When I was a Christian, one of the biggest reasons I had for believing the Bible was that it contained actual prophecy — or so I thought. I mean, if a book gave specific, detailed prophecies that no one could have guessed, and then they came true, wouldn’t that be good reason for believing that God may have had something to do with that book? How could a mere human accomplish such a thing? And it’s not just that the Bible sometimes got it right, it always got it right — or so I believed.
According to the Bible, a good test of whether or not someone is a true prophet is the accuracy of their prophecy. Makes sense, I suppose. Just as chefs are judged on the quality of their cooking, so prophets should be judged by the quality of their predictions. In the case of chefs, no one claims that God is required to make them great. But if you could show that someone was a true prophet, that would be fantastic evidence that God might be speaking through them. An unreliable prophet, on the other hand…:
when a prophet speaks in the name of the Lord, if the word does not come to pass or come true, that is a word that the Lord has not spoken; the prophet has spoken it presumptuously. You need not be afraid of him.
— Deut 18:22
An inaccurate prophet is no prophet at all, in other words. He does not speak for God. This is a great litmus test for anyone claiming to have divine revelation. It was my belief that the Bible passed this test with flying colors… but does it?
When the Bible Gets It Right
When I was a Christian, one of prophecies that always stood out to me was that of King Josiah:
And behold, a man of God came out of Judah by the word of the Lord to Bethel. Jeroboam was standing by the altar to make offerings. And the man cried against the altar by the word of the Lord and said, “O altar, altar, thus says the Lord: ‘Behold, a son shall be born to the house of David, Josiah by name, and he shall sacrifice on you the priests of the high places who make offerings on you, and human bones shall be burned on you.'”
— 1 Kings 13:1-2
This is a very specific prophecy. While there’s no timeline given, the prophet says that someone in David’s line would be born who would use that altar to sacrifice false priests and that the man’s name would be Josiah. In 2 Kings 23, this prophecy comes true about 300 years later! This was a prophecy that always stuck in my mind as being too marvelous for any mere mortal to accurately predict — surely God had inspired that prophet!
But as it turns out, the 300 year time difference is misleading. 1 and 2 Kings are just two halves of the same book. The same authors that wrote or compiled 1 Kings 13 also wrote or compiled 2 Kings 23. Therefore, there’s no way to know if that prophet ever existed, much less that he actually gave a prophecy concerning a king who would come 300 years later. In other words, this doesn’t really count as evidence of a true prophecy. Maybe the event really happened, but since both the event and the fulfillment were recorded in the same book, there’s no good reason to take it at face value.
There are other examples we could look at as well, but I think the point comes across. Just because something at first blush appears to be an actual prophecy, it may not be upon closer examination. Still, while this might indicate that the case for the Bible’s inspiration isn’t as strong we first suspected, this would not have caused me to question its inspiration when I was a believer. I would have needed something bigger.
When the Bible Gets It Wrong
Jeremiah 33:17 says this:
“For thus says the Lord: David shall never lack a man to sit on the throne of the house of Israel”
When I was growing up, this prophecy was sometimes referred to as a prediction of Christ. Hebrews 1:8 says that the throne was preserved for Jesus, and Acts 2:29-31 says this:
“Brothers, I may say to you with confidence about the patriarch David that he both died and was buried, and his tomb is with us to this day. Being therefore a prophet, and knowing that God had sworn with an oath to him that he would set one of his descendants on his throne, he foresaw and spoke about the resurrection of the Christ, that he was not abandoned to Hades, nor did his flesh see corruption.”
So the literal kingdom of Judah is not what Jeremiah is talking about, according to these passages. Jeremiah was foretelling a time in which Jesus would sit on the throne of an eternal, spiritual kingdom as David’s descendant. But is that really what Jeremiah intended?
If you look at the following verse, Jeremiah 33:18, you see this:
“…and the Levitical priests shall never lack a man in my presence to offer burnt offerings, to burn grain offerings, and to make sacrifices forever.”
