PROPHECIES: IMAGINARY AND UNFULFILLED

Farrell Till

Prophecy fulfillment is a popular argument that bibliolaters rely on in trying to prove the divine

inspiration of the Bible. They claim that the Bible is filled with recorded events that prophets

foretold years and even centuries before they happened. They argue that there is no way to

explain how these predictions could have been so accurately made except to conclude that the

Holy Spirit enabled the prophets who uttered them to see into the future. In prophecy fulfillment,

then, they see evidence of God's direct involvement in the writing of the Bible.

A very simple flaw in the prophecy-fulfillment argument is that foreseeing the future doesn't

necessarily prove divine guidance. Psychics have existed in every generation, and some of them

have demonstrated amazing abilities to predict future events. Their "powers," although

mystifying to those who witness them, are not usually considered divine in origin. If, then, Old

Testament prophets did on occasions foresee the future (a questionable premise at best), perhaps

they were merely the Nostradamuses and Edgar Cayces of their day. Why would it necessarily

follow that they were divinely inspired? Even the Bible recognizes the possibility that uninspired

prophets can sometimes accurately predict the future:

"If there arises among you a prophet or a dreamer of dreams, and he gives you a sign or a

wonder, and the sign or wonder comes to pass, of which he spoke to you, saying, `Let us go after

other gods'--which you have not known--`and let us serve them,' you shall not listen to the words

of that prophet or that dreamer of dreams, for Yahweh your God is testing you to know whether

you love Yahweh your God with all your heart and with all your soul" (Deut. 13:1-3, NKJV with

Yahweh substituted for "the LORD").

By the Bible's own testimony, then, natural psychic ability could offer a perfectly sensible

explanation for any example of prophecy that bibliolaters might cite in support of the inerrancy

doctrine, but an unbiased contextual examination of the alleged prophecy will very likely

uncover an even more rational explanation. Usually, Bible "prophecies" turn out to be prophecies

only because imaginative Bible writers arbitrarily declared them to be prophecies. The same can

be said of their alleged fulfillments: the fulfillments are fulfillments only because obviously

biased New Testament writers arbitrarily declared them to be fulfillments.

NONPROPHECIES

Later, I will examine several examples of these "imaginary prophecies," but a more logical place

to begin examination of the prophecy-fulfillment argument would be with what, for lack of a

better term, I will call "nonprophecies." These involve those cases where, although alleged

prophecies were quoted or referred to by New Testament writers, Bible scholars have been

unable to find the original statement. An example is found in John 7:38 where Jesus said, "He

who believes in Me, as the Scripture has said, out of his heart will flow rivers of living water." If

Jesus was right in saying that scripture said this, just where was it said? No such statement in the

Old Testament scriptures has ever been located, yet "the scripture" to Jesus would certainly have

been the Old Testament. In this statement, then, we apparently have a fulfillment that was a

fulfillment of--what? How could there be a fulfillment of a prophecy that was never even made?

Jesus claimed another fulfillment of nonprophecy in Luke 24:46. Speaking to his disciples on the

night of his alleged resurrection, he said, "Thus it is written and thus it was necessary for the

Christ to suffer and to rise from the dead the third day." That the resurrection of Christ on the

third day was prophesied in the scriptures was claimed also by the Apostle Paul in 1 Corinthians

15:3-4: "For I delivered to you first of all that which I also received: that Christ died for our sins

according to the Scriptures, and that He was buried, and that He rose again the third day

according to the scriptures." In two different places, then, New Testament writers claimed that

the resurrection of the Messiah on the third day had been predicted in the scriptures. Try as they

may, however, bibliolaters cannot produce an Old Testament passage that made this alleged

third-day prediction. It simply doesn't exist.

Confronted with a challenge to produce such a scripture, Bill Jackson, a Church-of-Christ

preacher from Austin, Texas, said in my debate with him that "the prophecy had to do with the

event... and the fleshed-out details need not have been given at the time" (Jackson-Till Debate, p.

20). He had to say something, of course, but all the talk in the world about fleshed-out details

doesn't remove the fact that Jesus plainly said it had been written that he would "rise again from

the dead the third day" and that the Apostle Paul agreed that such a prophecy had been written.

The claim of a third-day resurrection prediction, then, was just another example of nonprophecy.

In another example, Matthew said that the purchase of the potter's field with the thirty pieces of

silver that Judas cast back to the chief priests and elders fulfilled a prophecy made by Jeremiah:

"Then was fulfilled that which was spoken through Jeremiah the prophet, saying, And they took

the thirty pieces of silver, the price of him that was priced, whom certain of the children of Israel

did price; and they gave them for the potter's field as the Lord appointed me" (27:9-10). The only

problem is that Jeremiah never wrote anything remotely similar to this, so how could this be a

fulfillment of "that which was spoken through Jeremiah the prophet"? Some scholars have

suggested that Matthew was quoting "loosely" a statement that was actually written by Zechariah

(11:12-13) rather than Jeremiah. If this is true, then one can only wonder why a divinely inspired

writer, being guided by the omniscient Holy Spirit, would have said Jeremiah instead of

Zechariah. To offer this as a solution to the problem posed by the passage doesn't do much to

instill confidence in the inerrancy doctrine. Furthermore, if Matthew was indeed referring to

Zechariah 11:12-13, then he certainly was "quoting loosely," so loosely, in fact, that any

semblance of a connection between the two passages is barely recognizable: "Then I said to

them, `If it is agreeable to you, give me my wages; and if not, refrain.' So they weighed out for

my wages thirty pieces of silver. And Yahweh said to me, `Throw it to the potter'--that princely

price they set on me. So I took the thirty pieces of silver and threw them into the house of

Yahweh for the potter" (NKJV). Many versions (RSV, NRSV, JB, NAB, REB, GNB, NWT,

Moffatt, and Lamsa's translation from the Peshitta text) translate this passage to read treasury for

potter, and the Septuagint (the Holy Spirit's favorite version) reads furnace for potter. All of

these variations indicate that the meaning of the original certainly wasn't clear enough to claim

this as a prophecy of the purchase of the potter's field with the money that Judas was paid to

betray Jesus. If it was, then fundamentalists owe us an answer to the question posed earlier: Why

did a divinely inspired writer attribute to Jeremiah a prophecy that was made by Zechariah? Of

course, when bibliolaters talk about "wonderful prophecy fulfillments," they don't have much to

say about this one. The reason why they don't should be obvious.

Matthew was quite adept at citing nonprophecies. When Joseph took his family to Nazareth upon

their return from Egypt, Matthew said that he did so "that it might be fulfilled which was spoken

through the prophets, that he should be called a Nazarene"(2:23). Bible scholars, however, have

been unable to find any statement that any prophet ever made that this could be a reference to.

As a matter of fact, the Old Testament prophets never referred to Nazareth, period. The word

Nazareth, as well as Nazarene, was never even mentioned in the Old Testament. If this is so,

how then could the period of Jesus's residency in Nazareth have been prophesied by the

prophets?

This matter also came up in my debate with Bill Jackson. He tried to circumvent the problem by

claiming that the prophecy was only spoken by the prophets and that nothing was said to imply

that it had ever been written (Jackson-Till Debate, p. 20).This is at best a far-fetched quibble that

fails to take note of the fact that Matthew routinely introduced written "prophecies" by saying

that they had been spoken by so-and-so. He said, for example, that the "voice heard in Ramah"

had been "spoken through Jeremiah the prophet" (2:17-18). Earlier he had said that the famous

virgin-birth prophecy of Isaiah 7:14 had been "spoken by the Lord through the prophet" (1:22).

He introduced Isaiah 9:1-2 by saying that this had been "spoken through Isaiah the

prophet"(4:14). He introduced Isaiah 42:1-4 by saying that this had been "spoken through Isaiah

the prophet" (12:17). There are numerous other examples in Matthew to show that his style was

to introduce alleged prophecies by saying that they had been spoken by such and such a prophet.

If the prophecy-fulfillment argument offers such wonderful proof of divine inspiration, then, we

have every right to demand that bibliolaters show us just where it was prophesied that Jesus

would be called a Nazarene as Matthew claimed in the passage cited from his gospel account.

How can there be proof of divine inspiration in a prophecy statement that may never have been

made?

In two oral debates, my opponents have quibbled that Old Testament scriptures called Jesus a

Nazarene when the Messiah was referred to as a "branch" that would come out of Jesse (Is. 11:1;

53:2), because the Hebrew word netser (branch) is the word from which the town of Nazareth

derived its name. Strong's Concordance, however, declares that the name Nazareth is of

uncertain derivation, and Eerdmans Bible Dictionary says that the name was derived perhaps

from naser, which means watch or neser, "a sprout or descendant" (1987, p. 751). There is

obviously scholastic doubt over the linguistic origin of the name Nazareth, and as long as that is

true, this "argument" is completely without merit.

