lee_merrill

But see here...

But see here:

Isaiah 8:8 Its outspread wings will cover the breadth of your land, O Immanuel!

Not to mention "Oh come, Oh come Emmanuel" (Christmas carol)

Which is not necessary as a conclusion as to what Jesus meant. But you may have assumed that the Transfiguration did not really happen. But I hold it meant that Jesus is always coming:

Matthew 26:64 Jesus said to him, "I tell you, from now on you will see the Son of Man seated at the right hand of Power and coming on the clouds of heaven."

And the coming of his kingdom can be seen (Acts 2:3, 2 Cor. 2:12, etc.).

In any case! There are some prophecies that are in effect today:

Babylon will never be rebuilt, or reinhabited (Isa. 13:19-20, Jer. 25:12, Jer. 51:26).

Edom will never be rebuilt or reinhabited (Isa. 34:9-10, Jer. 49:18).

There will always be Jewish people (Jer. 31:35-37; 33:24-26).

There will be Egyptian and Assyrian people up until the fulfillment of Isa. 19:16-25.

Egypt will never again rule the other nations (Eze. 29:14-15).

Now to overturn the Babylon prophecy, all that is needed is to rebuild or reinhabit Babylon. Let us though remember Saddam's recent attempt, and what his occupation is at this time.

"Every day, Babylon's archeologist and director roam through the city's labyrinths removing the last vestige of Saddam Hussein: hundreds of bricks inscribed with his name. 'In the era of President Saddam Hussein, the President of Iraq, God preserve him,' they read, 'who rebuilt Babylon, as protector of the great Iraq and the builder of civilization.' Since thieves torched the city's small tourist shack, the bricks have become the hottest souvenir at Babylon, where they are snatched up by Marines for a buck a piece." (Dion Nissenbaum, Knight Ridder newspapers)

Regards,
Lee

Gullwind

Yes, I prayed for over twenty years when I was a Christian. In all that time, no astounding revelations were revealed to me.

Let me ask you this: Do you understand these matters? Do you understand why God would create man knowing all the suffering that would ensue, and knowing that none of it was necessary?

Kosh

Ah, I see. You mean, only "True Christians" (tm) can understand?

Care to elaborate on what a "spirirtual prophecy" is? Do they teach this in the seminaries?

Johnny Skeptic

Oh goody, another opportunity to embarrass you regarding the Babylon prophecy. Isaiah 13:19-20 say "And Babylon, the glory of kingdoms, the beauty of the Chaldees' excellency, shall be as when God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah. It shall never be inhabited, neither shall it be dwelt in from generation to generation: neither shall the Arabian pitch tent there; neither shall the shepherds make their fold there." I have told you on a number of occasions that I am ready to have some Arabs pitch their tents in Babylon if you will give up Christianity, but you refused my offer, which proves that you are not really as confident of your position as you claim. I have also told you on a number of occassions that the Iraqis do not have sufficient incentives to rebuild Babylon. Those necessary incentives would need to be that the size of the Christian church would decrease significantly, which you are well aware would not happen, in fact not even 1%, and that the U.S. would adopt a friendly foreign policy towards Muslims, which you are also aware would not happen. You would never accept a challenge without attractive incentives, and yet you ask Muslims to do what you refuse to do yourself.

What do you mean?

Since when was it ever difficult to pretend to fulfill a prophecy by calling someone a name that was mentioned centuries earlier?

That has not happened.

There is not sufficient evidence that the transfiguration occurred.

Nor were thousands of other cities.

There is not sufficient evidence that God ever made a land promise to Abraham.

And many other peoples as well, so what is your point?

Which also applies to many if not most other ancient nations as well.

Actually, all that is needed is for you to take me up on my challenge, or for you to offer the Iraqis sufficient incentives to overturn the Babylon prophecy in any or all of the three possible ways that are mentioned in Isaiah 13:19-20.

