The great and awesome Day of the Lord

[Mithrae]

As y'all know despite being raised as one I'm no longer a Christian and haven't been for over a decade: I don't accept core Christian doctrines (eg. I'd only guess ~70-90% probability for the existence of some kind of 'God' and consider it significantly more probable than not that Jesus didn't rise from the dead), and more importantly I don't even adhere to the teachings of Jesus (to sell what you have and give to the poor, don't worry about tomorrow but trust in God's provision, stop working for money and start working for the kingdom of God).

But I try to keep an open mind, and over the past ten months or so I've been troubled by the topic of biblical prophecy. It actually began all the way back in 2011, when one prophecy enthusiast came to the forum with all kinds of fallacies and arbitrary conclusions, claiming that his pet theory had only 112 trillion to one odds of being false. So in response I did a more objective assessment, and came up with something like 100 to one instead; which is not mind-blowing or miraculous, but is still somewhat intriguing.

I've privately gnawed on that issue at times over the years, but never managed to falsify it to my own satisfaction and even found a couple of additional points worth considering too. So hopefully the rest of you can help prove me wrong.

As I see it, if a prediction has been made and parts of it had already come true, that's either coincidence or it's indicative of genuine foreknowledge. Hence the likelihood that the rest will come true is the inverse of the likelihood that the first part was coincidence. (Plus the likelihood that it would happen anyway, prophecy or no, but in the case of biblical prophecies that's basically zero and therefore irrelevant.) That is absolutely critical to my reasoning, but I can't find a fault with it: Either the fulfillment of the first part was coincidence or it was indeed foreknown, and if it was foreknown then the rest of it presumably is foreknown also; so the likelihood that the first part was not coincidence is roughly the same as the likelihood that the whole prophecy is genuine.

Thus we have -
Prediction: Prophecy and interpretation
Confirmation: Signs and complete fulfillment

The biggest problem I've found with many Christian prophecy enthusiasts is that they tend to include their interpretation as part of the 'sign,' like that fellow from 2011 (and with some particularly enthusiastic folk, simply make up what constitutes a sign from whole cloth!), and that's a key error I've tried to avoid in my reasoning. In each case I've tried to justify an interpretation of biblical prophecy as legitimate, not arbitrary, and only then begun to consider how likely it is that the 'sign' which came to pass is mere coincidence. I will try to be as brief as possible with the signs I've been interested in, but I'll still put them in another post because this is already getting on the long side for an OP. However I'll briefly comment on two of the most obvious objections first:

1 - Biblical prophecies are too vague
It's a fair point, but firstly, that is why I've tried to specifically quantify the likelihood of a fulfillment or 'sign' being mere coincidence, distinct from and after establishing a legitimate interpretation; and secondly, what would the alternative be? If a prophecy were very specific then anytime since 400 CE or so basically any 'fulfillment' would be subject to the criticism that it was engineered by Christians to match the existing prophecy. Some miraculous exceptions which could not possibly be engineered by humans might apply (though not for any of the ones below), but then there's the endless debate over whether there's good reasons why a deity would not openly and universally reveal himself in such a manner. Criticisms on those grounds are not particularly valid to my mind, since they simply assume certain things about what 'God' or prophecy should be like, rather than addressing the actual data available.

2 - Seemingly fulfilled prophecies, even remarkable ones, are still coincidental products of large numbers; many many prophecies and thousands of years of history
The charge that some biblical prophecies are obviously false prophecies (eg. those of Ezekiel or those that 'Matthew' put in Jesus' mouth about his return) falls more into this category than being a valid objection in its own right, I think; after all on its own, it amounts to nothing more than the absurd 'some prophecies are false therefore they all are.' However the more nuanced recognition of how large numbers interact with the notion of coincidence is important, and is potentially valid, if it can be shown that that the real probability of a 'fulfillment' is in fact other than what I have calculated. I have tried to be careful in considering other scenarios, other possible 'fulfillments' in my estimations of probability, so I don't consider it a valid objection to blithely state that it simply must have been more probable than I've concluded.



Questions for debate:
Is the reasoning above valid, particularly the section in blue?
And if so, are the assessments of probability for the prophecies/signs in post #2 correct (or at least reasonable)?

[Mithrae]

But it's turning out that you are (to my mind) reasoning based on shifting assumptions (which is normal and OK) and conflating the results (also common, but not OK).

Where have I done that? As I said earlier, as far as I can tell this impression comes instead from a false dichotomy of extremes; I tend to avoid those extremes and so you're apparently getting an impression which is sometimes on one half of your dichotomy and sometimes the other.

I'm sorry but in both of these responses it seems very much as though you're trying to score cheap semantic points more than anything else.
Declaring that the end of the age is signified by events in every decade is absurd.

Under the assumption that it is the primary signal to the end of an age then I will concede the point.

Penultimate would be a better word than primary, but that's not an assumption by any stretch of the imagination; it is the sign which the passage describes immediately before the coming of the day of the Lord:

• Joel 2:28/3:1
  And it shall come to pass afterward, that I will pour out My spirit upon all flesh; and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams, your young men shall see visions;
  2 And also upon the servants and upon the handmaids in those days will I pour out My spirit.
  3 And I will shew wonders in the heavens and in the earth, blood, and fire, and pillars of smoke.
  4 The sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood, before the great and terrible day of HaShem come.
  5 And it shall come to pass, that whosoever shall call on the name of HaShem shall be delivered; for in mount Zion and in Jerusalem there shall be those that escape, as HaShem hath said, and among the remnant those whom HaShem shall call.
  3:1/4:1
  For, behold, in those days, and in that time, when I shall bring back the captivity of Judah and Jerusalem,
  2 I will gather all nations, and will bring them down into the valley of Jehoshaphat; and I will enter into judgment with them there for My people and for My heritage Israel, whom they have scattered among the nations, and divided My land. . . .

Ignoring the context of other Hebrew prophetic writings is absurd.

I agree, but it's a logical consequence of ignoring the principle of large numbers (which is the root of the problem). Logically speaking, the principle of large numbers is ignored by means of category disassociation. Once you ignore it, you are saying that we need to analyze THIS particular prophecy without assuming we can infer anything about it by considering the others.

