PROPHECIES: IMAGINARY AND UNFULFILLED
Taken from http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/farrell_till/prophecy.html...
Prophecy fulfillment is a popular argument that bibliolaters rely on in trying to prove the divine inspiration of the Bible. They claim that the Bible is filled with recorded events that prophets foretold years and even centuries before they happened. They argue that there is no way to explain how these predictions could have been so accurately made except to conclude that the Holy Spirit enabled the prophets who uttered them to see into the future. In prophecy fulfillment, then, they see evidence of God's direct involvement in the writing of the Bible.
A very simple flaw in the prophecy-fulfillment argument is that foreseeing the future doesn't necessarily prove divine guidance. Psychics have existed in every generation, and some of them have demonstrated amazing abilities to predict future events. Their "powers," although mystifying to those who witness them, are not usually considered divine in origin. If, then, Old Testament prophets did on occasions foresee the future (a questionable premise at best), perhaps they were merely the Nostradamuses and Edgar Cayces of their day. Why would it necessarily follow that they were divinely inspired? Even the Bible recognizes the possibility that uninspired prophets can sometimes accurately predict the future:
"If there arises among you a prophet or a dreamer of dreams, and he gives you a sign or a wonder, and the sign or wonder comes to pass, of which he spoke to you, saying, `Let us go after other gods'--which you have not known--`and let us serve them,' you shall not listen to the words of that prophet or that dreamer of dreams, for Yahweh your God is testing you to know whether you love Yahweh your God with all your heart and with all your soul" (Deut. 13:1-3, NKJV with Yahweh substituted for "the LORD").
By the Bible's own testimony, then, natural psychic ability could offer a perfectly sensible explanation for any example of prophecy that bibliolaters might cite in support of the inerrancy doctrine, but an unbiased contextual examination of the alleged prophecy will very likely uncover an even more rational explanation. Usually, Bible "prophecies" turn out to be prophecies only because imaginative Bible writers arbitrarily declared them to be prophecies. The same can be said of their alleged fulfillments: the fulfillments are fulfillments only because obviously biased New Testament writers arbitrarily declared them to be fulfillments.
NONPROPHECIES
Later, I will examine several examples of these "imaginary prophecies," but a more logical place to begin examination of the prophecy-fulfillment argument would be with what, for lack of a better term, I will call "nonprophecies." These involve those cases where, although alleged prophecies were quoted or referred to by New Testament writers, Bible scholars have been unable to find the original statement. An example is found in John 7:38 where Jesus said, "He who believes in Me, as the Scripture has said, out of his heart will flow rivers of living water." If Jesus was right in saying that scripture said this, just where was it said? No such statement in the Old Testament scriptures has ever been located, yet "the scripture" to Jesus would certainly have been the Old Testament. In this statement, then, we apparently have a fulfillment that was a fulfillment of--what? How could there be a fulfillment of a prophecy that was never even made?
Jesus claimed another fulfillment of nonprophecy in Luke 24:46. Speaking to his disciples on the night of his alleged resurrection, he said, "Thus it is written and thus it was necessary for the Christ to suffer and to rise from the dead the third day." That the resurrection of Christ on the third day was prophesied in the scriptures was claimed also by the Apostle Paul in 1 Corinthians 15:3-4: "For I delivered to you first of all that which I also received: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and that He was buried, and that He rose again the third day according to the scriptures." In two different places, then, New Testament writers claimed that the resurrection of the Messiah on the third day had been predicted in the scriptures. Try as they may, however, bibliolaters cannot produce an Old Testament passage that made this alleged third-day prediction. It simply doesn't exist.
Confronted with a challenge to produce such a scripture, Bill Jackson, a Church-of-Christ preacher from Austin, Texas, said in my debate with him that "the prophecy had to do with the event... and the fleshed-out details need not have been given at the time" (Jackson-Till Debate, p. 20). He had to say something, of course, but all the talk in the world about fleshed-out details doesn't remove the fact that Jesus plainly said it had been written that he would "rise again from the dead the third day" and that the Apostle Paul agreed that such a prophecy had been written. The claim of a third-day resurrection prediction, then, was just another example of nonprophecy.
In another example, Matthew said that the purchase of the potter's field with the thirty pieces of silver that Judas cast back to the chief priests and elders fulfilled a prophecy made by Jeremiah: "Then was fulfilled that which was spoken through Jeremiah the prophet, saying, And they took the thirty pieces of silver, the price of him that was priced, whom certain of the children of Israel did price; and they gave them for the potter's field as the Lord appointed me" (27:9-10). The only problem is that Jeremiah never wrote anything remotely similar to this, so how could this be a fulfillment of "that which was spoken through Jeremiah the prophet"? Some scholars have suggested that Matthew was quoting "loosely" a statement that was actually written by Zechariah (11:12-13) rather than Jeremiah. If this is true, then one can only wonder why a divinely inspired writer, being guided by the omniscient Holy Spirit, would have said Jeremiah instead of Zechariah. To offer this as a solution to the problem posed by the passage doesn't do much to instill confidence in the inerrancy doctrine. Furthermore, if Matthew was indeed referring to Zechariah 11:12-13, then he certainly was "quoting loosely," so loosely, in fact, that any semblance of a connection between the two passages is barely recognizable: "Then I said to them, `If it is agreeable to you, give me my wages; and if not, refrain.' So they weighed out for my wages thirty pieces of silver. And Yahweh said to me, `Throw it to the potter'--that princely price they set on me. So I took the thirty pieces of silver and threw them into the house of Yahweh for the potter" (NKJV). Many versions (RSV, NRSV, JB, NAB, REB, GNB, NWT, Moffatt, and Lamsa's translation from the Peshitta text) translate this passage to read treasury for potter, and the Septuagint (the Holy Spirit's favorite version) reads furnace for potter. All of these variations indicate that the meaning of the original certainly wasn't clear enough to claim this as a prophecy of the purchase of the potter's field with the money that Judas was paid to betray Jesus. If it was, then fundamentalists owe us an answer to the question posed earlier: Why did a divinely inspired writer attribute to Jeremiah a prophecy that was made by Zechariah? Of course, when bibliolaters talk about "wonderful prophecy fulfillments," they don't have much to say about this one. The reason why they don't should be obvious.
