Are there any prophecies in the Bible?

[notachance]

It seems to me that the go-to "proof" that the Bible is divinely inspired are prophecies.

So I was hoping that somebody would give me an example of a prophecy that might prove the supernatural nature of the Bible.

I will write below a few criteria that I think any alleged prophecy must meet in order to qualify as "evidence of supernatural nature of the Bible"

1) The prophecy must have been demonstrably written down before the event it predicts.
A prophecy is a statement about the future, not about the past.

For example, if I wrote today, in 2011, "I hereby make the prophecy that in 2008, Barack Obama will be elected President of the United States", that is NOT a prophecy, because I'm "predicting" an event that actually already happened.

Similarly, if a 350 AD manuscript (for example the Codex Sinaiticus) talked about some battle that took place in 600BC, that wouldn't be a prediction, it would be a description of something that happened almost 1000 years earlier.

2) A prophecy must have demonstrably actually been made
An example of scenario that would NOT count as a valid prophecy would one where I write down today "10 years before he died, John Lennon told an anonymous author that he would die by being shot in the head". There is no way of verifying that John Lennon ever said that, so it's not a valid prophecy.

3) A predicted event must be reliably documented.
For example, if I said "I predict that tonight I will dream about eating ice cream" and then the next day I say "The prophecy came true! I did dream about ice cream", that would not be an accurate prophecy because it was not reliably documented. Nobody other than me knows if it's actually true that I dreamed about ice-cream.

4) A prophecy must be specific enough that it cannot be adaptable to multiple scenarios that are somewhat likely to happen eventually.
For example if I wrote "There will be a war between Christians and Muslims in the next 100 years", then I'm not making a supernatural prophecy, just an educated guess given the nature of our international relations. In order for it to even be considered as a prophecy, it would have to be something like "On March 2nd 2076, the United States will begin a campaign of drone attacks in Iran, starting with a 3:30 am raid on a military base 20 miles north of Tehran".

Another example of what would not be a prophecy would be something like "the twin towers that collapsed on 9-11 will eventually be rebuilt"

5) In order for a prophecy to be considered proof of the supernatural nature of the Bible, there has to be no other reasonable way to explaining it than by supernatural means.
If you cannot prove that purely natural explanations (chance? self-fulfilling prophecy, forgery) truly cannot account for the prophecy, then your belief in the supernatural cause of the prophecy is no more than a faith statement, and if you are using that do justify your faith, you're engaging in circular logic ("I believe in this baseless claim, because it's supported by another baseless claim").

6) An accurate prophecy cannot be considered evidence of the supernatural if it is surrounded by inaccurate prophecies.
For example if I wrote today the following statements:
"Obama will be elected in 2012"
"Pawlenty will be elected in 2012"
"Romney will be elected in 2012"
"Palin will be elected in 2012"
"Gingrich will be elected in 2012"

And one of them turned out to be correct, that would prove nothing!

7) A prophecy can only be considered evidence of the supernatural if it predicts something that is extremely unlikely.
For example this chart shows that over the last 117 years, in Seattle it has rained on August 2nd 13 times. That means that there is 11.1% chance that it will rain in Seattle on August 2nd of any given year. So if I wrote the prophecy that "On Aug 2nd 2154 it will rain in Seattle", that would be an accurate prediction, but nonetheless not evidence of supernatural powers, simply evidence of the statistical fact that I had a 11.1% chance to be right.

8) The prophecy cannot be an expression of something that many people want to see happen, because the people's will is what drives the prophecy to be fulfilled in that case, and not a supernatural power.
For example, if Martin Luther King had said "I predict that one day a black man will be US President", that would not be the kind of prediction that would prove the supernatural, because in saying that, MLK would just be verbalizing a wish that was to some degree shared by millions of blacks and whites alike. It was simple social pressure from these millions that eventually caused the prophecy to be "fulfilled". If Hillary Clinton said "One day a woman will be President" she will, by saying it, inspire people to try to make that happen. It's called a self-fulfilling prophecy.