I'm not sure what you're arguing here. I haven't ignored any principle of large numbers and haven't suggested that anyone should; simply pointed out that it is not valid to blithely assume that prophetic fulfillment must be more probable than I've estimated 'because large numbers.' If it can actually be shown that the likelihood of coincidental fulfillment is different than I've concluded that's fine, but it cannot be simply assumed.

No, it's exactly the opposite of arbitrary. Arbitrary would be seeing the fulfillment of the various conditions in the prophecy and calculating the probability that exactly those events would occur as a matter of coincidence, yielding a result somewhere in the millions to one. Recognizing that there are a range of possible events which could legitimately be said to fulfill the prophecy and estimating the probability of any of them occurring is exactly the opposite of an arbitrary assessment. Calling black white is not exactly a persuasive argument

I apologize for my comment being so vague, but I was referring to the criteria as to how rare an event would have to be in order to be said to fulfill the prophecy. You are just choosing 1 year this 5 year that just so that it would be rare "enough" to meet your sensibilities. It just seems silly to me.

A year is not exactly an arbitrary timeframe. I guess you could reasonably argue that broadening the scope to 5 years is arbitrary, but removing that would simply make it 1 in 429 odds rather than 1 in 273.

Bearing in mind of course that the actual fulfillment which I've highlighted is much more remarkable than any of that range of scenarios. I only reached the lower figure suggested in post #2 by incorporating into the interpretation (rather than the 'sign') the fact that there were seven H3 solar eclipses during the period of dispersion for the Jewish people to mirror the seven feast tetrads over the same time.

So is it fair to point out that one in 429 or one in 273 or one in 100 are not hard and fast, absolutely precise estimates of how likely the 'coincidental' fulfillment of the prophecy was? Sure. If you were determined to be ultra-sceptical you could probably argue for an even lower figure, for one in 50 perhaps! But that wouldn't change the apparent facts that the various other conditions of the passage had been somewhat remarkably met, and that my general approach of ignoring that remarkableness and evaluating the fulfillment only of the penultimate sign seems to be a sceptically and objectively valid one.


As I said in an earlier post, the questions I ask are A) what would be the penultimate 'sign' or part of the prophecy to really clinch the matter and B) by assessing the probability that penultimate 'sign' was not mere coincidence, how likely is the final fulfillment of the Day of the Lord? The answers seem to be a) a similarly noteworthy darkened sun aligning with the next blood moon 'feast tetrad' which had marked the returns to Judah and Jerusalem and b) somewhere in the order of 99%.

[FarWanderer]

But it's turning out that you are (to my mind) reasoning based on shifting assumptions (which is normal and OK) and conflating the results (also common, but not OK).

Where have I done that? As I said earlier, as far as I can tell this impression comes instead from a false dichotomy of extremes; I tend to avoid those extremes and so you're apparently getting an impression which is sometimes on one half of your dichotomy and sometimes the other.

Logic (at least classical logic) is binary. In that sense there is nothing but "extremes".

Yes or no: We should make certain assumptions about God and prophecy.

If yes, which, and why?

I'm sorry but in both of these responses it seems very much as though you're trying to score cheap semantic points more than anything else.
Declaring that the end of the age is signified by events in every decade is absurd.

Under the assumption that it is the primary signal to the end of an age then I will concede the point.

Penultimate would be a better word than primary, but that's not an assumption by any stretch of the imagination; it is the sign which the passage describes immediately before the coming of the day of the Lord:

• Joel 2:28/3:1
  And it shall come to pass afterward, that I will pour out My spirit upon all flesh; and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams, your young men shall see visions;
  2 And also upon the servants and upon the handmaids in those days will I pour out My spirit.
  3 And I will shew wonders in the heavens and in the earth, blood, and fire, and pillars of smoke.
  4 The sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood, before the great and terrible day of HaShem come.
  5 And it shall come to pass, that whosoever shall call on the name of HaShem shall be delivered; for in mount Zion and in Jerusalem there shall be those that escape, as HaShem hath said, and among the remnant those whom HaShem shall call.
  3:1/4:1
  For, behold, in those days, and in that time, when I shall bring back the captivity of Judah and Jerusalem,
  2 I will gather all nations, and will bring them down into the valley of Jehoshaphat; and I will enter into judgment with them there for My people and for My heritage Israel, whom they have scattered among the nations, and divided My land. . . .

I have some rather minor objections to this, but I do not care much to quibble on this point, as I do not think your argument that a signal to usher in a new age ought to be a rare event is without merit.

BUT, that doesn't mean that the TEXT actually IS talking about a rare event. Even if it speaks of the event as though it's rare, if the event described isn't actually rare then the prophecy is just self-contradictory nonsense.

Ignoring the context of other Hebrew prophetic writings is absurd.

I agree, but it's a logical consequence of ignoring the principle of large numbers (which is the root of the problem). Logically speaking, the principle of large numbers is ignored by means of category disassociation. Once you ignore it, you are saying that we need to analyze THIS particular prophecy without assuming we can infer anything about it by considering the others.

I'm not sure what you're arguing here. I haven't ignored any principle of large numbers and haven't suggested that anyone should;

OK it sounds like a misunderstanding.

(I) simply pointed out that it is not valid to blithely assume that prophetic fulfillment must be more probable than I've estimated 'because large numbers.'

No... that's not how it works. The principle of large numbers doesn't "change" the probability of any individual prophecy. It simply says that it's expected that some low-probability events will occur within large sets. If the set in question is Biblical prophecy in general then it's normal some prophecies will end up fulfilled.

I took it that your dissatisfaction with "large numbers" as an explanation was because the set you are examining in this context is just this single prophecy.

If you include the other prophecies, then just this one being fulfilled isn't remarkable at all: coincidence is a sufficient explanation.

If you don't include the other prophecies, then you can't refer to them to infer anything about this particular prophecy.

So, what level of resolution are we looking at? All of Biblical prophecy? All Joel's prophecies? Just this one prophecy? I am OK with whatever you pick, but will insist on consistency.

If it can actually be shown that the likelihood of coincidental fulfillment is different than I've concluded that's fine, but it cannot be simply assumed.

It can and must, in the sense that we must assume a particular level of resolution before we can even examine the problem in the first place.

