Xman

I hope nobody minds, but I'd like to respond to the original topic of this thread: The biggest problem with this argument is that its first premise is false, or at least the application of that premise in this argument. In point of fact, the Bible does not "clearly" state that all prophecies made by true prophets come to pass as stated. The false premise is drawn from Deuteronomy 18:17-22:

This passage has often wrongly been used to "prove" that true prophecy always comes to pass as stated -- both Christians and non-Christians commit this error. The literary and religious contexts, however, do not favor this interpretation. The point of this test for true prophets was not originally to test all prophets, but rather to identify those who falsely claimed to be the prophet who would replace Moses. If a prophet claimed to be Moses' successor, and if his prophecies did not pass the test, then that prophet was not Moses' successor. Of course, this principle has broader application in a general sense, but not as strictly as it might at first appear. The Bible even presents an instance of a true prophet intentionally giving false prophecy and of God himself inspiring false prophecy (1Ki 22)!

The "test" itself is not as strict as Butters and nearly the entire Christian community have made it out to be. Rather, the religious assumption was that all prophecy was grounded in God's covenant relationship with his people, and that the blessings and curses of that relationship -- including those offered or threatened in prophecy -- were fundamentally conditional (c.f. Lev. 26 for the conditionality of covenant blessings and curses).

Elsewhere the Bible explains very carefully that God may change his mind about the way he brings prophecy to pass, so that it may not play out as originally "predicted" ("offered" and "threatened" are better words in almost every case). For example, in Jeremiah 18 God explains the way covenant prophecy works, and he does so precisely because his people have forgotten that it is conditional (cf. Jer 7:3ff.). There he states that he can change his mind if he wants to, especially if the people change their ways:

This principle can be seen in practice throughout the Bible. Since it was assumed by Moses and his audience (the most important ideas are often assumed and not stated explicitly because they are so basic to the original context), the broader application of Deuteronomy 18 out to be understood as to mean that if a prophet's words do not come to pass as stated, and if nothing has transpired that would lead God to change his mind, then that prophet ought to be understood to be speaking falsely. To see this in action, the story of the repentance of Nineveh in Jonah 3 is a good place to look (the "Who knows what God will do"? idea).

Clutch

Xman,

So the OT says (1) that the test for whether a prophecy is really in the name of Yahweh is whether it comes true, and that a prophet who gives a prophecy that does not come true is therefore speaking presumptuously, and must die; and (2) that sometimes a prophet really does speak on behalf of Yahweh even though the prophecy does not come true.

Er... yes, that's much better. I see how that totally resolves the problem.

Xman

Sarcasm aside, yes, it does resolve the problem. It is not as simplistic as some might like, but it is the consistent view of the Bible. In the Bible, false prophets are not easy to determine. The easiest way is when they prophesy in the name of a false god. When they prophesy in the name of Yahwheh, it is harder to tell whether they are true or false. In fact, it is so difficult that Scripture presents no cases where the reader is left to determine this for himself (so far as I can recall).

Again, I would also stress that in the original context of Deuteronomy, the principle of discovering a false prophet was to be applied to a very specific circumstance, namely the replacement of Moses. All other texts in the Bible that I can think of that weed out false prophets do so on the basis of their idolatries or their practices, not on the basis of their predictions coming to pass or not. Even in the Deuteronomy passage the emphasis is on forbidden practices (read the verses before those I quoted). The caution here is that we not pass judgment on a prophet too quickly, and certainly not solely by judging their actions against the extended application of a single passage -- especially when the vast majority of biblical texts teach that prophecy is fundamentall conditional.

Butters

Originaly posted by X-Man,

Perfect! All prophecies will come true unless God changes his mind. Now you have a 100% chance of being correct!

Let's see, I'm supposed to believe that a man was born of a Virgin. Why? It was prophesied. Well, let's see the prophecy. It dosen't say squat about a virgin birth, or allude to the time of Christ, or discribe the child as Christ at all. It is a prophecy made to a King sevenhundred years before, as a sign of his impending victory, which fails to come to pass.

WTF?

I mean, I'm allways left speechless at the sheer gall of this position!

Who told Matthew (whoever he might have been) that this was a prophecy of Christ's virgin birth?
The Jew's sure didn't, they don't believe it, and they WROTE it!

Even if someone could be gulliable enough to believe that this is a "dual" prophecy, then surely it failed, in both time frames or it wouldn't be "dual".