IMAGINARY PROPHECIES

In "The Holy Bible--Inspired of God: a Look at the Evidence," Wayne Jackson a well-known

defender of Bible inerrancy in the Churches of Christ listed three criteria that prophecy must

comply with in order to be "valid." The second of these was, "It must involve... specific details--

not vague generalities or remote possibilities" (Christian Courier, May 1991, p. 2).To this, I give

my unqualified endorsement. Why anyone wanting to prove the inspiration of the Bible by

appeals to prophecy fulfillment would make an admission as damaging as this one is hard to

understand, because when it is applied honestly and objectively to the prophecy fulfillments

alleged by New Testament writers, they all must be rejected as "valid" prophecy fulfillments.

With the exception of two or three that will be analyzed later, none of them contain details

specific enough to pass Jackson's validity test.

In their desperation to give credibility to their new found religion, New Testament writers often

distorted Old Testament scriptures or quoted them entirely out of context to shape them into

"prophecies" that seemed to fit contemporary people and events they were writing about. In the

book of Acts, Luke twice resorted to this in his application of Psalm 16:8-10 in sermons

allegedly preached by Peter and Paul (2:27-28; 13:35-36):

I have set Yahweh always before me: Because He is at my right hand, I shall not be moved.

Therefore my heart is glad, and my glory rejoices; My flesh also will rest in hope. For You will

not leave my soul in Sheol, Nor will You allow Your Holy One to see corruption.

The apostles presumably saw this passage as a prophecy of the resurrection, because in both

places they cited it as proof that Jesus had risen from the dead. However, looking at it with the

honesty and objectivity previously mentioned, we have to ask, "Where are the specific details

that Mr. Jackson spoke about?" We see only vague generalities and not even remote possibility

in the statement. Who reading this statement in the original context would have supposed that it

was a prophecy of a resurrection that would occur centuries later? The entire psalm was written

in first person and had obvious reference to matters that concerned the writer's present condition.

In the opening verse, he said of the god to whom the psalm was addressed, "I have no good

beyond thee." Does this sound like something that the sinless Jesus would say? After the

statement that Peter and Paul allegedly quoted as proof of the resurrection, the psalmist said,

"Thou (Yahweh) will show me the path of life" (v: 11). Are we to believe that Jesus, who was

the way, the truth, and the life (Jn. 14:6) and not just that but was God himself (Jn. 1:1), would

need Yahweh to show him "the path of life"?

The context of the statement certainly lacks the "specific details" that it needs to convince

rational readers that it was a prophecy of Jesus's resurrection. So what proof do we have that it

was what Peter and Paul allegedly said it was? Well, after citing it, Peter went on to say, "Men

and brethren, let me speak freely to you of the patriarch David, that he is both dead and buried,

and his tomb is with us to this day. Therefore, being a prophet, and knowing that God had sworn

with an oath to him that of the fruit of his body, according to the flesh, He would raise up the

Christ to sit on his throne, he, foreseeing this, spoke concerning the resurrection of the Christ,

that His soul was not left in Hades, nor did His flesh see corruption." Allegedly, Paul made the

same application of the passage in Acts 13:35-36.

So there we have it. Luke said that Peter and Paul said the statement had to refer to Jesus on the

grounds that David's body had been buried and had seen corruption. Wow, with proof like that

what can I say? Well, I can say the same thing I would say or Mr. Jack-son would say if either of

us should be approached by a representative of a non-Christian religion citing anything as

vaguely written as this as proof that his holy book contained the prophecy of a resurrection. I

would tell him I wanted to see details so specific that they could not be misinterpreted--not just

vague generalities or remote possibilities--before I could accept the statement as an undeniable

prophecy.

For one thing, there is some question in scholarly circles about what the psalmist meant by

corruption: "Neither wilt thou suffer thy holy one to see corruption." In Hebrew, the word here

was shahath, which literally meant pit or grave, and was so translated much more often than

corruption was used. The KJV rendered the word corruption only four times (Job 17:14; Ps.

16:10; 49:9; Jonah 2:6), and even then all good KJV reference Bibles will have footnotes by the

word corruption to inform the readers that it could mean pit. Many later versions have used pit in

all of these places except Psalm 16:10, and there are indications that corruption is retained here

only because the Septuagint, which Peter and Paul quoted, had translated the verse to convey the

idea of decay or corruption. The New American Bible retains corruption but with this footnote:

To undergo corruption: some commentators render this: "to see the grave," understanding this to

mean that God will not let the psalmist die in the present circumstances. But the Hebrew word

"shahath" means not only "the pit," "the grave," but also "corruption." In the latter sense the

ancient Greek version rendered this passage, and it was thus quoted by St. Peter (Acts 2:25-32)

and St. Paul (Acts 13:35-37), both of whom interpret this as referring to Christ's resurrection.

This situation certainly shatters any illusion of "specific details" that inerrantists might

stubbornly claim for this famous "resurrection prophecy." Specific details are simply not there.

Even what little claim for specificity can be made for the word corruption seems to rest entirely

upon an arbitrary translation decision that was made by the Septuagint translators, and biblical

scholarship is keenly aware of faultiness in this ancient translation.

Despite the influence of the Septuagint, some translations have used pit or equivalents in this

passage rather than corruption. The RSV rendered the verse like this: "For thou dost not give me

up to Sheol, or let thy godly one see the Pit." The NRSV translated it the same except for using

"faithful one" for "godly one" and substituting modern equivalents for thou and thy. The

Jerusalem Bible also used "pit," so there are sound reasons for believing that the psalmist meant

no more than what the footnote in the New American Bible said: Yahweh would not let him die

and go into his grave in the present circumstances he was writing about.

As long as this possible meaning exists, Psalm 16:10 does not contain details specific enough to

be considered a "valid" prophecy. Peter's and Paul's reasoning principle that they applied to this

verse is therefore flawed, because David certainly did "see the pit (grave)" in the sense that he

was buried. They both acknowledged that in their sermons. As already noted, Peter said that

David "both died and was buried" (Acts 2:29). Paul said that David "fell asleep and was laid with

his fathers" (Acts 13:36). So they both admitted that David "saw the pit." On what grounds, then,

can anyone argue that Psalm 16:10 is specific enough in language and details to qualify as

prophecy? To say, "Well, Peter and Paul thought it was a prophecy, so that's good enough for

me," would be a flagrant resort to question begging. One cannot prove prophecy by assuming

prophecy. Besides that, we don't even know if Peter and Paul really thought that Psalm 16:10

was a prophecy of the resurrection. All we actually know is that Luke said that they said it was a

prophecy.

Before leaving this "prophecy" to languish in the infamy it deserves, we should look at

something else in the RSV and NRSV accounts quoted above. They both used the present tense

rather than the future tense found in the Septuagint, KJV, ASV, and other translations. They did

so because the statement was written in the present tense in He-brew. Young's Literal

Translation of the Holy Bible rendered the verse like this: "For Thou dost not leave my soul to

Sheol, Nor givest thy saintly one to see corruption." So the tense of the original supports the

alternate interpretation of this verse suggested by the NAB footnote: the writer was merely

expressing confidence that God would not let him die in his present circumstances.

To argue that Hebrew had no future tense doesn't solve anything as far as this passage is

concerned, because Hebrew writers relied on past tense when they wanted to convey the

certainty of the future. Young explained this in the introduction to his literal translation:

The Hebrew writers often express the "certainty of a thing taking place" by putting it in the

"past" tense, though the actual fulfillment may not take place for ages. This is easily understood

and appreciated when the language is used by God, as when he says, in Gen. xv.18, "Unto thy

seed I have given this land"; and in xvii.4, "I, lo, my covenant is with thee, and thou hast

become a father of a multitude of nations." ... Again in 2 Kings v.6, the King of Syria, writing to

the King of Israel, says: "Lo, I have sent unto thee Naaman, my servant, and thou hast

recovered him from leprosy" (original emphasis).

This peculiarity of the Hebrew language should drive the final nail into the coffin of this

marvelous resurrection prophecy that Peter and Paul seemed so excited about. If the certainty of

the Messiah's resurrection at some time in the future had been the clear intention of the psalmist,

he would surely have said, "For Thou hast not left my soul to Sheol; Neither hast Thou suffered

thy holy one to see corruption (the pit)." The fact that he didn't state it this way, along with all

the other problems noted in this passage, is sufficient grounds to reject the claim that it was a

prophecy of Jesus's resurrection.

Imaginary prophecy fulfillments like this one abound in the New Testament. In Matthew 13:35,

for example, we are told that Jesus taught his disciples in parables in order to fulfill a prophecy

that had said, "I will open my mouth in parables; I will utter things hid-den from the foundation

of the world." Without this statement from Matthew, however, no one reading the original

passage in Psalm 78:2 would ever think that it was intended to be a prophecy: "Give ear, O my

people, to my teaching; incline your ears to the words of my mouth. I will open my mouth in a

parable; I will utter dark sayings of old, things that we have heard and known, that our ancestors

have told us." The psalmist then proceeded to give a running, seventy-verse account of Hebrew

history, beginning with the covenant made with Jacob and ending with the selection of David to

be king. There is nothing in the context to suggest that the writer thought he was prophesying.

