The 25 fulfilled prophecies of Isaiah chapter 53

[tsig]

But Isaiah's prophecies are not the only fulfilled ones in the Bible. The PHd. in astrophysics, Dr. Hugh Ross, claims about 2000 prophecies have been fulfilled. He does this in his article entitled "Fulfilled Prophecy: Evidence for the Reliability of the Bible". Here is an excerpt:

"Approximately 2500 prophecies appear in the pages of the Bible, about 2000 of which already have been fulfilled to the letter—no errors. (The remaining 500 or so reach into the future and may be seen unfolding as days go by.) Since the probability for any one of these prophecies having been fulfilled by chance averages less than one in ten (figured very conservatively) and since the prophecies are for the most part independent of one another, the odds for all these prophecies having been fulfilled by chance without error is less than one in 10{to the 2000th power} (that is 1 with 2000 zeros written after it)!"

http://www.reasons.org/fulfilled-prophecy-evidence-reliability-bible

DOC when is any of the others going to come true? Can you tell me what it is? If we have to wait till after a prophesy happens to recognize it then it isn't a prophesy.

 

[Dancing David]

Funnily enough, DOC is right. The whole of Isaiah was part of the DSS. This is not controversial.

Cool, it has been about three years since I looked at the material on line, I remember the treasure map quest.

 

[Dancing David]

Wow, that fictional prophecy could be fulfilled by so many fictional characters. Harry Potter fits nearly all 25 of the prophecies and Frodo Baggins fits many as well. Of course when both Harry and Frodo took on evil, they actually defeated it properly. Meaning, the evil was gone.

What did this Jesus guy do? We're still all born with the same original sin we've always had and Satan is still doing everything he can to keep evil alive in the world. How is this guy a better hero than either Harry or Frodo? He's more like a hall monitor than a hero, giving us a free pass through this existence, provided we pass our final exam.

Cool, I was thinking of Frodo as well, although just about any literary figure will do.

 

[Filippo Lippi]

the bolding was added for you in accordance with the italicized part.

Now, get to drinkin'

Defeated on a point of fact I decided to slink off, lick my wounds for a bit and then come back on a completely different tack (*satire*).

 

[boloboffin]

Nostradamus has a much better track record.

 

[autumn1971]

Okay, I may be new to DOC's apologetics, but how in the hell can one call prophecy that which is in the past tense? Not only is every verse of chapter 53 refering to attributes of the Jews who had maintained faith up to the point of Isaiah's writing, it is made abundantly clear that those Jews who at the time of Isaiah's writing had been faithful were the subjects of the verses in chapter 53.
Isaiah 51: 22, [this is god speaking],
. . . "Behold, I have taken from your hand the cup of staggering; the bowl of my wrath you shall drink no more. . . "

Really? After this no Jews ever faced any hardship or wrath?
Hell, even if it refers to Jesus (and it doesn't), it's still a great big lie.

 

[DOC]

Okay, I may be new to DOC's apologetics, but how in the hell can one call prophecy that which is in the past tense? Not only is every verse of chapter 53 refering to attributes of the Jews who had maintained faith up to the point of Isaiah's writing, it is made abundantly clear that those Jews who at the time of Isaiah's writing had been faithful were the subjects of the verses in chapter 53.
Isaiah 51: 22, [this is god speaking],
. . . "Behold, I have taken from your hand the cup of staggering; the bowl of my wrath you shall drink no more. . . "

Really? After this no Jews ever faced any hardship or wrath?
Hell, even if it refers to Jesus (and it doesn't), it's still a great big lie.

http://www.chaim.org/nation.htm

 

[paximperium]

http://www.chaim.org/nation.htm

Well looks like DOC has learned one important lesson: "Stop using my own arguments but rely on other people's apolegetics."

The Jews disagree:
http://www.jewfaq.org/moshiach.htm
http://jewsforjudaism.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=111&Itemid=372

Isaiah 11 is to be taken as a homogeneous unit. There is no evidence to suggest divisions within the chapter whereby some verses are fulfilled in a first coming and the rest are to be fulfilled during a second coming. There certainly is no prophecy indicating that Jesus is the Messiah.

 

[DOC]

Well looks like DOC has learned one important lesson: "Stop using my own arguments but rely on other people's apolegetics."

The Jews disagree:
http://www.jewfaq.org/moshiach.htm
http://jewsforjudaism.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=111&Itemid=372

So you can use other people's arguments but not me. And with all of these websites you bring in you sound more like a God Believing Jew than an atheist.

 

[Hokulele]

... you sound more like a God Believing Jew than an atheist.

Is that supposed to be a bad thing?

Back to the OP, how about addressing autumn1971's comment regarding the fact that a large part of Isaiah 53 is written in the past tense. How exactly is that supposed to be a prophecy?

 

[paximperium]

So you can use other people's arguments but not me.

Of course I can. The Jews wrote Isaiah after all.