As I said in an earlier post, the questions I ask are A) what would be the penultimate 'sign' or part of the prophecy to really clinch the matter

I think one of my objections is that you presuppose that there must actually be such a thing that would coherently fit this role. When you assume the penultimate sign must be a rare event while the text describes a not-so-rare event, that doesn't mean you should be reinterpreting the text to mean some particular type of the described event that is rare.

Heck, an H3 eclipse does not match the text any better than an ordinary total eclipse. If anything it matches worse.

and B) by assessing the probability that penultimate 'sign' was not mere coincidence

This cannot be done, even in principle. A coincidence and a genuinely fulfilled prophecy will always produce identical observations.

[PinSeeker]

I'm going to answer to this:

• Joel 2:28/3:1
  And it shall come to pass afterward, that I will pour out My spirit upon all flesh; and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams, your young men shall see visions;
  2 And also upon the servants and upon the handmaids in those days will I pour out My spirit.
  3 And I will shew wonders in the heavens and in the earth, blood, and fire, and pillars of smoke.
  4 The sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood, before the great and terrible day of HaShem come.
  5 And it shall come to pass, that whosoever shall call on the name of HaShem shall be delivered; for in mount Zion and in Jerusalem there shall be those that escape, as HaShem hath said, and among the remnant those whom HaShem shall call.
  3:1/4:1
  For, behold, in those days, and in that time, when I shall bring back the captivity of Judah and Jerusalem,
  2 I will gather all nations, and will bring them down into the valley of Jehoshaphat; and I will enter into judgment with them there for My people and for My heritage Israel, whom they have scattered among the nations, and divided My land. . . .

As I said in an earlier post, the questions I ask are A) what would be the penultimate 'sign' or part of the prophecy to really clinch the matter and B) by assessing the probability that penultimate 'sign' was not mere coincidence, how likely is the final fulfillment of the Day of the Lord? The answers seem to be a) a similarly noteworthy darkened sun aligning with the next blood moon 'feast tetrad' which had marked the returns to Judah and Jerusalem and b) somewhere in the order of 99%.

1. Joel intends in the passage above not to threaten but rather to warn, so that people would deceive themselves with empty dreams or expect what is never to be, but rather to be confident in what we know will be the outcome of all things.

2. Joel is also acknowledging that men are hardly led to seek the grace of God, except when they are forcibly drawn.

3. As a result of the above, he then exhorts us to the spiritual grace God, that we would not be miserable but rather be encouraged and comforted, even in the face of terrible things, like the sun being turned to darkness, the moon into blood, and all other kinds of disorder and terrible darkness. Jesus actually refers to this very passage in Matthew 24:3 - 25:46

We then see that this was added for the fuller commendation of God's grace, that people might know they would be much more miserable had not God called them to himself by the shining light of his Spirit. And that this was the Prophet's design, as was Christ's which He made to his disciples (and to us all) a short time before his death. His disciples asked what would be the sign of his coming, when he reminded them of the destruction of the temple, (Matthew 24:3-25:46). He spoke of the destruction of Jerusalem (which took place in 70 A.D.) and then declared that all these things would be only the presages of evils. So, as Christ corrected the mistake of the disciples, so also is Joel the Prophet here checks vain imaginations.

So Joel prophesied here that God would testify his paternal love by the manifestation of Christ -- which took place centuries later. What he says of blood and darkness is to be taken metaphorically for a disordered state of things -- calamities are often compared to obscurity and darkness. It is the same as though he said, "So great will be the succession of evils, that the whole order of nature will seem to be subverted that the very elements will put on a new form; the sun, which lights the earth, will be turned into darkness, the moon into blood -- the calamities which will come will seem to take away every token of God's kindness and grace.

Joel does not, then, express what would be, word for word, and he is not to be understood here in a literal sense, but rather figurative. Joel means to say that there will be a dreadful state of things and that the minds of men will be possessed by great sorrow. And guess what? This is true -- right now. Not in the sense that there is no optimism anywhere, but that Christ was not received as He ought to have been, and not all have embraced Him as the Savior that He is. And it's just getting worse as we move on toward Christ's second coming. We see how great is the wickedness and perversity of people in rejecting the gifts of God. We see people rejecting the Gospel and resisting the doctrine of Christ at a greater and greater rate. We see them making a boast of their blasphemies. We see the world full of ungodly people and even of those who despise God. We see contempt of God's grace prevailing everywhere. It's only getting worse.

And what happens through the whole world is, that after God has shone by his gospel, after Christ has everywhere proclaimed reconciliation, they now openly fall away. And when the gospel is rejected, what else is it but to declare war against God, and to scorn and not to receive the reconciliation which God is ready to give?

It is no wonder, then, that Joel says here that the world would be full of darkness after the appearance of Christ, who is the Sun of Righteousness, and who has shone upon us with His salvation. It is no wonder then that Joel says that in those days there shall be prodigies in heaven and on earth, for the sun shall be turned into darkness, etc., before it shall come -- the great and awesome day of the Lord.

It may be asked what day Joel refers to. He actually includes the whole kingdom of Christ, from the beginning to the end. All the prophets do this. Joel, by saying, "After those days I will pour out my Spirit," means that this, as we have explained, would be fulfilled when Christ should commence his kingdom, and make it known through the teaching of the gospel: Christ poured out his Spirit. But as the kingdom of Christ is not for a few days, or for a short time, but continues its course to the end of the world, the Prophet turns his attention to that day or that time, and says, "There shall, in the meanwhile, be the greatest calamities: and whosoever shall not flee to the grace of God shall be very miserable; they shall never find rest nor comfort, nor the light of life, for the world shall be sunk in darkness." He further shows, that these evils of which he speaks would not be for a few days or a few years, but perpetual before, he says, "the day of Jehovah, great and terrible, shall come." In short, he means that all the scourges of God, which he had hitherto mentioned, would be, as it were, preparations to subdue the hearts of men, that they might with reverence and submission receive Christ.

[Mithrae]

But it's turning out that you are (to my mind) reasoning based on shifting assumptions (which is normal and OK) and conflating the results (also common, but not OK).

Where have I done that? As I said earlier, as far as I can tell this impression comes instead from a false dichotomy of extremes; I tend to avoid those extremes and so you're apparently getting an impression which is sometimes on one half of your dichotomy and sometimes the other.