The last part of the statement in question even differed substantially from the way Matthew

quoted it. The psalmist pro-posed to utter sayings that had been "heard and known" that "our

ancestors have told us," but in Matthew's application of the verse, Jesus had presumably uttered

"things hidden from the foundation of the world," an appreciable variation to say the least. The

important thing, however, is that the psalmist obviously intended his remarks to have an

immediate application to a contemporary audience and situation. His parable statement, then,

became a "prophecy" only because Matthew capriciously made it a prophecy.

The same is true of the greater part of the prophecy "fulfillments" boasted of in the New

Testament. A careful study of the original contexts will cast serious doubts on the efforts of the

New Testament writers to construe them as prophecies. In Matthew 2:18, for example, we are

told that Herod's decree to kill all male children under two in and around Bethlehem fulfilled a

prophecy of Jeremiah: "A voice was heard in Ramah, Lamentation, weeping, and great

mourning, Rachel weeping for her children, refusing to be comforted, Because they are no

more." If, however, one reads this statement in its original context in Jeremiah 31 and the two

preceding chapters, he will see that the passage was addressing the problem of Jewish dispersion

caused by the Babylonian captivity. Time and time again, Jeremiah promised that the Jews

would be recalled from captivity to reclaim their land. Finally, in the verse quoted by Matthew,

he said, "Thus says Yahweh: `A voice was heard in Ramah, Lamentation and bitter weeping,

Rachel weeping for her children, refusing to be comforted for her children, because they are no

more'" (31:15). That Jeremiah intended this statement to apply to the dispersion contemporary to

his times is evident from the verses immediately following, where he promised a return of those

who had been scattered: "Thus says Yahweh: `Refrain your voice from weeping, And your eyes

from tears; For your work shall be rewarded, says Yahweh, And they [Rachel's children] shall

come back from the land of the enemy. There is hope in your future, says Yahweh, that your

children shall come back to their own border" (vv:16-17). If verse 15 (the weeping verse) was

indeed a prophecy of Herod's massacre, why would the rest of the passage, which promised the

re-turn of Rachel's children, not also be prophetic? Indeed, it would have to be, wouldn't it? Yet

there is no claim in Matthew's gospel account that the children slaughtered under Herod's edict

were ever brought back to their border, which would have necessitated a restoration to life.

Hence, in this case, Rachel's "work" was never "rewarded," and these children of hers never

"came back." Aside from this, children was obviously being used by Jeremiah in a figurative

sense to mean the descendants of Rachel, adults as well as children, and not to designate literal

children only, as would have to be the case if events in Matthew 2 are to be interpreted as

fulfillment of a "prophecy." The conclusion, then, is inescapable: Jeremiah 31:15 was a prophecy

of Herod's massacre only because Matthew distorted it into one.

Aside from this problem with Matthew's claim of prophecy fulfillment in Herod's massacre of

the innocents, we have good reasons to suspect that no such event ever even happened. None of

the other gospel writers mentioned it nor did any secular historian con-temporary to the times.

Except for Matthew's reference to it, history is strangely silent about this exceptionally barbaric

act, and in some cases the silence is significant enough to cast serious doubt on Matthew's claim

that it happened. The Jewish historian Josephus chronicled the reign of Herod in Book 18 of

Antiquities of the Jews. In doing so, he made no apparent attempt to whitewash Herod's

character. He related, for example, Herod's execution of John the Baptist, an event related by

three of the gospel writers, but he said nothing about the massacre of the children at Bethlehem,

which would have undoubtedly been the most heinous crime that Herod committed. If the

atrocity actually happened, as Matthew claimed, for a historian of the era to omit it in detailing

the life of the political ruler who ordered it would be comparable to a modern historian writing

about Adolph Hitler but omitting any reference to the massacre of the Jews that happened under

his dictatorship.

To say that history is silent about Herod's massacre of the innocents is not to say that the story is

at all unusual. Parallel versions of it are so common in the folklore of ancient societies that

mythologists have even assigned a name to the story and call it the dangerous-child myth. Space

won't allow a review of all these myths, but the Hindu version is worth looking at, because it is

strikingly parallel to Matthew's story. According to Hindu literature, Krishna, the eighth

incarnation of the god Vishnu, was born to the virgin Devaki in fulfillment of prophecy and was

visited by wise men who had been guided to him by a star. Angels also announced the birth to

herdsmen in the nearby countryside. When King Kansa heard about the miraculous birth of this

child, he sent men to "kill all the infants in the neighboring places," but a "heavenly voice"

whispered to the foster father of Krishna (who, incidentally, was a carpenter) and warned him to

take the child and flee across the Jumna river. (In this Hindu legend, we can recognize many

parallels to the infancy of Jesus other than the dangerous-child element.) In Bible Myths and

Their Parallels in Other Religions, author T. W. Doane cited a work by Thomas Maurice, Indian

Antiquities, vol. 1, pp. 112-113, which described an "immense sculpture" in a cave-temple at

Elephanta that depicts the Indian children being slaughtered while men and women apparently

representing their parents are standing by pleading for the children (p. 167).

A study of pagan mythology would establish similar parallels in the stories of Zoroaster

(Persian), Perseus and Bacchus (Greek), Horus (Egyptian), Romulus and Remus (Roman),

Gautama (the founder of Buddhism), and many others, because various pieces of the dangerous-

child myth can be found in the stories of all these pagan gods and prophets. All of these myths

antedate, usually by many centuries, Matthew's account of the massacre of the children at

Bethlehem. Krishna, for example, was a Hindu savior who allegedly lived in the sixth century B.

C., so when a study of ancient world literature shows that an unusual event like the slaughter of

the innocents seemed to have happened everywhere, reasonable people will realize that it

probably happened nowhere or, at best, that it happened only once and was subsequently

plagiarized. Since the story occurs many times before Matthew's version of it, we can only

conclude that no such event happened in Bethlehem as Matthew--and only Matthew--claimed.

Just like that, then, fundamentalists who put so much stock in prophecy-fulfillment find one of

their "fulfillments" vaporizing right before their eyes.

Matthew also saw prophecy fulfillment in the birth of Jesus at Bethlehem. When the wise men

inquired about the birth of the king of the Jews, Herod called the chief priests and scribes

together and asked where the Christ would be born:

So they said unto him, "In Bethlehem of Judea, for thus it is written by the prophet: `But you,

Bethlehem, in the land of Judah, Are not the least among the rulers of Judah; For out of you shall

come a Ruler Who will shepherd My people Israel'" (2:5-6).

The place where this was written was Micah 5:2, which we should look at to get a sense of how

New Testament writers sometimes distorted Old Testament scriptures to suit their needs:

"But you, Bethlehem Ephrathah, Though you are little among the thousands of Judah, Yet out of

you shall come forth to Me The One to be Ruler in Israel."

As we will soon notice, the differences are important enough to show that Matthew tampered

with the text to make it fit the situation he was applying it to.

For the moment, let's notice that Matthew's application of the statement was typical of his

writing style. No contemporary event seemed too insignificant for him to see prophecy

fulfillment in it. This fact doesn't seem to faze Bible fundamentalists. If Matthew said it, that's

good enough for them. What they seem completely unable to understand, however, is that just

because this is good enough for them doesn't mean that it's good enough for people who use

logic to determine what should or should not be believed. Matthew, for example, saw fulfillment

of Hosea 11:1 in the flight into and return from Egypt of Joseph's family, (2:15). And what does

Hosea 11:1 say? "When Israel was a child, then I loved him, and called my son out of Egypt."

The context of this statement shows very clearly that Hosea intended this statement as a

reference to the Israelite exodus from Egypt. Bibliolaters can talk from now until doom's-day

about the "double intention" of some prophecies, and the truth will still remain: if Matthew had

not imaginatively applied this statement to Jesus, no one would have thought it referred to

anything but the Israelite exodus. Matthewstretched and distorted Old Testament scriptures in

this way, yet bibliolaters expect us to swoon over his claim that the birth of Jesus in Bethlehem

fulfilled Micah 5:2.

The "Bethlehem" in Micah 5:2, rather than being a town, was very likely intended as a reference

to the head of a family clan. What many people who stand in awe of this allegedprophecy

fulfillment don't know is that a person named Bethlehem was an Old Testament character

descended from Caleb through Hur, the firstborn son of Caleb's second wife, Ephrathah (I Chron.

2:18; 2:50-52; 4:4). Young's Analytical Concordance, p. 92, identifies Bethlehem as this person

in addition to its having been the name of two villages, one in Zebulun and the other in Judea.

