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The Incredible odds of fulfilled bible prophecy

DOC

Philosopher
D
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This PHD, astrophysicist, says the odds of all the bible prophecy that has been fulfilled occurring by chance is 1 in 100000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000...
I'll stop there but the 1 should be followed by 2000 zeros

from the article "Fulfilled Prophecy: Evidence for the reliability of the Bible: by Dr. Hugh Ross.

http://www.reasons.org/resources/apologetics/prophecy.shtml
 
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Really? Could you.....

1. Show us the math?

2. Tell us some of these fulfilled prophesies?
 
Ahh, the old 'numbers out his ass approach' ... impressive.

Tends to get easier when you can retrospectively determine what the prophecies actually said in order to fit them to events. Even then there's a bunch they just missed, Egypt is still habitable, for example.
 
Ryokan said:
Really? Could you.....

1. Show us the math?

2. Tell us some of these fulfilled prophesies?
Click to expand...

Well here are 3 out of the 13 he listed. He also said about 2000 out of 2500 have been fulfilled so far.

(1) Some time before 500 B.C. the prophet Daniel proclaimed that Israel's long-awaited Messiah would begin his public ministry 483 years after the issuing of a decree to restore and rebuild Jerusalem (Daniel 9:25-26). He further predicted that the Messiah would be "cut off," killed, and that this event would take place prior to a second destruction of Jerusalem. Abundant documentation shows that these prophecies were perfectly fulfilled in the life (and crucifixion) of Jesus Christ. The decree regarding the restoration of Jerusalem was issued by Persia's King Artaxerxes to the Hebrew priest Ezra in 458 B.C., 483 years later the ministry of Jesus Christ began in Galilee. (Remember that due to calendar changes, the date for the start of Christ's ministry is set by most historians at about 26 A.D. Also note that from 1 B.C. to 1 A.D. is just one year.) Jesus' crucifixion occurred only a few years later, and about four decades later, in 70 A.D. came the destruction of Jerusalem by Titus.

(Probability of chance fulfillment = 1 in 105.)*

(2) In approximately 700 B.C. the prophet Micah named the tiny village of Bethlehem as the birthplace of Israel's Messiah (Micah 5:2). The fulfillment of this prophecy in the birth of Christ is one of the most widely known and widely celebrated facts in history.

(Probability of chance fulfillment = 1 in 105.)

(3) In the fifth century B.C. a prophet named Zechariah declared that the Messiah would be betrayed for the price of a slave—thirty pieces of silver, according to Jewish law-and also that this money would be used to buy a burial ground for Jerusalem's poor foreigners (Zechariah 11:12-13). Bible writers and secular historians both record thirty pieces of silver as the sum paid to Judas Iscariot for betraying Jesus, and they indicate that the money went to purchase a "potter's field," used—just as predicted—for the burial of poor aliens (Matthew 27:3-10).

(Probability of chance fulfillment = 1 in 1011.)

http://www.reasons.org/resources/apologetics/prophecy.shtml
 
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DOC said:
This PHD, astrophysicist, says the odds of all the bible prophecy that has been fulfilled occurring by chance is 1 in 100000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000...
I'll stop there but the 1 should be followed by 2000 zeros

from the article "Fulfilled Prophecy: Evidence for the reliability of the Bible: by Dr. Hugh Ross.

http://www.reasons.org/resources/apologetics/prophecy.shtml
Click to expand...

Wow, an argument from authority, I haven't seen that in at least 10 minutes. Well gollie gee willkers, if he has PhD, he MUST know what he is talking about. :rolleyes:

Can you name a single prophecy that meets the following criteria:

1) Specific as to person(s) name or date or place AND that detailed a specific event (not just some general fire and brimstone, but specific acts that were to take place) i.e. a crazed preacher will storm harpers ferry, two airplanes will hit large building in the new world commandeered by infidels, etc. (you get the idea)

2) The prophecy was unequivocally made BEFORE the supposed events occurred

3) The events were reliably recorded outside the Bible, for verification purposes?

4) The events were not part of an deliberate effort on the part of those involved to make the prophecy come true? (i.e. the Jews rebuilding the temple)


I'm not aware of any, but post your evidence and I'll look. (please note that all supposed prophecies about Jesus fail one or more of these criteria, as do most prophecies in the OT because they are too vague or cannot be reliably dated)

ETA: just saw your other post, will evaluate and respond
 
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quixotecoyote said:
Ahh, the old 'numbers out his ass approach' ... impressive.

