Many of the people therefore, when they heard this saying, said, Of a truth this is the Prophet.

7:41 Others said, This is the Christ. But some said, Shall Christ come out of Galilee?

7:42 Hath not the scripture said, That Christ cometh of the seed of David, and out of the town of Bethlehem, where David was?

7:43 So there was a division among the people because of him.

7:44 And some of them would have taken him; but no man laid hands on him.

7:45 Then came the officers to the chief priests and Pharisees; and they said unto them, Why have ye not brought him?

7:46 The officers answered, Never man spake like this man.

7:47 Then answered them the Pharisees, Are ye also deceived?

7:48 Have any of the rulers or of the Pharisees believed on him?

7:49 But this people who knoweth not the law are cursed.

7:50 Nicodemus saith unto them, (he that came to Jesus by night, being one of them,)

7:51 Doth our law judge any man, before it hear him, and know what he doeth?

7:52 They answered and said unto him, Art thou also of Galilee? Search, and look: for out of Galilee ariseth no prophet.

Diogenes the Cynic · 12-06-2004, 09:51 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by may

The Hebrew Scriptures contain scores of prophecies fulfilled in the birth, ministry, death, and resurrection of Jesus. For example, more than 700 years in advance, Micah foretold that the Messiah, or Christ, would be born in Bethlehem. (Micah 5:2; Luke 2:4-7)

This is an example of prophecy being historicized. It was thought that the Messiah would be born in Bethlehem because that's where David was from, ergo Matthew and Luke placed Jesus' birth in Bethlehem deliberately to meet expectations, not because Jesus was actually born there (he wasn't. The Nativities are obvious fictions from beginning to end).

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Micah’s contemporary Isaiah foretold that the Messiah would be struck and spit upon.

The "Suffering Servant" was a personification of Israel. This was not a Messianic prophecy.

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Five hundred years in advance, Zechariah prophesied that the Messiah would be betrayed for 30 pieces of silver. (Zechariah 11:12; Matthew 26:15)

More prophecy historicized. The story was invented to jibe with the OT. The betrayal of Jesus for silver is a complete fiction. Didn't happen. Judas himself probably never even existed.

Quote:

More than a thousand years beforehand, David foretold circumstances associated with the death of Jesus the Messiah.

You don't actually think that David wrote Psalms, do you?

It's no cinch that David existed at all and he certainly didn't write Psalms. Most of them are probably post-exilic in their dating and while some may have been written earlier they were not the work of a single author but an anthology of a partcular genre.

All that is beside the point, though. Psalm 22 is not a Messianic prophecy. Mark placed words in Jesus' mouth to accord with what he misconstrued as a Messianic prefiguration.

Quote:

Anyway, (Psalm 22:7, 8,18; Matthew 27:35, 39-43) And some five centuries in advance, Daniel’s prophecy revealed when the Messiah would appear as well as the length of his ministry and the time of his death. (Daniel 9:24-27) This is just a sampling of the prophecies fulfilled in Jesus Christ.

Daniel was written in the 2nd century BCE during the Seleucid occupation. It says absolutely nothing about Jesus and the predictions it did attempt to make about the Messiah failed to occur when Daniel said they would.

I repeat, there is not a single example of a genuine fulfillment of predictive prophecy in either Testament (with the possible exception of some very broad predictions of the fall of Rome or Antiochos) and there is not a single word about Jesus in the Hebrew Bible.

Diogenes the Cynic · 12-06-2004, 10:03 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by may

Quote:

Originally Posted by spin

Now, when was Daniel written?

I have argued here that the visions (7-12) were written just before Antiochus IV's death in about 164 BCE as they don't know how he died, though 11 predicts a (wrong) death for Antiochus.

Such a date is consistent with the historical "errors" in the Daniel text regarding a "Darius the Mede" and Belshazzar being the son of Nebuchadnezzar, etc.

So, a dating of Daniel's visions is called for, as I did ask for a dating of the texts you intended to cite. I argue that the so-called prophecies of Daniel are mainly vaticinium ex eventu (after the event). Where they are not, they are wrong.

