The Incredible odds of fulfilled bible prophecy

[dafydd]

Doc will do anything rather than talk about failed bible prophecies.



Isaiah 17:1

"An oracle concerning Damascus: See, Damascus will no longer be a city but will become a heap of ruins."

Damascus is still there.

Isaiah 19:4-5

"I will hand the Egyptians over to the power of a cruel master, and a fierce king will rule over them, declares the Lord, the LORD Almighty. The waters of the river will dry up, and the riverbed will be parched and dry."

The Nile has ever dried up



Isaiah 52:1

"Awake, awake, O Zion, clothe yourself with strength. Put on your garments of splendor, O Jerusalem, the holy city. The uncircumcised and defiled will not enter you again."

No willy checks at the airport

Ezekiel 29:10-11


"therefore I am against you and against your streams,and I will make the land of Egypt a ruin and a desolate waste from Migdol to Aswan, as far as the border of Cush. The foot of neither man nor beast will pass through it; no one will live there for forty years."

Egypt has never been uninhabited



6 .Matthew 16:28, Matthew 23:36, Matthew 24:34

16:28

"I tell you the truth, some who are standing here will not taste death before they see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom."

23:36

"I tell you the truth, all this will come upon this generation."

24:34

"I tell you the truth, this generation will certainly not pass away until all these things have happened."


2000 years. He's a bit late



Genesis 26:4 And I will make thy seed to multiply as the stars of heaven, and will give unto thy seed all these countries; and in thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed.

There should be billions of Jewish people.




Isaiah 19:18 In that day shall five cities in the land of Egypt speak the language of Canaan, and swear to the LORD of hosts; one shall be called, The city of destruction.

The Canaanite language has never been spoken in Egypt, and is now extinct.



Care to comment, Doc?

 

[zooterkin]

Is there some religious issue here about the seals? What does it have to do with any matter ventilated in this thread whether Caesar signed documents with pen and ink, or whether he dripped blobs of wax on them? Why should this initiate an argument, "real" or otherwise?

It's just a supposed 'gotcha' that a fundamentalist website came up with that DOC latched onto. Faced with the lack of evidence for the existence of Jesus (let alone for any of the tall tales associated with him) they respond by attempting to cast doubt on the existence of real historical figures by saying that we don't, for example, have a single example of Julius Caesar's signature, or a contemporary account of Alexander the Great. I suppose it works with people who are ignorant of what evidence is available.

It isn't, of course, a bad idea to examine what evidence we do have for any historical figure. When we do that, the lack of any for a historical Jesus becomes even clearer, so the tactic backfires if it does prompt people to do some research.

 

[Craig B]

It's just a supposed 'gotcha' that a fundamentalist website came up with that DOC latched onto.

Yes, I inferred that he had been reading these things, as regards Alexander, about whom they spout balderdash. For how many ancient Roman or Greek rulers do we have personally signed or sealed documents, I wonder. Surely none or almost none, because of the fragility of the writing medium employed in Graeco-Roman culture. So perhaps none of these people existed.

It is not surprising that surviving original notices of Alexander are found in Greek public inscriptions engraved on stone (never signed or sealed, of course!) or Mesopotamian cuneiform tablets made of clay. These were preserved rather than destroyed when the archives they were stored in were burned, which sooner or later was their inevitable fate.

 

[Akhenaten]

Is there some religious issue here about the seals? What does it have to do with any matter ventilated in this thread whether Caesar signed documents with pen and ink, or whether he dripped blobs of wax on them? Why should this initiate an argument, "real" or otherwise?

It goes way back to someone pointing out to DOC, years ago, that "Nobody knows who wrote the gospels . . . it's not as if the authors signed them or anything." and him taking that as carte blanche to assert that if we could repudiate the gospels in that way then he could repudiate the whole rest of history on the same basis.

I'll find some links. It's far too bizarre a tale for me to reasonably expect you to take my word for it.


ETA:

+ What zooterkin said. It really is a long and convoluted story.

 

[Leumas]

Doc will do anything rather than talk about failed bible prophecies.



Isaiah 17:1

"An oracle concerning Damascus: See, Damascus will no longer be a city but will become a heap of ruins."