Tends to get easier when you can retrospectively determine what the prophecies actually said in order to fit them to events. Even then there's a bunch they just missed, Egypt is still habitable, for example.
Click to expand...
Exactly. Even Nostradamus gets a good hit rate when some of his predictions are favourably interpreted after the event, but I didn't see anything about "Nostradamus predicts 9/11" before the event. And only one false prediction would make the "infallible" bible rather less so....
 
lionking said:
Exactly. Even Nostradamus gets a good hit rate when some of his predictions are favourably interpreted after the event, but I didn't see anything about "Nostradamus predicts 9/11" before the event. And only one false prediction would make the "infallible" bible rather less so....
Click to expand...

Actually Dr. Ross does state that God is not the only one who uses prophecy:

from the "Fulfilled Prophecy" article mentioned earlier:

"God is not the only one, however, who uses forecasts of future events to get people's attention. Satan does, too. Through clairvoyants (such as Jeanne Dixon and Edgar Cayce), mediums, spiritists, and others, come remarkable predictions, though rarely with more than about 60 percent accuracy, never with total accuracy. Messages from Satan, furthermore, fail to match the detail of Bible prophecies, nor do they include a call to repentance."

http://www.reasons.org/resources/apologetics/prophecy.shtml
 
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DOC said:
(2) In approximately 700 B.C. the prophet Micah named the tiny village of Bethlehem as the birthplace of Israel's Messiah (Micah 5:2). The fulfillment of this prophecy in the birth of Christ is one of the most widely known and widely celebrated facts in history.

(Probability of chance fulfillment = 1 in 105.)
Click to expand...

Sorry, this doesn't count. There is no independent evidence that Jesus was born in Bethlehem. By independent, I mean extra biblical. Since neither the author of Mark nor Paul, the earliest chroniclers, reports the birthplace of Jesus, it is just as likely, if not more likely, that the later stories were made to conform to the prediction.


DOC said:
(3) In the fifth century B.C. a prophet named Zechariah declared that the Messiah would be betrayed for the price of a slave—thirty pieces of silver, according to Jewish law-and also that this money would be used to buy a burial ground for Jerusalem's poor foreigners (Zechariah 11:12-13). Bible writers and secular historians both record thirty pieces of silver as the sum paid to Judas Iscariot for betraying Jesus, and they indicate that the money went to purchase a "potter's field," used—just as predicted—for the burial of poor aliens (Matthew 27:3-10).
Click to expand...

Sorry, this also doesn't count. Same argument as above.

This argument basically amounts to saying "if you believe everything written in the Bible, its AMAZING the prophecies that it has!" Well, that's a very mountainous "if". You have to first show that the stories relating to Jesus are historically reliable, which has not and likely never will be done absent an archeological find of epic proportions.

This is just typical apologist two-step.
 
There's a 1 in Pi chance that those numbers are completely made up.
 
DOC said:
Here is a site that lists 60 of the prophecies that have been fulfilled:

http://groups.google.com/group/alt....read/thread/daa80613c57d4004/6961bccbd43f70aa
Click to expand...


No point in reading this is its similar to what you've already posted. I can write a prophecy today, and write something next week to say its fulfilled. Without corroboration from another source, why would anyone think that counts as a fulfilled prophecy?

You have to first have good evidence that the prophecy was fulfilled, and the NT stories just don't cut it as historically reliable.
 
I see:
Bible makes prediction
Bible says prediction was fullfilled
No outside source exists verifying the fullfillment of prediction.

This happens a bunch of times in the bible.

So Jesus is the son of god?

There's a lot of predictions made in the Lord of the Rings that came true in the Lord of the Rings, Does that make the Lord of the Rings real?
 
DOC said:
Through clairvoyants (such as Jeanne Dixon and Edgar Cayce), mediums, spiritists, and others, come remarkable predictions, though rarely with more than about 60 percent accuracy, never with total accuracy.
Click to expand...


Jean Dixon couldn't do better than 60%?!? Oh God! What next?!? :eek:
 
skeptical said:
Sorry, this doesn't count. There is no independent evidence that Jesus was born in Bethlehem. By independent, I mean extra biblical. Since neither the author of Mark nor Paul, the earliest chroniclers, reports the birthplace of Jesus, it is just as likely, if not more likely, that the later stories were made to conform to the prediction.
Click to expand...

