Proof of Bible Prophecy (2)
Farrell Till errancy@infidels.org
Mon, 31 May 1999 00:07:41 -0700 (00928152461, 2.2.32.19990531070741.008e64b4@midwest.net)
TILL
Before continuing my response to Thomason's prophecy-fulfillment claim, I
need to review some unproven premises that he is reasoning from: (1) He has
assumed that an invariable principle of divine punishment was revealed in
Leviticus 26. (2) He has assumed that the text in Leviticus 26 was teaching
that there would be a sevenfold increase in the DURATION of punishment
rather than a sevenfold increase in the INTENSITY of punishment. (3) He
has assumed that the captivity in Babylon lasted for 70 years. (4) He has
assumed that the captivity ended in 536 B. C.
In my first response, I showed how that assumptions 1 and 2 are doubtful and
that 3 and 4 are flatly incorrect. As Thomason's posting continues, we will
see him incorrectly reasoning that the Jewish year contained only 360 days,
and I will expose this fallacy when I come to that part of his posting.
THOMASON
>However, only a small portion of the Jews chose to go back [to Judah]
>because many didn't want their business in Babylon to be interrupted. This
>obviously made God mad.
TILL
This "obviously" made God mad? I'm sorry, but Thomason is going to have to
beat this. Mere assertions just won't do. At the very least, Thomason must
present some kind of textual evidence from the Bible to indicate that Yahweh
was so "mad" at some of the Jews for not returning to their homeland that he
decided to punish them seven times longer than their prior captivities.
In the first place, although Jeremiah did predict a 70-year captivity in
Babylon (25:11; 29:10), the captivity didn't last nearly this long.
Nebuchadnezzar took Jerusalem in 597 B. C., a date that biblical scholars
almost universally accept because of the general agreement between
biblical chronology and Babylonian records on this point, and Cyrus issued his
proclamation in 538 B. C. (possibly even a year earlier) that allowed the
captives to return to Jerusalem. Thomason set the date of this proclamation
at 536 B. C., so even if we accept this date, the captivity could have lasted
no longer than 61 years, significantly shorter than 70.
The following biblical data show that the prediction of a 70-year captivity
was made to those who were taken captive in 597 B. C. when Jehoiachin
surrendered to Nebuchadnezzar. The surrender is recorded in the biblical
text below.
>2 Kings 24:10 At that time the servants of King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon
came up to Jerusalem, and the city was besieged.
>11 King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon came to the city, while his servants
were besieging it;
>12 King Jehoiachin of Judah gave himself up to the king of Babylon,
himself, his mother, his servants, his officers, and his palace officials.
The king of Babylon took him prisoner in the eighth year of his reign.
>13 He carried off all the treasures of the house of Yahweh, and the
treasures of the king's house; he cut in pieces all the vessels of gold in
the temple of Yahweh, which King Solomon of Israel had made, all this as
Yahweh had foretold.
>14 He carried away all Jerusalem, all the officials, all the warriors, ten
thousand captives, all the artisans and the smiths; no one remained, except
the poorest people of the land.
>15 He carried away Jehoiachin to Babylon; the king's mother, the king's
wives, his officials, and the elite of the land, he took into captivity from
Jerusalem to Babylon.
>16 The king of Babylon brought captive to Babylon all the men of valor,
seven thousand, the artisans and the smiths, one thousand, all of them
strong and fit for war.
>
Notice that this text refers to the surrender of Jehoiachin with his mother,
servants, officers, and palace officials (v:12) and to Nebuchadnezzar's
deportation to Babylon of Jehoiachin, his mother, his wives, his officials,
and the elite of the land, so this would have happened in 597 B. C. That
this group was the one that Jeremiah made his 70-year prediction to is made
clear in Jeremiah 29. To understand this, one must know that Jeconiah and
Jehoiachin were different names used in reference to the same Judean king.
>29:1 These are the words of the letter that the prophet Jeremiah sent from
Jerusalem to the remaining elders among the exiles, and to the priests, the
prophets, and all the people, whom Nebuchadnezzar had taken into exile from
Jerusalem to Babylon.
>2 This was after King Jeconiah, and the queen mother, the court officials,
the leaders of Judah and Jerusalem, the artisans, and the smiths had
departed from Jerusalem.
So this letter to the exiles and priests was sent AFTER Jeconiah, his
entourage, and the elite of Judah were taken away to Babylon. Hence,
whatever Jeremiah said in the letter had to have been said after 597 B. C.
