FALSE
PROPHETS
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THE
PROPHECIES IN EVIDENCE THAT DEMANDS A VERDICT
THE ROLE OF PROPHECY
The book, Are there Hidden Codes in the Bible?,
gives a strange answer to how we test for God having spoken. Miracles are rejected as a test for they can
be faked by the Devil and the Bible says as much in some books and says the
opposite in others. This eliminates the
resurrection of Jesus which Jesus presented as his evidence for his
claims. God says in Deuteronomy 18 and Isaiah
41:22, 23 (it says the pagan gods must prove they are gods by telling the
future though Isaiah gave no impressive prophecies written before the events
himself!) that the test is prophecy. Prophecy is foretelling the future with full
accuracy by the power of God who alone knows what is yet to come, the book argues that prophecy alone is of any use. The fact that there is so much nonsense and
repetition in the Bible where there could have been original prophecy and where there should
have been for example in the Books of Chronicles proves that the Bible can’t
keep up to its own standard of testing.
The Devil could make a prophecy without seeing the future and then do
miracles to rig events so that the prophecy comes true. It comes true not because it was foreseen but
because the Devil pulled some strings.
So prophecy is a useless proof as well.
The book says that there is no evidence that the Devil can see the
future and that if he could gambling would not
exist. The Bible does not say a lot of
things and it simply does not say that he can’t see the future. The Devil could predict the future sometimes
by observing the present so he can make a guess that is guaranteed to be
right. And the Devil would not want to
eradicate gambling.
The Torah in Deuteronomy 18 claims that if a prophet predicts lots of
things that come true and one thing that doesn’t then God is only trying us out
and the prophet is a false prophet and should not be listened to. This shows that a man can only be listened to
if his predictions all come true and there is another condition that we will
come to in a moment. We are not allowed
to pay him any attention when that happens even in regard to the things that
did come to pass (page 269, Evidence that Demands a Verdict, Vol 1). It never
occurred to Moses when he revealed Deuteronomy 18 that a prophet like him who
never predicts the future has less right to be believed than one who does and
is right a lot of the time. Yet he
decreed with full bigotry in the name of God that any prophet contradicting him
was a phoney (Deuteronomy 13). So Moses
was to be the standard for future prophets.
If Jesus really did away with the Law as most Christians believe then he
did away with the standard by which he had to be measured and could not have
been a real prophet. Jeremiah 23 gives
out about false prophets as does Ezekiel 12-14.
Deuteronomy 13 warns that if a man comes and miraculously predicts the
future perfectly and then says to the people that he would like them to adore
other gods that man is a false prophet and to be slaughtered. It specifies that he is not to be listened to
at all for God is only trying us out through him to see if we will remain
faithful. This denies that miracles are
evidence for the true faith. It means
that a miracle should be dismissed just because it does not fit what Moses or
the Law of Moses said. This raises the
question why him and not some other prophet?
This attitude is the very stuff out of which sectarian bitterness is
born. The Christians say that Jesus was
the son of God for he was prophesied in the Jewish Bible or the Old Testament
while that same book says that prophecy alone proves nothing.
There is no evidence whatsoever for the existence of Moses at all. How can we depend on the Torah as if it were
the word of God when the man who revealed it may have been a myth? When Jesus based his own work on the work of
Moses and treated Moses as his own doctrinal bedrock and the man whose
teachings he had to fit in with in order to get credentials as a prophet of God
it shows that he was a false prophet.
When the standard for a prophet has to be perfect which
is only natural if God comes first as both the Torah and the Gospels teach it
follows that Jesus fell below his own standard. He was a fake and he must have known it.
One wonders why God chose to give his revelation through Hebrew and the
Jews when the Hebrew tongue muddles or gives no clear distinction between the
present and the future? Robin Lane Fox gives the example of “the Lord
punishes” which might be taken to be, “the Lord will punish”. With that double-meaning it is no surprise if
translators or even copyists make prophecy where there was no prophecy (page
319, The Unauthorized Version).
