joobz
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fair enough.
The Incredible odds of fulfilled bible prophecy
- Thread starter DOC
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fair enough.
TimCallahan
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We seem to have gotten off the topic of the incredible odds of fulfilled prophecy, probably because we've proven all the prophecies to which both DOC and Dr. Hugh Ross have referred false and unfulfilled. To be specific, some of the big ones are as follows:
1) The prophecy in Nahum states that the river gates of Nineveh would be swept away. In fact, archaeology tells us that the assault on Nineveh broke in through the Halzi Gate, one of the few not on a river.
2) Prophecies made by a number of prophets that Babylon would be violently destroyed by the Medes and Persians. In fact, the Cyrus Cylinder states that Babylon surrendered peacefully to the Cyrus the Great of Persia and was spared any destruction.
3) The prophecy by Ezekiel that Nebuchadnezzar would destroy the city of Tyre. Nebuchadnezzar never did take the island city of Tyre. That was done by Alexander the Great.
4) The prophecy by Ezekiel that Nebuchadnezzar would invade and devastate Egypt, putting an end to its wealth, filling the land with the dead and destroying, among others the city of Thebes. The prophecy also stated that there wold no longer be a prince in Egypt. None of this happened.
5) The prophecy in Micah 5:2 that the Messiah would be born in Bethlehem. If this prophecy is applied to Jesus, the problems are that: Mark doesn't mention anything about the birth of Jesus; though Matthew and Luke both say he was born in Bethlehem, they contradict each other in every particular; and John says Jesus didn't com from Bethlehem.
So, tell us, DOC is there any prophecy you still hold to as being incredibly fulfilled.
1) The prophecy in Nahum states that the river gates of Nineveh would be swept away. In fact, archaeology tells us that the assault on Nineveh broke in through the Halzi Gate, one of the few not on a river.
2) Prophecies made by a number of prophets that Babylon would be violently destroyed by the Medes and Persians. In fact, the Cyrus Cylinder states that Babylon surrendered peacefully to the Cyrus the Great of Persia and was spared any destruction.
3) The prophecy by Ezekiel that Nebuchadnezzar would destroy the city of Tyre. Nebuchadnezzar never did take the island city of Tyre. That was done by Alexander the Great.
4) The prophecy by Ezekiel that Nebuchadnezzar would invade and devastate Egypt, putting an end to its wealth, filling the land with the dead and destroying, among others the city of Thebes. The prophecy also stated that there wold no longer be a prince in Egypt. None of this happened.
5) The prophecy in Micah 5:2 that the Messiah would be born in Bethlehem. If this prophecy is applied to Jesus, the problems are that: Mark doesn't mention anything about the birth of Jesus; though Matthew and Luke both say he was born in Bethlehem, they contradict each other in every particular; and John says Jesus didn't com from Bethlehem.
So, tell us, DOC is there any prophecy you still hold to as being incredibly fulfilled.
Helen
Implicitly explicit
Self-flagellation? DOC?
Tim you’re spamming. I’ve already replied to #1 in this post and showed where you made a false assumption
http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showthread.php?postid=8061119#post8061119
And I’ve responded to #4 in “many posts” over several pages. Here is just one of those many posts. Your statement is based on a "guess" by you that Nebuchadnezzar was stopped at the border.
http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showthread.php?postid=8062642#post8062642
To say all these prophecies have been “proven” false is absurd. Making wide sweeping generalities is a great tactic but you simply don't have the evidence to back up such a statement. You should just let my 122 posts speak for themselves unless you have some new sourced information to offer. Your post includes none.
I’ve dealt with #5 many times in other threads, if I can get time I will respond to it, but that will be hard since you aren’t very specific. Since I work full time and have other projects I haven’t had time to look at #2 yet.
But #3 About Tyre is an almost perfect example of cherry picking. Here is your statement—
“3) The prophecy by Ezekiel that Nebuchadnezzar would destroy the city of Tyre. Nebuchadnezzar never did take the island city of Tyre. That was done by Alexander the Great.”
