Fulfilled Prophecy

clearly not, as anyone who's read genesis will be able to tell you. as you may recall, in that book (which is at least 2,600 years old), joseph delivers several very specific prophecies to the pharaoh of egypt. the prophecies themselves were delivered in metaphorical imagery to someone who had no idea what they meant, but the prophet deciphered them into concrete terms. so that their prophecies may be confirmed by people willing to read anything into them. one only needs to read the horoscopes for a few weeks to understand this. it's amazing how the astrologers know so much about your life, right? well think of how many people are reading the same horoscope and thinking the same thing. this is two steps away from a former member who asserted that there was biblical evidence of time-travel and cd-rom's, based on similar logic.

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oh no, this is a very special kind of fallacy, pre-hoc propter-hoc. it's like post-hoc, only in reverse.the issue here is that we can actually establish that the first event influenced the second. trojan virus are indeed named for the trojan horse and, and spartan rockets are indeed named for the spartans. we can't say that for the "prophecies." and best we have coincidence, and at worst we have outright lunacy.Edited by arachnophilia, : No reason given.

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yes, not 4 verses from the one you cite.listen, buz, nahum is 3 chapters long. it occupies five pages in my bible. just read the whole book, will ya? it's one long prophecy, and it's all against nineveh.to pick out one little verse with a poetic reference to war and apply it to anything modern is quotemining. it's just plain intellectually dishonest. the book's introduction says "a pronouncement against nineveh." the book is addressed to the king of assyria. nineveh is mentioned very, very close to your reference. that verse is in a chapter describing the downfall of nineveh.guess what it's about, buz?to say it's about something else is insulting to the intelligence of everyone else here, and insulting to the prophet nachum whom you must assumed cannot keep on topic, and is thus a poor author.

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it's a rather standard reference to god's power. see, i dunno, the entire book of job. you're missing the point of it, too. look at verse 6:

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Who can stand before His indignation? And who can abide in the fierceness of His anger?

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and from there on. the message is: "you messed with us, you messed with god. and god. is. pissed." and that they had better watch out, because the god that packs this kind of punch, one that can destroy the entire world, is now their enemy. similarly, buz, this is the first sentance in this post that actually "hones in" on you. i haven't addressed you by name before (hey, nevermind that post above this one!) so clearly nothing that i've said before now actually has anything to do with you.

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yes, i think this is the important part of the statement above. this, ie: predicting the future in nice conrete and testable terms, is not how prophecy works.at least, according to the fundamentalists who see fit to twist things that very often aren't even prophecy at all into their particular reading of the bible. nevermind that if one were to actually read the bible, every instance of prophecy is rather concrete, starting with joseph's statement to pharaoh about 7 years of prosperity and 7 years of famine. was the symbolic of something to do with jesus? does it apply to the bush regime? no, it was something very specific that helped pharoah, and actually happened very shortly afterward. written after the fact, sure. but in concrete terms.when we go back and look at prophecies, and actually read what they say, for the most part they follow this pattern. even the ones that didn't come true, probably a fair number here -- nice, concrete terms. but look at how buz is known for distorting those. apparently, tyre really was destroyed and left permanently uninhabitable, just like the bible says. nevermind that they are quite a booming port in lebanon today.see, for the fundamentalist, they like to make sure things stay vague, so that they are always true. out of context is even better, because then we can change a few words around and apply to something entirely unrelated, and no one's the wiser. sure, jesus (and several million other people) rode into jerusalem's east gate on a donkey. great! prophecy fulfilled! world peace at the threat of violence? no, that next verse in zechariah must be about something else.

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in your opinion, do the people who write for newspaper horoscopes have this gift of prophecy? why or why not? even the quote-mining? it's sad that stripping context and meaning from verses, and re-applying them to whatever you see fit is considered sound doctrine these days. but i suppose it always has been, hasn't it? afterall, look at how many times matthew does it. nothing new under the sun, i suppose.