And back to this nonsense,

Despite the problem of not being able to determine who was and was not a prophet, it get's worse.

How could God send a prophecy that dosen't come to pass? God is All knowing, remember? He knows ahead of time if a person, nation, or whatever, will or will not obey his voice. If God is the one stating what will come to pass, then it WILL come to pass, now if it's just a man makeing it up as he goes along, well it might NOT come to pass.

I love Jonah, nothing happened to the Ninevites, so the prophecy must have come true!
I notice that Jonah did not tell the Ninevites that they could avoid their destrution, it was the King who made the attempt at rescuing his people. Why didn't Jonah tell them this? Why didn't God send the message, "do this or in forty days you will be destroyed"?
And the best part of all, Jonah is MAD that God didn't fufill his prophecy, he would have rathered hundreds of thousands of people died.

Of course, after being thrown off a ship in a storm, being swallowed by a fish for three days, then left stranded in Nineveh, as a laughing stock, he probably thought he should at least have gotten a show for his trouble.

Xman

Isaiah 7:14 is not a prophecy about Jesus. Matthew raises the point of that text not to say that Jesus was virgin born as predicted. In fact, in Isaiah 7:14 the prophecy is not that the virgin/maid/young woman will be with child -- that is just the sign that the prophecy is true. The prophecy is the destruction of Pekah and Rezin.

Matthew is stating that Jesus "fulfills" the prophecy of Pekah and Rezin's destruction, and he does so on the basis of typology, not of specific fulfillment to the original prediction. Jesus is the "ultimate" fulfillment of the Isaiah 7 prophecy because he is "God with us" (i.e. the warrior king who leads his people into battle). But he saves them even more fully -- he saves them from their sin, not just from Pekah and Rezin. In short, Matthew is not using "fulfill" in the way you think he is. That Jesus is actually born of a virgin is simply offered as confirmation of the prophecy through the typological repetition of the sign.

Moreover, as I implied in my earlier post, prophecy was not given as a revelation of what would come to pass, but as a motivation to influence the behavior of those who received it (much as the law threatens punishment against those who violate it). In the case of prophecies of doom, God wanted the people to change their behavior and thus avoid the threatened curses (cf. Joel 2:14). A prophecy does not "fail" because its judgments do not come to pass. Rather, a prophecy of doom accomplishes its purpose if the people repent and judgment is avoided. To conceive of prophecy as fundamentally predictive is to misjudge it completely.

Clutch

Specimen A:
Specimen B:
Life of Brian aside: Or rather, it's meant to apply to all manufacturers of dairy products...

So where does this leave us?
That's where it leaves us. God changes his mind sometimes -- that's what explains things! Oops, except he doesn't actually; he just pretends to, because... umm...

And the shell game continues!

Xman

No shell game. In his normal providential dealings with creation, God really does change his mind. There are many passages in Scripture that bear this out. Time and again the Bible says that God "repented," "relented," "thought better of it," etc. He is immutable in his eternal decrees and character, and he won't change his when he promises/covenants. But this is a far cry from saying that he is static or immovable.

Mageth

Is it just me, or don't I recall a number of prophecies in the bible that are not "conditional" prophecies?

Xman

There are a scant few that are guaranteed to be fulfilled as stated, namely those assured by promises/oaths/covenants. But even these are not really "unconditional" in the normal sense of the word. Rather, their conditions are guaranteed to be fulfilled (the covenant promises).

For example, in the often so-called "unconditional" promises made to David, the davidides who rebelled against God fell under covenant curses and did not receive the "unconditional" blessings. Ultimately, Jesus keeps the terms of the Davidic covenant (i.e. fulfills the conditions) and receives its blessings. Not until the conditions are met by Jesus are the blessings doled out. So, we might call the blessings unconditional in the sense that they would eventually come to pass without fail. But I think this is misleading in some ways since they do not come to pass until Jesus fulfills the conditions, and since the fulfillments are given in reward for Jesus' obedience.

Most prophecies in the Bible are unqualified. The error of most theologians is to assume that these are unconditional because no explicit conditions are mentioned. The Bible teaches the opposite: prophecies are assumed to be conditional (cf. Jer 18).

David Conklin

That was a good one!

Did you see how one of the gods of Ninveh was half-man and half-fish?

It is thought that after Jonah got dumped overboard the sailors went to Nineveh and told them Jonah was coming. So, given the above ab't one of their gods you can imagine the effect of Jonah showing up!