Talk:Biblical prophecies

Destruction of Egypt reference
First, reference [6] seems to have been taken down/deleted/moved etc. So can someone fix that?

It has come to my attention that reference [7] about Amasis II can not be verified, so any reference to it is invalid. I say this because the opening line on him states 'Most of our information about him is derived from Herodotus (2.161ff) and can only be imperfectly verified by monumental evidence.' In the Encyclopaedia Britannica (1959, Vol. 8, p. 62) it comments about Herodotus history of this period; 'His statements prove not entirely reliable when they can be checked by the scanty native evidence'. Is there any sturdy evidence or history records so as to justly categorize the prophecy as either failed or not? - 22:30, 29 August 2014

Nostradamus quote
According to http://urbanlegends.about.com/cs/historical/a/nostradamus_2.htm, the quote from the first paragraph is a hoax. If this is the case, it should be removed. If it's true, a reliable source would be useful.

city of tyre
In 586 BC (confirmed by secular sources as the 11th year of the reign of King Zedekiah of Judah), "Ezekiel" predicts the fall of mainland Tyre to the Babylonian armies of Nebuchadnezzar. 5 The text further describes the siege against the island fortress of Tyre (a half mile off the coast of mainland Tyre) hundreds of years later. Ezekiel's prophecy describes how the future invaders would tear down the ruins of mainland Tyre and throw them into the sea. They would "scrape her dust from her and leave her as the top of a rock". 6 "They will lay your stones, your timber, and your soil in the midst of the water." "I will make you like the top of a rock; you shall be a place for spreading nets." 7

Secular history records that Nebuchadnezzar laid siege to the great mainland city of Tyre about a year after Ezekiel's prophecy. The Encyclopedia Britannica says: "After a 13-year siege (585-573 BC) by Nebuchadnezzar II, Tyre made terms and acknowledged Babylonian suzerainty." 8 When Nebuchadnezzar broke through the city gates, he found it nearly empty. Most of the people had moved by ship to an island about a half mile off the coast and fortified a city there. The mainland city was destroyed in 573 BC (Ezekiel's first prediction), but the city of Tyre on the island remained a powerful city for several hundred years.

Secular history next records that "Alexander the Great" laid siege to the island fortress of Tyre in 332 BC. His army destroyed the remains of mainland Tyre and threw them into the Mediterranean Sea. As Alexander's army constructed a causeway to the island, they scraped even the dust from the mainland city, leaving only bare rock. Historian Phillip Myers in his history textbook, General History for Colleges and High Schools, writes, "Alexander the Great reduced Tyre to ruins in 332 BC. Tyre recovered in a measure from this blow, but never regained the place she had previously held in the world. The larger part of the site of the once great city is now as bare as the top of a rock -- a place where the fishermen that still frequent the spot spread their nets to dry

Mistranslation: Ezekiel 30:12 doesn't say the Nile will dry up
The verse says "ונתתי יארים חרבה" - And I will make the rivers dry. It does not say anything about the Nile specifically.

Some (mis)translations do mention Nile, but KJV is not one of them. Most translations including JPS do not include the word Nile.

The word Ye'or does not necessarily mean Nile, it just means; river, stream, canal, channel, waterway, shaft, etc. (In the bible it often refers to the Nile, but that's not what the word itself means.) The Hebrew word for Nile is נִילוֹס.

The prophecy against Tyre was fulfilled to the letter
Therefore thus saith the Lord God; Behold, I am against thee, O Tyrus, and will cause MANY NATIONS to come up against thee, as the sea causeth his waves to come up. And THEY  shall destroy the walls of Tyrus, and break down her towers: I will also scrape her dust from her, and make her like the top of a rock. It shall be a place for the spreading of nets in the midst of the sea: for I have spoken it, saith the Lord God: and it shall become a SPOIL to THE NATIONS. And her daughters which are in the field shall be slain by the sword; and they shall know that I am the Lord. For thus saith the Lord GOD; Behold, I will bring upon Tyrus Nebuchadrezzar   king of Babylon, a king of kings, from the north, with horses, and with chariots, and with horsemen, and companies, and much people. He  shall slay with the sword thy daughters in the field: and   he   shall make a fort against thee, and cast a mount against thee, and lift up the buckler against thee. And  he   shall set engines of war against thy walls, and with his axes   he   shall break down thy towers. By reason of the abundance of  his   horses their dust shall cover thee: thy walls shall shake at the noise of the horsemen, and of the wheels, and of the chariots, when   he   shall enter into thy gates, as men enter into a city wherein is made a breach. With the hoofs of  his   horses shall   he   tread down all thy streets:   he   shall slay thy people by the sword, and thy strong garrisons shall go down to the ground. And THEY shall make a SPOIL of thy riches, and make a prey of thy merchandise: and THEY  shall break down thy walls, and destroy thy pleasant houses: and   THEY  shall lay thy stones and thy timber and thy dust in the midst of the water. And I will cause the noise of thy songs to cease; and the sound of thy harps shall be no more heard. And I will make thee like the top of a rock: thou shalt be a place to spread nets upon; thou shalt be built no more: for I the LORD have spoken it, saith the Lord GOD.

