"The tragedy of common sense
it that it is not
very common."
(Albert Einstein)

"Politically correct Christianity
is tolerated but despised.
Full Gospel Christianity is
respected but persecuted."
(Unknown)

"If you marry the Zeitgeist
you will soon become widow."
(Goethe)

"To reach the source of a river
you must swim upstreams."
(Stanislaw Jerzy Lec)

"I note that all those,
who are positive to abortion
already are born."
(Ronald Reagan)

The fulfillment of Bible prophecies

A prophet of God is characterized by his prophesies coming true! You can i.e. read about this in Deuteronomy 18:22:

…so you shall know: if what a prophet proclaims in the name of the Lord does not take place or come true, that is a message the Lord has not spoken: that prophet has spoken presumptuously, so do not be alarmed.

The Old Testament contains more than 300 prophesies about the coming Messiah, his vicarious suffering and death and resurrection, all of which were fulfilled by Jesus Christ. That several hundred prophesies would be fulfilled by accident — that it just happened to turn out like that — is so unlikely that such a possibility can readily be ruled out. Some critics have instead claimed that the prophesies were written after Jesus' death, and that this explains why they were fulfilled. Thus, they believe themselves to have ruled out the supernatural. This reasoning, however, does not apply, since the generally accepted year of the completion of the Old Testament is about 450 BC. If this is not convincing enough, then consider that the Septuagint, the famous Greek translation of the Old Testament, demonstrably was completed sometime during Ptolemy Philadelphus' government (285-246 BC). It is obvious that if there is a Greek translation about 250 BC, there must have been an original Hebrew text before this year. In any event, from the time the Messianic prophesies were written down until they were fulfilled, there must have been a time gap of at least 250 years.

Another common objection is that the Old Testament prophesies have been misinterpreted. Zealous believers have forced non-existing prophetic messages from God into certain Bible verses, or it is all about mistranslations or deliberate misinterpretations. Let me give a few examples of prophecies about Jesus, and the critics' attempts to explain them away.

We find a very strong prophecy of Jesus' supernatural origins in Isaiah 7:14. In the Swedish People's Bible (partly based on the 1917 translation) we read:

Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign: Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel.

Atheists and non-believing theologians strongly disagree, for obvious reasons, with this translation and argue that it is incorrect or at least unreliable (because it matches too well with the Gospels' claim that Jesus was born of a virgin, that is Mary). In the 1981 translation, made by skilful linguists, and as far as I know non-believers, we find another variation:

Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign: Behold, the young woman shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel [Immanuel means "God (is) with you"].

That is, the "virgin" has become the "young woman" and that young women give birth is not particularly supernatural. And then you can draw a deep sigh of relief and continue not to take the Bible seriously.

They will not, however, escape that easily. In the King James' translation it says "a virgin shall conceive", just like in the Swedish People's Bible. That is, according to this translation, Isaiah prophesies that a virgin shall conceive and bear a son who will be a man of God. The gospels say that Mary was a virgin when she supernaturally became pregnant and then gave birth to baby Jesus. "But this is biologically impossible", perhaps someone says. With God, however, nothing is impossible. Would not the God who created the universe out of nothing, be able to achieve what a mediocre genetic engineer can do in his laboratory (cloning is an example of virgin birth)!? The Christian, who for scientific reasons denies the virgin birth, therefore seems highly contradictory (at least if he believes in God as Creator).

If "virgin" is the correct translation, the current verse gives a very strong and clear prophecy of Jesus, and is a sign of God's supernatural intervention in Creation. Therefore it is extremely important that, if possible, try to determine which translation is correct. We must, for this reason, look at the original Hebrew text. Does it say "young woman" or does it say "virgin"?

The Hebrew word translated to "young woman" and "virgin" is "almah". The word can have both significations and was used only on unmarried women. Both translations are thus possible. Well-informed atheists often tend to cite that if Isaiah explicitly wanted to say that ha was about a virgin, he should have used the word "betulah". The problem is that this word can also denote a married woman (or a widow), illustrated by Joel 1:8:

Mourn like a virgin in sackcloth grieving for the betrothed of her youth.

Here is the basic text "betulah" translated to "virgin". The verse apparently refers to a widow, who is still regarded as married (whether she has remarried or not) and does definitely not refer to a virgin (in the biological sense). Maybe it was because there should be no doubt whatsoever that the young woman in Isaiah 7:14 was unmarried, that Isaiah used the word "almah" (in NT Mary was not married but engaged to Joseph when Jesus was born).