Johnny Skeptic

Do you really think that you can get away with that? Isaiah 13:20 says "It shall never be inhabited, neither shall it be dwelt in from generation to generation: neither shall the Arabian pitch tent there; neither shall the shepherds make their fold there." I assure you that it would be quite simple for some Arabs to pitch their tents in Babylon, and/or for some shepherds to graze their flocks there. Such occurrences have likely already occurred. You certainly cannot prove that they haven't occurred, and it is not incumbent upon skeptics to prove that they have occurred.

We skeptics are well aware of how you like to "stack the deck" in your favor, but the texts are quite clear. You can interpret them any way that you want, but don't expect to convince anyone of your position.

I have yet to find ANY Bible commentary or other scholarly Christian writing that even remotely comes close to agreeing with your position, but at least would be apologist and imposter Josh McDowell agrees with you. What do you have against using scholarly sources?

One of your problems is that you believe that the Bible is inerrant. As such, you have already arrived at your conclusions before you have even begun to discuss the Bible. I have challenged you to defend inerrancy, but you have refused. I don't blame you. I have arrived at my conclusions too before I debate Christians, but unlike you, I don't have anything to worry about if one of my arguments is proven invalid. As an inerrantist, you must defend ALL Bible prophecies, but all that I have to do is discredit ONE of them. The Babylon prophecy would be quite easy to overturn, in which case Biblical inerrancy would fly right out of the window.

The last chapter of the book of Revelation warns against tampering with the texts. If tampering were not possible, there would have been no need for the warnings. God has allowed hundreds of millions of people to die without having heard the Gospel message. What use was a supposedly inerrant Bible to those people?

lee_merrill

Hi everyone,

Actually I did not, if you disprove the Babylon prophecy I will give up my Christianity.

And let us notice that this seems to amount to basically saying “Well, so what if we do disprove it?” Which is surprising, given that the skeptics and Muslims do continue to try and refute the Bible, and a simple building project, or even more simply, reinhabiting this site, would fulfill this purpose spendidly. And the Muslims have money to do it.

It would however seem that some Muslims are spending their money elsewhere to overthrow another of these prophecies, see below.

This is talking about the people though, and let us notice Hitler’s attempt, not to mention Hezzbollah’s current attempt, and others, which have met with failure, which would perhaps be an understatement. Hitler’s attack brought the Jews to their land again, by all appearances.

I think this is true, and you do as well, it would seem. Now you can also point to easier ways to overturn the prophecy, but not I think ways that are more convincing, for buildings and inhabitants there would not be so undeniable by others as (presumably nomadic) Arabs keeping flocks where Babylon used to be.

Right, so it’s rather difficult to decide this one way or the other based on this aspect of the prophecy here.

I admit I do have that problem.

Or I might have come to that conclusion by considering evidence. Glad to consider more evidence! You might be interested to know that I have not always believed the Bible was inerrant, as a Christian, but this prophecy would be a different case than a historical error such as a recorded census incorrect.

This is the reason I mention it. Exactly!

Though this was not addressed to me…

May I say it is indeed important to ask for insight on this, and on knowing what God is like. Not to state that this was neglected on your part, but not many people pray for such requests, as far as I have seen.

Proverbs 2:1-5 … if you accept my words and store up my commands within you, turning your ear to wisdom and applying your heart to understanding, and if you call out for insight and cry aloud for understanding, and if you look for it as for silver and search for it as for hidden treasure, then you will understand the fear of the Lord and find the knowledge of God.

Blessings,
Lee

Johnny Skeptic

Where did you get the notion that Muslims are not content that they have disproved the Bible hundreds of times?

Muslims accept a good deal of the Old Testament, and even some of the New Testament. What you need is testimonies from Muslims that they contest Isaiah 13:19-20. Do you have such testimonies? No?, I didn’t think you did. You obviously know nothing at all about Islam. The Microsoft Encarta Deluxe Encyclopedia 2004 says the following:

“Islam recognizes the divine origins of the earlier Hebrew and Christian Scriptures and represents itself as both a restoration and a continuation of their traditions. Because of this, the Qur’an draws on biblical stories and repeats many biblical themes. In particular, the stories of several biblical prophets appear in the Qur’an, some in a condensed form; other stories, such as those of Abraham, Moses, and Jesus, are given in elaborate detail and even with subtle revisions of the biblical accounts.

