arnoldo

He will fulfill the bold type prophecies when he returns just as John states in the Book of Revelation. The Jewish people didn't know that Yeshua would be born a as a humble child. They were expecting a triumphant king to destroy the Romans. God intentionaly made it difficult to understand prophecy (without the inspiration of the Holy Spirit) before the fact so false prophets would go around and claim they were fulfilling prophecy because they knew the scipt. IOW if all prophecies were plain and easily understandable wouldn't every prophecy that came to pass simply be "self fulfilled prophecies?"

Johnny Skeptic

Message to arnoldo: I am going to number my arguments for easy reference in case you do not reply to some of them.

Argument #1

Obviously not since 75% of the people in the world do not accept Bible prophecy, which would not have to be the case if the God of the Bible exists since he could easily have convinced every mentally competent person in the world to believe that he can predict the future thousands of years ago. If President Bush predicted when and where the next hurricane would occur, and all of the world media let people know about his prediction, if his prediction came true, it is reasonable to assume that at least 90% of the people who knew about the prediction would believe that he knew in advance when and where the hurricane would occur. If he continued to make accurate predictions, pretty soon every mentally competent person in the world would believe that he was able to predict the future.

Argument #2

That is quite true regarding the self-fulfillment of the Partition of Palestine, which would have have happened even if the God of the Bible does not exist. Regardless of whether or not a prophecy is true, all that it take to make it come true is the belief that it is true, and enough military power to make it come true. If the Axis powers had won the Second World War, obviously, the Partition of Palestine would not have happened. Of the 33 governments that voted in favor of the partition, 32 are predominately Christian. The only exception was the Russian government, which was at the time receiving lots of financial aid from the U.S. for rebuilding purposes after the Second World War. Of the 13 governments that voted against the partition, 12 were non-Christian, and one, the Greek government, is nominally Christian.

Logically, a man can be just as motivated by a false belief as he can by a true belief. Some examples are Muslim terrorists and Japanese kamikave pilots.

Argument #3

Please quote your sources.

Argument #4

On the contrary, the vast majority of Jews have always rejected Christianity because they knew that Jesus was not the Messiah.

During Ezekeil's time, and for several subsequent generations, no Jew saw the Tyre prophecy fulfilled. If anything, that would have weakened the faith of Jews, and strengthened the faith of Tyrians who knew about the prophecy, and must have concluded that God was not able to carry out his threats against them, especially since Ezekiel called Nebuchadnezzar "a king kings," who would go down the streets of Tyre and tear down its tower, but fail to conquer Tyre. That is when the "many nations" part of Ezekiel 26 was added. When Alexander finally conquered Tyre, if anything, that would have weakened the faith of Jews because Ezekiel did not mention Alexander, which, if Ezekiel had done, would definitely have strengthened the faith of Jews and today's Christians much more than has been the case.

Argument #5

You will not be able to get away with claiming that God only uses prophecy to strengthen the faith of believers. Many people have become Christians priimarily because of Bible prophecy.

Argument #6

Although you claim that is was the Jews' fault that they did not accept Jesus, if the God of the Bible exists, he could easily have prevented any confusion regarding disputes about whether or not Jesus was the messiah. All that he would have needed to do would have been to inspire Old Testament writers to write unmistakable messianic prophecies. For instance, Micah 5:2 says "But thou, Bethlehem Ephratah, though thou be little among the thousands of Judah, yet out of thee shall he come forth unto me that is to be ruler in Israel; whose goings forth have been from of old, from everlasting." If the writer had said that the ruler would rule a heavenly kingdom instead of an earthly kingdom, that would have helped a lot. In addition, regarding the Pharisees' claims that Jesus healed people by the power of Beelzebub, if an Old Testament writer had said that the messiah would heal people by the power of God, that would have helped a lot. Further, if an Old Testament writer had said that the messiah's name would be Jesus, and that his mother would be Mary, and that the messiah would be crucified, and rise from the dead, that would have helped a lot.

Now those are just a few of many examples of where God could easily have prevented disputes regarding whether or not Jesus was the messiah. A God would not have any trouble at all preventing disputes about anything, including slavery. Jefferson Davis was President of the Southern Confederacy. He was a Christian. He believed that the Bible endorses slavery, which it does. Even if the Bible did not endorse slavery, God could easily have prevented Davis from believing that the Bible endorses slavery. First of all, he could have inspired Bible writers to write more clearly about slavery. Second of all, he could have appeared to Davis in a dream and told him that slavery is wrong. Third of all, he could have sent a tangible angel to tell Davis that slavery is wrong.