And with all of these websites you bring in you sound more like a God Believing Jew than an atheist.

...you say that as if it was suppose to be an insult. Looks like the anti-semite is coming out again.

 

[catbasket]

Nostradamus has a much better track record.

Finest 100m runner of his day. Went four years without a defeat (1526-30).

 

[DOC]

Let's see if I've got this straight. You're using the gospel stories, which were written well after the fact in literary styles designed specifically to highlight the similarities to the prophecies of Isaiah, conflict with each other on several important facts, and which have no corroborating evidence, as proof that Jesus fulfilled the prophecies of Isaiah.

If Jesus was indeed the Messiah that was predicted, all one would have to do is to report what actually took place and it would appear that the story was written to show similarities to Isaiah chapter 53 and others such as Daniel chapter 7 verses. 13-14. Your post needs to assume Jesus was not the prophesied Messiah.

And I respond extensively to the off topic issues you bring up (such as the length of time after the life of Jesus the gospels were written, the evidence involved, and the divergent details in the gospels in the following thread:

http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showthread.php?t=124603

I'm not going to spend a lot of time repeating myself on those issues in this prophecy thread.

 

[Skeptic]

As a native Hebrew speaker, who happened to have read the OT and NT through, I'd like to add something.

The prophecy in Isaiah 53 say "Hineh ha'alma hara ve'yoledet ben": "behold, the young woman will conceive and bear a son". It is often said, correctly, that the word "alma" (lit. "young unmarried woman") does not necessarily mean "virgin". But that isn't nearly the only problem.

From various untranslatable grammatical and contextual reasons in the original Hebrew, it is obvious the writing could only mean "someone who is a young woman now (at the time of the prophecy, ca. 600 BC or so) will in the future have a son, which..." (etc.); much like I could point to a six-year-old and say "she will be a good mother" if I see her taking care of her younger brother.

It does NOT, and COULD NOT, mean that, hundreds of years later, there will exist someone who would still be a virgin (or unmarried, for that matter) when she has a son, any more when I look at a six-year-old and saying, "This six year old will be a good mother", I could possibly mean that, hundreds of years from now, a miraculous child will exist who would be a good mother when she's six years old.

So the whole "does Alma mean virgin, or young unmarried woman?" discussion is besides the point. The whole prophecy could only refer to someone eventually born, in the normal way, to a woman who was a young unmarried woman, or a virgin, ca. 600 BC -- NOT to someone who will give birth, when still a virgin, hundreds of years later.

The whole Isaiah 53 thing is just the usual shoe-horning of vague prophecies into later events.

 

[DOC]

Of course I can. The Jews wrote Isaiah after all.

...you say that as if it was suppose to be an insult. Looks like the anti-semite is coming out again.

Not at all, it is not an insult. I thought you were an atheist. But from the sites you bring in you make me believe you're a practicing Jew. Maybe you should clear this up since you do so much attacking in my threads -- are you a God believing Jew or an atheist or an agnostic?

 

[Hokulele]

If Jesus was indeed the Messiah that was predicted, all one would have to do is to report what actually took place and it would appear that the story was written to show similarities to Isaiah chapter 53 and others such as Daniel chapter 7 verses. 13-14. Your post needs to assume Jesus was not the prophesied Messiah.

Nope, wollery has it exactly right. It is your post that is relying on assumptions (that Jesus was a messiah). Wollery's point is valid regardless what happened back then. Yours isn't.

 

[Hokulele]

Not at all, it is not an insult. I thought you were an atheist. But from the sites you bring in you make me believe you're a practicing Jew. Maybe you should clear this up since you do so much attacking in my threads -- are you a God believing Jew or an atheist or an agnostic?

Hmm, I seem to recall on the Jefferson thread someone linking to neo-Nazi anti-Semitic garbage. I wonder if that means they are a neo-Nazi anti-Semite....

 

[paximperium]

Hmm, I seem to recall on the Jefferson thread someone linking to neo-Nazi anti-Semitic garbage. I wonder if that means they are a neo-Nazi anti-Semite....

As someone who has linked to Star Wars sites in the past, I am a Fascist anti-alien Imperial who worships the Sith...and I am a clone. All hail the Emperor.

 

[paximperium]

Not at all, it is not an insult. I thought you were an atheist. But from the sites you bring in you make me believe you're a practicing Jew. Maybe you should clear this up since you do so much attacking in my threads -- are you a God believing Jew or an atheist or an agnostic?

Humanist, Philosophical Naturalist and Empirical Monist.

 

[joobz]

I'm not going to spend a lot of time repeating myself on those issues in this prophecy thread.

Well, good.

So, again, you must answer:
WHy should we care that a series of books written ~1800 years ago claim to have fullfilled prophecies that were written ~2500 years ago?

Do you have any non-biblical textual evidence for ANY of the supposed prophecies that were fulfilled or do you simply have the stories given in the bible?