Daniel—A Book on Trial

when it comes to the Bible book of Daniel. Its writer was a man renowned for integrity. The book that bears his name has been highly regarded for thousands of years. It presents itself as authentic history, written by Daniel, a Hebrew prophet who lived during the seventh and sixth centuriesB.C.E. Accurate Biblical chronology shows that his book covers the period extending from about 618 to 536B.C.E. and was completed by the latter date. But the book stands accused. Some encyclopedias and other reference works imply or assert outright that it is a fraud.

For example, The New Encyclopædia Britannica acknowledges that the book of Daniel was once “generally considered to be true history, containing genuine prophecy.�? The Britannica claims that in reality, however, Daniel “was written in a later time of national crisis—whenthe Jews were suffering severe persecution under [Syrian King] AntiochusIV Epiphanes.�? The encyclopedia dates the book between 167 and 164B.C.E. This same work asserts that the writer of the book of Daniel does not prophesy the future but simply presents “events that are past history to him as prophecies of future happenings.�?

Where do such ideas originate? Criticism of the book of Daniel is not new. It started back in the third centuryC.E. with a philosopher named Porphyry. Like many in the Roman Empire, he felt threatened by the influence of Christianity. He wrote 15 books to undermine this “new�? religion. The 12th was directed against the book of Daniel. Porphyry pronounced the book a forgery, written by a Jew in the second centuryB.C.E. Similar attacks came in the 18th and 19th centuries. In the view of higher critics and rationalists, prophecy—the foretelling of future events—is impossible. Daniel became a favorite target. In effect, he and his book were put on trial in court. Critics claimed to have ample proof that the book was written, not by Daniel during the Jewish exile in Babylon, but by someone else centuries later. Such attacks became so profuse that one author even wrote a defense called Daniel in the Critics’ Den.

Is there proof behind the confident assertions of the critics? Or does the evidence back the defense? A lot is at stake here. It is not just the reputation of this ancient book but also our future that is involved. If the book of Daniel is a fraud, its promises for mankind’s future are just hollow words at best. But if it contains genuine prophecies, doubtless we will be eager to learn what these mean for us today.

The proof is in a number of lingusitic and historical anachronisms that prove it could not have been written before the Greek occupation.

spin · 12-06-2004, 10:06 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by may

Quote:

Originally Posted by spin

Now, when was Daniel written?

I have argued here that the visions (7-12) were written just before Antiochus IV's death in about 164 BCE as they don't know how he died, though 11 predicts a (wrong) death for Antiochus.

Such a date is consistent with the historical "errors" in the Daniel text regarding a "Darius the Mede" and Belshazzar being the son of Nebuchadnezzar, etc.

So, a dating of Daniel's visions is called for, as I did ask for a dating of the texts you intended to cite. I argue that the so-called prophecies of Daniel are mainly vaticinium ex eventu (after the event). Where they are not, they are wrong.

Daniel—A Book on Trial

when it comes to the Bible book of Daniel. Its writer was a man renowned for integrity. The book that bears his name has been highly regarded for thousands of years. It presents itself as authentic history, written by Daniel, a Hebrew prophet who lived during the seventh and sixth centuriesB.C.E. Accurate Biblical chronology shows that his book covers the period extending from about 618 to 536B.C.E. and was completed by the latter date. But the book stands accused. Some encyclopedias and other reference works imply or assert outright that it is a fraud.

Eek, the either-or mentality. Either it's true or it's false!!??

Quote:

Originally Posted by may

For example, The New Encyclopædia Britannica acknowledges that the book of Daniel was once “generally considered to be true history, containing genuine prophecy.�? The Britannica claims that in reality, however, Daniel “was written in a later time of national crisis—whenthe Jews were suffering severe persecution under [Syrian King] AntiochusIV Epiphanes.�? The encyclopedia dates the book between 167 and 164B.C.E. This same work asserts that the writer of the book of Daniel does not prophesy the future but simply presents “events that are past history to him as prophecies of future happenings.�?

Where do such ideas originate? Criticism of the book of Daniel is not new. It started back in the third centuryC.E. with a philosopher named Porphyry.