But if both "virgin" and "young woman" are possible solutions, how will we be able to find out what Isaiah means?

Let's see what the Septuagint, i.e. the Greek translation of OT, which was completed around 250 BC, has to say. There they have translated the Hebrew word "almah" in Isaiah 7:14, to the Greek word "parthenos". The latter means virgin and cannot be interpreted in any other way (in biology for example, virgin birth, which occurs among some primitive organisms, is called "partenogenesis").

It is obvious that those who did the translation in Septuagint (according to tradition, 70 scribes — Septuagint means simply "the seventies'") perceive the word "almah" as virgin and nothing else. As the translation was made 250 BC, i.e. long before Jesus was born, there was no reason to choose one or the other option on the reason of political correctness, ideology, will to prove the Christian faith or any other extra-biblical motives. They simply chose what they perceived as the most accurate translation of the word "almah" without trying to prove anything, in one way or another (that some or all of the 70 scribes deliberately would mistranslate the text of ideological or sectarian reasons can be excluded, as the Jews had an immense respect for the Word of God — they would never dare to do such a thing).

Words in a language change their meanings over time. It seems reasonable that in 250 BC they had a better idea of what significance Isaiah put into the word "almah" than we have today, 2,260 years later. Isaiah 7:14 appears to be a very strong prophecy of Jesus' birth and thus confirms the Bible's supernatural origin.

A very strong prophecy of the crucifixion, which comes from King David, we find in Psalm 22:16:

…my hands and feet they have pierced… they divided my clothes among them and cast lots for my garment.

This describes the crucifixion, where nails were hit through Jesus' hands and feet. This prophecy must have a supernatural origin, since crucifixion, as far as known, did not exist as a method of execution in David's time. Now compare this prophecy with John 19:23-24:

The soldiers who had crucified Jesus, took his garments and divided them into four parts, one for each soldier. They also took his garment, and it was without seams, woven in one piece. They said therefore among themselves: "Let us not tear it. Let's decide by lot who will get it".

This prophecy has been questioned, and the critics mean that "pierced" is a mistranslation, or indeed a forgery. For a detailed discussion on this, click here.

I leave it to the reader to assess the plausibility of the above.

But it is not only different events in Jesus' life that in detail have been predicted in the Old Testament, but even the year of Jesus' death is precisely indicated. The prophet Daniel writes:

Know and understand this: From the time the word goes out to restore and rebuild Jerusalem until the Anointed One, the ruler, comes, there will be seven "sevens" and sixty-two "sevens". It will be rebuilt with streets and a trench, but in times of trouble. After the sixty-two "sevens", the Anointed One will be put to death and will have nothing. The people of the ruler who will come will destroy the city and the sanctuary. The end will come like a flood: War will continue until the end, and desolations have been decreed. (Daniel 9:25-26)

Here each week is equivalent to seven years, which is a principle given in Leviticus 25:8, "And you shall count seven times seven years, so that the time of the seven weeks of years becomes 49 years".

Word of Jerusalem's reconstruction was issued during the Persian king Artaxerxes' twentieth year, according to the prophet Nehemiah:

In the month of Nisan in the twentieth year of King Artaxerxes, when wine was brought for him, I took the wine and gave it to the king. I had not been sad in his presence before, so the king asked me, "Why does your face look so sad when you are not ill? This can be nothing but sadness of the heart". (Nehemiah 2:1-2)

Nehemiah, who was Artaxerxes' cupbearer, then said he grieved over Jerusalem and asked the king for permission to go there to rebuild the city. This was granted him.

According to historians, Artaxerxes' twentieth year of reign took place in 445 BC. It would, according to Daniel, pass 49 years (seven weeks of years) plus 434 years (62 weeks of years), i.e. a total of 483 years from this year, until the Anointed One, that is Jesus Christ, would be destroyed. 483 years forward from 445 BC brings us to the year 38 AD. The Jewish calendar did not count 365 days per year, but 360 days per year. If we take this into account, we get 476 instead of 483 years and then end up at year 31 AD, i.e. the year in which historians consider to be the most probable year of the crucifixion. (483x360=173880 days and 173880/365=476 years).

