Abel

Since so many people discount the Bible, I was just wondering how these same people explain fulfilled Biblical prophecy. This is one I find amazing taken from the website: www.allaboutthejourney.org.

The City of Tyre

In 586 BC (confirmed by secular sources as the 11th year of the reign of King Zedekiah of Judah), "Ezekiel 26" predicts the fall of mainland Tyre to the Babylonian armies of Nebuchadnezzar. The text further describes the siege against the island fortress of Tyre (a half mile off the coast of mainland Tyre) hundreds of years later. Ezekiel's prophecy describes how the future invaders would tear down the ruins of mainland Tyre and throw them into the sea. They would "scrape her dust from her and leave her as the top of a rock". "They will lay your stones, your timber, and your soil in the midst of the water." "I will make you like the top of a rock; you shall be a place for spreading nets."

Secular history records that Nebuchadnezzar laid siege to the great mainland city of Tyre about a year after Ezekiel's prophecy. The Encyclopedia Britannica says: "After a 13-year siege (585-573 BC) by Nebuchadnezzar II, Tyre made terms and acknowledged Babylonian suzerainty." When Nebuchadnezzar broke through the city gates, he found it nearly empty. Most of the people had moved by ship to an island about a half mile off the coast and fortified a city there. The mainland city was destroyed in 573 BC (Ezekiel's first prediction), but the city of Tyre on the island remained a powerful city for several hundred years.

Secular history next records that "Alexander the Great" laid siege to the island fortress of Tyre in 332 BC. His army destroyed the remains of mainland Tyre and threw them into the Mediterranean Sea. As Alexander's army constructed a causeway to the island, they scraped even the dust from the mainland city, leaving only bare rock. Historian Phillip Myers in his history textbook, General History for Colleges and High Schools, writes, "Alexander the Great reduced Tyre to ruins in 332 BC. Tyre recovered in a measure from this blow, but never regained the place she had previously held in the world. The larger part of the site of the once great city is now as bare as the top of a rock -- a place where the fishermen that still frequent the spot spread their nets to dry."

Abel

No takers?

How about this fulfilled prophecy:
The Decree of Cyrus

In about 700 BC, Isaiah (44:28 & 45:1) names Cyrus as the king who will allow the Israelites to return to Jerusalem and rebuild its Temple. At the time of this prophecy, there was no king named Cyrus and the Temple in Jerusalem was totally built and in full operation.

In 586 BC, more than 100 years later, the Babylonian King "Nebuchadnezzar" sacked Jerusalem and destroyed the temple. The Jews living in Jerusalem were either killed or taken captive to Babylon. In about 539 BC, the Babylonian Empire was conquered by the Persians. Shortly thereafter, a Persian king named Cyrus issued a formal decree that the Jews could return to Jerusalem and rebuild their temple. This decree is confirmed by secular archaeology in the form of a stone cylinder that details many events of Cyrus' reign, including the decree to rebuild the Temple in Jerusalem.

Remarkably, Isaiah predicted that a man named Cyrus, who would not be born for about a hundred years, would give a decree to rebuild a city and a temple, which were still standing and fully active at the time!

greywolf90

so because someone happened to make a prediction that came true, we can automatically conclude that this person's prediction was inspired by a divine diety that created everything etc. sounds like an awefully big jump if you ask me.
how do we explain it? well i know barely anything about scripture dates, so the most obvious i can think of is that this "perdiction" could have been written after the event had already taken place, or that the original scripture was changed. assuming that these explainations are wrong, i would simply conclude that the person was simply lucky. i do not think that this was god's doing, because there are also perdictions made that never came true, and god doesn't strike me as a win-some lose-some kind of diety. it's a good argument, but to me, like the rest of the bible, predictions come from people, not from god.

by the way, i predict that McCain will win the 2008 presidential election, so if i am right, you must acknowledge me as your prophet

__________________
"for there is nothing either good or bad but thinking makes it so."- Hamlet

duck

Ooof.

I had a really insulting and witty reply to this thread, and decided not to feed the trolls.

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Religion: The ultimate definition of verisimilitude

Astreja

In my opinion, any publicly-announced prophesy that is within the ability of humans to fulfill must be regarded as suspect and cannot be used as evidence of supernatural intervention.

An example: In the year 2008, someone announces "The god Blort has told me that the city of Grumsh has sinned and will be destroyed." Several hundred years later, the city burns due to general warfare in the area. Divine prophesy? I don't think so. If not a self-fulfilling prophesy (that is, an army of Blortists deliberately targeting the city to fulfill the prophesy), it was an event with a good probability of happening eventually.

Abel

Just blind luck, right? Let's take a closer look at the odds.

A city destroyed exactly as predicted, right down to the fact that fishermen would spread nets there. Mathematician Peter W. Stoner calculated the probability that only random chance enabled Ezekiel to have made this prophecy and be correct in its details. His conservative calculations estimate a chance of one in 75,000,000 (75 million) that Ezekiel at the time of writing could have correctly guessed Tyre’s future.
Taken from website www.windmillministries.org.

A man named exactly by name allows a temple (that is still standing) to be rebuilt. All just coincidence, right? This probability is taken by Dr. Hugh Ross, Ph.D. -- The prophet Isaiah foretold that a conqueror named Cyrus would destroy seemingly impregnable Babylon and subdue Egypt along with most of the rest of the known world. This same man, said Isaiah, would decide to let the Jewish exiles in his territory go free without any payment of ransom (Isaiah 44:28; 45:1; and 45:13). Isaiah made this prophecy 150 years before Cyrus was born, 180 years before Cyrus performed any of these feats (and he did, eventually, perform them all), and 80 years before the Jews were taken into exile.
(Probability of chance fulfillment = 1 in 10 to the power of 15.)
Taken from website www.reasons.org.

I don't know ... Given the astronomical percentge of these prophecies being fulfilled, I would have to say it was God, until someone proves otherwise.

debdodd

okay too funny!!! but by your logic those that say hell will freeze over if Hillary wins .... do I go and buy ice skates just in case?

__________________
"Ubi dubium ibi libertas."

"We are all lone souls. It pays to know humility, lest the delusion of control, of mastery, overwhelms. And indeed, we seem a species prone to that delusion, again and ever again ....."

debdodd

Very smart not to feed the trolls ... it only encourages 'em ....

notice how nicely he baited people b/c they didn't respond to his original post .... seems like he challenges them by implying they're "chickens" by saying ... "no takers" .... told you guys in another thread ... ignore him you only encourage the trolls out there ... Deb

__________________
"Ubi dubium ibi libertas."

"We are all lone souls. It pays to know humility, lest the delusion of control, of mastery, overwhelms. And indeed, we seem a species prone to that delusion, again and ever again ....."

Abel

Notice how nicely she ignores the issue? Notice how she has nothing of value to say on this subject? Instead of heeding her own advice and ignoring these posts she feels inclined to interject her mockery. She still needs a hug.

greywolf90

yes and make sure you have plenty of blankets; don't forget the hot chocolate! as for me, i won't go anywhere without my scarf and ear muffs if hillary wins.

Abel...
i'm not sure that you are seeing my point. i can say that canada will some day invade the USA (calculate those odds) and if i'm somehow right, this does not mean god told me so.

__________________
"for there is nothing either good or bad but thinking makes it so."- Hamlet