• An interesting note before we start in on the prophecies.  Christians see themselves as sheep and the Lord as their shepard.  If this is such a good thing why do we have this saying - like lambs been led into the slaughter?  Which of course, basically implies that the sheep are being tricked and aren't smart enough to figure it out.  And those of us who have ever worked with sheep know that no matter who many times a sheep is rescued from a dangerous situation, they almost immediately put themselves back into it.  Interesting coincidence, one would think.  Any way, on to the show.

One of the most well known bibical frauds by scholars is the book of Daniel.  Fundamentalists and Christians point to this book when they want to find fulfilled prophecies.  The sad fact of the matter is that most of these so called prophecies were written hundreds of years AFTER they happened!  Some prophecy.  It's like me forcasting what I had for dinner last night. 

According to believers, the book of Daniel was written in the sixth century B.C.E. during the exile. According to scholars it was actually written in second century B.C.E. The true reasoning behind this is unknown to me, I'm still looking for answers to this forgery.

Prophecies of Isaiah

The Virgin Birth:

Let's start with the prophecy that's not a prophecy - Isaiah 7:14 which is said to forsee the vigin birth.

"The Lord himself, therefore, will give you a sign.  It is this: a maiden is with child and will soon give birth to a son. . ."  Isaiah 7:14 JB

The first problem with this is that the word virgin does not mean the same thing now as it did when Mary was alive and many of these books were written.  The word virgin orignaly refered to a woman unto herself.   Basically this means that she was independent and thought for herself.  Not that she had never had sex.

Later on (I'm still searching for an exact date when this word changed lingusitically, though I'm thinking sometime around the 3rd century or later) the word was changed to mean sexually pure.  As is surely obvious, there were many political reasons for doing this. I believe part of it had to do with the decree that Jesus Christ was fully human and fully divine at the same time.  They could not have gotten away with this if he had had two human parents.  How could that be explained?  So, they wiped out Joseph.  So how did Mary get pregnant? "the power of the Most High will cover you with its shadow." (Lk 1:35 JB) Pretty much wipes out that icky sex stuff.

This also set a new standard for women.  Mary was suddenly one without sin and with sex.  (Pretty dull life if you ask me).  So they, as images of her, were expected to be the same.  Men for some reason were expected in enjoy sex, and weren't as punished if they had affairs.  Women where not to enjoy sex and were severely punished if found having affairs.  They were to remain pure and chaste, almost like little girls, never really allowed to fully grow up.  They later became seen as the cause of the fall, no matter how much modren Christians try to deny it; and became even more of a peice of property.  Notice how this is not how Jesus treated women. 

In order for this all to work out to the Church's liking they first had to find a prophecy, because it would seem a bit strange that something this big wouldn't have had one, and then have Jesus fulfill it.  The maiden mentioned in Is 7:14 is seen as the virigin.  Notice that Isaiah says nothing about the child mentioned as being the son of God, the Messiah, the annointed one.  Nothing further along in the passage matches the person of Jesus at all.  The true meaning of the context has nothing to do with this meaning at all.  But a meaning is forced into the text that will satisfied the need. 

The second part of this strange story is that the whole nativity, the one every church seems to set up as a life size walk through every year, never really happened.  Most likely it was added centuries later for the virgin birth aspect and to fulfill other prophecies to tie up lose ends.  This thesis has only just been presented and hasn't really been addressed in most Christian writings.  In fact, most Christians use this whole setup of the Nativity as grounds for Jesus' messiahship.  In Lee Stobel's The Case for Christ, this is one of his deciding factors, that all these things just couldn't have randomly happened.  It had to have had a Divine cause.  The virgin birth, as we've seen, was NOT foretold in the bible.  Which gives us pause as to the other portions of the begining of Luke.

Another deciding factor is that no where outside of the gospels are the events of the nativity mentioned.  Paul, who in my humble opinion really started Christianity, nevers once mentions this!  It is supposed to be one of the cornerstones.  It explains how Jesus could be both fully human and fully divine at the same time.  It explains all the special circumstances surrounding his birth that is supposed to show that he is the Divine Messiah.

