According to one Christian website:
There are ... 300 prophecies (ALL proven correct and detailed) on the implications about the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. There are no prophetic failures.And you can find a list of 353 prophecies here:
You've got to be fairly gullible, however, to accept some of those texts as prophecies about Jesus. For example, number 4 on the list, says the ascension of Jesus was prophesied in Genesis 5:24. So what do you think that text tells us? Does it tell us that, 'some time in the future a chap named Jesus will ascend into heaven in front of eye witnesses'? Nope! It says:
"And Enoch walked with God: and he was not; for God took him." (Genesis 5:24)
As it happens, most Christians will secretly accept the idea that Genesis 5:24 is a prophecy about Jesus, but they are cunning enough to realise that they won't gain many converts if they repeat the story to an outsider, so they prefer not to mention it.
In fact they prefer not to mention more than 300 of those 353 prophecies because they are so vague and so laughable. On most Christian websites you would be hard pushed to find a list of more than forty alleged prophecies about Jesus. Forty-four is a popular number these days:
In fact they prefer not to mention more than 300 of those 353 prophecies because they are so vague and so laughable. On most Christian websites you would be hard pushed to find a list of more than forty alleged prophecies about Jesus. Forty-four is a popular number these days:
But take a look at #1 on the list:
Jesus would be born of a woman! That's supposed to be a prophecy? The Christians are really pushing shit uphill if they think that's a prophecy. A baby is born to a woman and the Christians start shouting, 'hallelujah, praise the lord, only a true prophet could have imagined such a thing'.
But there is a much smaller list of eight prophecies that has become popular with modern Christians because somebody worked out the odds against those prophecies being fulfilled. To many people, the list seems to be almost scientific, which probably explains why it has remained popular since the day it was invented more than 70 years ago:
http://www.goodnewsdispatch.org/math.html
At the Good News Dispatch website the reporter goes on to multiply all the probabilities together and concludes that the odds against one man fulfilling all eight prophecies is:
1 x 1028
or
1 in 10,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000.
But if we go back to the original source ("Science Speaks" by Peter Stoner, 1944) we find one more adjustment has to be made before the final figure is revealed. Peter Stoner went on to calculate the number of men who have lived since the time when the prophecies were made and concluded that:
...the chance that any man might have lived down to the present time and fulfilled all eight prophecies is 1 in 1017.
http://sciencespeaks.dstoner.net/Christ_of_Prophecy.html#c9
So the odds are 100,000,000,000,000,000 to one against Jesus fulfilling those prophecies by sheer chance and therefore, according to Peter Stoner:
The earliest information we have about Jesus comes from Paul's letters written about twenty or thirty years before any of the gospels were composed. In those letters of Paul we are told almost nothing about the earthly Jesus; nothing about his birthplace; his family; his travels; his teachings; his healing powers, or his miracles. Paul (and those who followed Paul) knew only that Jesus had lived some time in the past, died, gone to heaven, and would soon return to save all mankind.
But the years passed by and Jesus didn't return as promised. People began to realise that things were not as clear-cut as they had first thought they were, and so they began asking themselves questions about Jesus: Who was he? Where was he born? What did he do during his life on earth? When is he coming back and what will he do when he gets here?
And it was the gospel writers who attempted to answer those questions. But the gospel writers had no more information about Jesus than Paul did, so they went back to the Old Testament looking for clues.
Regarding the birthplace of Jesus for example: Matthew didn't start with the "fact" that Jesus was born in Bethlehem and then go back to the Old Testament looking for the prophecy that said he was born there. No, Matthew started with no idea where Jesus was born and then went back the Old Testament looking for any text that could be interpreted as if it might be a prediction about where Jesus was born. Micah 5:2 is the text he found. It wasn't really a prophecy about the birthplace of Jesus, but it was all Matthew could find so he took it. He knew it was a lie but he didn't care; he wrote it in his gospel anyway.
The same thing happened regarding the betrayal of Jesus: Forty years after Jesus had died nobody had ever heard about the messiah being betrayed by Judas. That story simply did not exist until Mark invented it while he was writing his gospel in 70AD.
Mark didn't start with the "fact" that Judas betrayed Jesus and then start searching for a prophecy about it in the Old Testament. Instead Mark trawled through the Old Testament looking for any obscure information that he could possibly transfer into his story about Jesus and eventually he came across Psalm 41.
That Psalm is nothing more than the prayer of a sick man who complains that people are cruel to him and they talk about him behind his back. He says "Even my close friend, someone I trusted, one who shared my bread, has turned against me." (Psalm 41:9)
Mark thought that sounded pretty dramatic and so he decided to regard it as a prophecy about Jesus. He decided that Jesus was betrayed by a friend and he further decided that the betrayer was Judas. (Mark 14:10-18) Nobody had ever heard that story before: Mark made it up about forty years after Jesus had died.
Ten years after Mark wrote the lie into his gospel, Matthew copied it into his own gospel and added some extra information as well. He said that as soon as Jesus was arrested, Judas hung himself. (Matthew 27:1-5). In other words there were only eleven apostles left alive when Jesus was crucified.
