Evidence of the Bible's Validity

[JimmyNeutron]

First off, hello jimmy, and welcome to our forum. You seem like a reasonaly intelligent person and I hope to see more of you here.

POINT 1#: The Bible contains various prophecies. If a sufficient number of these prophecies is true, than it is very likely that these prophecies are what they claim to be. Some kind of supernatural or divine revelation. Either that or they are a highly unlikely and EXTREMELY lucky guess. Can we agree on this first point?

To counter your point, there are three ways in which prophecies are "fulfilled".
1. They are vague and usually need to be interpreted. Much like for example modern day laws.
2. They are written after the event occurs.
3. They are essentially guesses. For example lets say country A is invading country B. A prophet comes up in country B says "Woah you will be destroyed!" Now if country B fails and is destroyed, he is a prophet. Howvere if country B wins the war he is just Harold Camping.

Hello, and thank you. You appear to be the first person here to come up with an intelligent response.

1. That is true. Some of these prophecies are vague and up for interpretation.

2. Yes, I try to focus only on prophecies that must have been written before the event. The Book of Revelation, for example, was written sometime during the first or MAYBE second century. The fulfillment of most of those prophecies has not yet occurred.

3. Yes, some of them are pretty much guesses. The more specific they are, though, the harder they are to guess. For example, if I say "A car will drive past on this road in exactly ten minutes" that wouldn't be a very impressive prediction. But if I said it would be a Red Honda Pilot, then it would be less likely that it was a mere guess. More so if I described the car AND the driver. Certain prophecies in the Bible are so complex that it becomes very unlikely that it could just happen by coincidence.

Jimmy lets do a little simple math here. The angel appeared to john right?
Jesus was born in 6 b.c killed at 33 so that means he died in 27 AD. The very youngest john couldve been 13 when he started following jesus and bear in mind it is unlikely he started that young. so he followed for 3 years before his death and john was 13 thirteen when the ministry started that would mean he was in 11 AD at the latest. That would make him 84 by the time revelations was written. The average roman life expectancy was 45 if you survived till the age of 5. Hell even with modern medical care most men today don't reach 84.

Good point. The author of the book identifies himself as "John" but there is some debate as to which John this is. Many say that he is John the Apostle, while others claim that he could be another John, whom some refer to as John of Patmos. This also explains the debate over when the book was written. Likely, the people who believe that he is John the Apostle are the same ones who believe the book was written is 60 A.D. rather than 95 A.D.