Where is this in the Bible?
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Just Addressing Yet Another Absurd, Dishonest Atheistic Argument
- Thread starter 1137
- Start date
Where is this in the Bible?
BilliardsBall
Veteran Member
My position is I was being a bit facetious as I never said the entire book of Proverbs is prophecies or non-poetic!
It's enough for me that in a given chapter of Proverbs I find a dozen truths that I can see in human nature everywhere I turn!
Let's give you criteria 3 (it's unambiguous) and 4 (it's improbable). Can you demonstrate:
- 1: it's accurate - do you have a reliable source thay established it happened?
- 2: it's Biblical - can you cite the verse or verses that predicted it?
- 5: it's unknown - can you demonsteate that the people who supposedly did it weren't deliberately trying to fulfill the "prophecy"?
It's almost as good as Poor Richard's Almanack that way. Does this mean it's also the word of God?
I would agree that these are just as 'true' as the existence of a deity. In other words, they are all matters of opinion and not of fact.
You did.
So you disagree with me. Don't make this out to be a deficiency on my part.
I didn't say that the Bible is equivalent to the Wizard of Oz. My point was that even the Wizard of Oz - a book written by a human that's entirely fictional - has some truth in it, so we would expect no less from the Bible, so the presence of snippets of truth in the Bible doesn't make the book reliable or divine.
And a big part of the reason why the Bible has been as influential as it has been is that it was imposed on countless people through violence. If only for that reason alone, it could stand to be demeaned a bit.
I think we're beating this subject to death, but you are skipping verses which make biblical servitude unique in the ancient world, like the verses about allowing a married slave to depart with his spouse and etc. even if the spouse was the "owner's" daughter.
Besides, weren't most of the Hebrews' slaves meant rather to be exterminated in Canaan and not enslaved?
I also know that if we speak of the Exodus, you will say God did horrible things that the Egyptians didn't deserve for owning and murdering their Hebrew slaves.
I wish my skeptic friends would decide whether all slavery is reprehensible or just when it's not a Jew who is in chains.
Once again, you ignored the content of the post to which you responded. The ignored rebuttal stands. I don't really care how easy slavery could be. I care how brutal it can be, and that the god of the Christian Bible never bothered to say so. That doesn't go away by deflecting to indentured servitude or other arrangements, does it (Why do I even bother asking you questions.?)
You can engage in this kind of bad faith disputation because you can't be stopped.
But you also can't do it unnoticed. Do your part in these discussion. It includes considering you interlocutors words and addressing them specifically, not simply ignoring the entire post except to say that you think otherwise.
Are you claiming that you disregarded over a half dozen inconvenient questions because you assumed that they were rhetorical? That's perfectly OK. Non-answers send the same message as tepid apologetics if the questions ignored are explicitly noted to have been ignored. .
He did. He gave you the criteria for high quality prophecy. Biblical prophecy doesn't make the grade.
I gave you multiple examples of what would constitute high quality prophecy. Who here can guess what followed from you?
Bupkis! - all specific content completely ignored!
They were commanded to take money for avoiding manual labor? I'll bet their arms needed some serious twisting for that.
Think about why they invented six days of creation and a commandment to stop working every seventh day just like God. Toward what purpose? Follow the shekels - to the synagogue every seventh day, the day off from shepherding or working the fields.
We're talking about a job with nothing harder than theology to study if that, no professional testing or thesis, no professional board or any other kind of government supervision to answer to, no boards or certificates, virtually no liability or oversight, almost no up front investment in a typical new congregation, and best of all, no labor and short hours, nearly complete opacity in your financial dealings, special treatment from the IRS (American clergy only), and automatic respect that doesn't need to be earned.
Self-fulfilling prophecy.
*******
Can the Bible match this?
DISNEY v ABU GHRAIB
[1a ]Disneic prophecy
[1b]Disneic prophecy fulfilled
[2a]Disneic prophecy 2
[2b] Disneic prophecy 2 fulfilled
You'll need to acquaint yourself with 21st century sensibilities. Christianity no longer enjoys its former status. Younger people are saying in increasing numbers that it doesn't speak to them. More and more, people would rather read/watch the Wizard of Oz than the Bible.
Then what use is Proverbs if its only describing what anybody can see without it?
BilliardsBall
Veteran Member
I understand. Reflecting the above:
A) Israel was declared to have statehood by the UN and its own declaration on May 14, 1948 - undeniably, this happened.