This statement totally ignores several other important verses in chapter 26 of Ezekiel. These verses make chapter 26 an amazing prophecy, and one which is highly detailed. This prophecy and your response to it is a perfect example why people shouldn’t believe Tim Callahan, or myself, or anyone else, without doing your own research on these verses (hopefully using several translations) and other sources besides just Wiki. Also one should remember that just because something has not been documented, that doesn’t mean it didn’t happen. As I have said, just because we have no signature for the most powerful man in the world, Julius Caesar, that doesn’t mean he never signed his name to anything.
In my next post I will go into greater detail about prophecy #3 which is an amazing prophecy.
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Ezekiel Chapter 26 -- An amazing prophecy
First some background information:
Here is some of what the 2012 World Book Encyclopedia says about Tyre.
This is backed up by this site.
Babylon's Siege and Subjugation of Tyre (585-572 BC): After destroying Jerusalem, Nebuchadnezzar turned his attention toward revolts in Tyre (Phoencia). Following a 13-year siege, Tyre agreed to accept Babylonian rule.
http://www.worldology.com/Iraq/babylonian_empire.htm
Wiki’s article on Tyre reports:
The city was destroyed by Nebuchadnezzar but not completely. Later, a king of Cyprus took Tyre using his fleet in the 370s BC, "a remarkable success about which little is known," according to historian Robin Lane Fox.[16]
In 332 BC, the city was conquered by Alexander the Great, after a siege of seven months in which he built the causeway from the mainland to within a hundred meters of the island,[17] where the sea floor sloped abruptly downwards.[18] Tyre continued to maintain much of its commercial importance until the Christian era. The presence of the causeway affected water currents nearby, causing sediment to build up, making the connection permanent.
Alexander used the remains of the old city to build the causeway from the mainland to the island where the new Tyre was located.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tyre,_Lebanon {ETA}
The article entitled Ezekiel's Tyre Prophecy Defended states
Early in the sixth century B.C., however, Tyre incurred the wrath of Nebuchadnezzar and the rising power of Babylonia. Nebuchadnezzar determined that he would destroy the power of Tyre, and accordingly he marched against the city and besieged it. After a protracted siege that continued for some years, he breached the walls, and the city fell. When the Tyrians saw that resistance was futile, they transferred the bulk of their treasure to an island in their possession, half a mile from the shore. The old city was deserted and from her new water-enclosed fortress Tyre continued to defy her enemies.
Though the original city had been "made desolate" by Nebuchadnezzar as predicted by Ezekiel, the balance of the prophecy had not {yet} been fulfilled. Ezekiel (Ch. 26) had declared:
"They shall make a spoil of thy riches, and make a prey of thy merchandise; and they shall break down thy walls, and destroy thy pleasant houses; and they shall lay thy stones, thy timber, and thy dust in the midst of the water ... I (God) will make thee like the top of a rock; thou shalt be a place to spread nets upon; thou shalt be built no more ... I shall bring up the deep upon thee, and great waters shall cover thee" (vv. 12, 14,19).
None of this was accomplished by Nebuchadnezzar, though he destroyed the original city. The prophecy spoke of an unnamed power as "they shall do it."—
______
Here are important verses in the prophecy Tim Callahan didn’t mention:
Eze 26:3 "Therefore, this is what the Sovereign LORD says: I am your enemy, O Tyre, and I will bring many nations against you, like the waves of the sea crashing against your shoreline.
Eze 26:4 They will destroy the walls of Tyre and tear down its towers. I will scrape away its soil and make it a bare rock!
[ Eze 26:5 It will be just a rock in the sea, a place for fishermen to spread their nets, for I have spoken, says the Sovereign LORD. Tyre will become the prey of many nations, and its mainland villages will be destroyed by the sword. Then they will know that I am the LORD.}
_______
Above article continued:
—History reveals that this was Alexander the Great and his Grecian warriors.
Meanwhile, for almost 250 years, the partly-ruined city of ancient Tyre remained on the mainland, whilst from the island fortress Tyrian power rose once more. Contrary to the requirements of the prophecy the stones, timber and dust of the ancient city had not been "thrown into the sea" as predicted, its site had not been made "bare like the top of a rock", nor had Tyrian power been irreparably broken. On the contrary, the riches of the world flowed through its gates to the east, and Tyrian influence rose once again to its previous eminence.
