Xtian Bible "Prophecy" Demolished

[Minimalist]

Love it when xtian nut jobs start talking about how their bible is true because of all the "prophecies" that have come true. In this thread I shall begin an examination of their bullshit.

We begin with Micah 5.

From a site called 100Prophecies.org we get this usual crap:

http://100prophecies.org/page2.htm

The Messiah would be born in Bethlehem
Bible prophecy: Micah 5:1-2
Prophecy written: Sometime between 750-686 BC
Prophecy fulfilled: About 5 BC

In Micah 5:2, there is a prophecy that reveals that Bethlehem would be the birthplace of the Messiah.

The idea is continued at a site called: Bible Prophecy Truth.

http://www.bibleprophecytruth.com/jesus-...lehem.aspx

Born in Bethlehem

Wise men on the way to Bethlehem The Prophecy:

But thou, Bethlehem Ephratah, though thou be little among the thousands of Judah, yet out of thee shall he come forth unto me that is to be ruler in Israel; whose goings forth have been from of old, from everlasting.
(Micah 5:2)


The Fulfillment:

Now when Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judaea in the days of Herod the king, behold, there came wise men from the east to Jerusalem,
(Matthew 2:1)

However, a full reading of the text will show that this is nothing more than typical xtian cherry-picking with an added dash of wishful thinking. Sadly for atheists, there is no getting around reading the whole segment in order to see the meaning. You can take a shower afterwards!

http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?sea...ersion=ESV

Micah 5
The Ruler to Be Born in Bethlehem
1 Now muster your troops, O daughter of troops;
siege is laid against us;
with a rod they strike the judge of Israel
on the cheek.
2 But you, O Bethlehem Ephrathah,
who are too little to be among the clans of Judah,
from you shall come forth for me
one who is to be ruler in Israel,
whose coming forth is from of old,
from ancient days.
3Therefore he shall give them up until the time
when she who is in labor has given birth;
then the rest of his brothers shall return
to the people of Israel.
4And he shall stand and shepherd his flock in the strength of the LORD,
in the majesty of the name of the LORD his God.
And they shall dwell secure, for now he shall be great
to the ends of the earth.
5And he shall be their peace.
When the Assyrian comes into our land
and treads in our palaces,
then we will raise against him seven shepherds
and eight princes of men;
6they shall shepherd the land of Assyria with the sword,
and the land of Nimrod at its entrances;
and he shall deliver us from the Assyrian
when he comes into our land
and treads within our border.

What is clear from a reading of the entire text is that it is speaking of a leader who will emerge to confront the Assyrian Empire in its attack on the northern kingdom of Israel in the 8th century BC. Not only does this have nothing to do with any fucking jesus in the first century AD it is also is exceedingly poor history. Not only did this great leader fail to conquer Assyria he also failed to prevent the successful Assyrian offensive in 722 BCE which erased Israel from the map of the ANE. Pretty piss-poor performance for a guy who was supposedly chosen by 'god.'

Further, we have this observation from scholarship:

the book is a compilation of materials some of which come from a period considerably later than Micah’s time. The threats in chapters 1–3 and 6–7:7 are usually attributed to Micah, but the promises in chapters 4–5 and 7:8–20 are generally dated several centuries later.

http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topi...k-of-Micah

Thus it would seem that all of Section 5 dates from a much later time. Probably from a time when memory of the fact that Assyria had kicked the shit out of both Israel and Judah and reduced both to vassal status had faded.

In any case, it is speaking of a time long before any one dreamed up "jesus."

[Minimalist]

Almost 3 hours and not one xtian has shown up to defend his fairy tales from the infidel, huh?

Okay. We'll wait.

[thesummerqueen]

They're furiously researching, you see.

[Ziploc Surprise]

I'm really glad you started this thread. I was thinking about starting a thread like this but you preempted me thus making you look smarter than I could have looked had I posted first. I will have to beat you for this later.

