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 
I mean, I have my own points why I believe as well, and I’m happy to share them, although they are huge to me. Not everyone might feel or think the same way 🙂
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@Ryan,
If I was an athiest, that’s how I would have answered his question on the supernatural.
In my own clumsy way that’s what I thought I was doing. Though not as succinctly put as you, that was pretty much what I thought I said. But when we say we’re waiting for science it seems as if we’re ducking the implications of supernatural explanations.
I did get off into a side conversation with William, though, which may be why he thought I was waxing philosophical in our discussion. 😉
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…but the nature, agency and power of a Creator certainly is not based on the belief of the individual,
I got what you were saying the first time. If there is a Creator, it’s attributes would not be dependent on the beliefs of individuals. Said Creator’s attributes would be whatever said Creator wanted them to be regardless of the belief of individuals.
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” I don’t know why Mike has insisted that he won’t answer because he feels people haven’t answered his questions. ”
Port that’s pretty nonsensical. Why should Mike answer questions when his own hasn’t been answered. See? this is why I really cant take many people here seriously. You have lapses where you just make no sense whatsoever. Why would any atheist go to a theist blog and agree to answer the questions of theists while the theists refused to answer any but just turned around and shot down everything the atheist said.
That you wonder why I wouldn’t answer without having my own questions answered makes me wonder as to whether you are even genuine or just engaging in pure rhetoric.
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“…but the nature, agency and power of a Creator certainly is not based on the belief of the individual,”
You are absolutely right ! What credible evidence is there a creator has ever revealed himself to humans?
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Nate, I just read Mike’s first response to your post again and realize why we have all been wasting our time trying to engage in an honest discussion with him.
Mike said “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.”
Of course no one like Mike who studied his bible would be taken by it especially not the first part, if they are literalists like Mike. A literalist is not likely to consider anything a non-literalist has to say. It’s that simple. You poked holes in the literal interpretation of bible prophecies and this could NEVER be considered by a literalist.
“A literal Biblical interpretation is associated with the fundamentalist and evangelical hermeneutical approach to scripture—the historical-grammatical method—and is used extensively by fundamentalist Christians,[3] in contrast to the historical-critical method of liberal Christians.” (wiki)
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Ya know, I’m not surprised the conversation has gone south again, but I am definitely surprised at why it has gone south. The hangup here seems to be the use of the word philosophical – perhaps there is some pop-atheist (and yes, I do use that term in a bit of a derogatory way) tactic out there that Mike is familiar with regarding the use of the word philosophy and so I’ll cut some slack there, but I don’t see why the conversation between Ruth and Mike can’t progress beyond that. Ruth has already said she doesn’t consider the questions unimportant and doesn’t consider them secondary – so what’s the hangup? Who cares – call it science or call it philosophy. Call it dung-beetle for goodness sakes.
The irony here is that when I posted my comment the other night I had the intention of hoping it would move Ruth and Mike’s conversation forward because it really was of interest to me and I always love to see productive conversations. The fact that I used the word philosophical was actually something that I thought would help bring some clarity, because I wanted people to know that nobody needed to understand particle physics, or the equations of relativity or quantum mechanics to understand the points that Mike was trying to make.
But instead we’ve gone back to unproductive. I’m not going to try again today. If I get my patience back another day maybe I’ll try again to help, but I think there is too much sensitivity here to tactics that may be a bit too difficult to overcome.
And by the way, I’ve heard Tyson say philosophy is dead a few times now and since the first time I heard him say that I’ve thought he was off his rocker. Sure let’s get rid of the very field that built up the scientific method itself, and let’s get rid of the field that tries to take the findings of the scientific method and interpret them to understand the foundations of reality better – just doesn’t sound like a good idea to me. And I’d be pretty surprised if the majority of scientists agree with Tyson on that. But whatever, that’s just an aside.
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Hey, Mike, ready to tell us how Jesus of Nazareth was the creator of the universe yet?
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Good morning Meestor Ark. I doubt seriously you are ever going to get this answer from Mike. As I pointed out to Nate earlier, Mike is a Literalist and doesn’t feel an explanation is needed. His goal is to get any non-believer to agree that when science can’t explain something, it is quite OK to use a “supernatural explanation”.