It's almost 3am and I am a little tired. I may have to add additional bullet points later. It may also be that there is some redundancy, and that the list could be condensed while retaining it's purpose. But I think this is a good start.

Here are my two questions:

1) Do you agree that the requirements above are reasonable, if not explain why not

2) Can you think of any Bible prophecy that meets the requirements above?

(please don't link or quote 100 different prophecies, and don't then leave it to me to look them all up and debunk them all. Start by quoting the SINGLE MOST CONCLUSIVE example of a prophecy, and we can talk about that. Once we've debated it, we can move on to additional examples)

[Zzyzx]

.

We have no way of knowing if a passage in a copy of Daniel from 350 AD is an EXACT WORD FOR WORD COPY of earlier copies, or if a 350 AD anonymous scribe was ordered by his boss to add prophecies about Jesus here and there, or to correct the numbers on some inaccurate prophecies to make them seem correct, AFTER the events had taken place.

Many who accept biblical "prophesies" seem somewhat reluctant to accept claims of "prophesy" of the outcome of the 2000 presidential election that was recorded in 2010. Why is that?

If someone promises that they made the "prophesy" in 1999 but did not record it until years later, how is that any different from a biblical "prophesy" that was recorded decades after the event "predicted"?

[notachance]

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We have no way of knowing if a passage in a copy of Daniel from 350 AD is an EXACT WORD FOR WORD COPY of earlier copies, or if a 350 AD anonymous scribe was ordered by his boss to add prophecies about Jesus here and there, or to correct the numbers on some inaccurate prophecies to make them seem correct, AFTER the events had taken place.

Many who accept biblical "prophesies" seem somewhat reluctant to accept claims of "prophesy" of the outcome of the 2000 presidential election that was recorded in 2010. Why is that?

If someone promises that they made the "prophesy" in 1999 but did not record it until years later, how is that any different from a biblical "prophesy" that was recorded decades after the event "predicted"?

Exactly. We're saying the exact same thing man! It's not a prophecy if it's recorded after the event it predicted. Duh!

The Bible was written between 250 and 350 AD, and therefore anything in it about any event between before 249 AD are descriptions of the past, and not the future, and therefore not prophecies.

[Goat]

.

We have no way of knowing if a passage in a copy of Daniel from 350 AD is an EXACT WORD FOR WORD COPY of earlier copies, or if a 350 AD anonymous scribe was ordered by his boss to add prophecies about Jesus here and there, or to correct the numbers on some inaccurate prophecies to make them seem correct, AFTER the events had taken place.

Many who accept biblical "prophesies" seem somewhat reluctant to accept claims of "prophesy" of the outcome of the 2000 presidential election that was recorded in 2010. Why is that?

If someone promises that they made the "prophesy" in 1999 but did not record it until years later, how is that any different from a biblical "prophesy" that was recorded decades after the event "predicted"?

Exactly. We're saying the exact same thing man! It's not a prophecy if it's recorded after the event it predicted. Duh!

The Bible was written between 250 and 350 AD, and therefore anything in it about any event between before 249 AD are descriptions of the past, and not the future, and therefore not prophecies.

You keep on saying the bible was written between 250 and 350 AD. Please support your claim. I am not talking about the earliest extant complete version, but it rather being written.

Your statement, as it stands, seems highly inaccurate to me.

[notachance]

.

We have no way of knowing if a passage in a copy of Daniel from 350 AD is an EXACT WORD FOR WORD COPY of earlier copies, or if a 350 AD anonymous scribe was ordered by his boss to add prophecies about Jesus here and there, or to correct the numbers on some inaccurate prophecies to make them seem correct, AFTER the events had taken place.

Many who accept biblical "prophesies" seem somewhat reluctant to accept claims of "prophesy" of the outcome of the 2000 presidential election that was recorded in 2010. Why is that?

