Failed prophecy in the bible if one cares to look

[NeutralZone]

The NATION of Tyre no longer exists.  You're referring to the present existence of the DISTRICT of Tyre.  Two entirely different things.

Tyre was never a nation in the modern sense. It was a city-state like Athens. There has never been a time when Tyre was completely destroyed or completely uninhabited. In fact, the population of modern Tyre is roughly four times what it was at the height ancient Tyre.

History-1 : Prophecy-nil.

Boru

The Nation of Tyre was completely destroyed, as confirmed by numerous secular sources.  There now exists a small portion in the area where the nation of Tyre once stood--a small area called a district.

"Tyre in Later Centuries
Tyre was razed to the ground. It was standard practise for a victorious army to reduce the walls of a conquered city to rubble, lest the city be refortified and again used against them. This was the case with Tyre. Stripped of its impressive defences and denuded of its citizens, proud Tyre, no longer even an island was for a time, only fit for fishermen to dry their nets on the bare rock. . . .

By the end of the 19th century, a population was again beginning to form in what had once been Tyre." 
https://biblereadingarcheology.com/2017/09/13/what-happened-to-tyre/

[Nay_Sayer]

FSM weaps at your lies. May he unharden your heart. RAmen

[Paleophyte]

Is there any chance you could make your fanfic about something more modern and relevant?

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

Tyre was never a nation in the modern sense. It was a city-state like Athens. There has never been a time when Tyre was completely destroyed or completely uninhabited. In fact, the population of modern Tyre is roughly four times what it was at the height ancient Tyre.

History-1 : Prophecy-nil.

Boru

But we're not discussing the "modern sense;" correct?

At the time the prophecy against it was written, Tyre was considered to be a nation because it had its own government.  Not only that, at the time that the Bible prophecy was written against it, Tyre was "a major regional power and a key ancient Near Eastern commercial center that greatly influenced Mediterranean shipping lanes and overland trade between the coast and Arabia."
https://learn.ligonier.org/devotionals/judgment-tyre

So distinct was the nation of Tyre from other nations at the time the prophecy was written against it that the Abrahamic God specified that "many nations" would destroy it over time, thereby distinguishing Tyre from other nations and at the same time confirming that Tyre was indeed a nation.


Ezekiel 26:3

"therefore this is what the Sovereign Lord Jehovah says: ‘Here I am against you, O Tyre, and I will bring up many nations against you, just as the sea brings up its waves."

Of course we’re not discussing ancient Tyre in the modern sense - why would we? But ‘nation’ in the ancient sense can also mean ‘city’ or ‘tribe’ (as in the Twelve ‘Nations’ of Israel. 

Tyre was a city then, it’s a city now. Prophecy failed. Get over it.

Boru

[The Valkyrie]

Read Ezekiel 29:17-20. It appears to acknowledge that the prophecy earlier in 26 did not come to pass.

Also, consider God's prophecy to Jonah. Sometimes, predictive prophecies aren't meant to become true.

Wouldn’t that make Ezekiel a false prophet?

Boru

Ssshhhhh!

Don't make the claims awkward!

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

Read Ezekiel 29:17-20. It appears to acknowledge that the prophecy earlier in 26 did not come to pass.

Also, consider God's prophecy to Jonah. Sometimes, predictive prophecies aren't meant to become true.

(Bold mine)

I kinda think they are.

Boru

[Belacqua]

It shows Tyre was indeed the wealthiest, most powerful etc. of the time (excluding the super powers of the day)

I don't know anything about the history of Tyre. But I think to determine whether it was "destroyed and never rebuilt" we would have to look at the continuity, or lack thereof, between earlier and later cities on that site. 

If there is institutional, governmental, ethnic, etc. etc. continuity, then we could say that Tyre survived. If there is a new city at the same site, with no continuity to the old one, then it's fair to say that the Tyre of the biblical prophecy was not rebuilt. 

To contrast, we could look at the example of Hiroshima. That city took a pretty big hit. Despite many losses of personnel, however, the city government was the same before and after the bomb. All the surviving railroad workers showed up to work the next day. The university had to repair its buildings, but it's still the same university. 

Carthage, on the other hand, was destroyed by Rome. Currently there are quite a few people living at or near the site of Carthage, but they are in no way a continuation of the institutions of the Carthage that Rome attacked. 

So was the later version of thriving Tyre a survival of the old one, or a new set of institutions created at the same location? 

(Seriously, I don't know. I'm asking.)

[GrandizerII]

Read Ezekiel 29:17-20. It appears to acknowledge that the prophecy earlier in 26 did not come to pass.

Also, consider God's prophecy to Jonah. Sometimes, predictive prophecies aren't meant to become true.

Wouldn’t that make Ezekiel a false prophet?

Boru

From a critical perspective, who knows who authored the passage in Ezekiel 26, but it definitely failed to come to pass.

[GrandizerII]

Tyre was never a nation in the modern sense. It was a city-state like Athens. There has never been a time when Tyre was completely destroyed or completely uninhabited. In fact, the population of modern Tyre is roughly four times what it was at the height ancient Tyre.

History-1 : Prophecy-nil.

Boru

The Nation of Tyre was completely destroyed, as confirmed by numerous secular sources.  There now exists a small portion in the area where the nation of Tyre once stood--a small area called a district.

