Narkissos:
You don't have search every book that has been written to look for prophecy. You look at the ones that claim to speak about the future. The Bible is THE religious book of western civilization - and that's where I start.
The first problem is to see if there is any validity to the Bible's future predictions. I skip over anything that could have been prophecy written after the fact. Alexander the great prophecies are open to this kind of attack. So I focus on those prophecies that seem to have fulfillment in the "time of the end".
I assume that we are living in the time of the end because if I don't - then I can't expect anything to fit. I believe there are about 10 things that all fit together. Simple probability tells you that calling a coin on 10 flips in a row is beyond chance. But even if you throw out three of the matches because they may be slightly questionable - you still end up with an extremely accurate prediction. The preterists "assume" it has all been settled so they don't have to worry about anything. But there are too many strings left dangling.
Now I don't make the mistake of believing that the Bible IS what it says it is. Even if an entity stood in front of me and said they were Almighty God and then did some miracles I would be wrong in believing. The entity would have to answer a lot of my questions. For example: How do I know that you are really the Almighty God and not just one of many Gods. I would expect an answer that didn't involve fire, smoke, and earthquakes.
If you conclude that the Bible contains information about the future then you are confronted with the matter of who has information like that and what is their purpose. The Universe is a strange place. There would have to be some kind of cosmic organization that can access our world. Perhaps they are midwives that help planetary cultures get past "intrinsic sin". When the first replicating molecule appeared you have the beginning of "boundary". There are the chemicals that partake in the process and you have everything else. Eventually you have a cell wall or membrane. The formation of a "self" leads to "selfishness". Evolution is based on selfishness. But at the level of nations- selfishness becomes a rampant killer. That is what I believe is "intrinsic sin". I think there is at least a possibility that some interested entities have tweaked human cultural development and at the same time have adhered to an ethic of minimum interference.
There is no need to work with all humans all at once. Israel was a cultivated nation. They had unusually strong laws and traditions that allowed them to leave their land and remain Jews. The next step was to sever their need for a geographical location. That was Jesus' function. Christianity was intended to be a break from geographical location - the Jerusalem above. Christianity, as Jesus predicted, was going to go into a dormant stage. Sure enough. It wasn't long before Nationalism took over the Christian idea.
Enter "the holy ones". The prophesies involve some group that survives Earth's nationalistic rivalries. I believe that group is Jehovah's WItnesses. They have pretty much transcended the "nationality" problem with their world wide brotherhood. They have worked hard and unselfishly to build a world wide network. It is a robust organization- partly because of some of their weird rules. They have not been strictly devoted to quantity. If they just wanted numbers they could easily quadruple their size by changing their stance on blood transfusions, permitting smoking etc. All of this is more tolerable if you look at the universe without the distorting lens of "the Almighty God". You begin to understand certain ambiguities and imperfections. These entities probably aren't looking for absolute salvation but statistical salvation. Kind of the way evolution selects.
The idea is to produce a hardened cadres of people who serve as a paradigm of survival. If you were a Jew in Nazi Germany and you had a close relative in the United States you had the option of getting out before the noose tightened. Jehovah's Witnesses, because of their brotherood have the possibility of escaping the calamity that is predicted for the USA (Babylon).All of the end-time prophesies include the "flight" aspect that leads to survival.
The million JW's in the United States could easily be accommodated by their brothers sourth of the border.
This would be a testimony to the need to jettison nationalism once and for all.
This is the short version. I won't burden you with the long version.