If someone promises that they made the "prophesy" in 1999 but did not record it until years later, how is that any different from a biblical "prophesy" that was recorded decades after the event "predicted"?

Exactly. We're saying the exact same thing man! It's not a prophecy if it's recorded after the event it predicted. Duh!

The Bible was written between 250 and 350 AD, and therefore anything in it about any event between before 249 AD are descriptions of the past, and not the future, and therefore not prophecies.

You keep on saying the bible was written between 250 and 350 AD. Please support your claim. I am not talking about the earliest extant complete version, but it rather being written.

Your statement, as it stands, seems highly inaccurate to me.

Man, you're either misunderstanding me or building a strawman.

I fully agree that the document we call the Bible today (a direct translation of the Codex Vaticanus and Sinauticus) is NOT original content, but rather inspired by content from earlier accounts, which in turn was also inspired by content from earlier accounts, which in turn was inspired by earlier accounts, which in turn was inspired by hearsay testimony by people that had heard it from other hearsay testimony a few decades earlier by people who might have known Jesus. I understand that there is a consensus that the starting point for this monumental chain of hearsay was NOT 350 AD, but around the year 30AD for the NT and thousands of years earlier for the OT.

We agree on that completely. All I am saying (and I don't see how you could disagree) is that it's preposterous to assume that the data at the end of this 300 year game of telephone is IDENTICAL to the data at the beginning of the game of telephone. It's laughable to assume that NOT A SINGLE thing was lost or added or changed in the original verbal story, while it was being told and retold and written and rewritten and translated and edited and modified over the centuries.

That's all I'm saying. In all likelihood, the original testimony and the Bible we have today are profoundly different. And the existence of any particular phrase in one does not in any way mean that that phrase must therefore also be in the other.

Are we in agreement?

I think the source of our confusion is that you choose to call the original testimony "Bible" and I choose to call the final product "Bible". Simple semantic difference which we can come to an agreement to. Doesn't change the essential fact that the original testimony and today's bible are very different things.

[Goat]

Man, you're either misunderstanding me or building a strawman.

I fully agree that the document we call the Bible today (a direct translation of the Codex Vaticanus and Sinauticus) is NOT original content, but rather inspired by content from earlier accounts, which in turn was also inspired by content from earlier accounts, which in turn was inspired by earlier accounts, which in turn was inspired by hearsay testimony by people that had heard it from other hearsay testimony a few decades earlier by people who might have known Jesus. I understand that there is a consensus that the starting point for this monumental chain of hearsay was NOT 350 AD, but around the year 30AD for the NT and thousands of years earlier for the OT.

I am not sure if you can verify from those translations on just how close or not close
those versions are. It would be more accurate to say that the bible that is being used was finally redacted in 250 to 350 ad, not written in that time.

I understand what you are trying to say, I just disagree with your terminology.

[notachance]

Man, you're either misunderstanding me or building a strawman.

I fully agree that the document we call the Bible today (a direct translation of the Codex Vaticanus and Sinauticus) is NOT original content, but rather inspired by content from earlier accounts, which in turn was also inspired by content from earlier accounts, which in turn was inspired by earlier accounts, which in turn was inspired by hearsay testimony by people that had heard it from other hearsay testimony a few decades earlier by people who might have known Jesus. I understand that there is a consensus that the starting point for this monumental chain of hearsay was NOT 350 AD, but around the year 30AD for the NT and thousands of years earlier for the OT.

I am not sure if you can verify from those translations on just how close or not close those versions are. It would be more accurate to say that the bible that is being used was finally redacted in 250 to 350 ad, not written in that time.

I understand what you are trying to say, I just disagree with your terminology.

Well, I think the word redaction implies more similarity between the original and the final version of the Bible than it's safe to assume.

We know for a fact that there are MANY forgeries, we know for a fact that there are many mistranslations (including the Mary was a Virgin thing), we know for a fact that there were hundreds of books and conflicting testimony that were destroyed.

