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 
Port I had one of those moments again
Started reading you and realized you had nothing to say but rambling on about belief and mystery and ….,,,,well pretty much nonsense. Forgive me I had to turn away out of respect for your pain. I have no idea what you said after that but it was obvious no point on cause and effect was ever going to be made.
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“Mike, Are my points making more sense?”
Oh I saw your question just now and wanted to make sure to answer
No…in fact they are making less and less with each post
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“Silence to direct questions is always a good indicator of those people.”
I asked multiple questions towards the end of this post to Kathy and Mike and you answered NONE of them. Other than your constant rhetoric and bashing , neither of you responded with clear answers to many of the questions posed here.
I searched Nate’s other posts and your tactics were much the same.
@kathy, you believe in talking animals and a virgin birth. You also claim A Supreme Being, while also illogical is a more reasonable explanation, and yes there are a plethora of Gods but only ONE God of the Bible. Which is the most reasonable God. And then the “icing on the cake” is you say, “all other religions have extreme faults in their beliefs etc”
People who have been indoctrinated in their faith and come out with a literal point of view usually don’t visit atheist blogs seeking answers. I think the evidence of this has clearly been displayed here.
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Been a long time lurker on nate’s blog, and never really had the impulse to post a comment until the past 2 weeks.
Reason?
Or rather a failure to see reason in the comments section that I love to read.
To be honest, this is getting ridiculous. We have 2 Christians that hold firm to their faith, while a bunch of atheists who do not believe the same thing. And instead of trying to understand each other and why they are thinking this way, we are resorting to name calling. To summarize, most of the things I have been reading has been “nuh-uh I don’t agree and that’s becuz u are stupid and lying. You suck.”
Everyone please chill out.
Why are the atheists still bothering to engage when some people are not here to listen? It doesn’t seem to me that there’s a discussion going here, but rather a competition of who can ridicule the other camp more.
Now before anybody start to say I’m bias against the 2 Christians (whom I think are effectively trolling even if they don’t meant to be), let me be clear, atheists are guilty of the same charge as well. And to be frank I do agree with Mike on some of the hypocracy seen – Ark immediately comes to mind, while most of the atheists including Nate have been guilty of using less than civil words.
Don’t get me wrong, this is not saying that we are all bad pple etc. But at least understand why people like Mike may have gotten offended in the first place. Certainly the way he has reflected himself has been less than stellar, but shouldn’t we also apologize to him, and see if he is truly magnanimous to forgive us and then continue the discussion in a civil manner? If he doesn’t do it then at least our conscience is clear, and may also be easier to see which side is acting like a child and which side isn’t. Honestly now I’m finding it hard to distinguish.
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“Silence to direct questions is always a good indicator of those people. They can’t defend their views, so they stay silence.. until, you say something they *think* is easy to argue or attack.. ”
to some of them everything is easy to attack because they think through nothing. The duplicity would be stunning if I did not see it so often in atheist thought. Present them with something they cannot rebut the logic of and they go EXACTLY as they accuse theists of doing –
Give no rational answer
fall back to nothing but belief, feeling and I thinks
and proclaim in the sweet by and by facts will be revealed, that although they have no idea what those facts will be it will support their ideology
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Powell I require no apology and I would happily get to something substantive. I can break it down into two questions and if I saw even a half way reasonable answer I would surmise there was some honesty
A) Besides intelligence how is appealing to an infinity any less supernatural than appealing to a god? IF atheists can invoke an infinity which has absolutely no proof then how can thy calim that theists are illogical?
B) an answer to something I now have posted three times that no one will touch
“Natural processes ruth. natural processes. Lets take a bouncing ball infinite universe. Thats all thats in it – a bouncing ball, Nowhere near as complex as our own universe
Now if its infinite then the force the ball is bouncing with is uncaused. The force comes from nowhere. You can’t say the ball ever had the force to applied to it because in its infinite past the ball has ALWAYS been bouncing . you can’t say the force began because it always was applied. Thats what infinite means
How is the ball bouncing with a force that comes from nothing/nowhere any substantial different from a supernatural event? ”
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Some clarifications – stop using the words like duplicity, lying, deluded etc as they are offensive. I’m not saying that you cannot feel this way, but if ur intention is trying to convince, or understand what the other camp is thinking, then u’ll deft not get the result u want.
Watch how many proper debates uses such words? Even in politics when speakers are criticizing each other I don’t see similar name calling. Use gentler words guys, it reflects better on us and prevent the listener from getting aggressive.
Now I’m sure some of u guys will say “I’ll call a spade a spade” or to that effect. Or perhaps to the tune of “oh I don’t care what others think of me”
If that is the case, then u are not trying to communicate, but rather purposely trying to simply push your point across without regard and that would make you a troll. Just my 2 cents
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Hi Mike,
Sorry my points are not making sense to you.
Hope you have a productive and safe week 🙂
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Powell,
I agree we should be more respectful, people can still clearly outline their views without dismissing people.
