If you didn't want to believe in Christianity...

[Justin108]

If you didn't want to believe in Christianity, would you stop believing? Suppose you didn't like Christianity at all. Suppose you didn't like the idea of Jesus dying for your sins, an afterlife, etc. would your belief in Christianity stop?

If not, what is it about Christianity that makes any alternative so absolutely unbelievable?

[MadeNew]

No i just don't believe you. I don't believe you have studied the scripture with an open heart.

Why? Because I came to a different conclusion than you? Do you think it's impossible for someone to wholeheartedly study the scripture and be an atheist?

In fact, you are asking me for specific prophesies which makes me question if you have studied the scripture at all.

I have a rebuttal for every prophecy. I'm asking you to list the prophecies that convince you in order to reply with the relevant rebuttal

Go read the books of the prophets. There is 4 major prophets, and 12 minor prophets.

You made the claim that Jesus fulfilled several prophecies. Support your own argument. Don't ask me to do your homework for you

You try to invalidate prophesy by implying that anyone could have wrote a true prophesy, that they just happened to get it right by mer chance, but notice that doesn't invalidate any of the prophesy.

Yes, it just makes the prophecy wildly unremarkable. You cannot claim that these prophecies prove Jesus' divinity when the prophecies are so weak.

If the prophesy was wrong, that would be a different debate all together

If I predicted that it would rain tomorrow and my prophecy came true, it would not suggest my own divinity.

If you predicted it would rain tomorrow, might be just dumb luck, right? But if you compiled a book of 700,000 words, with nearly 230,000 words of it as prophesy, and just by chance got it all right... That is pretty much statistically impossible... Im not going to dig out specific prophesies. I have seen these rebuttals before, and none of them have ever came back with a false prophesy. If you can come back with false prophesies, then do that, if not then don't bother, i have heard all the rebuttals. I mean come on, if these things came true by mer chance (like you claim) then out of 230,000 words of prophesy the bible should be littered with wrong prophesy. They aren't going to get them all right... right? Statistically speaking, if you predicted it would rain tomorrow maybe that would be dumb luck, but if you did that 230,000 times in a row... Gets a bit outrageous doesn't it?

[Justin108]

But if you compiled a book of 700,000 words, with nearly 230,000 words of it as prophesy, and just by chance got it all right... That is pretty much statistically impossible...

Until you actually tell me what these hundreds of prophecies are, I cannot comment. So please, stop dancing around the request for prophecies and just list them. You don't even have to list all of them. Name your top 10 most remarkable. Top 5 if 10 is too much

Im not going to dig out specific prophesies.

Then you're wasting my time. You're making a claim but you refuse to support it.

I have seen these rebuttals before, and none of them have ever came back with a false prophesy.

And they don't need to. My rebuttals usually either prove that the prophecies are unremarkable - like predicting it will rain, or not confirmed to be true - like Jesus coming back from the dead.

If you can come back with false prophesies, then do that

You're shifting the burden of proof. You claimed that Jesus fulfilled several prophecies. it's your job to support your claim.

Statistically speaking, if you predicted it would rain tomorrow maybe that would be dumb luck, but if you did that 230,000 times in a row... Gets a bit outrageous doesn't it?

You insist that 230 000 prophecies came true but you cannot even mention 10.

[PghPanther]

The scripture gives us he fulfillment of prophesy as evidence.

Can you list the prophecies Jesus fulfilled?

I won't list them all, there are upwards of 300, but some of the significant ones where Jesus death, His trial, The date of His death, the date of His baptism, birth place, His betrayal, the fulfillment of the sin offering, the passover, the only Begotten Son. These and many more have been confirmed in Jesus of Nazareth, but these are just the ones about Jesus. In actuality, it has been estimated that the scripture contains up to 1/3 of its text as prophesy. We have historical prophesies, that have already been fulfilled, most of the fulfilled prophesies about Jesus would fall into that category, and we also have prophesies that are being fulfilled or will be fulfilled, and they don't just focus around one man but around all of humanity and Gods relationship with humanity.

For example, Jesus told us
"14 And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come."(Matthew 24)

This is prophetic words from Jesus, and this has been partly fulfilled, the message of Christ HAS been preached to all nations. Prophesy is the evidence the scriptures give for its word, as Gods word. Jesus said, on multiple accessions, "I have told you now before it happens, so that when it does happen you will believe."

This is why people believed in Jesus as the Christ, this was why the apostles spread the word "proving that Jesus was the Christ" (it says in multiple accessions in the Book of Acts). This is why Christianity spread, by the studying of prophesy. Believe it or not, even your own unbelief is prophesied about. The scripture offers prophesy as evidence, that is why Christianity spread and it is why people believe in it.

Those that testified to Christ and His resurrection is evidence.

Do you always believe eye-witness testimony? Do you also believe in UFO's, Bigfoot and alien abduction? Each of these have several eye-witness accounts

No i don't always believe eye-witnessed accounts. It is funny how you guys are always saying this. I mean if we went to court, we take each case on a case by case basis, it would be ridiculous to claim that all eyewitnesses are false or true based on some previous case, and we don't do that. We look at the evidence and see if it collaborates the witnessed accounts, and Christianity does, i personally don't think Christianity would even be around if Christ wasn't resurrected. If all Christ did was come and die, he didn't do anything the messiah was suppose to do. The biggest parts about the Messiah was that he would come and set the Jews free, that he would come conquer sin and rule as king. That was a key part in the Messiahs role, and all they had to do was kill Jesus to prove he wasn't the Messiah. If they killed him they would officially prove he wasn't the Son of God, and rightly so, everyone denied Christ when he was on the Cross, even his most loyal disciples. I mean it doesn't even make sense that God fearing Jews, who believe in the scripture and in the prophesy and in the Messiah, would falsify such a thing. I am convinced Christianity wouldn't exist without the resurrection. The resurrection just makes sense, it was the fulfillment of Gods Law.