Matthew was quite adept at citing nonprophecies. When Joseph took his family to Nazareth upon their return from Egypt, Matthew said that he did so "that it might be fulfilled which was spoken through the prophets, that he should be called a Nazarene"(2:23). Bible scholars, however, have been unable to find any statement that any prophet ever made that this could be a reference to. As a matter of fact, the Old Testament prophets never referred to Nazareth, period. The word Nazareth, as well as Nazarene, was never even mentioned in the Old Testament. If this is so, how then could the period of Jesus's residency in Nazareth have been prophesied by the prophets?
This matter also came up in my debate with Bill Jackson. He tried to circumvent the problem by claiming that the prophecy was only spoken by the prophets and that nothing was said to imply that it had ever been written (Jackson-Till Debate, p. 20).This is at best a far-fetched quibble that fails to take note of the fact that Matthew routinely introduced written "prophecies" by saying that they had been spoken by so-and-so. He said, for example, that the "voice heard in Ramah" had been "spoken through Jeremiah the prophet" (2:17-18). Earlier he had said that the famous virgin-birth prophecy of Isaiah 7:14 had been "spoken by the Lord through the prophet" (1:22). He introduced Isaiah 9:1-2 by saying that this had been "spoken through Isaiah the prophet"(4:14). He introduced Isaiah 42:1-4 by saying that this had been "spoken through Isaiah the prophet" (12:17). There are numerous other examples in Matthew to show that his style was to introduce alleged prophecies by saying that they had been spoken by such and such a prophet. If the prophecy-fulfillment argument offers such wonderful proof of divine inspiration, then, we have every right to demand that bibliolaters show us just where it was prophesied that Jesus would be called a Nazarene as Matthew claimed in the passage cited from his gospel account. How can there be proof of divine inspiration in a prophecy statement that may never have been made?
In two oral debates, my opponents have quibbled that Old Testament scriptures called Jesus a Nazarene when the Messiah was referred to as a "branch" that would come out of Jesse (Is. 11:1; 53:2), because the Hebrew word netser (branch) is the word from which the town of Nazareth derived its name. Strong's Concordance, however, declares that the name Nazareth is of uncertain derivation, and Eerdmans Bible Dictionary says that the name was derived perhaps from naser, which means watch or neser, "a sprout or descendant" (1987, p. 751). There is obviously scholastic doubt over the linguistic origin of the name Nazareth, and as long as that is true, this "argument" is completely without merit.
IMAGINARY PROPHECIES
In "The Holy Bible--Inspired of God: a Look at the Evidence," Wayne Jackson a well-known defender of Bible inerrancy in the Churches of Christ listed three criteria that prophecy must comply with in order to be "valid." The second of these was, "It must involve... specific details--not vague generalities or remote possibilities" (Christian Courier, May 1991, p. 2).To this, I give my unqualified endorsement. Why anyone wanting to prove the inspiration of the Bible by appeals to prophecy fulfillment would make an admission as damaging as this one is hard to understand, because when it is applied honestly and objectively to the prophecy fulfillments alleged by New Testament writers, they all must be rejected as "valid" prophecy fulfillments. With the exception of two or three that will be analyzed later, none of them contain details specific enough to pass Jackson's validity test.
In their desperation to give credibility to their new found religion, New Testament writers often distorted Old Testament scriptures or quoted them entirely out of context to shape them into "prophecies" that seemed to fit contemporary people and events they were writing about. In the book of Acts, Luke twice resorted to this in his application of Psalm 16:8-10 in sermons allegedly preached by Peter and Paul (2:27-28; 13:35-36):
I have set Yahweh always before me: Because He is at my right hand, I shall not be moved. Therefore my heart is glad, and my glory rejoices; My flesh also will rest in hope. For You will not leave my soul in Sheol, Nor will You allow Your Holy One to see corruption.
The apostles presumably saw this passage as a prophecy of the resurrection, because in both places they cited it as proof that Jesus had risen from the dead. However, looking at it with the honesty and objectivity previously mentioned, we have to ask, "Where are the specific details that Mr. Jackson spoke about?" We see only vague generalities and not even remote possibility in the statement. Who reading this statement in the original context would have supposed that it was a prophecy of a resurrection that would occur centuries later? The entire psalm was written in first person and had obvious reference to matters that concerned the writer's present condition. In the opening verse, he said of the god to whom the psalm was addressed, "I have no good beyond thee." Does this sound like something that the sinless Jesus would say? After the statement that Peter and Paul allegedly quoted as proof of the resurrection, the psalmist said, "Thou (Yahweh) will show me the path of life" (v: 11). Are we to believe that Jesus, who was the way, the truth, and the life (Jn. 14:6) and not just that but was God himself (Jn. 1:1), would need Yahweh to show him "the path of life"?
The context of the statement certainly lacks the "specific details" that it needs to convince rational readers that it was a prophecy of Jesus's resurrection. So what proof do we have that it was what Peter and Paul allegedly said it was? Well, after citing it, Peter went on to say, "Men and brethren, let me speak freely to you of the patriarch David, that he is both dead and buried, and his tomb is with us to this day. Therefore, being a prophet, and knowing that God had sworn with an oath to him that of the fruit of his body, according to the flesh, He would raise up the Christ to sit on his throne, he, foreseeing this, spoke concerning the resurrection of the Christ, that His soul was not left in Hades, nor did His flesh see corruption." Allegedly, Paul made the same application of the passage in Acts 13:35-36.
So there we have it. Luke said that Peter and Paul said the statement had to refer to Jesus on the grounds that David's body had been buried and had seen corruption. Wow, with proof like that what can I say? Well, I can say the same thing I would say or Mr. Jack-son would say if either of us should be approached by a representative of a non-Christian religion citing anything as vaguely written as this as proof that his holy book contained the prophecy of a resurrection. I would tell him I wanted to see details so specific that they could not be misinterpreted--not just vague generalities or remote possibilities--before I could accept the statement as an undeniable prophecy.
