The Incredible odds of fulfilled bible prophecy

[dafydd]

joobz,

There you go again.

Assuming 1,000 years means 1,000 years.

It could mean anything.

Much like "coming quickly" may be referring to a personal problem!

No wonder that Mary Magdalene always had such a long face.

 

[catsmate]

So, epic fail. Or is this latent antisemitism with Geisler, equating Jews with animals?

Probably just a further example of the poor quality of his scholarship.

 

[joobz]

That is one translation of many.

The text says:
εν ταχει
as the phrase, which is accepted translation to mean "quickly, presently". Or "as soon as possible".
http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.04.0057:entry=e)ntaxu/
another dictionary has the phrase translated as:
"with all speed"
http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.04.0072:entry=ta/xos

This is a phrase used for claiming that something will happen soon. plain and simple. And given the fact that John of Pantmos was referencing current events to himself, it is expected that he actually thought these things would occur soon.

For example here is what the author of over 60 books, Norman Geisler, says about the issue of Revelation 1:1 in his book "Systematic Theology" Volume 4 page 640:

"First, the word translated "shortly" (Revelation 1:1; 26:6 NKJV) is "tachei" which is from the same root as tachu and also means "swiftly" or "speedily." As such, it refers to a "sudden" but not necessarily "soon" event."

The Rice Reference Bible which is a very good bible with many scholarly footnotes says something similar to Geisler regarding the King James Translation of Rev. 1:1. It says:

"This does not mean of course "immediately" or "so soon" but "suddenly, without warning." And also in V. 3 "the time is at hand." It refers to the imminent coming of Christ, which might occur any moment unannounced. That has been true ever since Pentecost."

Rice Reference Bible Page 1347, 1st footnote.

and this is the kind of mental gymnastics needed to convince oneself that the text is false. It doesn't really make sense in light of the entire document.

Further, I would suggest you not use Geisler as a source. He is quite unreliable in his scholarship.

 

[kmortis]

''And in those days people will seek death and will not find it. They will long to die, but death will flee from them.''-Revelation

People are still dying Doc. When can we expect death to flee from us?.

"That is not dead which can eternal lie,
And with strange aeons even death may die"
-Abdul Alhazred

At least the Mad Arab had the good sense to not put a timeline on it.

 

[Rincewind]

"That is not dead which can eternal lie,
And with strange aeons even death may die"
-Abdul Alhazred

At least the Mad Arab had the good sense to not put a timeline on it.

I'm sure you know that AA posts here?

Not sure he'd be pleased with being called mad?

 

[Wildy]

I'm sure you know that AA posts here?

Not sure he'd be pleased with being called mad?

Wrong Abdul Alhazred.

 

[Rincewind]

Wrong Abdul Alhazred.

Ok thanks.

Still, posting here suggests a real person...

OK, OK - I'll get my coat.

@)

 

[kmortis]

Ok thanks.

Still, posting here suggests a real person...

OK, OK - I'll get my coat.

@)

Actually, the poster took the name from the "real" Abdul Alhazred.


eta:

 

[ddt]

He's just shopping around in the various bible translations to find one that gives him an out. I can't remember him quoting this particular translation before. Seems he hasn't learned from the Luke 2:1-2 disaster in the "evidence of the NT" thread.

The Rice Reference Bible which is a very good bible with many scholarly footnotes says something similar to Geisler regarding the King James Translation of Rev. 1:1. It says:

Do I now win the MDC?

That is one translation of many. For example here is what the author of over 60 books, Norman Geisler, says about the issue of Revelation 1:1 in his book "Systematic Theology" Volume 4 page 640:

"First, the word translated "shortly" (Revelation 1:1; 26:6 NKJV) is "tachei" which is from the same root as tachu and also means "swiftly" or "speedily." As such, it refers to a "sudden" but not necessarily "soon" event."

Joobz already gave some links that refuted this weaseling of Geisler's. Here's the corresponding link from the site I used previously. Again, it agrees it means "soon", not "suddenly".

Probably in this thread:

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

Isn't that the thread where you never gave any credible evidence for your "translation" of Luke 2:1-2?

 

[ddt]

Probably just a further example of the poor quality of his scholarship.

Oh yes, I said it in jest. As to the word "scholarship", do you think that is really applicable to Geisler's work? It's obvious at this point that Geisler works from the conclusion ("The bible is infallible") back to the premise (the text of the bible) and tries to massage that into, hmm, compliance with the conclusion.

