Prologue: Busted this out in response to a comment by SmartLX (who, by the way, wins the “Greatest Legend of the Year” award). It’s pretty rough, but I thought it’d be worth making it’s own post. It’s certainly not the best thing ever written on the topic, but hopefully helpful and might inspire some people to check it out further.
Here’s what I reckon about most prophecies: Nostradamus’ were so vague they were bound to be ‘fulfilled’ eventually (or even, regularly).
But the Bible’s prophecies about Jesus are unique in their detail and specificity (not to mention number!).
Some might be thought general enough to apply to many people, though I’d say that finding one person to fulfill even just all the ‘general’ ones would be a task.
Some are deliberately fulfilled by Jesus, so you could argue there’s nothing supernatural in that (eg Isaiah 53:7, fulfilled Mark 15:4-5), though then you’d have to accept that Jesus was conscious of his massive claim.
But then there are those which Jesus had no control over and are astonishing in their specificity. Eg:
the price paid (30 pieces of silver) to betray Jesus (Zechariah 11:12, fulfilled: Matthew 26:14-15),
the use of this money (Zechariah 11:13, fulfilled: Matthew 27:6-7),
His ancestry (Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Judah, Jesse, David),
born in the rural hick town of Bethlehem,
that the Messiah would come before AD 70 (when the temple was destroyed – prophecied that the Messiah would come to the temple),
that He’d be born to a virgin (now, say what you will – how plausible is it that Jesus’ own mother would believe He was the Son of God – that much alone amazes me… but wouldn’t she know if He was born to a virgin?),
that He’d live in Egypt,
minister in Galilee,
that he’d restore sight to the blind etc,
that he’d be rejected by Jews (particularly unlikely in light of the one I just mentioned),
betrayed by a friend,
that he’d be pierced through the hands and feet (this prophecy was written before crucifixion was even invented!),
given vinegar to drink,
his clothes divided by lot (remarkably specific!),
no bones would be broken (contrary to the usual practice of crucifixion),
there would be darkness over the land at noon (which happened at his crucifixion),
buried with the rich,
and resurrected.
That list is a selection from here: http://www.godandscience.org/apologetics/prophchr.html (which is itself a selection, I’ve seen fuller lists).
These were written 400 years before Jesus. (Don’t believe me? Josephus, a Jew who rejected Jesus, says the recognised Old Testament books were all written before Artaxerxes)
I challenge you to identify one other person in history with that resume.
I’m going out on a limb here but I don’t think you’d find it easy…
Jesus is the Messiah, foretold by the prophets centuries before.
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I dunno about the Legend thing, Hayesy.
For another historical or pseudo-historical figure with a comparable amount of fulfilled prophecies, the obvious candidate is Muhammed. There’s a bunch at http://www.islamreligion.com/articles/379 and plenty more to find if you’re interested. Ask a Muslim if you know one.
For a specific religious perspective on why Jesus doesn’t fit the bill as Messiah, who better to ask than Jews? http://www.jewsforjudaism.org is a response group to Jews for Jesus which focuses on this area of counter-apologetic.
For my own perspective, look again to the link in my name, my general response to claims of prophecy. The extra possibility to be considered in this case is “Made to Order”, and the Messianic prophecies are the very example I used.
The apostles, or whoever actually wrote the Gospels, had access to the now-Old Testament writings, or at least prophecies along the same lines. (Jews at the time, after all, had very specific ideas about what the Messiah would be and do.) They likely knew exactly what they had to write to make their accounts read AS IF Jesus fulfilled prophecies, whether or not he actually did. So did those who copied them out, translated them, etc.
The “accepted facts” about Jesus claimed by people like Gary Habermas are nowhere near detailed enough to confirm that the multitude of one-line predictions really came true, and that they weren’t simply written in for the express purpose of hitting all the targets set by “prophets” like Isaiah.
Incidentally the virgin birth prophecy, as opposed to the virgin birth itself, is redundant apologetic. If you accept that it happened, you’ve already accepted a miracle and the prophecy aspect hardly matters.
Of course the disciples could have written the accounts to fulfill the requirements. One wonders, though, why they were disciples if he didn’t already fulfill them…
Will look into that Jewish stuff – had a brief look, seems like they interpret the Old Testament differently… to how how I do. Jesus said they interpreted it wrongly. Will need to do more thinking though.
Regarding the muslim prophecies – a cursorary glance gives me these differences:
Those prophecies are all supposed to have been fulfilled within a generation of Muhammad… but the earliest extant sources (to my limited knowledge) date from 300 years after his death.