>3 The letter was sent by the hand of Elasah son of Shaphan and Gemariah
son of Hilkiah, whom King Zedekiah of Judah sent to Babylon to King
Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon. It said:
>4 Thus says Yahweh of hosts, the God of Israel, to all the exiles whom I
have sent into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon:
>5 Build houses and live in them; plant gardens and eat what they produce.
>6 Take wives and have sons and daughters; take wives for your sons, and
give your daughters in marriage, that they may bear sons and daughters;
multiply there, and do not decrease.
>7 But seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and
pray to Yahweh on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare.
>8 For thus says Yahweh of hosts, the God of Israel: Do not let the
prophets and the diviners who are among you deceive you, and do not listen
to the dreams that they dream,
>9 for it is a lie that they are prophesying to you in my name; I did not
send them, says Yahweh.
>10 For thus says Yahweh: Only when Babylon's seventy years are completed
will I visit you, and I will fulfill to you my promise and bring you back to
this place.
>
Please notice the last verse. To this group taken captive AFTER Jeconiah's
surrender to Nebuchadnezzar in 597 B. C., Jeremiah said that they would
return to "this place" [Judah] only after the seventy years had been
completed. So if the captivity lasted 70 years, it could not have ended
until 527 B. C., but even Thomason has fixed the date of its end at 536 B.C.,
so here is another little kink in his pat little chronological chart
that he has worked out below. As I continue, I will point out other kinks.
THOMASON
>So, take 430 years of punishment, subtract 70 years of warning and you have
>430 - 70 = 360
>
TILL
We have already noticed that Thomason got his 430 years by adding the
symbolic punishment of the "house of Israel" (northern kingdom) to the
symbolic punishment of the "house of Judah" (southern kingdom), so he is
reasoning here from an assumption that is not justified by the information
in Ezekiel 4. The 390 days (years) applied to the house of Israel, and the
40 days (years) applied to the house of Judah cannot be added together,
because in reality, they were separate "prophecies" about separate political
entities. For the sake of argument, however, I'm going to let Thomason have
his 430 years, so that I can show that, even with this concession, his
theory has more holes in it than a sieve.
In the first place, I have pointed out that even though Jeremiah predicted a
captivity of 70 years, it really lasted only 59 years. Even Thomason dated
its end at 536 B. C., so if I concede this date to him too, he is left with
a captivity of only 61 years. Hence, he must subtract 61 and not 70 from
the 430. However, just for the sake of further exposing the absurdity of
his prophecy-fulfillment claim, I'm going to let him have his 70-year
captivity too, so he has been conceded 430 years from which he can subtract
an incorrect 70 years of captivity to get 360. Now let's go on and look at
other major problems in his calculations.
THOMASON
>take the remaining 360 years and multiply it by 7, as commanded in Lev.
>26:18, 360 times 7 = 2520
>
TILL
We have noted that there are good reasons to doubt that "Moses" even
intended Leviticus 26:18 to be understood as a warning that Yahweh would
multiply the DURATION of his punishment 7 times, but I'm in a generous mood
right now, so I will even concede this point to him. We take the 360, which
Thomason arrived at only through a series of generous concessions on my
part, multiply it by 7 and get 2520.
THOMASON
>the remaining punishment is 2,520 years. However, prophetic years in the
>Bible consist not of our 365 day years, but of 360 days because the
>Hebrew calender is lunar, not solar.
>
TILL
And this is where Thomason encounters another really serious problem. The
Hebrews had twelve lunar months of 30 days in their calendar, but the solar
year still has 365 days in it. The Hebrews were aware of the discrepancy,
and so they periodically added a 13th month to their years in order to keep
their calendar in alignment with the solar year. This is something that
Thomason can verify in basic biblical reference works. *New Bible
Dictionary,* published by the conservative Intervarsity Press, explains how
that an additional month was added periodically to make the lunar months
coincide with the solar year (1994, p. 159).
Common sense should have told Thomason that such an adjustment would have
been made in the Jewish lunar calendar. Otherwise, the months would lose
their seasonal characteristics. If, for example, we should adopt a 12-month
calendar of 360 days, within 6 years, April would begin where March began in
the 365-day calendar; then in 6 more years, April would fall in what had
been February's time slot. Predicting planting and harvesting seasons would
become impossible by just using the months as a guide. The intercalation of
an extra month during periodic occasions enabled the 360-day calendar to
correct itself and keep the months within their normal time range.
