Lebanon In End Time Bible Prophecy

I would just point out that predicting the eventual decline of a great city is a pretty safe prediction, and it is not remarkable that Tyre, like most other ancient cities, ain't what it used to be. Or that it was besieged and conquered a few times in its long history.So, if you want to set yourself up as a prophet, a good place to start is to look around for some thriving metropolis and tell everybody that you predict it will eventually fall on hard times. Just be careful not to be too specific, you know? Like, don't say it's going to fall to a specific aggressor like, say, King Nebuchadnezzar.Oops.On the other hand, you might get lucky and say something poetically specific about fishermen drying their nets on the ruins of the city and 2500 years later some National Geographics photographer snaps a shot of fishermen drying their nets on the ruins.It's a tricky business, prophecy.But the biggest mistake you can make is the "these things will come very soon" prediction or, even worse because it's more specific, "this will happen before the current generation passes" prediction. The Bible seers never seemed to learn that lesson, and that's probably the main reason rational people don't look to the Bible for information on the future.

Hm. So, when we read in Revelation 1:1 that "The Revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave unto him, to shew unto his servants things which must shortly come to pass; and he sent and signified it by his angel unto his servant John."It doesn't mean that the events described in Revelation "must shortly come to pass?" When God never means what he says, I guess it gives his prophets a lot of wiggle room.I'd suggest 2,000 years is a long time, especially if you believe the universe is only 6,000 years old.I would also point out that "bad things are going to happen to the Jews" has always been a pretty safe prediction as well. One thing you don't want to be is God's chosen people.By the way, I'm one of those people who remembers Hal Lindsey's TV commercials for "The Late Great Planet Earth" in the late 70s. I remember clearly, because I must have seen the stupid commercial a thousand times, how impressed he was with the Bible's predictive powers. I bet I can remember this verbatim:"Two thousand years ago, the Book of Revelation predicted the fall of the Roman Empire and the rise, in its place, of a ten-nation confederacy. This year, the tenth and final nation joined the European Economic Community, thus fulfilling this ancient prophecy."I remember he distinctly said, "tenth AND FINAL nation." How many nations are in the EU now? Twenty-five?Of course, Revelation had predicted no such thing anyway. I assume he was refering to the ten-headed sea monster. As I interpret Revelation, the ten-headed sea monster represents Madonna, who is also the Anti-Christ. Think about it.

In 1982, God spoke to me and told me that the Ayatollah Khomeini would overthrow the regime of Saddam Hussein in Iraq.As we all know, this prophecy has clearly been fulfilled.

Come on. You're just being stubborn. The scripture clearly says Nebuchadnezzar would be the one to destroy Tyre. The "many nations" are the many nations that Nebu, the "king of kings" in Ezekiel's words, would lead into battle. Nebu was the head of a vast empire, and many tributary nations would be expected to join him in his adventure.

Well don't waste your time arguing with a heathen like me, then. There are an awful lot of very confused Christians out there who are reading Revelation and living in fear of sea monsters. They'll be relieved to know the sea monsters already came and went.So, if Revelation can be interpreted such that it's making predictions about the European Union, but it can also be interpreted such that it only predicted events up to 70 A.D., then I think that illustrates another key to success in prophecy:Make sure your prophecies are open - way open - for interpretation.

First, do we have any reason to believe this "prophecy" in Ezekiel was written before Nebu's siege of Tyre? Nebu and Ezekiel were contemporaries, right? And I'm sure the Chaldean propagandists were painting the king's siege of Tyre as a great success. How do we know Ezekiel wasn't just claiming that God had already told him the news? Who was this Ezekiel character, anyway?Second, whatever Nebu accomplished, he didn't destroy Tyre the way it is depicted in the scripture. He did not reduce Tyre to a "bare rock" and end their noisy music. Even Alexander didn't do that 300 years later.But what's so remarkable about such predictions anyway? You live in Chaldea. You obviously think King Nebu is the coolest guy in the world. He's the King of Kings. He's the Cat's Meow. And he's out there fighting the Pheonicians and the Egyptians and doing God's bloody work. What kind of predictions are you going to make? "Nebu's gonna kick butt! He's gonna ANNIHILATE you, sucker! Oh, you best look out!"So let me ask you this:How many "prophets" were there who got it all just terribly wrong? How many lost texts are there of guys who shot off their mouths and missed by a mile? Not much reason to keep copying the Book of Melvin, the prophet who predicted Israel would rise up and conquer Persia and Egypt on the wings of giant seven-headed sparrows."Hey, didn't Nebuchadnezzar give Tyre a real working over? Yeah, he did, didn't he? I remember reading about that. So go ahead and make another copy of Ezekiel there. Toss the Melvin."