For one thing, there is some question in scholarly circles about what the psalmist meant by corruption: "Neither wilt thou suffer thy holy one to see corruption." In Hebrew, the word here was shahath, which literally meant pit or grave, and was so translated much more often than corruption was used. The KJV rendered the word corruption only four times (Job 17:14; Ps. 16:10; 49:9; Jonah 2:6), and even then all good KJV reference Bibles will have footnotes by the word corruption to inform the readers that it could mean pit. Many later versions have used pit in all of these places except Psalm 16:10, and there are indications that corruption is retained here only because the Septuagint, which Peter and Paul quoted, had translated the verse to convey the idea of decay or corruption. The New American Bible retains corruption but with this footnote:
To undergo corruption: some commentators render this: "to see the grave," understanding this to mean that God will not let the psalmist die in the present circumstances. But the Hebrew word "shahath" means not only "the pit," "the grave," but also "corruption." In the latter sense the ancient Greek version rendered this passage, and it was thus quoted by St. Peter (Acts 2:25-32) and St. Paul (Acts 13:35-37), both of whom interpret this as referring to Christ's resurrection.
This situation certainly shatters any illusion of "specific details" that inerrantists might stubbornly claim for this famous "resurrection prophecy." Specific details are simply not there. Even what little claim for specificity can be made for the word corruption seems to rest entirely upon an arbitrary translation decision that was made by the Septuagint translators, and biblical scholarship is keenly aware of faultiness in this ancient translation.
Despite the influence of the Septuagint, some translations have used pit or equivalents in this passage rather than corruption. The RSV rendered the verse like this: "For thou dost not give me up to Sheol, or let thy godly one see the Pit." The NRSV translated it the same except for using "faithful one" for "godly one" and substituting modern equivalents for thou and thy. The Jerusalem Bible also used "pit," so there are sound reasons for believing that the psalmist meant no more than what the footnote in the New American Bible said: Yahweh would not let him die and go into his grave in the present circumstances he was writing about.
As long as this possible meaning exists, Psalm 16:10 does not contain details specific enough to be considered a "valid" prophecy. Peter's and Paul's reasoning principle that they applied to this verse is therefore flawed, because David certainly did "see the pit (grave)" in the sense that he was buried. They both acknowledged that in their sermons. As already noted, Peter said that David "both died and was buried" (Acts 2:29). Paul said that David "fell asleep and was laid with his fathers" (Acts 13:36). So they both admitted that David "saw the pit." On what grounds, then, can anyone argue that Psalm 16:10 is specific enough in language and details to qualify as prophecy? To say, "Well, Peter and Paul thought it was a prophecy, so that's good enough for me," would be a flagrant resort to question begging. One cannot prove prophecy by assuming prophecy. Besides that, we don't even know if Peter and Paul really thought that Psalm 16:10 was a prophecy of the resurrection. All we actually know is that Luke said that they said it was a prophecy.
Before leaving this "prophecy" to languish in the infamy it deserves, we should look at something else in the RSV and NRSV accounts quoted above. They both used the present tense rather than the future tense found in the Septuagint, KJV, ASV, and other translations. They did so because the statement was written in the present tense in He-brew. Young's Literal Translation of the Holy Bible rendered the verse like this: "For Thou dost not leave my soul to Sheol, Nor givest thy saintly one to see corruption." So the tense of the original supports the alternate interpretation of this verse suggested by the NAB footnote: the writer was merely expressing confidence that God would not let him die in his present circumstances.
To argue that Hebrew had no future tense doesn't solve anything as far as this passage is concerned, because Hebrew writers relied on past tense when they wanted to convey the certainty of the future. Young explained this in the introduction to his literal translation:
The Hebrew writers often express the "certainty of a thing taking place" by putting it in the "past" tense, though the actual fulfillment may not take place for ages. This is easily understood and appreciated when the language is used by God, as when he says, in Gen. xv.18, "Unto thy seed I have given this land"; and in xvii.4, "I, lo, my covenant is with thee, and thou hast become a father of a multitude of nations." ... Again in 2 Kings v.6, the King of Syria, writing to the King of Israel, says: "Lo, I have sent unto thee Naaman, my servant, and thou hast recovered him from leprosy" (original emphasis).
This peculiarity of the Hebrew language should drive the final nail into the coffin of this marvelous resurrection prophecy that Peter and Paul seemed so excited about. If the certainty of the Messiah's resurrection at some time in the future had been the clear intention of the psalmist, he would surely have said, "For Thou hast not left my soul to Sheol; Neither hast Thou suffered thy holy one to see corruption (the pit)." The fact that he didn't state it this way, along with all the other problems noted in this passage, is sufficient grounds to reject the claim that it was a prophecy of Jesus's resurrection.
Imaginary prophecy fulfillments like this one abound in the New Testament. In Matthew 13:35, for example, we are told that Jesus taught his disciples in parables in order to fulfill a prophecy that had said, "I will open my mouth in parables; I will utter things hid-den from the foundation of the world." Without this statement from Matthew, however, no one reading the original passage in Psalm 78:2 would ever think that it was intended to be a prophecy: "Give ear, O my people, to my teaching; incline your ears to the words of my mouth. I will open my mouth in a parable; I will utter dark sayings of old, things that we have heard and known, that our ancestors have told us." The psalmist then proceeded to give a running, seventy-verse account of Hebrew history, beginning with the covenant made with Jacob and ending with the selection of David to be king. There is nothing in the context to suggest that the writer thought he was prophesying. The last part of the statement in question even differed substantially from the way Matthew quoted it. The psalmist pro-posed to utter sayings that had been "heard and known" that "our ancestors have told us," but in Matthew's application of the verse, Jesus had presumably uttered "things hidden from the foundation of the world," an appreciable variation to say the least. The important thing, however, is that the psalmist obviously intended his remarks to have an immediate application to a contemporary audience and situation. His parable statement, then, became a "prophecy" only because Matthew capriciously made it a prophecy.
