Perhaps, to destroy all of Christianity, all one has to do is find (not subjective allegations) that the gospel writers lied, no?
No, one needs to find concrete and compelling evidence that they were telling the truth.
Are there ANY Bible prophecies that indisputably came true?
by nicolaou 81 Replies latest watchtower bible
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The Almighty Homer
Its quite ironic and somewhat laughable when organized religionists such as the JWS regard every prophecy and story told in the bible as factual reality.
Interpreting mystical folklore as spoken truth can only bring about real problems for humanity and yes we do have proof of that in are history.
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The Almighty Homer
Then the Almighty gods were created out of the minds of the inspired bullshitters of their time.........what you mean there were ancient bullshitters back then too ? .......you bet there were
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ESTEE
ummmmmm . . . NO!
ESTEE
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PrimateDave
The Egypt/Nazareth one:
http://www.danofisrael.com/id84.htmlSorry, the simplistic explanation found at that link may have flown when I was still a JW. Not anymore.
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Leolaia
EverAStudent.....First of all, rest assured that I have no intention of "converting" you away from your faith; I have already said in a prior post that you are perfectly entitled to believe what you believe, and I'm not really expecting to convince you, or anyone else, of my position. What I do hope to do is explain why my position is not logically fallacious, as you have made it out to be, and why it is a feasible and workable hypothesis of what we sometimes find in religious literature (not just in the Bible but throughout Judeo-Christian religious writing), and indeed why it is a simpler, more parsimonious, and less "extraordinary" explanation than one that invokes the supernatural. That doesn't make my position necessarily the correct or true one, but the odds do favor it, all things being equal. That is where your faith comes in; you believe that indeed all things are not equal and that in this particular case, the simpler, less extraordinary explanation is not the correct one. That possibility is not ruled out; that is why I said in my first post that skeptics regard such matters as "not proven" instead of "disproven". But I have not yet seen any indication that your explanation better accounts for the literary evidence than mine; on the contrary, there are many, many literary features (usually not in isolation but predictably patterned) that are neatly explained through my perspective which would otherwise have no apparent explanation.
Second, your characterization of the non-supernaturalist explanation continues to be polemical, inaccurate, and overly simplistic. You insist that it requires authors to have been "liars", collaborators of a "massive conspiracy", who used "subterfuge", but this is a false dilemma; there is no reason to attribute such motives to the authors. Did the rabbis who invented stories about the patriarchs through biblical interpretation believe that they were themselves crafty "liars", or did they instead think that they were discovering hidden truths in the Torah through a particular methodology of interpretation? I already said in my last post that the evangelists regarded the OT as a reliable witness of Jesus Christ; the author of John was explicit on this. I see no reason to think that they would have hesitated in appealing to this source for information about the life of Jesus — a source that was regarded as more reliable than human witnesses. Moreover it is clear that this process of biblical interpretation did not start with the gospel writers but that they were at an endpoint of a very long process of interpretation that started with the witnesses themselves (as Peter is portrayed in Acts) and continued in a social context in which theology and religious meaning were paramount. Why do you think drawing on the OT was intended to "entertain"? It clearly was aimed at drawing out the meaning and significance of the life of Jesus. And there are countless examples in the scientific literature of how memory is influenced strongly by the social context and the meaning one invests in the memory; people are influenced by what they read and hear, and people honestly remember things that never happened. In light of all this, it is hardly inescapable that literary invention necessarily involves deceit. And this doesn't even touch on the fact that in the ancient world, it was normal for historiography and biography to incorporate a good deal of what we would label as fiction; I think it is important to understand the cultural context, otherwise we just impose our own modern assumptions and sensibilities. For a fuller discussion of these matters, you may take a look at my posts in this thread:
http://www.jehovahs-witness.net/watchtower/bible/167595/1/Are-the-gospels-just-midrash
Let me refer once again to the events surrounding Jesus birth and childhood. Since both "Matthew" and "Luke" claim that prophecies were fulfilled in the birth and early childhood of Jesus, why do their stories differ on so many counts. For one example: Did Jesus and his parents go to Egypt or Nazareth?