I suppose you can try to divide the contiguous verses into two parts, if that's more convenient for your interpretation. So you're drawing a line where? Between verses 6 and 7 in Chapter 26? Nebuchadnezzar is not mentioned specifically until verse 7. So 1-6 is one prophecy and 7-21 is another?The problem, you see, is that there's total desolation for Tyre on both sides of that whimsical divide. Verse 14: "And I will make thee like the top of a rock: thou shalt be a place to spread nets upon; thou shalt be built no more: for I the Lord have spoken it, saith the Lord God." This is the predicted result of Nebuchadnezzar's attack. It echoes verses 4 and 5 from before when Nebu was mentioned: "And they shall destroy the walls of Tyrus, and break down her towers: I will also scrape her dust from her, and make her like the top of a rock. It shall be a place for the spreading of nets in the midst of the sea..."So I see no evidence here we're talking about two or more prophecies. You're grabbing at the "many nations" thing, but that's just Ezekiel making the point that his hero is going to lead a massive army made up of many peoples from the empire.And the more I read it, the more it seems obvious to me this is Ezekiel spinning a past event as divine retribution. Having been told his hero stomped the Tyreans, Ezekiel is letting us know it was because they offended the God of Jerusalem (26:2). And he's really, really rubbing it in. My point was that you can always claim 100% success if nobody remembers your failures. Who's going to preserve the writings of bad prophets? Seems to me your sample is almost certainly skewed. Can I prove it? Well, of course not, that's my point. But Jeane Dixon became the world's most famous psychic because she made a couple of good predictions which were widely advertised, and her thousands of failed predictions were quickly forgotten.

Okay... So I could be right, given that the siege of Tyre occurred between 585 and 572 BC. Ezekiel was probably "prophesying" about an event that had already happened.But something tells me that wasn't the point you were trying to make...

Well, if you feel free to parse texts any arbitrary way you like, I'm sure that helps with your 100% success rate. Doesn't change the fact that Ezekiel's "prophecy" failed when Nebuchadnezzar failed to raze Tyre.But I don't think it was a prophecy anyway. Nebu had already ended his siege of Tyre, Ezekiel heard on Chaldean FOX News that it was a smashing success, and he lost himself in delirious gloating, while asserting that it had all happened because the God of Jerusalem made it happen.And I'm surprised and a bit suspicious you still don't get my point about your skewed sample.The Mormons work very hard to supress Mr. Smith's failed prophecies and bogus translations of prank plates, and if they had more control over what gets printed - like if all printed records were written by priestly scribes of the Mormon church - then Mr. Smith's track record would be an undisputable 100% as well.

So by your logic, verse 10 incorporates both Nebu's siege and Alex's later rampage: "By reason of the abundance of his (Nebu's) horses their (the many nations, later) dust shall cover thee: thy walls shall shake at the noise of the horsemen, and of the wheels, and of the chariots, when he (Nebu) shall enter into thy gates..."Because "he" means Nebu and "they" means "the many nations." Regardless of context.So verse 11 is all about Nebu because it says "he," but the next verse is taking us back to verse 1 and forgetting all about Nebu and now we're talking about Alexander and maybe some other people, because it says "they."You know what? Even if that were the original meaning, which I highly doubt, I'm still not impressed. The Pheonicians had just got their butts kicked by Good King Nebuchadnezzar, as far as Ezekiel was concerned, and he's just gloating and talking trash. He obviously had some issues with the Tyreans. Those damn Tyreans were so rich and happy and successful. God HATES that.But let's say this prophecy was fulfilled. Too bad he didn't stop there, eh? Too bad he had to say all that silly stuff about Egypt, eh? Nebuchadnezzar was going to kick Egypt's butt too, according to God, but it didn't quite work out that way, so I'm sure you have some clever ways to parse the text so that God never said Nebuchadnezzar was going to kick Egypt's butt. But clearly it says that Egypt was going to be decimated and for 40 years not a soul would walk the land of Egypt. Now when exactly did that happen? Was that Alexander?Because I don't remember any 40-year period in history when Egypt was uninhabited. Which doesn't fit very well with the Bible's 100% success rate at predicting the future.

I'll have to review Daniel, but you're wrong if you don't think the Mormons have adjusted the text of the Book of Mormon to eliminate embarrassments. There's been a lot written about differences between early BoM editions and later.But still, the Mormons have had to develop their myths in a different environment. Information is not managed by a monolithic class of priestly scribes. The Mormons can't get away with as much.And no, I don't think objectivity requires me to seriously consider the possibility some ancient Near-Eastern war god actually runs the universe. Do you seriously consider the possibility Odin or Zeus runs the universe? The only difference between Odin and Zeus on the one hand and Yahveh on the other is cultural bias. Of course none of this nonsense is true. The only reason it matters is because people are forced to pretend it's true in order to preserve the value religion brings to their lives.So you assert this crazy thing, that some guy named Ezekiel was predicting the future, and I think it's important to require you to prove such a wild assertion.-

Even with the Dead Sea Scrolls, we only have verification of text back to about 200 B.C. That's long after Ezekiel.If your account of the accuracy of transcriptions is accurate - which I kind of doubt because you're obviously confused about that Hittite thing - then it is certainly impressive how scribes were able to copy sacred texts with such accuracy over such lengths of time.But that doesn't really say anything about the origins of those texts. Ezekiel was a bitter, resentful little man who predicted everybody who was better off than him was going to get bushwhacked by God. Because his dark vision mapped reasonably well to the Jewish experience of history over the next few hundred years, his writings were preserved, copied and venerated. The writings of Melvin, the happy prophet who predicted everybody was going to live together in peace and the Jews were going to be the happiest people on earth, were quickly consigned to the dustbin.I'm afraid I don't find your prophets very impressive.-