The same is true of the greater part of the prophecy "fulfillments" boasted of in the New Testament. A careful study of the original contexts will cast serious doubts on the efforts of the New Testament writers to construe them as prophecies. In Matthew 2:18, for example, we are told that Herod's decree to kill all male children under two in and around Bethlehem fulfilled a prophecy of Jeremiah: "A voice was heard in Ramah, Lamentation, weeping, and great mourning, Rachel weeping for her children, refusing to be comforted, Because they are no more." If, however, one reads this statement in its original context in Jeremiah 31 and the two preceding chapters, he will see that the passage was addressing the problem of Jewish dispersion caused by the Babylonian captivity. Time and time again, Jeremiah promised that the Jews would be recalled from captivity to reclaim their land. Finally, in the verse quoted by Matthew, he said, "Thus says Yahweh: `A voice was heard in Ramah, Lamentation and bitter weeping, Rachel weeping for her children, refusing to be comforted for her children, because they are no more'" (31:15). That Jeremiah intended this statement to apply to the dispersion contemporary to his times is evident from the verses immediately following, where he promised a return of those who had been scattered: "Thus says Yahweh: `Refrain your voice from weeping, And your eyes from tears; For your work shall be rewarded, says Yahweh, And they [Rachel's children] shall come back from the land of the enemy. There is hope in your future, says Yahweh, that your children shall come back to their own border" (vv:16-17). If verse 15 (the weeping verse) was indeed a prophecy of Herod's massacre, why would the rest of the passage, which promised the re-turn of Rachel's children, not also be prophetic? Indeed, it would have to be, wouldn't it? Yet there is no claim in Matthew's gospel account that the children slaughtered under Herod's edict were ever brought back to their border, which would have necessitated a restoration to life. Hence, in this case, Rachel's "work" was never "rewarded," and these children of hers never "came back." Aside from this, children was obviously being used by Jeremiah in a figurative sense to mean the descendants of Rachel, adults as well as children, and not to designate literal children only, as would have to be the case if events in Matthew 2 are to be interpreted as fulfillment of a "prophecy." The conclusion, then, is inescapable: Jeremiah 31:15 was a prophecy of Herod's massacre only because Matthew distorted it into one.
Aside from this problem with Matthew's claim of prophecy fulfillment in Herod's massacre of the innocents, we have good reasons to suspect that no such event ever even happened. None of the other gospel writers mentioned it nor did any secular historian con-temporary to the times. Except for Matthew's reference to it, history is strangely silent about this exceptionally barbaric act, and in some cases the silence is significant enough to cast serious doubt on Matthew's claim that it happened. The Jewish historian Josephus chronicled the reign of Herod in Book 18 of Antiquities of the Jews. In doing so, he made no apparent attempt to whitewash Herod's character. He related, for example, Herod's execution of John the Baptist, an event related by three of the gospel writers, but he said nothing about the massacre of the children at Bethlehem, which would have undoubtedly been the most heinous crime that Herod committed. If the atrocity actually happened, as Matthew claimed, for a historian of the era to omit it in detailing the life of the political ruler who ordered it would be comparable to a modern historian writing about Adolph Hitler but omitting any reference to the massacre of the Jews that happened under his dictatorship.
To say that history is silent about Herod's massacre of the innocents is not to say that the story is at all unusual. Parallel versions of it are so common in the folklore of ancient societies that mythologists have even assigned a name to the story and call it the dangerous-child myth. Space won't allow a review of all these myths, but the Hindu version is worth looking at, because it is strikingly parallel to Matthew's story. According to Hindu literature, Krishna, the eighth incarnation of the god Vishnu, was born to the virgin Devaki in fulfillment of prophecy and was visited by wise men who had been guided to him by a star. Angels also announced the birth to herdsmen in the nearby countryside. When King Kansa heard about the miraculous birth of this child, he sent men to "kill all the infants in the neighboring places," but a "heavenly voice" whispered to the foster father of Krishna (who, incidentally, was a carpenter) and warned him to take the child and flee across the Jumna river. (In this Hindu legend, we can recognize many parallels to the infancy of Jesus other than the dangerous-child element.) In Bible Myths and Their Parallels in Other Religions, author T. W. Doane cited a work by Thomas Maurice, Indian Antiquities, vol. 1, pp. 112-113, which described an "immense sculpture" in a cave-temple at Elephanta that depicts the Indian children being slaughtered while men and women apparently representing their parents are standing by pleading for the children (p. 167).
A study of pagan mythology would establish similar parallels in the stories of Zoroaster (Persian), Perseus and Bacchus (Greek), Horus (Egyptian), Romulus and Remus (Roman), Gautama (the founder of Buddhism), and many others, because various pieces of the dangerous-child myth can be found in the stories of all these pagan gods and prophets. All of these myths antedate, usually by many centuries, Matthew's account of the massacre of the children at Bethlehem. Krishna, for example, was a Hindu savior who allegedly lived in the sixth century B. C., so when a study of ancient world literature shows that an unusual event like the slaughter of the innocents seemed to have happened everywhere, reasonable people will realize that it probably happened nowhere or, at best, that it happened only once and was subsequently plagiarized. Since the story occurs many times before Matthew's version of it, we can only conclude that no such event happened in Bethlehem as Matthew--and only Matthew--claimed. Just like that, then, fundamentalists who put so much stock in prophecy-fulfillment find one of their "fulfillments" vaporizing right before their eyes.
Matthew also saw prophecy fulfillment in the birth of Jesus at Bethlehem. When the wise men inquired about the birth of the king of the Jews, Herod called the chief priests and scribes together and asked where the Christ would be born:
So they said unto him, "In Bethlehem of Judea, for thus it is written by the prophet: `But you, Bethlehem, in the land of Judah, Are not the least among the rulers of Judah; For out of you shall come a Ruler Who will shepherd My people Israel'" (2:5-6).
The place where this was written was Micah 5:2, which we should look at to get a sense of how New Testament writers sometimes distorted Old Testament scriptures to suit their needs:
"But you, Bethlehem Ephrathah, Though you are little among the thousands of Judah, Yet out of you shall come forth to Me The One to be Ruler in Israel."
As we will soon notice, the differences are important enough to show that Matthew tampered with the text to make it fit the situation he was applying it to.