(The Jewish calendar is very complicated and I have simplified a lot above — there is however no room right now for a deeper discussion about this)

Although one or maybe a few of the 300 prophesies about Jesus could have happened by chance, it is entirely impossible that this could apply to all the fulfilled prophesies. Peter Stoner has in his book Science Speaks[1] estimated the probability that 48 of the 300 fulfilled Messianic prophecies would be fulfilled by a single person as 1 in 10¹⁵⁷ (a one followed by 157 zeroes), that is, virtually zero.[2]

Many efforts have been made to explain away the Old Testament prophesies about Messiah. One variant have been to argue that the Old or New Testament has been manipulated for the prophesies to apply to Jesus. That OT would have been tampered with can easily be refuted. The Christian Bible's Old Testament is largely identical with the Jewish Scriptures, apart from the books partly coming in a different order. If some verses in the Christian Bible's Old Testament were tampered with, then the Jews simultaneously must have changed the verses in their scriptures. This is completely unreasonable, since they do not believe that Jesus was the Messiah. The hypothesis that the New Testament would have been tampered with has already been discussed in the section on the Bible's credibility and dismissed as highly unlikely.

The Old Testament not only contains Messianic prophesies, but also very clear predictions about the future of the Jewish people. When I became a Christian, these predictions influenced me a lot. The Jews, according to the Bible, have a very special position because they are God's own people, chosen by God to be the instrument through whom God's plan could be realized.[3] Both the scattering of the Jews, when they after year 70 were expelled from Israel and spread out across the world, their situation in foreign countries and their return to Israel, are predicted in many places in the Old Testament (these texts were demonstrably written long before 70 A.D).

Then the Lord will scatter you among all nations from one end of the earth to the other…. And among those nations you will find no repose, no resting place for the sole of your foot; there the Lord will give you an anxious mind… (Deuteronomy 28:64-65)

As for those of you who are left, I will make their hearts so fearful in the lands of their enemies that the sound of a windblown leaf will put them to flight. They will run as though fleeing from the sword, and they will fall, even though no-one is pursuing them. (Leviticus 26:36)

These scriptures very clearly depicts the Diaspora, as the scattering sometimes is called, and explains why the ghetto Jew, who lived persecuted and reviled among foreign peoples, never dared to fight back against his tormentors. Long before Hitler, millions of Jews were murdered during pogroms in Germany, Poland, Russia and the Moslem World etc. We now understand why they so often let themselves be slaughtered like sheep without making the slightest resistance, which seems very difficult to understand given the courage and contempt of death as today's Israeli soldiers exhibit.

In Deuteronomy 30:3-9, we read how God promises His people that one day they will return to their land:

…then the Lord your God will restore your fortunes and have compassion on you …and gather you again from all the nations where he scattered you… the Lord your God will bring you to the land that belonged to your ancestors…

Before the Jews began to return to "the Promised Land" in the late 1800s, this land had lain largely desolate for many hundreds of years, just as it was prophesied in Leviticus 26:32-33:

I myself will lay waste the land, so that your enemies who live there will be appalled. I will scatter you among the nations and will draw out my sword and pursue you. Your land will be laid waste, and your cities will lie in ruins.

Famous writer Mark Twain, or Samuel Clemens as he was really called, traveled in 1869 around Palestine, as Israel then was known. In his travelogue Innocents Abroad or The New Pilgrim's Progress he describes a part of Palestine as follows:

There is not a single village in the whole area — not for 30 miles in any direction. There are two or three small clusters of Bedouin tents, but not a single permanent habitation.[4]

Rabbi Nowitz, who traveled to Palestine in 1882 to investigate the possibilities for Jewish re-migration, found that depletion of the earth and the Turkish government repression made such a return impossible.[5]

The prophesies of the restored Israel came true in 1948, when the new state of Israel was formed. This happened, as we all know, by a decision of the UN. In one single day we had a new country. Also this had been foretold by the prophet Isaiah:

Before she goes into labor, she gives birth; before the pains come upon her, she delivers a son. Who has ever heard of such things? Who has ever seen things like this? Can a country be born in a day or a nation been brought forth in a moment? Yet no sooner is Zion in labor than she gives birth to her children. (Isaiah 66:7-8)

Even the trembling heart has been removed for good from the Jewish people. Nehemiah's book tells the story of the Jews' situation when they after the Babylonian captivity in 400 century BC returned to Israel to rebuild the nation. The depiction, however, simultaneously gives a prophetic description of the Jewish situation today, surrounded as they are by enemies whose only goal is to destroy their country.