Logic (at least classical logic) is binary. In that sense there is nothing but "extremes".

Yes or no: We should make certain assumptions about God and prophecy.
If yes, which, and why?

If something cannot be inferred from the type and genre of communication, its apparent intent or purpose, and its actual contents, incorporating that thing as a central element in the discussion of the communication would obviously be extremely dubious. So no, we should not make assumptions about the prophetic genre, and should not make assumptions about God... unless they can be objectively demonstrated by some other means, I suppose.

Penultimate would be a better word than primary, but that's not an assumption by any stretch of the imagination; it is the sign which the passage describes immediately before the coming of the day of the Lord:

• Joel 2:28/3:1
  And it shall come to pass afterward, that I will pour out My spirit upon all flesh; and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams, your young men shall see visions;
  2 And also upon the servants and upon the handmaids in those days will I pour out My spirit.
  3 And I will shew wonders in the heavens and in the earth, blood, and fire, and pillars of smoke.
  4 The sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood, before the great and terrible day of HaShem come.
  5 And it shall come to pass, that whosoever shall call on the name of HaShem shall be delivered; for in mount Zion and in Jerusalem there shall be those that escape, as HaShem hath said, and among the remnant those whom HaShem shall call.
  3:1/4:1
  For, behold, in those days, and in that time, when I shall bring back the captivity of Judah and Jerusalem,
  2 I will gather all nations, and will bring them down into the valley of Jehoshaphat; and I will enter into judgment with them there for My people and for My heritage Israel, whom they have scattered among the nations, and divided My land. . . .

I have some rather minor objections to this, but I do not care much to quibble on this point, as I do not think your argument that a signal to usher in a new age ought to be a rare event is without merit.

BUT, that doesn't mean that the TEXT actually IS talking about a rare event. Even if it speaks of the event as though it's rare, if the event described isn't actually rare then the prophecy is just self-contradictory nonsense.

If you're thinking that Joel didn't realize that eclipses are relatively commonplace and thus mistakenly thought that some regular solar eclipse would be the sign of the end, I think we can safely put that notion to bed. The ancient Babylonians knew that eclipses occur within the context of cycles 6585 days long (~18 years and 11 days) and were able to predict them in advance. That level of precision in their understanding and ability to predict them may not have been developed until around the 5th century BCE, but Mesopotamian and Egyptian observations date back thousands of years before that, making it highly unlikely that educated folk in their surrounding countries would be as naive as you might be imagining. Even their own direct experience would contradict it: As I commented earlier, there were four eclipses which would have been visible from Israel as partial occlusions in just the fourteen years before Jesus' death, and presumably a similar frequency in Joel's day also. Even after learning to predict them Babylonian astrologers still used eclipses as omens about the rise and fall of kings, that sort of decade-to-decade thing, but not the end of the world! It is pretty much certain that Joel did not mean some normal, run-of-the-mill eclipse.

I'm not sure what you're arguing here. I haven't ignored any principle of large numbers and haven't suggested that anyone should;

OK it sounds like a misunderstanding.

(I) simply pointed out that it is not valid to blithely assume that prophetic fulfillment must be more probable than I've estimated 'because large numbers.'

No... that's not how it works. The principle of large numbers doesn't "change" the probability of any individual prophecy. It simply says that it's expected that some low-probability events will occur within large sets. If the set in question is Biblical prophecy in general then it's normal some prophecies will end up fulfilled.

I took it that your dissatisfaction with "large numbers" as an explanation was because the set you are examining in this context is just this single prophecy.

If you include the other prophecies, then just this one being fulfilled isn't remarkable at all: coincidence is a sufficient explanation.

I thought we'd already put that to bed: A) Your assumption that the set of biblical prophecies is large enough and hit-and-miss enough to warrant the expectation that some remarkable ones should be fulfilled is has not been justified to begin with, but more importantly B) the reasoning itself is specious, much like asserting that the predictions of modern physics are rendered unremarkable by the 'set' of all of humanity's attempts to understand nature throughout the millennia. If it were known or assumed that a given outcome was merely coincidence giving the false appearance of being remarkable, looking at it in the context of a larger set can 'explain' why it's not that surprising after all, but it cannot a priori change or invalidate either the improbability of the event or conclusions drawn from it.

As I said in an earlier post, the questions I ask are A) what would be the penultimate 'sign' or part of the prophecy to really clinch the matter

I think one of my objections is that you presuppose that there must actually be such a thing that would coherently fit this role. When you assume the penultimate sign must be a rare event while the text describes a not-so-rare event, that doesn't mean you should be reinterpreting the text to mean some particular type of the described event that is rare.

Heck, an H3 eclipse does not match the text any better than an ordinary total eclipse. If anything it matches worse.

Joel was not referring to some one-a-decade eclipse; certainly not by intention as I've explained at length previously, and not even out of ignorance as I've explained above. As I also explained earlier, it needn't have been a H3 eclipse; a 'greatest' total eclipse in a thousand years could legitimately be said to fit the bill, say, or the greatest in a century if it's visible from Israel. It's a subjective assessment as to what we think would be good enough for Joel to consider a sign of the end of the age: But assessing the fulfillment which actually occurred is not a subjective assessment.

Put another way, the 'feast tetrads' which marked the returns to Judah and Jerusalem and the fact that there'd only been seven of them during the Jews' dispersion was recognized quite some time ago: I've found references at least as early as 2006, though in theory it could have been done as early as 1967/68. On the basis of Joel's prophecy, Christians then predicted and began searching for a solar eclipse of comparable significance or uniqueness. Homing in on an eclipse of comparable significance to the feast tetrads is not arbitrary - it was fully justified as soon as the feast tetrads marking the returns to Judah and Jerusalem were recognized - and it is based on the prophecy of Joel, but it is an interpretive step. Therefore I have recognized and incorporated that fact into my evaluation.

So a different way to put the question would be to ask How likely was it that the prediction of a comparably-significant solar eclipse would be vindicated?

There's no question that was a genuine and far more specific prediction than Joel's, after all (albeit legitimately derived from his passage). And there's no question that the close alignment of the eighth H3 eclipse with the eighth feast tetrad is an exceptionally good fit.

and B) by assessing the probability that penultimate 'sign' was not mere coincidence

This cannot be done, even in principle. A coincidence and a genuinely fulfilled prophecy will always produce identical observations.