Can verse 17 still be taken figuratively in light of verse 18? According to books like Hebrews, Jesus became the new high priest forever when he was crucified and rose from the dead. So could that be the application of this particular prophecy? No. Jeremiah specifies that the priests would be Levitical — in other words, they would be of the tribe of Levi, which is the only tribe that was allowed to offer sacrifices. Jesus was not of that tribe. Hebrews gets around this problem by linking Jesus’ priesthood to the way God allowed priests before Moses was given the law — they were granted priesthood based on their caliber, not on their lineage. Hebrews refers to this as the “order of Melchizedek,” since Melchizedek was the most prominent person mentioned in the OT to have this honor. Refer to Hebrews 7 if you’d like more info on this.
It’s very difficult to take verse 18 figuratively, and when taken at face value it’s false. Levitical priests do not offer sacrifices today, and haven’t for a very long time. And since it’s hard to take verse 18 figuratively, it’s hard to take 17 figuratively as well. Once again, it fails as a prophecy because Israel is not a monarchy and there hasn’t been a Davidic king in over 2500 years.
When you’re an inerrantist, as I was, it’s hard to know what to do with this information. Do problems like this mean the entire Bible is wrong, or just that particular book? It turns out there are many more problems littered throughout the Bible. We’ll talk about one more in this post, but for more information, feel free to check out the links listed on the home page.
A very clear example is found in Matthew 2:14-15 where we’re told that when Joseph and Mary fled with the infant Jesus to Egypt, it was to fulfill a prophecy from Hosea 11:1, “out of Egypt I called my son.” However, when you read the passage in Hosea, it says this:
When Israel was a child, I loved him, and out of Egypt I called my son.
And from there, Hosea talks about Israel’s unfaithfulness to the Lord in serving after Baal, etc. Obviously, Hosea is talking about the nation of Israel, and there’s no reference at all to any future event, much less the Messiah. Matthew appropriated this text when he (apparently) created the story of Jesus’ family fleeing to Egypt. Matthew calls this a prophecy, but the original text is anything but. So many of the Bible’s prophecies fall apart in this way when researched.
While actual prophecy fulfillment would go a long way in supporting the notion that the Bible is inspired, in practice, it just doesn’t work out that way. Not only do the apparent prophecies get weaker upon inspection, but some of them are simply false. So if accurate prophecies should make us think the Bible is inspired, what should inaccurate prophecies make us think?
Finding Truth 
@Mike,
Speaking only for myself: if you meant to include me in this judgement, you are mistaken.
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Ruth, yes, I’m a dude. 😉
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Hi,
I’ve been a casual reader just for the last two days – an acquaintance recommended this site.
I was raised in a Christian home and have been a disciple of Christ for 24 years now. I agree with mike’s conclusion, that the Word is indeed God’s, and that logic sees us to that. However, I only comment now, not to interject in any discussion, but only to remind a brother Christ that we should be better than those outside the faith.
Whether they left the Savior for some profane reason or due to a lack of understanding in good conscience, what is that to us? God will judge them just as he will judge us. Man judges the outward man, but God judges the inward man.
There have been some name calling toward the believers here, but there has also been a good share of name calling from the believer as well, brother, this shouldn’t be so.
I implore you to let your light shine from here on out, that you may glorify our Savior, and may put to shame any accusers, and perhaps win them over with chaste behavior… unfortunately, it seems much of the shame is aptly placed.
If we are persecuted for the Lord’s sake, then happy are we; but let us not be persecuted for our bad examples.
Godspeed.
Seek and ye shall find. May we all find the truth.
John
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” This is probably nate’s worse post. its just awful. No literalist who studied his Bible would be taken by it especially not the first part.”
“Sorry nate its just bad. really bad. Firs time I ever told you this but you should consider a rewrite especially if your readers are considering sending it to Bible believers who know anything at all”
“Wow! so awful and obviously awful I will just leave it at that. this one just doesn’t even need any time on my part. I will just leave you to pat each other on the back but take it out to a blog of any christian who known his stuff and you will get eaten alive.”
Mike, these were words from your opening comment to this post.
And yet you just told Ruth, “However if you show some REAL genuine respect as you did towards looking at an issue (not toward me even), whether you agree with it or not then you’ve earned some for yours back.”
