Bible Prophecy Can Be Trusted

[Fortigurn]

For myself, some of the most signficant evidence for the existence of God, and the validity of the Bible, is Bible prophecy.

Through an understanding of Bible prophecy, certain events have been known and predicted long before they occurred, such as:

* The fall of Rome (476 AD)
* The end of the expansion of the Turkish empire near the close of the 17th century
* The French Revolution
* The return of the Jews to their land
* The rise of the European Union

Discussions regarding foreknowledge and determinism aside, I believe that Bible prophecy reliably, and demonstrably predicted these events.

[Fortigurn]

One of the various prophesies regarding the fall of Jerusalem in 70 AD, and the exile of the Jewish people, is here:

Luke 21:
24 They will fall by the edge of the sword and be led away as captives among all nations. Jerusalem will be trampled down by the Gentiles until the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled.

In the next century, the Jewish people attempted a revolt in Israel, which was finally crushed in 135 AD:

132-135 AD: The Bar Kochba revolt in Israel is crushed by Rome

* The Romans rename Jerusalem 'Aelia Capitolina'
* Jews are forbidden to live there, and the city is surrounded by a wall
* Thousands of Jews are sold into slavery outside Israel
* It is forbidden to teach the Jewish religion or read the Scriptures
* Pagan temples are built in Jerusalem, including on the Temple site
* Jews are forbidden to return on pain of death

Subsequent to these events, the idea of a return of the Jews to their land, and the restoration of their nation, became laughable.

[Fortigurn]

So complete was the devastation of the Jewish people, that most of them never expected to return again. Commenting on one of the many 'exile' prophecies of the Bible, Rabbi Shlomo Yitzchaki expressed his despair over the plight of his people:

Leviticus 26:
33 I will scatter you among the nations and unsheathe the sword after you, so your land will become desolate and your cities will become a waste.

'The passage is terrible in its content. When the citizens of one country are exiled, they are sent to the same distant spot: they are able to comfort each other with their own presence.

Whereas Israel is scattered like chaff, with no one piece coming into contact with the others.'

Rabbi Shlomo Yitzchaki, otherwise known as 'Rashi', commentary on Leviticus 26:33, 1040-1105 AD

The Jewish people were scattered and persecuted for so many centuries, that finally even they themselves gave up hope that they would ever return.

[Fortigurn]

They were persecuted by Christians:

'The Jews' guilt of the crucifixion of Jesus consigned them to perpetual servitude, and, like Cain, they are to be wanderers and fugitives.

The Jews will not dare to raise their necks, bowed under the yoke of perpetual slavery, against the reverence of the Christian faith.'

Pope Innocent III, 1237

'Set Jewish synagogues on fire for the honor of God. God will see we are Christians when we get rid of the Jews. Likewise homes should be destroyed; they should be put in a stable; they are not heirs of promises of God and deserve to die.'

Martin Luther, 1543

By Deists:

'It is much to be lamented that each state, long ago, has not hunted them down as pest to society and the greatest enemies we have to the happiness of America.'

George Washington, 1732 —1799

'I fully agree with General Washington, that we must protect this young nation from an insidious influence and impenetration.

The menace, gentlemen, is the Jews.'

Benjamin Franklin, 1787

By atheists:

'The Jews could be put down very plausibly as the most unpleasant race ever heard of. As commonly encountered they lack many of the qualities that mark the civilized man: courage, dignity, incorruptibility, ease, confidence.'

HL Mencken, 1880-1956

'The Jews are worse than my own people. Those Jews who still want to be the chosen race (chosen by the late Lord Balfour) can go to Palestine and stew in their own juice.

The rest had better stop being Jews and start being human beings.'

George Bernard Shaw, 1932

[Fortigurn]

But even those who scorned them could not explain their survival. Friend and foe alike realised that this was a unique people:

'If statistics are right, the Jews constitute but one percent of the human race. It suggests a nebulous dim puff of stardust lost in the blaze of the Milky way.

Properly, the Jew ought hardly to be heard of, but he is heard of, has always been heard of.

[…]

He has made a marvelous fight in this world, in all the ages; and had done it with his hands tied behind him. He could be vain of himself, and be excused for it.'

Mark Twain, 'Concerning The Jews', Harper's Magazine, 1898

'The Egyptian, the Babylonian, and the Roman followed, and made a vast noise, and they are gone. Other peoples have sprung up and held their torch high for a time, but it burned out, and they sit in twilight now, or have vanished.

The Jew saw them all, beat them all, and is now what he always was, exhibiting no decadence, no infirmities of age, no weakening of his parts, no slowing of his energies, no dulling of his alert and aggressive mind.

All things are mortal but the Jew; all other forces pass, but he remains.

