lpetrich

First, it's hard for me to compete with Apikorus's excellent discussion. Although I have some criticism of some details:

Genocide was not the only way for an ethnic group to disappear; they often disappeared as a result of assimilation. Some people would adopt the customs and the languages of their conquerors, and become indistinguishable from those conquerors' other subjects.

Thus, the Lost Ten Tribes of Israel, deported by the Assyrians, had most likely suffered that fate. However, such dull reality has not kept later generations of mythmakers from imagining them alive and well somwhere.

Hilkiah's "find" can be compared to President Bush finding in a White House basement an "original" copy of the US Constitution that contains ballot-counting rules that are very convenient for him.

As to Eliezer ben Yehuda, he seems to have become a victim of founder-figure mythmaking. However, he was a big supporter of and propagandist for Hebrew as an everyday language.

[ December 25, 2001: Message edited by: lpetrich ]</p>

davidH

Single Dad. I disagree with what you said.

Prophecies don't have to be forfilled supernaturally to be prophecies. On what grounds do you base this?

The dictionary defines prophecy as

"to predict". or to fortell.

Therefore whether the prophecy is fufilled naturally or supernaturally makes no difference.
But the fact that the prophecies have come true as the Bible said prove the existance of God.

Biblical prophecies aren't vague infact they contain many prophecies that no other book would contain because of the risk of them not becoming true.

Prophecy is God's self-authentication.
Think about it, the ablitiy to accurately fortell events would require 2 things:

1.The power to cause history to unfold in a certain way.
2.The ability to step outside the constraints of time.

Either of these would indicate an omnipotent, eternal being.

Have to head on now but I'll write a lot more on this subject. I will go though prophecies that couldn't have been known by the people who prophecied them. The prophecies about Jesus and the prophecies about the end times.

lpetrich

As to prophecy-testing, we have to include falsifiability; too many prophets try to make their prophecies confirmable by making them difficult to falsify. One common way is to make them ambiguous enough so that practically anything can be claimed as fulfillment.

Some fields of mainstream science can be interpreted as prophecy-making; thus celestial mechanics can be interpreted as issuing prophecies of the positions of celestial objects.

However, the success of celestial mechanics is a result of celestial-mechanics predictions being readily falsifiable. For example, the timing and visibility of eclipses can be very precisely predicted. It was discovered in recent centuries, however, that the predictions of some ancient eclipses were somewhat off, which has led to additional hypotheses: that the Earth is spinning down and that the Moon is spiraling away. With the precise measurements of recent centuries, these hypotheses could be precisely tested, and they have passed with flying colors.

Likewise, predicted positions of Uranus were discovered to be somewhat off in the 19th cy.; the errors in those positions fit a pattern that was interpreted as the result of an unknown planet's gravity -- an unknown planet which was discovered in the position that it was predicted to have.

My patience ends here

Liquidrage

But the fact that the prophecies have come true as the Bible said prove the existance of God.

Biblical prophecies aren't vague infact they contain many prophecies that no other book would contain because of the risk of them not becoming true.

Woah! Slow down there a sec.

I state that they have not come true and that their predictions are neither bold nor divine.
Furthermore I state this with just as much evidence and right as you presented.

The prophecies about Jesus and the prophecies about the end times
You realize unless you prove that Jesus was the son of god that you would be wasting your time?

Good luck young Skywalker.

[ December 25, 2001: Message edited by: Liquidrage ]</p>

-DB-

firstly, what are your sources, other than the Bible, that (1) these prophecies were actually made, before the event and (2) that the event actually occurred?

secondly, wouldn't having the power to cause history to unfold take away the free will which man is said to have? i dont see how a prophecy can work if man has free will, but I am willing to try to understand.

David

lpetrich

davidH:

Prophecy is God's self-authentication.
Think about it, the ablitiy to accurately fortell events would require 2 things:

1.The power to cause history to unfold in a certain way.
2.The ability to step outside the constraints of time.

Either of these would indicate an omnipotent, eternal being.

LP:
Pure non sequitur. One can make prophecies by looking for regularities, and then extrapolating from what regularities that one finds. If the regularities continue to hold, then the prophecies will be fulfilled.

Which is why scientists have often been very successful prophets.

not a theist

This will not be the last post in this thread.

[ December 25, 2001: Message edited by: not a theist ]</p>

not a theist

Wow!!!
I think I just prophesied. Does that mean that I have
?

Anyone reading davidH's post will see that that is the claim that he seems to have just made about me.

Apikorus

To those who believe that the Bible contains explicit or encoded knowledge of the future, I have one request: Make a prediction. Tell us, based on the Divine Word, something unexpected that will happen in 2002.

Howard

I can do that. I predict that in the year 2002 there will be wars and rumors of war; there will be fires, floods and storms; there will be earthquakes and volcanoes, there will famine, plagues and pestilence; there will be hardship and there will be suffering; and there will be millions of people who rush to their Bibles and say: Thus it was predicted in the Book of ___.

ALL Bible “prophecy” is after-the-fact.