Christians and Jews: Couldnt the authors of the OT have written the prophecies after the events happened?
964237
An Archeological Discovery of the DEAD SEA SCROLLS proves this could not be the case.
667668
Excellent observation. They could "fulfil" many prophesies (ie. riding into town on a donkey), but they couldn't change his name. Yeshua was not the Messiah. Ask the Jews, they know better what their own scripture says than the Romans.
1168309
The phrase 'end times' does NOT occur in the Bible. Perhaps you're referring to "the time of the end" mentioned in Daniel (called "son of man": Dan 8:17, and "should repent": Num 23;19). \n\nDaniel had "NIGHT visions" from reading a book (probably the five books of Moses collectively called law), and then he made nightmarish prophecies, but was finally told to shut up and seal the book, to the time of the end... perhaps the end of the law (Rom 10:4). Not to mention Paul (an apostle of JC by the will of God and "his witness to all men", including Daniel) notes "whether prophecies, they shall fail": 1Cor 13. \n\nAnd we know prophecies can fail, since they did at Nenevah when the people believed God and the no name king disrobed, stepped down, and sat in the ashes, in the great fish story of Jonah.\n\nAs for Revelation, it's written as a latter end "worse" notable by "seven" spirits: http://www.godshew.org/Revelations9.htm , a worse case scenario to avoid, except for "the end" we are told to "endure unto to be saved(only)" and by grace(only).\n\nAs for some thoughts on what time it is, it's interesting to note two global graphs did kinda "shoot forth" in 1967 http://www.godshew.org/Graphically.htm as if sprinting to the end of the human race, which all run, but the prize is won by one (1Cor 9:24), and the one first finished (of two mentions of "finished" in John 17 & 19) is not "one proselyte", but "one Spirit" http://www.godshew.org/HumanRace.htm\n\nAs for rapture theories, it's already too late for all such, since the last (not just past) millennium had two false/true ends, the false one being Y2K, and also a countdown of 3 1/2 yrs (42 mos).\n\nIt's also the "third day" (beyond 2000) http://www.godshew.org/ThirdDay.htm of fwd AD-> only goes one way, perhaps the way the love(God) of Christ "constraineth" us to go, go on unto "perfection"... in the end.\n\nThe "grace" of our Lord Jesus Christ with you all. Amen.
824187
Nope.  \n\nSecularists especially, use these "Didn't the (whatever Bible story) get copied from (whatever extra-biblical source)?"  all the time.  These have been discredited over and over again, yet they keep coming back.\n\nWhile it is true that there are similar stories in various other ancient texts, they are also very dissimilar.  You can look to the Amarna Letters, Babylonian Theodicy, Elba Tablets, Hammurabi's Code, Ishtar's Descent, Ludlul Bel Nemedi, Mari Tablets, and innumerable others, and find stories that are similar to the Bible's.  That hardly allows for them to be sources.\n\nKeep in mind also, when the Flood occurred, it was world-wide, and every ancient civilization recorded it.  These are also descendants of Noah, who abandoned YHWH as God, and followed idols instead.  The veracity of the story remains.  You can look to other stories in the same vein.
867302
I've seen a lot of Christians take verses out of the Bible and insist that they are "prophecy"... but they're one of the following.\n\n1. Prediction of something that's either very likely or inevitable.\n2. Prediction of something that happens later in the same book.\n3. Completely wrong, out of context, or contradictory to reality.\n4. Prediction of something that happens in another book, but in the context of the author having literary access to the prophecy referenced. \n\nNone of these things qualify as "prophecy". Prophecy is a unique prediction, the event happening on its own without "help" from those who know the prophecy beforehand.