Also our enemies said, "Before they know it or see us, we will be right there among them and will kill them and put an end to the work." (Nehemiah 4:11)

The work of the enemies would end the Jews rebuilding the wall around Jerusalem. Just like then, the Jews still have to defend themselves unto this day.

From that day on, half of my men did the work, while the other half were equipped with spears, shields, bows and armor. The officers posted themselves behind all the people of Judah who were building the wall. Those who carried materials did their work with one hand and held a weapon in the other. (Nehemiah 4:16-17)

This is a very apt description of today's Israel. When I was in Israel a few years ago, I visited the ruins of Caesarea Philippi. Several Jewish school classes were there on a study tour. It was with a strange feeling I watched how the teachers, from junior teachers and up, all had a submachine gun hung over their shoulders as natural as a Swedish teacher carries the school calendar in a bag. What a difference from the idyll of Sweden! And how exactly Nehemiah prophesied!

And no longer is the country desolate and barren. According to God's promises, Israel would again be the land flowing with milk and honey. Everyone who has been there can attest to that this promise have become a reality.

On the day I cleanse you from all your sins, I will resettle your towns, and the ruins will be rebuilt. The desolate land will be cultivated instead of lying desolate in the sight of all who pass through it. They will say, "This land that was laid waste has become like the garden of Eden; the cities that were lying in ruins, desolate and destroyed, are now fortified and inhabited." (Ezekiel 36:33-35)

Mark Twain describes in his aforementioned book that on the road between Jerusalem and Damascus there was one single tree. Between 1948 and 2000 around 300 million trees have been planted in Israel, and each year about 20 million new trees are planted.

Immediately after the state of Israel was proclaimed on May 14, 1948, they were attacked by overwhelming forces from the surrounding Arab countries. Regular troops from Egypt, Syria, Jordan, Lebanon, Yemen, Saudi Arabia and Iraq attacked Israel the day after the Declaration of Independence. When the English, who previously administered the so-called Palestine Mandate, withdrew on the night between 14 and 15 May, they handed over almost all defenses and big quantities of weapons and ammunition to the Arabs. The reason for this shameful behavior was that the English had a long-standing friendly relation with the Arabs, and they were also very dependent on Arab oil. Most military analysts were absolutely convinced that the Jews didn't stand a chance. Forty million Arabs stood against one million Jews. And the Jews had very little modern weapons as most countries had refused to sell weapons to the new country to be. How the new nation, having a hopeless military disadvantage, managed to survive, is nothing but a pure miracle and shows that the Jews are still God's chosen people. In Deuteronomy 3:22, the Lord says to his people: "Do not be afraid of them, the Lord your God himself will fight for you".

The Jewish state's brief military history is full of events that are miraculous to say the least. A remarkable example from the 1948 war is how a small group of 70 men managed to stop the Syrian army at Deganiah in the north. Another remarkable miracle that occurred during the war, was when the advancing Egyptian tanks were standing in the middle of the desert because of fuel shortages. That an advancing, victorious attacker that attacks unprovoked, was hit by fuel shortage cannot be considered normal, but suggests that much confusion must have prevailed among the Egyptian generals and maintenance troops. Whence came this confusion? Maybe we can find the answer in Exodus:

During the last watch of the night the Lord looked down from the pillar of fire and cloud at the Egyptian army and threw it into confusion. He jammed the wheels of their chariots so that they had difficulty driving. And the Egyptians said, "Let's get away from the Israelites! The Lord is fighting for them against Egypt." (Exodus 14:24-25)

Just like thousands of years ago, the Lord still fights for his people.

Never before in historical time has it occurred that a banished people got their land back in the same way as the Jews! Coincidence?! The result of skilful plotting by the Jews and their friends?! Yes, you may, of course, believe what you want but for me the return of the Jews to Israel is an extremely strong evidence that the Bible is the true word of God!

