Criteria for prophesy

i'm not even gonna bother getting into context of prophesy just at this second, but i have a side question. so just play along for a minute or two. this came to mind watching "jesus christ superstar" the other night, during the palm sunday scene.now, suppose this verse in zechariah actually means the sort of "king" jesus was, instead of the kind that sits on a throne in jerusalem:

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Zec 9:9 Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion; shout, O daughter of Jerusalem: behold, thy King cometh unto thee: he [is] just, and having salvation; lowly, and riding upon an ass, and upon a colt the foal of an ass.

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and now suppose that jesus actually DID ride into jerusalem on a donkey.it fulfills the prophesy, but does it meet the standard for proven prophesies? ...not really, no. jesus probably read zechariah. heck, i've read zechariah, and i could concievably go borrow a donkey and ride into jerusalem. (in fact, i must remember to do this should i ever visit; it'd be a great trump card in debates)there's also another possibility. maybe the zechariah verse was re-written to describe the actions of jesus. it doesn't work with this specific example, since we have texts of zechariah older than jesus, but this is very valid concern with OTHER fulfilled bible prophesies. if the only text of the verse is newer than the fulfillment, it doesn't really count, does it?so even if the prophesy is fulfilled, in glorious specificity, it doesn't really mean much of anything.but as my bible teacher pointed out, the things that mean MORE are the unfilled prophesies, because we know these are real. who'd write failed prophesies after the fact? an obvious nobody read them and tried to fulfill them, and suceeded. these, and changes between repeated prophesies (like the line of davidic kings prophesies) helps both date and determine the integrity of the books of the bible...This message has been edited by Arachnophilia, 01-03-2005 02:00 AM

first of all, i'm talking about a hypothetical. i just used a real example that everyone was familiar with. in reality, the person who wrote matthew seems to have gone out of his way to fulfill old testament prophesies that could not have applied to christ, and to ridiculous literalcy. matthew has christ ride into jerusalem on two different animals, because he misunderstands parallelism in jewish poetry (which tells me the author of matthew is NOT jewish).like i pointed out, the zechariah verse was talking about king to physically rule and lead judah: someone who sits on a throne, in the palace in jerusalem.did jesus set up those things? maybe. but maybe the author did. and it is quite possible that the betrayal was planned -- the meaning of the greek word we read as betrayed lacks the sense of back-stabbing we read into it. quite literally, it says that judas DELIVERED jesus to the romans, and they paid him for it.

sorry, i wasn't clear. i meant broken prophesies, unfulfilled in the sense that they just didn't happen. for instance the continuing line of david kings that was broke in biblical times by the babylonian exhile. samuel and chronicles differ a little in their wording of the prophesy, one gives the impression of "unless the jews mess up" as an out. the prophesy of tyre becoming unhibatible, and no city ever being rebuilt on it is another example -- it has a thriving tourist industry (and website!) today. well, the point that i'm batting at here is that no such prophesy exists, nor can it, really. even if i said "tomorrow morning at 9:03 est, your toast will pop up burned beyond belief, your toaster explode, and leave a scorch mark on the counter in the exact geometric shape of the proof of the pythagorean theorem" and it actually happen -- sure it's be a little spooky, but what's to say it's not just a freak coincidence? does it prove i'm god, or that i speak for him? or am i pyrotechnics expert and a stalker?there will ALWAYS be questions, doubt, holes, etc, in any prophesy. and any fortune teller or astrologer knows the vague ones work the best anyways.

did i say that? i said it was POSSIBLE. but since you wanna duke it out over this one, i'll play.first of all, the major problem with the fulfillment of this prophesy is that it's not a prophesy. rather, it's a psalm, traditionally written by (or for?) david. so when it says "my clothes" it's talking about david's clothes.here's the verse:

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Psalm 22:17-19: (JPS)

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Dogs surround me
    a pack of evil ones closes in one me,
    like lions they maul my hands and feet.
I take the count of all my bones
    while they look on a gloat.
They divide my clothes among themselves,
    casting lots for my garments.

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it's important to note that the dogs/the pack of evil ones/lions are "the mighty ones of Bashan" (verse 13) -- jews from the tribe of Manasseh, NOT ROMANS.now, when john references this passage, he misunderstands it. john has them divide up his clothing, and cast lots for the extra piece. the other three gospels have this as a single action -- the soldiers cast lots for ALL of the garments. john misread the poetic parallelism (like matthew did with the donkey -- why he didn't with the garment, i don't know) of the verse in psalsm. each pair of lines (or sometimes three) are talking about the same thing. psalms, and every other poem in the bible (and a lot of the prose) uses repition of concepts as a poetic device. the two lines in a pair always talk about the same thing, even if they use different pairings. numbers always increase by one, and sometimes opposites are paired... but it's a very standard style.what the authors of the gospels are trying to do is reference this whole psalm and make it apply to jesus. it's even where "my god, my god why have you forsaken me?" comes from, this very psalm, which jesus probably had even read. the tone is very similar indeed, but the details don't fit.[edit]
here's what another source says, with more nt contextual analysis:

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If Jesus was scourged as part of the crucifixion process and then his clothes were once again placed on his wounded bloody body, why would the soldiers want to divide up these blood soaked garments? Indeed, if the scourging continued along the route to the crucifixion, Jesus' clothing would be nothing but bloody rags of no value to the soldiers.

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http://www.jewsforjudaism.org/web/faq/faq058.html
[/edit]so in short:
1. not prophesy to begin with.
2. not about jesus and romans.
3. misunderstood poetic style.
4. no real value to jesus's clothing.still think there's much to that one? or do you wanna try another?This message has been edited by Arachnophilia, 01-03-2005 04:27 AM

you sure? what if i kept revising the prophesy when it didn't come true every morning?(and wow i should really double check my messages before i post them)