lee_merrill

Hi Johnny,

The problem, though, is that there have been actual attempts to rebuild and restore Babylon, which have failed. We can't just say "People didn't know or weren't concerned, and so they didn't try." People have tried...

Quite true! And you may try and rebuild Babylon, and people should be able to accomplish this if they try, if this is just a guess, if there is no God, willing to intervene, to keep Babylon from being restored.

Regards,
Lee

cajela

One of the problems with lee_merril debates seems to be that the argumant writhes around like a sack of eels. It's very hard to keep track of what the claim is.

So what is it?
Babylon will never be rebuilt? and/or never inhabited? and/or will be a desert? and/or will be a haunt for wild animals?
And never rebuilt starting from when? When was it supposed to fall? Under nebuchadnezzar? At some unspecified time in the future?
And do we mean Babylon the city or Babylon the empire?

It's very confusing. Could you guys try to agree what the actual points under debate are?

Johnny Skeptic

Johnny: Please quote your external sources regarding attempts to rebuild Babylon in Old Testament times.

You assume facts not in evidence. When ancient Baghdad was built about 35 miles away from Babylon on the Tigris River, which was an excellent location, likely as the rebuilding of Babylon, the reasons for doing so could easily have had nothing whatsoever to do with divine intervention. If you reply “Well, the prophecy still came true, didn’t it?,� I will refer you back to one of my previous posts as follows:

Johnny: You said “The point at issue is the validity of the prophecy.� I will agree with you for the sake of argument that the prophecy came true, but that doesn't help your arguments at all. Without any divine inspiration at all, people could have predicted that any particular ancient city would never be rebuilt, and a good deal of the time they would have been right. Surely you must know that there are plenty of existing ruins besides the ruins of ancient Babylon. Visiting various ancient ruins is quite popular in many parts of the world. End of quotes.

Today, there are a good number of existing ruins in various parts of the world, and surely some people wanted to rebuild those ruins but did not do so for various reasons having nothing whatsoever to do with divine intervention. For example, late in the sixth century, Darius I transferred his capital city from Pasargadae to Persepolis. I am quite certain that you will not claim that God prevented Darius I from rebuilding at Pasargadae. Today, the ruins of the ancient city of Pasargadae can still be visited 35 miles northeast of Shiraz, Iran. Would you like for me to find a number of other examples of ruins of unrebuilt cities for you? I can easily contact the department of archaeology at a leading university and pay a professor to write an article for me regarding ancient ruins that were never rebuilt. I will bet that there are a whole heap of ‘em.

There you go again trying to divert attention to the present. I am not interested in the present. I am only interested in the past, and it is the past that defeats your arguments. On second thought,
since the prophecy has no time limit, there are not any good reasons to rule out the possibility that Babylon will be rebuilt sometime during the next 10,000 years. I previously said that I will agree with you for the sake of argument that the prophecy was fulfilled, but based upon what I just said, the prophecy can never be fulfilled unless the earth is destroyed, thereby making the rebuilding of Babylon impossible.

Regarding predictions, it is important to note that historically, some non-believers made predictions that were considered by most people to be outlandish and highly unlikely, but they still came true. I am quite certain that the odds against some of those predictions coming true were greater than the odds against a prediction coming true that a city would not be rebuilt.

Johnny Skeptic

In addition to my arguments in my previous post, there are two other good reasons why Lee Merrill's arguments are not valid. 1)He says that Muslims would love to discredit the Bible if they were able to do so, but there are numerous other ways to discredit Bible prophecy without rebuilding Babylon. Thomas Paine studied all of the prophecies in the Bible and basically said that there is no evidence that even one single one of them was divinely inspired. Here at the Secular Web they are a lot of articles that adequately debunk Bible prophecy. So, why would Muslims feel the need to kill a goose that they believe is already dead?

2) Some of Lee's arguments assume the continued survival of Christianity, but historically, many religions have come an gone. There are not any good reasons at all to discount the possibility that Christianity will have gone the way of the dinosaurs centuries or even millennia from now. Since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution in the late 1800's, a growing lack of interest in religion has closely paralleled advances in science and education.