So far we have only scratched the surface of the Biblical prophecies. The Old Testament contains numerous prophecies on different cities, countries and kingdoms and their future. The prophet Nahum foretells for example that the great city of Nineveh (the Assyrian capital) shall fall like a ripe fruit:

All your fortresses are like fig trees with their first ripe fruit; when they are shaken, the figs fall into the mouth of the eater. Look at your troops — they are all weaklings. The gates of your land are wide open to your enemies; fire has consumed the bars of your gates. (Nahum 3:12-13)

That Nineveh would fall in this simple way was hardly something that could have been predicted. The city was extremely strongly fortified and the center of a very powerful military force. At the height of its power some very strong prophesies were spoken against the city, and it was then not long before it was conquered. Nineveh fell after only three months of siege, which was a very short time. At this time, sieges could last for years, even decades. The city of Ashod, which was significantly smaller and less fortified than Nineveh, was for example besieged for twenty-nine years before it fell. Also, excavations have shown that Nineveh's defense was very impressive, or what do you say about an inner wall which was about 30 m high and 15 m thick with 60 m high towers (like a twenty-storey building). Outside this wall there was a 50 m wide moat. Excavations have also revealed that an enemy who came from the east first had to pass a strong outer wall, then two deep moats and two additional walls (the above was the innermost of these) before he was inside the town. The defenses had a depth — the distance between the outer wall's exterior to the inner wall's inside — of about 730 m and the length of the inner wall was about 12 kilometers! That this great city should fall in such a short time as three months is quite incomprehensible, at least if one ignores the fact that God is the God who intervenes in history. If you analyze Nahum's prophecy in more detail, you will also find that it matches many more historical and archeological facts.

In the eleventh chapter of Matthew Jesus prophesies the judgment of the cities Chorazin, Bethsaida and Capernaum.

Woe to you, Chorazin! Woe to you, Bethsaida! For if the miracles that were performed in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago, in sackcloth and ashes…. And you, Capernaum, will you be lifted to the heavens? No, you will go down to Hades. For if the miracles that were performed in you had been performed in Sodom, it would have remained to this day. (Matthew 11:21,23)

These three cities were situated around the Lake of Galilee in northern Israel. All three were destroyed in an earth quake around the year 400, and not one of them exist today. George Davis says in his Bible Prophecies Fulfilles Today:

Every time we have visited Tiberias and the area around the Lake of Galilee, we have each time been struck by the accuracy and the supernatural inspiration of the Word of God. There are the ruins of three cities, destroyed exactly as predicted by our Lord, and a city, Tiberias, on which no judgment was spoken, and which still exists, thriving after 19 long centuries.[6]

The uniqueness of Christianity, differing from all other religions, is that it is linked to events in space and time. Therefore, Christian faith can in various ways be verified and tried by reason and logic and compared with historical and archeological facts. The Bible's historical narrative has time and again proved to be in amazing agreement with such facts. This is of course no direct evidence that the Bible's spiritual content is true, even if it increases its credibility as a whole. However, here enter the prophesies. Through these verifiable historical events are linked to God's supernatural actions. The fulfillment of the prophesies, that rationally can be controlled and evaluated, prove beyond any doubt that the Bible is truly the Word of God, and that we therefore have every reason to take this message very seriously. To deny God, in spite of these prophesies, is to possess a very large portion of blind faith!

You can read more about Christian faith in: "But what about the witch trials, the inquisition and religious wars? Are they from Jesus? (a bit of Church history)"

Back to "World views and the Christian faith."

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[1] Moody Press 1963
[2] To get any idea of how incredibly small the number 1/10¹⁵⁷ is, we must us parables. Astrophysicist Hugh Ross gives in his book The Creator and The Cosmos, Navpress, 1993, the following picture of the number 1/10³⁷ (a much, much greater probability). Assume you stacked twenty-five cent coins all the way to the moon (distance 384 000 kilometers). Then cover the entire North American continent with such coin stacks. Do the same on a billion continents as large as North America. Paint a coin red and blend it among the others and then ask a friend to blindfolded and randomly pick one coin from the stacks. The probability that he, at his first attempt, takes the red coin is 1/10³⁷. (The above can be compared to the U.S. national debt; if twenty-five cent coins were stacked 60 cm high, it would only cover 2,7 km².)
[3] Maybe it is best to point out that this shall not be interpreted as the Jewish people being faultless and that they have the right to behave in any way they like, for instance against the Palestinian people. This is really obvious, since no human beings, be they individuals, groups or nations, are faultless, but is important to highlight. Many people who are hostile to the Christian faith, in fact, seem to believe that the Christians who support Israel, thus automatically hate all Palestinians, which is really not true.
[4] Page 213, Volume II, Harper & Brothers Publishers, 1869.
[5] John Urquhart, The Wonders of Prophecy, New York, C C Cook, n d
[6] The Million Testaments Campaign, 1931, page 41.