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for as often as it's quoted, you still seem to be misunderstanding isaiah 7.see, isaiah delivers a prophecy to king ahaz, that he will defeat the assyrians. concrete terms. isaiah says to ahaz, "ask of god a sign of your choosing." when ahaz objects, isaiah gives him one. a woman (who appears to be present) is currently pregnant. when the child she is carrying reaches a certain age, the prophecy will be fulfilled. that's a nice concrete date.this is, of course, not the way the vast majority of christians choose to read the verse. they opt for out-of-context, ignorant of hebrew grammar and vocabulary, and incredibly distortionary readings, and apply it to jesus. it's no wonder you have little idea how prophecy works -- you're too busy bending it your needs to actually stop and read it. no, you intend to make it cryptic and vague. prophecy is very specific. you don't need dates for that. just someone reading the text and trying to fulfill it.Edited by arachnophilia, : subtitle

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evidently, both of them. i bet that in any given month, a gemini somewhere in the world meets the love of their life. and the completely different prediction is also true, though maybe for a different gemini.now compare and contrast buz's vague and out-of-context use of prophecy with horoscopes. read the posts on the book of nahum again. buz is taking one little tiny reference in a chapter that is about the destruction of nineveh and applying it to something entirely different. that's quote-mining, when the context contradicts the use of the smaller quote. i believe i gave an example above. zechariah predicts that the messiah will ride into jerusalem on a donkey, through the east gate. jesus rides into jerusalem on a donkey, through the east gate. therefor jesus=messiah, right? matthew would have us believe that this is the qualifier, that riding in on a donkey makes one the messiah.but if you think about, "riding a donkey" is rather meaningless. donkeys are quite commonly owned by lots of peasant, hundreds of thousands of which would enter jerusalem every year for passover. what matthew has done is stripped the context of the verse. the very next verse in zechariah (where matthew quotes the prophecy) gives us the effective definition of the messiah:

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And I will cut off the chariot from Ephraim, and the horse from Jerusalem, and the battle bow shall be cut off, and he shall speak peace unto the nations; and his dominion shall be from sea to sea, and from the River to the ends of the earth.

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and so on. it goes on to describe how the people of judah, led by the messiah and the lord himself, will conquer their enemies, and rule the world. the messiah will bring peace, because no one would have any hope fighting against him. clearly, this is not what happened with jesus, is it? he did not militarily conquer the planet, and force peace on everyone.matthew ignores this, opting for one brief reference about a donkey.

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if a prophecy is given (quite clearly) and one misrepresents it so as to make it mean something else, how is this not a false prophecy? but it's ok if they don't know that they are full of bs? what if they are willfully ignorant that they are full of bs? and clearly, a lot christian leaders covet power. when one position is contradicted by simply reading the text itself, which position is right? i don't see it. it doesn't say everyone, just people from everywhere. if you or i used that colloquially, no one would think we meant "everyone on the planet" just a "large and diverse group of people." at best, representatives. couldn't this verse be predicting the UN?UN... television... UN... television. hmm.

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hi.first, please read what i wrote. then please read isaiah 7.please notice that in almost every modern translation the word "virgin" is not present. that's because the word in the hebrew, — does not mean virgin. second, please note the use of the heh-prefix on the word. which young woman? the young woman, that is to say, this specific young woman. she would have had to have been in the room for the grammar to make any sense. further, please note that the first verb of the statement seems to be present tense, not the popular future tense. the sentance should read "the young woman is pregnant."third, please also note that this is not the prophecy, rather the time span for the prophecy. a woman at some indeterminant point in the future isn't especially useful as a marker of time, and would essentially be meaningless to king ahaz. the prophecy itself is that ahaz will defeat the asyrians. this is the prophecy:

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the land whose two kings thou hast a horror of shall be forsaken.

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it can be found in verse 16, as well the preceeding verses, and proceeding verses. the child has little to do with it, excpet as a marker of time. the rest of the chapter has to do with the defeat of assyria. fourth, christ's name was joshua, not imanuel.this is a prime example of the principle i was talking about. the prophecy itself is rather concrete. it is from the lord god, through isaiah, and delivered specifically to king ahaz. it says exactly what will happen, albeit in poetic terms: assyria will be held off, and ultimately crushed. it gives a specific time frame: no more than 13 years (probably a lot less, but information about cultural customs is lacking). so let's review: ahaz will defeat the assyrian invaders within 13 years. nice, solid prophecy.how do you get christ, who was not named immanuel, born some 600 years later, and virgin birth from this passage? it's just not what it's about. in order to do so, you have to:

• not know hebrew,
• not understand grammar
• not have read the rest of the chapter
• mistranslate a word
• rip the verse out of context
• change the point of the verse
• and exploit vagueries created by your ignorance of the first two conditions.

the passage is not vague at all. you choose to make it vague in order to misrepresent it, and exploit its supposed vagueries.

