Johnny Skeptic

A sign of what?

But what verifiable evidence do you have that God made a land promise to Abraham, and that God had anything is else to do with Jewish history?

The partition of Palestine in 1948 WAS NOT a fulfillment of Bible prophecy. God promised Abraham and his descendants ALL of the land of ancient Canaan. Today, Jews do not occupy ALL of the land of ancient Canaan. So, the partition of Palestine is not valid evidence that God had anything to do with the partition of Palestine.

As far as the Jews being scattered is concerned, there is nothing at all odd about that.

Why would God be interested in predicting the future?

martini

to follow up what Toto has already revealed. . .

Zech 13:2 On that day, says the Lord of hosts, I will cut off the names of the idols from the land, so that they shall be remembered no more; and also I will remove from the land the prophets and the unclean spirit. 3And if any prophets appear again, their fathers and mothers who bore them will say to them, ‘You shall not live, for you speak lies in the name of the Lord’; and their fathers and their mothers who bore them shall pierce them through when they prophesy. 4On that day the prophets will be ashamed, every one, of their visions when they prophesy; they will not put on a hairy mantle in order to deceive, 5but each of them will say, ‘I am no prophet, I am a tiller of the soil; for the land has been my possession[Heb for humankind has caused me to possess] since my youth.’ 6And if anyone asks them, ‘What are these wounds on your chest?’[Heb wounds between your hands] the answer will be ‘The wounds I received in the house of my friends.’

two obvious questions spring up: the first, these are clearly verses regarding prophets, not the Messiah. second, how could this possibly translate to a prophecy of crucifixion?

sugarhitman

That does not sound like a 'self-fulfilling prophecy' but rather a prophecy established through intentional manipulation of peoples minds to cause them to react in the desired way to bring it to fulfillment. But even for this to happen (to manipulate people to bring it about) still requires a great deal of control of the events and resistence to bring about the desired fulfillment of the prophecy. If Britain wanted such a prophecy to come true, then why did they change their minds and give 76% of the land promised to Jews to Transjordan? Why did they invent the White Paper that limited Jewish immigration to only five years giving the Arabs at the end of these years the right to decide rather to allow further Jewish immigration? Why did they resist Jewish immigration by capturing ships filled with immigrating Jews and placing them in camps surrounded by barb wire, guards and armed sentries? Why the Anti-Jewish riots in Britian during this time? Why, why why?


"Although the White Paper stated that the Balfour declaration could not be amended and that the Jews were in Palestine by right, it partitioned the area of the Mandate by excluding the area east of the Jordan river from Jewish settlement. That land 76% of the original Palestine Mandate land WAS RENAMED TRANSJORDAN and was given to the Emir Abdullah by the British."

"The White Paper included the statement that the British Government:

'....does not want palestine to become as Jewish as England is English'

...Thus the British SUBVERTED the purpose of the Palestine Mandate, partitioned Palestine and created an independent Palestine-Arab state with no regard for the rights and needs of the Jewish population." www.palestinefacts.org


There was no intention of restoring the Nation of Israel, but a homeland of Jews and Palestinians living together with the Arabs being the dominant majority. There was no plan to make Jerusalem purely Jewish, in fact Israel has been condemned by the world for annexing Jerusalem...including Britian. Israel is being PRESSURED by the U.N. to give up land won in the Arab-Israeli wars. If these forces are indeed trying to establish prophecy it is suicide because according to the texts (I have to say this now, so that I wont be accused of "preaching" ) This dividing the land of Israel unto themselves will end with their destruction:


"For behold, in those days and at that time, when I bring back the captives of Judah and JERUSALEM (Jerusalem is at the center of prophecy) I will gather all nations, and bring them down into the valley of Jehoshaphat; and I will enter into judgement with them there om account of My people, My heritage Israel, whom they have scattered among the nations; THEY HAVE ALSO DIVIDED UP MY LAND." Joel 3


Thus says the Lord God: "Because the enemy has said of you Aha! The ancient heights have become our possession therefore prophesy and say, Thus says the Lord God: "Because they made you desolate and swallowed you up on every side, so that you became the possession of the rest of the nations....Surely I have spoken in My burning jealousy against the rest of the nations and agaisnt all Edom, WHO GAVE MY LAND TO THEMSELVES AS A POSSESSION with whole hearted joy and spiteful minds, in order to plunder its open country." Ezekiel 36

So how can you say that land was given to the Jews, and that land being taken from the Jews, with people dying in the middle east and the whole world (Islamic terror, is mainly a result of the dispute over the city of Jerusalem) all scripted (I mean according to your source the scripting (manipulation) of events constitutes a 'self-fulfilling prophesy') to bring about prophesy fulfillment? Maybe there is a conspiracy to make bible prophesy come true. Extremely absurd theories.



