bluegenes writes:
Well, we can be sure that it isn't now, as there's no Prince called Gog charging around on a horse with a sword in one hand and a shield on the other.
To be fair, isn't it possible that the prophets were given by god images of the future but they were unable to understand those images and so wrote down in terms of what they could understand?
Think of it this way. Suppose in the future people exist in a form that is to us today unimaginable. If you are given a glimpse of this future, you will undoubtedly write down your own interpretation, that people will be made of pure energy or light or what have you. But the reality might be even stranger than that.
Say that the prophets were given images of rockets and rocket launchers. They asked god "what the hell are those?" and god explained to them that one launches the other and the other goes off to kill people. "Oh, you mean those are bows and arrows?" they exclaimed. God, rolling his eyes, said "yes, I suppose you could look at them that way." And so, they wrote down bows and arrows.
You don't even have to go too far back to get an example of people portraying the future the way they see their own present. Anyone who's seen Star Trek the Original knows this. Kirk was a sexist pig. All the women on board the Federation Flag Ship wore short miniskirts. They used a communication device that seemed several generations behind our cell phones. They even imagined that life must have evolved on other worlds in parallel with our own. There was even an episode where they found an alien world where after 6 hundred years the American Revolutionary War still went on and the American Colonists were still fighting the British for independence. Heck, even their Declaration of Independence was exactly identical to our Declaration of Independence word for word.
Let's face it. People write down events of the future the way they see their own present. You can't disprove a prophecy by pointing out the prophet used the words "bows" and "arrows" instead of "rocket launchers" and "rockets". For all we know, the prophets could have seen the future but was unable to comprehend what they saw. Heck, we have people today that still can't comprehend what they see in their lifetime. In another thread I'm already having enough trouble trying to convince someone that radio waves are not some magical thing that you have faith in.
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