In this Bible text, Yahweh foretold that Tyre would be attacked by “many nations”, including Babylon under Nebuchadnezzar, and that, ultimately, it would be utterly destroyed, its rocks being thrown into the sea. In the 6th century BCE,, king of Babylon, besieged Tyre for 13 years and conquered it but most of the inhabitants escaped to a nearby island. However, the prophecy that Tyre would be thrown into the sea was not yet fulfilled.

A little more than two century later (332 BCE),, in , took the ruins of the town on the continent, and built a mole across the strait. states that Alexander “completely destroyed the mainland portion of the town and used its rubble to build an immense causeway (some 2,600 feet [800 metres] long and 600–900 feet [180–270 metres] wide) to gain access to the island section.”

Some argue that Ezekiel’s prophecy has failed because its fulfillment cannot be totally attributed to Nebuchadnezzar, a fact that seems to be in contradiction which Ezekiel 26:7-14, but they miss the following points:


 * 1) Ezekiel 26:3-6 explicitly indicated that “many nations” would “come up against” Tyre “and they shall destroy the walls of Tyrus, and break down her towers” and make it “a place for the spreading of nets in the midst of the sea”. In other words : one should not expect the prophecy to be totally fulfilled by Nebuchadnezzar alone.


 * 1) The portion of the prophecy that can be applied to Nebuchadnezzar alone is clearly delimited from verses 7 to 11 by the use of the third person singular pronoun "he" while the other protagonists that would come up against Tyre are referred to using the third person plural pronoun "they".
 * 1) Ezekiel was contemporary to Nebuchadnezzar and his siege to the city of Tyre was certainly imminent when the prophecy was spoken. Therefore, in verse 7, Ezekiel focuses on the Babylonian king, revealing that, among the “many nations”, Babylon would be giving the first blow. Then, in verses 12-14 he reaffirms what is written in verses 3-5, speaking of the nations (plural) "making a spoil of its riches" and throwing its stones, timber and dust "in the midst of the water".
 * 1) The expression “many nations” does apply here : firstly because Alexander the Great was originally king of Macedonia while Nebuchadnezzar was king of Babylon, secondly because Alexander the Great formed his army and navy out of many nations he had already subdued and thirdly because the king of Cyprus also joined the battle providing 120 war ships to defeat Tyre and also did a couple of other Mediterranean cities such as Aradus, Byblus, Sidon, Ehode, Soli and Mallus :

{{cquote| But Alexander began to construct a wider mole from the mainland, capable of containing more towers; and he ordered the engine-makers to prepare fresh engines. While this was being performed, he took the shield-bearing guards and the Agrianians and set out to Sidon, to collect there all the triremes he could ; since it was evident that the successful conclusion of the siege would be much more difficult to attain, so long as the Tyrians retained the superiority at sea. About this time Gerostratus, King of Aradus, and Enylus, King of Byblus, ascertaining that their cities were in the possession of Alexander, deserted Autophradates and the fleet under his command, and came to Alexander with their naval force, accompanied by the Sidonian triremes ; so that about eighty Phoenician ships joined him. About the same time triremes also came to him from Ehodes, both the one called Peripolus} and with it nine others. From Soli and Mallus also came three, and from Lycia ten; from Macedonia also a ship with fifty oars, in which sailed Proteas, son of Andronicus. Not long after, too, the kings of Cyprus put into Sidon with about one hundred and twenty ships, when they heard of the defeat of Darius at Issus, and were terrified, because the whole of Phoenicia was already in the possession of Alexander. |||[https://archive.org/stream/cu31924026460752/cu31924026460752_djvu.txt The Anabasis of Alexander; or, The history of the wars and conquests of Alexander the Great. Literally translated, with a commentary, from the Greek of Arrian, the Nicomedian|CHAPTER XX : Tyre Besieged hy Sea as well as Land (125)]}}

Another argument used against this prophecy is the fact there is still a city where ancient Tyre used to be. Yet, the ancient Phoenician city of Tyre destroyed by Nebucadnezzar and Alexander the Great was never rebuilt as suggested by Encyclopædia Britannica : Excavations have uncovered remains of the Greco-Roman, Crusader, Arab, and Byzantine civilizations, but most of the remains of the Phoenician period lie beneath the present town.