Of course it can be done, you just don't like the implication of a ~99% confidence that the prophecy was genuine. We've still got that ~1% possibility that it was coincidence - that's what coincidence means - and there's nothing stopping anyone from placing their bets on that long shot, but the rational conclusion if my reasoning is correct (as it seems to have been) is that it was very likely a result of genuine foreknowledge.

[FarWanderer]

Penultimate would be a better word than primary, but that's not an assumption by any stretch of the imagination; it is the sign which the passage describes immediately before the coming of the day of the Lord:

• Joel 2:28/3:1
  And it shall come to pass afterward, that I will pour out My spirit upon all flesh; and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams, your young men shall see visions;
  2 And also upon the servants and upon the handmaids in those days will I pour out My spirit.
  3 And I will shew wonders in the heavens and in the earth, blood, and fire, and pillars of smoke.
  4 The sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood, before the great and terrible day of HaShem come.
  5 And it shall come to pass, that whosoever shall call on the name of HaShem shall be delivered; for in mount Zion and in Jerusalem there shall be those that escape, as HaShem hath said, and among the remnant those whom HaShem shall call.
  3:1/4:1
  For, behold, in those days, and in that time, when I shall bring back the captivity of Judah and Jerusalem,
  2 I will gather all nations, and will bring them down into the valley of Jehoshaphat; and I will enter into judgment with them there for My people and for My heritage Israel, whom they have scattered among the nations, and divided My land. . . .

I have some rather minor objections to this, but I do not care much to quibble on this point, as I do not think your argument that a signal to usher in a new age ought to be a rare event is without merit.

BUT, that doesn't mean that the TEXT actually IS talking about a rare event. Even if it speaks of the event as though it's rare, if the event described isn't actually rare then the prophecy is just self-contradictory nonsense.

If you're thinking that Joel didn't realize that eclipses are relatively commonplace and thus mistakenly thought that some regular solar eclipse would be the sign of the end, I think we can safely put that notion to bed. The ancient Babylonians knew that eclipses occur within the context of cycles 6585 days long (~18 years and 11 days) and were able to predict them in advance. That level of precision in their understanding and ability to predict them may not have been developed until around the 5th century BCE, but Mesopotamian and Egyptian observations date back thousands of years before that, making it highly unlikely that educated folk in their surrounding countries would be as naive as you might be imagining. Even their own direct experience would contradict it: As I commented earlier, there were four eclipses which would have been visible from Israel as partial occlusions in just the fourteen years before Jesus' death, and presumably a similar frequency in Joel's day also. Even after learning to predict them Babylonian astrologers still used eclipses as omens about the rise and fall of kings, that sort of decade-to-decade thing, but not the end of the world! It is pretty much certain that Joel did not mean some normal, run-of-the-mill eclipse.

And yet all said was "the sun will turn to black".

And who exactly is supposed to be speaking to us? God or Joel?

If you include the other prophecies, then just this one being fulfilled isn't remarkable at all: coincidence is a sufficient explanation.

the reasoning itself is specious, much like asserting that the predictions of modern physics are rendered unremarkable by the 'set' of all of humanity's attempts to understand nature throughout the millennia.

The problem here is that you have selected a level of resolution that isn't very useful. In terms of time period and method, the distribution of these "attempts to understand nature" and how they correlate with success is quite clearly not random.

If it were known or assumed that a given outcome was merely coincidence giving the false appearance of being remarkable, looking at it in the context of a larger set can 'explain' why it's not that surprising after all, but it cannot a priori change or invalidate either the improbability of the event or conclusions drawn from it.

It's not even a priori. The sets are "known" through empirical data. We are talking induction here. And the probabilities you love to calculate are ultimately based on induction too.

So obviously its effect is contingent on the contents of the set. I mean, if all of the other biblical prophecies were clearly correct, the situation would flip, and the rational expectation would be that a particular fulfilled prophecy wouldn't be due to coincidence.

and B) by assessing the probability that penultimate 'sign' was not mere coincidence

This cannot be done, even in principle. A coincidence and a genuinely fulfilled prophecy will always produce identical observations.

Of course it can be done, you just don't like the implication of a ~99% confidence that the prophecy was genuine. We've still got that ~1% possibility that it was coincidence - that's what coincidence means - and there's nothing stopping anyone from placing their bets on that long shot, but the rational conclusion if my reasoning is correct (as it seems to have been) is that it was very likely a result of genuine foreknowledge.

So I talk about how the observations are identical and you ignore it... Seems to me our disagreement is definitely about how induction fits into the picture.

[Mithrae]

If you're thinking that Joel didn't realize that eclipses are relatively commonplace and thus mistakenly thought that some regular solar eclipse would be the sign of the end, I think we can safely put that notion to bed. The ancient Babylonians knew that eclipses occur within the context of cycles 6585 days long (~18 years and 11 days) and were able to predict them in advance. That level of precision in their understanding and ability to predict them may not have been developed until around the 5th century BCE, but Mesopotamian and Egyptian observations date back thousands of years before that, making it highly unlikely that educated folk in their surrounding countries would be as naive as you might be imagining. Even their own direct experience would contradict it: As I commented earlier, there were four eclipses which would have been visible from Israel as partial occlusions in just the fourteen years before Jesus' death, and presumably a similar frequency in Joel's day also. Even after learning to predict them Babylonian astrologers still used eclipses as omens about the rise and fall of kings, that sort of decade-to-decade thing, but not the end of the world! It is pretty much certain that Joel did not mean some normal, run-of-the-mill eclipse.

And yet all said was "the sun will turn to black".

No, you missed a bit:
"I will shew wonders in the heavens and in the earth, blood, and fire, and pillars of smoke. The sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood..."

I thought we'd already put that to bed: A) Your assumption that the set of biblical prophecies is large enough and hit-and-miss enough to warrant the expectation that some remarkable ones should be fulfilled is has not been justified to begin with, but more importantly B) the reasoning itself is specious, much like asserting that the predictions of modern physics are rendered unremarkable by the 'set' of all of humanity's attempts to understand nature throughout the millennia.