Where is the respect you showed Nate in your opening comments ?????
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“Wow! so awful and obviously awful I will just leave it at that. this one just doesn’t even need any time on my part.”
“Incidentally before anyone comes bursting in making claims I am answering questions put to me. I meant it when Is said I really don’t feel I even have to debate this one.”
If this was the case, why did you spend time posting 95 of the 254 comments to this post ?
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“Speaking only for myself: if you meant to include me in this judgement, you are mistaken.”
Hey Rata – didn’t put your name in there.
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Hey,Mike, had time to think of an explanation how you man-god Jesus of Nazareth was the creator of the universe yet?
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Mike writes, “Jeremiah 33 is very literal .
However its future and obviously future. It foresees when messiah actually rules in Israel not gets crucified on a cross. From that point on Israel will never fail to have a king. The only way I can make any sense of Nate’s post is to think he believes the end of the seventy years captivity marked the end of the diaspora for the house of Israel and Judah and that they were then saved and living safely under persian and the roman rule (under foreign rule safe?). However thats just false and obviously false and the OT itself rebuts it because Zechariah is written after the return and it still has future wars and punishments still going on.
Sorry nate its just bad. really bad. Firs time I ever told you this but you should consider a rewrite especially if your readers are considering sending it to Bible believers who know anything at all”
I know you think Protestant sources are not to be considered when referencing the Bible so I pulled out my New Jerome Biblical Commentary edited by the late Catholic Scholar, Raymond Brown.
Here is what the New Jerome Biblical Commentary has to say about Jeremiah 33:14-26
“This NEW section, missing in the LXX, is a small collection of Jeremiah’s messianic oracles, mostly transformed . It is NOW accepted as being a work of a later redactor.”
Concerning Jer 33:23-26 it says, ” The atmosphere of these closing verses is one of disillusionment. The restoration was NOT realized exactly as foretold, and a kind of pessimism was trying the people’s faith; the messianic hope had to be stirred up, which is what we find in Isa 56-66.
I suppose a “Redactor” could also write about a future event. But wait a minute, Catholic Scholar Raymond Brown goes on to say the restoration was NOT realized exactly as foretold.
I am not an expert here Mike. Why should I take Jer 33 to be literal ? And why should I believe it? I have shown you the same respect in my comments here that Ruth did earlier. I look forward to a respectful answer .
.
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@Nate, “When Israel was a child, I loved him, and out of Egypt I called my son.
And from there, Hosea talks about Israel’s unfaithfulness to the Lord in serving after Baal, etc. Obviously, Hosea is talking about the nation of Israel, and there’s no reference at all to any future event, much less the Messiah. Matthew appropriated this text when he (apparently) created the story of Jesus’ family fleeing to Egypt. Matthew calls this a prophecy, but the original text is anything but. So many of the Bible’s prophecies fall apart in this way when researched.”
I looked this passage up in the New Jerome Biblical Commentary and it says, “The Son in the prophecy is Israel, the people of God” Matthew here applies the exodus typology to an individual, Jesus.”
I’m no expert Nate, but it looks like the New Jerome Biblical Commentary tends to agree with you.
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Yeah, I’ve only ever seen people defend this by claiming that some prophecies can have multiple fulfillments. I find this to be special pleading, especially since the original text gives no indication that it’s pointing to multiple events. It’s basically a case of having the conclusion worked out before the investigation. Seems that way to me, at least…
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And the writer of Matthew was notorious for doing this.
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The exchange between Mike and Ruth is very interesting (the most interesting since Mike has been on Nate’s blog). Mike can correct this obviously, but my take on this is that he is not asking a science question but a philosophical question. It relates to science because science is actually based on philosophical ideas (mainly epistemology but some metaphysics as well).
He actually responded to my question when he replied to Ruth. The distinction that most philosophers tend to make between “supernaturalism” and “naturalism” is typically the question of whether or not “intelligence” exists outside of what we understand as matter and energy. But definitions really don’t matter. What I think Mike is trying to say is that the idea of “stuff existing without explanation” is present in either worldview (super or non-super), and I agree – I call that a mystery that I’ve always been curious about. And yes that mystery doesn’t imply that theism is correct and I think Mike is conceding that – maybe the bigger idea he wants to get across is that either way we’ve got some strange stuff to deal with in any worldview we hold. I’m down with that.
