Bible prophecies

[The Grand Nudger]

"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.

[Wyrd of Gawd]

[Minimalist]

[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.

[Crossless2.0]

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.

Actually, I'm quite comfortable with an alternative to the Christian view of Jesus' prophetic prowess. Why couldn't Jesus miss? It's because his alleged prophesies are placed in his mouth by authors and editors working decades after the alleged events and supplying him with privileged knowledge, i.e., their knowledge of how events unfolded.

[Minimalist]

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.


Um....Is. 13 is about the "Prophecy Against Babylon" ( which your god fucked up too) and 34 blathers on about 'god' destroying "Edom."

History tells us that Babylon and Edom did just fine and Judah was overrun repeatedly.

You seem to have enough trouble with xtian bullshit. Please leave the jews alone.

[The Grand Nudger]

[Minimalist]

During what time? 7-23CE we see roman pacification...but that's a deceptive word isn't it?

No, not really. Josephus - never a totally reliable source but all we've got - passes over the terms of office of the prefects, Coponius, Marcus Ambivius, Annius Rufus, and Valerius Gratus (6-26 AD) in a single paragraph and the big news was that Augustus dies during the term of Annius and Tiberius becomes emperor. There were some small scale disturbances when Archelaus was deposed but these were suppressed by what amounted to local police forces without bringing in the legions and even that assumes that Josephus wasn't talking out of his ass as he was prone to do.

[The Grand Nudger]

Radio silence eh? So I suppose that we have ourselves a window in which people weren't throwing rocks - even if they might have been piling them up in the back lot. No anti-occupation sentiment from the locals (that we know of, of course)? Seems odd - especially for the region. Even more-so seeing as how it all went down immediately afterwards.

[Vicki Q]