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Member (Idle past 4960 days) Posts: 2703 From: melbourne, australia Joined: |
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Author | Topic: Fulfillments of Bible Prophecy | |||||||||||||||||||||||
PaulK Member Posts: 17828 Joined: Member Rating: 2.5 |
I can understand why you don't want to discuss the date of writing. Mainstream Bible scholars date it to the mid-2nd Century BC.
So lets look at your evidence for the date of writing:
quote: 2 BCE is much later the the likely date for the writing of Daniel (probably completed in 164 BCE). 1 Maccabees does not help your case.
quote: The translation of the Torah began in the 3rd Century BC. There was no organised effort to translate the complete Tanakh as we know it today at that time. Hence this is no help to you either.
quote: Nabonidus (the father of Belshazzar) was ruler of Babylon at that time - and HE is completely absent from the Book of Daniel. This surprising omission suggests that the author of Daniel did not have very good information about that time. However you are also missing something very important from Daniel 8. Daniel 8 is said a vision of the end times (8:17) I think that we can agree that the world did not come to an end at the time Daniel 8(which is the mid-2nd Century BC). That's a big mistake for a genuine prophet.
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PaulK Member Posts: 17828 Joined: Member Rating: 2.5 |
quote: No. On that basis ALL Biblical Prophecies would be about the period termed the End Times - and it would make absolutely no sense to single Daniel 8 out when it has no special connection to the melting of the Earth.
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PaulK Member Posts: 17828 Joined: Member Rating: 2.5 |
I'll agree that we need good reason to conclude that the prophecy was written in advance of events. However, asking for carbon dated scrolls is going too far. There are good enough reasons to doubt the "traditional" dates for Daniel without making demands that we shouldn't expect to be met.
The other conditions are reasonable. I'll add a fourth. We need to take the whole prophecy in context - looking at bits and pieces is not enough.It's a lot easy to claim a great success if you can ignore all the things that don't fit. We did have a thread discussing the issues that needed to be considered, although that was quite a while ago. I may go looking for it.
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PaulK Member Posts: 17828 Joined: Member Rating: 2.5 |
quote: Wasn't Ezekiel written during the Babylonian Exile ? What makes you think that it has anything to do with the 20th Century ?
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PaulK Member Posts: 17828 Joined: Member Rating: 2.5 |
quote: Ezekiel's pre-Exile predictions say otherwise. Ezekiel 5:12 predicts that 2/3 of the Jews will die and the remainder will be "scattered to the winds" . And as Jeremiah tells us some Jews were living in other places, and some fled to Egypt But it is also necessary to look at the context: Ezekiel 36:5 claims that Edom has taken the land of Israel. But Edom was conquered and converted to Judaism by the Hasmoneans and effectively destroyed by the Romans - vanishing from history after the Jewish Revolt ended in 70 AD. Certainly Edomites could have moved in following the Babylonian exile, and could still be there when the Exiles returned. But it would be difficult to find Edomites in the early 1900s - 1800 years after they vanished from the scene.
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PaulK Member Posts: 17828 Joined: Member Rating: 2.5 |
quote: It seems to have more to do with Christian theology about Jesus death, rather than the actual events (which are, of course, doubtful, since the disciples were supposedly in hiding at the time). There are other doubts:
53:3 He was despised and forsaken of men, A man of sorrows and acquainted with grief; And like one from whom men hide their face He was despised, and we did not esteem Him. The same Jesus who preached to huge gatherings, and was triumphantly welcomed into Jerusalem ?
53:9 ...Because He had done no violence, This is the Jesus who whipped the money-changers out of the Temple ?
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PaulK Member Posts: 17828 Joined: Member Rating: 2.5 |
quote: In other words if you assume that Isaiah is simply ignoring the majority of Jesus' career or only talking about the religious leaders - a relatively small group of people - the problem goes away. But there's nothing in the text of Isaiah 53 to justify either assumption. Obviously the 'accuracy' here is a product of your assumptions - not the text.
quote: Matthew 21:12
12 And Jesus entered the temple and drove out all those who were buying and selling in the temple, and overturned the tables of the money changers and the seats of those who were selling doves.
Mark 11:15-16
15 Then they came to Jerusalem. And He entered the temple and began to drive out those who were buying and selling in the temple, and overturned the tables of the money changers and the seats of those who were selling doves; 16 and He would not permit anyone to carry merchandise through the temple. Luke 19:45
45 Jesus entered the temple and began to drive out those who were selling,
John 2:15
15 And He made a scourge of cords, and drove them all out of the temple, with the sheep and the oxen; and He poured out the coins of the money changers and overturned their tables;
This sounds like a peaceful protest to you ?
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PaulK Member Posts: 17828 Joined: Member Rating: 2.5 |
quote: Following the timeline of the Synoptic Gospels, Jesus' actions in the Temple happened only days before his death. The idea that there is no connection between Jesus violently disrupting Temple business and the religious authorities taking action against him shortly afterward (as the Synoptics claim) or in the charges against him is implausible to say the least.
quote: That's a complete irrelevance. The question is what is in the text of Isaiah 53. The fact that other people have made similar arguments is no reason to misrepresent what Isaiah 53 says.
quote: Which leads to the distinct possibility that any matches with the Gospel stories are the Gospel authors taking those details from Isaiah. (It would hardly be the only example of the Gospel writers relying on OT texts to create their story). The reasonably certain details of Jesus' death are that he was crucified, by the Romans, around 30 AD. None of these can be found in Isaiah 53.