Argument #7

In the NASB, 2 Samuel 7:10 says "I will fix a place for my people Israel; I will plant them so that they may dwell in their place without further disturbance. Neither shall the wicked continue to afflict them as they did of old." The Partition of Palestine most certainly did not fulfill that prophecy, and it never will since the Jews are surrounded by hostile neighbors, not to mention terrorists who live in Israel, and some Muslim countries that are developing nuclear weapons. Since 2 Samuel 7:10 can never be fulfilled in this life, and since it refers to this life, it is a false prophecy. It you claim that Jews will make peace with Muslims, I will remind you that the New Testament says that there will always be wars and rumors of wars in this life, and that that certainly does not exclude the Middle East.

Argument #8

That is easily explained by the facts that the partition of Palestine is a self-fulfilled prophecy, and that the Middle East has the largest oil reserves in the world. If the Arab-Israel conflict was happening in the middle of a remote Australian desert that had few natural resources, most nations would not care about the conflict.

Argument #9

There is nothing at all about Jewish history that cannot easily be explained by secular means. The Partition of Palestine could not possibly have been a fulfilled prophecy because Genesis 17:8 says that God will give Abraham and his descendants ALL of the land of Canaan. Today, Jews do not occupy anywhere near all of the land of Canaan. Following your same line of reasoning, if the Jews occupied only one square mile of Palestine, that would be a fulfilled prophecy.

Arguments #10

Since you are not able to provide reasonable motives why God undermines his credibility by making disputable prophecies when he could easily make indisputable prophecies, you lose.

Sheshonq

1. But the messianic prophecies don't indicate that.

Because that is what the messianic prophecies indicated.

Makes no sense. The other prophecies about other events; i.e., the invasion by Babylon, were explicit and not hard to understand (they failed, but that is another story). Why were all the other prophecies clear and plain, while this one was made intentionally difficult?

No, not if it took divine intervention to make the fulfillment a reality. Unless you think that God would have performed miracles for the false prophets whenever they were needed.

Your rebuttal has the feel of something that you probably made up on the spur of the moment, without much forethought.

And it shows.

sy2502

The Jews were supposedly God's people who had received his word directly. If anybody had a good shot at spotting the real Messiah, it would be them. The supposed prophecies were part of the religious education of every Jew, explained to them by their clerics. And yet, they did not recognize Jesus as the true Messiah. Makes you wonder.

That's plain wrong. In fact, it is exactly the opposite. A good prophecy can be as plain as day, and still be a valid prophecy. Johnny gave an example: Bush predicts that Feb 29th 2008 at exactly 14:22, the city of San Francisco will be rocked by a big earthquake, of larger magnitude than any in recorded history. It can't get any plainer than that, and yet I dare anybody to claim of fulfilling that prophecy.
As I said above that is not necessarily the truth. Consider this: say that the prophecy told that the true Messiah would return to Jerusalem, and would do so by riding a donkey. How easy is it for anybody who wants to a claim to Messiah-hood to take a trip to Jerusalem, hire a donkey, and ride in the city on it? And then say "See, I fulfilled the Messiah prophecy! Look at me, I am the Messiah!" But then, a god that gave that kind of stupid prophecy wouldn't be too smart to begin with, would he?

chrisengland

Today, many skeptics have become Christians because of what they believe are fulfilled Bible prophecies.

Doesn't that count against you.
I meen if a lot of intelligent skeptics have been convinced isn't it possible you have just missed something?

Toto

I am a member of two skeptics groups and I don't know of any who have become Christians because of fulfilled Bible prophecies. Who are these people you mention?

Could they possibly be Christians who claimed to be skeptics in order to attrack people that they think are skeptics?

arnoldo

Sadly a lot of those christian backslide and go back to the world because they don't see a sign or it was just a "phase." Believing in a prophecy doesn't make on a christian just like sitting in a garage doesn't make you a car.

chrisengland

I was quoting johnny skeptic
Sorry I clicked the quote button how do get it to say who I,m quoting?

Darklighter

Question for arnoldo:

What, in your opinion, is the BEST example of undisputable fulfilled prophecy?

arnoldo

Jesus Christ