"Tyre in Later Centuries
Tyre was razed to the ground. It was standard practise for a victorious army to reduce the walls of a conquered city to rubble, lest the city be refortified and again used against them. This was the case with Tyre. Stripped of its impressive defences and denuded of its citizens, proud Tyre, no longer even an island was for a time, only fit for fishermen to dry their nets on the bare rock. . . .

By the end of the 19th century, a population was again beginning to form in what had once been Tyre." 
https://biblereadingarcheology.com/2017/09/13/what-happened-to-tyre/

Modern Tyre is a very busy and lively place, hardly just a place "fit for fishermen to dry their nets on the bare rock". I would know.

Anyway, whoever authored that passage probably didn't think about how the world would unravel thousands of years into the future. He was predicting that Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, would completely ruin Tyre.

Ezekiel 26:7-14
"For this is what the Sovereign Lord says: From the north I am going to bring against Tyre Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, king of kings, with horses and chariots, with horsemen and a great army. He will ravage your settlements on the mainland with the sword; he will set up siege works against you, build a ramp up to your walls and raise his shields against you. He will direct the blows of his battering rams against your walls and demolish your towers with his weapons. His horses will be so many that they will cover you with dust. Your walls will tremble at the noise of the warhorses, wagons and chariots when he enters your gates as men enter a city whose walls have been broken through. The hooves of his horses will trample all your streets; he will kill your people with the sword, and your strong pillars will fall to the ground. They will plunder your wealth and loot your merchandise; they will break down your walls and demolish your fine houses and throw your stones, timber and rubble into the sea. I will put an end to your noisy songs, and the music of your harps will be heard no more. I will make you a bare rock, and you will become a place to spread fishnets. You will never be rebuilt, for I the Lord have spoken, declares the Sovereign Lord.

That didn't come to pass, and Ezekiel 29:17-20 probably served as an apologetic piece regarding that.

Ezekiel 29:17-20
In the twenty-seventh year, in the first month on the first day, the word of the Lord came to me: "Son of man, Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon drove his army in a hard campaign against Tyre; every head was rubbed bare and every shoulder made raw. Yet he and his army got no reward from the campaign he led against Tyre. Therefore this is what the Sovereign Lord says: I am going to give Egypt to Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, and he will carry off its wealth. He will loot and plunder the land as pay for his army. I have given him Egypt as a reward for his efforts because he and his army did it for me, declares the Sovereign Lord.

This is an apologetic way of saying Nebuchadnezzar failed to completely possess/destroy it, but God had it in his plan to instead give Egypt to Nebuchadnezzar as a reward.

[NeutralZone]

But we're not discussing the "modern sense;" correct?

At the time the prophecy against it was written, Tyre was considered to be a nation because it had its own government.  Not only that, at the time that the Bible prophecy was written against it, Tyre was "a major regional power and a key ancient Near Eastern commercial center that greatly influenced Mediterranean shipping lanes and overland trade between the coast and Arabia."
https://learn.ligonier.org/devotionals/judgment-tyre

So distinct was the nation of Tyre from other nations at the time the prophecy was written against it that the Abrahamic God specified that "many nations" would destroy it over time, thereby distinguishing Tyre from other nations and at the same time confirming that Tyre was indeed a nation.


Ezekiel 26:3

"therefore this is what the Sovereign Lord Jehovah says: ‘Here I am against you, O Tyre, and I will bring up many nations against you, just as the sea brings up its waves."

Of course we’re not discussing ancient Tyre in the modern sense - why would we? But ‘nation’ in the ancient sense can also mean ‘city’ or ‘tribe’ (as in the Twelve ‘Nations’ of Israel. 

Tyre was a city then, it’s a city now. Prophecy failed. Get over it.

Boru

Every detail of the prophecy against Tyre came through, including how the destruction would occur:


"This is what the Sovereign Lord Jehovah has said, 'Here I am against you, O Tyre, and I will bring up against you many nations, just as the sea brings up its waves. And they will certainly bring the walls of Tyre to ruin and tear down her towers, and I will scrape her dust away from her and make her a shining, bare surface of a crag. . . . And your stones and your woodwork and your dust they will place in the very midst of the water."—Ezekiel 26:3, 4, 12


CONFIRMATION OF TYRE'S DESTRUCTION:

"A 19th-century traveler commented on what was left of ancient Tyre in his day, saying: "Of the original Tyre known to Solomon and the prophets of Israel, not a vestige remains except in its rock-cut sepulchres on the mountain sides, and in foundation walls . . . Even the island, which Alexander the Great, in his siege of the city, converted into a cape by filling up the water between it and the mainland, contains no distinguishable relics of an earlier period than that of the Crusades. The modern town, all of which is comparatively new, occupies the northern half of what was once the island, while nearly all the remainder of the surface is covered with undistinguishable ruins."" (Sources: JW.ORG and Encyclopedia Britannica)
https://www.britannica.com/place/Tyre


FYI:  I've had this conversation with atheists at other websites who, unable to overcome the accurate fulfillment of the prophecy against Tyre, are reduced to cherry-picking the single portion of the prophecy that they imagine will support their skepticism: the portion where it says Tyre will never be rebuilt.  The reality is that Tyre, as a Nation, was never rebuilt.  In its place today stands a district with the same name.  A district and a nation are two entirely different things.


That said, I am removing myself from this thread as I obviously will not win an argument with a moderator.