 

[pakeha]

^^^
That sounds like a fellah trying to convince his girlfriend into performing an act contra natura.

 

[ddt]

^^^
That sounds like a fellah trying to convince his girlfriend into performing an act contra natura.

But leave it to Geisler to spin it as not being against Leviticus.

 

[Sherman Bay]

Verily I say unto you, it's quite possible that x may happen, or it may not ... What sort of prophet is that?

Nostradamus.

When can I expect the stars to fall on me?

Depends. Are you in Alabama?

 

[catsmate]

Oh yes, I said it in jest. As to the word "scholarship", do you think that is really applicable to Geisler's work? It's obvious at this point that Geisler works from the conclusion ("The bible is infallible") back to the premise (the text of the bible) and tries to massage that into, hmm, compliance with the conclusion.

True, his attempts at justifying various bits of fundie biblical interpretation have been repeatedly shredded. Even many other xians find his silly arguments, inconsistency and tortured logic embarrassing.

 

[TimCallahan]

Oh yes, I said it in jest. As to the word "scholarship", do you think that is really applicable to Geisler's work? It's obvious at this point that Geisler works from the conclusion ("The bible is infallible") back to the premise (the text of the bible) and tries to massage that into, hmm, compliance with the conclusion.

this seems to be standard operating procedure among fundamentalist apologists. Here's what the late Gleason Archer said in the introduction to his Encyclopedia of Bible Difficulties:

Be fully persuaded in your own mind that an adequate explanation exists, even though you have not yet found it. The aerodynamic engineer may not understand how a bumble bee can fly; yet he trusts that there must be an adequate explanation for its fine performance since, as a matter of fact, it does fly! Even so we may have complete confidence that the divine Author preserved the human author of each book of the Bible from error or mistake as he wrote down the original manuscript of the sacred text.

So, Archer starts from the premise that there are no errors in the Bible and proceeds from there.

 

[joobz]

this seems to be standard operating procedure among fundamentalist apologists. Here's what the late Gleason Archer said in the introduction to his Encyclopedia of Bible Difficulties:

Be fully persuaded in your own mind that an adequate explanation exists, even though you have not yet found it. The aerodynamic engineer may not understand how a bumble bee can fly; yet he trusts that there must be an adequate explanation for its fine performance since, as a matter of fact, it does fly! Even so we may have complete confidence that the divine Author preserved the human author of each book of the Bible from error or mistake as he wrote down the original manuscript of the sacred text.

So, Archer starts from the premise that there are no errors in the Bible and proceeds from there.

The bumblebee analogy is so forced, it's sad. Observable nature is what we use as our bench mark. It is theory that is adjusted/fitted to match observation. As such, the better analogy is the bible is the theory, and our observable universe is our benchmark. In the case of the bumblebee, the model (bible in the analogy) are effectively the Navier stokes equations used to describe fluid mechanics involved in flight. We have, as yet, encountered a situation where they failed to describe fluid motion. Yet, even then, engineers/scientists and mathematics do not simply presume that it will hold true in all instances. Hence, the existence of the millennium prize for a rigorous proof that the equation does not blow up at some set of conditions.


So, even in their own analogy, we see the failing of their approach. If the navier stokes equations failed, they would be changed to better match reality. Not the other way around.

 

[Muldur]

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

Not so fast:

THE HISTORICAL FULFILLMENT

The statement “I took the thirty shekels of silver and threw them to the potter in the house of the LORD” has puzzled the scholars who have refused to accept the historical fulfillment in the New Testament. Matthew 27:3-10 gives the historical record of the omniscient Ruler of the universe in control of events. The same thirty pieces of silver paid out to Judas Iscariot by the chief priests for delivering Jesus to them (Matt. 26:15) were cast into the house of the Lord by Judas (27:5). The chief priests took the same silver pieces and gave them to the potter from whom they bought the field to bury strangers (vv. 6-7).

Matthew 27:9-10 reads, “Then that which was spoken through Jeremiah the prophet was fulfilled: “Andthey took the thirty pieces of silver, the price of the one whose price had been set by the sons of Israel; andthey gave them for thePotter’sField, as theLord directed me.”