The problem here is that you have selected a level of resolution that isn't very useful. In terms of time period and method, the distribution of these "attempts to understand nature" and how they correlate with success is quite clearly not random.

If it were known or assumed that a given outcome was merely coincidence giving the false appearance of being remarkable, looking at it in the context of a larger set can 'explain' why it's not that surprising after all, but it cannot a priori change or invalidate either the improbability of the event or conclusions drawn from it.

It's not even a priori. The sets are "known" through empirical data. We are talking induction here. And the probabilities you love to calculate are ultimately based on induction too.

So obviously its effect is contingent on the contents of the set. I mean, if all of the other biblical prophecies were clearly correct, the situation would flip, and the rational expectation would be that a particular fulfilled prophecy wouldn't be due to coincidence.

Well let's set aside for now question of whether the kind of reasoning you're trying to apply is valid, and start with the first point which you deftly snipped out and then simply assumed an answer to in that last paragraph there. Can you demonstrate that the set of biblical prophecies is large enough and hit-and-miss enough to warrant the expectation that some remarkable ones 'should' be fulfilled by sheer dumb luck? How many biblical prophecies did you go through in order to reach that conclusion? How many were demonstrably false, how many vaguely true, and how many surprisingly true? And how did you calculate what ratio was required to invalidate the prophecy of Joel?

As I said right from the beginning, in the very opening post of the thread, and several times since in discussion with you, it is not a valid objection to blithely state that it simply must have been more probable than I've concluded 'because large numbers.' And yet that is exactly the assumption that you're still trying to slip through.

A Christian would claim that looking at the whole canon of biblical prophecy would only confirm its divine foreknowledge again and again and again: And it certainly would, if we set aside what would then be circular reasoning that all the clearly-predictive portions must have been written ex eventu. But even accepting the composition dates asserted by critical scholars, as far as I'm aware there are only a handful of biblical prophecies which demonstrably failed to occur (and most of those in Ezekiel and Matthew) while many vague ones have been 'fulfilled' and there remain some really quite remarkable predictions:
- Daniel's rough time-frame that a great messiah would be 'cut off' and prediction that Jerusalem and the second temple would be destroyed by the people of a future kingdom shortly afterwards;
- the seemingly absurd boast of that soon-to-be-executed backwater peasant that his words would outlast heaven and earth, now by far the most-printed, most-translated and most-widely known words of human history;
- the fall and eternal desolation of what at the time were essentially the two greatest cities in the world, Nineveh and Babylon, as predicted by Isaiah, Nahum and Zephaniah;
- the survival of the Jewish people when so many mighty oppressors fell by the wayside, and even more remarkably the return to their homeland as prophesied and eventual flourishing in spite of their much larger neighbours' extermination efforts...

This wasn't intended to be a thread about all biblical prophecies generally, but since you seem intent on declaring that they somehow cancel out or invalidate the prophecy of Joel, I look forward to seeing the extensive investigation and evaluation you've done to reach that conclusion.

and B) by assessing the probability that penultimate 'sign' was not mere coincidence

This cannot be done, even in principle. A coincidence and a genuinely fulfilled prophecy will always produce identical observations.

Of course it can be done, you just don't like the implication of a ~99% confidence that the prophecy was genuine. We've still got that ~1% possibility that it was coincidence - that's what coincidence means - and there's nothing stopping anyone from placing their bets on that long shot, but the rational conclusion if my reasoning is correct (as it seems to have been) is that it was very likely a result of genuine foreknowledge.

So I talk about how the observations are identical and you ignore it... Seems to me our disagreement is definitely about how induction fits into the picture.

I didn't ignore it; it just seems that again you don't like the answer You declared that because they're observationally identical it's impossible even in principle to assess the probability that it occurred as a matter of coincidence, and I pointed out that it certainly is possible. Drawing four aces looks observationally identical whether it's coincidence of a sleight of hand trick, so are you going to try telling me that assessing the probability of it happening by coincidence "cannot be done, even in principle"?

[FarWanderer]

And yet all said was "the sun will turn to black".

No, you missed a bit:
"I will shew wonders in the heavens and in the earth, blood, and fire, and pillars of smoke. The sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood..."

The only thing I am missing is the part that you say is there but isn't. All he said about the Sun, is that it will turn to black (or into darkness, w/e).

Why should I work to make sense out of it? Why can't we allow for the possibility that it's just nonsensical rambling?

If it were known or assumed that a given outcome was merely coincidence giving the false appearance of being remarkable, looking at it in the context of a larger set can 'explain' why it's not that surprising after all, but it cannot a priori change or invalidate either the improbability of the event or conclusions drawn from it.

It's not even a priori. The sets are "known" through empirical data. We are talking induction here. And the probabilities you love to calculate are ultimately based on induction too.

So obviously its effect is contingent on the contents of the set. I mean, if all of the other biblical prophecies were clearly correct, the situation would flip, and the rational expectation would be that a particular fulfilled prophecy wouldn't be due to coincidence.

Well let's set aside for now question of whether the kind of reasoning you're trying to apply is valid, and start with the first point which you deftly snipped out and then simply assumed an answer to in that last paragraph there. Can you demonstrate that the set of biblical prophecies is large enough and hit-and-miss enough to warrant the expectation that some remarkable ones 'should' be fulfilled by sheer dumb luck? How many biblical prophecies did you go through in order to reach that conclusion? How many were demonstrably false, how many vaguely true, and how many surprisingly true? And how did you calculate what ratio was required to invalidate the prophecy of Joel?

And how many are worded such that they could turn out "true" but never be shown false? Even the prophecy we are discussing now falls into the category so long as the Jews would survive: An end to the Jews is the one and only way it could have ever been falsified (and the best thing about making a prophecy like this is that if it were ever falsified, there'd be no one around to be embarrassed for it ).

How would you ever falsify "I will shew wonders in the heavens and in the earth, blood, and fire, and pillars of smoke."? Ever??? So long as the Jews make it back to Israel, this part will be vaguely "fulfilled" in any age. Same goes for the eclipses.

At any rate, I am hesitant to breech the topic too deeply not because I'm afraid of losing the argument, but because I'm afraid of starting it. It's an endless rabbit hole.