THOMASON
>so take 2520 years and multiply it by 360 days each year
>
>2520 times 360 = 907,200 days
>
>divide 907,200 days by our modern year of 365.25 days
>
>907,200 / 365.25 = 2483.78 years
>
TILL
I'm sorry, but this just won't work. Although a normal lunar year had 360
days, as I explained above, the periodic intercalation of a 13th month gave
the Jewish years an average of 365 days, just as we have in our calendar.
Thus, over extended periods of time, like centuries, there would have been
an average of 365 days in each Jewish year. Therefore, Thomason errs in the
step where he multiplies by 360 rather than 365 days. The 2520 years, then,
will have to be considered 2520 365-day years. Thus, there would have been
919,800 days during the 2520 years, and 919,800 divided by 365 is, of
course, 2520 years. If Thomason wishes to divide the 919,800 days by 365.25
to compensate for leap year, he will be left with 2518 years, which, as we
will soon see, won't be of much help to him.
THOMASON
>so, 2483 years added to the date of Cyrus' decree comes out to..
>
>2483 - 536 = 1947
>
TILL
I hate to rain on Thomason's parade (yeah, sure, I do), but as I just showed
above, the proper calculation (based on an overall average of 365 days in
the Jewish calendar year), the correct number of years would be 2518, so if
we accept Thomason's date of 536 B. C. as the date of Cyrus's decree, we
have 2518 - 536 = 1982.
THOMASON
>because there is no year zero (between 1 BC and 1 AD, we add one year
>
>1947 + 1 = 1948
>
TILL
As noted above, the correct figure (which results from recognizing that the
average Jewish year over a period of several centuries would have had 365
days) should be 1982, so when we add the one year that was skipped by not
having a zero year, the final figure would be A. D. 1983.
THOMASON
>On May 14 (well at midnight so May 15) Israel officially became a nation
>after being scattered for thousands of years.
>
TILL
So Israel "officially became a nation" 35 years too soon to be a fulfillment
of Thomason's prophecy. If we calculate the end of the captivity from 538
B. C., which is a much more likely date for Cyrus's proclamation, then the
nation of modern Israel was established 33 years too soon to fit Thomason's
prophecy-fulfillment scenario. If we take the correct period of the
Babylonian captivity, which was just 59 years, and subtract that number from
Thomason's 430 years (which he got by adding Ezekiel's 390 and 40), we will
have the number 371 to begin with. Then after going through Thomason's
formula of multiplying by 7, we will have a period of 2,597, so if we then
count from 536 B. C., we will arrive at A. D. 2062 as the date that Israel
should have been established as a modern nation in order to fulfill
Thomason's imaginary prophecy. Yes, indeed, the task of the
prophecy-fulfillment proponent can get complicated at times.
But it gets worse. If we take the 390 years that Ezekiel's "prophecy"
indicated would be the length of punishment for "the house of Israel" (the
northern kingdom) and multiply it by 7, we arrive at 2730 years. We can
skip the step of multiplying by 360 and then dividing the answer by 365.25,
because we have already seen that the average Jewish year consisted of 365
days. Also, we can't subtract 70 from the 390 before we multiply by 7,
because the northern kingdom (house of Israel) was not taken into Babylonian
captivity, so Jeremiah's 70-year prophecy would not apply to it. Hence, the
overall corrected formulate would result in 2730 years as the supposed
length of time that Ezekiel "prophesied" that the "house of Israel" would be
punished. Since the house of Israel (northern kingdom) went into captivity
in 721 B. C., our next step must begin at that point. Hence, 2730 minus 721
would equal 2009, and then this would become 2010 when an extra year is
added for the zero year. This means that we can expect to see the "house of
Israel" or the northern kingdom reestablished in A. D. 2010 . All we can do
now is sit and wait to see if the lost tribes of Israel are at last found
and restored to their homeland.
THOMASON
>I would be glad to hear from anyone who has any disputes with my logic
>in reaching the conclusion (through evidence shown here) that this is a
>precisely fulfilled prophetic event.
>
>Nathan Thomason
>Nathan Thomason <solophreak@altavista.net>
TILL
So now Thomason has heard from someone who disputes his logic. It is now up
to him to respond to my rebuttals and show that a "precisely fulfilled
prophetic event" has happened.
Farrell Till
Skepticism, Inc.
jftill@midwest.net