Damascus is still there.

Isaiah 19:4-5

"I will hand the Egyptians over to the power of a cruel master, and a fierce king will rule over them, declares the Lord, the LORD Almighty. The waters of the river will dry up, and the riverbed will be parched and dry."

The Nile has ever dried up



Isaiah 52:1

"Awake, awake, O Zion, clothe yourself with strength. Put on your garments of splendor, O Jerusalem, the holy city. The uncircumcised and defiled will not enter you again."

No willy checks at the airport

Ezekiel 29:10-11


"therefore I am against you and against your streams,and I will make the land of Egypt a ruin and a desolate waste from Migdol to Aswan, as far as the border of Cush. The foot of neither man nor beast will pass through it; no one will live there for forty years."

Egypt has never been uninhabited



6 .Matthew 16:28, Matthew 23:36, Matthew 24:34

16:28

"I tell you the truth, some who are standing here will not taste death before they see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom."

23:36

"I tell you the truth, all this will come upon this generation."

24:34

"I tell you the truth, this generation will certainly not pass away until all these things have happened."


2000 years. He's a bit late



Genesis 26:4 And I will make thy seed to multiply as the stars of heaven, and will give unto thy seed all these countries; and in thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed.

There should be billions of Jewish people.




Isaiah 19:18 In that day shall five cities in the land of Egypt speak the language of Canaan, and swear to the LORD of hosts; one shall be called, The city of destruction.

The Canaanite language has never been spoken in Egypt, and is now extinct.



Care to comment, Doc?

His response is of course.... they are metaphors....or the original Hebrew and Greek did not say that..... or they are STILL to be fulfilled...or blah blah blah

Anything but admitting that it is all nothing more than utter rubbish because if he admits that, his head will explode from the ache he will have due to Cognitive Dissonance and the realization that he has been living a LIE all his life.

 

[catsmate]

Is there some religious issue here about the seals? What does it have to do with any matter ventilated in this thread whether Caesar signed documents with pen and ink, or whether he dripped blobs of wax on them? Why should this initiate an argument, "real" or otherwise?

DOC has repeatedly brought up the lack of documents bearing Caesar's signature as some sort of "evidence" that Jesus was real; he's be told, at some length, about Roman practices for sealing/authenticating documents but ignores this material.
Apparently, to DOC, the lack of Caesar's signature on documents is comparable (somehow) to utter lack of extra-biblical evidence for Jesus and thus <insert tortured "logical" process here> god is real.
It's DOC's lack of valid evidence for, well all of his xian beliefs that necessitates him to resort to this silliness.

 

[zooterkin]

It goes way back to someone pointing out to DOC, years ago, that "Nobody knows who wrote the gospels . . . it's not as if the authors signed them or anything." and him taking that as carte blanche to assert that if we could repudiate the gospels in that way then he could repudiate the whole rest of history on the same basis.

I'll find some links. It's far too bizarre a tale for me to reasonably expect you to take my word for it.


ETA:

+ What zooterkin said. It really is a long and convoluted story.

You're right, I'd forgotten what triggered it. Here's the first mention. I may be doing him a disservice, but I find it hard to believe it was an original thought; I can't remember now if someone did track it down to an apologetics site.

 

[Leumas]

You're right, I'd forgotten what triggered it. Here's the first mention. I may be doing him a disservice, but I find it hard to believe it was an original thought; I can't remember now if someone did track it down to an apologetics site.

If you have read enough apologist books and especially the modern American ones you would see that NOTHING DOC says is original. He says nothing but regurgitated casuistics he read somewhere most likely umpteenth hand.

 

[Cactus Wren]

DOC:

As both Akhenaten and Craig B have pointed out coins minted during their lives, as well as inscriptions from their time, attest to the existence of many people who lived in ancient times. This is true not only of Alexander the Great, but of Antiochus Epiphanes, Cleopatra and many Roman emperors. In the case of the latter, we have particularly good documentation, because the Romans were into a non-idealized realism. Thus we can tell from the profile on a coin bearing the image of Nero that he had a double chin. We also have busts of the emperors, also rendered with unflattering realism. Julius Caesar had a receding hairline, rather pinched features and grim set to his mouth. We also know he was clean shaven. In contrast, Marcus Aurelius had a full beard. Like Nero, both Vespasian and Titus had double chins. However, while they looked stout but firm, like a pair of fire plugs, Nero's features look flabby.