It must have seemed as though Ezekiel's prophecy had failed. But God is never in a hurry, and delay is but a challenge to faith. At last, Tyre made a fatal mistake. It opposed Alexander of Greece. In their island fortress, protected by their powerful navy, and surrounded by the blue waters of the Mediterranean, the Tyrians could afford to defy his land forces. But Alexander was determined that he would bring Tyre under his control. To do so he had to get at the island fortress, and that meant that he had to build a ramp connecting the mainland with the island across which his soldiers could march.
The stones, the walls, the pleasant houses of the ruins of the mainland city (the one Ezekiel said would be utterly destroyed and never rebuilt) provided him with a means to do this. He ordered that they be thrown "into the sea" (as Ezekiel had predicted) for this purpose. A clean sweep was made of the site, and not a remnant of the city remained. Nor was it ever rebuilt. God had decreed that this would be its fate, and His words were fulfilled to the very letter, though for 250 years every indication seemed to point to the contrary.
Today, the blue waters of the Mediterranean wash over the ruins of Tyre, which has literally become "a place to spread nets upon." Go to the site of ancient Tyre today, and it is possible to see Arab fishermen doing that which Ezekiel predicted they would do 2,500 years ago. Thomson, in his "Land and the Book", writes:
"The number of granite columns that lie in the sea is surprising. The eastern wall of the inner harbor is entirely founded upon them, and they are thickly spread over the bottom of the sea on every side. Tyre must have been a city of columns and temples par excellence . . . Should anyone ask incredulously, 'Where are the stones of ancient Tyre?' . . . they are found spread over the causeway of Alexander, in her choked up harbor, and at the bottom of the sea."
Alexander's attack was successful, and Tyrian sea power was destroyed. No longer did her fleets dominate the seas, no longer were her praises sung in the marts of the ancient world. As a nation she disappeared, never to rise again.
The causeway built by Alexander still connects Tyre's one-time island-fortress with the mainland, but so completely has every vestige of the original city disappeared, that its' position can only be ascertained by the distance measured from the ruins of the fortress. The mighty city of ancient Tyre was completely erased.
But the amazing thing is the detail in which the Bible predicted all this, and the wonderful way in which each point was finally fulfilled. Fallible man cannot predict the future with such certainty and detail, but the Bible does. It shows that this wonderful book can be thoroughly relied upon, and confirms that those prophecies which speak of the second advent of Christ, and the setting up of the Kingdom of God on earth will come to pass, even though the fulfillment might appear improbable to mortal man.
http://www.tektonics.org/uz/zeketyre.html
All of the above shows that Tim Callahan’s two line statement misrepresents the total picture of what actually happened. Ezekiel chapter 26 in its entirety is an amazing and highly detailed prophecy that is accurate on several dimensions. Once again this prophecy is a very good example why people should not believe Tim Callahan, me, or, anyone else without doing their own extensive research—preferably using several translations and other sources besides just Wiki.
First some background information:
Here is some of what the 2012 World Book Encyclopedia says about Tyre.
World Book 2012 said:
This is backed up by this site.
Babylon's Siege and Subjugation of Tyre (585-572 BC): After destroying Jerusalem, Nebuchadnezzar turned his attention toward revolts in Tyre (Phoencia). Following a 13-year siege, Tyre agreed to accept Babylonian rule.
http://www.worldology.com/Iraq/babylonian_empire.htm
Wiki’s article on Tyre reports:
The city was destroyed by Nebuchadnezzar but not completely. Later, a king of Cyprus took Tyre using his fleet in the 370s BC, "a remarkable success about which little is known," according to historian Robin Lane Fox.[16]
In 332 BC, the city was conquered by Alexander the Great, after a siege of seven months in which he built the causeway from the mainland to within a hundred meters of the island,[17] where the sea floor sloped abruptly downwards.[18] Tyre continued to maintain much of its commercial importance until the Christian era. The presence of the causeway affected water currents nearby, causing sediment to build up, making the connection permanent.