In other words I do not mean to just hand-waive your assertion about the strength of biblical prophecy, but neither do I mean to concede to it. I acknowledge that you have planted that flag, but I simply do not have [strike]anything[/strike] too much to say about it right now.

and B) by assessing the probability that penultimate 'sign' was not mere coincidence

This cannot be done, even in principle. A coincidence and a genuinely fulfilled prophecy will always produce identical observations.

Of course it can be done, you just don't like the implication of a ~99% confidence that the prophecy was genuine. We've still got that ~1% possibility that it was coincidence - that's what coincidence means - and there's nothing stopping anyone from placing their bets on that long shot, but the rational conclusion if my reasoning is correct (as it seems to have been) is that it was very likely a result of genuine foreknowledge.

So I talk about how the observations are identical and you ignore it... Seems to me our disagreement is definitely about how induction fits into the picture.

I didn't ignore it; it just seems that again you don't like the answer You declared that because they're observationally identical it's impossible even in principle to assess the probability that it occurred as a matter of coincidence, and I pointed out that it certainly is possible.

Definitely, it's an issue of induction. If induction didn't exist, you would be correct. Except you wouldn't, because you couldn't have generated any probabilities in the first place.

The problem is that your simple 100%-1%=99% calculation ignores the fact that (non-inductive) predictions are routinely shown to be no more accurate than just choosing randomly. That doesn't necessarily mean we don't have a "black swan" on our hands, but what's the probability of that?

Drawing four aces looks observationally identical whether it's coincidence of a sleight of hand trick, so are you going to try telling me that assessing the probability of it happening by coincidence "cannot be done, even in principle"?

Question: Does your assessment of the probability depend at all on whether you have have a possible trick in mind that can explain the 4 Aces? Or is it equal either way?

[showme]

[Replying to post 8 by Divine Insight]

DI wrote: Let's not forget also that the Jehovah's Witnesses, a relatively recent Protestant off-shoot of Protestantism started in the 1870's in the USA, believe that the Catholic Church is the "Whore of Babylon". And they seem to be 99% certain of that as well.

The reference of the Catholic church being the whore of Babylon dates back to Luther and other leaders of the reformation. The Catholic church is simply one of the Harlots daughters of Babylon, and the Protestants are simply other harlot daughters of the Catholic Church. The instituter of the Roman church was the emperor Constantine, in the year 325 AD, at the Council of Nicaea. He was the beast with two horns like a lamb, and "those who dwell on the earth" (Revelation 13) have been "deceived" by him and his two horns, the two worthless shepherds (apostles) of Zechariah 11. All who carry his mark are according to Revelation 14:10, going to drink from the cup of the wrath of God. "None of the wicked will understand" (Daniel 12:10), and they will be caught unaware (Mt 24:43). It will be those in the cities (Rev 16:19), such as your Progressives, who will take a hard hit. It is people, such as the deplorables, who abide law, who will provide "survivors" (Joel 2:32). The double minded/hypocrites will go to the place of gnashing of teeth (Mt 24:51). One will be judged by their actions, and not by their erroneous beliefs and false, but firmly believed statements.

[PinSeeker]

The reference of the Catholic church being the whore of Babylon dates back to Luther and other leaders of the reformation. The Catholic church is simply one of the Harlots daughters of Babylon, and the Protestants are simply other harlot daughters of the Catholic Church. The instituter of the Roman church was the emperor Constantine, in the year 325 AD, at the Council of Nicaea. He was the beast with two horns like a lamb, and "those who dwell on the earth" (Revelation 13) have been "deceived" by him and his two horns, the two worthless shepherds (apostles) of Zechariah 11. All who carry his mark are according to Revelation 14:10, going to drink from the cup of the wrath of God. "None of the wicked will understand" (Daniel 12:10), and they will be caught unaware (Mt 24:43). It will be those in the cities (Rev 16:19), such as your Progressives, who will take a hard hit. It is people, such as the deplorables, who abide law, who will provide "survivors" (Joel 2:32). The double minded/hypocrites will go to the place of gnashing of teeth (Mt 24:51). One will be judged by their actions, and not by their erroneous beliefs and false, but firmly believed statements.

If I might contend in a friendly manner with this...

Most of the problems we have among different factions regarding Revelation is that so many want to make one-to-one correlations with things mentioned in Revelation and this or that in history past, history present, or history to come. And the fact is, in most of these things, there is no one-to-one correlation, but rather one-to-many.

As for Martin Luther, he is very misrepresented and misunderstood by a lot of folks for a lot of different reasons. Yes, he stood in opposition to the Catholic Church and what they were doing, but what he was really standing against was not the Catholic Church, per se, but against the power of a demonized state and a "worldly kingdom," whatever form that might take at any point in history. At his place in history, yes, that was the Catholic Church, but he -- and all the reformers -- were really standing for Biblical Christianity and the Kingdom of God against any thing or any one or any group... or any state that might be in corruption of that. That's what the Reformation was all about -- returning Christianity to its Biblical roots.

So, refocusing on this one-to-many concept, it was true in Daniel's day, it was true in later Biblical times, and it's true now -- the persecutions against Christians, which have taken many different forms over the centuries and millennia, have been and are essentially controlled by the state. We can look around today and see all kinds of examples of the same kind of thing; it's surely not limited to and one group. It's easy to point at Islamic states as examples. But we can also point to states today that are looking to create their own "worldly kingdom" totally separate from the One True God. It's not necessary to be what folks would call a "theocracy" to do this; secularism is just as bad. And the Beast of Revelation 13 is a worldly kingdom summing them all up -- throughout history. Because it expresses a general principle of Satanic opposition, we may expect multiple manifestations. These manifestations include the first century, the final crisis, and all times in between.