Often when a
prophet fails and predicts something that never comes to pass his supporters
say that he was just making a conditional prediction. But God can promise to do something bad to
you if you won’t obey him without looking into the future and without being
specific. But he cannot tell you that if
you do not go to Mass next Sunday you will lose your car for that is specific
and is really a prophecy. If he promised
to do that without looking into the future and influencing the future himself
he would be guilty of promising something that might not fit into his
plan. It might lead to a sequence of
events that would produce the most evil so he would be evil for not keeping the
promise and for not having made it responsibly in the first place. So all specific prophecies
are NOT conditional. So anybody
who makes vague prophecies is a false prophet and fails the standard set in
Deuteronomy 18 as does the person who says his prophecies will be fulfilled but
not necessarily soon or who blames his errors on prophecies being
conditional. The excuse of prophecies
being about the far distant future or being conditional gives a cover for a
false prophet so if Deuteronomy 18 is to retain its integrity the excuses have
to be dismissed.
An honest prophet would say if his prophecy was conditional. Anybody could be a convincing prophet if he
could make predictions and disguise the failed ones as conditional.
All conservative Christians hate people saying that the book of Daniel
was written after the prophecies it makes and that the gospel of Luke was
written after the destruction of Jerusalem which it forecasts and accuse them
of being biased against miracles and not really caring about history (eg Turton, The Truth of
Christianity, page 127). But the
charge would only be justified if these people disregarded the overwhelming
evidence that the books were written before the event – evidence which does not
exist. When there is a chance that a
reported miracle is not real it should not be believed in for extraordinary
claims require extraordinary proof.
The stress on proving that Jesus was predicted by prophets that
Christians make shows that Christianity is not as interested in morality as it
is in setting up a religious divide between itself which it regards as the
truth and other religions and non-religions.
That is revolting. The Sermon on
the Mount should be able to be stand on its own two feet without supernatural
wonders.
ROBERT NEWMAN
The Christian Robert Newman wrote a book called In Defense
of Miracles. He correctly says that
the prophecy has to predict very clearly.
The prophecy must have been provably made before the event. The event must happen as predicted. The event must not have been rigged but must
be something that only God could have allowed to happen. The prediction must be better than a good
guess.
Newman then says that Hosea 3:4-5 predicts that
Newman takes a prophecy from Zephaniah about the destruction of
Newman told several lies to make it seem that Ezekiel foretold things that
came to pass. For example, he said the
prophecies about
This is a synopsis of the main points of Richard Carrier’s When is
Prophecy Miraculous?
JEREMIAH
The Book of Jeremiah has God telling the people of
The Christian solution to the contradiction about the sacrifices is that
the sacrifices offered were offered in a bad spirit to God and were worthless
and that the rules of the Law then did not apply to them and they could treat
them as unholy and eat them themselves.
That solution is dangerous for the Law needs to be upheld for the sake
of order. There will always be people
who think the Law is being broken and who might then feel entitled to desecrate
the altar and the sacrifices because of logic like the logic of the
Christians. It is not the solution Jeremiah
had in mind. There was no need to cause
a riot but just to warn the people and the priests to convert. The Churches then try to say that the sacrifices God
meant were made to pagan gods. The
passage only mentions in passing drink offerings made to other gods. But there is no hint that the system of
worship created by Moses was being used in the worship of other gods too. God tells them that they can do what they
like with their sacrifices to HIM because he gave no command about sacrifice
when the people of
Jeremiah 8:8 gives the Christians so many nightmares that the wily Haley
steers well clear of it. It says that
the Law of Moses has been interfered with by scribes so that the result only
leads the people astray. The verse
itself never hints that it only means some or a minority of the people but the contrary. And neither does the context. God says his people do not know the law of
God (v7). It’s them all. He just attacks the wise men and says they
teach the false Law and does not name a sect.
If you are to change the law you have to form a sect and he names no
sect so the whole people were ignorant and misled by deceiving scholars and
Judaism had apostatised.
Daniel regarded Jeremiah as a true prophet so it follows that Daniel was
as much of a fake as he was.
Jesus knew the Old Testament well.
Yet he still claimed it was infallible.
Rather than being the credential for his messiahship
that he made it out to be it shows he was a fraud and that the Jews were happy
to believe in a religion with scriptures that nullified one another which shows
they were too keen to believe what they wanted and cannot be relied on when
they turned to Jesus.