There is ample room for the assumption that the original facts and the edited 350 AD final description thereof were as fundamentally different as one can imagine. It's entirely possible that Jesus was not considered anything more than a regular mortal prophet for several generations after his death.

I mean, either the 350 AD Bible is telling a lot of inaccurate things, OR, The sun stopped in the middle of a battle, people can walk on water, donkeys can talk, women get pregnant without sex and zombies are real.

As a fellow atheist, you cannot simultaneously claim it's unwarranted to believe these things, but at the same time come short of clearly saying that since the Bible makes these claims, then it CANNOT BE accurately describing historical events.

"Redaction" is too weak a word to describe the process. "Outright fabrication" would probably be too strong a word, because there clearly are historically accurate statements in the Bible. But clearly, if the Bible was a movie, in the opening credits it wouldn't say "Based on a true story". It would say "Inspired by a true story".

[Goat]

Man, you're either misunderstanding me or building a strawman.

I fully agree that the document we call the Bible today (a direct translation of the Codex Vaticanus and Sinauticus) is NOT original content, but rather inspired by content from earlier accounts, which in turn was also inspired by content from earlier accounts, which in turn was inspired by earlier accounts, which in turn was inspired by hearsay testimony by people that had heard it from other hearsay testimony a few decades earlier by people who might have known Jesus. I understand that there is a consensus that the starting point for this monumental chain of hearsay was NOT 350 AD, but around the year 30AD for the NT and thousands of years earlier for the OT.

I am not sure if you can verify from those translations on just how close or not close those versions are. It would be more accurate to say that the bible that is being used was finally redacted in 250 to 350 ad, not written in that time.

I understand what you are trying to say, I just disagree with your terminology.

Well, I think the word redaction implies more similarity between the original and the final version of the Bible than it's safe to assume.

Well, we have a pretty complete copy of the Jewish scriptures (although I do admit I think that the Christain version has some translation issues), and we do have significant fragments from before.. Redacted does mean it could have been modified substantially

We know for a fact that there are MANY forgeries, we know for a fact that there are many mistranslations (including the Mary was a Virgin thing), we know for a fact that there were hundreds of books and conflicting testimony that were destroyed.

There is ample room for the assumption that the original facts and the edited 350 AD final description thereof were as fundamentally different as one can imagine. It's entirely possible that Jesus was not considered anything more than a regular mortal prophet for several generations after his death.

I mean, either the 350 AD Bible is telling a lot of inaccurate things, OR, The sun stopped in the middle of a battle, people can walk on water, donkeys can talk, women get pregnant without sex and zombies are real.

As a fellow atheist, you cannot simultaneously claim it's unwarranted to believe these things, but at the same time come short of clearly saying that since the Bible makes these claims, then it CANNOT BE accurately describing historical events.

"Redaction" is too weak a word to describe the process. "Outright fabrication" would probably be too strong a word, because there clearly are historically accurate statements in the Bible. But clearly, if the Bible was a movie, in the opening credits it wouldn't say "Based on a true story". It would say "Inspired by a true story".

From a semantic point of view, I disagree. .. I beleive you are not properly estimating what the word 'redaction' would imply when it comes to the accuracy of the later copies compared with the earlier copies.

[notachance]

Man, you're either misunderstanding me or building a strawman.

I fully agree that the document we call the Bible today (a direct translation of the Codex Vaticanus and Sinauticus) is NOT original content, but rather inspired by content from earlier accounts, which in turn was also inspired by content from earlier accounts, which in turn was inspired by earlier accounts, which in turn was inspired by hearsay testimony by people that had heard it from other hearsay testimony a few decades earlier by people who might have known Jesus. I understand that there is a consensus that the starting point for this monumental chain of hearsay was NOT 350 AD, but around the year 30AD for the NT and thousands of years earlier for the OT.