Alexander used the remains of the old city to build the causeway from the mainland to the island where the new Tyre was located.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tyre,_Lebanon {ETA}
The article entitled Ezekiel's Tyre Prophecy Defended states
Early in the sixth century B.C., however, Tyre incurred the wrath of Nebuchadnezzar and the rising power of Babylonia. Nebuchadnezzar determined that he would destroy the power of Tyre, and accordingly he marched against the city and besieged it. After a protracted siege that continued for some years, he breached the walls, and the city fell. When the Tyrians saw that resistance was futile, they transferred the bulk of their treasure to an island in their possession, half a mile from the shore. The old city was deserted and from her new water-enclosed fortress Tyre continued to defy her enemies.
Though the original city had been "made desolate" by Nebuchadnezzar as predicted by Ezekiel, the balance of the prophecy had not {yet} been fulfilled. Ezekiel (Ch. 26) had declared:
"They shall make a spoil of thy riches, and make a prey of thy merchandise; and they shall break down thy walls, and destroy thy pleasant houses; and they shall lay thy stones, thy timber, and thy dust in the midst of the water ... I (God) will make thee like the top of a rock; thou shalt be a place to spread nets upon; thou shalt be built no more ... I shall bring up the deep upon thee, and great waters shall cover thee" (vv. 12, 14,19).
None of this was accomplished by Nebuchadnezzar, though he destroyed the original city. The prophecy spoke of an unnamed power as "they shall do it."—
______
Here are important verses in the prophecy Tim Callahan didn’t mention:
Eze 26:3 "Therefore, this is what the Sovereign LORD says: I am your enemy, O Tyre, and I will bring many nations against you, like the waves of the sea crashing against your shoreline.
Eze 26:4 They will destroy the walls of Tyre and tear down its towers. I will scrape away its soil and make it a bare rock!
[ Eze 26:5 It will be just a rock in the sea, a place for fishermen to spread their nets, for I have spoken, says the Sovereign LORD. Tyre will become the prey of many nations, and its mainland villages will be destroyed by the sword. Then they will know that I am the LORD.}
_______
Above article continued:
—History reveals that this was Alexander the Great and his Grecian warriors.
Meanwhile, for almost 250 years, the partly-ruined city of ancient Tyre remained on the mainland, whilst from the island fortress Tyrian power rose once more. Contrary to the requirements of the prophecy the stones, timber and dust of the ancient city had not been "thrown into the sea" as predicted, its site had not been made "bare like the top of a rock", nor had Tyrian power been irreparably broken. On the contrary, the riches of the world flowed through its gates to the east, and Tyrian influence rose once again to its previous eminence.
It must have seemed as though Ezekiel's prophecy had failed. But God is never in a hurry, and delay is but a challenge to faith. At last, Tyre made a fatal mistake. It opposed Alexander of Greece. In their island fortress, protected by their powerful navy, and surrounded by the blue waters of the Mediterranean, the Tyrians could afford to defy his land forces. But Alexander was determined that he would bring Tyre under his control. To do so he had to get at the island fortress, and that meant that he had to build a ramp connecting the mainland with the island across which his soldiers could march.
The stones, the walls, the pleasant houses of the ruins of the mainland city (the one Ezekiel said would be utterly destroyed and never rebuilt) provided him with a means to do this. He ordered that they be thrown "into the sea" (as Ezekiel had predicted) for this purpose. A clean sweep was made of the site, and not a remnant of the city remained. Nor was it ever rebuilt. God had decreed that this would be its fate, and His words were fulfilled to the very letter, though for 250 years every indication seemed to point to the contrary.
Today, the blue waters of the Mediterranean wash over the ruins of Tyre, which has literally become "a place to spread nets upon." Go to the site of ancient Tyre today, and it is possible to see Arab fishermen doing that which Ezekiel predicted they would do 2,500 years ago. Thomson, in his "Land and the Book", writes:
"The number of granite columns that lie in the sea is surprising. The eastern wall of the inner harbor is entirely founded upon them, and they are thickly spread over the bottom of the sea on every side. Tyre must have been a city of columns and temples par excellence . . . Should anyone ask incredulously, 'Where are the stones of ancient Tyre?' . . . they are found spread over the causeway of Alexander, in her choked up harbor, and at the bottom of the sea."