The reasons why prophecy appears to be filled is legion. The causes are so many that it might be useful to break things down a bit. First there is the forer effect http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forer_effect . This effect explains why horoscopes appear to be prophetic. For example in the Bible the second and third chapters of Revelations talks about specific prophecies to certain first century churches. The modern interpretation of the book of Revelations (which might be as old as 500 years, I don't recall, any input would be useful) is that each church represents a "church age" or time period in Christian history from the death of Christ to the present. God supposedly knew the future and he gave these prophecies for the churches to come in each time period. Humans only need to guess what "church age" matches up to which time period. Now if I were to take any of those prophecies and tell someone who knew nothing about them that this was God's prophecy for the church in our time period, like a horoscope they could see "truth" in any one of those prophecies if they wanted to. Interpretation of biblical prophecy via the Forer effect was one of the most annoying things I had to deal with when I was a fundie. So many of the prophecies are so vague they could have multiple interpretations. Add in translation problems etc and you have a cf (cluster fuck). Counting the hits and explaining away the misses (something that I am guilty of) is just a part of being a religious person.

As for the prophecies of Jesus this is even more cluster fucked. The entire Bible, OT and NT is a concocted thing. Multiple authors over a long period of time wrote it. The NT went through many changes. It was so easy to adjust things. In fact In John 21:11 there is a story about the miraculous catch of fish. After Simon Peter tossed the net on the right side of the boat per Jesus's suggestion he caught 153 fish. 153 is known as the "Vesica Piscis" or measure of the fish. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vesica_piscis It has significance in sacred geometry and some of the pagan religions of the time. Anyhow it is fairly apparent that this number was added in later, like a lot of other things in the gospel of John....but don't tell this to a fundie, you will be wrong of course.

[Minimalist]

I wanted to start with a simple one - with fundies simple is a must - because the problem in the passage is that what appears is the phrase "yet out of thee shall he come forth unto me that is to be ruler in Israel;"

Xtians ignore the problems that "Israel" had been defunct for 7 centuries by the time their godboy was born and even if you pull a sleight of hand and substitute "Judaea" for "Israel" the fact is that "jesus" did not "rule" shit. As a matter of fact, he was executed as a common criminal by the rulers.

But in this instance the issue is even simpler. The passage goes on to say this ruler would defend Israel from those dastardly Assyrians. Forgetting the fact that Assyria was victorious in the 8th century the fact remains that Assyria no longer existed in the first century AD. It was part of the Parthian Empire from 150 BC to 116 AD when the Romans took it. In any case, listening to xtians babble, their boy was long dead by the time the Romans got there.

I'm sure you are right, Summer. But it does not matter which holy joe they come up with to cite for Micah 5, 1 & 2. What matters is the entire passage and there, they are fucked.

[Justtristo]

A question here is when Micah was written? Because I have zero trust in the so called traditional dating and authorship of biblical texts.

Also the references to Assyria in that "prophecy" could be referring not the Assyrians such as such, rather an enemy that could be compared to the Assyrians. The Seleucid's perhaps, since they ruled roughly the same area the Assyrians did. Or more likely some future enemy that would be as bad as the Assyrians were.

Although you are right Min about the Christians taking verses of the Old Testament out of context.

[Epimethean]

Most scholars seem to nod at it having been written circa 700 BCE.

[Minimalist]

A very good question and one for which there is no easy answer. There are numerous problems with the traditional dating, not the least of which is that we have no evidence of this kind of literature in even the relatively advanced northern kingdom in the 8th century BC although we do have indications that they had at least become literate enough to keep records and inventories. But monumental architecture and inscriptions are scarce and while there are Moabite and Aramaic inscriptions the Israelites don't seem to have done much writing. The possibility exists that these were oral tales later embellished or re-written to suit the needs of other powers/authorities. As noted in the OP scholars already think that this tale was a composite writing anyway.
Generally, as we have no evidence of Hebrew texts prior to the Dead Sea Scrolls in the 2d century BC it seems likely that this stuff was written later rather than earlier.

Also the references to Assyria in that "prophecy" could be referring not the Assyrians such as such, rather an enemy that could be compared to the Assyrians.

Babylon took out the Assyrians. Why not call them Babylonians? After all Judah was done in by Babylon not Assyria. It's a good point but I think I'll leave rampant speculation to the fundies if they ever grow a set and try to defend their fairy tales.

[frankiej]

Hmm, it seems that perhaps the crazies don't want to touch this one... Not only does it seem that they cherry pick the bits of their book they believe, but they pick and choose what questions to address aswell. But, we all knew that anyway

[5thHorseman]

Min, I have noticed a mistake.

You haven't cherry picked.