Vicki’s comment points to yet another type of false prophecy — those based on specialized knowledge known to only a few people. No doubt more than a few ancient astronomers were able to enhance their social standing by being able to predict things such as eclipses, not because they received special divine revelation, but because they knew more than their contemporaries did about the motions of the planets.

Speaking of which, there has been considerable discussion this past week about the Star of Bethlehem and how it guided the Three Wise Men to Jesus’ birthplace. What no one mentioned was that among the various prophecies about the Star was that it supposedly rose in the east. However, since *all* stars rise in the east, this prophecy, like so many in the Bible, can hardly be considered divinely inspired. Moreover, since stars move across the sky as our planet rotates about its axis, there is no fixed point on our planet (excluding the North and South Poles) that can be considered “underneath” a given star. Accordingly, the notion that a star “guided” the Wise Men to a specific location (longitude and latitude) in a specific town (namely, Jesus’ manger) is simply ridiculous. Indeed, the “longitude problem” — the ability to navigate to a given longitude based on celestial observation — was not solved until the 18th century.

Well, if we turn back the calendar two thousand years to a time when science as we know it did not exist, we find people who relied, instead, on myth and superstition…dreams and visions…miracles and “prophecies”…to understand the world around them. Christianity, and virtually all other major religions on our planet today, germinated in such a world. It was a world in which people were apparently easy to fool — a world in which you, too, could have been a prophet.

It was this bit that moved me to add some more historical perspective. It’s not like this is some arcane theological trivia either, I heard an African-American commentator on NPR use the term “prophetic tradition” in just the sense I described just the other day.

Mlle. Projektleiterin: Comment? Ceci n’est pas une pipe: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Treachery_Of_Images

My great-grandfather supposedly was able to predict the weather with uncanny accuracy, but according to my father he always disclaimed, “I’m no prophet, but I watch the wind and the clouds.”

To answer Martin’s question: I cannot point to my ‘favorite’ Biblical prophecy, because that particular example comes not from my own reading of the Bible, but from various televangelist sermons I have heard. I didn’t research the source myself because I’ve heard this statement from more than one preacher and, thus, assumed it came from somewhere in the Bible.

In an effort to keep comments more on-point, let me remind readers that my post was about the use of Bible ‘prophecies’ to support the allegedly divine nature of Jesus, when in fact Bible ‘prophecies’ are so conspicuously untrustworthy that they cannot reliably support such claims. When ‘prophecies’ are written after the fact, when they are vague and open-ended, when they relate to events that almost anyone could predict, etc., they lose their claim to divine providence and become nothing more than convenient fiction. Accordingly, when Believers cite such ‘prophecies’ as their primary basis for asserting the Bible’s authority, such claims must be discounted or, at the very least, questioned.

We think of some of the plays of Shakespeare as being comedies. The Shakespeare who wrote them is considered a comedian not because he has an inexhaustible supply of really funny jokes, but because he wrote comedies.

In the bible, some books are called Prophesy. A prophet then is someone who wrote a book of Prophesy. This may not have anything whatsoever to do with predicting the future.

For a fuller understanding of the role of prophets in biblical times you might try reading a book by Robin Lane Fox, called The Unauthorized Version, Truth and Fiction in the Bible. Chapter 18, called Back To The Future, deals exclusively with Prophets and clearly explains that the importance to a society or culture of their Prophets is not determined by the truth of their prophecies. One example: In an age before mass media, and even before most people could read or write, prophets served as a reminder that actions have consequences, and that your actions can have consequences for people you may never meet. The prophet’s job is not necessarily to predict the particular consequence of your action but to remind you of the words later made famous by Donne; no man is an island.

Incidentally, I have not been able to locate your “favourite” biblical prophesy, that believers will be persecuted. Could you please provide a reference for this?

It’s not that your idea of a prophet is wrong or that christians don’t selectively interpret certain OT texts as predictions of Christ’s birth, etc. It’s just not the whole story. The other dimension of the prophet persona in the Jewish tradition was of a person who went out to the wilderness, deliberately isolating himself from traditional power structures in order to gain status as a holy man. He could then use that status to speak truth to power and influence society while still remaining outside the priestly/kingly power structure.

from the Cambridge Dictionary Online:

prophet
noun [C]

1 a person who is believed to have a special power which allows them to say what a god wishes to tell people, especially about things that will happen in the future:
an Old Testament prophet
Let us hear the words of the prophet Isaiah on the coming of the Prince of Peace.

2 a person who supports a new system of beliefs and principles:
Rousseau, that great prophet of the modern age