What is the secret of his immortality?'

Mark Twain, 'Concerning The Jews', Harper's Magazine, 1898, emphasis added

'Some people like the Jews, and some do not. But no thoughtful man can deny the fact that they are, beyond any question, the most formidable and the most remarkable race which has appeared in the world.'

Winston Churchill, as quoted by Geoffry Wheatcroft, 'The Controversy of Zion', 1996, emphasis added[/i]

'It was in vain that we locked them up for several hundred years behind the walls of the Ghetto. No sooner were their prison gates unbarred than they easily caught up with us, even on those paths which we opened up without their aid.'

Anatole Leroy Beaulieu, 'Israel among the nations', 1893

'It is certain that in certain parts of the world we can see a peculiar people, separated from the other peoples of the world and this is called the Jewish people...

This people is not only of remarkable antiquity but has also lasted for a singular! long time...

For where as the people of Greece and Italy, of Sparta, Athens and Rome and others who came so much later have perished so long ago, these still exist, despite the efforts of so many powerful kings who have tried a hundred times to wipe them out, as their historians testify, and as can easily be judged by the natural order of things over such a long spell of years.

They have always been preserved, however, and their preservation was foretold... My encounter with this people amazes me...'

Blaise Pascal, 'Pensees', Penguin edition, 1968, emphasis added

'The study of history of Europe during the past centuries teaches us one uniform lesson: That the nations which received and in any way dealt fairly and mercifully with the Jew have prospered; and that the nations that have tortured and oppressed him have written out their own curse.'

Olive Schreiner, as quoted by Chief Rabbi JH Hertz, 1872-1946

'The Jew is the emblem of eternity. He who neither slaughter nor torture of thousands of years could destroy, he who neither fire, nor sword, nor Inquisition was able to wipe off the face of the earth.

He who was the first to produce the Oracles of God. He who has been for so long the Guardian of Prophecy and has transmitted it to the rest of the world.

Such a nation cannot be destroyed. The Jew is as everlasting as Eternity itself.'

Leo Tolstoy, 1828-1910, emphasis added

[Fortigurn]

Yet so complete was the destruction of their nation, and so horrific was the nature of their exile, that many people - even Christians - believed they would never return again:

'…they have been cast out, dispersed, and utterly rejected for almost fifteen hundred years.

By virtue of their own merits they still hope to return there again. But they have no such promise with which they could console themselves other than what their false imagination smuggles into Scripture.

[…]

But during the past fifteen hundred years not even a dog, much less a prophet, has any assurance concerning the land. Therefore the scepter has now definitely departed from Judah.'

Martin Luther, 'On The Jews And Their Lies', 1543, emphasis added

'These persons must be informed that the kingdom of Israel was led into captivity and destroyed, that it never returned home and never will return home...'

Martin Luther, 'On The Jews And Their Lies', 1543, emphasis added

For centuries this falsehood was repeated:

'I also saw that old Jerusalem would never be built up and that Satan was doing the utmost to lead the minds of the children of the Lord into these things now in the gathering time, to keep them from throwing their interests into the work of the Lord and to cause them to neglect the necessary preparation.'

Ellen G White 'Early Writings', page 75, 1882, emphasis added

Many Christians remained blind to the Scriptural prophecies:

'Certain prophecies of Ezekiel are sometimes cited as lending support to the idea of the future re-constitution and earthly dominion of the Jewish nation.

But on the contrary, they contain many clear warnings of judgments to come upon the house of Israel and the city of Jerusalem; and they also contain predictions - not so clear perhaps as threatened judgments, because they are capable, like other O.T. prophecies, of being interpreted according to the desires of the carnal Jewish mind - concerning the recovery that was to be accomplished through the work of the coming Redeemer.'

Philip Mauro, 'The Hope of Israel', chapter XI, 1922, emphasis added

'What then does the New Testament say as to the reconstitution hereafter of the Jewish nation; as to the re-occupation by that nation of the land of Canaan… not one word.'

'Therefore, no other conclusion is possible from a careful examination of the Scriptures cited in the article we are discussing, than that the doctrine of a yet future restoration of the Jewish nation has not a scriptural leg to stand upon.'

Philip Mauro, 'The Hope of Israel', chapters XIII, and XIX, 1922, emphasis added

'The facts and prophecies prove that natural Jews will never again be a chosen regathered people.'

'Let God Be True', Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society, page 208, 1946[/b], emphasis added

Blinded by dogma, prejudice, or both, these scoffers were among many who refused to believe that the Jews would ever return to their land.

With over 1,500 years of Jewish exile to point to as evidence, it is no wonder that many agreed with them. The very idea seemed utterly ridiculous. It was not forseeable, humanly speaking.