Sauron

Robert Turkel (Holding) is a waste of bits. He's too coward to come here and debate in a structured environment that would strip him of the ad homs and the peanut gallery. So he only plays at TWeb, where he hides under the skirttails of the TWeb moderators along with Jonathan Sarfati.

You got off on the wrong foot by allowing him to shift the burden of proof back onto you - a frequent tactic of his. Whether you know how to date Pliny is irrelevant. Holding is taking the affirmative position for the Tyre prophecy - his dating methods are all that matters, not yours.

Sauron

Incorrect. You were *not* trying to say that.

Instead, you were trying to say that the previous poster was making an unnecessary connection between:

(a) the desolation of Babylon and
(b) an immediate start to the (alleged) desolation.

You thought that such a connection was not necessary, so you were asking why the previous poster tried to create one. Since you can't seem to remember your own posts, here was the comment that I responded to:

Certainly the desolation of Babylon was similar not in the way they were destroyed, but in the total desolation, and the "uninhabited forever" need not have started with the capture of the city by Medo-Persia, why does he imply this?

So my response stands: it isn't the previous poster drawing that implication. Isaiah himself drew the implication; all the previous poster did was echo the same implication that Isaiah himself first created.

And a note here, lee_merrill: how about trying to remember your own arguments? It's time-consuming enough to have to show you the flaws in your arguments. But when you forgot what you yourself were even arguing, then that's twice as much work. Not only do I have to explain your errors, but I also have to lead you by the hand and walk you back through your very own previous statements. More attention, less laziness, please.

1. I never presented any such "what if".
2. However, you did.
3. Therefore you're the only one around here that has to support such a scenario.

Then your claim that the prophecy was fulfilled is a failed claim.

You deliberately misunderstand me.

1. I don't *have* to disprove it.
2. You stated that the prophecy WAS fulfilled.
3. But there is no evidence to show that.

So your failure to prove your affirmative claim means that I (and the skeptics) win.

Jericho and Sodom don't apply here. Neither one of those situations mentioned armies being used as the instrument of destruction. But in the case of Tyre and Babylon, armies *were* mentioned. So the attempt to draw a parallel with Jericho and Sodom fails, for that reason.

Lee, I know exactly what you are saying. My point is that you want to rule out the habitation of Babylon because (according to you) it was too small; it was only a desert camp. My response is that you have yet to prove that that the habitation was merely a 'desert camp.'

Nor have you shown that an entire city would be required, in order to establish "habitation" of the site. The prophecy does not say that. So why are you requiring that, if the prophecy itself does not?

To let you know that predicting the obvious is not prophecy. Predicting a flood in an alluvial flood plain is about as obvious as predicting snow in Alaska.

Nice try. But I did not say that Babylon was underwater.


Stupid analogy. When a city is rebuilt, they don't look back into the history books and try to rebuild some previous city. Why in the hell would anyone do that? They build a city that meets whatever the modern needs are. The fact that earlier versions of the city lie underneath layers of dirt and rubble doesn't change the fact that the city was rebuilt.

Raleigh? Who knows or cares. But I know that New York has had several layers of city. And there's a tourist event in Seattle where you can tour "Underground Seattle" - the previous layers of the city, when it was the jumping off point to the gold rush in Alaska. So cities do get built on top of 20, 30, or 40 feet of dirt and an earlier city underneath. And they're still considered to be "rebuilding" the original city - obviously, since they didn't change the name.

1. Funny how you want everyone else's claims validated, but when you are asked to do the same thing, you backpedal and never do it. One standard for others; and a different one for yourself. The stench of Christian hypocrisy, I suppose.

2. Saddam Hussein was known to have moved people around at will, to make room for grandiose projects. If you have evidence that their claim is suspicious, then present it. But tossing out speculation in the hopes of casting doubt on their claim doesn't work. Their claim is good, and I see no reason to doubt it. We're not going to ignore the claim merely because it makes things inconvenient for you.

Already been through this. The statement in Isaiah makes it clear that the desolation would be the result of the military attack. Let's read it again, since you missed it the first half-dozen times:

People live in ruins and ancient buildings quite frequently in the Third World. Sometimes it's all they have. Sometimes they make a living off the tourist trade.