I am not sure if you can verify from those translations on just how close or not close those versions are. It would be more accurate to say that the bible that is being used was finally redacted in 250 to 350 ad, not written in that time.

I understand what you are trying to say, I just disagree with your terminology.

Well, I think the word redaction implies more similarity between the original and the final version of the Bible than it's safe to assume.

Well, we have a pretty complete copy of the Jewish scriptures (although I do admit I think that the Christain version has some translation issues), and we do have significant fragments from before.. Redacted does mean it could have been modified substantially

We know for a fact that there are MANY forgeries, we know for a fact that there are many mistranslations (including the Mary was a Virgin thing), we know for a fact that there were hundreds of books and conflicting testimony that were destroyed.

There is ample room for the assumption that the original facts and the edited 350 AD final description thereof were as fundamentally different as one can imagine. It's entirely possible that Jesus was not considered anything more than a regular mortal prophet for several generations after his death.

I mean, either the 350 AD Bible is telling a lot of inaccurate things, OR, The sun stopped in the middle of a battle, people can walk on water, donkeys can talk, women get pregnant without sex and zombies are real.

As a fellow atheist, you cannot simultaneously claim it's unwarranted to believe these things, but at the same time come short of clearly saying that since the Bible makes these claims, then it CANNOT BE accurately describing historical events.

"Redaction" is too weak a word to describe the process. "Outright fabrication" would probably be too strong a word, because there clearly are historically accurate statements in the Bible. But clearly, if the Bible was a movie, in the opening credits it wouldn't say "Based on a true story". It would say "Inspired by a true story".

From a semantic point of view, I disagree. .. I beleive you are not properly estimating what the word 'redaction' would imply when it comes to the accuracy of the later copies compared with the earlier copies.

Ok, at this point we are just disagreeing on the semantics of how much of a substantial change is implied in the word "redacted".

I can live with using the word "redacted" while conversing with you, because I know that you attach that label to the same set of facts as I do. But I think that when talking to a Christian, and especially one who is ignorant of the basics of Biblical History, the term "redacted" fails to fully depict the full extent of the fundamental changes made to the text.

You can't get any more different than one set of documents saying the guy is God and another saying he's not God. Can you think of a more fundamental difference than being God vs NOT being God?

You can use the word "redacted". But I think that words such as hijacked, fabricated, made up, forged, etc are all within the sphere of accurate terms to describe the process by which the Codex Vaticanus and Sinaiticus came into existence.

[Goat]

You can use the word "redacted". But I think that words such as hijacked, fabricated, made up, forged, etc are all within the sphere of accurate terms to describe the process by which the Codex Vaticanus and Sinaiticus came into existence.

Perhaps 'Edited with q specific theology in mind' would be the less confrontational way to put it.

And, I am not sure how much of the actual books that are put in the canon were edited.. they certainly were chosen out of a wide field of conflicting viewpoints to be sure. I don't have the information to see how much of what was accepted into the canon was changed from the originals.

[notachance]

You can use the word "redacted". But I think that words such as hijacked, fabricated, made up, forged, etc are all within the sphere of accurate terms to describe the process by which the Codex Vaticanus and Sinaiticus came into existence.

Perhaps 'Edited with q specific theology in mind' would be the less confrontational way to put it.

And, I am not sure how much of the actual books that are put in the canon were edited.. they certainly were chosen out of a wide field of conflicting viewpoints to be sure. I don't have the information to see how much of what was accepted into the canon was changed from the originals.

Yeah, I guess it's possible that the "original" testimony, written by people that never met Jesus, 30 to 100 years after Jesus was dead, ALREADY had patently false supernatural claims in them, and that subsequent copies, including the Codexes Sinaiticus and Vaticanus, were somewhat accurate copies of the original baloney stories.

I don't know that anybody has any way of knowing whether that's the case at this point in time.

If I were to speculate, I'd imagine that the original text was already VERY different from what actually happened, and was changed even more with every copying of it. But I don't present that as a factual claim, just speculation.