Babylon the Prostitute (Revelation 17-19) represents not the Catholic Church, but all the seductions of the world. We see the destruction of Babylon in Revelation 18, the destruction of the Beast and the False Prophet in Revelation 19, and the destruction of Satan in Revelation 20. It is better to see these three destructive, judgmental episodes as running thematically parallel rather than being in strict chronological succession. And the conclusion is that Jesus wins. Which leads me to this summation:

People have trouble with Revelation because they approach it from the wrong end. Suppose we start by asking, What do the bears feet in Revelation 13:2 stand for? Well, if we start with a detail, and ignore the big picture, we are asking for trouble. God is at the center of Revelation (Rev. 4-5). We must start with him and with the contrasts between him and his satanic opponents. If instead we try right away to puzzle out details, it is as if we tried to use a knife by grasping it by the blade instead of the handle; we are starting at the wrong end. Revelation is a picture book, not a puzzle book. We shouldn't try to puzzle it out. We shouldn't become preoccupied by isolated details. Rather, we should become engrossed in the story. It's the aggregate story of history -- His Story. Praise the Lord. Cheer for the saints. Detest the Beast. Long for the final victory. Which we see in the end: The Return of the King, Christ Jesus Himself.

[Mithrae]

Ugh. None of the above. Do you know what amillennialism is?

1. Joel intends in the passage above not to threaten but rather to warn, so that people would deceive themselves with empty dreams or expect what is never to be, but rather to be confident in what we know will be the outcome of all things.

2. Joel is also acknowledging that men are hardly led to seek the grace of God, except when they are forcibly drawn.

3. As a result of the above, he then exhorts us to the spiritual grace God, that we would not be miserable but rather be encouraged and comforted, even in the face of terrible things, like the sun being turned to darkness, the moon into blood, and all other kinds of disorder and terrible darkness. Jesus actually refers to this very passage in Matthew 24:3 - 25:46 . . . .


Joel does not, then, express what would be, word for word, and he is not to be understood here in a literal sense, but rather figurative. Joel means to say that there will be a dreadful state of things and that the minds of men will be possessed by great sorrow. And guess what? This is true -- right now. Not in the sense that there is no optimism anywhere, but that Christ was not received as He ought to have been, and not all have embraced Him as the Savior that He is. And it's just getting worse as we move on toward Christ's second coming. We see how great is the wickedness and perversity of people in rejecting the gifts of God. We see people rejecting the Gospel and resisting the doctrine of Christ at a greater and greater rate. We see them making a boast of their blasphemies. We see the world full of ungodly people and even of those who despise God. We see contempt of God's grace prevailing everywhere. It's only getting worse. . . .


It may be asked what day Joel refers to. He actually includes the whole kingdom of Christ, from the beginning to the end. All the prophets do this. Joel, by saying, "After those days I will pour out my Spirit," means that this, as we have explained, would be fulfilled when Christ should commence his kingdom, and make it known through the teaching of the gospel: Christ poured out his Spirit. But as the kingdom of Christ is not for a few days, or for a short time, but continues its course to the end of the world, the Prophet turns his attention to that day or that time, and says, "There shall, in the meanwhile, be the greatest calamities: and whosoever shall not flee to the grace of God shall be very miserable; they shall never find rest nor comfort, nor the light of life, for the world shall be sunk in darkness." He further shows, that these evils of which he speaks would not be for a few days or a few years, but perpetual before, he says, "the day of Jehovah, great and terrible, shall come." In short, he means that all the scourges of God, which he had hitherto mentioned, would be, as it were, preparations to subdue the hearts of men, that they might with reverence and submission receive Christ.

I've been unsure how to respond to your comments, so I hope you'll forgive my tardiness, but your most recent post on Revelation gives me some idea how to proceed. From your comments above and from Wikipedia it seems that your general position is that there will be a literal return of Christ, but most if not all of the stuff the bible describes before that are more along the lines of symbolic representations of timeless patterns of rebellion, unrest, persecution and so on, is that right?

• "The amillennial view regards the "thousand years" mentioned in Revelation 20 as a symbolic number, not as a literal description; amillennialists hold that the millennium has already begun and is identical with the current church age. Amillennialism holds that while Christ's reign during the millennium is spiritual in nature, at the end of the church age, Christ will return in final judgment and establish a permanent reign in the new heaven and new earth."

I think that might be a legitimate interpretation of Revelation. It was written probably in the 90s CE, at a time of (possibly local) persecution during the reign of Domitian. Its seven hills are an obvious reference to Rome, 666 a possible reference to Nero the first great persecutor of the church, and perhaps reference to the Nero redivivus legend in the suggestion of Rev. 17:9-11 that one of the five fallen kings associated with those seven hills (ie, one of the first five emperors, Nero having been the fifth) would return as the eighth (ie, Domitian, supposedly the second great persecutor of the church).

However even if all of that is true it would still have been over sixty years since Jesus' death, over twenty years since the shocking events of the Jewish revolt and destruction of the temple. The earliest Christians' fervent expectation of Jesus' imminent return likely would have largely dulled by that point, and another wave of persecution would provide little basis for renewing those expectations, so it's entirely possible that the writer wasn't really intending to declare that Rome would be destroyed and Jesus would return within the decade. If so, an interpretation of its contents as expressing timeless/recurring patterns might be legitimate.

But that's the very same reason why such an interpretation of the earlier prophecies is difficult to maintain, IMO: Interpreting all the events and signs and wonders described by earlier writers in mere symbolic or allegorical seems rather anachronistic, imposing onto them the disillusionment with clear and literal fulfillment which likely began growing in the Christian community from the late 1st century. That's not to say that everything written by the prophets of the Tanakh was intended literally, but they ought to be understood on a case-by-case basis rather than assuming an overall eschatological framework before even reading them.

For one example of a possibly allegorical passage, Isaiah 11 is one of the strongest 'messianic' passages in the Tanakh, declaring things like "He will strike the earth with the rod of his mouth, And with the breath of his lips he will slay the wicked" and "the iron shall lie down with the lamp." But read in context of its surrounding chapters, it's possible that this was all merely a hyperbolic expression of exuberance that the young prince/king Hezekiah was/might be more receptive to Isaiah's monotheism than his father Ahaz had been. Possible, though hardly certain even in that case.

By contrast, while the predictions of Daniel certainly use a lot of symbolism it's virtually impossible to argue that they were expected to have anything other than a literal, 1 to 1 fulfillment in history: You can literally go through Daniel 11 and match the events to history almost verse by verse, for example.

In the case of Joel, there's really no basis for taking it at anything other than face value, as far as I can see: Those various signs would precede the coming of the great and terrible day of the Lord in which there'd be judgement of the nations but escape for those who call on the name of the Lord.