That's an understatement. You were grossly wrong. Which brings me to a question, lee_merrill: how come you didn't know that you were wrong? The information I gave you isn't hard to find. Besides the PBS book that I quoted, similar information could easily be found on the web. Anyone who sincerely wanted to know if Babylon was destroyed during Alexander's time could easily find that information out. Yet in spite of the ease of locating this info, you were dead wrong about it. Why is that?

In fact, you specifically said:

as far as not being rebuilt, I would take "burned-out mountain" and "desolate forever" as meaning that the parts people thought of as characteristic of the city, the (1) walls the chariots could drive on, (2) the hanging gardens, and (3) the palaces, would not return, forever.

Yet my extended quotation *specifically* pointed out that items (1), (2) and (3) were indeed present and working when Alexander rolled into Babylon. I mean, were you guessing?

Were you making things up and just hoping that you got it right?

How did you get it so thoroughly wrong, lee?

I think you owe me -- and everyone else -- an honest answer.

For that one part of an enormous metropolitan city. Sheesh! How lame can you get, lee?

All cities have rebuilding projects that need doing, at some time or another. We aren't talking about individual projects, we're talking about the overall state of the city -- which as my quotation abundantly shows, was nowhere near the wreck that you tried to pretend it was.

So fucking what? "Some landmarks" were crumbling. The OVERALL city was still in fine condition. There are crumbling landmarks in Athens right now. And in Boston. And in London. But no one would say that those cities needed rebuilding, merely becuase "some landmarks" were crumbling.

1. Again, so what? It does not contradict the extended quotation from Michael Wood, which includes an ACTUAL QUOTATION from a tour guide that dates from the 4th century BC! A 2300 year old tour guide is refuting your claim, lee - did you realize that?

2. The MSN Encarta reference was not skipped; it simply doesn't support your argument. It has ONE line that mentions Alexander rebuilding, and I addressed that solitary reference already by saying:

Alexander was going to improve the city, in order to make it usable as a capital. But the extended quotation above proves that the city was in excellent shape already.

1. My research is far more thorough than yours - not hard to achieve, since you have apparently done almost no research at all;

2. My document is in fine shape; you ignored the bulk of the extended and detailed quotation on the state of the city of Babylon, in order to focus on two solitary sections - which did not prove that the city needed rebuilding anyhow;

3. I already responded to the MSN article in my first post to you from several days ago; I re-posted the response above, since you never get anything through your thick head before the 3rd or 4th repeat.

There you have it - the best and most glamorous city in the world, even after the punishment it had suffered.

But that is not what it says. When it says "still the most glamorous city in the world" it's talking about the state of the city in 331 BCE - not remembering any previous glory.

Your intellectually dishonest attempt to twist the words of the author did not succeed. Not while I am watching, anyhow. :thumbs:

Repeat for your benefit:

there were great temples and pyramids, huge inner defence works, the main walls wide enough to drive four-horse teams along the top wall walks, the outer lines studded with massive bastions, berms and glacis of baked brick, surrounded by the Euphrates and a network of canals. In the northern sector, on the bank, there was a huge raised platform with immense moat walls reaching under the river to stop erosion. Here stood Nebuchadnezzar's palace, with four huge courtyards, their magnificent upper walls decorated with bands of blue enamelled bricks; their cedar-wood doors encased in bronze and inlaid with gold, silver and ivory - rather like the style employed later in great Iraqi mosques with their cedar - columned porticoes and geometric patterns of coloured stone, copper and mother of pearl. The apartments were roofed with cedar beams from the Lebanon, some gilded. Here was the private residence of the king with its audience hall, plunge bath, and sleeping accommodation which overlooked the river and the quay wall on one side and the royal gardens on the other. Outside his window was a lovely view. Northwards, in a curve of the river, he could look across terraces of a great garden planted with trees and dotted with pavilions or 'summer houses' - the famous Hanging Gardens. There were fruits, vines, date palms, oaks, tamarisks, fruit trees and pomegranates all fed by canal waters which came gushing down on to the gardens from above. Here, at the center of the world, Alexander could take stock of things and plant the next phase of the war. . . .

The best, most glamourous city in the world. Not the wreck that you tried to claim.

