Prayer ... SERIOUSLY?!

[Statler Waldorf]

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http://atheistevolution.blogspot.com/201...fails.html

I'm sure you will agree the Bible has some errors?

Did i kill this thread? i thought we were getting somewhere

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I actually was expecting you to go in a bit of a different direction with this. I was expecting you to point out verses that contradict one another rather than Biblical prophecies. I guess this works though. I am not a huge fan of pointing to prophecy to prove scripture because I am not a dispensationalist or pre-millennialist; for this same reason I am not a huge fan of pointing to supposedly failed prophecy in order to disprove scripture. I think both are somewhat inappropriate. I will give some responses to the points in the article though.

1. "An oracle concerning Damascus: See, Damascus will no longer be a city but will become a heap of ruins."

I am not sure that this is talking about a physical destruction of the city or not. However, even if it is, this prophecy was never given a date so it very well still could happen. I do not see this as a failed prophecy at all.

2. "I will hand the Egyptians over to the power of a cruel master, and a fierce king will rule over them, declares the Lord, the LORD Almighty. The waters of the river will dry up, and the riverbed will be parched and dry."

Again, not sure this is talking about a real river or is describing God’s common grace. Some Christians do believe this was fulfilled though when the Soviets helped dam up the Nile in the 1960s thus making it impossible for its flood waters to be used by thousands of Egyptians like they had been doing for thousands of years. So to say it is a failed prophecy is jumping the gun a bit I feel.


3. "Awake, awake, O Zion, clothe yourself with strength. Put on your garments of splendor, O Jerusalem, the holy city. The uncircumcised and defiled will not enter you again."

Have to be very careful with this verse, scripture sometimes refers to holy physical places such as Jerusalem and the Temple when it is actually describing groups of people like God’s elect. The uncircumcised can also refer to people who have not been given saving grace and still have an uncircumcised heart. I think the actual intent of Isaiah 52 is to foretell the coming of Christ, which of course is prophecy that did come true.

4. "This is what the Sovereign LORD says: I will put an end to the hordes of Egypt by the hand of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon. He and his army - the most ruthless of nations - will be brought in to destroy the land. They will draw their swords against Egypt and fill the land with the slain."

Nebuchadnezzar did defeat Egypt in the battle of Carchemish. Although he did not occupy the whole nation of Egypt, his victory made him the major power in the region, and Egypt had to pay him tribute. There is also some historical evidence that he later campaigned in Egypt. Since this verse never says he would completely destroy Egypt for all time, I think saying it is a failed prophecy is not appropriate at all. In fact, it seems amazingly accurate given the historical evidence supporting its claims.

5. "therefore I am against you and against your streams,and I will make the land of Egypt a ruin and a desolate waste from Migdol to Aswan, as far as the border of Cush. The foot of neither man nor beast will pass through it; no one will live there for forty years."

I don’t see what the issue is with this verse, Egypt was ravaged pretty good by Nebuchadnezzar, and a lot of the verse seems to be a bit of hyperbole describing this ravaging.


6. .Matthew 16:28, Matthew 23:36, Matthew 24:34

Jesus is not referring to His second coming when he describes the coming of the Kingdom of God, but rather the first preaching of the Gospel on the day of Pentecost, which did happen within the disciples generation. Some references are also made to the destruction of the Temple, which also happened within their lifetime (70 A.D.).

7. "Therefore the Lord himself shall give you a sign; Behold,a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel."

The Hebrew word here actually means a young unmarried girl, which would have most definitely been a virgin in Jewish culture. This was also supposed to be a sign people would recognize, so an unmarried but sexually active girl giving birth would hardly be a recognizable sign. So I don’t feel the word being translated virgin is inappropriate at all. In the New Testament the word actually does mean virgin and not just a young unmarried girl. As for the “he shall be called” part, this is an expression used dozens of times referring to Jesus. It does not mean that this shall be his legal name, but rather something that people will call Him. Millions of people have called Jesus, Immanuel, which literally means “God with us”, so this prophecy was in fact fulfilled, not failed.

8. "And he came and dwelt in a city called Nazareth: that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophets, He shall be called a Nazarene."

I think this one is actually really amazing. In the Old Testament, the Israelites believed a King would come to restore them as God’s chosen people (the Messiah). They often referred to this coming King as a “branch” from the line of David. The Hebrew word for “branch” is “netzer”, which sounds very similar to the Aramaic name for the city of “Nazareth”. So Matthew is not making a mistake here, but rather making a very interesting and intentional allusion to Christ being the foretold Messiah. There are other explanations of this verse that are all very possible, but I find this one very interesting.

9. “"When you cultivate the ground, it will no longer yield its strength to you; you will be a vagrant and a wanderer on the earth."

This one was kind of silly. Sure Cain had a family and survived, but he was forever marked and did not receive the same blessings as the rest of Adam’s children.

10. "Your house and your kingdom will endure forever before me; your throne will be established forever.”

Again, this is most likely not a reference to a physical kingdom but rather a spiritual kingdom.


Wow, that took a lot longer than I thought it would. I think it is fair to say though that none of the examples given on that website are definitive failed prophecies, and definitely not something a Christian needs to leave the faith over. But again, I do not like playing the prophecy game to support or disprove scripture. Thanks for the interesting topic though!