But surely the gospel writers wouldn't tell lies about Jesus and invent prophecies about him? Let's go back and ask Saint Paul himself...
Paul founded many of the earliest Christian churches in the Roman Empire and he was on speaking terms with the other apostles who actually walked with Jesus during his lifetime. Paul had a meeting in Jerusalem where "James, Peter, and John, who were known as pillars of the church, recognized the gift God had given me, and they accepted Barnabas and me as their co-workers." (Galatians 2:9)
But now listen to Paul in 1 Corinthians 15:5, where he is talking about the occasions when Jesus appeared to Christians after the resurrection. Paul says, "he appeared to Cephas, and then to the Twelve."
He appeared to the TWELVE.
So Judas wasn't dead. Not dead and not regarded as the betrayer of Jesus either. Judas was still accepted as one of the twelve apostles and he was there when Jesus appeared to all twelve apostles at the same time.
Yes, the gospel writers really were liars. Ask Saint Paul. He'll tell you.
...these prophecies were either given by inspiration of God or the prophets just wrote them as they thought they should be. In such a case the prophets had just one chance in 1017 of having them come true in any man, but they all came true in Christ.Well that's the way Christians explain the situation. Here's what really happened:
This means that the fulfillment of these eight prophecies alone proves that God inspired the writing of those prophecies to a definiteness which lacks only one chance in 1017 of being absolute.
The earliest information we have about Jesus comes from Paul's letters written about twenty or thirty years before any of the gospels were composed. In those letters of Paul we are told almost nothing about the earthly Jesus; nothing about his birthplace; his family; his travels; his teachings; his healing powers, or his miracles. Paul (and those who followed Paul) knew only that Jesus had lived some time in the past, died, gone to heaven, and would soon return to save all mankind.
But the years passed by and Jesus didn't return as promised. People began to realise that things were not as clear-cut as they had first thought they were, and so they began asking themselves questions about Jesus: Who was he? Where was he born? What did he do during his life on earth? When is he coming back and what will he do when he gets here?
And it was the gospel writers who attempted to answer those questions. But the gospel writers had no more information about Jesus than Paul did, so they went back to the Old Testament looking for clues.
Regarding the birthplace of Jesus for example: Matthew didn't start with the "fact" that Jesus was born in Bethlehem and then go back to the Old Testament looking for the prophecy that said he was born there. No, Matthew started with no idea where Jesus was born and then went back the Old Testament looking for any text that could be interpreted as if it might be a prediction about where Jesus was born. Micah 5:2 is the text he found. It wasn't really a prophecy about the birthplace of Jesus, but it was all Matthew could find so he took it. He knew it was a lie but he didn't care; he wrote it in his gospel anyway.
The same thing happened regarding the betrayal of Jesus: Forty years after Jesus had died nobody had ever heard about the messiah being betrayed by Judas. That story simply did not exist until Mark invented it while he was writing his gospel in 70AD.
Mark didn't start with the "fact" that Judas betrayed Jesus and then start searching for a prophecy about it in the Old Testament. Instead Mark trawled through the Old Testament looking for any obscure information that he could possibly transfer into his story about Jesus and eventually he came across Psalm 41.
That Psalm is nothing more than the prayer of a sick man who complains that people are cruel to him and they talk about him behind his back. He says "Even my close friend, someone I trusted, one who shared my bread, has turned against me." (Psalm 41:9)
Mark thought that sounded pretty dramatic and so he decided to regard it as a prophecy about Jesus. He decided that Jesus was betrayed by a friend and he further decided that the betrayer was Judas. (Mark 14:10-18) Nobody had ever heard that story before: Mark made it up about forty years after Jesus had died.
Ten years after Mark wrote the lie into his gospel, Matthew copied it into his own gospel and added some extra information as well. He said that as soon as Jesus was arrested, Judas hung himself. (Matthew 27:1-5). In other words there were only eleven apostles left alive when Jesus was crucified.
But surely the gospel writers wouldn't tell lies about Jesus and invent prophecies about him? Let's go back and ask Saint Paul himself...
Paul founded many of the earliest Christian churches in the Roman Empire and he was on speaking terms with the other apostles who actually walked with Jesus during his lifetime. Paul had a meeting in Jerusalem where "James, Peter, and John, who were known as pillars of the church, recognized the gift God had given me, and they accepted Barnabas and me as their co-workers." (Galatians 2:9)
But now listen to Paul in 1 Corinthians 15:5, where he is talking about the occasions when Jesus appeared to Christians after the resurrection. Paul says, "he appeared to Cephas, and then to the Twelve."
He appeared to the TWELVE.
So Judas wasn't dead. Not dead and not regarded as the betrayer of Jesus either. Judas was still accepted as one of the twelve apostles and he was there when Jesus appeared to all twelve apostles at the same time.
Yes, the gospel writers really were liars. Ask Saint Paul. He'll tell you.
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