Alexander's attack was successful, and Tyrian sea power was destroyed. No longer did her fleets dominate the seas, no longer were her praises sung in the marts of the ancient world. As a nation she disappeared, never to rise again.
The causeway built by Alexander still connects Tyre's one-time island-fortress with the mainland, but so completely has every vestige of the original city disappeared, that its' position can only be ascertained by the distance measured from the ruins of the fortress. The mighty city of ancient Tyre was completely erased.
But the amazing thing is the detail in which the Bible predicted all this, and the wonderful way in which each point was finally fulfilled. Fallible man cannot predict the future with such certainty and detail, but the Bible does. It shows that this wonderful book can be thoroughly relied upon, and confirms that those prophecies which speak of the second advent of Christ, and the setting up of the Kingdom of God on earth will come to pass, even though the fulfillment might appear improbable to mortal man.
http://www.tektonics.org/uz/zeketyre.html
All of the above shows that Tim Callahan’s two line statement misrepresents the total picture of what actually happened. Ezekiel chapter 26 in its entirety is an amazing and highly detailed prophecy that is accurate on several dimensions. Once again this prophecy is a very good example why people should not believe Tim Callahan, me, or, anyone else without doing their own extensive research—preferably using several translations and other sources besides just Wiki.
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joobz
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dafydd
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Oh Mighty One, I recorded this just for thee.
http://www.fileswap.com/dl/DiLyZWKGvZ/mummy_daddy.mp3.html
Akhenaten
Heretic Pharaoh
The unspeakable mess you've linked to there is so confused that it's impossible to even tell who said what, but one thing is certain - you have in no way shown Tim to have been making any false assumptions.
That Nebuchadnezzar's attempted invasion was stopped at the borders of Egypt is not a "guess" and you've had the reasons why it isn't explained to you numerous times by both Tim and myself. While we're still waiting for you to produce some evidence which will prove the falsity of our hypothesis it seems fairly safe to assume at this stage that you are unable to do so and have resorted, as usual, to making bare assertions about the matter.
This gibberish is what you took the better part of a week to put together as a refutation, is it?
Tim's post above is a summary of the prophecies so far demonstrated to have failed and the information that you're bleating about being absent has already been presented earlier in the thread.
Your refusal to acknowledge this fact is fooling nobody but yourself.
You've had time. You've got nothing.
You've had time to post other nonsense in the interim since your last attempted response to the point. You've got nothing.
Your next post will be the same self-serving, vapid and intellectually bankrupt bilge as this one.
joobz
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DOC, this is classic cherry picking, taking a sentence out of context to pretend it means something else.
You (or your source who wrote this line) is being fully dishonest.
The pronoun "they" clearly refers to the invading army of Nebuchadnezzar as that is what the entire paragraph is describing.
If to get your prophecy to work, you must pretend that "they" wasn't referring to the army , but some other force, then your prophecy is meaninglessly.
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Akhenaten
Heretic Pharaoh
All it shows is that it's going to take you more than just a week to figure out how to present information in a way that might convince someone that you have the faintest idea what you're talking about.
That post is a dog's breakfast of questionably sourced, poorly documented and contradictory information with historical facts and your own and others' poorly thought out apologetics scrambled together in a mish-mash that Thoth himself would have difficulty sorting out.
Fail. Resubmit.
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TimCallahan
Philosopher
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No, I am not spamming. Let's take a look at the prophecies once again. I'll start with Tyre (Ezek. 26 7, emphasis added):
For thus says the LORD God: Behold, I will bring upon Tyre from the north Nebuchadrezzar king of Babylon, king of kings, with horses and chariots, and with horsemen and host of many soldiers.
The succeeding verses tell specifically what Nebuchadrezzar will do:
v.8a: He will slay Tyre's daughters on the mainland. Yes, Nebuchadrezzar did destroy the mainland suburbs of Tyre.
This would be expected in any siege of the city, and the siege was to be expected because Tyre was in revolt against the Chaldean Empire.
v. 8b He will set up a mound and siege wall against Tyre, along with a roof of shields.