“One of the important differences between the Qur’anic and biblical stories of Abraham's sacrifice of his son, for example, is that the Qur’an suggests this son is Ishmael, from whom Arabs are descended, and not Isaac, from whom the tribes of Israel are descended. A more substantial difference relates to the Islamic story of Jesus, who according to the Qur’an is a mortal, human prophet. The Islamic faith categorically rejects the idea that God was ever born, as opposed to Christian belief that Jesus was born the son of God. Islam also rejects the idea that God shared his divinity with any other being.

“Another important idea elaborated in the Qur’an and later Islamic doctrine, IN CONSCIOUS DISTINCTION FROM THE BIBLICAL ACCOUNT, IS THAT ALTHOUGH PROPHETS ARE CAPABLE OF HUMAN ERRORS [emphasis mine], God protects them from commtting sins and also protects them from excruciating suffering or humiliating experiences. God would not abandon his prophets in times of distress. Therefore, the Qur’an maintains that God interfered to save Jesus from torture and death by lifting him to heaven and replacing him on the cross with someone who looked like him.”

Johnny: Now then, Lee, do you wish to embarrass yourself any further?

There is no logic that states that overturning a promise that is easy to overturn is less valid than overturning a promise that is difficult to overturn. If some Arabs pitch their tents in Babylon, it would be undeniable that the prophecy had been overturned. If God says that it will be impossible for you to do something and you do it, no matter how simple the task is, you have proven that God is a liar.

lee_merrill

Yes, I do!

And here it is, if the Qur'an restores the Scriptures, why then whatever is not in the Qur'an was not originally there, and was inserted by humans, and is not from God, and it is proper and even incumbent on them to refute it. And this prophecy does not appear in the Qur'an.

I'm not sure what they mean though, Christians don't hold that Isaiah could not be wrong about anything he ever said, or that he never took a wrong turn going down the street. But I don't think they mean prophets could be mistaken! For if so, then their claim that Ishmael was to be sacrificed and not Isaac, their insistence that God has no Son, that Jesus is not divine, all these may then be wrong.

But I think they would insist that these claims are true, because they are in a perfect and divine book.

And I agree, I only am saying it is much more undeniable to show habitations and buildings that you can visit, than photos of shepherds in a field.

Regards,
Lee

Johnny Skeptic

Ok, produce them. In addition, how about contacting the Iraqi embassy in Washington, D.C. and ask their opinion on this matter? It would also be nice if you would produce even one single noted fundamentalist Christian scholar who agrees with your arguments. I haven't found any Bible commentaries that claim anywhere near what you claim about the Babylon prophecy, including a commentary that is edited by noted fundamentalist Christian scholar F. F. Bruce.

The point is, what would be proof beyond a reasonable doubt for most Christians, and what would be proof beyond a reasonable doubt for you? Would you take the word of a number of eyewitnesses who could photograph shepherds in a field, including some U.S. servicemen who are fundamentalist Christians, and including some eyewitnesses from President Bush's state department? If a good number of eyewitnesses with disparate world views all claimed that they saw shepherds in a field, and all of the eyewitnesses produced photographs, surely that would be proof beyond a reasonable doubt.

Even without conclusive proof, such photographs and testimonies would be a good means of creating doubt among some Christians and potential Christians, and that would be a good thing, at least for skeptics. Pulling this off would definitely be worth a little of my money and a little of my time. It would be fun for me. Thank you very much for bringing up the Babylon prophecy last year.

lee_merrill

Which I did, Johnny, "And here it is...", do please check my prior post.

Buildings I could visit! Those are indisputable. A ticket I can buy in Orbitz to fly into the Babylon International Airport, and book a hotel there, and visit various folks living on the site of that city.

The problem is that then you have to have proof that those fields are on the site of the city of Babylon, and even if that is showing Babylon in the background, photo editing can do this as well. Before giving up my Christianity, I want solid proof, perhaps not unreasonably!

Feel free to proceed!

You're quite welcome...

Regards,
Lee