An examination of the Micah 5:2 "prophecy" in context indicates that it was indeed a reference

to the clan rather than the town: "But you, Bethlehem Ephrathah, though you are little among the

thousands of Judah, yet out of you shall come forth to Me the One to be Ruler in Israel." The fact

that the Bethlehem in this verse was described as "little among the thousands of Judah" casts

serious doubt on Matthew's application of the statement. In a region as small as Judah, one could

hardly speak of a town as one of "thousands," yet in terms of a Judean clan descended from

Bethlehem of Ephrathah, it would have been an appropriate description for an obscure family

group that hadn't particularly distinguished itself in the nation's history. The NIV translates that

part of the verse like this: "But you, Bethlehem Ephrathah, though you are small among the

clans of Judah...." Similar renditions are made by the RSV, NRSV, NAS, NAB, the Jerusalem

Bible, and other translations, all agreeing that Micah referred to a family clan rather than a town.

Even more damaging to Matthew's application of the verse is the Septuagint translation, the

version that Matthew and other New Testament writers most often relied on when quoting OT

"prophecies":

And thou, Bethlehem, house of Ephrathah, art few in number to be reckoned among the

thousands of Judah: yet out of thee shall one come forth to me, to be a ruler of Israel (Brenton

Translation).

In his quest for prophecy fulfillments, Matthew most often quoted the Septuagint version of the

alleged prophecy, but in this case, he obviously didn't. "Bethlehem, house of Ephratha came out

"Bethlehem, land of Judah." The word house was often used in Hebrew to signify a family or a

clan as in "the house of Judah" or "the house of David." It was never used in the sense of "land"

as Matthew applied it here. It would also be rather strange to call an insignificant village a

"prince of Judah," as Matthew did, yet not at all inappropriate to refer to the head of an

undistinguished clan descended from Caleb as a prince. Notice also that the Septuagint described

this Bethlehem, "house of Ephratha" as something that was "few in number," another indication

that a small clan was intended rather than a single town. So why in this instance did Matthew

deviate from his habit of quoting the Septuagint and make the textual changes that are evident in

his rendition of this verse? The fact that he did raises the distinct possibility that Matthew

intentionally distorted the original statement to make it better suit his purpose of wanting it to

appear to be a reference to the town of Bethlehem rather than a family clan. It is on "evidence"

just as flimsy as this that bibliolat-ers make their outrageous claim of marvelous prophecy

fulfillments in the life of Jesus.

In my debate with Bill Jackson, he cited the birth of Jesus in Behlehem as an exam-ple of

prophecy fulfillment. After I had pointed out to him many of these same problems, he said, "Till

may not like it or see it (the prophecy fulfillment alleged), but Matthew did and the chief priests

and scribes of Judaism could see it" (Jackson-Till Debate, p. 20)! Such a response as this is

characteristic of inerrantists. They want to assume everything. Just because Matthew "said" that

the birth of Jesus in Bethlehem fulfilled Micah 5:2, they assume that it has to be true, that

Matthew could not have been mistaken. Just because Matthew said that the chief priests and

scribes said that Bethlehem of Judea would be the birthplace of the Messiah, inerrantists assume

that they really did say this. They discount completely the possibility that Herod never made any

such inquiry of the chief priests, that Matthew just made it up in order to give his story more

credibility. What kind of objectivity is that, especially in the light of the evidence I have cited to

show that Matthew often distorted OT scriptures to make them fit his needs?

In the New Testament, such distortion was commonplace in the frantic quest for prophecy

fulfillment. In a long list of complaints, a psalmist lamenting treatment accorded him by his

enemies said that when he was thirsty they gave him vinegar to drink (Psalm 69:21), and

centuries later the writer of John's Gospel would have us believe that Jesus could not die on the

cross until this "prophecy" was fulfilled: "... Jesus, knowing that all things are now finished, that

the scripture might be accomplished, saith, I thirst" (Jn. 19:28). In response, he was given

vinegar from a sponge; then he said, "It is finished," bowed his head, and died.

Biblical scholars have found no Old Testament references to anyone who was given vinegar to

quench his thirst except in the passage above (Psalm 69), so it is considered the scripture that

Jesus "fulfilled." To say the least, however, the problems in accepting the event as fulfillment of

a prophecy are enormous. For one thing, a contextual examination of the alleged prophecy

indicates that the psalmist was writing about his own personal misery, that he had sunk deep in

mire (v:2), that he was weary of crying (v:3), that he was hated by enemies more numerous than

the hairs of his head (v:4), that he had borne reproach and shame (v:7), etc., etc., etc.

Furthermore, the plaint of this distressed psalmist included also (in the same verse that

mentioned the vinegar) a reference to gall that he was given for meat when he was hungry. So if

it was necessary for Jesus to be given vinegar on the cross to fulfill this scripture, why did he not

have to be given gall too? By what logic is half of the verse prophecy and the other half not?

An even greater problem concerns the character of this psalmist. If he was in any way intended

to be a Christ figure, how do we explain the difference in the attitude he displayed toward his

enemies and the one that Jesus displayed to his? Everyone knows the famous spirit of

forgiveness that Jesus demonstrated before and during his crucifixion, yet this "Christ-figure"

psalmist was quite the opposite. He asked God to blind his enemies (v:23), to make their

habitation desolate (v:25), to add iniquity to their iniquity (v:27), and to blot them out of the

book of life (v:28). It seems strange indeed that God would have chosen a person as spiteful and

vengeful as this man to serve as a prophetic figure of the forgiving Jesus.

This same psalm provides other examples of the extremes that some New Testament writers

resorted to in trying to make prophecies of simple statements that were never intended as

prophecies. The disciples of Jesus saw his expulsion of money changers from the temple (Jn.

2:13-17) as fulfillment of verse 9, "Zeal of your house has eaten me up," and the Apostle Paul

considered Jesus's desire to please not himself fulfillment of the last part of the same verse, "The

reproaches of them that reproached you are fallen upon me" (Romans 15:3). Thus, an act of

violence and a spirit of acquiescence were divergently considered fulfillments of a single verse

of "prophecy." The only comment that this deserves is that these prophetic fulfillments existed

only in the arbitrary and capricious opinions of the "inspired" New Testament writers who made

the original statements prophecies in the first place.

As noted earlier, this remarkably prophetic psalmist, in his distress, entreated God to punish his

enemies with various afflictions. "Let their habitation be desolate; let none dwell in their tents,"

was one of his vindictive requests (v:25). When the apostles assembled in Jerusalem to select a

successor to Judas, Peter referred to this same verse as having been fulfilled when the field that

Judas had purchased with "the reward of his iniquity" was left cursed and abandoned: "Let his

habitation be made desolate, and let no man dwell therein" (Acts 1:18-20). Suddenly, a statement

that the psalmist had made in reference to his "enemies" in general, all of them (plural), was

made to appear as if he had referred to only one person. "Their habitation" became "his

habitation," and the adverb therein was substituted for tents as a convenient reference back to

habitation. With that kind of license to change scriptures to fit the situation, just about anyone

could make any statement into a prophecy. Where, for example, this same psalmist said, "I am

become a stranger to my brethren, and an alien to my mother's children" (v:8), we could make

this a prophecy of Jesus's rejection by his own brothers as recorded in John 7:3-5. "I am weary

with my crying" (v:3) was fulfilled (we could say) when Jesus wept at the tomb of Lazarus (Jn.

11:35), and, of course, when the Apostle Peter struck Ananias and Sapphira dead (Acts 5:1-10),

that fulfilled verse 28: "Let them be blotted out of the book of life, and not be written with the

righteous." These applications would be no more far-fetched than those that "inspired" writers

made of other verses in this psalm.

Most other so-called prophecy fulfillments of the New Testament cannot survive contextual

analysis any better than those just noted. Upon examination, they show flaws so obvious that

only the very credulous can accept the tenuous claims that they are fulfillments of prophecy, yet

some of them are widely considered remarkable examples of divine foresight. Possibly the best

example of these is Matthew 1:23 where it was claimed that an angel's announcement to Joseph

that his betrothed wife Mary would give birth to a child conceived by the Holy Spirit was done to

fulfill a prophecy spoken by Isaiah: "Behold, the virgin shall be with child, and bear a Son, and

they shall call his name Immanuel." In the original context, however, Isaiah made this statement

as a sign to Ahaz, king of Judah, that an alliance recently formed against him by Rezin, the king

of Syria, and Pekah, the king of Israel, would not succeed in defeating him. The Lord (Yahweh),

as he was prone to do in those days, had sent Isaiah to reassure Ahaz that the alliance would not

prevail. Isaiah begged Ahaz to ask for a sign that his prophecy was true. Finally, Isaiah said to

him, "Hear now, O house of David! Is it a small thing for you to weary men, but will you weary

my God also? Therefore Yahweh Himself will give you a sign: Behold, the virgin shall conceive,

and bear a Son, and shall call his name Immanuel" (Isaiah 7:13-14). Hence, the context clearly

shows that this so-called prophecy was made not to foretell the birth of Jesus some 700 years

later but the birth of a child to that time and that situation. How could a birth that would happen

700 years later, after Ahaz was dead and the battles had long since been fought, have been a sign

to him that the Syrian-Israelite alliance would fail? The premise is too absurd even to

contemplate.