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I haven't written on that topic yet but the prophecies of Daniel, especially Daniel 2 and 7, were also fulfilled with stupendous accuracy. Yet they were not just predicting a single event but rather a succesion of consecutive events spanning several thousands of years (altough beware that many interpretations of the prophecies of Daniel you may read are deliberately misleading to move the focus away from those whose evil rule during the dark ages was foretold).

The Bible is really unique among all other religious books in its ability to predict the future. As matter of fact the God of the Bible tells us we can test him by His ability to predict the future.

'Who is like Me? Let him proclaim and declare it; Yes, let him recount it to Me in order, From the time that I established the ancient nation. And let them declare to them the things that are coming And the events that are going to take place.


 * }

...Seriously?
Okay, I'm going to give you people the same response I give a flat-Earther whenever they talk about the Bible referring to the "four corners of the Earth":

Haven't you ever heard of idioms, figures of speech, or Hyperbole? The Biblical authors used those, just like you do in your daily life, or literally anyone and everyone else ever. How is God saying "Nobody will walk through Egypt" any different from a company coming up with a new product and saying to their rivals "nobody will buy your stuff anymore"? I won't deny that "symbolic" was a terrible way of phrasing it, but come on here, people. When Jesus said that we were to be "like doves," he didn't mean that we were to lay eggs, now did he?

Additionally, Nothing in the passage about Nebbuchanezzar attacking Tyre indicates that Tyre will be completely destroyed, nor does it indicate that it will stay that way forever. As you yourself have acknowledged here, Nebby was whacking the crap out of that place for over an entire decade before they surrendered. I personally find it hard to picture a city going through that sort of damage that wouldn't fit the description of that prophesy. When it says "the sounds of they harps shall no more be heard," it's probably referencing the simple fact that nobody would leisurely play music like that if their city was being torn apparat around them (Nero notwistanding). Now if it had instead said "the sounds of thy harps shall never be heard hence, then we would have a problem.

Also consider the fact that many another passage you might call out as being inaccurate may potentially have simply been an common idiom at the time. Like if a '90s kid says "we're gonna party so hard, we'll raise the roof!" this should not be taken to mean that a '90s kids' idea of a good time is modifying a given building's architecture.

Another example I like to give is Shakespeare. There is a scene in Hamlet where the titular character is breaking up with his sweetheart, and he tells her "get thee to a nunnery." Now if I handed you an unmodified version of the play's script that had no commentary or anything, you'd probably read right past that without it ever entering your mind that he meant anything other than that she should become a nun so as to protect herself from men. However, any shakspearean scholar will tell you that in the time and place that the play was written, "nunnery" was slang for "whorehouse". The Bible is saturated with cases like these.

Come to think of it, you guys talk a lot of talk about being so ready to change your beliefs as skeptics, and yet I've seen many an article with an item in the talk page that completely obliterates something in the main page, and yet the item has no refutations and the thing in the main page remains there.Skadooshbag (talk) 09:38, 17 April 2018 (UTC)


 * Figures of speech may be so (where is TrumpWall?) but are not prophecies (beyond 'The best laid plans of mice and men go oft astray' etc), - but 'I thought this was Rationalwiki' - drink. Anna Livia (talk) 19:51, 17 April 2020 (UTC)

Qur'an and other stuff.
It occurs to me that many religions maintain that miracles show that their religion/god is the only true one.

Typically, those supporting these stories maintain that "theirs" are proof of the correctness of their beliefs while maintaining that those of other religions are the inventions which they clearly are. It occurs to me that we should perhaps be combining "fulfilled" prophesies from various religions so that when supporters come round claiming the accuracy of their prophecies they will need to explain why those of their competitor religions are wrong.

Some obvious problems are that the article is already pretty big and I'm guessing that we don't really have much knowledge of non-Christian prophecies. Obviously we would need to rename as well.Bob"Life is short and (insert adjective)" 16:23, 6 May 2020 (UTC)

Jeremiah's failed 70 year prophecy should be added.
Jeremiah predicted that Israel would return to their homelands from Babylonian captivity after 70 years from the time of their capture.

Should we add that failed predictions?

73.106.76.255 (talk) 21:50, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

Unexplained content removal
What’s this about ? Christopher (talk) 21:53, 13 April 2021 (UTC)
 * Agree, reverting the removal of the content until it is explained. Kauri0.o (talk) 00:06, 14 April 2021 (UTC)
 * I originally added the content, and I kind of wanted all my edits to the mainspace to be reverted. If you insist against that action, then I'll leave it as is. Nebuchadnezzar7658 (talk) 00:45, 14 April 2021 (UTC)