"His stated purpose"? Stop making shit up, lee. If you think you have a record of Alexander's purpose - stated or otherwise - then post it. There is no such evidence.

Because they're not related in any way, shape or form. Posting here doesn't require -- nor does it even imply -- that I would spend money on such a silly and ridiculous project.

And as I explained earlier -- which you deliberately ignored -- the bible track record on this prophecy is ALREADY discredited. I don't need to spend any money. The prophecy is busted, even WITHOUT such a silly attempt at rebuilding. So why would I spend money to prove something that I already know?

Which doesn't prove anything - and in fact, works against your argument. Rome did not fall in a rapid period of time. Neither did Jerusalem. In spite of the way we phrase it in English, the historical record does not show rapid falls for either city.

Oh, and the "fall of Babylon" is also found in our language - yet as you yourself agree, that fall took 14 centuries to occur. So relying on that particular phrase to prove your claim about cities being destroyed "usually quicker" doesn't work -- and you should have realized it. Even the selfsame topic of our discussion - Babylon - provides an fatal counter-example why relying on a turn of phrase for proof is a dead end for your argument.

SO:
still waiting for proof that the destruction of cities is "usually quicker".

And as I just demonstrated, your "proof" backfired on you.

Except that I am arguing the OPPOSITE point. Pay fucking attention, will you?

1. ALL cities eventually fall.
2. The longer a city lasts, the GREATER the chance that the city is going to fall.


But the fall of babylon is a HIGHLY likely event, in fact ALL cities fall at some time or another. So the fact that Babylon fell after 14 centuries is the expected course of history. It's like saying that since John Doe managed to live to be 118 years old, then his death at 118 was an unlikely event. It's exactly the opposite of that - it's a HIGHLY likely event.

The long life of Babylon *is* an improbable event. But that is precisely why it invalidates the prophecy, because the fall of the city should have happened centuries earlier, when the military attack took place. But it didn't happen that way. Babylon lived on for FOURTEEN CENTURIES AFTER THE PROPHECY OF DESTRUCTION. The fact that it eventually fell like all cities do was not prophecy; it was the natural course of history.

1. I wouldn't rebuild that city either - for the same reasons above. The track record on prophecies is already badly discredited. So there is no reason to spend money to prove something that is ALREADY proven.

2. Why in the HELL would anyone want to rebuild Petra in the first place? What does Petra have to do with this anyhow?

lee_merrill

Hi everyone,

All of these, and not the other points, that is what I hold, and there was not specified time for this desolation to be finished by, so I don't specify a limit here, and I hold that Babylon means the city.

From the time when it became desolate, which it seems was around the 14th century, though I include Alexander's attempt to rebuild it to have failed because he was attempting to reverse the process of Babylon becoming desolate, and for him to have restored it would have overturned the prophecy that "her days will not be prolonged."

Is the MSN Encarta reference a good one regarding Alexander's rebuilding attempt?

"Alexander the Great captured the city in 330 BC and planned to rebuild it and make it the capital of his vast empire, but he died before he could carry out his plans."

Then this is a remarkable prophecy, if it continues to be fulfilled! And I am not claiming it was fulfilled completely, for as you say, it cannot be, yet it can be tested at any time.

That is why the fundamentalists in Al Qaeda don't attack America?

Ah, I see, by start you mean completion! By start I mean the start of making the city desolate, Isaiah does not imply that all the prophecy happens at once.

My argument depends on the point not being able to be decided either way, though, and you were arguing that this was definitely contradicted, were you not? That the army did not come from the north. Therefore the burden of proof is on your statement, I claim we don't know, you claim that we do.

Well no, here is what I am defending: "The prophecy that Babylon will never be rebuilt or reinhabited (Isa. 13:19, Jer. 25:12, Jer. 51:26) has been and is being fulfilled, and this is a clear demonstration of God's supernatural power."

I am not trying to provide proof that a banner was raised on a bare hilltop, as in Isaiah 13.

I'm saying it's improbable, are you arguing that this is probable, though?

Because I am not perfect, and I have to learn about the areas under discussion, and I sometimes am mistaken in my conclusions. Amazingly enough!

Well, I read elsewhere that Alexander embarked on a program of rebuilding Babylon, without more details, from which I concluded that it had been substantially destroyed at that point.