If you should receive the answer to your question from Mike, this indeed would be supernatural ! 🙂
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Sorry guys. I had no idea that my use of the word philosophical, nor having a philosophical conversation would derail things. I have never read Dawkins, Harris, Hitchens, etc. I’ve only watched those couple of Krauss videos and honestly had no idea that anything philosophical was derogatory or negative. I really didn’t realize it was so inflammatory.
Having said all that, postulating any ideas of what a supernatural entity might be seems philosophical to me.
I was just having a conversation with Howie and William while I waited on the scientific explanations I thought would be presented. I thought I was going to get an answer to the following:
If I’m understanding your argumentation:
No matter what explanation might be given for the cause of the Big Bang, it can’t be the ‘First Cause’ because anything that can be explained would need further explanation? Therefore the ‘First Cause’ is necessarily supernatural?
I’m quite certain that anything I said of a non-scientific, philosophical nature can be debunked because they are nothing more than mere speculation on my part.
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Hi Mike 🙂
It seems to me your position is…and please correct me if I’m wrong:
That you have some important answers to these questions that people have continued to outline…
but You are only willing to answer them if people first concede that a Supernatural Power (personal or impersonal) is necessary for the beginning of the universe.
You seem to not accept that “We don’t know” to be a real answer. Nor do you seem to accept that a answer that assumes that a supernatural origin is not necessary…
You don’t seem to recognise these as answers, so therefore On these grounds you refuse to answer the questions these people have asked you…
So you then give the impression that Before you seriously answer the questions people have asked you, they must first concede in the belief that the supernatural is necessary for the components of the Big Bang…
But Mike,
let’s look at this from another perspective,
Say if an athiest on here said to you you:
I will not answer your questions,
unless you first concede to my founding premise that:
there is nothing beyond the natural laws of nature, and the Big Bang was not caused by the supernatural…ect
Say when you did attempt to answer their question regarding the origins of the universe, this person would not only refuse to accept your answer as a real “answer”, but refuse to recongnise other responses you make to be real answers…since your response involves the belief that the supernatural is involved in the Big Bang.
How could you possibly then answer this persons questions to meet their requirements?
when they seem to only recognise that “genuine” answers must first concede with their world view?
Because They neither consider “I don’t know” or “I believe the supernatural is necessary” to be answers. And they refuse to answer specific questions that you put to them,
So therefore this atheist individual refuses to answer your questions…on the grounds that you don’t concede to agree with them…
Mike, I for one do believe that God is necessary for the origins of the universe. I don’t know enough about the origins of the universe, but I have faith that more than unguided processes are involved..
However, if a person who didn’t believe refused to answer questions, on the grounds that they don’t consider my responses to their questions to be “real” answers. Where can I go from here? If such requirements are implied before an answer will be given?
Hope that makes sense.
Thanks.
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So Mike,
Do the answers have to be conditional?
I would really like to read what you
have to say on these topics, because believe it or not. I do think you make decent points, and would like to read more. But of course it’s your call.
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Port honestly i started reading your post and it was so….I don’t even know what to call it…. that I just stopped. it was making no point whatsoever.
I did see you try to spin it around the other way so okay lets see how this works
Atheist: I have this question that affects your worldview of the universe and that miracles are possible in it. Could you tell me how you rationalize…..(insert whatever question you want here)
Theist: I don’t know. I don’t think its an important questions that I have to answer beyond I don’t know. In the great by and by I believe there will be an answer
So the atheists says what next?
“Oh okay thats a good answer”?
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If you don’t see my point, then why won’t you answer these questions William and Ark have asked you?
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Atheist: I have this question that affects your worldview of the universe and that miracles are possible in it. Could you tell me how you rationalize…..(insert whatever question you want here)
Theist: I don’t know. I don’t think its an important questions that I have to answer beyond I don’t know. In the great by and by I believe there will be an answer
So the atheists says what next?
“Oh okay thats a good answer”?
It seems beyond absurd to assert certainty to answers of which one is not certain. That is not satisfactory to you that I don’t know. The fact is I don’t. The fact is I AM okay with the fact that I don’t know all the answers for everything.