Actually it started well before Porphyry, for Josephus understood the visions to refer to Antiochus (IV).

Quote:

Originally Posted by may

Like many in the Roman Empire, he felt threatened by the influence of Christianity. He wrote 15 books to undermine this “new�? religion. The 12th was directed against the book of Daniel. Porphyry pronounced the book a forgery, written by a Jew in the second century B.C.E. Similar attacks came in the 18th and 19th centuries. In the view of higher critics and rationalists, prophecy—the foretelling of future events—is impossible. Daniel became a favorite target. In effect, he and his book were put on trial in court. Critics claimed to have ample proof that the book was written, not by Daniel during the Jewish exile in Babylon, but by someone else centuries later. Such attacks became so profuse that one author even wrote a defense called Daniel in the Critics’ Den.

Is there proof behind the confident assertions of the critics?

My last brief comments on the content of Daniel's visions are here. This is aimed at helping people understand what the visions are about and the time frame they were dealing with.

Quote:

Originally Posted by may

Or does the evidence back the defense? A lot is at stake here. It is not just the reputation of this ancient book but also our future that is involved. If the book of Daniel is a fraud, its promises for mankind’s future are just hollow words at best. But if it contains genuine prophecies, doubtless we will be eager to learn what these mean for us today.

You wouldn't believe how tiring it is to get someone who knows nothing about history or about the literature of the period to spout the silly claim of fraud because they won't consider that the book of Daniel was never intended to be understood as history or true events. The modern naive committed reader wants to force biblical literature to be "literal truth". There are nice scholarly commentaries on Daniel sitting on shelves, yearning to be read. Why rehash encyclopaedias?

Why doesn't BC&H have a good FAQ? It would save all a lot of time. Just tell the newbie to read the FAQ, before posting.

I'm eventually going to give up talking about such things because you end up repeating things so many times because there is always yet another who say things without reading enough.

spin

newtype_alpha · 12-06-2004, 10:23 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Daniel

Well for one thing the propechy concerning Tyre is disputable and I would venture to say that it wouldn't be a difficult thing to predict the destrucion of a wealthy port city over the span of a thousand or so years in the first place.

By that standard, you can predict the fall of just about anybody and call it a "prophecy." It's easy: I predict that some day the United States will be destroyed. Duh! The disbandment of any particular government, empire or political group is a historic inevitability and as a point of common sense, nothing lasts forever, especially governments. You might as well predict that the sun will rise tomorrow.

The context of the prophecy of Tyre specifically states that it would be destroyed by Nebuchandezzar, and the same goes for Egypt. King Neb never managed to destroy Tyre, however, and in fact the city was never actually destroyed since it is still inhabitted today.

I recently found a very interesting site that had alot of information about Biblical false prophecies. Tha argument goes that most of these false predictions were added by the scribes after the prophets died in order to discredit them, the reason being that the prophets had argued (similar to Jesus' sentiments) against a literal or complete interpretation of the Torah and had attempted some extremely liberal reforms. This would have undermined the authority of the Torah, as well as the more conservative scribes who were keepers of the Torah. By planting false prophecies in the Tanakh, they could make a case that the Prophets were fallible while the Torah should remain the last word in all matters (apparently they were successful).

spin · 12-06-2004, 10:41 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by may

The Hebrew Scriptures contain scores of prophecies fulfilled in the birth, ministry, death, and resurrection of Jesus.

There are scores of texts from the Hebrew bible which were used to create a gospel narrative. Let's take a statement about the birth of Samson Jgs 13:5/7: the boy will be a nazirite (Grk: naziraios) "who will begin to save (Heb: H-W$Y`) Israel", Jesus means "Yah saves". Matthew tells us in 2:23 that he will be called a nazwraios. Let's forget about the Samson connection.

Then there's the lovely passage Isa 7:14 about how long it will take for things to happen during the reign of Ahaz, which talks about the time between when a pregnant young woman gives birth and the time that it takes for a child to be able to understand "good and evil". The passage is translated into Greek and the "young woman", almah, is translated as "virgin", parthenos (Heb, betulah), and the passage gives us the virgin birth stuff, so let's forget about Ahaz and the fact that the woman was already pregnant...