THE DOUBLE-APPLICATION DODGE

To deal with contextual problems like the one in Isaiah's virgin-birth prophecy, bibliolaters have

invented the double-application doctrine. "Yes, the prophecy in Isaiah did refer primarily to an

immediate situation," they admit, "but it contained also, as did many other prophecies, a double-

entendre that, in this case, makes it applicable to the birth of Jesus too." Contextual evidence, of

course, necessitates their admission that prophecies such as this one were indeed intended for the

times in which they were made, but if inerrantists are going to claim a "double-application" of

Isaiah 7:14, they have a responsibility to do more than just claim. They must also prove. If Isaiah

really had a double-meaning in mind, then who was the virgin of that generation who gave birth

to a son? That is a legitimate question, because if Isaiah meant virgin in the strictest sense with

reference to a woman who would give birth 700 years later, then he had to mean virgin in the

strictest sense for the woman of his time who would bear a son. If not, why not?

The truth is that evidence to prove a double-application theory isn't so easy to come by. In this

case, we have nothing--absolutely nothing--but Matthew's unsubstantiated word that the birth of

Jesus fulfilled Isaiah's prophecy. Isaiah said nothing in the context of the original passage to

imply a double intention, and none of the other gospel writers in recording the circumstances of

Jesus's birth in any way related the event to Isaiah's prophecy. This latter fact seems particularly

significant in the case of Luke whose gospel account included many more details about both the

annunciation of the birth and the actual event itself than did any of the others. Mark and John, in

fact, were completely silent about the birth. Doesn't it seem strange, then, that this remarkable

"prophecy fulfillment" would have been treated with silence by three of the four "inspired"

writers who recorded the life of Jesus? Only Matthew mentioned it, and that is the sum total of

the proof we have that Jesus's birth fulfilled Isaiah's "prophecy."

MATTHEW'S CREDIBILITY

"Well, isn't it enough that Matthew identified the fulfillment?" bibliolaters will demand. "How

many times does God have to say a thing before we can believe it?" Thereby, they simplistically

overlook an issue that is central to the controversy. That issue is not whether Matthew declared

Jesus's birth a fulfillment of the prophecy (obviously he did) but whether in so doing God was

speaking through him. There are good reasons for doubting that he was.

First of all, Matthew was notorious for seeing prophecy fulfillment in just about everything, even

the most trivial events. To return to an example already mentioned, let's notice again that he even

saw prophecy fulfillment in the flight of Joseph and Mary into Egypt to save their child from

Herod's edict. When they returned to Israel, this fulfilled, so Matthew claimed, what the Lord

had spoken through the prophet: "Out of Egypt I called My Son" (2:15). This "call out of Egypt"

refers to Hosea 11:1, where it was said, "When Israel was a child, I loved him, and out of Egypt I

called My son." As I said, the original statement was obviously a reference to the Hebrew exodus

from Egypt and therefore became a prophecy pertaining to Jesus only in Matthew's wild

imagination. It is about as convincing as Matthew's claim that Joseph took his family to Nazareth

to fulfill the prophecies that said Jesus would be called a Nazarene. Apparently, it didn't take

much for Matthew to see prophetic connection.

Matthew's credibility is also impeached by major discrepancies between his gospel account and

the three others:

Matthew said that Jesus was born in the reign of Herod, who died in 4 B. C. (2:1). Luke said that

Jesus was born during the Syrian governorship of Quirinius, who was not even appointed to the

position until 6 A. D. (2:2).

Matthew indicated that the centurion went in person to ask Jesus to heal his servant who was

near death (8:5-13). Luke said that the centurion stayed at home and sent elders of the Jews to

ask Jesus to heal the servant (7:2-10).

Matthew said that Jairus reported his daughter dead when asking Jesus to go heal her (9:18-25).

Both Mark (5:23) and Luke (8:42) said that she was still alive but dying.

Matthew said that Jesus healed two blind men as he was going out of Jerico (20:29). Both Mark

(10:46) and Luke (18:35) indicated there was only one man who was healed, and Luke said that

it was done when Jesus "drew nigh unto Jerico."

Matthew said that Jesus, in sending his disciples out to preach, told them to take no necessities

with them, not even a staff (10:10). Mark, however, said that Jesus allowed them to take staffs

(6:8).

Matthew said that the women present at Jesus's crucifixion beheld him "from afar" (27:55-56).

John disagreed in some particulars with the identities of these women and said that they stood

"by the cross of Jesus" (19:25).

Matthew disagreed with all the other writers in many details concerning the resurrection: who

exactly went to the tomb, the time that they went, what they found upon their arrival, when and

where Jesus was first seen after his revivification, and a host of other conflicting details.

This widespread disagreement among the gospel writers in effect discredits them all, but the only

matter we need be concerned with at this point is that the discrepancies most assuredly give us

reason to question Matthew's reliability as a chronicler. Someone--or possibly even all four of

them--was wrong in the way the gospel story was told, and as far as we know, without any

reliable evidence to exonerate him, it could have been Matthew as easily as any of the others.

How then can we be sure that Matthew was right in saying that the birth of Jesus fulfilled Isaiah's

famous Immanuel prophecy? All we have is the word of an imaginative zealot who at best had a

questionable knowledge of Old Testament scriptures. Even the law of Moses, as brutal and

demanding as it was at times, required agreement between at least two witnesses before

prosecutable offenses could be established (Deut. 17:6), and in concluding his second epistle to

the Corinthians, the Apostle Paul implied that the tradition should be applied to settle internal

problems in the church (13:1). With reference to the fulfillment of Isaiah's virgin-birth

"prophecy," however, we don't even have the agreement of two witnesses. We have only

Matthew's unconfirmed word, and we don't even know if he was really the one who wrote the

gospel story that bears his name. This is hardly compelling evidence.

Even if we concede the personal honesty and integrity of Matthew, we would still have to reject

his testimony in the matter of the virgin birth, because it is at best hearsay. The only person who

could have possibly known that Jesus was born of a virgin would have been Mary herself, but we

have no personal testimony from her. She wrote no books--at least not any that Christians

consider "canonical"--and left no affidavits, so we have exactly nothing by way of evidence from

the only person who was in a position really to know whether she was a virgin at the time of

Jesus's birth. By all recognized rules of evidence, then, Matthew's testimony can carry no logical

weight because of its hearsay nature.

PROPHETIC CHICANERY

More damaging than all of these holes in Matthew's claim, however, is clear textual evidence

that Isaiah did not consider his statement in 7:14 to be a prophecy of some distant event. As

noted earlier, so that Ahaz would have a sign that the Syrian-Israelite alliance would fail, Isaiah

predicted the birth of a child who would be named Immanuel. For this to have been a "sign" in

the biblical sense of the word, it would have had to have had some application to contemporary

events. Jewish scholars who read the Tanach (Hebrew Bible) in the original language have had

no difficulty recognizing that contemporary application. Shmuel Golding, editor of Biblical

Polemics, published by the Jerusalem Institute of Biblical Polemics, has explained that verb-

tense problems alone in this passage make it impossible for people who are knowledgeable in

Hebrew to accept it as a prophecy of a distantly future event:

In Hebrew the verse reads in the present tense is with child and not as according to the Christian

Bible will conceive and bear a child. In Hebrew it states she is pregnant, not will be pregnant. In

fact, the Catholic Bible (Isaiah 7:14) reads as follows: The maiden is with child and will soon

give birth to a son. Jesus was not born until seven hundred years after this sign was given, which

could not be described as "soon." The text reads "is with child," so how could this woman be

kept pregnant for seven hundred years until Jesus arrived ("Who Changed God's Diapers?"

[pam], p. 1)?

That Isaiah did have in mind a child who would be born to a contemporary mother is made plain

by a statement that followed on the heels of the birth prediction: "Curds and honey He shall eat,

that He may know to refuse the evil and choose the good. For before the Child shall know to

refuse the evil and choose the good, the land that you dread will be forsaken by both her kings"

(vv: 15-16). To say that this statement had reference to a child who would be born 700 years

later reduces everything the prophet said to nonsense, for what possible consolation could it have

been to Ahaz to know that 700 years after he was dead the land whose two kings he hated (Syria

and Israel) would be forsaken?

Furthermore, Isaiah did not say that the birth would be a miraculous event, as Matthew's

application of the statement would require it to be. The popular misconception that Isaiah was

predicting a virgin birth results from a faulty translation of the Hebrew word `almah, which

merely meant "maiden" or "unmarried female." Bethulah was the Hebrew word that signified a

woman who was sexually pure; this was the word used in such passages as Deuteronomy 22:13-

24 where sexual purity was obviously under consideration. The other word (`almah) was used in

such passages as Genesis 24:43 where, although translated virgin in many English versions,

reference to the sexual purity of the woman wasn't necessarily intended. If, then, Isaiah had

meant to imply that the child in his prophecy would be miraculously conceived, he would have

surely used the Hebrew word that unequivocally meant virgin.