The significance of this: the oldest copies of sources recording the prophecy date from *after* their supposed fulfilment. Not massively convincing…
Whereas there is good attestation to the existence of a closed Old Testament canon 3 to 4 hundred years before the alleged fulfilment.
Additionally, it is reasonably persuasive (to me) that all these prophecies are fulfilled in the one person, rather than by a myriad of separate events.
But my knowledge of the historicity of Islam is severely limited. If you have resources better footnoted than the above (I’d like to read these supposed prophecies and their fulfilments, but couldn’t track down the sources…) then I’d gladly put them in my “to do when my law degree calms down” box
I like it. Our friend LX can’t even agree with the links he posted. If they’re incorrect then he has no case, and if they’re correct then atheism isn’t a viable option.
Chucky…say what? The Muslim link isn’t really part of the argument, it’s a quick stab at the challenge of finding another big prophecy fulfiller. Not a great one so far. The Jewish link was to demonstrate that you don’t have to be an atheist or even to doubt the Old Testament to doubt that Jesus was the Messiah. My own case starts from the next paragraph and has nothing to do with either. For the full rundown, click my name.
Hayesy, Jesus didn’t have to be divine and fulfil prophecies to have disciples. If his followers and/or chroniclers thought more people would listen to his teachings about life if they thought he was divine, that’s one reason to convince them that he was. Or even if they honestly thought he was divine but wanted to emphasise the point for outsiders, over and above the other self-declared Messiahs of the time. That’s two guesses as to why.
LX, I’m perfectly prepared to listen to what muslims or Jews say, and discuss it with them. But if both muslims and Christians can both provide positive evidence for what they believe, as was provided here, I don’t see why any of that means that we should believe an atheist who provides none.
I read your post. Can you give a pretty straightforward example though: Which of the five categories would you put God’s promises to Abraham in?
Chucky, what positive evidence can I be expected to provide to contradict the argument that the real divinity of Jesus is the only plausible reason why he appears to have fulfilled the Messianic prophecies? The existence of other plausible reasons. That’s what I’ve given.
You’re slipping sideways into other prophecies now, so I’ll answer your Abraham question on my site.
Hey Hayesy, Jesus is proven, the bible states it time and time again, bang, bang,bang, etc,etc,etc. its all the evidence i need, pray that others would know this great comforting truth and that they would find rest in Jesus!!!!!!!!
Awesome mate! Good to see. Sometimes some people have assumptions that make it hard for them to see the truth, even though their assumptions are no more rational than any other. Some other people don’t want to see the truth. Live your life so that you never give anyone a reason not to want it!
ps – a hint: people will respect your arguments even more if you edit them before you send them
Here’s how I would have edited yours:
Hey Hayesy, Jesus is proven, the Bible states it time and time again, bang, bang, bang, etc, etc, etc. It‘s all the evidence I need. Pray that others would know this great comforting truth and that they would find rest in Jesus!!!
(Don’t let that discourage you – keep preaching it!)
Glad things are so simple for you, Sam. Tell me, how would you personally convince someone else of this “truth”?
(Will let Sam answer that and return to the discussion in the meantime:)
Welcome Chucky! Thanks for your comments!
You’re both right. It’s true that the truth or otherwise of those Islamic prophecies does not affect the truth of the Messianic prophecies, but also that it is difficult for atheism if they are true.
Regarding the Jewish apologetics, you’re right SmartLX – they show that “don’t have to be an atheist or even to doubt the Old Testament to doubt that Jesus was the Messiah”. They show this and no more.
They don’t show that it’s impossible to prove from the Old Testament that Jesus is the messiah… all they show is that some people who believe the Old Testament don’t believe he was the messiah (or that there was such a person promised). I’m sure you are, sadly, all too familiar with people who refuse to be convinced of something in the face of much evidence. Their existence does not mean that it cannot be proved, just that they will not be. (Using ‘will’ in 2 senses here)
I’d say you could show from the Old Testament that their interpretation is wrong. And the Samaritan woman in John 4 seems to have an expectation of ‘a messiah’. Likewise with Peter’s confession that Jesus is ‘the Christ’.
“what positive evidence can I be expected to provide to contradict the argument that the real divinity of Jesus is the only plausible reason why he appears to have fulfilled the Messianic prophecies?”
It’s true that you don’t need to provide positive evidence that Jesus does *not* fulfil messianic prophecies if you can instead explain them away. (Though – this is subject to this comment.)