And very many other comments from the Hebrew bible have been dragooned into other service, such as...

Quote:

Originally Posted by may

For example, more than 700 years in advance, Micah foretold that the Messiah, or Christ, would be born in Bethlehem. (Micah 5:2;...

Naturally, Micah was actually referring to David who tradition gives was born in Bethlehem, but let's forget about David.

Quote:

Originally Posted by may

...Luke 2:4-7) Micah’s contemporary Isaiah foretold that the Messiah would be struck and spit upon. (Isaiah 50:6;

Naturally an independent reader would read this text and understand that the writer was talking about Jacob, ie Israel, God's servant who suffered through history, but let's forget about Israel, the gospel writers didn't know much about contexts.

Quote:

Originally Posted by may

...Matthew 26:67) Five hundred years in advance, Zechariah prophesied that the Messiah would be betrayed for 30 pieces of silver. (Zechariah 11:12;

Yet, if you read the verse in Zechariah, you'd find that it has nothing at all to do with a messiah. But let's forget about context.

Quote:

Originally Posted by may

Matthew 26:15) More than a thousand years beforehand, David foretold circumstances associated with the death of Jesus the Messiah. (Psalm 22:7, 8,18;

Ps 22 is ostensibly the words of the speaker about himself. This has naturally been lost when the content was reused out of context. But let's forget about that.

Quote:

Originally Posted by may

Matthew 27:35, 39-43) And some five centuries in advance, Daniel’s prophecy revealed when the Messiah would appear as well as the length of his ministry and the time of his death. (Daniel 9:24-27) This is just a sampling of the prophecies fulfilled in Jesus Christ.

Daniel 9:24-27 deals with a specific set of events leading from the exile up to the time when Antiochus IV polluted the temple in Jerusalem when he set up an image of Zeus in his likeness in the temple (the abomination that desolates). (Read the third numbered paragraph here. But then what the verse is really about is not important, so let's forget about it.

What we have with this notion of fulfilled prophecies is a series of quotations taken out of their original context and shaped to make up an event in the life of Jesus. You certainly could write a gospel that way and not need any real events in a real history. "Fulfilled prophecies" are merely wow-food for hungry non-thinkers.

spin

Notsri · 12-06-2004, 10:47 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jack the bodiless

It specifically mentions the "Bethlehem" non-prophecy, among others.

The web page really mishandles the issue of Micah 5:2. First, contrary to what it suggests, "Bethlehem Ephrathah" does refer to a town here. Ephrathah was the ancient name for the town of Bethlehem (Gen. 35:16, 19; 48:7; Ruth 4:11; cf. Josh. 15:60 LXX: "Ephratha, this is Bethlehem"). The site also states categorically that the verse does not refer to Messiah. Whether or not it does is not something I'm in the mood to debate. But I will say that not only Christians, but Jews as well believe it refers to the Messiah - that it is messianic prophecy. Lastly, the site suggests that Matthew has deceptively manipulated the text to say "Bethlehem, in the land of Judah," rather than "Bethlehem Ephrathah." Since Bethlehem Ephrathah refers to the Bethlehem of Judah, as opposed to, say, the Bethlehem of Zebulun, the charge is unjustified; Matthew hasn't changed the meaning of the text in that sense at all.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jack the bodiless

BTW, John 7 says that Jesus was NOT born in Bethlehem, even though this was expected:

You're misinterpreting. In 1:45f., the gospel suggests Jesus began his ministry after leaving Nazareth, in Galilee - implying that's where he'd lived; hence their question in 7:41: "Surely the Christ is not going to come from Galilee, is he?" They'd expected the Messiah to "come out of" Bethlehem, in Judaea, as 7:42 bears out. None of this gives any indication either way as to where Jesus was born from the Gospel of John's perspective.