It is because you are asserting such certainty that we are asking the questions of you. You seem quite certain, even though the majority of scientists – whose job it is to find the answers – claim uncertainty.
If I was so very certain of my position I would have no problem asserting it, explaining it, and standing behind it. This is what you are asking me to do. Assert an answer for something for which I don’t have one and stand behind it.
How foolish would it be for me to do that when I’m not at all certain of the answer?
I did get your point about why you wanted us to answer your questions before you would answer ours. I can understand your wanting to know this is a give and take conversation and not a bunch of atheists just trying to debunk whatever you put forth and getting shot down at every turn. Yet that is exactly what you are employing here. You’ve asked us to answer your questions for the sole purpose of debunking them and never laying what you have on the table.
What more can be said?
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There are many, many things I don’t know and don’t understand. Were I to have to have an answer for everything I don’t understand I would never rest. I would quite likely also be an arrogant know-it-all because I’d study up on everything I didn’t know about. Which in turn would make for a lot of pseudo knowledge of subjects because one person can’t possibly know every thing.
I’m glad there are people who try to know everything they possibly can about a given subject, but even they would acknowledge that they don’t know everything about that given subject, much less all subjects.
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“If you don’t see my point, then why won’t you answer these questions William and Ark have asked you?”
Have they answered mine? I wouldn’t know because as I announced long ago I stopped reading their posts long ago as they ducked and fumbled from answering mine. Your posts are incoherent. What is it about not seeing your point that would require me to answer their question?
try and make some minimal sense
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Mike, the real problem here is you are making a claim and then challenging everyone here to prove why it is not so. That’s not how it works.
Here is your original question which you reposted to me, “I am not even at the point of “using a god” as the supernatural cause. I am asking how you deal with the ramifications a supernatural root to reality due to cause and effect INESCAPABLY having to terminate at some point in reality whether thats an unexplained God. an unexplained Universe or an Unexplained can of beef that created the universe.
You are asking me a hypothetical question here Mike. I don’t deal with the ramifications of a “supernatural root” because no one has provided evidence that a supernatural root is the only answer of an “unexplained god, an unexplained Universe, OR an unexplained can of beef”
Your answer above was also self-contradicting but I won’t try and make you feel stupid for writing it as you have done with so many here.
“I am not even at the point of “using a god” as the supernatural cause.”
“I am asking how you deal with the ramifications a supernatural root to reality due to cause and effect INESCAPABLY having to terminate at some point in reality whether thats an unexplained God”
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“It seems beyond absurd to assert certainty to answers of which one is not certain….. I can understand your wanting to know this is a give and take conversation and not a bunch of atheists just trying to debunk whatever you put forth and getting shot down at every turn. Yet that is exactly what you are employing here. ”
Sorry Ruth. Utterly false. I am doing no such thing. Its just a whole lot of begging off you are doing now. There is zero uncertainty when you walk in to a room where there is a train of dominos falling that there there was either an endless amount of dominos or the first domino was hit over by something else besides a domino. You can beg all you want . I am not asking you what the first thing was in that domino train. I am asking you which option of the only two logical choices there are do you choose?
the utter nonsense that we can’t choose one of only two logical choices and then ascertaining what the implications of that are is just stalling and hand waving intentional or unintentional. its just basically following Nate’s obfuscation that I am asking you exactly what was before the big bang which I never have. So again my question to Port who side stepped it is now put to you. Lets try it on for size.
Atheist: I have this question that affects your worldview of the universe and that miracles are possible in it. Could you tell me how you rationalize…..(insert whatever question you want here)
Theist: I don’t know. I don’t think its an important questions that I have to answer beyond I don’t know. In the great by and by I believe there will be an answer
So the atheists says what next?
“Oh okay thats a good answer”?
You are right about this being about give and take and a level playing field but we both know if the above scenario takes place in future steps in our debate not a person on your side would say
“Ok thats a good answer Mike” In fact we both know if Mike says “i don’t know” about any key point many on your own side will say “there ya go. thats our point”. it won;t be accepted as a rational answer I I do it and we both know it.
and thats the entire point. I am not interested in some biased one sided dialogue and a huge part of why this will remain my requirement is because of what both you and Nate agreed to which is most definitely vacuous (but popular)
“Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence”
by that undefined parameter ANYTHING can be classified as not “extraordinary” enough evidence and the debate is slanted from the git go. If the universe’s beginning has to rely on elements that are beyond the natural that we now know how do we even establish a baseline of what ordinary is to ascertain what is extraordinary?
