Evidence for the Divine Inspiration of the Bible?

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kepha1 said:
JA: Errantist: As another example, they need to explain why Ezek. 26:7-12 predicts that Tyre would be defeated by Nebuchadnezzar, and that Nebuchadnezzar would enter the city, plunder it, and slay its citizens. As historians know (and as Ezek. 29:18-20 admits), Nebuchadnezzar’s thirteen-year siege of Tyre failed. No ancient historian, and no modern historian of any credibility, has ever claimed that Nebuchadnezzar defeated, plundered, and destroyed the city of Tyre. The city of Tyre was not taken until hundreds of years later (by Alexander the Great), and no Nebuchadnezzar was involved.
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Correct. Tyre is a tale of two cities. Nebuchadnezzar did indeed destroy the city on the coast. He was unable to defeat the navy of the city on the island off the coast. The predictions in the following verses were all true regarding the Babylonian king’s sacking of Tyre on the mainland:

7 "For this is what the Sovereign LORD says: From the north I am going to bring against Tyre Nebuchadnezzar [a] king of Babylon, king of kings, with horses and chariots, with horsemen and a great army. 8 He will ravage your settlements on the mainland with the sword; he will set up siege works against you, build a ramp up to your walls and raise his shields against you. 9 He will direct the blows of his battering rams against your walls and demolish your towers with his weapons. 10 His horses will be so many that they will cover you with dust. Your walls will tremble at the noise of the war horses, wagons and chariots when he enters your gates as men enter a city whose walls have been broken through. 11 The hoofs of his horses will trample all your streets; he will kill your people with the sword, and your strong pillars will fall to the ground.

(Ezekiel 26)

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kepha1 said:
In your context, a legitimate prophet is one who flawlessly predicts the future. This is not what a prophet does. A prophet speaks for God, usually in the first person, and has little or nothing to do with predicting the future. Prophets would speak for God, which MAY be followed by certain predicted events, but not always, and after that it was written about. There is nothing sneaky or sinister going on here. If you read the headlines of a newspaper, the article does not make the event happen, the event happens first, then it is written about in the newspaper.
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But that’s not the point of this discussion - Spockrates was saying one could prove the divine inspiration of the bible by pointing to a flawless prediction of the future, regardless of how we define a legitimate prophet. We are discussing the question of how flawed the prophecy was.
 
patg said:
But that’s not the point of this discussion - Spockrates was saying one could prove the divine inspiration of the bible by pointing to a flawless prediction of the future, regardless of how we define a legitimate prophet. We are discussing the question of how flawed the prophecy was.
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Agreed.

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kepha1 said:
In your context, a legitimate prophet is one who flawlessly predicts the future. This is not what a prophet does. A prophet speaks for God, usually in the first person, and has little or nothing to do with predicting the future. Prophets would speak for God, which MAY be followed by certain predicted events, but not always, and after that it was written about. There is nothing sneaky or sinister going on here. If you read the headlines of a newspaper, the article does not make the event happen, the event happens first, then it is written about in the newspaper.
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Please don’t blame Pat for that! If you must blame someone, blame Moses:

21 You may say to yourselves, “How can we know when a message has not been spoken by the LORD ?” 22 If what a prophet proclaims in the name of the LORD does not take place or come true, that is a message the LORD has not spoken. That prophet has spoken presumptuously. Do not be afraid of him.

(Deuteronomy 18)

Pat and I are simply attempting to apply Moses’ own test to Ezekiel to see whether what the prophet claims God told him are actually the words of God. But can you name one legitimate biblical prophet who did not predict the future?
 
patg said:
The prophecy against Egypt shows a clear awareness that he had botched his prediction that Nebuchadnezzar would decimate Tyre:
“Son of man, Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon caused his army to labor strenuously against Tyre; every head was made bald, and every shoulder rubbed raw; yet neither he nor his army received wages from Tyre, for the labor which they expended on it. Therefore thus says Yahweh God: `Surely I will give the land of Egypt to Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon; he shall take away her wealth, carry off her spoil, and remove her pillage; and that will be the wages for his army’” (29:18-19).
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Pat:

If you are convinced that God did indeed predict the future history of the ancient city state of Tyre and its eventual destruction with 100% accuracy, then we may move on to discuss God’s predictions of Egypt conveyed through the prophet.

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spockrates said:
Thanks for the link, Cristian. What do you think of Ezekiel’s prophecies about Tyre?
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They are very interesting. Read this site: Tyre in Prophecy.

About the ‘never going to be rebuilt’ prophecy, go into the same site (which I linked above) and go to the 'ADDITIONAL ASPECTS OF THE PROPHECY OF TYRE’ part (it should be in the middle of the article). There you will find very interesting information about how that prophecy finally became true. That part of the article is too large to post it here, but it is interesting.

A summary of that is that this Tyre we have today is not the same ancient city. It’s not the city rebuilt, but a new city, sharing with the ancient Tyre only the name and location, or at least this is what I understood from it.
 
Cristian_B said:
They are very interesting. Read this site: Tyre in Prophecy.

About the ‘never going to be rebuilt’ prophecy, go into the same site (which I linked above) and go to the 'ADDITIONAL ASPECTS OF THE PROPHECY OF TYRE’ part (it should be in the middle of the article). There you will find very interesting information about how that prophecy finally became true. That part of the article is too large to post it here, but it is interesting.

A summary of that is that this Tyre we have today is not the same ancient city. It’s not the city rebuilt, but a new city, sharing with the ancient Tyre only the name and location, or at least this is what I understood from it.
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Yes, extremely interesting!

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I once had a conversation with an atheist who posted a link to Google Maps showing buildings on the peninsula where the island city of Tyre once stood.

“See, it was rebuilt,” he said, “so Ezekiel’s prophecy is wrong!” Didn’t quite know what to say to that until recently. What made me think about it was all the talk in the news about how nations were criticizing the United States for being involved in nation building in Iraq and Afghanistan. Now, nation building has different meanings, but one meaning is that of building the government of a nation–in the case of Iraq, replacing a dictatorship with a democracy. The United States military tore down the government of Iraq, and rebuilt the government as a democracy in its own image.

The upshot is that the terms “tear down” and “rebuild,” which can apply to architectural structures, may also apply to governments. Therefore, the words of God quoted by Ezekiel

“I will make you a bare rock, and you will become a place to spread fishnets. You will never be rebuilt, for I the LORD have spoken,” declares the Sovereign LORD.

(Ezekiel 26:14)

likely refer to the powerful *government *of Tyre never being rebuilt and not to the architectural structures never being rebuilt. God Himself makes this clear, for Ezekiel quotes Him as saying that the place where the Tyrians once ruled would “become a place to spread fishnets.” Now, it seems to me that a fisherman would be a fool to leave his fishnets (the only source of income for him and his family) out to dry miles from home. No, a fisherman will dry his fishnets no where but close to home, even right outside his back door. Therefore, Ezekiel predicts that the proud and wealthy city state of Tyre would become a humble and poor fishing community, which is exactly what it is to this day.
 
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