Regards,
Notsri

Toto · 12-06-2004, 11:01 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by spin

. . .
Why doesn't BC&H have a good FAQ? It would save all a lot of time. Just tell the newbie to read the FAQ, before posting.
. . .
spin

Do I hear you volunteering to draft one, or help work on one? We will be happy to post it.

Diogenes the Cynic · 12-06-2004, 11:31 AM

I'd love to see an FAQ as well. Some basic rundowns on accepted dating and authorship of NT books would be nice (so as to avoid tiresome reiterations about why "Matthew" wasn't really Matthew, etc.)

may · 12-07-2004, 05:08 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Daniel

Are there any prophecies contained in the bible that were fulfilled and are there any that are clearly false?

Quote:

His Arrival Prophesied

Let us focus on just one prophecy. At Daniel 9:25, the Jews were told when the Messiah would come. It reads: “You should know and have the insight that from the going forth of the word to restore and to rebuild Jerusalem until Messiah the Leader, there will be seven weeks, also sixty-two weeks.�? At first glance this prophecy may seem cryptic. But in a broad sense, it asks us to find only two pieces of information: a starting point and a span of time. To illustrate, if you had a map that pointed to a treasure lying buried “50 rods east of the well in the town park,�? you might find the directions puzzling—especially if you did not know where this well was, or how long a ‘rod’ was. Would you not seek out those two facts so that you could locate the treasure? Well, Daniel’s prophecy is much the same, except that we are identifying a starting time and measuring the period that follows.

First, we need our starting point, the date when ‘the word went forth to restore and rebuild Jerusalem.’ Next, we need to know the distance from that point, just how long these 69 (7 plus 62) weeks were. Neither piece of information is hard to come by. Nehemiah quite explicitly tells us that the word went forth to rebuild the wall around Jerusalem, making it at last a restored city, “in the twentieth year of Artaxerxes the king.�? (Nehemiah 2:1, 5, 7,8) That puts our starting point at 455B.C.E.

Now as to these 69 weeks, could they be literal weeks of seven days? No, for Messiah did not appear just over a year after 455B.C.E. Thus most Bible scholars and numerous translations (including the Jewish Tanakh in a footnote to this verse) agree that these are weeks “of years.�? This concept of a ‘week of years,’ or a seven-year cycle, was familiar to the ancient Jews. Just as they observed a sabbath day every seventh day, they observed a sabbath year every seventh year. (Exodus 20:8-11; 23:10,11) So 69weeks of years would amount to 69 times 7 years, or 483 years. All we have left to do is count. From 455B.C.E., counting 483 years takes us to the year 29C.E.—the very year when Jesus was baptized and became ma·shi´ach, the Messiah!—

Some might object that this is merely a modern way of interpreting the prophecy to fit history. If so, why were the people in Jesus’ day expecting the Messiah to appear at that time? Christian historian Luke, Roman historians Tacitus and Suetonius, Jewish historian Josephus, and Jewish philosopher Philo all lived near this time and testified tothis state of expectation. (Luke 3:15) Some scholars today insist that it was Roman oppression that made the Jews long for and expect the Messiah in those days. Why, though, did the Jews expect the Messiah then rather than during the brutal Greek persecution centuries earlier? Why did Tacitus say that it was “mysterious prophecies�? that led the Jews to expect powerful rulers to come from Judea and “acquire universal empire�?? Abba Hillel Silver, in his book A History of Messianic Speculation in Israel, acknowledges that “the Messiah was expected around the second quarter of the first centuryC.E.,�? not because of Roman persecution, but because of “the popular chronology of that day,�? derived in part from the book of Daniel.

edited by mod to add: this test is identical to a section of this:
http://hufffamily.com/html/091_The_M...d_His_Rule.htm

which notes:

All public talk references based on literature published by
the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society of New York, Inc.

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12-06-2004, 11:31 AM	#29
Diogenes the Cynic Moderator - Join Date: Sep 2004 Location: Twin Cities, Minnesota Posts: 4,639	I'd love to see an FAQ as well. Some basic rundowns on accepted dating and authorship of NT books would be nice (so as to avoid tiresome reiterations about why "Matthew" wasn't really Matthew, etc.)

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