Thread: How do Atheists explain the Biblical prophecies that have come true?

You can't can you?
http://www.100prophecies.org/

http://www.100prophecies.org/bible-prophecies.htm

1. There are several mundane ways in which a prediction of the future can be fulfilled:
1. Retrodiction. The "prophecy" can be written or modified after the events fulfilling it have already occurred.
2. Vagueness. The prophecy can be worded in such a way that people can interpret any outcome as a fulfillment. Nostradomus's prophecies are all of this type. Vagueness works particularly well when people are religiously motivated to believe the prophecies.
3. Inevitability. The prophecy can predict something that is almost sure to happen, such as the collapse of a city. Since nothing lasts forever, the city is sure to fall someday. If it has not, it can be said that according to prophecy, it will.
4. Denial. One can claim that the fulfilling events occurred even if they have not. Or, more commonly, one can forget that the prophecy was ever made.
5. Self-fulfillment. A person can act deliberately to satisfy a known prophecy.

There are no prophecies in the Bible that cannot easily fit into one or more of those categories.

2. In biblical times, prophecies were not simply predictions. They were warnings of what could or would happen if things did not change. They were meant to influence people's behavior. If the people heeded the prophecy, the events would not come to pass; Jonah 3 gives an example. A fulfilled prophecy was a failed prophecy, because it meant people did not heed the warning.

3. The Bible also contains failed prophecies, in the sense that things God said would happen did not (Skeptic's Annotated Bible n.d.). For example:
* Joshua said that God would, without fail, drive out the Jebusites and Canaanites, among others (Josh. 3:9-10). But those tribes were not driven out (Josh. 15:63, 17:12-13).
* Ezekiel said Egypt would be made an uninhabited wasteland for forty years (29:10-14), and Nebuchadrezzar would plunder it (29:19-20). Neither happened.

4. Other religions claim many fulfilled prophecies, too (Prophecy Fulfilled n.d.).

How do you explain the Jews?

The "prophesies" that would impress me would be:

Verified, specific prophecies that couldn't have been contrived.
If the Bible, for example, said, "On the first day of the first month in the year two thousand and ten, the pillars of the earth will shake and a great part of the New World will be lost to the sea," and then January 1, 2010 comes and a tremendous earthquake sends California to the bottom of the Pacific Ocean, I would become a believer. No points are awarded under any of the following conditions:

If the prophecy is vague, unclear or garbled (like Nostradamus' ramblings, for example). It must be detailed, specific and unambiguous in its prediction and wording.

If the prophecy is trivial. Anyone could predict that it will be cold next winter, or that this drought/plague/flood will eventually subside. The prophecy must predict something surprising, unlikely or unique.

If the prophecy is obviously contrived for other reasons. No official seer or court astrologer ever predicted that the king he worked for would be a brutal, evil tyrant who would ruin the country.

If the prophecy is self-fulfilling; i.e., if the mere fact of the prophecy's existence could cause people to make it come true. The Jewish people returned to their homeland in Israel just as the Bible said they would, but this isn't a genuine prediction - they did it because the Bible said they would. The predicted event can't be one that people could stage.

If the prophecy predicts an event that already happened and the writing of the prophecy itself can't be shown to have preceded the event.

If the prophecy predicts an event that already happened and the happening of that event can't be verified by independent evidence. For example, Christian apologists claim that Jesus fulfilled many Old Testament prophecies, but the authors of the New Testament obviously had access to those prophecies also; what would have prevented them from writing their story to conform to them? The extra-biblical evidence for the existence of Jesus is so scanty that it is impossible to disprove such a proposal.

And finally, if the prophecy is the lone success among a thousand failures. Anyone can throw prophecies against the wall until one sticks. The book or other source from which it comes must have at least a decently good record on other predictions.

Now, NONE of the "prophesies" on your list met the conditions required for the average atheist to be impressed by them. The majority of them fail outright simply because (1) the writing of the "prophesy" occurred AFTER the event occurred. (2) The texts talking about the prophesy being met can easily have been written *based* on the texts telling of the prophesy in the first place. None of them have ANY corborating evidence to suggest such an event actually occurred.

(So yes, I can. Can you show me a SINGLE prophesy that meets all of the above conditions? You can't, can you?)

Most atheists are totally clueless about Biblical prophecies.

Simply by pointing out that vague statements without dates are not prophetic.

I can show you all the predictions 1984 made too and how holy that book is.

Edit: Also, it is also easily explained by the thousands that have not come true.