Viewed in these linguistic perspectives, the prophecy loses much of the mystique that has

traditionally surrounded it, because there would have been nothing particularly amazing about an

unmarried female giving birth to a child. It happens all the time. But it loses even more of its

resplendence when we consider textual indications that Isaiah intentionally arranged

circumstances to guarantee a birth that could be seen as "fulfillment" of his prophecy. Isaiah 8:1-

4 tells how Yahweh intended to take "faithful witnesses," Uriah, the priest, and Zechariah, the

son of Jeberechiah, to record as Isaiah went in to a prophetess who conceived and bore a son. In

effect, he was covering all of his bases. He had predicted the birth of a child to an unmarried

female, so now he was making sure that one would be born. And it was in this type of duplicity

that Matthew saw divine involvement!

As incredible as it may seem, there is even more to question in this wonderful virgin-birth

prophecy. After saying in his prophecy that the child to be born would be called Immanuel,

Isaiah named the son borne by the prophetess not Immanuel, as he had predicted, but Maher-

shalal-hash-baz (8:3). It was as if he wanted both to fulfill and to invalidate the prophecy!

The fact that this child was given a name other than Immanuel has led some Bible apologists to

argue that he was not the one predicted in Isaiah's prophecy. But even if they could

unequivocally prove this argument true, which they cannot, that would do very little to restore

Isaiah's credibility as a prophet, because Jesus, who presumably fulfilled the prophecy in at least

a secondary sense, was not named Immanuel either. No record exists of Jesus ever having been

called Immanuel by his contemporaries. Those who in later times applied the name to him, and

still continue to, have done so only in labored attempts to make Matthew's statement a valid

interpretation of prophecy. So of what value is a "double-sided" prophecy that has been shown to

have serious flaws on both sides?

The argument of bibliolaters not withstanding, there is convincing evidence that Isaiah did intend

his son born of the prophetess to be seen as fulfillment of his prophecy. First, Isaiah, although

naming his son Maher-shalal-hash-baz, did after the child's birth refer to him as Immanuel while

warning that the Assyrian king in overthrowing Syria and Samaria would also subdue Judah and

"fill the breadth of Your land, O Immanuel" (8:5-8). So at least once the child of that generation

was called Immanuel, and, as previously noted, that is once more than Jesus, in his lifetime, was

ever called by the name. As a matter of fact, the name was used only three times in the entire

Bible, twice (as just noted) in Isaiah and the third time when Matthew quoted Isaiah's

"prophecy." This is hardly sterling proof of prophecy fulfillment.

Further proof that Isaiah considered his son Maher-shalal-hash-baz to be the fulfillment of his

prophecy is seen in a close examination of context. When he made the prophecy to Ahaz (as a

sign that the Syrian-Israelite alliance would not prevail), he also promised that "before the Child

shall know to refuse the evil and choose the good, the land that you dread (Syria and Samaria)

will be forsaken by both her kings" (7:16). This same prediction (prophecy, sign, whatever) was

repeated after the child Maher-shalal-hash-baz was born: "For before the child shall have

knowledge to cry, `My father,' and, `My mother,' the riches of Damascus and the spoil of

Samaria will be taken away before the king of Assyria" (8:4). Both statements are identical in

substance; both show also that Isaiah intended his prophecy to apply to a political situation of his

day rather than to some event in the far-flung future. And, more important for the moment, the

context of the passage gives sufficient reason to believe that the child who was named Maher-

shalal-hash-baz instead of Immanuel was contemporarily considered a fulfillment of the

prophecy. Why Isaiah did not name the child Immanuel is a mystery, but stranger mysteries than

that are recorded in the Bible.

With reference to what was said about the period before the child would know "to refuse the evil

and choose the good" (Is. 7:16), inerrantists have another problem. If this was indeed a reference

to the son who would one day be born to the virgin Mary, does this mean that there was a time in

the childhood of Jesus when he didn't know the difference in good and evil? If not, why not?

And if so, then how could this be? Jesus was the incarnate "Word of God" (Jn. 1:1,14), who was

in the beginning with God (v:2), who made all things and without whom "nothing was made that

was made" (v:3). If all of this is true, how could there have been a time in the life of Jesus when

he didn't know "to refuse the evil and choose the good"?

CONTEMPORARY FAILURE

On the subject of strange things, what could be stranger than this? Isaiah made the prophecy to

assure King Ahaz that the Syrian-Israelite alliance would not prevail against him, yet the Bible

record shows that the alliance not only succeeded but did so overwhelmingly. Second Chronicles

28 reports that Ahaz's idolatrous practices caused "Yahweh his God" to deliver him "into the

hand of the king of Syria" (v:5). (This king was the Rezin of Isaiah 7:1.) The Syrians "carried

away of his a great multitude of captives" and took them to Damascus (v:5). Simultaneously, the

Israelites attacked Judah under the leadership of Pekah (the same Pekah of Isaiah 7:1), and in one

day 120,000 "valiant men" in Judah were killed and 200,000 "women, sons, and daughters" were

"carried away captive" (vv:6-8). The battle casualties included Maaseiah, Ahaz's son; Azrikam,

the governor of the house; and Elkanah, who was "next to the king" (v:7). If these results were

Isaiah's idea of Syrian and Samarian failure, one wonders what kind of drubbing the alliance

would have inflicted had Isaiah prophesied its success.

Furthermore, Isaiah's assurance that Assyria would be Yahweh's instrument in defeating the

alliance (Isaiah 8:4-8) failed to materialize too. When the Edomites (Samarians) struck Judah a

second time and "carried away captives," Ahaz sent "to the kings of Assyria to help him" (2

Chron. 28:16-17). In response, Tilgath-Pilneser, king of Assyria, "came to him, and distressed

him, but strengthened him not" (v:20). As a prophet, then, Isaiah seems to have struck out all the

way around. In fairness to him, however, it should be noted that Assyria's role in the conflict was

reported with different results in 2 Kings 16, where Ahaz also fared a little better than reported in

2 Chronicles 28. Nevertheless, these discrepancies in the two accounts are more of an

embarrassment to bibliolaters than a benefit, because such variations in the Bible record place on

inerrancy believers the added burden of trying to explain why "inspired writers" would give

contradictory reports of the same events.

There is yet a final absurdity to notice in this wonderful Messianic prophecy. With the Syrian-

Israelite alliance posing a threat to Judah, Isaiah was sent to Ahaz to prophesy that the alliance

would fail. After doing so, he said in his very next breath that Yahweh would bring the king of

Assyria against Judah and that he would desolate the land (7:17-25). Imagine, if you can, the

absolute absurdity of this. The prophet came, in effect, to say, "Don't worry; Syria and Samaria

will not defeat you. Assyria will." What kind of consolation was that supposed to be? It was as if

in our day the people of our country, fearing an attack from Russia, should be told by a prophet,

"Fear not; Russia will not defeat you. China will." Yet, despite this flaw and the many others

noted, millions of people consider this "prophecy" a remarkable example of divine foresight. In

reality, the only remarkable thing about it is that so many intelligent people could have been

duped into believing that it was remarkable.

JESUS CHRIST: STUNT RIDER

As noted earlier, no event was too trivial for Matthew to see prophecy fulfillment in it, and one

of his silliest prophecy-fulfillment claims concerned the so-called triumphal entry of Jesus into

Jerusalem shortly before his betrayal and crucifixion. The story was related by all three synoptic-

gospel writers, but Matthew's version differs significantly from Mark's and Luke's. Mark and

Luke simply had Jesus riding into Jerusalem on a colt to the cheers and hosannas of the

multitudes (Mark 11:1-10; Luke 19:28-40). Matthew, however, had to build it into a dramatic

prophecy-fulfillment:

When they had come near Jerusalem and had reached Bethpage, at the Mount of Olives, then

Jesus sent two disciples, saying to them, "Go into the village ahead of you, and immediately you

will find a donkey tied, and a colt with her. Untie them and bring them to me. If anyone says

anything to you, just say this, `The Lord needs them.' And he will send them immediately." This

took place to fulfill what had been spoken through the prophet, saying, "Tell the daughter of

Zion, Look, your king is coming to you, humble, mounted on a donkey, and on a colt, the foal

of a donkey."

The disciples went and did as Jesus had directed them; they brought the donkey and the colt,

and put their cloaks on them, and he sat on them (21:1-7, NRSV).

There are two conspicuous points of difference in Matthew's version of this event and Mark's and

Luke's: (1) Matthew had Jesus riding BOTH a donkey and her colt; Mark and Luke had Jesus

riding only a colt, and (2) Matthew saw it as fulfillment of a prophecy; Mark and Luke said

nothing at all about prophecy fulfillment being involved.

