Apikorus

It seems to me that PL has made some very reasonable points here and for his troubles he's received abuse. This is not the way to conduct debate.

Johnny Skeptic

Ok, let's start this thread all over again in order to dispense with these petty and useless personal attacks. My revised title and opening post are as follows:

Title: Why should anyone believe that the Tyre prophecy has any merit?

Opening post: 1 - I submit that it is impossible to accurately date ANY document that was written 2500 years ago to within +/- several years. 2 - I also submit that is impossible to reliably determine that the version of the Tyre prophecy that we have today is the same as the original version.

Regarding item 1, the word "circa", meaning approximate, frequently appears in historical references. Encyclopedias frequently include question marks regarding when historical characters lived and died. I once read a historical document that estimated Alexander's the Great's birth and death dates at 356 B.C. (?) - 323B.C. (?) I didn't add the question marks. They were in the historical reference. ALL of the dates of composition of the books of the Bible are estimates, and even fundamentalist Christian scholars will admit that accurately dating ANY book in the Bible to within +/- several years, and in many if not most cases to within +/- 10 years and sometimes much more, is impossible.

Regarding the prophecies that are found in other religious books, surely a lot of Christians will state the very same objections that I stated.

Just to pick some dates for analogy, let's assume that Nebuchadnezzar actually attacked Tyre in 560 B.C. Consider the following possible dates of the composition of the prophecy: 570 B.C., 550 B.C., 540 B.C., and 530 B.C.
Even if one of those dates was the actual date of composition, it would be impossible to reliably determine which date was the date of composition. No matter which date was the actual date of composition, even people living in 250 B.C. would not have been able to reliably determine which date was the actual date of composition. Obviously, adding over two millennia later to the equation presents an even more insurmountable obstacle for Christians.

While some Christians will dispute item 1, but most certainly not successfully, item 2 is a horse of a different color. If Christians will admit that it is plausible that some of the writings of other religions been revised, they need to state why it is not plausible that the Tyre prophecy has been revised. Obviously my argument applies only to Christians who maintain that the Tyre prophecy predated the events and that it has not been revised. It is my current position that it is equally plausible that the prophecy predated the events and that it postdated the events. It is also my current position that it is equally plausible that the propehcy has not been revised, and that it has been revised.

Boro Nut

I defer to your superior knowledge of Philadelphia law.

I’m intrigued to know how many declaratory judgements have been handed down on documents that don’t exist though. The UK courts take a somewhat less enlightened view to spurious litigation like that. They tend to insist on having a document to contest, and you’re not allowed to be the defendant in a case that hasn’t actually been brought by a plaintiff. They’re quite old fashioned that way. You should see the way they dress. You can sometimes get them to agree to hear the case ‘in camera’, but they still won’t let you take photographs. How daft is that?

You can actually learn a lot from keeping an eye on the local court news over here. For instance, you can work out which are the most dangerous pubs in any given town simply by counting the shear number of murders and assault cases they're involved in. If you’re ever thinking of visiting the UK, based on the statistics I would strongly recommend avoiding any pub called The Crown.

Boro Nut

Philadelphia Lawyer

In the analogy that you introduced, the prophecy is the document. Johnny Skeptic is the person seeking a declaratory judgment that the document is invalid; he is the plaintiff. The defendant is anyone contesting Johnny's claims.

Apikorus

This statement itself is rather dubious, as there are many ancient documents which contain internal synchronisms which can be dated accurately e.g. by astronomical events (usually an eclipse). There are also other detailed ancient historical records, such as the Ptolemaic Canon, which have held up very nicely under scrutiny when compared with independent sources (e.g. the Assyrian eponym lists; the eponymy of P/Bur-Sagale refers to a solar eclipse which can be fixed to the day of June 15, 763 BCE). I could go on...

Another example where we know very accurately (to within a couple of years) the date of a text is the last four chapters of the Book of Daniel from the Hebrew Bible. These chapters can securely be dated to ca. 164 BCE because all the detailed "predictions" regarding the actions of Antiochus IV Epiphanes are correct regarding events prior to 164 BCE (i.e. the "prophecy" is a classic vaticinium ex eventu), but are very wrong afterward (e.g. Antiochus did not die between Jerusalem and the (Mediterranean) Sea, but rather at Tabae, in Persia, while campaigning against the Parthians).

