digitalbeachbum

That is because none of the predictions are specific, they are vauge and/or cryptic. Today you can watch that guy... hmmm... can't remember his name.. but he talks to the dead. When he starts out he's like.. "some body in this area, you have a loved one whos name is... Barry... Mary.. Gary... Terry... Then some one jumps up and says "oooh I had a Uncle Jerry..."

lee_merrill

I believe this would have become effective after the destruction of the city by the Persians, certainly after the city totally dissolves after Alexander, it needs to have been destroyed before we can say it won't be rebuilt, after substantial destruction, it's not returning.

Well, no, but the point is that the prophecy was fulfilled, and we may test this by trying today to rebuild it, or attempting to reinhabit the city.

Truth by a show of hands?!

Sure, only overturning such a prophecy would be more difficult to verify (they have to be Arabs, not Persians!), which is why I focus on ways to overturn the prophecy that would be indisputable.

You have not I think read every Bible commentary, and you saw what I said in reply to MacDonald, and now that would need addressing--but let's please not just rehash old points (I don't like reruns!), but if you have something new to say on the matter, great.

Well, the way to find out if a prophecy is supernatural is to see if 1) it is fulfilled, and 2) if the fulfillment is unlikely by natural processes.

That's the great part about this prophecy, it is quite specific, we know the ruins of Babylon, and reinhabiting it is not vauge, and if you attempt to do this, as Saddam did, as Alexander tried to do, and fail, this indicates that we may have tried to lodge in room 1408.

This would then argue against 100% probability that there are no real prophecies, and you may attempt this as many times as you like--not that I recommend the attempt...

Johnny Skeptic

Message to Lee Merrill: If your challenge was worth two cents, surely at least one prominent Christian would be making it, but not ANY prominent Christian has issued your challenge to the Iraqi government.

It is a matter of probabilities. Since you are very good at math, you ought to understand that in the opinions of the vast majority of people, including the vast majority of fundamentalist Christians, it is much more probable that virtually all skeptics, virtually all Muslims, and the vast majority of fundamentalist Christian scholars and laymen are right than a veritable handful of people like you. To say that your position is a minority position would be a gross understatement since even most of your own crowd disagree with you. If you cannot convince more than a handful of your own crowd, it is a given that you do not have any chance to convince skeptics and Muslims. No rational man would ever spend a lot of time trying to defend a position that even most of his own crowd rejects.

Since the only people who have the authority to rebuild Babylon are the Iraqis, they are the people who you should have issued your challenge to, but you have not done that because you do not want to embarrass yourself.

Would you be able to produce even one single Iraqi who wants to discredit the Bible by overturning one or more parts of Isaiah 13:19-20? Well of course you couldn't.

Johnny Skeptic

That would be fine if the Iraqi government wants to discredit Isaiah
13:19-20, but you have not produced any evidence at all that such is the case. An opinion from even one Iraqi government official, or even one Muslim scholar from a U.S. university would be helpful. Since you are the claimant, it is up to use to produce evidence that supports your assertion, not simply state unilateral personal opinions.

Consider the following:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arab_diaspora

Rather than rebuild Babylon in the middle of a war, and spend billions of dollars, it would be much quicker, easier, and cheaper for about 100,000 Arab descendants to go to Iraq and pitch tents in Babylon, that is, if they wanted to discredit Isaiah 13:19-20, which they don't. The probability that at least one of those people was an Arab descendant would be astronomical.

I made my claim based upon assumption and probabilities. I read comments from about five Bible commentaries, all of which disagree with you, including a commentary that was edited by well-known fundamentalist Christian scholar F.F. Bruce, and a commentary by Matthew Henry. How many Bible commentaries that disagree with you do you propose that people should read in order to arrive at the conclusion that they are right, and you are wrong? Can you produce even one single Bible commentary that agrees with you? "Well, er, uh......." Your motto is that if a consensus is available, that is fine, but when a consensus is not available, your own personal opinion will do quite nicely. Now how many people do you believe would buy that? I must say that other than you, I have never come across a fundamentalist Christian who refused to post even one expert fundamentalist Christian scholarly corroborative source.

I forget what you said about MacDonald, but regardless of what you said, there is no doubt that he disagrees with you. Regarding "but let's please not just rehash old points (I don't like reruns!)," more accurately, and more truthfully, you would jump on any opportunity to bring up a rerun that you believed would be to your advantage like a hungry dog on a bone. There is no doubt at all about that. Clearcut victories at these forums are very difficult to come buy, and you would never pass up an opportunity to bring back an old rerun that you believed would be to your advantage.

In his 'Believer's Bible Commentary,' William MacDonald says the following:

"There are certain difficulties connected with the prophecies of the destruction of Babylon, both the city and the country (Isa. 13:6-22)
14:4-23; 21:2-9; 47:1-11; Jer. 23:12-14; 50; 51). For examples, the capture of the city by the Medes (Isa. 13:17 in 539 B.C. did not result in a destruction similar to that of Sodom and Gomorrah (Isa. 13:19); DID NOT LEAVE THE CITY UNHABITED FOREVER [emphasis mine], Isa. 13:20-22); was not accomplished by a nation from the north - Medo-Persia was to the east - (Jer. 50:3); did not result in Israel or more than a remnant of Judah seeking the Lord or returning to Zion (Jer. 50:4, 5); and did not involve the breaking fo the walls and burning of the gates (Jer. 51:58).