For the moment, let's notice that Matthew's application of the statement was typical of his writing style. No contemporary event seemed too insignificant for him to see prophecy fulfillment in it. This fact doesn't seem to faze Bible fundamentalists. If Matthew said it, that's good enough for them. What they seem completely unable to understand, however, is that just because this is good enough for them doesn't mean that it's good enough for people who use logic to determine what should or should not be believed. Matthew, for example, saw fulfillment of Hosea 11:1 in the flight into and return from Egypt of Joseph's family, (2:15). And what does Hosea 11:1 say? "When Israel was a child, then I loved him, and called my son out of Egypt." The context of this statement shows very clearly that Hosea intended this statement as a reference to the Israelite exodus from Egypt. Bibliolaters can talk from now until doom's-day about the "double intention" of some prophecies, and the truth will still remain: if Matthew had not imaginatively applied this statement to Jesus, no one would have thought it referred to anything but the Israelite exodus. Matthewstretched and distorted Old Testament scriptures in this way, yet bibliolaters expect us to swoon over his claim that the birth of Jesus in Bethlehem fulfilled Micah 5:2.
The "Bethlehem" in Micah 5:2, rather than being a town, was very likely intended as a reference to the head of a family clan. What many people who stand in awe of this allegedprophecy fulfillment don't know is that a person named Bethlehem was an Old Testament character descended from Caleb through Hur, the firstborn son of Caleb's second wife, Ephrathah (I Chron. 2:18; 2:50-52; 4:4). Young's Analytical Concordance, p. 92, identifies Bethlehem as this person in addition to its having been the name of two villages, one in Zebulun and the other in Judea.
An examination of the Micah 5:2 "prophecy" in context indicates that it was indeed a reference to the clan rather than the town: "But you, Bethlehem Ephrathah, though you are little among the thousands of Judah, yet out of you shall come forth to Me the One to be Ruler in Israel." The fact that the Bethlehem in this verse was described as "little among the thousands of Judah" casts serious doubt on Matthew's application of the statement. In a region as small as Judah, one could hardly speak of a town as one of "thousands," yet in terms of a Judean clan descended from Bethlehem of Ephrathah, it would have been an appropriate description for an obscure family group that hadn't particularly distinguished itself in the nation's history. The NIV translates that part of the verse like this: "But you, Bethlehem Ephrathah, though you are small among the clans of Judah...." Similar renditions are made by the RSV, NRSV, NAS, NAB, the Jerusalem Bible, and other translations, all agreeing that Micah referred to a family clan rather than a town.
Even more damaging to Matthew's application of the verse is the Septuagint translation, the version that Matthew and other New Testament writers most often relied on when quoting OT "prophecies":
And thou, Bethlehem, house of Ephrathah, art few in number to be reckoned among the thousands of Judah: yet out of thee shall one come forth to me, to be a ruler of Israel (Brenton Translation).
In his quest for prophecy fulfillments, Matthew most often quoted the Septuagint version of the alleged prophecy, but in this case, he obviously didn't. "Bethlehem, house of Ephratha came out "Bethlehem, land of Judah." The word house was often used in Hebrew to signify a family or a clan as in "the house of Judah" or "the house of David." It was never used in the sense of "land" as Matthew applied it here. It would also be rather strange to call an insignificant village a "prince of Judah," as Matthew did, yet not at all inappropriate to refer to the head of an undistinguished clan descended from Caleb as a prince. Notice also that the Septuagint described this Bethlehem, "house of Ephratha" as something that was "few in number," another indication that a small clan was intended rather than a single town. So why in this instance did Matthew deviate from his habit of quoting the Septuagint and make the textual changes that are evident in his rendition of this verse? The fact that he did raises the distinct possibility that Matthew intentionally distorted the original statement to make it better suit his purpose of wanting it to appear to be a reference to the town of Bethlehem rather than a family clan. It is on "evidence" just as flimsy as this that bibliolat-ers make their outrageous claim of marvelous prophecy fulfillments in the life of Jesus.
In my debate with Bill Jackson, he cited the birth of Jesus in Behlehem as an exam-ple of prophecy fulfillment. After I had pointed out to him many of these same problems, he said, "Till may not like it or see it (the prophecy fulfillment alleged), but Matthew did and the chief priests and scribes of Judaism could see it" (Jackson-Till Debate, p. 20)! Such a response as this is characteristic of inerrantists. They want to assume everything. Just because Matthew "said" that the birth of Jesus in Bethlehem fulfilled Micah 5:2, they assume that it has to be true, that Matthew could not have been mistaken. Just because Matthew said that the chief priests and scribes said that Bethlehem of Judea would be the birthplace of the Messiah, inerrantists assume that they really did say this. They discount completely the possibility that Herod never made any such inquiry of the chief priests, that Matthew just made it up in order to give his story more credibility. What kind of objectivity is that, especially in the light of the evidence I have cited to show that Matthew often distorted OT scriptures to make them fit his needs?
In the New Testament, such distortion was commonplace in the frantic quest for prophecy fulfillment. In a long list of complaints, a psalmist lamenting treatment accorded him by his enemies said that when he was thirsty they gave him vinegar to drink (Psalm 69:21), and centuries later the writer of John's Gospel would have us believe that Jesus could not die on the cross until this "prophecy" was fulfilled: "... Jesus, knowing that all things are now finished, that the scripture might be accomplished, saith, I thirst" (Jn. 19:28). In response, he was given vinegar from a sponge; then he said, "It is finished," bowed his head, and died.
Biblical scholars have found no Old Testament references to anyone who was given vinegar to quench his thirst except in the passage above (Psalm 69), so it is considered the scripture that Jesus "fulfilled." To say the least, however, the problems in accepting the event as fulfillment of a prophecy are enormous. For one thing, a contextual examination of the alleged prophecy indicates that the psalmist was writing about his own personal misery, that he had sunk deep in mire (v:2), that he was weary of crying (v:3), that he was hated by enemies more numerous than the hairs of his head (v:4), that he had borne reproach and shame (v:7), etc., etc., etc. Furthermore, the plaint of this distressed psalmist included also (in the same verse that mentioned the vinegar) a reference to gall that he was given for meat when he was hungry. So if it was necessary for Jesus to be given vinegar on the cross to fulfill this scripture, why did he not have to be given gall too? By what logic is half of the verse prophecy and the other half not?