However, there are 2 problems with your explanations:
1. They are not plausible.
“If his followers and/or chroniclers thought more people would listen to his teachings about life if they thought he was divine, that’s one reason to convince them that he was. Or even if they honestly thought he was divine but wanted to emphasise the point for outsiders, over and above the other self-declared Messiahs of the time.”
You’re talking about the disciples of a person widely recognised as the greatest moral teacher of all time (and if not the greatest, at least a remarkable one), who called his disciples to radical standards of integrity. Disciples who wrote (according to you) substantial sections of their biographies themselves, and thus must have at least remembered, if not themselves created, these teachings. Disciples who were convinced (apparently) of the truth of these teachings (or why record them?). Disciples who (apparently) believed that Jesus was divine and would hold them to this standard. Disciples who knew that Jesus called Satan the father of lies (John 8:44), and disciples who themselves command against it (Colossians 3:9). Disciples who knew of the Old Testament’s many commands against lying. Disciples who knew that in God there is no falsehood (Num 23:19; 1 Sam 15:29; Rom 3:4; Titus 1:2; Heb 6:18).
You have men from this background using falsehoods to promote the teaching “Simply let your ‘Yes’ be ‘Yes,’ and your ‘No,’ ‘No’; anything beyond this comes from the evil one. “
That I cannot fathom.
To suggest that these men would engage in fraud to promote the teachings of a man who condemned it, this is absurd!
Moreover, you haven’t convinced me that it’s even rational for them to want to fabricate facts to fulfill requirements. Why would they think he is the messiah if they are so conscious of his shortcomings as to fabricate facts as evidence? This doesn’t even make sense on it’s own – and it raises the further uncomfortable question for you of what exactly Jesus did that was so astonishing to make them abandon their faithfulness to the Old Testament (which they still quote repeatedly throughout their writings)?
What you propose is that they honestly thought he was divine without his doing any miracles, or that he was messianic without fulfilling prophecies, and then you have them engaging in condemned practice to justify the spread of that which condemns it!
And then you call it plausible?
If I was speaking this, my tone would be friendly and loving, but incredulous.
2. Evidence
This is slightly different to Chucky’s point. I don’t want positive evidence that Jesus is not the messiah (or whatever). I want positive evidence of this supposedly plausible explanation. Or even evidence that suggests we can’t trust the New Testament to be a faithful recording of events.
Far too often I hear people say “Well it was mistranslated/miscopied/entirely-fabricated-hundreds-of-years-later” and then I ask them “Oh, so you’ve looked into it then?”
“Well, no. But it probably is”
No, no, no. To attack the credibility of a document, it is not enough that you don’t like the implications of its truth. What evidence is there that the New Testament was mistranslated/miscopied/entirely-fabricated-hundreds-of-years-later?
None. In fact there is no archaelogical evidence which controverts any reference – remarkable historical accuracy for people inventing things, don’t you think? We have manuscripts in their original language – a language which has been preserved through the ages. Go read one, see if it has been mis-translated. The gap between event and authorship is within a lifetime – while witnesses could refute them and far too short for legends to spring up. And the gap between date of original composition and earliest extant manuscripts is the shortest for any ancient manuscript by far. There are more early manuscripts than any other ancient document by a factor of at least 10. Cross-manuscript concordance is remarkable. When you combine that with the geographical separation of the locations at which maps are found, you find the same remarkable concordance, indicating a common parent document higher up the tree.
The discovery of a Rotas-Sartor in Pompeii indicates that the teachings of Jesus had reached Pompeii by AD 79. In it is found he famous ‘Alpha and Omega’, the first 2 words of the Lord’s prayer [which, by the way, were surprising to Jews because no-one called God their Father... so possibly significant that these words are chosen, implying 'Son of God?'], and it is translated the “The Great Sower holds in his hand all works; all works the Great Sower holds in his hand.” (See promises in Jeremiah 31:27, Ezekiel 36:9, Hosea 2:23 and especially Jesus’ claim to be the promised sower in Matthew 13:1ff, esp. v37, and also Jesus words in John 4:31-38 in the context of the surrounding messianic discussion.)
So the teachings of Jesus and belief in His preminence (Alpha-and-omega-ness), and Son-of-God-ness had reached Pompeii by AD 79… Just 46 years after His crucifixion.
Is that enough time for these kinds of legends to develop? Consider that you have people living for around 60 years, so a teenager in AD 33 would be still alive at this time.