"When we come to a difficulty like this, how do we handle it? First of all, we reaffirm our utter confidence in the Word of God. If there is any difficulty, it is because of our lack of knowledge. [Of course, that doesn't apply to Lee Merrill, at least according to Lee Merrill], But we remember that the prophets often had a way of merging the immediate future and the distant future without always indicating any time signals. in other words,a prophecy could have a local, partial fulfillment and a remote, complete fulfillment. That is the case with Babylon. Not all the prophecies have been fulfilled. Some are still future."

I posted that previously. You do not want to revisit that old rerun because it clearly shows that MacDonald disagrees with you. In a battle between your credibility and the credibility of the writers of Bible commentaries, you lose hands down.

By the way, it is easy to issue challenges. I challenge God to show up and demonstrate that intelligent design is true. If God really wants people to believe that intelligent design is true, which would make more sense, for him send you to defend intelligent design, or for him to show up in person and demonstrate that intelligent design is true? Obviously, the latter makes much more sense.

Typical of fundamentalist Christians, you miss the obvious. Why would God want to inspire prophecy? If in order to prove that he can predict the future, the best way for God to do that would be to show up in person and prove that he can predict the future. If to help believers, it would have been much better for God to predict occurences of natural disasters. Fundamentalist Christians are never able to come with credible evidence regarding what God is trying to accomplish. In your opinion, what is God trying to accomplish?

Would you still be a Christian if you did not believe that God performs miracle healings today?

Jack the Bodiless

Isaiah and Jeremiah "prophesied" that Babylon would be captured and destroyed by the MEDES. They failed to anticipate the conquest of the Medes by the Persians, and they failed to anticipate that Cyrus would preserve Babylon intact.
Why should we try this? The prophecy has already failed.
It has already been overturned, and this is irrefutable.
What part of "the prophecy has already failed" do you not understand, Lee?

ETA: What is this "Alexander tried and failed" nonsense? Babylon was still a thriving city when Alexander went there, and he successfully carried out various repairs...

-Jay-

John Edwards? James Van Praagh? Both are stellar examples of cold reading at it's most blatant.

regards,

NinJay

-Jay-

Again, Lee, why are there no prophecies that deal with nations outside of the sphere of knowledge of the Biblical writers? Why are there no prophecies that look so far into the future that the Biblical writers couldn't possibly have seen the events coming? Something really specific, like "On August 6, 1945, a nation that doesn't exist yet but will be known as The United States of America will drop an atomic bomb on the Japanese city of Hiroshima, killing around 140,000 people." That's an event that I think it's fair to say changed the world at least as much as any occupations of Babylon ever did.

The overarching fact remains that there are no Biblical prophecies that relate to people, places, and events that weren't immediately relevant to the Biblical writers - Biblical prophecy reflects an ancient Near-Eastern understanding of the world.

The fact remains that there is not a single Biblical prophecy that can't be explained in terms of either:

A) reasonable (if perhaps optimistic) extrapolations of contemporary events
B) ex post facto writing about historical events that is styled to look like prophecy

MacDonald's comments about "remote, complete fulfillment" amount to nothing more than a cop-out, a safety valve to open when someone points out that a prophecy has failed. As long as it can be rationalized that the fulfillment hasn't happened yet, one doesn't have to deal with the uncomfortable ramifications of the failure.

regards,

NinJay

shirley knott

Actually, it does no such thing.
You have failed to grasp the point of my rejection of prophecy. I do not reject the existence of statements made in the past about the future which in the passage of time turn out to "accurately" reflect some state of affairs that obtained after the point in time at which the statement was made.
I specifically reject the existence of prophecy as you have defined it -- something coming from "divine perception".

For this to count as a prophecy rather than any of the other kinds of future-oriented statements we know to be possible, you have to establish the existence of the distinguishing criteria.

Prophecy is a conclusion, not a premise.

There are no prophecies under your definition.
Prove me wrong. I dare say you cannot. You cannot even define, in a non-circular, non question-begging way, any of the key terms of your pseudo-argument.

no hugs for thugs,
Shirley Knott

Jack the Bodiless

This is particularly ironic. From Babylon:
So, Jeremiah prophesies Babylon's imminent destruction and depopulation, and it then becomes the largest city in the world...

Johnny Skeptic

But Arabs only apply to one part of the three part prophecy in Isaiah 13:19-20. Isaiah 13:19-20 says that 1) Babylon will never be rebuilt, that 2) no shepherd will ever graze his flocks Babylon, and that 3) no Arab will ever pitch his tent in Babylon. Regarding items 1 and 2, Arabs are not mentioned.

Since there are hundreds of thousands of Arabs in the world today, I find it to be quite odd that you said "they have to be Arabs." How difficult is it to find an Arab? How difficult is it to find a Jew?

Why did you mention Persians? Persians live in Iran, not in Iraq.

In your opinion, why did God inspire prophecies?