Now at this point the merry atheist band can barf – Oh Mike wants us to accept the supernatural with no evidence when thats just utterly false. Mike believes there should be good evidence for something. Sound evidence but mike knows that a empty non defined criteria such as “extraordinary evidence” is just so elastic in its non definition that it can be stretched to claim that NO amount of evidence could ever confirm something supernatural which is as I have mentioned before is an illogical unconfirmed Priori. I know that any such debate criteria just will end in an utter waste of time
With the extraordinary evidence claim the goal post can always be moved because their locations are never defined. One party can claim something is extraordinary with no baseline conversation/criteria as to what is really ordinary to the history of the universe (rather than just temporally ordinary now) and the same party claims to be the sole arbiter of what extraordinary evidence is. Who would agree to such a condition for a discussion?
THATS where this fits in
In a universe where everything pops out of nothing whats so extreme or extraordinary about waters parting in the Red Sea? At least you start with water and wind while with everything out of nothing you start with nothing! If something unexplainable has happened in our universe what should be so “extraordinary” that more than one thing happens without natural explanation.
So yes you will have to answer the issues with me because central to your whole extraordinary evidence claims will have to be some kind of objective analysis of what is ordinary to the universe and what extraordinary evidence even is as opposed to just good evidence.
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More than a week ago, I asked the resident apologists to do the following:
A simple and unambiguous request. Yet, thus far, they’ve made no attempt to do so. I wonder why? Could it be because they know they can’t?
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I’m not the brightness light on the tree, but is anyone here seeing what he is doing ??? He has formulated a question where he is trying to convince everyone there are only 2 answers.
And again as a Literalist , he is comparing HIS answer to the question as being as real as parting the Red Sea.
Ruth , Mike is doing the very thing he is accusing you and everyone else here in doing. Begging off.
He has admitted earlier that his bible god can do any of the things attributed to him from scripture.
“Your reasoning is totally incoherent. Apparently its that the suns and the stars are too big for God to turn off ?”
How do you go forward from this ?
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Yes, but you seem certain that whatever happened is “supernatural”.
I’m not convinced of that (I’m not unconvinced of that either, btw).
BUT it seems when you insert the supernatural claim, and insist that I do as well, that there can be no natural explanation. So when I say that a possible natural explanation exists which has not been discovered yet that is hand waving to you. Begging off. I’m not.
I’ve stated to you that I believe that science will eventually provide the answer and even agreed with your assessment that my reliance on science is in fact a form of faith. Because science tests, proves, eliminates, verifies. But it is faith of a different form in which I think of when I think of a supernatural. I have faith when I cross a bridge it will hold me because there is science and engineering behind that. Do bridges sometimes fail? Of course they do.
It is possible that there are laws of nature that haven’t been discovered yet. I find that more likely than a supernatural explanation. If I understand it correctly the laws of nature might not have operated the same way prior to the big bang and even in early entropy as they do now. You might rebut with the fact that the laws of nature only operate within space and time, but how do we know that?
Not only that but it has been shown that quantum particles temporarily pop in and out of existence with no seeming cause. Are we calling that supernatural?
If we’re not saying that supernatural equals an intelligent entity what else might it be?
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And, by the way, that is not me begging off and saying that I’m accepting a theory of the origins of the universe without any evidence. That is me asking for the evidence. But the reason I feel that science will most likely provide that evidence is because they have proven so many times before that science can.
Before we knew what caused storms, and hurricanes, and earthquakes those things were thought to be supernatural. There are a great many things that before we discovered the natural laws that we currently know exist were thought to be supernatural. In a universe with that many scientific discoveries what would be so extraordinary about the discovery of yet another?
Yes, my acceptance of any theory of the origins of the Universe would be with evidence. Not conjecture on lack thereof.
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If science does prove one of the many theories of the origins of the Universe and logic dictates that it occurred through natural processes what are the ramifications of that for your supernatural?
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Ron, this ones for you !
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