Wow. I had never done the maths of this before. The person who carved that inscription in Pompeii could have been a teenager when Jesus was alive! And thats even supposing it wasn’t inscribed until the day of the volcano!
And then if you consider this, where even secular scholarship puts the composition of Mark no later than AD 75 (and even as early as AD 50), while letters of Paul were written around AD 49 (Galatians) and AD 51 (1 Thes). The letter of 1 Corinthians is particularly notable because it was written AD 53-57 (source: the infallible wikipedia. At least its not Christian) and yet contains a creed which is pre-Pauline and which is centred on Jesus’ crucifixion and resurrection. Paul’s conversion was in the same decade as Jesus’ death, and he claims to have received it – which means it originates no more than about 8 years after Jesus’ death, and even as close as 3 (or fewer) years.
So you have this theologically-mature, literarily-recognisable creed declaring that Christ died for our sins, was buried, then rose again and appeared to over 500 people (some of whom are named)!
Its no wonder the creed includes the line “of whom the greater part remain unto this present, but some are fallen asleep” (v6)!
Well within a decade of Jesus’ horrific death (not great promotional material) you have this creed being spread. It’s no-where near enough time for a band of self-confessed cowards (read the first 5 books of the New Teatament) to have invented a legend to promote their failed leader whom they just watched die. Now consider that for at least the first 40 years of it’s circulation hearers would have been able to ask for eye-witness testimony, and eye-witness counter-evidence would also have been available.
And the headquarters of the early church was not in a far-off land, where inquirers could not have checked it out. The church was based in and spread from Jerusalem, the very place of the alleged resurrection!
(More on the creed.)
My goodness! I’ve never attempted to write it out like this (and even now I have left things out which I find persuasive). And I’m blown away even myself….
But my point is this: you may come up with nice convenient explanations, but to do so you must challenge this evidence. And so I ask: what is your evidence you bring to the table from which you attack the reliability of documents that exceed expectations in every possible element of historical analysis?
In sum, 1 – its not persuasive, and 2 – it flies in the face of all the evidence.
Sorry this has been so long. My law degree hates me, and you probably do too…
Yep, it’s long. Gimme a while. G’night.
Haha yep sorry!
Take as long as you want! (if you even want to read all that!)
And don’t feel the need to reply to everything, if you’d prefer to pull out major themes or key arguments…
Good night
Hey LX and hayesy,
I like what heyesy said: “I want positive evidence of this supposedly plausible explanation. Or even evidence that suggests we can’t trust the New Testament to be a faithful recording of events.”
For those who missed it: God’s promises to Abraham. The major was response that it was a self-fulfilling prophesy. Apparently because Abraham and his decendants wanted it to come true, that’s why it did come true. I found that totally unsatisfying. It is an extremely unlikely event (assuming God doesn’t exist) regardless of whether Abraham and his decendants wanted it to happen or not. Nomadic goat herders are limited in their power. It’s kind of like claiming that a prediction of winning the lottery is a self-fulfilling prophesy. Just because you want it to happen doesn’t change the fact that it’s extremely unlikely.
In any event, I will stop hijacking thecrazyaustralian’s blog – cool though it is
I like his style, and I’ll be back 
Reading the prophecies, I’m happy that Jews for example, have a different explanation. What I’m not happy is that their explanation is the best one. Anyhow have fun all
Chucky -don’t be sorry!
Hijacking the blog is the whole POINT of the comments section!
Glad to hear you’ll stick around though
I’m back. Man, I have one busy week and there’s a lot to address when I return, especially back at ATA.
Regarding 1, believe me, you can fathom it if I can. There is a simple reason to lie in the face of all that discouragement: it would help. Balance the possible blemish on Jesus’ legacy (which only the first chroniclers would know) with the looming prospect that there would BE no legacy.
I hadn’t actually asserted with any authority that the apostles or anyone else directly involved committed fraud. In my dialogue with Phil/Reasoning Out Loud on ATA, an apparently more likely scenario surfaced where someone else fooled them too. It even worked within Gary Habermas’ “accepted” premises. But let’s look at the apostle/disciple fraud scenario anyway.
The idea that Jesus was a great moral teacher works for my view too, you know. If any of it is to be believed, he inspired incredible altruism in those who listened to him. (There’s a group called Atheists for Jesus that loves the man for this alone.)