Of course biblical prophecy is in general rubbish, but there are cases where a biblical author made a fairly good prediction. Probably the best honest prediction in the Hebrew Bible is Jeremiah's prediction of 70 years of exile after the Babylonian destruction of Jerusalem. This "prophecy" was probably penned around 590 BCE (to within a decade or so). The exiles returned in 538 BCE, so this isn't so bad. (Nor is it particularly amazing or eerie.)

Philadelphia Lawyer

Once again, you are making claims ("I submit. . .). Now, you have to prove these claims.

This is how you meet your burden of proof? Referring to something that you "once read" in an article about the birth and death dates of Alexander the Great? Generalized arguments about the difficulty of dating the books of the Bible, which, you assert, "a lot of Christians" would agree with?

Not even close. To prove your claim in item 1 (which is that it is impossible to date "ANY document" that is 2500 years old), you would have to survey all of the scientific, historical, and Biblical scholarship relating to the dating of ancient documents. You would have to show why any claim of accurate dating by any of these scholars is incorrect. In short, you would have to do the "work" required of theists on this board, when they make claims.

Christians don't "need to state" anything. You need to show why it is "impossible to reliably determine that the version of the Tyre prophecy that we have today is the same as the original version." This requires you to do research into the origins, transmissions, and translations of Ezekial.

Here, you are just restating your claims as your "current positions." Great, these are your positions. Do you have any proof that they are correct? Or are you just informing us, for our edification, what your opionions are?

If you insist on making claims, you must prove that they are correct. Why is that so hard to understand? And, please, do not repeat your argument that "the Bible" made the initial claims, so you do not have the burden of proof. This is untenable. Let me give you an analogy that, I hope, will show why.

The U.S. Declaration of Independence claimed that "all men are created equal." Nevertheless, if I start a thread and claim that "all men are not created equal" or that "it is equally plausible that all men are created equal or that all men are not created equal," the burden of proof is still on me to prove the truth of these claims. It will not do for me to argue that Thomas Jefferson made the original claim, and I am only responding to it.

For any claim that anyone might make, there might well be someone in the past who made the opposite claim. You can't simply refer back to that previous, opposite claim, and argue that you are only responding to it.

Boro Nut

No it isn't. A prophecy is a prophecy. A document is a document. Where exactly is the document in your analogy? Don't ask the clerk of court. They've not seen it either.

Boro Nut

Johnny Skeptic

What you are missing is that you are talking about reasonable evidence about when certain events happened, not resonable event about when writings about them were written. Those are two entirely different issues. Anyone can write about anything that they want to anytime they want to.

Philadelphia Lawyer

You're the one who introduced the prophecy-document analogy, remember?

Now, after I have demonstrated to you that the person seeking to invalidate a document has the burden of proof, you call it my analogy. Nice. The document, obviously, is the text of Ezekial. Just as it obviously was when you introduced the analogy.

Johnny Skeptic

A court trial starts with a claimant making an initial, primary assertion. Any rebuttal that is made by a defendant is made SUBSEQUENT to the initial, primary assertion. He who asserts first must defend first. The burden of proof if upon the original asserter.

The Bible asserted first, not me. Regardless, I can easily restate my arguments in a way that will satisfy your requirements. Here they are:

The Bible asserts that the Tyre prophecy was written before the events and by implication that the version of the prophecy is the same version as the original version. I invite Christians to defend these assertions. Put in another way, I invite Christians to make a case for the Tyre prophecy that they believe might impress some unbelievers.

The Bible is full of original, primary assertions from cover to cover. The very first verse is an original, primary assertion. It says "In the beginning, God (and by implication no other God) created the heavens and the earth." As an agnostic, I do not make any assertions how the universe got here. So, I do not have any counter assertions to make regarding Genesis 1:1, nor have I ever asserted that the Tyre prophecy did not predate the events, although the Bible does, nor have I asserted that the version of the prophecy is not the same as the version that we have today, although most fundamentalist Christians protest whenever suggest that it is plausible that the version of the prophecy that we have today is not the same as the original version. One need not prove a plausibility in order to credible state a plausibility. It is up to the other side to resonably prove that it is not plausible. Christians frequently invite skeptics to present plausibilities regarding the bodily resurrection of Jesus.

I can easily post numerous cases where Christians ARE the initial claimants regarding prophecy and then we can discuss them. How about it?