Bible prophecies

[Vicki Q]

So far Jesus is batting 0.0000 on his his prophecy concerning the stars falling to Earth.

An excellent example of how OT quotation is used as Jewish apocalyptic language. In Mark 13 parr, they are referencing Isaiah ch13 and ch34, which describe the action of God to bring about His kingdom. They/Jesus is not setting these as flat and literal prose, but are using them as typical Jewish imagery for events to happen that are perceived as earth-shattering. That is to say, the days of Jerusalem's destruction would be looked upon as days of catastrophe. From that point of view, 100% accurate.

That's how this apocalyptic language functions. Thank you for bringing this example up.

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"Standard historical criteria" hardly leave us with a "jesus" to have said anything at all, but clearly - somebody said something, at some point. I'm really not comfortable invoking divinity or prophecy until it is necessary. Diminishes the idea of both, to me.

If you have a spare 0.5 year, get into the “A Marginal Jew” series. He does the question of where standard historical criteria takes us extremely well. Not one for the Rapture Ready people, though.

Given the Synoptics all quote Jesus as using apocalyptic language, but with different content, it seems very likely he used this form when talking about the destruction of the Temple.

Now Jesus had no reason to say the Temple had a big wrecking ball headed its way. He could have declared it redundant, like he did ritual Torah. But he said it was to be destroyed giving detail, and used apocalyptic language to indicate that this was central to his program (see reply above).

He repeated the point with the symbolic cleansing of the Temple/ cursing of the fig tree incident. In other words, he wrote very theological big cheques which, at the time reality looked unlikely to honour (things were relatively peaceful).

(Why?)

However he got it right. Now if you don't believe there is prophecy at all, because there is no God, then this won't change your mind. But on the basis of what solid history can be got from this, it fits rather more comfortably with a Christian worldview than with an alternative worldview.