Ramparts means walls though, more than one, and this statement also indicates a general condition, not just one break in the ramparts here.

Here was the claim, however: "Babylon was a huge, thriving city in the time of Alexander. No rebuilding necessary."

So rebuilding was necessary, and the claim being made is false, as shown by Sauron's own quote.

Improve does not explain rebuilding, though. To improve on, is not to restore crumbling landmarks, and crumbling landmark disagrees with your claiming that the city was in excellent shape already, for these landmarks (prominent parts of the city, if they were indeed landmarks!) were crumbling from the time of the Persian occupation.

Well, from dictionary.com: "Glamour: An air of compelling charm, romance, and excitement, especially when delusively alluring." Which also fits the ruins of Athens.

Well, MSN Encarta says, "Alexander the Great captured the city in 330 BC and planned to rebuild it and make it the capital of his vast empire, but he died before he could carry out his plans."

And Arrian writes: "Like the other shrines in the city, it had been destroyed by Xerxes on his return from Greece and Alexander had proposed to restore it ... So he proposed to set all his own troops to work upon it." (The Campaigns of Alexander, Penguin edition, pp. 377-378).

Now I am wondering how thorough your study of this topic has been, for Arrian is the primary reference on Alexander...

We know that Babylon is rebuilt?

I meant the city of Rome, though, and how does the language we use indicate a long decline? My point here is that it does not indicate this, it indicates the opposite.

Well, from this site:

"Then in August, 410, with assistance from within, his troops slipped into the city. For three days they looted and destroyed the houses of the rich. They killed some people, but being Christians they spared the Christian churches. Then Alaric and the Visigoths left for southern Italy, hoping to cross the Mediterranean Sea to North Africa. Rome had not been overrun since the Gauls had done so seven centuries before -- before Rome had been a great empire. News of the event left many across the empire believing that the end of civilization was at hand. In Palestine, the Christian scholar Jerome lamented that in the ruins of Rome the whole world had perished."

And from this site:

"Josephus: To conclude, when [Titus] entirely demolished the rest of the city, and overthrew its wars, he left these towers as a monument of his good fortune..."

Yes, and in this case, it refers to the capture of the city, but not to such extensive destruction, which took a long time, and thus this makes the prediction more improbable.

Sure, but it is not expected that this desolation would take 1400 years. More than that, actually! 1700 or 1800 years...

The prophecy does not require that the city become completely desolate immediately, though.

Petra is not actually in the hell, it is in the Middle East, in Jordan.

But isn't it plain what my point is here? That you can have your choice of a city to rebuild, either one would refute a clear prophecy in the Bible, and we don't really have to argue about this, just rebuild one of these cities! That's all you have to do, and this can be done, at any time, these prophecies will always be testable...

Regards,
Lee

Johnny Skeptic

The Babylon prophecy can never be fulfilled unless the earth is destroyed, thereby making rebuilding it impossible. As long as the earth is still here, what has not happened yesterday or today might very well happen tomorrow. Past failures need not rule out future successes.

Prester John

Just a small point but don't Muslims accept the OT prophets, indeed they classify Jesus as a prophet? Thus they would have no reason to try and prove the OT wrong. If they have a greviance it is with the NT. Islam is alot more like OT than NT.

Johnny Skeptic

The following is complied from several different posts:

Lee did in fact make an issue out of which people have known about it with the following:

You can't try to refute something that you don't know about, and there is no evidence that any Babylonians in ancient times knew about the prophecy.

If Lee debated the Babylon prophecy with some Muslim scholars, they would demolish him. They would tell him that the Bible has already been discredited in numerous ways, but whether or not the Bible has already been discredited, all that matters for purposes of this debate is that in the opinions of Muslims it has already been discredited many times, thus making it completely unnecessary to kill a goose that is already dead. I am willing to pay a Muslim scholar to come to this forum to debate Lee on the Babylon prophecy. How about it, Lee? How about letting Muslims speak for themselves instead of assuming what their desired agenda is?

Historically, many religions have come and gone, or have been prominent and eventually become insignificant. If Christianity one day goes the way of the dinosaurs, or becomes insignificant, no one would want to refute the Bible.