I won't address the familiar fundamentalist "explanation" of the numerical inconsistency that

says, "Well, if there were two donkeys, then there had to be one." Inerrantists invariably resort to

this dodge to "explain" numerical discrepancies in the Bible. Did the gospel writers appear to

disagree on the number of people who went to the tomb on the morning of the resurrection?

Well, no problem! John simply chose to tell about one of them (Mary Magdalene); Matthew

chose to tell about two (Mary Magdalene and the other Mary); Mark chose to tell about three

(Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome). If, however, there were several who

went, as Luke indicated, then there is no error, because if there were several, then there was one,

exactly as John said, and there were two, exactly as Matthew said, etc. Although this argument

apparently satisfies diehard fundamentalists who are going to believe in Bible inerrancy

regardless of what evidence to the contrary may exist, it offers no sensible explanation as to why

the omniscient, omnipotent Holy Spirit would inspire John to write an infallibly perfect account

of the visit to the tomb that mentions only one person, but on different occasions the same

omniscient, omnipotent Holy Spirit would inspire Matthew, Mark, and Luke to write infallibly

perfect accounts of the same story that all differ in the matter of who went to the tomb. After the

first "perfect" gospel story had been written, what could have been going through the Holy

Spirit's mind on these subsequent occasions that made him decide that this point had to be

changed, not just once but three times? That is a confusing matter, to say the least.

As I said, however, my purpose is not to analyze quibbles that fundamentalists resort to in their

frantic efforts to preserve the inerrancy doctrine, but to expose flaws in their prophecy-

fulfillment argument, and there are plenty of them in Matthew's claim that Jesus's alleged act of

riding two donkeys into Jerusalem fulfilled prophecy. As to Matthew's reference to two donkeys

rather than just the one that Mark and Luke mentioned, I will simply ask how Jesus managed to

ride two donkeys. Was this a type of stunt riding like we see in circuses and rodeos where the

rider stands with one foot on separate horses? If so, what was the purpose of the theatrics? Was it

to demonstrate that he could perform not just miracles but feats of physical dexterity too?

In my oral debate with H. A. "Buster" Dobbs in Portland, Texas, he suggested that the text could

mean nothing more than that Jesus rode one donkey while touching the other or that he rode one

for a while and then switched to the other. However, this doesn't seem to be what Matthew

meant. He clearly said that the disciples brought the donkey and her colt to Jesus, "laid their

clothes on them, and set Him [Jesus] on them" (v:7). So Matthew was obviously saying that in

some way the disciples set Jesus on both of the animals.

There is a far more sensible explanation for the discrepancy in Matthew's version of this story

and the other synoptic accounts than the far-fetched, how-it-could-have-been scenarios that Bible

inerrantists resort to. Unfamiliar with the structure of Hebrew poetry, Matthew simply

misunderstood the parallelism in the original statement of Zechariah, so this resulted in a

misquotation:

Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion; shout, O daughter of Jerusalem: behold, thy king cometh

unto thee: he is just, and having salvation; lowly, and riding upon an ass, even upon a colt, the

foal of an ass (Zech. 9:9, ASV).

Parallel emphasis was used extensively in Hebrew literature, and that was all that Zechariah was

doing in this text. The ass was a colt, the foal of an ass, and this was all that Zechariah meant.

Certainly, he did not mean for his readers to understand that this king (whoever he was) would

ride on both an ass and her colt, as Matthew interpreted the statement to mean. (Incidentally, this

mistake constitutes implied proof that whoever wrote the gospel of Matthew was non-Jewish and

therefore unfamiliar with a Hebraic literary form that the real apostle Matthew would probably

have known had he been the actual writer.) The misinterpretation resulted in an absurdity that is

missing from Mark's and Luke's versions of the story, because they correctly understood the

original statement.

There are far too many examples of parallel emphasis in the Old Testament to look at all of

them, but a few will illustrate how ridiculous it is to attribute divine inspiration to a writer who

was unable to recognize how it was used. Zechariah himself used it frequently. "And it came to

pass in the fourth year of king Darius," he wrote, "that the word of Yahweh came unto Zechariah

in the fourth day of the ninth month, even in Chislev" (7:1, ASV). Obviously, the ninth month

was Chislev, and Chislev was the ninth month; the two were the same. Elsewhere, he wrote,

"And they of Jerusalem shall yet again dwell in their own place, even in Jerusalem" (12:6,

ASV). Their own place was Jerusalem, and Jerusalem was their own place. The two were the

same.

This technique was by no means stylistically unique to Zechariah; it occurred throughout the Old

Testament. Here are just a few of many examples that could be cited:

And he declared unto you his covenant, which he commanded you to perform, even the ten

commandments (Deut. 4:13, ASV).

Yahweh hath rent the kingdom out of thy hand, and given it to thy neighbor, even to David (1

Sam. 28:17).

Thou also, son of man, take thee a tile, and lay it before thee, and portray upon it a city, even

Jerusalem, and lay siege against it (Ezek. 4:1-2).

In each case, it is easy to see that the statement introduced with "even" is parallel to the statement

before it. The two are the same. It was simply a Hebraic literary device employed to emphasize.

Had the Greek author of "Matthew" understood this, he would not have misinterpreted

Zechariah's statement and put Jesus into the absurd posture of riding into Jerusalem on two

donkeys.

The fact that Matthew made this error and the fact that neither Mark nor Luke in telling the same

story claimed that the event fulfilled prophecy are sufficient to discredit the claim that this was a

prophecy fulfillment. After all, both Mark and Luke also attributed prophecy fulfillment to

certain events in the life of Jesus, as well as Matthew did, so if the triumphal entry was indeed a

fulfillment of something a prophet had predicted, wouldn't they, writing by the inspiration of the

Holy Spirit, have known this and so informed their readers? Wouldn't they have been just as

interested as Matthew in letting their readers know that Jesus had fulfilled the Messianic

prophecies of the Old Testaent? To say no in answer to these questions would be to say that

Mark and Luke and the Holy Spirit lacked common sense.

Besides all these problems with Matthew's claim that the "triumphal entry" fulfilled prophecy,

there is the contextual one. When Zechariah's statement is examined in context, it becomes

evident that Matthew, as he did in so many other instances, ignored original intention and pulled

an Old Testament verse out of context to make it appear that an event in the life of Jesus fulfilled

prophecy. As noted in a verse from Zechariah (7:1) quoted above, the prophet claimed that

inspiration from Yahweh had come to him in the "fourth year of king Darius." This would have

been during the postexhilic era when the Jews were concerned with rebuilding Jerusalem and

their sacred temple. Much of what Zechariah wrote was intended to inspire confidence in the

people who had set themselves to completing a difficult task. The chapter in which Zechariah

wrote of a king riding on an ass, even a colt, the foal of an ass, predicted a general humiliation of

the surrounding nations who were traditionally hostile to Israel. The prophet predicted that

Yahweh would destroy Tyre and that she would be "devoured by fire" (v:4). The Philistine

strongholds of Ekron, Ashkelon, and Ashdod would be cut off and become uninhabited (vv:5-7).

Through the prophet, Yahweh promised to "camp around [his] house" (v:8) so that armies could

no more pass through (v:8).

It was within this context that Zechariah spoke of Zion's king who would come riding on an ass,

even a colt, the foal of an ass, because, quite naturally, in times of oppression and adversity a

Hebrew prophet would predict the coming of a deliverer to save Yahweh's people. So this

statement was made to instill confidence in the people of that generation, to assure them that they

would succeed in their task and that Yahweh would protect them from their adversaries. To

apply this to a man who would not live until five centuries later is to misapply it as flagrantly as

did Matthew in twisting Isaiah 7:14 to make it appear that it was speaking of a woman who

would bear a son 700 years in the future. Such was the desperation that New Testament writers

were driven to in their attempts to prove that Jesus was the Messiah the prophets had spoken

about.

YAHWEH'S FAILED LAND PROMISE

On several occasions prophetic statements were made in the Pentateuch about the land that

Yahweh, the tribal god of the Israelites, had promised to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. These were

clearly stated promises that Yahweh would give the land of the Hittites, Girgashites, Amorites,

Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites to the seed of Abraham. In Deuteronomy 7:17-24,

for example, Yahweh presumably made this emphatic promise:

"If you shall say in your heart, `These nations are greater than I; how can I dispossess them?'--

you shall not be afraid of them, but you shall remember well what Yahweh your God did to

Pharaoh and to all Egypt: the great trials which your eyes saw, the signs and the wonders, the

mighty hand and the outstretched arm, by which Yahweh your God brought you out. So shall

Yahweh your God do to all the peoples of whom you are afraid. Moreover Yahweh your God

will send the hornet among them until those who are left, who hide themselves from you, are

destroyed. You shall not be terrified of them; for Yahweh your God, the great and awesome God,

is among you. And Yahweh your God will drive out those nations before you little by little; you

will be unable to destroy them at once, lest the beasts of the field become too numerous for you.