39729
I couldn't say yes or no with much authority, but I can refer you to some sources, and some questions for you to consider, that should lead you to answer your question for yourself. My observations base of the assumption that the Bible is consistent withitself:\nDeut 39:39 (the author of the Bible intended that people understand it => it has no secrets)\nRom 1:18-23 (reveals that everything is plain)\nRev 1:19 (Revelations writes about the past, the present, and the future)\nEcc 12:13 (purpose of life)\nIf you read some of the book of Daniel, you discover that Daniel's dreams prophesied things to come -- Alexander the Great.\nI cannot prove to you if this is the case or not, but all my research thus far has led me to the believe that the Bible is what it claims to be. We still have to use the basic principles of common sense and logic. Its message (including prophecy) can be discovered asking 5 basic questions as we read: 'Who wrote this/who is it written to? Why did they write it? Where did it take place? When did it take place/when was it written? What is the author trying to say.'\nAs does any book, when read in context, answers are found in doing more reading.\nYou could pose another question asking about a particular prophecy you had in mind. I hope your reading is an adventure.
329737
Actually the Bible(of Christ)is provable.  Even 'scientists' admit that the Old Testament is 3000-4000 years old.  The Old Testament fortells of the Christs coming.  When Jesus came he satisfied every prediction of the OT(hundreds)when he was born.  Christ did in fact come which can be harmonized from religious sources and non religious.  Even people/kings that arent Christaian talk of Jesus and Christians at that time and can be found in writings.  Even today, artifacts are dug up in the Holy Land that reinforce that Jesus and the NT people of the Bible actually existed.  All of this comes from non Christian/non religious sources.   A coffin was dug up recently in the Holy Land that said in script;  Here lies James, brother of Jesus.\n  And the Bible fortells the end of the earth and the events that precede that.  Including the jews return to thier home(1945 Israel) and the nature of people in the last days.\n\nMat24 [6] And ye shall hear of wars and rumours of wars: see that ye be not troubled: for all these things must come to pass, but the end is not yet.\n[7] For nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom: and there shall be famines, and pestilences, and earthquakes, in divers places.\n[8] All these are the beginning of sorrows.
669917
Well, there are certain prophecies that were uncomfortably similar to actual events/ people ( Hitler, Great fire of London, World war 2) Although he predicted a great war in 1999 to end all wars, which would be won by a yellow race - which, depending on your interpretation is either yet to be fulfilled if its still ongoing or complete BS.\n\nAnyway all I know is, when I was about ten I asked for this huge book called 'marvels and mysteries of the unexplained' and it had a section on prophecies. The prophet for 1999 by Nostradamus made my twin sister cry unconsolably because she thought it would come true and had nightmares for years (until 1999) so he may or may not have been correct.However I never got to research it as my sister superglued his pages together....
717938
Well, honey.. u are right, when some one learn of christians' history they will know that the scriptures, letters etc, that compiled in the bible was written after Jesus was taken up to heaven by God. Several writers wrote the story of Jesus according to the scriptures they found and later on, they exaggerated the stories themselves, thus u can see that the difference or discrepancies of stories in New testament are apparent! u can compare the latest stories of Jesus (Paul) with the the earliest scriptures as in this web :-\n\nhttp://www.cwo.com/~pentrack/catholic/chron.html\n\nMost christians doesnt understand why ACCURACY is IMPORTANT in a Holy Books! They Dont understand that God WOULD NOT make Mistakes and Discrepancies in his own Words, in a Holy Books!! Thats the problems!! If they dont understand that, they wont understand which is true and which is wrong. They cant even think of it..
