Did the Bible really predict or say anything of substance?

by moshe 34 Replies latest watchtower bible

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  Gerard

  You are mistaken. Some prophecies cannot be fulfilled without the INTERNET or modern inventions like the TV.

  You can make the bible say anything, if you torture it long enough.
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  Gerard

  Why would the big enchilada Jeehover pussyfoot around with predictions? .Why can't he spell it out? Here is a perediction that would have cought my attention:

  "Internal combustion engines will be invented and they will contribute gto global warming. Catie Couric will be thrown on her fanny. The Sarkoski dude will marry a babe and Al Qaida will never be defeated by the force."
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  RubaDub

  Yes, I like the prediction about the 70 weeks of years.

  Sounds kind of cool.

  Rub a Dub
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  Rapunzel

  Narkissos - Je vous remercie infiniement d'avoir bien voulu repondre a ma question! Thank you very much for having answered my first question. I hereby stand humbly corrected. The word messiah does appear in the book of Isaiah, in the first verse of chapter 45. For complicated reasons that I cannot explain, I currently do not have access to a Bible concordance. And I currently have no way of getting to a library. So, once again Narkissos, I thank you

  Although the verse, Isaiah 45:1 appears outside of the passage originally cited by BurnTheShips, the verse quite obviously falls within the so-called "Second Isaiah," that is to say chapters 40 through 55. The chapters of the "Second Isaiah" [chapters 40 through 55] presupose a situation in which the southern kingdom has been destroyed and the people taken into exile in Babylon in the mid-sixth century B.C.E. Hence, verse 45:1 which speaks of Cyrus.

  The "Second Isaiah" could not be the work of the same author(s) who wrote the "First Isaiah," that is to say chapters 1 through 39. These earlier chapters presuppose a situation in which Assyria is set to attack Judah in the eighth century B.C.E.

  Although they presuppose very different situations, both the "First" and the "Second Isaiah contain similar prophetic themes, so they were combined at a later date into one scroll. And then someone added chapters 56 through 66, from yet a later prophet [the "Third Isaiah] who wrote in still another context.

  Now that my first question has been so graciously answered, could someone please respond to my second and third questions?
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  Narkissos

  Rapunzel,

  As far as the literary history of the "book of Isaiah" is concerned, distinction between the three main sections is only the tip of the iceberg. Actually every section went through considerable development before reaching its extent state.

  One consequence is that the "servant of Yahweh" in "Second Isaiah" can actually refer to several historical figures, such as (1) Cyrus, (2) the restored "remnant" of the exilees (as opposed to "all Israel," the majority of which never went into exile), and (3) individuals otherwise unknown to us, especially the different "prophets" whose tradition is recorded. In many cases, due to the different rewritings and inner intertextuality, the references overlap, especially in the so-called "Songs of the Servant" which offer both individual and collective traits.

  As to 52:13--53, you are quite right in pointing out that a (recent) past reference seems to be in view, clear to the writer and first hearers/readers, but unfortunately not to us...

  As to the word mashiach ("messiah"), it must also be pointed out that in the entire OT it has not yet reached the status of a technical term: nowhere does it clearly point to a unique, final, eschatological (= end-time) figure as it does in Christianity and rabbinical Judaism. Around the beginning of the Christian era this notion is developing diversely in some (not all) Jewish circles -- as a priestly or royal character for instance (both appear in the sectarian texts of Qumran). It took the destruction of the temple and the humiliation of priesthood in later (Pharisaic) Judaism for the priestly messiah to recede into the background, making the royal, Davidic definition the only one.