But Yahweh your God will deliver them over to you, and will inflict defeat upon them until they

are destroyed. And he will deliver their kings into your hand, and you will destroy their name

from under heaven: no one shall be able to stand against you, until you have destroyed them."

The substance of this prophecy was repeated in such places as Exodus 23:20-33; Deuteronomy

4:33-39, 7:1-2, and 31:1-8. In some of these passages, the names of the "seven nations greater

and and mightier than you" to be driven out of the land were also specified as they were above:

the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Girgashites, the Hittites, the Hivites, the Jebusites, and the

Perizzites.

When Joshua assumed the leadership of Israel after the death of Moses, the land promise was

renewed in very specific terms:

After the death of Moses the servant of Yahweh, it came to pass that Yahweh spoke to Joshua

the son of Nun, Moses' asssistant, saying: "Moses my servant is dead. Now therefore, arise, go

over this Jordan, you and all this people, to the land which I am giving to them-- the children of

Israel. Every place that the sole of your foot will tread upon I have given you, as I said to

Moses. From the wilderness and this Lebanon as far as the great river, the River Euphrates, all

the land of the Hittites, and to the Great Sea toward the going down of the sun, shall be your

territory. No man shall be able to stand before you all the days of your life; as I was with

Moses, so I will be with you. I will not leave you nor forsake you. Be strong and of good

courage, for to this people you shall divide as an inheritance the land which I swore to their

fathers to give them" (Joshua 1:1-6).

Just before crossing the Jordan, Joshua repeated the promise:

So Joshua said to the children of Israel, "Come here, and hear the words of Yahweh your God."

And Joshua said, "By this you shall know that the living God is among you, and that He will

without fail drive out from before you the Canaanites and the Hittites and the Hivites and

the Perizzites and the Girgashites and the Amorites, and the Jebusites: Behold, the ark of the

covenant of the Lord of all the earth is crossing over before you into the Jordan" (Joshua 3:9-11).

There were no ambiguity problems in these land promises. The language was about as detailed

and specific as any prophecy could be: Yahweh would drive out all the inhabitants of the land of

Canaan and give it to the Israelites to fulfill his promise to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. To stress

the emphatic nature of parts of the land promises that Yahweh made to Israel, I have emphasized

in italics and bold print certain statements. So when all of the passages I have quoted and listed

are considered, we see that the prophecies included all of the following:

Without fail, God would drive out of the land beyond the Jordan ALL of the people then

possessing it.

No man among these people would be able to stand before the Israelites all the days of their

lives.

The Israelites would drive out the nations possessing the land and utterly destroy them and the

memory of their name under heaven. They were to make no covenants with the nations in this

land or show mercy to them (Deut. 7:2).

Every place that the sole of their feet would tread upon, God would give to them.

Their empire would stretch from the Red Sea unto the river Euphrates and from the great sea

(Mediterranean) to the going down of the sun.

To circumvent obvious contradictions that result when Yahweh's promises are compared to

biblical history recorded later, inerrantists contend that the land promises made to the Israelites

were conditional on their good behavior, but there is no support in the Bible for that dodge. In

Deuteronomy 9:3-6, another prophetic passage relating to the land promise, specific notice was

taken of the fact that the Israelites of that generation were undeserving of the land but that it

would be given to them anyway for the sake of the promises made to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob:

Therefore understand today that Yahweh your God is He who goes over before you as a

consuming fire. He will destroy them and bring them down before you; so you shall drive them

out and destroy them quickly, as Yahweh your God has said to you. Do not think in your heart,

after Yahweh your God has cast them out before you, saying, `Because of my righteousness

Yahweh has brought me in to possess this land'; but it is because of the wickedness of these

nations that Yahweh is driving them out from before you. It is not because of your righteousness

or the uprightness of your heart that you go in to possess their land, but because of the

wickedness of these nations that Yahweh your God drives them out from before you, AND THAT

HE MAY FULFILL THE WORD WHICH YAHWEH SWORE TO YOUR FATHERS, TO

ABRAHAM, TO ISAAC, AND TO JACOB. Therefore understand that Yahweh your God is

not giving you this good land to possess because of your righteousness, for you are a

stiffnecked people.

So here is another clear statement. God was not giving the land to the Israelites because of their

righteousness; in fact, he considered them a stiffnecked, undeserving people. (See also Exodus

33:1-6.) He was giving the land to them because of the unconditional promise that he had made

to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Unless he did this, he would have reneged on a promise made to

the patriarchs with no strings attached (Gen. 12:7; 13:14-16).

The unconditional nature of Yahweh's land promise was restated in Leviticus 26:42-45:

(T)hen I will remember my covenant with Jacob, and my covenant with Isaac and my covenant

with Abraham I will remember; I will remember the land. The land also shall be left empty by

them, and will enjoy its sabbaths while it lies desolate without them: they will accept their guilt,

because they despised My judgments and because their soul abhorred My statutes. Yet for all

that, when they are in the land of their enemies, I will not cast them away, nor shall I abhor

them to utterly destroy them and break My covenant with them; for I am Yahweh their

God. But for their sake I will remember the covenant of their ancestors, whom I brought

out of the land of Egypt in the sight of the nations, that I might be their God: I am Yahweh.

So time and time again, it was specifically said that the Israelites would be given the land of

Canaan, regardless of their own conduct, so that Yahweh could fulfill the promise that he made

to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Inerrantists who deny this are denying biblical statements worded

just as plainly as anything ever said on the subject of creation, the resurrection, baptism, final

judgment, and other important Christian doctrines.

As proof that the land promise was dependent on the good behavior of the Israelites, inerrantists

like to cite Exodus 23:20-33 where a conditional suggestion was attached to the promise: "But if

you indeed obey His voice and do all that I speak, then I will be an enemy to your enemies and

an adversary to your adversaries." In emphasizing the IF in this verse, they overlook an

important point. If Yahweh said that he would fulfill the promises made to Abraham, Isaac, and

Jacob regardless of the wickedness of the generation that went in to possess the land, he could

not turn around later and say that he would make good his promise only if the people were

obedient. That would put a contradiction into the scriptures that the inerrantists would have to

explain, because the land promise could not have been both conditional and unconditional at the

same time. And clearly the passages cited earlier were unconditional in promising the land to the

Israelites.

So after Yahweh had unconditionally promised to the Israelites that they would be given the land

beyond the Jordan, under Joshua's leadership they went in to possess it, and initially the Bible

claims that they succeeded. The claim, in fact, was that Joshua thoroughly and completely

subdued the land:

So Joshua conquered all the land: the mountain country and the South and the lowland and the

wilderness slopes, and all their kings; he left none remaining, but utterly destroyed all that

breathed, AS YAHWEH THE GOD OF ISRAEL HAD COMMANDED. And Joshua conquered

them from Kadesh Barnea as far as Gaza, and all the country of Goshen, even as far as Gibeon.

All these kings and their land Joshua took at one time, because Yahweh the God of Israel

fought for Israel. And Joshua returned, and all Israel with him, to the camp at Gilgal (Josh.

10:40-43).

In places, the Bible is almost boringly repetitious, but this writing characteristic of the "inspired"

spokesmen of God often works to the advantage of those who seek to debunk the myth that God

verbally inspired the writing of the Bible. In this case, it makes it easy to establish that a

complete, unqualified fulfillment of the land promises was claimed by the "inspired" men who

wrote the Old Testament. Consider, for example, the clearly stated claim of the following

passages:

But Yahweh said to Joshua, "Do not be afraid because of them (the armies of the Amorites,

Hittites, Perizzites, Jebusites, and Hivites poised for battle against the Israelites, "FT"), for

tomorrow about this time I will deliver ALL of them slain before Israel. You shall hamstring

their horses and burn their chariots with fire." So Joshua and all the people of war with him came

against them suddenly by the waters of Merom, and they attacked them. And Yahweh delivered

them into the hand of Israel, who defeated them and chased them to Greater Sidon, to the Brook

Misrephoth, and to the Valley of Mizpeh eastward; they attacked them until they left none

remaining. So Joshua did to them as Yahweh had told him: he hamstrung their horses, and

burned their chariots with fire.

So Joshua turned back at that time and took Hazor, and struck its king with the sword: for Hazor

was formerly the head of all those kingdoms. And they struck all the people who were in it

with the edge of the sword, utterly destroying them. THERE WAS NONE LEFT BREATHING.

Then he burned Hazor with fire.

So all the cities of those kings, and all their kings, Joshua took and struck with the edge of the

sword. He utterly destroyed them, AS MOSES THE SERVANT OF YAHWEH HAD

COMMANDED. But as for the cities that stood on their mounds, Israel burned none of them,

except Hazor only, which Joshua burned. And all the spoil of these cities and the livestock, the

children of Israel took as booty for themselves; but they struck every man with the edge of the

sword until they had destroyed them, and they left none breathing. AS YAHWEH HAD

COMMANDED MOSES HIS SERVANT, SO MOSES COMMAND