An even greater problem concerns the character of this psalmist. If he was in any way intended to be a Christ figure, how do we explain the difference in the attitude he displayed toward his enemies and the one that Jesus displayed to his? Everyone knows the famous spirit of forgiveness that Jesus demonstrated before and during his crucifixion, yet this "Christ-figure" psalmist was quite the opposite. He asked God to blind his enemies (v:23), to make their habitation desolate (v:25), to add iniquity to their iniquity (v:27), and to blot them out of the book of life (v:28). It seems strange indeed that God would have chosen a person as spiteful and vengeful as this man to serve as a prophetic figure of the forgiving Jesus.
This same psalm provides other examples of the extremes that some New Testament writers resorted to in trying to make prophecies of simple statements that were never intended as prophecies. The disciples of Jesus saw his expulsion of money changers from the temple (Jn. 2:13-17) as fulfillment of verse 9, "Zeal of your house has eaten me up," and the Apostle Paul considered Jesus's desire to please not himself fulfillment of the last part of the same verse, "The reproaches of them that reproached you are fallen upon me" (Romans 15:3). Thus, an act of violence and a spirit of acquiescence were divergently considered fulfillments of a single verse of "prophecy." The only comment that this deserves is that these prophetic fulfillments existed only in the arbitrary and capricious opinions of the "inspired" New Testament writers who made the original statements prophecies in the first place.
As noted earlier, this remarkably prophetic psalmist, in his distress, entreated God to punish his enemies with various afflictions. "Let their habitation be desolate; let none dwell in their tents," was one of his vindictive requests (v:25). When the apostles assembled in Jerusalem to select a successor to Judas, Peter referred to this same verse as having been fulfilled when the field that Judas had purchased with "the reward of his iniquity" was left cursed and abandoned: "Let his habitation be made desolate, and let no man dwell therein" (Acts 1:18-20). Suddenly, a statement that the psalmist had made in reference to his "enemies" in general, all of them (plural), was made to appear as if he had referred to only one person. "Their habitation" became "his habitation," and the adverb therein was substituted for tents as a convenient reference back to habitation. With that kind of license to change scriptures to fit the situation, just about anyone could make any statement into a prophecy. Where, for example, this same psalmist said, "I am become a stranger to my brethren, and an alien to my mother's children" (v:8), we could make this a prophecy of Jesus's rejection by his own brothers as recorded in John 7:3-5. "I am weary with my crying" (v:3) was fulfilled (we could say) when Jesus wept at the tomb of Lazarus (Jn. 11:35), and, of course, when the Apostle Peter struck Ananias and Sapphira dead (Acts 5:1-10), that fulfilled verse 28: "Let them be blotted out of the book of life, and not be written with the righteous." These applications would be no more far-fetched than those that "inspired" writers made of other verses in this psalm.
Most other so-called prophecy fulfillments of the New Testament cannot survive contextual analysis any better than those just noted. Upon examination, they show flaws so obvious that only the very credulous can accept the tenuous claims that they are fulfillments of prophecy, yet some of them are widely considered remarkable examples of divine foresight. Possibly the best example of these is Matthew 1:23 where it was claimed that an angel's announcement to Joseph that his betrothed wife Mary would give birth to a child conceived by the Holy Spirit was done to fulfill a prophecy spoken by Isaiah: "Behold, the virgin shall be with child, and bear a Son, and they shall call his name Immanuel." In the original context, however, Isaiah made this statement as a sign to Ahaz, king of Judah, that an alliance recently formed against him by Rezin, the king of Syria, and Pekah, the king of Israel, would not succeed in defeating him. The Lord (Yahweh), as he was prone to do in those days, had sent Isaiah to reassure Ahaz that the alliance would not prevail. Isaiah begged Ahaz to ask for a sign that his prophecy was true. Finally, Isaiah said to him, "Hear now, O house of David! Is it a small thing for you to weary men, but will you weary my God also? Therefore Yahweh Himself will give you a sign: Behold, the virgin shall conceive, and bear a Son, and shall call his name Immanuel" (Isaiah 7:13-14). Hence, the context clearly shows that this so-called prophecy was made not to foretell the birth of Jesus some 700 years later but the birth of a child to that time and that situation. How could a birth that would happen 700 years later, after Ahaz was dead and the battles had long since been fought, have been a sign to him that the Syrian-Israelite alliance would fail? The premise is too absurd even to contemplate.
THE DOUBLE-APPLICATION DODGE
To deal with contextual problems like the one in Isaiah's virgin-birth prophecy, bibliolaters have invented the double-application doctrine. "Yes, the prophecy in Isaiah did refer primarily to an immediate situation," they admit, "but it contained also, as did many other prophecies, a double-entendre that, in this case, makes it applicable to the birth of Jesus too." Contextual evidence, of course, necessitates their admission that prophecies such as this one were indeed intended for the times in which they were made, but if inerrantists are going to claim a "double-application" of Isaiah 7:14, they have a responsibility to do more than just claim. They must also prove. If Isaiah really had a double-meaning in mind, then who was the virgin of that generation who gave birth to a son? That is a legitimate question, because if Isaiah meant virgin in the strictest sense with reference to a woman who would give birth 700 years later, then he had to mean virgin in the strictest sense for the woman of his time who would bear a son. If not, why not?
The truth is that evidence to prove a double-application theory isn't so easy to come by. In this case, we have nothing--absolutely nothing--but Matthew's unsubstantiated word that the birth of Jesus fulfilled Isaiah's prophecy. Isaiah said nothing in the context of the original passage to imply a double intention, and none of the other gospel writers in recording the circumstances of Jesus's birth in any way related the event to Isaiah's prophecy. This latter fact seems particularly significant in the case of Luke whose gospel account included many more details about both the annunciation of the birth and the actual event itself than did any of the others. Mark and John, in fact, were completely silent about the birth. Doesn't it seem strange, then, that this remarkable "prophecy fulfillment" would have been treated with silence by three of the four "inspired" writers who recorded the life of Jesus? Only Matthew mentioned it, and that is the sum total of the proof we have that Jesus's birth fulfilled Isaiah's "prophecy."