The next problem that we will discuss for this matter is the fact that there is NO record what so ever for the mass child killing that Herod supposedly engaged in after he heard about Christ.  You would think, that someone, somewhere would have kept a record, that the story would have survived somewhere outside of this one record, this one mention if that many male sons had been slaughtered.  I mean one would think that this would cause a severe shortage of potential husbands for the women later on and would have been mentioned to explain the massive flux in the population.  But there is not even a whisper.  Not one thread of evidence exists to support this story.  It simply didn't happen.

Finally, there is the story based supposedly on the bible that Mary remained a virgin the rest of her life.  Well, in the bibical sense of the word that very well might be true.  The way we percieve it, no.  The bible never comes out and says that she never actually has children.  In fact in Mathew, there is proof that Jesus had brothers:

"He was still speaking to the crowds when his mother and his brothers appeared, they were standing outside and were anxious to have a word with him." (Mat 14:46)

"They were anxious to have a word with him".  Basically they were embarassed that he was running around doing what he was doing.  Later in this same passage Jesus later renounces his family.  I really admire Mary at this time, because even after everything that her son put her through she still went and stayed with him while he died.  (In fact all the women did after the men ran away like cowards, but we're still not supposed allowed to preach.  Alas, another issue for another day).

So many Christians claim that this word that is translated "brothers" really doesn't mean brothers.  In Hewbrew, they claim, there is no real way to define all the differen relations in one's family, so this word could mean almost anything they cry.  But you see, there is but one small problem with this.  These gospels, as we've been told, were first written in Jesus' native language, not in Hewbrew.  In Aramaic.  And in this language there are words to describe each relation.  The word that is used in this passage really means brothers in the blood sense.  Otherwise they would have used the word for cousins.  Some still won't believe and argue that brothers means spritiual brothers not blood ones.  Again, the origianl texts that we have do not say this.  One cannot take the bible literally when it is easy then ignore those passages that destory the whole thing.

If this is true, doesn't that call into question many other of the Church's documents?

The Destruction of Egypt

"The waters wil ebb from the Nile, the river bed will be parched and dry, the canals grew foul, the Niles of Egypt will sink and dry up.  Rush and reed will droop, the plants on the banks of the Nile; all the Nile vegetation will dry up, blow away and be seen no more." (Is 19:5-7 JB)

Who sees a problem with this? First off the Nile is still flowing to this day.  Second the lands used for agriculture etc. that he was writing about are still there.  All the reeds are present and accounted for.  This passage is estimated to be about 2750 years old, being written in the eighth cenetury B.C.E.  The Hewbrews had a real grudge against the Egyptians.  The supposed slavery and captivity that they were kept in for starters (I don't know if I will have enough room to get fully into the slavery and captivity of the Hewbrew in Exodus, but there are many great sources that debunk this if you would like to research on your own) Also the fact that the Egyptians were pagans has a lot to do with it.  If I have room, I'll try to put in some information linking the actual creation stories with Egyptian myths.  But for right now, we'll just keep it with the fact the Egypt is still standing and that the Hewbrews never got their vengance.

One interesting note here.  FIrst, many people now claim that what we think we create. Why didn't the Hewbrews and all those who read this passage and believed it create the drought as foretold? Secondly, if the Hebrew's God Yahweh was such a powerful God and really saw these people as the chosen ones, why didn't He wreak havoc on the Egyptians?  Especially since he 'commanded' the Hebrews to do just that on other pagan communities?

The Destruction of Damascus

"Damascus is going to cease to be a city, she will become a heap of ruins.  Her towns, abandoned for ever. . ." (Is 17:1 JB)

Map?  Anyone got a map?  The one problem with this is that Damascus still exists!  This prophecy was made at the same time as that of Egypt, and almost three thousand years later it has still not come true.  Another problem with this, for those who argue that maybe there is no time limit, is the feel of text and the audience that he was writting to.  It seems that he felt that this destruction would occur at any time.  And it was targeted towards his countries enemies. This seems almost more like a politcal peice then a religious one.

