YES !!!
They blew the horns in Cedar Point Ohio in 1922.
Rub a Dub
Are there ANY Bible prophecies that indisputably came true?
by nicolaou 81 Replies latest watchtower bible
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Leolaia
Some of the prophecies that are pretty hard to account for except that they show the foreknowledge of God are: 30 pieces of silver (Zechariah 11:12, Matthew 26:15-16), bought potter field (Zechariah 11:13, Matthew 27:3-10)
The alternative view, of course, is that these are not examples of fulfilled prophecies but instances of OT intertexts employed in the composition of new narratives; they only attain the status of "messianic prophecy" when they are pressed into service as such by the authors of the gospels.
I think the use of Zechariah 11 in Matthew is quite a clear instance of this. This use makes Jesus represent the "sheep" of the parable and Judas Iscariot the "incompetent shepherd", as it is Jesus who is sold (with the "buyers" representing the priests who pay Judas) and Judas is the one who is paid his thirty pieces of silver and who also throws the money to the Temple treasury. But this actually makes little sense of the parable. The "sheep" is not a single individual but a collective group (in v. 7 some of the sheep die while others are left to devour themselves, in v. 16 some of the sheep are stray, some are wounded, some are weary, etc.). The shepherd is tasked with the duty of feeding the sheep (v. 4); the wages he receives pertain to this activity and he is reluctant to accept his wages on account of the fact that he failed in his responsibilities (v. 12). It is not intelligible from the gospel narrative how Judas had a supervisory role over Jesus as a shepherd, and he was paid by the priests not for taking care of Jesus but for betraying him (whereas in Zechariah 11 the sheep are not betrayed but are bred for slaughter to begin with, v. 4, 7). And the incompetent shepherd is immediately replaced by another incompetent shepherd (v. 15-16), a figure who has no counterpart in the gospel story.
The context of the parable points to a rather different application in its original setting. The themes of the shepherds draws literarily on Ezekiel 34 where the sheep represent the "House of Israel" and the shepherds represent the leaders of Israel who "failed to feed the flock, failed to make the weak sheep strong, or care for the sick ones, or bandage the wounded ones, who failed to bring back strays or look for the lost", who instead "ruled over them cruelly and violently, for lack of shepherd they have scattered to become the prey of any wild animal" (v. 3-6). The failure of the kings and leaders of pre-exilic Israel and Judah led to the "sheep" being carried off into captivity in foreign countries (v. 13, 28). The same theme occurs in the preceding chapter of Zechariah: "The people stray like sheep, they wander because they have no shepherd. My anger burns against the shepherds .... and I will make the House of Judah mighty, and the House of Joseph victorious. I am going to restore them because I have taken pity on them ... I have scattered them among the peoples and ... I will bring them back from the land of Egypt and gather them from Assyria (10:2-3, 6, 9-10). In the parable in ch. 11, the sheep represent the "people of the land" (v. 6), who are oppressed by "their neighbor and their king" (v. 6), so as in Ezekiel the "shepherds" represent those who are supposed to govern but in reality oppress. The focus on governance is evident also from the two staffs that the "incompetent shepherd" breaks in half. The breaking of Favor leads Yahweh to "revoke the covenant I had made with all the nations" (v. 10), meaning that Yahweh would allow other nations to prey upon Israel on account of the deeds of its leaders. Similarly, the breaking of Union "breaks the brotherhood between Judah and Israel" (v. 14), with the actions of the leaders leading to political and religious division, in this case between the Samaritans and the Jews. The parable does not depict what is to take place but instead describes figuratively what has brought about the state of affairs that need remedying (see v. 17). It is the restoration of Israel as described in ch. 10 and 12-14 that lies in the future; the incompetent shepherd of ch. 11 would be struck down (as foreshadowed in 11:17), the sheep scattered, the nations preying on Israel would be fought in the eschatological battle, then Jerusalem and Israel would be restored to God's favor. This scenario does not mesh well with the Christian usage of Zechariah in the passion narrative. For example, 13:7 is applied in Matthew 26:31 to the scattering of the disciples at Jesus' crucifixion, with the "sheep" now representing the disciples and the shepherd representing Jesus. This ignores the fact that the shepherd in 13:7 is the same as the "worthless shepherd" in 11:17 (as the shepherd receives divine punishment in 13:7, as anticipated in 11:17), who replaces the first incompetent shepherd, yet in so sense could Jesus be construed as worthless or incompetent who mistreats his flock, nor could Jesus be construed as replacing Judas as the shepherd of the flock, and strangely the "sheep" morph from being Jesus himself (as implied in Matthew 26:15, 27:3-10) to being the disciples scattered at the crucifixion (as implied in Matthew 26:31). There is little consistency here; language is rather arbitrarily taken from OT intertexts and applied to the passion narrative in a free manner, with little interest in the actual conceptual framework of the source texts.