[Fortigurn]

But God had not forgotten His people:

Jeremiah 33:25-26

“But I, the Lord, make the following promise:

I have made an agreement governing the coming of day and night. And I have established the fixed laws governing heaven and earth.

Just as surely as I have done this, so surely will I never reject the descendants of Jacob.

Nor will I ever refuse to choose one of my servant David's descendants to rule over the descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

Indeed, I will restore them and show mercy to them.”

Ezekiel 37:12, 21

'Therefore prophesy, and tell them, 'This is what the Sovereign Lord says: Look, I am opening your graves and will raise you from your graves, my people. I will bring you to the land of Israel.

Then tell them, 'This is what the Sovereign Lord says: Look, I am taking the Israelites from among the nations where they have gone. I will gather them from round about and bring them to their land.'

Careful students of Bible prophecy had been predicting this event for centuries:

1605 Thomas Brightman
1621 Sir Henry Finch
1649 Cartwright
1649 John Owen
1654 Thomas Goodwin
1657 James Durham
1685 Matthew Poole
1695 William Torrey
1754 Thomas Newton
1758 T Osborne
1763 Lachlan Taylor
1798 James Bicheno
1804 William Burkitt
1821 Archibald Mason
1831 Alexander Keith
1854 J C Philpot
1848 John Thomas
1862 Edward Elliott
1870 David Steele
1888 Grattan Guinness

In 1897 the 1st Zionist Congress was held, which made the proposal to re-establish Israel as a Jewish homeland.

Even then it seemed hopeless, especially since the Muslim Turks held Palestine.

But careful Bible students had been predicting for centuries that the Turkish power would be removed from Palestine, and that the British would be instrumental in restoring the Jewish people to their land.

We know it came to pass. Bible prophecy was vindicated.

[SUGAAAAA]

yes... and also Daniel 9:25-29, which predicts the exact year, month, and day that the Messiah would enter into Jerusalem and be killed.

[Fortigurn]

From Bible prophecy, the following men predicted accurately the fall of Rome by a disintegration into individual nation states (rather than by the conquest of another empire):

180 Irenaeus
185 Tertullian
c. 194 Clement
200 Hippolytus
c. 230 Origen
280 Methodius
300 Victorinus
306 Lactantius
330 Eusebius
c. 347 Cyril
c. 350 Aphrahat
401 Severus
407 John Chrysostom
340-420 Jerome
c. 450 Theodoret
354-430 Augustine

Note that this prediction was made centuries prior to the actual fall of Rome.

[puritan lad]

For myself, some of the most signficant evidence for the existence of God, and the validity of the Bible, is Bible prophecy.

Through an understanding of Bible prophecy, certain events have been known and predicted long before they occurred, such as:

* The fall of Rome (476 AD)
* The end of the expansion of the Turkish empire near the close of the 17th century
* The French Revolution
* The return of the Jews to their land
* The rise of the European Union

Discussions regarding foreknowledge and determinism aside, I believe that Bible prophecy reliably, and demonstrably predicted these events.

Nice Guesswork :)

I agree, however, that Bible Prophecy is Reliable.

[Fortigurn]

For myself, some of the most signficant evidence for the existence of God, and the validity of the Bible, is Bible prophecy.

Through an understanding of Bible prophecy, certain events have been known and predicted long before they occurred, such as:

* The fall of Rome (476 AD)
* The end of the expansion of the Turkish empire near the close of the 17th century
* The French Revolution
* The return of the Jews to their land
* The rise of the European Union

Discussions regarding foreknowledge and determinism aside, I believe that Bible prophecy reliably, and demonstrably predicted these events.

Nice Guesswork

When they pile up like that, it begins to look like something other than guesswork.

These men saw the French Revlution coming in the 17th century, when it looked unthinkable. They saw the European Union coming in the 16th century, when Europe was still at war.

They saw the Turks driven out of Palestine, and the Jews re-established in their land, in the 17th century, just after men like Luther had been dogmatically asserting it wouldn't happen, and while the Turkish empire was one of the most dominant forces in the Western world.

This wasn't guesswork.

[puritan lad]

I'm sure that these prophecies were a great comfort to the First Century Churches of Asia.

French Revolution?
European Union?

At least your interpretation is quite creative.

[Fortigurn]

I'm sure that these prophecies were a great comfort to the First Century Churches of Asia.

In principle, yes, just as the prophecies regarding the return of the Jews from Babylon were of great comfort to the generation which entered the Babylonian captivity - knowing full well that they would never return.

French Revolution?
European Union?

At least your interpretation is quite creative.

It's not my interpretation. Bible students living 100 years before the French Revolution would have seen it coming.