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i never said that you did. though i may have implied that by your distortions you are turning genuine prophecy into false prophecy. yet strangely missing that "messiah" factor. i know i've mentioned that there are actually groups of jews that sent hamas congratulatory notes on their somewhat recent election in palestine, because they agree that israel should be destroyed. creating the state of israel minus the messiah is false fulfillment, according to them. this is not about the prophecy. it's about your interpretation technique. this is a good example that shows exactly what's wrong with it. clearly, it is you that has the comprehension problem here. the rest of are able to read the book of nahum as a contiguous entity, one that proceeds logically, is driven by a main point, and is not totally schizophrenic. you somehow see the book as little individual sound-bites which can each individually be read out of context and applied to whatever you wish. this problem is systemic in the accepted christian way of reading prophecy, and it is strongly insulting to anyone with intelligence who actually respects the prophets. in nahum? i think you're missing the point. perhaps it's been a while since your last writing course, but i cannot fathom that you somehow fail to understand how a literary argument is made. the prophet nahum is not prophesying end-time events, but attesting to the might of god. he does this to make a point: that nineveh should be very, very afraid of the lord god.the book is written with a singular point, and anyone reading the book all at once can easily see this. the structure becomes obvious. this is simply another example of your own failing to understand what you are reading, and the breakdown of standard christian bible interpretation. it is just another quote-mine. the prophecy in question is the destruction of nineveh. chariots are part of that.

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Merkava seriesMerkava means "Chariot" in Hebrew - not necessarily a "battle chariot" even, the word comes from the root Resh-Kaf-Bet, meaning "vehicle". ...

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in modern hebrew. guess what the word comes from? "chariot." you're putting the cart before the horse. literally. i'll do you one better, buz. ‘ merkava is the name a specific israeli tank. do you see problem with this?their name means "chariot." they are named after war chariots. the bible influenced the name, not vice-versa. chapter one is about the might of god -- why nineveh should not mess with israel. think, buz. think. who could possibly be the enemies of israel in nahum's time? who was invading, just then? it's like talking about jewish adversaries in 1944. gee, i wonder who they could mean. i really wish you'd quite using that mangling of a name. it's insulting to purposefully get someone's name wrong, and it's disrespectful to my god when you insult him so. you know it's wrong, as you've been repeatedly told so by people who know far more about the language he spoke it in than you do. clearly those other bits about war and destruction have nothing to do with these bits about war and destruction. gimme a break, buz. nahum's talking about war and destruction continuously for almost 2 whole chapters, and only this one line is about nineveh? the rest, because it fails to mention the name "nineveh" everytime there's a little number in your book, are really about something else?quote. mine. i see, so "chariot" in one part of the chapter means "tank" or some such, but "chariot" elsewhere means "chariot?" you're mighty selective, aren't you? try 613.that's the especially ridiculous thing about this. by most accounts, the book of nahum was written somewhere between 615 and 612. nineveh fell in 612, along with the rest of assyria. should this have been written before, the prophecy was fulfilled.but you would rather it be about something vague and easily distorted into modern times, even though there is nothing in the book to indicate that it's about anything other than assyria. but if you'd just cut out it with the wildly off-base "decoding" act you're playing, this would be a perfect example of fulfilled prophecy to add to your list.the fact that it's not says something really, really damning about the way that you read prophecy. it tells us that, for you, prophecy is never actually fulfilled. it's not testible, or falsifiable, because it's not specific. you are so desperate to maintain your strangehold on your ability to distort that you are willing to give up prophecies that have actually been confirmed.good job, buz. fast, metal chariots drawn by horses are actually quite common in nahum's time. and guess what the horsemen would take along on nighttime raids so they could see? torches. i don't know why this is so hard for you. in this one post alone, you have sufficiently demonstrated that you in fact are.