Keil and Delitzsch make this observation: "The payment of the wages to the shepherd in the prophetical announcement is simply the symbolical form in which the nation manifests its ingratitude for the love and fidelity shown towards it by the shepherd, and the sign that it will no longer have him as its shepherd, and therefore a sign of the blackest ingratitude, and of hard-heartedness in return for the love displayed by the shepherd. The same ingratitude and the same hardness of heart are manifested in the resolution of the representatives of the Jewish nation, the high priests and elders, to put Jesus their Savior to death, and to take Him prisoner by bribing the betrayer. The payment of thirty silverlings to the betrayer was in fact the wages with which the Jewish nation repaid Jesus for what He had done for the salvation of Israel; and the contemptible sum which they paid to the betrayer was an expression of the deep contempt which they felt for Jesus. . . . The high priests would not put the money into the divine treasury, because it was blood-money, but applied it to the purchase of a potter’s field, which received the name of a field of blood. . . . The prophecy was almost literally fulfilled; but, so far as the sense is concerned, it was so exactly fulfilled, that every one could see that the same God who had spoken through, the prophet, had by the secret operation of His omnipotent power, which extends even to the ungodly, so arranged the matter that Judas threw the money into the temple, to bring it before the face of God as blood-money, and to call down the vengeance of God upon the nation, and that the high priest, by purchasing the potter’s field for this money, which received the name of “field of blood” in consequence “unto this day” (Matt. 27:8), perpetuated the memorial of the sin committed against their Messiah."

Everything that happened that fateful day was “in accordance with the purpose of God.” We should not be amazed at how exactly the prophecy was fulfilled. God did it!

The priests carried the money away from the temple, as being impure, and bought a wretched piece of ground in the very same valley, which had once before been defiled by innocent blood and had called down the vengeance of God upon Jerusalem, as predicted by Jeremiah, and on the very same spot where Jeremiah had formerly proclaimed to the people their rejection by the Lord. Here, then, was the blood-money deposited (Matt. 27:6), the reward for betraying the innocent blood (v. 4), from which the field received the name of “field of blood” (v. 8; Acts 1:19), and here did it lie as a witness against Israel, a pledge by which the nation had bound itself to submit to the punishment of God . . . . Tradition also places the field of blood in the valley of Hinnon, in perfect accordance with the results when you compare the words of Jeremiah and Zechariah with the New Testament accounts (Hengstenberg, Christology of the Old Testament).

Did Matthew make a mistake calling Zechariah Jeremiah in 27:9? Did he get confused and write Jeremiah when he was quoting Zechariah? Matthew says the word spoken by the prophet was fulfilled by the purchase of the potter’s field for thirty shekels of silver, the price of the Messiah. However, Jeremiah says nothing of the betrayal, but says the Lord “directed him” to buy the field (v. 10; Jer. 32:6-8). Zechariah mentions the price. It seems reasonable that Matthew combines both of these prophecies and gives credit to the major prophet Jeremiah whose information he stresses in the purchase of the field. Matthew does the same thing in 21:5 where he combines two prophecies of Isaiah and Zechariah and gives the credit to the famous “prophet.” Mark 1:2 does the same thing with Malachi and Isaiah giving credit to Isaiah. The Minor Prophets are rarely quoted by name though their information is frequently used throughout the New Testament. Hosea, Joel and Jonah are the only ones named, but others are quoted without citing them. Matthew had the words of our verse in mind for a long time before he wrote them at this point in his Gospel.

http://www.abideinchrist.com/messages/zec11v12.html

Sorry to be late to the party.

BTW, if we demand "extra-textual" evidence as a basis for accepting ancient manuscripts then the vast majority of ancient writings must be thrown out.

 

[Muldur]

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.

Your "inconsistences" are nothing more than individual author's focus on different aspects of the material being related. Read "in toto", the Gospels, for example, relate a highly harmonized account of the ministry of Jesus.

Here's a good site debunking your "inconsistencies":

http://www.tektonics.org/lp/morgand03.html (see also the many links contained therein)

 

[TimCallahan]

Not so fast:



Sorry to be late to the party.

BTW, if we demand "extra-textual" evidence as a basis for accepting ancient manuscripts then the vast majority of ancient writings must be thrown out.

I'm not sure if this post was meant to be tongue-in-cheek, but you do know, of course, that the gospels were written to "fulfill" the prophecies. This is particularly true of John having Jesus speared in the side after being crucified in order to "fulfill" Zechariah, though the Synoptic Gospels are ignorant of this incident.

 

[Muldur]

It hasn't been true ever since Jesus died. How are the stars going to fall to Earth? Your silly book says that.

Meteorites used to be called "falling stars" before people understood what they were.

The Bible does not use 21st century technical language. It uses the every day language of a technologically less advanced people.