MATTHEW'S CREDIBILITY
"Well, isn't it enough that Matthew identified the fulfillment?" bibliolaters will demand. "How many times does God have to say a thing before we can believe it?" Thereby, they simplistically overlook an issue that is central to the controversy. That issue is not whether Matthew declared Jesus's birth a fulfillment of the prophecy (obviously he did) but whether in so doing God was speaking through him. There are good reasons for doubting that he was.
First of all, Matthew was notorious for seeing prophecy fulfillment in just about everything, even the most trivial events. To return to an example already mentioned, let's notice again that he even saw prophecy fulfillment in the flight of Joseph and Mary into Egypt to save their child from Herod's edict. When they returned to Israel, this fulfilled, so Matthew claimed, what the Lord had spoken through the prophet: "Out of Egypt I called My Son" (2:15). This "call out of Egypt" refers to Hosea 11:1, where it was said, "When Israel was a child, I loved him, and out of Egypt I called My son." As I said, the original statement was obviously a reference to the Hebrew exodus from Egypt and therefore became a prophecy pertaining to Jesus only in Matthew's wild imagination. It is about as convincing as Matthew's claim that Joseph took his family to Nazareth to fulfill the prophecies that said Jesus would be called a Nazarene. Apparently, it didn't take much for Matthew to see prophetic connection.
Matthew's credibility is also impeached by major discrepancies between his gospel account and the three others:
Matthew said that Jesus was born in the reign of Herod, who died in 4 B. C. (2:1). Luke said that Jesus was born during the Syrian governorship of Quirinius, who was not even appointed to the position until 6 A. D. (2:2).
Matthew indicated that the centurion went in person to ask Jesus to heal his servant who was near death (8:5-13). Luke said that the centurion stayed at home and sent elders of the Jews to ask Jesus to heal the servant (7:2-10).
Matthew said that Jairus reported his daughter dead when asking Jesus to go heal her (9:18-25). Both Mark (5:23) and Luke (8:42) said that she was still alive but dying.
Matthew said that Jesus healed two blind men as he was going out of Jerico (20:29). Both Mark (10:46) and Luke (18:35) indicated there was only one man who was healed, and Luke said that it was done when Jesus "drew nigh unto Jerico."
Matthew said that Jesus, in sending his disciples out to preach, told them to take no necessities with them, not even a staff (10:10). Mark, however, said that Jesus allowed them to take staffs (6:8).
Matthew said that the women present at Jesus's crucifixion beheld him "from afar" (27:55-56). John disagreed in some particulars with the identities of these women and said that they stood "by the cross of Jesus" (19:25).
Matthew disagreed with all the other writers in many details concerning the resurrection: who exactly went to the tomb, the time that they went, what they found upon their arrival, when and where Jesus was first seen after his revivification, and a host of other conflicting details.
This widespread disagreement among the gospel writers in effect discredits them all, but the only matter we need be concerned with at this point is that the discrepancies most assuredly give us reason to question Matthew's reliability as a chronicler. Someone--or possibly even all four of them--was wrong in the way the gospel story was told, and as far as we know, without any reliable evidence to exonerate him, it could have been Matthew as easily as any of the others. How then can we be sure that Matthew was right in saying that the birth of Jesus fulfilled Isaiah's famous Immanuel prophecy? All we have is the word of an imaginative zealot who at best had a questionable knowledge of Old Testament scriptures. Even the law of Moses, as brutal and demanding as it was at times, required agreement between at least two witnesses before prosecutable offenses could be established (Deut. 17:6), and in concluding his second epistle to the Corinthians, the Apostle Paul implied that the tradition should be applied to settle internal problems in the church (13:1). With reference to the fulfillment of Isaiah's virgin-birth "prophecy," however, we don't even have the agreement of two witnesses. We have only Matthew's unconfirmed word, and we don't even know if he was really the one who wrote the gospel story that bears his name. This is hardly compelling evidence.
Even if we concede the personal honesty and integrity of Matthew, we would still have to reject his testimony in the matter of the virgin birth, because it is at best hearsay. The only person who could have possibly known that Jesus was born of a virgin would have been Mary herself, but we have no personal testimony from her. She wrote no books--at least not any that Christians consider "canonical"--and left no affidavits, so we have exactly nothing by way of evidence from the only person who was in a position really to know whether she was a virgin at the time of Jesus's birth. By all recognized rules of evidence, then, Matthew's testimony can carry no logical weight because of its hearsay nature.
PROPHETIC CHICANERY
More damaging than all of these holes in Matthew's claim, however, is clear textual evidence that Isaiah did not consider his statement in 7:14 to be a prophecy of some distant event. As noted earlier, so that Ahaz would have a sign that the Syrian-Israelite alliance would fail, Isaiah predicted the birth of a child who would be named Immanuel. For this to have been a "sign" in the biblical sense of the word, it would have had to have had some application to contemporary events. Jewish scholars who read the Tanach (Hebrew Bible) in the original language have had no difficulty recognizing that contemporary application. Shmuel Golding, editor of Biblical Polemics, published by the Jerusalem Institute of Biblical Polemics, has explained that verb-tense problems alone in this passage make it impossible for people who are knowledgeable in Hebrew to accept it as a prophecy of a distantly future event:
In Hebrew the verse reads in the present tense is with child and not as according to the Christian Bible will conceive and bear a child. In Hebrew it states she is pregnant, not will be pregnant. In fact, the Catholic Bible (Isaiah 7:14) reads as follows: The maiden is with child and will soon give birth to a son. Jesus was not born until seven hundred years after this sign was given, which could not be described as "soon." The text reads "is with child," so how could this woman be kept pregnant for seven hundred years until Jesus arrived ("Who Changed God's Diapers?" [pam], p. 1)?
That Isaiah did have in mind a child who would be born to a contemporary mother is made plain by a statement that followed on the heels of the birth prediction: "Curds and honey He shall eat, that He may know to refuse the evil and choose the good. For before the Child shall know to refuse the evil and choose the good, the land that you dread will be forsaken by both her kings" (vv: 15-16). To say that this statement had reference to a child who would be born 700 years later reduces everything the prophet said to nonsense, for what possible consolation could it have been to Ahaz to know that 700 years after he was dead the land whose two kings he hated (Syria and Israel) would be forsaken?