PrimateDave.....I'm glad you mentioned this example because it is precisely the kind of phenomenon that is better explained by the thesis of OT influence in narrative composition than by the alternative (i.e. that the nativity of Jesus fulfilled "Bible prophecy"). If you carefully look at the intertexts and traditions involved in the two accounts, you will see that narrative features in Matthew and Luke parallel entirely distinct sets of intertexts and traditions; the former parallels those pertaining to Moses and the latter parallels those pertaining to Samuel. While the two stories contain common material, the Moses-linked material in Matthew is never found in Luke, and vice versa, the Samuel-linked material in Luke is never found in Matthew. This is neatly accounted by the fact that the author of Matthew drew on traditions pertaining to Moses and Luke drew on traditions pertaining to Samuel. But if we adopt EverAStudent's position, this patterning has no obvious explanation since the historical Jesus would have fulfilled both sets of "prophecies" and one would need to explain why one author carefully omitted all mention of anything that is paralleled the OT intertexts and traditions used by the author of the other gospel. And also problematic for the "biblical prophecy" thesis is that the Moses-linked material in Matthew is not limited to strictly biblical intertexts but extends considerably to extrabiblical (apocryphal) tradition. This means that stories devised through midrashic interpretation of OT stories (a process of interpretation that yields "fiction", what EverAStudent regards as "lying"), devised long after the composition of the original OT stories, were themselves "prophetic" of Jesus.
Details found here: http://www.jehovahs-witness.net/jw/friends/168595/1/What-is-jw-theory-on-magi
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Borgia
Ever a student said:
First, nothing is indisputable.
I do not agree. Here is a bible prophesy that does come true: you reap what you sow. I guess that's quite indisputable ....
Cheers
Borgia
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Awen
IMO, ONE particular is being fulfilled right now.
Now you must understand that since JW's identify themselves as YHWH's only true worshippers, this lines them up to be part of prophecy. They become accountable to GOD for their actions or inactions. All the prophecies in the OT which refers to judgement on a wayward people, which JW's apply to Christendom, actually apply to JW's, this being because of their habit of identifying themselves the same way the ancient Israelites did.
Since only the GB lays claim to being part of the 144k annointed ones and most JW's being "Other Sheep", the following prophecy most clearly pertains to JW's (although others could be guilty of this as well). Mind you, no scripture in the Bible speaks of there being an earthly representative on earth who speaks in GOD's name in the last days. Yet Jesus spoke on the presumptousness of these ones and how they should govern his flock, but what many do instead and why. Keep in mind JW's falsely prophesied the Lord's return in 1914 and since then have changed doctrine to support the apparent delay in the Kingdom being established.
Matthew 24:45-51
"Who then is the faithful and sensible slave who his master put in charge of his household to give then their food at the proper time? Blessed is that slave whom his master finds doing so when he comes. "Truly I say to you that he will put him in charge of all his possessions. But if ever that evil slave should say in his heart "My master is not coming for a long time", and begins to beat his fellowe slaves and begins to eat and drink with the drunkards", the master of the slave will come on a day the slave does not expect him and at an hour he does not know, and will cut him in pieces and assign him a place with the hypocrites; in that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth".
In recent years the WT falsely proclaimed that the Lord inspected his belongings and found them in good steed and then placed them over all his belongings. History proves this as incorrect as the 1k reign has not yet begun nor did Jesus return, because if he had, then all the events that immediately follow that return, (such as described in Revelation) would have occurred, which obviously they haven't.
Whether JW's are or are not YHWH's true servants is quite relavant, in that the Israelites were unfaithful as well and were disciplined many times for their wayward course. The WT somehow thinks they are exempt from any reproof and demonizes Christendom for it's many crimes throughout history, yet during the past century the WT has duplicated many of those crimes, yet unlike Christendom who has admitted fault and made some reparation, the WT covers evertything up.
Hence the fulfillment of the "beating their fellow slaves". Also since their dating system is flawed, Jesus plainly says that his slave would not know when he would return and his slave's actgions toward fellow believers would be because according to the slave's reckoning, Jesus was delaying.
In previous verses, Matthew 24:15-28 Jesus commands his servants to flee from the apostasy of Jerusalem, unless they want to share in her sins also. Jerusalem being the Governing Body and those Annointed who support them thru direct action or inaction.
Online discussion groups (such as this one) that speak out against the WT atrocities and the many lawsuits leveled towards them, show without a doubt the ongoing fulfillment of this prophecy.
"Let the reader use discernment"