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@Howie,
He actually responded to my question when he replied to Ruth. The distinction that most philosophers tend to make between “supernaturalism” and “naturalism” is typically the question of whether or not “intelligence” exists outside of what we understand as matter and energy. But definitions really don’t matter.
I agree. Trying to shoehorn whatever happened pre-expansion into a “supernaturalism” or whatever doesn’t seem particularly helpful on any level except a religious one. It is more of a philosophical question. One that I can’t rightfully say I can answer.
This is what we know: At a particular point in time the Universe began to expand. We don’t know how or what caused that expansion. But to say that because we don’t understand this it necessarily must be supernatural is to say that we fully understand all the laws of the universe. Do we?
What are we calling supernatural? Is it anything that doesn’t fit into our current understanding of the physical laws of nature? Are we saying by plugging in “supernatural” that there is nothing more we can learn?
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And then there was Nate’s (what I thought) excellent question. Why do we have to go back to pre-expansion to find a basis for “supernatural”.
At any rate we don’t know. It is a mystery. A profound mystery. And I think we’re all grappling with the implications of that in the best way we know how.
I still have questions about this “supernatural”. I’m intrigued, I’ll admit. I’m not even sure I’m ready to concede the supernatural explanation. That is, in my mind, the equivalent to “I don’t know.” Because even if supernatural is conceded we don’t know anything about this supernatural and, moreover, unless we choose one of the entities that has been proposed for whatever reason, don’t seem to be able to know anything about this supernatural.
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Yes, and any time “supernatural” was accepted in the past, from lightning to planetary orbits, it was later shown to be wrong.
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It’s a fascinating subject and one that I often think on. I’m sure that as time goes on we’ll make more discoveries and our understanding will improve. The atheists will claim this as more evidence for less evidence of god, and the religious will claim that it’s just more evidence of intelligent design – and then we’re back to square one.
This IS a philosophical discussion.
The thing is, is that this discussion took this philosophical turn at the expense of the original topic.
I’m fine with someone thinking it is supernatural. My personal opinion is that we just don’t have it figured out yet, and since that is the case, i wont say for certain that “supernatural” causes are impossible, although I find them very improbable.
So again, IF it had a supernatural cause, what does that prove?
How do we know that supernatural cause was a god(s)?
Then how do we know it was a god(s) that is eternal?
or god(s) that is perfect, omniscient, etc, etc?
and after all of that, how do we derive that the bible is god’s message to man and that jesus is lord and savior, and that atheism, Buddhism, Islam, and all the other “isms” aren’t the way to go?
I think it all comes down to faith – but I dont think all faith is equal. I have faith in my friends, but that’s because I know them and have spent a lot of real time and experience with them. I have faith in my dog for the same reasons. Sure, i have faith in science because i see and experience the tangible benefits it provides. My friend’s son has faith that santa is real, but this faith is built on something different that the others I just mentioned.
So again, IF we just assume that “Supernatural” is at least a possibility, what then?
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supernatural “Not of the usual; not natural; altered by forces that are not understood fully if at all.”
Since the beginning of man, I think this has always been the starting point. From lightning to planetary orbits as Nate just mentioned.
Think of the explanations science has provided and is continuing to provide for things we once called supernatural.
I think Star Wars got it right. “May the force go with you ” 🙂
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@ William,
You are right that we’ve gone waaaay off topic here. I was hoping that there was a point to this that somehow brought it back to the original post. I guess we’ll see. Though, we were taking it off topic with some of the questions we wanted Mike to answer. So, by going this direction and at least being able to have a civil conversation perhaps we’ll get to all that.
He’s conceded that supernatural doesn’t necessarily equal intelligence so I’m interested in seeing how he gets there. I was expecting some kind of William Lane Craig, “everything has a cause; the Universe has a cause; therefore God” thing from Mike, but that doesn’t seem to be where he’s going (though he gets there somehow).
