Riverwind

There is a reason the the particular scriptures used by the early Christians were called "The Prophets". They were believed to be prophesying...kind of hard for scriptures like that not to be used by all Jews (and they were used by the Jews, not just Christian Jews). As I mentioned, the "Gentile" world also used texts in a similar fashion.

Malachi151

#1 There is no reason they would have been executed. #2 They were anonymous after all, and no one knows now, nor knew then apparently, who wrote them.

aa5874

It's the authors of the NT that wrote the stories. How do you know who was executed and if any of the characters were real?

David B

Did the same apply to the followers of Koresh, Jones, Smith, Manson etc?

Something to think about.

But that is getting away from your OP.

Let's look at these allegedly fulfilled prophesies one by one.

You pick the first, the strongest you can come up with, and let's look at it.

Then my turn - I pick an OT prophesy that I will maintain has clearly not been fulfilled, and then let's examine that.

Proceed like that until either I'm persuaded that OT prophesies are genuine, or you are persuaded that they ain't.

David B

Riverwind

The problem with understanding Old Testament prophecies is that one must first understand, as well as one can, what scripture(s) Jews or sects of Jews believed were prophetic. From early church fathers, it is apparent that Jews (at that time although no longer) believed that some of the same scriptures the Christians thought of as prophetic they also thought of as prophetic. The Christians applied them to Jesus, some later applied them to Simon Bar Kokhba (among others), and later it seems that prophecies of a Messiah were all but given up by Judaism (with the exception of the most fundamental Jews, the Hasidim).

Boro Nut

Okay.
There's five to be going on with.

Boro Nut

rob117

But the ancient Hebrew prophets were writing 300-800 years before the time of Jesus and addressing the concerns of their own day. The famous Isaiah young woman prophecy, when taken in context, clearly refers to an actual child who is supposed to act as a sign to the king of Judah that Damascus and Samaria (who are threatening invasion) will be defeated. Later messianic interpretations of this particular passage are entirely Christian.

Other passages were certainly taken as messianic by both Christians and Roman-era Jews, for example, the prophecy that the messiah would be born in Bethlehem, which Jesus probably wasn't (Luke and Matthew go out of their way to make this his birthplace, and contradict each other in doing so).

However, there is no evidence that the original prophetic statements were meant to refer to a time far in the future. As a rule of thumb, prophets of all cultures tend to be contemporary social critics (or, if they are supported by the religious establishment, supporters of the status quo). Most OT prophets are of the critical kind (Nahum, Haggai, Zechariah, and Joel would be the exceptions) and their messages are addressed to their contemporaries and are, above all, conditional: "If you turn back, you will avoid these calamities!"

Apocalyptic prophets are similar in addressing their contemporaries, but their predictions are supposed to be inevitable.

The only religious leaders who actually make vague predictions about an inevitable future are theologians dealing with esoteric knowledge (i.e., Hindu Brahmins, Jewish Kabbalists, and the like). People looking to make an impact on their contemporaries (as prophets generally are) will make predictions relevant to them.

3DJay

Yep. According to the OT/Tanakh, you should be able to tell a false prophet from a true prophet, while he's alive, based on whether his predictions come true, or not.
And, if what he says doesn't come true.....kill him.


Peace

Solitary Man

Red Herring.

The question, however, was about prophecy fulfillment. Just because Christians and Jews alike (which if you go back early enough there is no distinction) take certain documents out of context to create prophecies does not mean that prophecies are actually being fulfilled.

Solitary Man

Riverwind,

Your constant objection is not really relevant to the discussion, which is about what historically happened, but instead is against those who claim that the gospels (etc.) abused scripture when writing the narratives of Jesus' life.

Solitary Man