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)

[notachance]

3000+ views. Still not a single prophecy.

[notachance]

3000+ views. Still not a single prophecy.

Is any fundie on the board going to admit there are no prophecies in the Bible which prove the supernatural powers of the authors, or are you going to let your deafening silence do the talking for you?

Hobbes, Shermana, JW? Anybody?

[notachance]

3000+ views. Still not a single prophecy.

Is any fundie on the board going to admit there are no prophecies in the Bible which prove the supernatural powers of the authors, or are you going to let your deafening silence do the talking for you?

Hobbes, Shermana, JW? Anybody?

Ok, deafening silence it is, then.

[notachance]

3000+ views. Still not a single prophecy.

Is any fundie on the board going to admit there are no prophecies in the Bible which prove the supernatural powers of the authors, or are you going to let your deafening silence do the talking for you?

Hobbes, Shermana, JW? Anybody?

Ok, deafening silence it is, then.

Ok, it's official. There are no prophecies in the Bible.

[sarabellum]

Yes, this horse is dead.

No one can show you a biblical prophecy, and not use the bible at the same time.

(Thinks to self? Shouldn't there be at least one false positive? A situation where someone "guessed" the future?)

[Goat]

Yes, this horse is dead.

No one can show you a biblical prophecy, and not use the bible at the same time.

(Thinks to self? Shouldn't there be at least one false positive? A situation where someone "guessed" the future?)

Well, no one can use the bible IN CONTEXT, and that the claimed prophecies are actually prophecies.

[sarabellum]

Hi Goat..

Sorry...

Claim withdrawn...

I "thought" the argument was show me a biblical prophecy...
Followed by a...
Sorry, thats not an original copy..


I apologize for my misunderstanding.

[notachance]

Braveheart, I look forward to your explanation of how the Apocrytha proves there are prophecies in the Bible.

[Mithrae]

Hi Notachance. Besides the OP and the chest-beating on this last page I haven't read the thread, so I don't know if this has been brought up previously. But just for the lols, I'll put forward Daniel chapters 8 and 11 as prophecies. I think they meet #2-8 of your criteria, but let me know if that guess is wrong.

The obvious sticking point will be #1:

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.

Could you please explain the methods/evidence you'd like for demonstration of when an ancient text was originally written down? I'd appreciate it if you could use a few other examples from the Tanakh, New Testament or other ancient religious and secular texts for the purposes of clarification.

[ChristShepherd]

Jesus' Resume...WHAT DID HE DO?
What did Jesus ever do, that we can see, to improve the lives of mankind?

As a Prophet, what prophecies did Jesus ever make that have been fulfilled?

Jesus was a charismatic orator....he said some great sayings.....but what did he ever do?

IMO, all we have from Jesus are unfulfilled promises. We have nothing concrete that we can see. Did Jesus die for your sins? How can you tell if he did or not? How can you tell if you still have sins or not?

Jesus' Resume...WHAT DID HE DO?
NOTHING!