B) It's biblical - there are verses saying the Jewish nation would a second time (the first was the Exodus) be birthed in a day; there are prophecies indicating this date in 1948
C) It's unknown - it was research post-1948 that brought the dating method used to the fore
More importantly, the saving resurrection of Christ fulfills these three aspects you're citing.
Granted.
No. These verses were *interpreted* as saying that. In reality, they were so vague and the antics to get a 'prophesy' so convoluted, that this fails the test.
No. It was numerology and special pleading that did this. It is *always* possible, with enough small numbers, to get coincidences like this.
Again, false.
BilliardsBall
Veteran Member
There was great manual labor in cleaning and organizing the temple utensils and sacrifices and so forth. The point of slavery and servitude had to do with land and these people owned no land. The Levites had limited income, limited sexual relations, were barred from the "power" you mentioned if they had any deformities, etc.
You're getting ahead of yourself. We need the specific prophecy before we can tell whether it was accurate.
Please cite the specific verses.
Edit: BTW - if your prophecy is just "Israel will be birthed in a day", I'll have to take back what I said about it being unambiguous.
And couldn't have been uncovered independently earlier?
If this is true, then you can establish that the resurrection actually happened (to satisfy #1). Go for it.
Last edited:
Guy Threepwood
Mighty Pirate
By being divinely inspired I would say!
BilliardsBall
Veteran Member
It is unambiguous - in the same way that the Exodus formed a nation in one day - a UN resolution formed a nation in one day.
Here are more verses...
It's very simple, actually, and illuminating. Ezekiel prophesied a number of years in captivity:
“…As for you [Ezekiel], lie down…for the number of days…three hundred and ninety days (for Israel’s sin)…When you have completed these…I have assigned it to you for forty days (for Judah’s sin)…a day for each year.”—Ezekiel 4:4-6
That's 430 years (biblical years of 360 days each). 70 years of captivity were served in Babylon, leaving 360 years.
Modern atheists noted this... surely the final Jewish diaspora into modern times lasted more than 360 years since the end of the Babylonian captivity! Surely the Bible was wrong:
606 BCE …Judah/Israel taken captive to Babylon
536 BCE …Cyrus allows return to Israel
...360 years later is pre-Roman times in Israel!
Some readers, noticed, however, that Leviticus 26:14-46 says Israel will pay seven times over for disobedience: "…If also after these things you do not obey Me, then I will punish you seven times more for your sins."
They multiplied 7 times 360 360-day years from the Cyrus decree and in the Gentile calendar this comes out to: Whoa! May 14, 1948 CE! God left it as written to demonstrate it wasn't a self-fulfilled prophecy, and for skeptics to draw it out!
What about coincidence? There are numerous Bible prophecies, these are the sole passages on the God-commanded length of the lengthy diaspora. The coincidence would be millions-to-one. There are similar precise number prophecies relating to other aspects, if you're interested. The date for Christ's crucifixion appears in the Septuagint, which scholars know dates to at least two-and-a-half centuries before Christ.
Where are you getting this "Biblical years" stuff from?
Also, the passage (in the parts you left out) talked about lying "on your left side" for 390 days and "on your right side" for 40 days. These seem distinct; why are you lumping them together?
As for the 70 years, I'll address that below:
A quick googling suggests that the Battle of Carchemish happened in 605 BCE, not 606, and the actual captivity didn't begin until 597 BCE, with the last deportation happening in 581 BCE.
None of these dates are 606 BCE. Where did you come up with this number?
Again, this seems questionable, since a quick googling suggests that the Jews were back and working on the Second Temple by 537 BCE. Where did your date come from?
Even moreso for 360 days later.
You're misrepresenting the passage. It says that the punishment will be increased only if they're defeated by their enemies and still disobey God.
You know that a day isn't 360 days, right? Not even in the Hebrew calendar.
Wait... so for all those sketchy date estimates where it's questionable whether you even got the year right, you supposedly got them correct down to the day?
You'll have to show your work on that one.
That depends what outcome we're trying to measure the odds for. Should it be "these specific verses give the exact date of the decaratiom of independence for the modern state of Israel?"or should it be "some collection of significant-sounding numbers, combined together in some arbitrary way, can give us a date we consider important?"
I'd say that second one is almost certain.
Do they employ similarly ridiculous arbitrary leaps and hand-waving?
Sure it does.