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PaulK Member Posts: 17828 Joined: Member Rating: 2.5 |
quote: Since Nabonidus, the father of Belshazzar, was king when Babylon fell, his omission is surprising to say the least.
quote: Belshazzar was co-regent while his father was at Tema.
quote: Which is what I said.
quote: You're simply ignoring my point (and what the Bible says). According to Daniel 8:23 the end times occur in the "latter days" of the four kingdoms formed out of the Greek empire. Those are all long gone - so the prophecy must refer to the past, not the future.
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PaulK Member Posts: 17828 Joined: Member Rating: 2.5 |
quote: This is only one possible interpretation. There are several other possible dates - and the 20th year of Artaxerxes is 445 BC. There are further problems. As I have pointed out, Daniel places the End Times around 200 years before Jesus died - so the idea that Daniel meant Jesus creates a contradiction.
quote: Aside from the fact that we DON'T know the exact year that Jesus did anything, using the correct date of 445 BC takes us to 39AD - AFTER Jesus had been crucified. And let us look at the whole prophecy - including the bits that you haven't quoted. Daniel 9:
24 Seventy weeks have been decreed for your people and your holy city, to finish the transgression, to make an end of sin, to make atonement for iniquity, to bring in everlasting righteousness, to seal up vision and prophecy and to anoint the most holy place. 25 "So you are to know and discern that from the issuing of a decree to restore and rebuild Jerusalem until Messiah the Prince there will be seven weeks and sixty-two weeks; it will be built again, with plaza and moat, even in times of distress. 26 "Then after the sixty-two weeks the Messiah will be cut off and have nothing, and the people of the prince who is to come will destroy the city and the sanctuary And its end will come with a flood; even to the end there will be war; desolations are determined. 27 "And he will make a firm covenant with the many for one week, but in the middle of the week he will put a stop to sacrifice and grain offering; and on the wing of abominations will come one who makes desolate, even until a complete destruction, one that is decreed, is poured out on the one who makes desolate."
So according to your dates, in 29 AD Jerusalem and the Temple should be "destroyed". That didn't happen. By 32 AD the sacrifices and grain offerings should be stopped. That didn't happen. By the end of 35 AD we should see the "end of sin" and "everlasting righteousness". Are you going to claim that that happened ?
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PaulK Member Posts: 17828 Joined: Member Rating: 2.5 |
quote: That's 465 BC.
Wikipedia answers.com Encyclopedia Britannica 465 - 20 = 445.
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PaulK Member Posts: 17828 Joined: Member Rating: 2.5 |
quote: But what about when Nabonidus came back or before he want away ? And why not mention that Belshazzar was only co-regent ? Why describe Belshazzar as the son of Nebuchadnezzar when he was the son of Nabonidus ?
quote: It doesn't show that Belshazzar was only the second most powerful person, and it calls him king anyway.
quote: According to Daniel 8 the "Prince of Princes" (8:25) is supposed to be around in the "latter days" of the Diadochi states (8:21-23), If he didn't turn up then it doesn't mean that the prophecy refers to the future - it means that the prophecy FAILED.
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PaulK Member Posts: 17828 Joined: Member Rating: 2.5 |
The question that you are not addressing is why is there no mention of Nabonidus at all in Daniel ? It is a surprising omission given that he was king and that Daniel was supposedly active for the whole of his reign.
quote: The prophecy says that the "time of the end" is in the "latter days" of the Diadochi kingdom. Those kingdoms are long gone, the end didn't arrive. Therefore the prophecy failed. You can't push it off to the future without contradicting the prophecy itself.
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PaulK Member Posts: 17828 Joined: Member Rating: 2.5 |
quote: For the purposes of this discussion the author's intent is a minor issue at most. The question we need to answer is how much freedom of interpretation is available. This is especially important because the proponents of Bible prophecy are clearly mainly interested finding an interpretation that fits their ideas - regardless of what the original author actually meant. It is quite clear that Isaiah 53 contains few, if any, precise confirmable details. It is also clear that the proposer is more interested in reporting the opinions of other writers than actually discussing the text itself - in fact doing so only to find a convenient interpretation of pieces of the the text that do not easily fit with the ideas that the author meant Jesus. In conclusion: 1) Isaiah 53 isn't a convincing example of predictive prophecy. 2) kbertsche is not even trying to make a case for it being a convincing example of predictive prophecy (probably knowing that it isn't - I can find no other reason for such a complete failure to even attempt to make a valid case) 3) If it is possible to find the original author's meaning (which I doubt) kbertsche seems to have no interest in trying, preferring instead to find a meaning which fits his beliefs.
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PaulK Member Posts: 17828 Joined: Member Rating: 2.5 |
Authorial intent may be paramount in "proper" Biblical interpretation - but if it is neither you nor Peg nor John 10:10 are doing "proper" Biblical interpretation.
quote: Well I'll look again and see if there's anything worth a detailed reply - remembering that this topic is about prophecy as a convincing argument FOR the reliability of the Bible. Firstly we can eliminate all those where the confirmation is simply Christian theology. After all that is not confirmably true - and may well be derived from Isaiah 53 in the first place. Well that didn't leave many. Next we can eliminate those that rely on questionable details in the Gospel accounts. Beyond the usual biases of the Gospels, as I pointed out in Message 27 the accounts of Jesus trial and execution do not identify any sources and any matches with Isiah 53 may even be due to the details in question being derived from Isaiah 53, rather than the actual events. Well that leaves us with just one. Or rather part of one:
quote: Yes I will concede that Jesus was convicted of a crime. And that can be dismissed on the grounds of sheer triviality. So I think we're left with two alternatives. The first is that you haven't been seriously trying to build a case (and probably made a lousy choice of prophecy to start with) and the second is that you can't build a decent case because there isn't a convincing predictive prophecy to be found in the Bible. Which do you prefer ?
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