Funny you bring this up by my quote from Simon Greenleaf, because Simon Greenleaf is a world renown expert on evidence. This man was the head of Harvard Law, he wrote extensively on lawful evidence. He is a expert on evidence, and he became a Christian after the fact from studying the evidences of Christianity.

This is an appeal to authority

It would be an appeal to authority if we claimed that, based solely on this mans authority that his statement, or conclusion is true. Although this man has impressive credentials, that completely go in the face of atheists claim that belief in Christianity is "belief without evidence", I don't make that claim that his conclusion is true based on his authority, i find his stamen as truth, that through studying the scripture with an open heart, that one would become convinced of its authenticity. They would become convinced of its claim as the Word of God.

Easy now..........first any quote said by Jesus in the Bible is a claim of what he is suppose to have said.........that "documentation" in Matthew 24 was only written down decades after oral claims passed around as to him saying this and finally written down 100 miles away in a completely different language from what he spoke ...........how close do verbatim do you think any statement from a person is when orally transferred over decades........100's of miles and through different languages?

Second..........the world and all the nations of the world in the century that Christ lived in was the middle east and some parts of Africa and Asia..........that's it. You are thinking in 21st century global concept of what the world is not what was understood then...........

Third......the world according to Christ's time as outlined in my second point has already been saturated with the gospel message for many centuries and nothing happened............and if you want to claim a global commission with today's nations then with the exception of those living without electricity the gospels have been preached to all nations for some time and still no end is in sight...........

[MadeNew]

[Replying to post 43 by PghPanther]
Again this is just trying to poke holes in the prophesy, yet notice that this hasn't invalidated the fact that it is true. My challenge still stands, out of the Bible there is roughly 700,000 words, it is said that about 1/3 of the Bible is prophesy which makes that about 230,000 prophetic words... Out of 230,000 prophetic words there is bound to be a ton of false prophesies, things that just aren't true. Trying to poke holes in prophesies that are true isn't going to impress me. I know you will do that, you will do everything you can to try and invalidate it, you are a nonbeliever. I have heard all the excuses. But where are the false prophesies?

[Tired of the Nonsense]

[Replying to post 43 by PghPanther]
Again this is just trying to poke holes in the prophesy, yet notice that this hasn't invalidated the fact that it is true. My challenge still stands, out of the Bible there is roughly 700,000 words, it is said that about 1/3 of the Bible is prophesy which makes that about 230,000 prophetic words... Out of 230,000 prophetic words there is bound to be a ton of false prophesies, things that just aren't true. Trying to poke holes in prophesies that are true isn't going to impress me. I know you will do that, you will do everything you can to try and invalidate it, you are a nonbeliever. I have heard all the excuses. But where are the false prophesies?

Most of the books of the OT were revised and rewritten over the course of centuries before they reached their final, and current, state. Which allowed those doing the rewriting to bring the "prophesies" into alignment with the actual events AFTER the events had occurred. Even then however, they still managed to get it wrong. Does prophesy that clearly did not occur as prophesied count for anything, in your opinion. Or should it just be ignored?

[MadeNew]

Are you claiming the Old Testament was wrote (or revived) after the life of Jesus Christ? Im pretty sure that isn't true. I mean the dead sea scrolls predate Jesus, do they not?

[Tired of the Nonsense]

Are you claiming the Old Testament was wrote (or revived) after the life of Jesus Christ? Im pretty sure that isn't true. I mean the dead sea scrolls predate Jesus, do they not?

There is a Greek translation of the OT which is called the Septuagint that was revised by Christians after the time of Jesus. But that is not what I am referring to. I am referring to the Hebrew OT used by Jews and Christians, every book of which had reached it's current form by the late second century BC. Although some books were finalized earlier.

[MadeNew]

Are you claiming the Old Testament was wrote (or revived) after the life of Jesus Christ? Im pretty sure that isn't true. I mean the dead sea scrolls predate Jesus, do they not?

There is a Greek translation of the OT which is called the Septuagint that was revised by Christians after the time of Jesus. But that is not what I am referring to. I am referring to the Hebrew OT used by Jews and Christians, every book of which had reached it's current form by the late second century BC. Although some books were finalized earlier.

Ok, and do you have evidence to back up that assertion?

[OnceConvinced]

But if you compiled a book of 700,000 words, with nearly 230,000 words of it as prophesy, and just by chance got it all right... That is pretty much statistically impossible...

If I were to compile such a book I could easily alter things here and there, retrofit to my hearts content and make it look as though prophecies were fulfilled.

There appears to be retrofitting in the bible. eg, when an event is foreshadowed, eg when Judas is referred to as "the man who would later betray Jesus".

[MadeNew]

But if you compiled a book of 700,000 words, with nearly 230,000 words of it as prophesy, and just by chance got it all right... That is pretty much statistically impossible...

If I were to compile such a book I could easily alter things here and there, retrofit to my hearts content and make it look as though prophecies were fulfilled.

There appears to be retrofitting in the bible. eg, when an event is foreshadowed, eg when Judas is referred to as "the man who would later betray Jesus".

So, are you saying they made up the story of Judas betrayal? Do you accept anything about the Gospels as historical? Like for instant the birth place of Jesus? Or the death of Jesus? The trial of Jesus? The date of the baptisms? Date of the death? Even things about Jesus that are generally considered historical fit the role of the Messiah.. So what says you?

Did they lie about some of it? Or completely make up a fictional Jesus? And do you have evidence of that?