Again, this is standard siege warfare, already perfected by the Assyrians. No divine inspiration is required for this prediction.
v. 9 Nebuchadrezzar will direct battering rms against Tyre and break down its towers. This didn't happen.
v. 10 Tyre's walls will shake from the thundering of Nebuchadrezzar's ultitiude of horses, and the dust they raise will cover the city as his troops enter it.
No, this didn't happen. Nebuchadrezzar didn't enter the city of Tyre.
v. 11 Nebuchadrezzar's horses will trample Tyre's streets. Nebuchadrezzar will slay the people of Tyre with the sword. Tyre's pillars will fall to the ground.
No, this didn't happen either.
vv. 12 - 15 "They" (presumably the Chaldeans) will utterly destroy Tyre, which will be made into a bare rock. The city will never be rebuilt.
If this refers to the Chaldeans, it simply didn't happen. If it refers to the eventual fate of the city, then it could be said, eventually of almost ever city in the ancient world. It's hardly a prophecy. Even if the prophecy could be construed to fit Alexander's conquest of Tyre it doesn't work. Here's what Wikipedia has to say about the history of Tyre:
In 332 BC, the city was conquered by Alexander the Great, after a siege of seven months in which he built the causeway from the mainland to within a hundred meters of the island,[17] where the sea floor sloped abruptly downwards.[18] Tyre continued to maintain much of its commercial importance until the Christian era. The presence of the causeway affected water currents nearby, causing sediment to build up, making the connection permanent.
Alexander used the remains of the old city to build the causeway from the mainland to the island where the new Tyre was located.
In 315 BC, Alexander's former general Antigonus began his own siege of Tyre,[19] taking the city a year later.[20]
In 126 BC, Tyre regained its independence (from the Seleucids)[21] and was allowed to keep much of its independence when the area became a Roman province in 64 BC.[22]
[edit]Later history
It is stated in the Bible that Jesus visited the "coasts" of Tyre and Sidon and healed a Gentile (Matthew 15:21; Mark 7:24) and from this region many came forth to hear him preaching (Mark 3:8; Gospel of Luke 6:17, Matthew 11:21–23). A congregation was founded here soon after the death of Saint Stephen, and Paul of Tarsus, on his return from his third missionary journey, spent a week in conversation with the disciples there. According to Irenaeus of Lyons in Adversus Haereses, the female companion of Simon Magus came from here.
After a first failed siege in 1111, it was captured by the Crusaders in 1124, becoming one of the most important cities of the Kingdom of Jerusalem. It was part of the royal domain, although there were also autonomous trading colonies there for the Italian merchant cities. The city was the site of the archbishop of Tyre, a suffragan of the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem; its archbishops often acceded to the Patriarchate. The most notable of the Latin archbishops was the historian William of Tyre.
After the reconquest of Acre by King Richard on July 12, 1191, the seat of the kingdom moved there, but coronations were held in Tyre. In the 13th century, Tyre was separated from the royal domain as a separate crusader lordship. In 1291, it was retaken by the Mameluks which then was followed by Ottoman rule before the modern state of Lebanon was declared in 1920.
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joobz
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Tim, I simply reformatted your post to highlight your statements.
abaddon
Penultimate Amazing
Ok Ezekial 26 verse by verse.
Un-evidenced claim, but let us move along.
Did they?
A prediction of violence in the Middle East. How unlikely.
Didn't happen.
Didn't happen.
Partially happened.
Good ole Nebby did indeed besiege Tyre for 13 years, but failed to destroy it.
Didn't happen.
May have happened. Do you have any reason to suppose a 13 year siege would not typically involve such activities?
All typical siege activities.
All never happened.
Well that's kinda what you do for a while after your city is sacked.
Never happened, No going below the sea or into pits. Tyre can still be found, is still inhabited.
Not a great prophet then, this sky daddy of your imaginings, eh?
Akhenaten
Heretic Pharaoh
catsmate
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Based on his previous habits I believe he disappears occasionally to seek advice and assistance from other god botherers; his frequent changes in style suggest this.
dafydd
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Thank you.
abaddon
Penultimate Amazing
Seconded, I was in knots laughing.