Actually Luke (the physician), who many say was a first rate historian and was highly detailed about events and places, wrote the reason that Mary and Joseph went to Bethlehem was because Caesar Augustus sent out a decree that the world should be taxed. And since Joseph was from the house of David, which was from Bethlehem. Joseph and his family went to Bethlehem.

And if the stories were made up you'd think that the four gospel writers would correlate their stories exactly. But the fact that their are some minor inconsistencies in their stories shows that they were written independent of each other.

Also if someone is dishonest enough to make stuff up could they really come up with the incredible wisdom and ethics of Christ that even Thomas Jefferson and Ben Franklin basically said was the finest that ever existed and as Franklin said will probably ever exist.
 
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DOC said:
Actually Luke (the physician), who many say was a first rate historian and was highly detailed about events and places, wrote the reason that Mary and Joseph went to Bethlehem was because Caesar Augustus sent out a decree that the world should be taxed. And since Joseph was from the house of David, which was from Bethlehem. Joseph and his family went to Bethlehem.

And if the stories were made up you'd think that the four gospel writers would correlate their stories exactly. But the fact that their are some minor inconsistencies in their stories shows that they were written independent of each other.

Also if someone is dishonest enough to make stuff up could they really come up with the incredible wisdom and ethics of Christ that even Thomas Jefferson and Ben Franklin basically said was the finest that ever existed and as Franklin said will probably ever exist.
Click to expand...

Funny you'd bring up that census since such an event had never happened that way before in roman history and there is no extra-biblical record of it ever happening at all...
 
DOC said:
(3) In the fifth century B.C. a prophet named Zechariah declared that the Messiah would be betrayed for the price of a slave—thirty pieces of silver, according to Jewish law-and also that this money would be used to buy a burial ground for Jerusalem's poor foreigners (Zechariah 11:12-13). Bible writers and secular historians both record thirty pieces of silver as the sum paid to Judas Iscariot for betraying Jesus, and they indicate that the money went to purchase a "potter's field," used—just as predicted—for the burial of poor aliens (Matthew 27:3-10).

(Probability of chance fulfillment = 1 in 1011.)
Click to expand...

Well, here is the passage from Zechariah ...

Zechariah 11 (NRSV)
12 I then said to them, “If it seems right to you, give me my wages; but if not, keep them.” So they weighed out as my wages thirty shekels of silver.
13 Then the Lord said to me, “Throw it into the treasury” —this lordly price at which I was valued by them. So I took the thirty shekels of silver and threw them into the treasury in the house of the Lord.​

It doesn't even sound like a prophecy. But I think that this verse is nontheless where the NT "thirty pieces of silver" tidbit comes from. It is only that apologists have it backwards. ;)

Probability of fulfilled prophecy: 0
 
DOC said:
And if the stories were made up you'd think that the four gospel writers would correlate their stories exactly. But the fact that their are some minor inconsistencies in their stories shows that they were written independent of each other.
Click to expand...

And if the bible were the inerrant word of god then he'd have told all the authors to write the same thing. So the fact that there are any inconsistencies shows that either god wasn't involved, or god is unable to communicate well with his subordinates, or god just can't keep his stories straight.
 
quixotecoyote said:
Funny you'd bring up that census since such an event had never happened that way before in roman history and there is no extra-biblical record of it ever happening at all...
Click to expand...

Not to mention how incredibly stupid it would be to require all those people to travel to the place of their birth to take a census. "Hey, let's make everybody in the Empire travel by foot and donkey back to where they were born to take a census. That way we'll know where they were born and we can use the census numbers to make plans that ignore where they live now. Really, it'll be lots of fun for them and think of the disruption it'll cause in everyone's lives".
 
DOC said:
Actually Luke (the physician), who many say was a first rate historian
Click to expand...
Who says this? THomas Arnold?


DOC said:
And if the stories were made up you'd think that the four gospel writers would correlate their stories exactly. But the fact that their are some minor inconsistencies in their stories shows that they were written independent of each other.
Click to expand...
the bible is true because it's self contradictory? Wow, that one is new to me.



DOC said:
Also if someone is dishonest enough to make stuff up could they really come up with the incredible wisdom and ethics of Christ that even Thomas Jefferson and Ben Franklin basically said was the finest that ever existed and as Franklin said will probably ever exist.
Click to expand...
Why would it be the same person?

Like it was mentioned in another thread. You would agree that George washington was a great man, who did many great things...

But does that mean the story of the cherry tree is true?
 
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