177163
Well, since no one alive today was there ... no one can be sure if Adam and Eve could write or not. But as has been pointed out before, Adam was created perfecly by God, and walked with God, so I think it would be safe to draw the conclusion that Adam was literate, and passed that knowledge on to his descendants. Certainly, it would have been lost by some of them in the events at the tower of Babel, and possibly only a few languages were developed into any written form for many years after that event.\nNoah would have been born 56 years after Adam died, but would have had 6 living ancestors who could have known Adam personally.\nAbraham was 58 years old before Noah died, so Abraham could have gotten his world history from Noah.\nThe actual writing of the Book of Genesis is attributed to Moses, about 500 years after Abraham, but it is generally accepted that (Genesis) was in written form before that time and Moses merely compiled the records written by others.\nIf you read the book of Genesis you will notice an interesting phrase that keeps appearing "these are the generations of ... "\nIt is apparent from the literary style that each time this phrase appears, it indicates that one author has finished his writing and passed the book on to the next family historian.\nThe first occurrence of this is in Gen. 2:4 and apparently, God is the one doing the writing and is passing the task on to Adam.\nNext is Gen. 5:1 where Adam is apparently finishing his writing and it is passed on to (probably Seth, or Enoch) the next historian.\nGen. 6:9 is apparently where Noah becomes the historian.\nGen. 10 and 11 are apparently recorded by Shem.\nAbraham begins to be the historian in Gen. 12:1\nIshmael and Isaac both contribute (Gen. 25:12&19)\nMost likely, Moses himself only wrote the portion after the death of Jacob (or possibly only after Joseph's death), which would have been very recent historical events for him.
485689
The people who wrote the old testament had a great deal in common with modern day muslim extremists.\n\nA lot of moderately religious people seem to miss this extremely important detail every day.\n\nEdit - Samson killed himself dropping the roof of a temple on himself and his enemies...\n\nEdit - Do none of you Christians understand how you are completely validating exactly what I just said?  To the answerers here, saying Samson's "not like a terrorist" because he was doing "the will of God"... do you not see that you are speaking exactly like a suicide bomber?  :)  Seriously, think about what you've been force-fed, people.  Please, think long and hard about it.
1068078
well, no thought has to go into this, this is historical fact.  Many books were left out of the final book.  The old testament has books like The book of Enoch and there are also later books like the Maccabees I and 2 that are made about a century before christ.  These are called Apocrypha.  There are also many books left out of the new testament or edited in some way, there is the Gospel of Thomas and the Secret Gospel of Marc which is differently edited than the one we currently know.  The problem is, a lot of these books that were taken out of the new testament at least were written many many years after christs death so when the early church created the canon they decided what was most in use and what most applied in terms of creation date.
485245
of daniel, not fo daniel.\nIt could be true. If devine intervention happened to each of the authors of the Bible, it could happen again today. There needs to be some corrections anyway. I do know that the link below is awesome after 6 months.
1014272
Nostradamus had predictions that has come true so far and as far as the bible goes, No one knows. The bible was man written. How do you know that those men just had to sit down and figure out where we came from and that so they did. And today those words are read by many. But it is still a theory. Not a truth. Some chose to believe it, and some don't.
927638
Interesting point, but I thought the whole "second coming" was promised to the disciples AFTER the resurrection. In that case, no.
481752
Let me give you a bit of background that - although is controversial - is accepted to some extent.\n\nThe first 5 books of the Bible known as the Penteteuch - were "compiled" by Moses - however, I don't agree that he wrote them all. What's accepted is that the Levites and the tribes of Israel wrote different portions - however many Biblical classes will accept that Moses "wrote" them. \n\nThey used Hebrew - in fact, most of the OT is written in Hebrew sans a few written in Aramaic. (I know Daneil was written in Aramaic)\n\nAs for where it was written - this is total conjecture and speculation. \n\nThe NT was written by the apostles - and the latter chapters following the gospel were mostly written by Paul, some Peter with the help of other apostles. \n\nThe Epistles for most part were written by Paul - and when he wrote them is pretty clear - around 50 AD. Revelation is written near 100 AD by John who wrote it on Patmos. \n\nThe NT was written in Greek. \n\nHope that helps.
935530
As most of the Books of the Bible were written they were real time events. For example Moses wrote the 1st 5 books (the Torah) of the Bible as many of the events were happening (i.e. the Exodus).\n\nBut God is still "writing stories" in the lives of Believers. God is active in my life today, unfortunately many non-believers simply dismiss the idea.\n\nGod is outside time and is always a present reality. He is in the past, present, and future simultaneously. This is why He is YHWH (Jehovah), it means I AM, not that I was or I will be, but I AM.