The fact is the Nation of Israel came about in the face of much obstacles and powerful resistence. Through sweat, blood, tears and the will of God the Nation of Israel was restored because the "times of the Gentiles"....are at hand. (according to the texts ofcourse) :wave:

martini

ATTN Sugarhitman

you have failed to respond to my riposte on the last page from the 14th. i trust you did not miss it.
http://www.iidb.org/vbb/showthread.p...92#post5090392

unfortunately, you have been repeating yourself and not addressing the issues that, i now count, three different people have been pressing for you to answer.

do you need the unresolved issues of your argument presented in a concise list?

martini

ADDENDUM

i also note the interesting application of kettle logic by Sugarhitman. he says that the prophecy has come to pass because the Jews have been restored to their supposed soil in the middle east then, in the same breath, he argues against the direct intervention of Britain in giving them that land by stating that a great deal of it was dissected away. bravo!

having your cake and eating it too, Mr Sugarhitman?

spin

sugarhitman, you are peddling befuddled rubbish.

Between the lines, you seem to admit that the formation of the Zionist state was though political acts with competing political forces. That should tell you that a god did not bring Zionist Jews to Israel. It was non-religious Jews with a political agenda, prepared to do anything to have a homeland.

The state of Israel was born in terror (Lehi and Irgun) and through racial cleansing (Alexandroni Brigade, Deir Yassin, ...). It was built on lies and maintained through starting wars. Of the wars with its neighbors only one was started by Arab states and that was to try to reclaim land stolen in a previous war and never returned.

This is not to say that it is a nation of horrible people, but that politicians can get away with genocide, such as Sharon in Lebanon. Many Israelis are well aware of the reality of their political predicament. All you need do is read Haaretz regularly. Then again, many Jews, many religiously active Jews, oppose the Zionist state strenuously. (Just look at some of the links here for information about Jews against Zionism.) They see the current political state of Israel as an abomination against the will of god.

And here you are tarting this extremely imperfect state of Israel to be the restoration of god's home on earth. You must be joking.

If you want to read something serious on the subject, try

Ilan Pappé, "The Making of the Arab-Israeli Conflict (or via: amazon.co.uk)" or
Benny Morris, "Righteous Victims (or via: amazon.co.uk)"


spin

Johnny Skeptic

What restoration? If you are referring to the partition of Palestine, God promised to give Abraham and his descendants ALL of the land of ancient Canaan. Today, Jews do not occupy ALL of the ancient land of Canaan.

What evidence do you have that the partition of Palestine would not have occured without God's help? Anyone who has enough military power is able to defeat a weaker military force. The Romans certainly proved that. If the Axis Powers had won the Second World War, the partition of Palestine would not have happened.

You still haven't told us why God would want to predict the future.

sugarhitman

I very well know that the current state of Israel is corrupt. According to the texts, God will punish Israel for its sins. But Israel needs to be established as a nation first, before this can happen. Aremegeddon the punishment of all nations happens in Israel. The return of the Messiah happens in Israel. In Ezekiel 36 God makes it known that he does not restore Israel for their sakes but for His names sake which has been profaned among the nations (The belief that God is weak or does not exist because the Jews were uprooted from their land).

And furthermore I agree that some of the actions commited by Israel are not right, but I believe the Jews are acting out of paranoia, their backs are indeed against the wall. The Arabs will not be satisfied untill the Jews are driven into the sea. And the Jews have vowed that never again will they stand passively and allow themselves to be prey to a hostile world. 'Operation Samson' (the assured destruction of them along with their enemies) reflects this paranoia. :wave:

sugarhitman

I have already written about this. If my answer is not suffecient for you....TOO BAD. :wave:

spin

Point missed yet again. God did not establish the current Israel, unless you want to say that agents working for non-religious reasons were actively creating Israel and thus fulfilling the imperfect creation of the realm of god on earth. This was an act of politicians for political reasons. It was convenient to make people believe in the return as a religious event in order to manipulate them.

You talk of "the Jews" in reference to Israel. You should talk of Israelis. New York contains the second biggest Jewish population of any city in the world. As I pointed out many Jews are against the existence of the current state of Israel.

You are too busy shaping your data to look at the reality. You want a fulfillment. You create it and toady to the politicians responsible for it. Israel is not the home of the Jews, but of the Israelis. The Jews are flourishing all around the world.


spin