The arbitrary way in which Christian prophecy is read into the source texts is clearest in the use of Zechariah 11:13 in Matthew 27:3-10. There the author quotes an OT passage from Jeremiah supposedly fulfilled by Judas's actions, which says that "they took the thirty silver pieces, the sum at which the Precious One was priced by the children of Israel, and they gave them to the potter's field, just as the Lord directed me". But no such passage exists in Jeremiah or elsewhere. Essentially the gospel writer has conflated two separate readings of Zechariah 11:13 ('l h-ywtsr "to the potter" which is attested in the MT, in Aquila's Greek translation and in eis ton kerameusin in Matthew 27:10, and 'l h-'wtsr "to the treasury" which is followed in the LXX and in eis ton korbanan in Matthew 27:6) and combined them with a few motifs from Jeremiah 18-19 and 32 (two wholly independent oracles in Jeremiah, such that there is no field in ch. 18 and there is no potter in ch. 32; they are linked only by the evangelist), freely rewrote the whole thing as a Jeremianic prophecy, and then claimed that the event happened in order to fulfill this prophecy which had yet to be composed. In short, the prophecy that Matthew claims was fulfilled is a novel creation by the evangelist, constructed out of material from various unrelated passages in Jeremiah and Zechariah. See if there is indeed anything about buying a potter's field in Zechariah 11:13 or elsewhere.
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Leolaia
A Chassidic Jew makes a startling discovery: His rooster is the Messiah, as proven by 42 prophecies from the OT:
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No Longer Held Captive
Most of what the wbts preached about, these are still to happen, and all happen in one time frame in the future, even the preaching of the good news, as this appears to be done by a special group of the 144000 class and those alone. All the prophecies they wrongly spoke of must and will happen, but in the future, and in a very special time period. Satans ousting is still future. Thats how misleading this group have really been, and they still hang on to 1914, and the generation of 1914 would be 136-146 years of age now on average. But, the generation that will see all these things will see them soon on this systems oncoming collapse, but thats not the end, just the begining of it.
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No Longer Held Captive
Dear Rubabdub, talking about blowing horns, what do you think the percentage of homosexuality is in the wbts? we know one homosexual at least of the self proclaimed 144000 class that says hes going to heaven, could there be anymore? why was Nathan Knorr shifted to Canada, was that anything to do with blowing horns?
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Son of Man
But, the generation that will see all these things will see them soon on this systems oncoming collapse, but thats not the end, just the begining of it.
If a generation is 42 years and the generation spoken of ends in 2016 then all things will be fulfilled. The 1914 time period was the beginning of the pangs of distress not the "End Times".......
t.f.d.s.
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No Longer Held Captive
Bollocks, 1914, and the 607 equations dont compute, these times as spoken of by Daniel, Christ and by John in Revelation are still future, and will come on in on a very slumbering world. What we see now with the dollars demise could be the begining of it, because before Christs kingdom comes, antichrist must come first, and he does so as a skilled politician by means of his one world empire, and this is on its way. Dont be fooled by putting dates on things, just look for and see the signs, We are in an exciting time. But, sadly, the end will come, but not as JWS preached about it, because they didnt stay awake.
Dont be suckered in by any dates, just stay awake, watch the signs and act on Christ commands, and not that of any mans.
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mrsjones5
42 sounds so familiar...
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Son of Man
antichrist must come first, and he does so as a skilled politician by means of his one world empire, and this is on its way
The antichrist (man of lawlessness) came and went. What you didn't notice? The antichrist called it "New World Order" however, you know when he tried to take over the Middle East........he misled people into war also.....uhmmmm he did. Christ removed him
t.f.d.s.
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EverAStudent
Leolaia wrote: "The arbitrary way in which Christian prophecy is read into the source texts is clearest in the use of Zechariah 11:13 in Matthew 27:3-10 . There the author quotes an OT passage from Jeremiah supposedly fulfilled by Judas's actions, which says that "they took the thirty silver pieces, the sum at which the Precious One was priced by the children of Israel, and they gave them to the potter's field, just as the Lord directed me". But no such passage exists in Jeremiah or elsewhere. Essentially the gospel writer has conflated two separate readings of Zechariah 11:13 ('l h-ywtsr "to the potter" which is attested in the MT, in Aquila 's Greek translation and in eis ton kerameusin in Matthew 27:10 , and 'l h-'wtsr "to the treasury" which is followed in the LXX and in eis ton korbanan in Matthew 27:6 ) and combined them with a few motifs from Jeremiah 18-19 and 32 (two wholly independent oracles in Jeremiah , such that there is no field in ch. 18 and there is no potter in ch. 32; they are linked only by the evangelist), freely rewrote the whole thing as a Jeremianic prophecy, and then claimed that the event happened in order to fulfill this prophecy which had yet to be composed. In short, the prophecy that Matthew claims was fulfilled is a novel creation by the evangelist, constructed out of material from various unrelated passages in Jeremiah and Zechariah . See if there is indeed anything about buying a potter's field in Zechariah 11:13 or elsewhere."
It is always important to remember that writers 2000 years ago did not employ the literary standards of today's Washington Post. They saw nothing wrong with paraphrasing Scripture to emphasize the point in it they wanted to make; they did not think it unorthodox not to quote a text word for word. Also, when they cited (not necessarily quoted) from a string of passages they generally only "credited" the source that was most recognizable or famous. This was not considered improper or deceptive at the time, it was their custom of good writing.
Yes, the evangelist identified the 30 pieces of silver and the potter reference as a Messianic prophecy within an ancient parable from Zechariah. In fact, the passage is very striking: "I said to them, 'If it is good in your sight, give me my wages; but if not, never mind!' So they weighed out thirty shekels of silver as my wages. Then the LORD said to me, 'Throw it to the potter, that magnificent price at which I was valued by them.' So I took the thirty shekels of silver and threw them to the potter in the house of the LORD." (Zechariah 11:12-13)
Interestingly, per your other point Leolaia, not only were the 12 apostles supposed to be shepherds over the fledging Christian church, and Judas turned out to be a loser of a shepherd, but his sherpherd's position was replaced by another in Acts 1:26.