¨Prophecies vague?
Dec 3, 2014 17:34:54 GMT -5
Post by Admin on Dec 3, 2014 17:34:54 GMT -5
QUESTION: Are bible prophecies specific and can any be proven to have been fulfilled?
There are hundreds of prophecies in the bible, some of them extremely specific. For example:
** Prophecy: THE DESTRUCTION OF JERUSALEM: * Prophecy: “A time is coming when everything in your palace, which your ancestors have stored up to this day, will be carried off to Babylon; nothing will be left behind.’”—Isaiah 39:5, 6, prophesied c. 732 B.C.E.
“I am going to . . . bring them [the Babylonians] against this land and its inhabitants . . . This whole land shall be a desolate ruin. And those nations shall serve the king of Babylon seventy years.”—Jeremiah 25:9, 11, prophesied b. 625 B.C.E.
==>Fulfillment— 607 B.C.E. (586 B.C.E. according to most secular chronologies): Babylon destroyed Jerusalem after a year and a half siege. The city and temple were razed, and the Jews themselves were carried off to Babylon.
** THE NAMING OF "CYRUS" THE JEWISH LIBERATOR: The book of Isaiah, named CYRUS as being the individual that would liberate the Jews from Babylonian captivity and this two hundred years before his birth. This is comparable to Benajamin Franklin naming and fortelling the role of Adolf Hitler during the second world war.
PROPHECY c. 732 B.C.E:
==> "the cities of Judah, ‘They will be rebuilt, [...] Cyrus, ‘He is my shepherd, and all that I delight in he will completely carry out’; even in [my] saying of Jerusalem, ‘She will be rebuilt,’
FULFILLMENT: ==> Jews released by Cyrus in 539 as prophecied, exactly seventy years after their being taken into capitivey. Historical evidenceThe Cyrus Cylinder preserves a cuneiform record Cyrus restorational policies.
**Prophecy: THE DIVERSION OF THE EUPHRATES & UNDEFENDED GATES OF THE CAPITAL (during the Persian invasion of Babylon) "must be dried up," and that "the gates [of Babylon] will not be shut."—Jeremiah 50:38; Isaiah 13:17-19; 44:27-45:1.
==>Fulfillment—These specific details were fulfilled, as the historian Herodotus reported.
**Prophecy: THE EMERGENCE OF GREECE AS A WORLD POWER AFTER MEDO-PERSIA (and the early death of Alexandra the Great, and his succession by 4 of his Generals) " There will yet be three kings[...] the fourth one will amass greater riches than all [others]. [...]the kingdom of Greece... his kingdom will be broken and be divided toward the four winds of the heavens". - Daniel 11: 1, 2, 4)
prophesied c. 536 bc
==>Fulfillment (200 years later) — 323 - 301 bc
historical texts of Plutarch and Ptolemy (and others...)
There are hundreds of prophecies in the bible, some of them extremely specific. For example:
** Prophecy: THE DESTRUCTION OF JERUSALEM: * Prophecy: “A time is coming when everything in your palace, which your ancestors have stored up to this day, will be carried off to Babylon; nothing will be left behind.’”—Isaiah 39:5, 6, prophesied c. 732 B.C.E.
“I am going to . . . bring them [the Babylonians] against this land and its inhabitants . . . This whole land shall be a desolate ruin. And those nations shall serve the king of Babylon seventy years.”—Jeremiah 25:9, 11, prophesied b. 625 B.C.E.
==>Fulfillment— 607 B.C.E. (586 B.C.E. according to most secular chronologies): Babylon destroyed Jerusalem after a year and a half siege. The city and temple were razed, and the Jews themselves were carried off to Babylon.
** THE NAMING OF "CYRUS" THE JEWISH LIBERATOR: The book of Isaiah, named CYRUS as being the individual that would liberate the Jews from Babylonian captivity and this two hundred years before his birth. This is comparable to Benajamin Franklin naming and fortelling the role of Adolf Hitler during the second world war.
PROPHECY c. 732 B.C.E:
==> "the cities of Judah, ‘They will be rebuilt, [...] Cyrus, ‘He is my shepherd, and all that I delight in he will completely carry out’; even in [my] saying of Jerusalem, ‘She will be rebuilt,’
FULFILLMENT: ==> Jews released by Cyrus in 539 as prophecied, exactly seventy years after their being taken into capitivey. Historical evidenceThe Cyrus Cylinder preserves a cuneiform record Cyrus restorational policies.
**Prophecy: THE DIVERSION OF THE EUPHRATES & UNDEFENDED GATES OF THE CAPITAL (during the Persian invasion of Babylon) "must be dried up," and that "the gates [of Babylon] will not be shut."—Jeremiah 50:38; Isaiah 13:17-19; 44:27-45:1.
==>Fulfillment—These specific details were fulfilled, as the historian Herodotus reported.
**Prophecy: THE EMERGENCE OF GREECE AS A WORLD POWER AFTER MEDO-PERSIA (and the early death of Alexandra the Great, and his succession by 4 of his Generals) " There will yet be three kings[...] the fourth one will amass greater riches than all [others]. [...]the kingdom of Greece... his kingdom will be broken and be divided toward the four winds of the heavens". - Daniel 11: 1, 2, 4)
prophesied c. 536 bc
==>Fulfillment (200 years later) — 323 - 301 bc
historical texts of Plutarch and Ptolemy (and others...)