Meditation 184
Prophecies fulfilled?
By: JT
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Perhaps I will close on my correspondence with David Harris by discussing his claim that:
In the life of Jesus Christ alone some 300+ prophecies were fulfilled.
Somehow, this is supposed to convince me of the truth of the bible.
But let's look at prophecies made and fulfilled in other religions.
Go back to ancient Mesopotamia and the Epic of Gilgamesh which predates the bible. What do we find but prophecies made and prophecies fulfilled. Should we now believe in the Mesopotamian pantheon of gods?
Re-examine the stories from ancient Greece that involve their gods. What do we find? We find prophecies and prophecies fulfilled. Apollo, particularly had a reputation for prophecy and there are still have records of several thousand prophecies made by his Oracle at Delphi, cryptic perhaps, but no more so than biblical prophecy. Now, we have to believe in the Greek pantheon.
Similarly if we look at the Romans tales of their gods, we again find prophecies and prophecies fulfilled. Clearly, this proves the validity of the Roman pantheon.
We can do exactly the same thing for if we look at old myths from Scandinavia, Africa, India, North and South America. Equally this must prove the validity of their various gods and goddesses.
It's apparent that a common thread to nearly all theistic religions is prophecies made and prophecies fulfilled.
On this web site, I have made a number of "psychic predictions" which have been fulfilled even though I used none of my psychic powers. Does the success of my prophecies convince anyone of the perfect truth of my writings? It does not even convince me that I'm perfect.
To claim that fulfilled prophecies validate Christianity is to claim that fulfilled prophecies validate nearly every religion ever practiced on Earth.
And it does not matter whether someone can count 300 fulfilled prophecies, or 3000 or 30,000 or even 666 fulfilled prophecies in the life of Jesus Christ; it all means the same: diddly squat. As do similar prophecies in any religion.
Let's just look at just one supposedly fulfilled prophecy in the life of Jesus - and this I must admit I have written about before, (Meditation 38, Meditation 175) and that of course is the Massacre of the Innocents as told in Matthew 2:16, which, as Matthew takes care to advise us in the very next verse, supposedly fulfils the rather cryptic prophecy of Jeremiah 31:15.
As I have previously pointed out, there is no evidence outside of Matthew 2:16 for this horrendous crime. The logical conclusion is that it never happened and the event is pure fabrication. This tale was inserted in the story just to try to substantiate that Jesus was the Messiah. It is not prophecy fulfilled. It is pure fiction.
That is just one of the fulfilled prophecies that just isn't so. Another one is the supposed virgin birth.
What Mr. Harris did not mention is the other side of the coin, the innumerable unfulfilled prophecies in the bible. Let us look at some of the prophecies for the second coming. There are a number in the New Testament. We'll just stick with Matthew. In this gospel alone are three clear prophecies attributed to Jesus that he would return in the lifetime of the listeners. Matthew 10:23, Matthew 16:28, and Matthew 24:34. I'll let you look up the first two yourself . As for the third passage which concludes a section beginning at Matthew 24:4 where Jesus describes all the events around a second coming:
Matthew 24:34: Truly, I say to you, this generation will not pass away till all these things take place
It did not happen. And that generation has long passed away. The prophecy is still unfulfilled and time is long up.
Prophecies in the bible proving anything? I don't think so. Rather, they falsify claims of biblical infallibility.