People can even be frank and to the point, without using bullying behaviour.
That is true for people of all beliefs. It’s just not effective in understanding one another.
Thanks
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So Hopefully the quality of the conversation improves
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“Some clarifications – stop using the words like duplicity, lying, deluded etc as they are offensive.”
You mean like insincere, kidding themselves, fudging, twisting and yes Lying and deluded as used all over this blog in reference to theists? Do tell….. or umm your own personal favorite – troll as unoffensive??
BTW do you have anything to offer by way of substance to the subject of cause and effect? Like umm the last two questions you avoided?
Because the whole giving directions thing isn’t a point that I will hear you on and definitely not while you are name calling people trolls
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” then u’ll deft not get the result u want. ”
Just a note since you are lecturing everyone on hwo they are coming across . if you want people to stake you seriously you just can’t use U so often
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“It’s just not effective in understanding one another”.
And what I meant by that is that bullying behaviour is not effective in understanding one another
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We have two Christians here? Where? I don’t see them.
“But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law.” Gal 5:22-23
“If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal… Love is patient and kind. Love is not jealous or boastful or proud or rude. It does not demand its own way. It is not irritable, and it keeps no record of being wronged.” 1 Cor 13:1,4-5
“Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. Many will say to me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and in your name drive out demons and perform many miracles?’ Then I will tell them plainly, ‘I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!’ Mt 7:21-23
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“Certainly the way he has reflected himself has been less than stellar, but shouldn’t we also apologize to him, and see if he is truly magnanimous to forgive us and then continue the discussion in a civil manner?” – Powers
I agree with what you’ve said. You’re right, this is ridiculous and we’re no longer discussing the points. Sad.
People have apologized to mike, but i have yet to see him accept one. he usually claims the apology is insincere. I’ve seen atheists try to get back on point, and mike seems to avoid doing so.
We should be better than this. Even if some difficult person comes on here, at the very least, we could ignore him and get back to business.
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Put something substantive in font of them
—————————-
“if I saw even a half way reasonable answer I would surmise there was some honesty
A) Besides intelligence how is appealing to an infinity any less supernatural than appealing to a god? IF atheists can invoke an infinity which has absolutely no proof then how can thy calim that theists are illogical?
B) an answer to something I now have posted three times that no one will touch
“Natural processes ruth. natural processes. Lets take a bouncing ball infinite universe. Thats all thats in it – a bouncing ball, Nowhere near as complex as our own universe
Now if its infinite then the force the ball is bouncing with is uncaused. The force comes from nowhere. You can’t say the ball ever had the force to applied to it because in its infinite past the ball has ALWAYS been bouncing . you can’t say the force began because it always was applied. Thats what infinite means
How is the ball bouncing with a force that comes from nothing/nowhere any substantial different from a supernatural event? ”
————————
and Watch em scatter
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Ron,
I think It’s overly harsh to imply that people aren’t Christians,
that is between each person and God. After all, we don’t know who each person is at heart, or all their motivations….
we might observe people behaving or expressing things we disagree with, or doing things that offend us.
but to suggest that they are not genuine when it comes to matters of faith is not something I think can be assessed online.
If someone says they believe, I think they and God only know what’s going on inside.
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And I don’t think we can really know all people’s fruits just through discussions with them on the internet.
And personally, I know I need to concentrate on taking the log out of my own eye anyway 🙂
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Apologies on that, was using my iphone to type and had to rush before the battery went dead, which also explains the bad grammar and the usage of “u”.
In any case, I was actually referring to the atheists when I was typing out my “clarification” and not pointing fingers at you Mike. Like I said previously, don’t think we handled ourselves well either so hope you do not mind. And the troll thing? Not just referring you I think all of us are culpable when we are shouting each other down, and I do frown upon what Ron has said up there. I think that’s uncalled for and once again jeopardizes the spirit of discussion. If I came across as being “holier than thou”, or seemed to be on a moral high horse, I am truly sorry.
*wags finger at Ron*
Yup.
Back to your questions –
A) Besides intelligence how is appealing to an infinity any less supernatural than appealing to a god? IF atheists can invoke an infinity which has absolutely no proof then how can thy calim that theists are illogical?
Fully agree with you. It’s wrong that atheists are calling theists illogical. There is a reason why you believe what you do. Theists have their own worldview and so do atheists. We may not agree with the reason, but to simply disregard their entire thought process is deft wrong.
B) an answer to something I now have posted three times that no one will touch
“Natural processes ruth. natural processes. Lets take a bouncing ball infinite universe. Thats all thats in it – a bouncing ball, Nowhere near as complex as our own universe
Now if its infinite then the force the ball is bouncing with is uncaused. The force comes from nowhere. You can’t say the ball ever had the force to applied to it because in its infinite past the ball has ALWAYS been bouncing . you can’t say the force began because it always was applied. Thats what infinite means
How is the ball bouncing with a force that comes from nothing/nowhere any substantial different from a supernatural event? ”
I think Ruth and Portal have attempted to answer but their answers have been rejected. So in my humble opinion to say that no one will touch or has touched is not being fair.
