Interbane wrote:I looked out of curiosity. I picked one from the list at random, a prophecy about Cyrus.
Cyrus will conquer Babylon
100prophecies.org claims that before 681 BCE the prophet Isaiah predicted Persia would defeat Babylon and furthermore that this prophecy was fulfilled in 539 BCE. Bible inerrantists would have us believe that Isaiah prophesied specifically that Cyrus would be Babylon's conqueror and would enter through gates, and that he made this prediction over 140 years before the event. They cite Isaiah 45:1 (NIV) as predicting that "Babylon's gates would open for Cyrus":[10]
This is what the Lord says to his anointed, to Cyrus, whose right hand I take hold of to subdue nations before him and to strip kings of their armor, to open doors before him so that gates will not be shut[.]
Interbane wrote:This claim is ridiculous, on two grounds.
First, Isaiah's reference to gates, although the actual means Cyrus used to gain entry to the city of Babylon, was nonetheless meant figuratively. This is evidenced by noting the continued use of obviously figurative language in the next verse (NIV):
I will go before you and will level the mountains; I will break down gates of bronze and cut through bars of iron.
Furthermore, Babylon is not actually mentioned anywhere in the chapter.
First here's Isaiah chapter 45;
http://www.biblehub.com/niv/isaiah/45.htm
The first criticism is that the language is figurative. This is partly true though it's alluding to standard material problems of conquest such as gaining entrance to fortified citadels and cities. It's a prophecy of conquest by Cyrus of not just one nation but several, which is additional information.
So I wouldn't read it as meaning specifically or entirely literally the gate of Babylon not being shut though it could include that.
His second criticism is that Babylon is not actually mentioned anywhere in the chapter. It is though in many places in Isaiah,and the prophet Jeremiah who came later but still well before the fall of Babylon, provides more specific prophecies relating to the conquest and destruction of Babylon.
Isaiah has many themes and the fall of Babylon is just one. The critic ignores other references in Isaiah to Babylon and also the fact that in verse 13 of the chapter God says that Cyrus will rebuild his city Jerusalem and let his exiles go free.
This looks ahead to the prophesied Babylonian captivity,the destruction of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar, and Cyrus having conquered Babylon,issuing the decree to release the Jews and rebuild Jerusalem.
A lot of information in these few lines.
http://www.biblehub.com/isaiah/45-13.htm
In Isaiah 48:14-15 there is a further reference to Cyrus as the one chosen and called by God to defeat Babylon.
http://www.biblehub.com/isaiah/48-14.htm
Interbane wrote:Second, in reality, this section of Isaiah was likely written approximately 537 BCE. Even if the "prediction" was not made after the event, its occurrence was hardly impossible to foresee and the name of Cyrus would have been well known. Imagine someone in the future who digs up a document from late 2002 which "prophesies" the Iraq War and the defeat and death of Saddam Hussein - how impressed should our future reader be of the author's oracular powers?
Interbane wrote:Here Oakes ignores the well established scholarship that Isaiah is not a single document composed "more than two hundred years before the events" (incl. by Christians who don't subscribe to biblical inerrancy), but a composite of at least three different authors writing at different times.
It's hard to astoundingly predict the future when the events you predict are actually in the past.
Here the critic asserts that
this section of Isaiah ch. 48:14 was likely written approximately 537BCE. He says this is the "well established scholarship" that says Isaiah is not a single document but a composite of three different authors writing at different times.
In reality it's the outdated 19th century "documentary source hypothesis" and it methodology applied to the book.
But this is bad scholarship.
http://www.ukapologetics.net/2criticalisaiah.html
This article has another linked on the remarkable prophecy of Daniel. These critics constantly try to say biblical prophecies are postdated but the evidence keeps building up against them.
https://www.probe.org/the-dead-sea-scrolls
The rest of his argument is only valid if his premise is right which it is not. The conquest of the superpower Babylon was not a likely event for many reasons.
Here's a two part article on the biblical prophecies on the conquest of Babylon.
https://christiancourier.com/articles/3 ... ecy-part-1
Nostradamus is not comparable to biblical prophecy for many reasons, but there's enough to be going on with here.