What ancient documents do you think get a free ride? Do we accept without question the theology we find in cuneiform tablets? Do we assume their myths are true stories? Do we believe The Iliad when it says an invisible Athena swooped onto the battlefield to deflect a spear thrown at Achilles? What ancient, non-Biblical prophets are now widely accepted as having accurately predicted the future?I have assumed that Ezekiel, or somebody on his behalf, wrote the Book of Ezekiel around the time Ezekiel is said to have lived. This still means he was probably writing about Nebu's siege of Tyre after the fact, and I find none of his other "prophecies" particularly impressive. And his prophecy about Egypt is just plain wrong, unless you are going to argue it will be fulfilled at some future date. I can see how these men would be deeply motivated to transcribe sacred texts accurately, but where did the text come from originally, and how many iterations of oral retalling did it go through before it was written down, and how many written iterations did it go through before it achieved the status of sacred text? Did scribes in the 6th century B.C. have the same dedication as the scribes you describe who lived a thousand years later? How do you know? Kind of begging the question, don't you think?And I'm having trouble believing you are really so confused about Melvin. The point, again, is obviously that we can expect a selection process over time that weeds out writings that have huge failings as prophecy, so that, in the end, we would expect to find a near 100% success rate among those books that are revered as sacred texts.Which makes it all the stranger that Ezekiel's bad Egypt prophecies have survived.

Ok, in the first place, nemesis, let me suggest you read a post through all the way before you start composing a response, because I think it would save you time. Just a suggestion, of course. Well, as I say like, two sentences later, the epic poems of Homer are examples of writings that were at first assumed to be totally mythological with no historical basis, but which were later recognized as having some historical merit when archeological finds substantiated some of the settings, and which, even though they are now believed to have some historical validity, are still assumed not to be valid sources of theology.It seems to me the Bible gets a better deal than this, since so many want to insist it still has validity as a theological document. I've not heard anyone make that claim for The Iliad my whole life. I have to say, it's a bit disturbing to see how you twist reality to accomodate your need to believe.There is no campaign to "stop" Greek mythology because nobody still believes it's true. Nobody is trying to revise our political history by suggesting our nation was founded on "the principles of Greek mythology." Nobody is insisting that children be taught in public schools that their civil rights come from Zeus. Nobody is arguing that time should be set aside every day in public schools so children can pray to Zeus. Nobody is arguing that Zeus guides the development of life on this planet, or that he created the planet, and that children should be taught that alongside evolution. Nobody is insisting Zeus should determine who you sleep with. The Church of Zeus is not a major player in American politics. Zeus isn't interfering with stem cell research. The priests of Zeus don't go on television and con old ladies out of their social security checks. Katherine Harris hasn't claimed that Zeus "chooses our rulers."And, although there is nothing I hate more than depriving a Christian of the joys of a healthy persecution complex, I have to point out there is no "campaign" to "stop" the Bible. Whatever that means anyway. No, not at all. You can explain anything with God. Or, better put, you don't have to explain anything with God. Once you accept God, anything can happen. God makes everything magic.I'm saying I have a more rational and likely explanation for Ezekiel's diatribe. An explanation that doesn't require magic. And I don't see why we need to bring magic into this unless absolutely necessary. Call me conservative. I have to admit I'm shaken. The various peoples of the Middle East have gotten along so well until recently, and the Jews have always enjoyed the acceptance and love of their neighbors in the region, so the recent flare-up of violence seems inescapably portentous. I mean, when was the last time Israel invaded Lebanon? We haven't seen this kind of upset in the region since... oh, at least the 1990s. There are different kinds of faith, but for most of us, 95% of our knowledge is not based on faith. I think it's just you.I'm told there are a billion people in China. I've never been to China, much less counted the Chinese, but I still accept this fact based on evidence rather than faith. It's not direct evidence, but there's lots of indirect evidence, and ways of testing the evidence to make sure it's logical and consistent. And I still won't say with absolute certainty that there are a billion people in China. That's just what I'm told by a lot of different, diverse sources, and it's consistent with everything else I know about China and the world around me.That's very different than believing that some guy who lived 2,500 years ago anticipated the geopolitical machinations of PNAC based on one document filled with long lists of archaic place-names. Another one of those questions that gets answered in the next sentence, eh? Really, you'd save yourself some time...The Eqypt prophecy follows soon after the Tyre prophecy. Very surprised you don't know that. Nothing selective about your memory or anything. Chapter 29.Nostrodamus certainly isn't taken as seriously as John the Revelator. But Nostrodamus knew the first rule of prophecy: "Speak in spooky metaphors and vague symbols so your prophecies can be endlessly re-interpreted for all times and circumstances."

How you comin' on that breakdown of Ezekiel's Egypt prophecy?-