I also always get a kick out of the word oracle used positively with approved prophets, and then in the same breath having the word cursed when used by a different religion.

Babylon?

Although this next passage is a fulfilled prophecy it is in direct violation of another prophetic book of the bible - revelations.  Since the passage falls into Isaiah which is our current discussion, I decided to mention it here.

"I will rise against them - it is Yahweh Sabaoth who speaks - and wipe out name and remnant from Babylon.  No offspring, no posterity - it is.. . I will sweep it with the broom of destruction. . . " (Is 14:22-23 JB)

In this passage we are basically informed that God is planing to obliterate Babylon off the face of the earth.  That nothing is going to remain and that nothing will live on after. Looking at all the other prophecies in the part, one can understand why Babylon is mentioned here.  They held the Hebrews in captivity and they wanted vengance for this.  And Babylon is eventually taken down.

Now look through Revleations.  Babylon is mentioned all throughout this text.  John (the alleged author) see Babylon as the hosting city of the Anti-Christ.  This was a pagan city, with a very different religious system then the Jews and was seen as basically a doomed place.  To the Jews the streets were full of harlots, there was drinking they worshiped a whole bunch of Gods, there were very different views on sex and the human body (especially for women) and women had a place of power in the mystery cults.  John naturally assumed that the end of the world would start there.  That the loving Yahweh would slaughter those infidels and then the second coming and the reign of Christ would begin.

Unfortunately, we're all still waiting for this second coming and Babylon is long gone.  This is a case of a prophecy that went right and nullified a whole NT book.  Many Christians now believe that Babylon is a spiritual thing.  That America is the new Babylon spiritually and that the Anti-Christ will manifest himself here.  But the book of Revleations does not say that it will be the spiritual equivalent of Babylon that will do us all in.  It is supposed to be the real thing.  To give John credit, he actually thought that the second coming was coming like, in hours.  They all did.  Even Jesus.  He was preaching the end of the world as though it was on his heels. 

I waiting for someone to suggest that we are going to rebuild this ancient city in order to set the prophecy in motion.  Otherwise the end of times isn't coming for a long time.

Isaiah and Ahaz

This last failure is very obvious.  So just a brief summary followed by the two verses - number one wishful thinking and number two the real event.

Ahaz was the King of Judah  Isaiah (or so the writer tells us) told him this nice littlel story about how he wouldn't be slaughtered by his enemies.  Ahaz listened to him, and his people were killed by the thousands!  Now that is a failed prophecy if I ever saw one.

"In the reign of Ahaz. .(lineage). king of Judah, Razon the king of Aram went up against Jerusalem with Pekah son of Remaliah, king of Israel, to lay siege to it; but he was unable to capture it. . . Yahweh said to Isaiah, 'Go with your son Shear-jashub and meet Ahaz. . . and say to him: Pay attention, keep calm, have no fear, do not let your heart sink. . .let us invade Judah and terrorize it, and seize it for ourselves, adn set up a king there'. . . The Lord Yahweh says this:'It shall not come true; it shall not be.'" (Is. 7:1-7 JB)

"Yahweh his God delivered him [Ahaz] into the power of the king of the Aramaeans who defeatedhim and took great numbers of his people captive, carrying them off to Damascus. He was also delievered into the poewr of the king of Israel who inflicted a crushing defeat on him.  In a single day. . .killed a hundred and twenty thousand in Judah, all stout fighting men." (II Chron 28:5-6 JB)

Although, in a short note, it does say at the start of this chapter that Ahaz did not do what is pleasing to Yahweh which is why he lost.  To give Isaiah the benefit of the doubt.  Of course, if Isaiah was any kind of prophet, he would have warned Ahaz against these actions and foretold what would ensue if he disobeyed.