Does prophecy support the Bible

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This age: the word "generation" or "age" is here being used for the men of this age.

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You know you're doing well, when they start arguing about the true definition of the topic you are discussing and choose the most obscure option.

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When you read poetry Dan, you quite often have to understand more than is written, when you discuss science, it all should be pretty straight forward

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So which are the prophecies? Poetry or science?If they're poetry, why try and read literal meaning into them?[This message has been edited by Dan Carroll, 11-24-2003]

Considering I'm dealing with people who think that the world was literally created in under a week, you can never be too sure. So again... if they are poetry, why bother trying to read literal meaning into them?[This message has been edited by Dan Carroll, 11-24-2003]

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Does poetry not have a meaning ?

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Sure... wrapped up in metaphor. And no one interpretation of the meaning of a poem is the valid interpretation.For instance, an interpretation of the prophecies, if read as poetry, which states, "Jesus did not intend to speak about the far future of the world, but rather the immediate future of Israel" is just as valid as "the 1948 Israeli war is one step in fulfilling the prophecies". Neither can really be hailed as right.[This message has been edited by Dan Carroll, 11-24-2003]

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Thus we have to choose what we believe to be literal and what is figurative.

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Boom.Your belief. Not objective meaning.

Actually, you pretty much lost me with this:

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There is always a correct interpretation. Many interpretations of the same poem and considered 'valid', but only one is correct.

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Could you, perchance, give me the one correct interpretation of The Wasteland by T.S. Eliot? Or better yet, the one correct interpretation of Ulysees by James Joyce? Or of the soliloquies from Hamlet?Edited in: it, I'll go right for the throat on this one. Give me the one correct interpretation of Finnegan's Wake.[This message has been edited by Dan Carroll, 11-25-2003]

Done. Sorry.

Now we're getting closer to agreement. I don't think there is any way to find the one true intent (which is more accurate than one correct meaning) of the bible. Not only are the many authors long dead, but the original text of much of it is lost to antiquity. Even before sitting down to hash out translation errors, the new testament can't even be read in its original language.Where we part company is on the intent of the prophecies themselves. You say in your post that as we see bar codes developing, we see what author's meaning was in one prophecy. But as far as I'm concerned, this is circular reasoning. It's using the assumption that the author intended long term (rather than short term) predictions, and the assumption that he meant something other than what he said to show that he meant a long term prediction of something other than what he said.Most important of all, it uses the assumption that the biblical prophets were actually able to tell the future to show that the biblical prophets were actually able to tell the future.This is just shoddy literary criticism. An appropriate method would be to work within the text to glean meaning from the text, then attempt to apply the meaning to the real world. (If it is at all applicable.)For instance: when interpreting The Tempest, you can't start with the assumption that, since this was Shakespeare's last solo play, it was intended as his farewell to art. Having not looked at the text yet, there's nothing to suggest it. But what you can do is use the text of the play itself to capture the viable meaning of a man abandoning his craft, by literally burying his books. Once that meaning can be read, it can be applied to the fact that this was Shakespeare's last solo play, and most likely his farewell.A very simplified reading of the Tempest, but you get my point. Start with the text, and work from there. If you want to use the Bible's meaning as it compares to real world events as evidence of the Bible's truth, you have to start by establishing the Bible's meaning without comparison.

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You see the Bible as written by Authors , mere men with no guidance from the Holy Spirit, I don't.

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1) You're putting context before text again.2) Whether the authors were divinely inspired or not is immaterial to what I was saying here; either way, they are unavailable for interview.

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Indeed you have to be a Christian and have the Holy Spirit guide you to understand some a great deal of the text.

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You have to believe in it before you can believe in it?I'm trying to be nice on this count... the initial way this statement reads to me is "you have to have a vested interest in the truth of these words before they can possibly stand up on their own merits."

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Why ? This prophecy is pretty specific, even if we had no idea previously how it would look.

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It is indeed specific. It specifically mentions a mark on the hand, not the cereal box. It specifically mentions the number of the beast (666), not a much longer number that may or may not (see ae's posts) have three sixes somewhere in it.As I said earlier, interpreting "hand" as "cereal box (etc)" and 666 as a longer number to suit the real world example to which you are trying to fit it negates the prophecy. If the meaning can't be read from the text alone, the comparison to the real world example is invalid.

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(I'll assume this is a typo.)

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Don't. It's not.You're assuming the prophecy is true, in order to gain meaning from world events, and then saying "the prophecy is true because the meaning matches world events!"In other words, you are using the assumption that the biblical prophets were actually able to tell the future to show that the biblical prophets were actually able to tell the future.

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Why read the Bible if you dont believe in prophecy ?

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I don't believe that Reed Richards, Ben Grimm, and Sue and Johnny Storm went up in a rocketship and got hit by cosmic rays. I still read Fantastic Four.In addition, despite my problems with literal interpretation, I do think there is wisdom to be gained from the Bible. (If I have time later, I might start a thread on wisdom atheists can gain from the Bible. But devoting this much time to this thread is stretching me thin as is.)

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I agree Dan, read the Bible without any bias or preconceived notions. However when it prophecised that something would happen and this prophecy was specific, I see no reason to see if any historic events match the prophecy.

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But that's just it; it doesn't match without shoehorning the events onto the prophecy before trying to read the meaning from the prophecy.

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I hope you're not lumping me in that group, Dan. I thought I've made it clear that I don't necessarily buy the young earth -- Just the young creature interpretation.

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I wasn't aware you felt that way, no. But now I know, and knowing, as they say, is half the battle.My apologies for lumping.