It’s self-evident that his teachings go farther with the perceived backing of a deity, as Jesus himself would have realised whether or not he thought it was true. If one soon-forgotten lie could discourage fraud everywhere, it would be a temptation that Jesus was suddenly not there to help the others resist. As they demonstrated on many occasions, they weren’t perfect even when Jesus was around. Even if they were already committed Jewish theists and believed in punishment for all dishonesty, it would seem like a sacrifice of their own integrity for that of others.
About 2, I’m sure you do want evidence for these explanations. It’s not likely forthcoming, as every non-actual-resurrection scenario still produces sincere documents like the Gospels. Plausibility does not require it anyway; all that means is appearance of truth or reason. That makes it entirely subjective, and the fact that you haven’t found my alternate explanations plausible (yet) doesn’t mean I can’t, shouldn’t, or don’t. I do, and I’m not alone.
I’m not interested in questioning the evidence you’ve presented right now, because it doesn’t hurt my case. It’s all aimed at showing how quickly the legend spread. Just how long WOULD it take for a group of self-confessed cowards to invent a legend – if they thought their own survival depended on it? Not long. Their Messiah was dead, the Romans still held sway, and their following had turned on them as soon as the Romans had Jesus in custody. A resurrection story would at least get some ex-followers on side, and they could hash out details once the noose was loosened. The effort put into Jesus’ downfall would actually work in favour of the legend if it were suddenly negated. If they believed, mistakenly or not, that it really had happened, the extra sincerity would help. Maybe some or all died for it later. If they believed, fine. If not, they were stuck with the desperate commitment they made in the early days, and were caught between the heathen and their own lot.
Regarding Abraham, I’d rather readers clicked my name for my full response, where discussion is ongoing to some extent. Chucky’s summary here is a bit brief.
Finally, Hayesy, I don’t think you’re being entirely honest with yourself. You referred back to your material here as “Why I’m a Christian”. Did you know much of it before you were a Christian? I doubt it. You’re a Christian in the first place not because of evidence like this, but because of the spiritual experiences you’ve occasionally alluded to and other very simple things. Stuff like the above, whether or not it’s accurate, is probably rationalising after the fact. I’m just happy you still feel the need to rationalise at all. If I’m wrong and you began as a committed skeptic and freethinker, let me know.
I don’t hate you, good gravy no. I’m glad you’ve chosen to hold forth.
I confess I haven’t read your entire response. I skipped to the bit I was most interested in, and will come back to your response when I’m less tired. (And I totally understand the pressures of a busy week!)
But, though I respect the attempt to make me true to myself, I am being entirely honest when I claim this to be the reason “why I’m a Christian”.
I became a Christian in year 11. Long, long before that I was a skeptic and free-thinker (the bookshelf of kid-level books with titles like ‘Can the Bible be trusted?’
My first memory of anything spiritual was lying on my bed hoping, wishing that there was no God – because the prospect of ‘nothing’ after death seemed infinitely more sweet to me than even the slimmest possibility of Hell. I certainly had no ulterior motive to believe in God – quite the opposite.
More-over, I have come out of a Christian tradition called Cessationism which expects to see very little (if any) of the supernatural, and places very low emphasis on subjective experiene and emotions – so I (A) had no real spiritual experiences to draw on, and (B) wouldn’t have relied on them much if I had.
(I’ve since been convinced that this theological position is wrong, and the reason we see so little of the supernatural is (A) we have so little faith, (B) we ask for so little, and (C) we look for so little)
So I was not your typical church kid. (Or maybe I was, and the stereo-type is wrong.)
Yet as I investigated throughout high school I could not escape it. There was no rational basis for attacking it, and no lack of rational basis for believing it.
From then it was just a matter of whether I was willing to submit my life to Jesus as Lord – again, not exactly the situation in which one deludes themself into believing in God.
Eventually (and I wish it were sooner) I made that choice.
I remain, actually, a skeptic, and a free-thinker. Skepticism is not a conclusion about the world, it’s an approach to investigating it – an approach that I’ve taken.
Most of the fundamental doctrines of Christianity I have questioned, or are still questioning. It makes me a less-sure Christian and ultimately I want to become more certain – but only more certain of truth, there is no point becoming more certain of falsehood.
I’m still challenged by many questions – as I grow, the questions get harder (currently the questions have outgrown my intellect, which is frustrating). But they have never been unanswerable.
It was evidence like this that persuaded me before I was Christian and brought about my conversion, and its evidence like this that continues to persuade me today.
Well, on that personal point I stand corrected. Thankyou.
I know how strong the desire for an afterlife can be. When it became analogous to the desire for a flying car, I got over it.