In contrast, we have no idea what Jesus looked like. Early Roman representations of him show him as beardless. Yet, as a first century Jew, he probably had a full beard. The tall, thin, austere looking Jesus of later Catholic representations and the Protestant Jesus with light brown hair are images of convention. We have no idea is he was tall, short, thin, fat or medium in build and height.

Although, I'd say it would be a safe bet that if he did exist, he'd look far more like Yassir Arafat than Brad Pitt.

An attempt at re-creating the face of Jesus

The article about how it was done

From the first time Christian children settle into Sunday school classrooms, an image of Jesus Christ is etched into their minds. In North America he is most often depicted as being taller than his disciples, lean, with long, flowing, light brown hair, fair skin and light-colored eyes. Familiar though this image may be, it is inherently flawed. A person with these features and physical bearing would have looked very different from everyone else in the region where Jesus lived and ministered. Surely the authors of the Bible would have mentioned so stark a contrast. On the contrary, according to the Gospel of Matthew, when Jesus was arrested in the garden of Gethsemane before the Crucifixion, Judas Iscariot had to indicate to the soldiers whom Jesus was because they could not tell him apart from his disciples....

 

[Filippo Lippi]

Doc and honesty are still strangers, I see.

(This post has been brought to you by Red Flag Industries)

 

[DOC]

So you do believe that Alexander {the Great} existed then?

Well if we just go with the fact that there is no contemporary written evidence about him an argument could be made by some against it.

 

[Akhenaten]

So you do believe that Alexander {the Great} existed then?

Well if we just go with the fact that there is no contemporary written evidence about him an argument could be made by some against it.

Do you believe that Alexander the Great existed?

□ Yes
□ No​

 

[DOC]

Have you ever bothered to actually read The Life and Morals of Jesus of Nazareth?

Yes, I have read some of it. Each verse in the book is translated into 4 languages.

 

[Akhenaten]

Have you ever bothered to actually read The Life and Morals of Jesus of Nazareth?

Yes, I have read some of it.

Then you must have noticed that your hero saw fit to exclude all the supernatural bits of the gospels.

Why do you think he did this?

Each verse in the book is translated into 4 languages.

The Harry Potter story has been translated into 67 languages.

Your point?

 

[joobz]

Well if we just go with the fact that there is no contemporary written evidence about him an argument could be made by some against it.

So Alexander the great is the son of God?

 

[dafydd]

Yes, I have read some of it. Each verse in the book is translated into 4 languages.

What about the failed prophecies?

 

[amb]

The Jews are still waiting for their promised messiah DOC in case you hadn't heard.

 

[zooterkin]

Well if we just go with the fact that there is no contemporary written evidence about him an argument could be made by some against it.

Why would we go with something that's already been shown to be incorrect? There is written contemporary evidence. The web page you were referred to a while back says:

The primary sources written by people who actually knew Alexander or who gathered information from men who served with Alexander, are all lost, apart from a few inscriptions and fragments.

(My bolding.) A few != no.

 

[pakeha]

But Alexander's words never motivated someone like Thomas Jefferson to publish a 60+ page book on the words and teachings of Alexander (or Julius Caesar who was also considered a god by many). Jefferson did publish such a book on Jesus Christ and translated it into 4 languages himself. He described the teachings of Jesus as the greatest morality he has ever read thus higher than Aristotle, Plato, and Socrates, whom Jefferson also read (probably in Greek). Yes, he was not a true Christian in that age of Deism but he held the morality of Jesus higher than anyone else he read.

Definitely a bot.
There's no doubt in my mind now.
Only a bot would repeat this utterly insane reasoning as the DOCbot has done so many times.

 

[ddt]

Well if we just go with the fact that there is no contemporary written evidence about him an argument could be made by some against it.

Huh? What about the Babylonian astronomical diaries?