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i suspect that he is willfully ignorant. he wants to believe his claims, and refuses to hear anything different. this is something of a pattern for buz, who on many a previous occasion has termed refutations of his premise as "off-topic." i am fully aware that i am full of bs. it's why i'm especially good at catching other people who are. i am strictly vouching for the plain and obvious meaning of the text, as written by the prophets. anyone who can actually read should be able to see that i am not misrepresenting anything. cryptic and tautological. but the fact is if i say "the bible predicts x" when anyone reading the text can clearly see that the bible really says y, i am not right.if i talk about how the tower of babel really represents the evil lord xenu's intent to confuse man with religion, or the flood the atom bombs he killed all our alien ancestors with, or how original sin is really refering to body thetans... therefor the bible predicts scientology, would you agree with me?because i would be betraying the meaning of both the bible AND scientology in such an effort. yet this is exactly the calibre of interpretation buz is committing. one thing means another. removal of context. distortion. ignoring the main points. and really, anyone with half a braind should be able to see what exactly is wrong with this kind of interpretation technique. yet it seems so common. i think you're over-reading. really, i think we should avoid revelation for now, for the specific reason that it completely breaks with every biblical tradition for prophecy. revelation is, itself, not actually prophecy. rather, it is a vision given to john. visions are one way god communicates with people, prophecy is another. take for example my mention of joseph and pharaoh above. the dreams that pharaoh had were visions, but the interpretation and advice given by joseph were prophecy. see the difference?

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precisely. that is what buz is doing: turning concrete prophecy into a game of odds. making one specific war -- the fall of assyria in 612 bc -- into any war, and thus into the war he wants (armagedon). by making vague claims, claims with a loose variable like number of applications, or people affected, or time, a prediction becomes worthless. it was earlier in this thread. i would link, but just look up a few posts. buz is still discussing it, wishing to push his quotemining through. read the book of nahum. it's only 3 chapters long. tell me, straight up, what you think it's about. i'll tell you what they don't do. recognize him as king, put him on the throne, and then conquer the planet. see, this is perhaps another problem. jesus cannot both have fulfilled the prophecy, but not fulfilled it yet. buz breaks up long prophetic passages into little bite-sized quotemines. are you about to do the same? the bit about the donkey: check, the bit about world peace: not yet? it's the same passage. you mean, because he hasn't? clearly, i would think that the messianic criteria are defined by messianic prophecy. doesn't this make sense to you? so if jesus does not fulfill the messianic prophecies, he does not fulfill the messianic criteria, and this is not the messiah. if he will at some point, that's great.but that would make the second coming of christ the messiah, and not the first. i fail to see a distinction in the text of the bible. and your source does not particularly allow for either messiah to be jesus. ben-yosef is from ephraim (jesus was from judah) and a military leader. ben-david is the king of new jerusalem (the "standard" messiah). your article does not allow for that either, (neverminding that neither can be jesus, to date) as the first messiah and the second messiah will be in the same place at the same time.Edited by arachnophilia, : typo

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meaning, taken over-literally, the minimum requirement would be a single person from each and every nation. idiomatically, it probably just means "a large diverse group" either way, it doesn't seem to mean "every single person on the planet."

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read first corinthians chapter two.i have seen christians (on this board) use it to claim special powers of perception, saying that no one can interpret or understand the bible except by special teaching of the holy spirit. iano is quite famous for using this argument to attempt to trump an opponent. something akin to: "your view makes sense, but that's only the worldly perception. you need the holy spirit to actually understand what it means, which is this contrived reading."i have attended almost every variety of christian church there is, and pentecostals, methodists, baptists, and whatever the heck calvary is all like to indicate that god leads their bible study. god leads them to passages, god tells them how to read it, and god tells them what it means. the "decoder ring" idea isn't all that uncommon. and people who are a little more aware and use their special perceptual ability called "common sense" are quick to identify it in off-the-wall claims like buz's that require some interesting mental gymnastics to justify. perhaps wrongly, as buz does not seem to make this kind of claim. but the inference is usually justified, as when there is an obvious surface meaning, and one begins to treat words like "chariot" as a code for something else entirely, something unusual must be going on.when one treats the bible like a coded message, it is not only unjustified, but unneccessary, and disrespectful to the author. except, possibly, with the book of revelation (as visions are often symbolic). when done with other books, it is generally the beginning of all kinds of quackery and bias and just plain lunacy. this is the premise of the ufo's in the bible crowd, the time-travelling cd-roms in bible crowd, the bible-code crowd, and any number of cults. it is absolutely incompatible with any claim of literal bible interpretation.

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