Nonetheless, you of course are well in your right to fail their answers. And in that case I guess we have failed your test? If that is true I would really love to hear from you why your answer is the correct one as right now I can’t see why Ruth’s answer does not get a pass grade.
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forgot one Kathy – Ron….never EVER makes a good point
Now since I happened to scan and see he was quoting mining scripture in defense of his accusation of non christian attitude (as if he is any judge of proper christian attitude) let me quote some passages that they will no doubt take offense at (but are put here to rebut the idea that answers must always be soft according to Christianity)
Galatians 2:11 (YLT)
11 And when Peter (an apostle no less) came to Antioch, to the face I stood up against him, because he was blameworthy,
Acts 8:20-23 (ASV)
20 But Peter said unto him, Thy silver perish with thee, because thou hast thought to obtain the gift of God with money.
21 Thou hast neither part nor lot in this matter: for thy heart is not right before God.
22 Repent therefore of this thy wickedness, and pray the Lord, if perhaps the thought of thy heart shall be forgiven thee.
23 For I see that thou art in the gall of bitterness and in the bond of iniquity.
2 Peter 2:17 (YLT)
17 These (apostates)are wells without water, and clouds by a tempest driven, to whom the thick gloom of the darkness to the age hath been kept;
Matthew 12:33-35 (Darby)
33 Either make the tree good, and its fruit good; or make the tree corrupt, and its fruit corrupt. For from the fruit the tree is known.
34 Offspring of vipers! how can ye speak good things, being wicked? For of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks.
35 The good man out of the good treasure brings forth good things; and the wicked man out of the wicked treasure brings forth wicked things.
Matthew 23:13 (ASV)
13 But woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! because ye shut the kingdom of heaven against men: for ye enter not in yourselves, neither suffer ye them that are entering in to enter.
Theres a long, good and righteous history of Christianity demanding a spade be called a spade and an atheist quote mining the bible doesn’t change it.
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“B) an answer to something I now have posted three times that no one will touch”
People have touched it Mike, you’re the one doing the hand waving . You have framed a question claiming there are only 2 answers. You have NO evidence that those are the only 2 answers.
It’s OK for you to have faith that 1 of those 2 answers is true. It’s not OK to berate everyone else for saying 1.) I don’t know 2.) those may not be the only 2 answers.
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” think Ruth and Portal have attempted to answer but their answers have been rejected. So in my humble opinion to say that no one will touch or has touched is not being fair”
You made that up out of thin air Power. I have yet to see any answer to that question. and you didn’t answer A either. You side stepped it as if infinity has not already been invoked. once it has then it needs an explanation.
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“forgot one Kathy – Ron….never EVER makes a good point”
Mike, have you ever in your life taken the “high road” ?
You started out this post by berating others here who have differing views and you have never stopped.
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Try and stop lying people. Just for a few minutes. here it is again
““Natural processes ruth. natural processes. Lets take a bouncing ball infinite universe. Thats all thats in it – a bouncing ball, Nowhere near as complex as our own universe
Now if its infinite then the force the ball is bouncing with is uncaused. The force comes from nowhere. You can’t say the ball ever had the force to applied to it because in its infinite past the ball has ALWAYS been bouncing . you can’t say the force began because it always was applied. Thats what infinite means
How is the ball bouncing with a force that comes from nothing/nowhere any substantial different from a supernatural event? ”
Go ahead and answer it…not sidetep, not hand wave – give a logical reasoned answer
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Ok Mark,
I’ll attempt to answer your question.
your analogy of the red ball seems to suggest that it needed to be dropped in order for it to begin it’s bouncing. If you add the eternal aspect this would infer that the ball was never dropped, but that it has always, and will always bounce.
If the ball is not eternally bouncing then eventually it will come to a stop, as since it was dropped, it’s bounces will decline as well over time. There would therefore be both a beginning and an end.
To me a eternally bouncing ball makes not as much sense. Have I answered your question?
Here’s my question. Say someone or something did drop the ball in this analogy. I believe someone dropped the ball.
But the same question could be asked, who created the one who dropped the ball?
The answer could be that the one who dropped the ball is eternal. But then are we not back to square one? That although the ball is not eternally bouncing, at some point during cause and effect someone or something in this analogy caused the ball to begin bouncing, and aren’t such a originator of the bouncing ball therefore eternal?
For what or who precedes them or it that first caused the ball to bounce?
So in this case, instead of having an eternally bouncing ball, we have a eternally existing cause that started the ball bouncing.
Which I believe to be true. But we are still then dealing with the notion of eternity, just transferred from the ball to the one who dropped it.
This analogy therefore still involves eternity, and cause and effect still involves an eternal cause.
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