Like I said, I still have an immense amount of trepidation, and questions, concerning anything we’re calling supernatural. Even if we said that because supernatural, and because we’re all here, supernatural equal intelligence, I’d still have a buttload of questions.
The same logic that says cause and effect operate within the physical laws of nature and infinite regress would be a miracle because “where matter come from”, then still applies to ‘supernatural’. If there is a un-embodied mind out there that is intelligent, that could design, where in the Universe did it get physical matter? How did it produce a physical force? Why is that scenario any more likely than a natural explanation?
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“where matter *does* come from”
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Then how do we know it was a god(s) that is eternal?
How do we even know what eternal is? If infinity is a human concept that we can’t even prove exists then surely eternal is as well.
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“How do we even know what eternal is? If infinity is a human concept that we can’t even prove exists then surely eternal is as well.” – Ruth
this is sort of my point. It’s extremely fascinating, but we cant know it, at least we dont have the means to do so now. we all agree with this point.
i do disagree that the questions to mike were off topic. conversations evolve and it led us down a path. We were asked some questions and we gave answers. Mike was asked some questions based on the things he said, and he refused to answer – at least so far,
The questions asked to him were directly related to the bible and biblical concepts, which is the overlying topic and every one of nate’s posts seem to hinge on this. I would accept, “i dont know” or “I just think it is” but if you’re going to say that the logical conclusion is “x” then show us the logic. let’s talk about that.
BuT i feel like we’ve jumped out of that and have gotten lost in the unknowable and for what? I dont have a particularly strong opinion about what kicked things off. If there is a god, then i want to know about it.
It isnt a case of atheism vs Christianity. There are literally thousands of choices, from agnostic to which christian, to which religion, to how many gods and which ones or one…
Most of us came from a christian background. Mike is a christian and evidently pretty fired up about it, so how do we arrive at jesus?
the spark of the singularity is cool, but let’s get down to it. I’d settle for a brief thesis statement, outlining the points in general, before we get into all of the specifics of how any of this should lead us to jesus.
and if that’s out of the question, then at the very least, what’s the ultimate point behind contemplating the original origin if there even is such a thing?
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BuT i feel like we’ve jumped out of that and have gotten lost in the unknowable and for what? I dont have a particularly strong opinion about what kicked things off. If there is a god, then i want to know about it.
I see your point – to a point. But I think that, for many, the starting point of that would be ‘in the beginning’, or at least what we perceive to be the beginning.
I was trying to let the conversation evolve into the answers about how we get from supernatural to God to Jesus.
I don’t have a particularly strong opinion about what kicked the Universe off either. In fact, there’s part of me that thinks that it is because we’ve evolved into intelligent beings that we can contemplate these questions that cause existential angst for people but that there may not even be a “why”. Just because we wonder about it and want to know does not imply there is an answer.
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A more important question would be to ask what is the point of being a Christian?
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“A more important question would be to ask what is the point of being a Christian?”
Ark, when I was a child attending a pentecostal church, we sang a song that typifies what Christians are taught to expect if they go to heaven.
I’m satisfied with just a cottage below
A little silver and a little gold
But in that city, where the ransomed will shine
I want a gold one, that’s silver lined
I’ve got a mansion just over the hilltop
In that bright land where we’ll never grow old
And someday yonder, we’ll never more wander
But walk on streets that are purest gold
Though often tempted, tormented and tested
And like the prophet my pillow is stone
And though I find here no permanent dwelling
I know he’ll give me a mansion my own
I’ve got a mansion just over the hilltop
In that bright land where we’ll never grow old
And someday yonder, we’ll never more wander
But walk on streets that are purest gold
Don’t think me poor or, deserted or lonely
I’m not discouraged, I’m heaven bound
I’m just a pilgrim in search of that city
I’ll have a mansion, a harp, and a crown
I’ve got a mansion just over the hilltop
In that bright land where we’ll never grow old
And someday yonder, we will never more wander
But walk on streets that are purest gold
Read more: Daniel O’Donnell – Mansion Over The Hilltop Lyrics | MetroLyrics
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