THE PROPHECIES IN EVIDENCE THAT DEMANDS A VERDICT VOL 1
The appalling Evidence that Demands a Verdict Volume One devotes
its chapter 11 to proving that the Bible was able to predict the future. The fact that this bigoted book accepts the
evil Law of Moses as the word of God despite the fact that only one copy of it
existed in Ezra’s time according to the Bible itself and they had to find a
prophet to tell them if the Book was real word of God or not shows that it is
not worth much. A scripture that reports
stupendous miracles and cruel laws needs better evidence than that.
Page 269 takes note of the difficulty expressed in 1 Kings 22, Jeremiah 28 and 1 Kings 13 that Israel had in distinguishing between a false prophet and a true one – Deuteronomy 18 said a prophet could foretell lots of miraculous things and still be proven to be one who is not working for God simply by getting one prediction or revelation wrong which makes it difficult for the fake could engineer things so that the failure will be covered up. For Deuteronomy 18 to make any sense, God would have to promise and work to make sure the blunder won’t be hidden. One wonders then what books like Lamentations or Songs are doing in the Bible when there is no miraculous evidence of inspiration. Then the same page contends that prophets who were paid for their prophesying were okay and admits that the accepted prophets Amos and Nathan and Samuel earned a living from their predicting and speaking for God! If it could be denied the Bible believers would be delighted to do. If paid prophets were in anybody else’s scripture they would be quoting it as evidence that the prophets were frauds for God would not give a gift from which money could be made. These professional prophets completely contradict the book of Acts which says that Simon Magus was almost devoured by St Peter for merely offering money for a supernatural gift and that was by no means as bad as what Amos and co were doing.
Ezekiel 26 is claimed to have been a fulfilled prophecy about the destruction of the great seaside city of Tyre and the way it would be destroyed. But this prophecy failed for it said Nebuchadnezzar who is named in the prophecy would do all the things to the city and Christians have to pretend that Alexander the Great finished it all off though no hint is given that he was said to have been involved. The prophecy says that Tyre will never be rebuilt which is untrue - it existed in the time of Christ. It said it would be lost never to be found. False.
Page 280 makes a big deal out of the three predictions about
Page 284 says that Amos 1:8 predicts the extinction of the
Philistines. This is taking advantage of
the fact that they did become extinct and tries to read this into the
prophecy. It is like forcing the
prophecy to predict what it never predicted because even the Amplified Bible
recognises that it was only the Philistines who were in a certain region
denoted by the context who were meant.
The Philistines were too inhuman to be tolerated so their destruction
and absorption into other nations and loss of identity was inevitable.
Page 286 makes a miracle out of the predictions of Ezekiel (25:4) and
Jeremiah (48:47 and 49:6) that
Why could the prophets not tell us who would conquer? The nations had to be attacked and beaten by easterners
some time. That was where most of the
attackers came from. And of course they
would build palaces – though the crafty McDowell tells us the prophecies
mention palaces though they do not - and eat the fruits so how dare McDowell
say that is a prophecy. It does not even
deserve to be called an educated guess for that would be giving it a status it
does not have. And
Page 288. This is about a number
of prophecies about
The only things that count in this is that the place will be unpopulated
and will be conquered by
It is always dishonest to pick out verses about
However, the real truth about
Page 293 replies to the objection that the prophecy that nobody would
pass through Edom forever for it would be a wasteland full of fire and smoke
forever in which the soil would be brimstone (Isaiah 34:10) was not literally
fulfilled for people still pass through it (All Prophets Were False!). The book says there are no caravans going
there to trade and that is the literal fulfilment. But when the context of the prophecy says
about the dangerous animals and snakes that will be there it is obvious that
nobody will go there because they won’t survive. That is what the prophecy is predicting and
it is wrong. Say the prophecy was fulfilled.
The prophet
admits that he knows the region so that would mean he knew why nobody would want to settle there to
any great extent if the place was ever devastated by war. Yet the Christians would say it was
supernatural knowledge.
Page 294: The destruction of the idols of Memphis in Egypt and the
burning of Thebes and the great loss of life there and that there will be no
longer any Egyptian princes is supposedly predicted in Ezekiel 30. No mention is made of Ezekiel 29 which
naively prophesied that
The Bible was always promising that its God would destroy all idols.
The prophecy of Ezekiel that nobody would dwell in
Page 296, takes verses from Nahum predicting that the drunken
McDowell claims that he honestly assumes that the prophecy was
fulfilled. Liar.
