Does fulfilled bible prophecy prove God's existence?

[FWI]

There are many prophecies included in the bible. Where, some have been fulfilled and others have not. Yet, it seems to me that even if one bible prophecy can be validated that's enough proof for the existence of God. Or, is there other explanations or doubts?

[Zzyzx]

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There are many prophecies included in the bible. Where, some have been fulfilled and others have not. Yet, it seems to me that even if one bible prophecy can be validated that's enough proof for the existence of God. Or, is there other explanations or doubts?

If enough guesses about the future are made, and are vague enough, some are likely to occur. One lucky guess does not prove anything -- much less the existence of any of the 'gods'

[FWI]

If enough guesses about the future are made, and are vague enough, some are likely to occur. One lucky guess does not prove anything -- much less the existence of any of the 'gods'

Thus, you are suggesting that all prophecies are only lucky guesses…Is this just an opinion or is there any facts that can be produced to support your statement?

[Difflugia]

Thus, you are suggesting that all prophecies are only lucky guesses…Is this just an opinion or is there any facts that can be produced to support your statement?

"Prove that was a lucky guess" seems a spectacularly weak starting position.

There are many prophecies included in the bible. Where, some have been fulfilled and others have not. Yet, it seems to me that even if one bible prophecy can be validated that's enough proof for the existence of God. Or, is there other explanations or doubts?

If we take your assertions at face value, it boils down to the likelihood of getting the right answer without divine guidance.

"The Assyrians will put the smack down on Israel" wouldn't take much luck to get right during the time of Isaiah and Ahaz, but "a king named Josiah will burn the bones of priests on an altar" is pretty striking during the reign of Jeroboam, three hundred years before it happened.

In the latter case, though, we're jumping the gun a bit. We don't have a three hundred year old prophecy and its fulfillment, we have the story of a prophecy and a story of its fulfillment, either of which may not actually have happened. Even if the fulfillment story is true (I think it is, but a minority of scholars think the entire pre-exilic history of Israel and Judah may be a later fabrication), the linguistic evidence is that the entire span of 1-2 Kings was composed at about the same time, probably shortly before and during the reign of Josiah himself. So, before we go calculating the odds of someone predicting Josiah's actions 300 years before he was born, let's first evaluate the odds of someone attempting to manipulate a credulous king by faking a 300-year-old prophecy. Given certain parallels in the present American political situation, I think I can safely say that that's orders of magnitude more likely than a miracle.

[Purple Knight]

There are many prophecies included in the bible. Where, some have been fulfilled and others have not. Yet, it seems to me that even if one bible prophecy can be validated that's enough proof for the existence of God. Or, is there other explanations or doubts?

It depends on the prophecy.

If it says, "Three hundred thousand days from now, the sun will rise," that's very generalistic and likely even though it's far in the future.

The more specific the prediction, and the less immediately likely it may have seemed at the time, the greater the clout earned when it comes true.

If enough guesses about the future are made, and are vague enough, some are likely to occur. One lucky guess does not prove anything -- much less the existence of any of the 'gods'

I suggest that Z here makes a valid point I missed that has to do with number of predictions, and the prophets' potential ability to hide inaccurate guesses.

[Zzyzx]

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If enough guesses about the future are made, and are vague enough, some are likely to occur. One lucky guess does not prove anything -- much less the existence of any of the 'gods'

Thus, you are suggesting that all prophecies are only lucky guesses…Is this just an opinion or is there any facts that can be produced to support your statement?

Correction: What I am actually saying is that anyone can make guesses about future events and if they make enough guesses it is likely that at least one will be right.

For instance, although I am not an observer of sports or racing, I can predict (guess) which driver will win in each of 100 races. It would not make me a guru to be right once or a few times. Anyone could do as well without special knowledge (or divine intervention).

Of course, I could become an Apologist (of racing) and claim that my one (or few) correct guesses means that I have unusual ability. However, an astute person would realize that as a false claim.

[Difflugia]

Correction: What I am actually saying is that anyone can make guesses about future events and if they make enough guesses it is likely that at least one will be right.

For instance, although I am not an observer of sports or racing, I can predict (guess) which driver will win in each of 100 races. It would not make me a guru to be right once or a few times. Anyone could do as well without special knowledge (or divine intervention).

In scientific circles, a form of this is called publication bias. Studies with positive results are more likely to be published than those with negative results, meaning that researchers might unknowingly duplicate experiments that were already done and failed, but that remained unpublished. If that happens enough times, someone's bound to get "lucky" and show a success that's just due to random chance.

The Bible might suffer from just such a "publication bias."

(Incidentally, several Open Access journals have been established to combat this and they'll publish anything with good methodology, regardless of results. PLOS ONE is a prominent one.)

[Tcg]

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If enough guesses about the future are made, and are vague enough, some are likely to occur. One lucky guess does not prove anything -- much less the existence of any of the 'gods'

Thus, you are suggesting that all prophecies are only lucky guesses…Is this just an opinion or is there any facts that can be produced to support your statement?

Correction: What I am actually saying is that anyone can make guesses about future events and if they make enough guesses it is likely that at least one will be right.

Jean Dixon, the well known psychic/astrologer from the 20th century, made a career of this process. Although her predictions were very often wrong, a lucky hit here and there were what people remembered. This phenomenon was recognized in an effect named after her:

• The Jeane Dixon effect
  
  John Allen Paulos, a mathematician at Temple University, coined the term 'the Jeane Dixon effect', which references a tendency to promote a few correct predictions while ignoring a larger number of incorrect predictions. Many of Dixon's predictions proved erroneous, such as her claims that a dispute over the offshore Chinese islands of Quemoy and Matsu would trigger the start of World War III in 1958, that American labor leader Walter Reuther would run for president of the United States in the 1964 presidential election, that the second child of Canadian Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau and his young wife Margaret would be a girl (it was a boy), and that the Soviets would be the first to put men on the moon.
  
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeane_Dix ... xon_effect

Of course those promoting Biblical prophecy often claim that there are no unfulfilled prophecies, only ones that haven't been fulfilled yet. Ms. Dixon couldn't use that apologetic given that her predictions, as can be seen above, were very specific.


Tcg

[Difflugia]

For perspective, I posted to my notes a chronology of kings and prophets from Saul to Nehemiah. I have a hard time remembering who lived when and in what order, so some time ago, I copied a table out of an old books of "Bible helps." It wasn't too difficult to convert my HTML into BBCode.

[brunumb]

There are many prophecies included in the bible. Where, some have been fulfilled and others have not. Yet, it seems to me that even if one bible prophecy can be validated that's enough proof for the existence of God. Or, is there other explanations or doubts?

If prophecies that are allegedly fulfilled validate the existence of God, what are we to make of the prophesies that failed?