But just imagine how breathtakingly specific a work of prophecy could be if it were actually the product of omniscience. If the Bible were such a book, it would make specific, falsifiable predictions about human events. You would expect it to contain a passage like, "In the latter half of the twentieth century, humankind will develop a globally linked system of computers-the principles of which I set forth in Leviticus-and this system shall be called the Internet." The Bible contains nothing remotely like this. In fact, it does not contain a single sentence that could not have been written by a man or woman living in the first century.In response, Steve Hays complains that, "Harris has done nothing to disprove the argument from prophecy. No attempt to deal with the actual prophecies of Scripture. Instead, he’s changing the subject." Then he makes some irrelevant remarks that do not attempt to deal with Harris' point--or more likely fail to do so out of sheer ignorance. Here's me enlightening him.
If a prophecy is not falsifiable, it is as worthless as a newspaper astrology column. Making a prediction specific enough to be understood in advance is hard. Re-interpreting a text to make it predict past events is easy, and the techniques (like shoehorining) are well-understood. It can be done with Nostradamus and Biblical acrostics. It can be done to fit normal Biblical prophecies to non-religious figures like Napoleon.
Because of this problem, sensible people demand that it be possible to correctly interpret Biblical prophecies in advance. Ergo, all prophecies regarding Jesus fail, since the Jews of Jesus' day, "had no conception of a dying, much less a rising, Messiah" (to quote WL Craig, who thinks this counts in favor of Christianity).
3 comments:
Actually, the Bible does contain a number of falsifiable prophecies. The problem is that they've all been proven false. Consider, for example, the numerous times Jesus tells His followers that The Second Coming will happen in their lifetimes. In Matthew 24:34, Jesus says, "Truly I say to you, this generation will not pass away until all these things take place."
Matthew 24 and Revelation 1 both talk a lot about signs of Christ's return. The specific signs are laughably vague, but it is unmistakeably clear that Jesus's return will happen within the lifetime of His disciples. ("Every eye will see, even those who pierced Him", "I, John, your brother and fellow partaker in the tribulation", etc.)
Well, yes, but then these things are reinterpreted by Christians, making them non-falsifiable.
Actually, the presently popular interpretation of those texts that prophecy a soon coming of Christ are the re-interpreations.
Thus, your examples of prophecies that have been falsified are just ad hoc answers to ad hoc interpretations.
Many Christians of the past and present have held that these verses were fulfilled in the first century, just as the words say: "Truly I say to you, this generation will not pass away until all these things take place."
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