Nahum might have
been able to guess that if
Page 311 says that one day
Page 315 spells out a number of miraculous revelations from Leviticus 26
and Ezekiel 36:33-36 about the future of
Page 309
strangely admits that a fulfilled New Testament prophecy is a rarity and holds
Jesus’ assertions about Chorazin, Bethsaida
and Capernaum and that they would come to bad ends were fulfilled. The New Testament not being able to contain
original prophecy to any substantial degree would fare badly for its alleged
divine inspiration. Steven Carr shows
that McDowell’s claim that when
CONCLUSION
Bible prophecy fails to provide evidence
for the supernatural production of the Bible by supernatural means. What it provides evidence for is that
Christians trying to get us to believe in the Bible are operating a scam.
BIBLE QUOTATIONS FROM:
The Amplified Bible
BOOKS CONSULTED
Alleged Discrepancies of the
Bible, John W Haley,
Are There Hidden Codes in the
Bible? Ralph O Muncaster,
Harvest House Publishers,
Attack on the Bible, John R
Rice, Sword of the Lord,
Bible Dictionary and
Concordance, New American Bible, Catholic Edition, CD Stampley
Enterprises, Charlotte Enterprises, Inc,
Encyclopaedia of Bible Difficulties,
Gleason W Archer, Zondervan,
Evidence that Demands a Verdict,
Vol 1, Alpha, Scripture Press Foundation, Bucks, 1995
God’s Word, Final, Infallible
and Forever, Floydd C McElveen,
Gospel Truth Ministries, Grand Rapids, 1985
In Search of
Certainty, John Guest, Regal Books,
It Ain’t Necessarily So, Investigating
the Truth of the Biblical Past, Matthew Sturgis, Headline Books,
Jesus Hypotheses, V Messori,
Science and the Bible, Henry
Morris, Moody Press, Bucks, 1988
Science Speaks, Peter W Stoner,
Robert C Newman, Moody Press, Chicago, 1976
The Bible Code, Michael Drosnin, Orion,
The Case for Jesus the Messiah,
John Ankerberg Harvest House,
The Hard Sayings of Jesus, FF
Bruce, Hodder & Stoughton,
The Late Great Planet Earth, Hal
Lindsay,
The Signature of God, Grant R
Jeffrey, Marshall Pickering,
The Truth Behind the Bible Code,
Dr Jeffrey Satinover, Sidgwick
& Jackson,
The Truth of Christianity, WH Turton, Wells Gardner, Darton & Co Ltd,
The Unauthorised Version, Robin
Lane Fox, Penguin, Middlesex, 1992
The Virginal Conception and
Bodily Resurrection of Jesus, Raymond E Brown, Paulist
Press,
Theodore Parker’s Discourses,
Theodore Parker, Longmans, Green, Rader and Dyer,
Whatever Happened to Heaven,
Dave Hunt, Harvest House,
When Critics Ask, Norman Geisler and Thomas Howe, Victor Books, Illinois ,1992
THE WEB
www.awitness.org/essays/levjer.html, A Levite
Scribe Pretends to be Jeremiah
www.geocities.com/Nashville/Opry/2092/False.html,
Was Jesus Christ a False Prophet?
www.awitness.org/lostmess/fprophet.html,
False Prophecy in the Prophets of the Bible
www.hotcc.com/users/shagbark/daniel.html,
Kyle Williams, Daniel is False Prophecy
http://cs.anu.edu.au./~bdm/dilugim/secrets.html,
Secrets of the Bible Code Invented, Brendan McKay
www.infidels.org/library/modern/richard_carrier/indef/4d.html,
When is a Prophecy Miraculous? Richard Carrier
www.mindspring.com/~bab5/BIB/lessons.htm
What the Heck is a Jesus Code? This
tells us that the Bible Code has a lot of phrases of Satan, His Name is Jesus
all through Isaiah 53.
www.infidels.org/library/magazines/tsr/1995/3/3proph95.html
All Prophets Were False! Stephen
Van Eck
www.skepticsannotatedbible.com/prophecy.html
False Prophecies, Broken
Promises, and Misquotes in the Bible
www.infidels.org/library/modern/steven_carr/non-messianic.html,
Steven Carr, Critique of Josh McDowells Non-Messianic
Prophecies This Site cannot be overly recommended. It is superb.