Furthermore, Isaiah did not say that the birth would be a miraculous event, as Matthew's application of the statement would require it to be. The popular misconception that Isaiah was predicting a virgin birth results from a faulty translation of the Hebrew word `almah, which merely meant "maiden" or "unmarried female." Bethulah was the Hebrew word that signified a woman who was sexually pure; this was the word used in such passages as Deuteronomy 22:13-24 where sexual purity was obviously under consideration. The other word (`almah) was used in such passages as Genesis 24:43 where, although translated virgin in many English versions, reference to the sexual purity of the woman wasn't necessarily intended. If, then, Isaiah had meant to imply that the child in his prophecy would be miraculously conceived, he would have surely used the Hebrew word that unequivocally meant virgin.
Viewed in these linguistic perspectives, the prophecy loses much of the mystique that has traditionally surrounded it, because there would have been nothing particularly amazing about an unmarried female giving birth to a child. It happens all the time. But it loses even more of its resplendence when we consider textual indications that Isaiah intentionally arranged circumstances to guarantee a birth that could be seen as "fulfillment" of his prophecy. Isaiah 8:1-4 tells how Yahweh intended to take "faithful witnesses," Uriah, the priest, and Zechariah, the son of Jeberechiah, to record as Isaiah went in to a prophetess who conceived and bore a son. In effect, he was covering all of his bases. He had predicted the birth of a child to an unmarried female, so now he was making sure that one would be born. And it was in this type of duplicity that Matthew saw divine involvement!
As incredible as it may seem, there is even more to question in this wonderful virgin-birth prophecy. After saying in his prophecy that the child to be born would be called Immanuel, Isaiah named the son borne by the prophetess not Immanuel, as he had predicted, but Maher-shalal-hash-baz (8:3). It was as if he wanted both to fulfill and to invalidate the prophecy!
The fact that this child was given a name other than Immanuel has led some Bible apologists to argue that he was not the one predicted in Isaiah's prophecy. But even if they could unequivocally prove this argument true, which they cannot, that would do very little to restore Isaiah's credibility as a prophet, because Jesus, who presumably fulfilled the prophecy in at least a secondary sense, was not named Immanuel either. No record exists of Jesus ever having been called Immanuel by his contemporaries. Those who in later times applied the name to him, and still continue to, have done so only in labored attempts to make Matthew's statement a valid interpretation of prophecy. So of what value is a "double-sided" prophecy that has been shown to have serious flaws on both sides?
The argument of bibliolaters not withstanding, there is convincing evidence that Isaiah did intend his son born of the prophetess to be seen as fulfillment of his prophecy. First, Isaiah, although naming his son Maher-shalal-hash-baz, did after the child's birth refer to him as Immanuel while warning that the Assyrian king in overthrowing Syria and Samaria would also subdue Judah and "fill the breadth of Your land, O Immanuel" (8:5-8). So at least once the child of that generation was called Immanuel, and, as previously noted, that is once more than Jesus, in his lifetime, was ever called by the name. As a matter of fact, the name was used only three times in the entire Bible, twice (as just noted) in Isaiah and the third time when Matthew quoted Isaiah's "prophecy." This is hardly sterling proof of prophecy fulfillment.
Further proof that Isaiah considered his son Maher-shalal-hash-baz to be the fulfillment of his prophecy is seen in a close examination of context. When he made the prophecy to Ahaz (as a sign that the Syrian-Israelite alliance would not prevail), he also promised that "before the Child shall know to refuse the evil and choose the good, the land that you dread (Syria and Samaria) will be forsaken by both her kings" (7:16). This same prediction (prophecy, sign, whatever) was repeated after the child Maher-shalal-hash-baz was born: "For before the child shall have knowledge to cry, `My father,' and, `My mother,' the riches of Damascus and the spoil of Samaria will be taken away before the king of Assyria" (8:4). Both statements are identical in substance; both show also that Isaiah intended his prophecy to apply to a political situation of his day rather than to some event in the far-flung future. And, more important for the moment, the context of the passage gives sufficient reason to believe that the child who was named Maher-shalal-hash-baz instead of Immanuel was contemporarily considered a fulfillment of the prophecy. Why Isaiah did not name the child Immanuel is a mystery, but stranger mysteries than that are recorded in the Bible.
With reference to what was said about the period before the child would know "to refuse the evil and choose the good" (Is. 7:16), inerrantists have another problem. If this was indeed a reference to the son who would one day be born to the virgin Mary, does this mean that there was a time in the childhood of Jesus when he didn't know the difference in good and evil? If not, why not? And if so, then how could this be? Jesus was the incarnate "Word of God" (Jn. 1:1,14), who was in the beginning with God (v:2), who made all things and without whom "nothing was made that was made" (v:3). If all of this is true, how could there have been a time in the life of Jesus when he didn't know "to refuse the evil and choose the good"?
CONTEMPORARY FAILURE
On the subject of strange things, what could be stranger than this? Isaiah made the prophecy to assure King Ahaz that the Syrian-Israelite alliance would not prevail against him, yet the Bible record shows that the alliance not only succeeded but did so overwhelmingly. Second Chronicles 28 reports that Ahaz's idolatrous practices caused "Yahweh his God" to deliver him "into the hand of the king of Syria" (v:5). (This king was the Rezin of Isaiah 7:1.) The Syrians "carried away of his a great multitude of captives" and took them to Damascus (v:5). Simultaneously, the Israelites attacked Judah under the leadership of Pekah (the same Pekah of Isaiah 7:1), and in one day 120,000 "valiant men" in Judah were killed and 200,000 "women, sons, and daughters" were "carried away captive" (vv:6-8). The battle casualties included Maaseiah, Ahaz's son; Azrikam, the governor of the house; and Elkanah, who was "next to the king" (v:7). If these results were Isaiah's idea of Syrian and Samarian failure, one wonders what kind of drubbing the alliance would have inflicted had Isaiah prophesied its success.
