Re: Its Hard to Decipher....
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I agree with a lot of what you said bunny ...Its extremely important how you use the word...But there are certain historical facts predicted in the Bible...
Christ is actually described in Isaiah 53 more than 800 years before he is born ...
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I dont know if they were predicted. Look at the example I pointed out above - it was claimed as a successful prediction when, in fact, there was a lot of numerical adjustments and corrections, coupled with a sloppy calculation of the difference between 536 BC and 1948 AD. By their own assumptions and calculations, Israel was predicted to be re-established in 1949 and yet it didnt come about when the Bible predicted it would!
The thing is, retrospectively fitting facts to historical documents and then labelling it a successful "prophecy" is easy. If someone had interpreted the bible in 1900 and claimed Israel would be re-established in 1948 and then it happened - that could mean something.
I dont find the prophecies predicting Jesus particularly compelling, but even then, the fact is the New Testament which gives us the accounts of Jesus was written after the fact, by people who were familiar with the Old Testament and who were trying to persuade Jews in a superstitious time that Jesus was the Messiah from prophecy. There are obvious alternative explanations as to why the accounts of his life in the new testament seem to "fit" the prophecies written hundreds of years previously. My position is that it doesnt matter - spiritually, what matters is how you relate to God, not whether you can comb through scripture discovering numerical relationships which may or may not be coincidence. I think such things distract from the important part of being a Christian.
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