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The Uniqueness of Biblical Prophecy
Most people do not realize the utter uniqueness of
biblical prophecy from the perspective of comparative
religion. John Weldon has a Ph.D. in comparative religion
and has studied the religious writings and scriptures of
some 80 religions. He can testify to the uniqueness of the
Bible’s prophecies. Not once has he found the quality or
detail of biblical prophecy in non-biblical literature.
Where are the prophecies of Hinduism, Buddhism, Islam,
Taoism, Confucianism, Shinto, Mormonism, etc.?1
Accurate predictions are simply not part of these
religious scriptures – indeed, of any scriptures outside
the Bible. Even the most highly regarded alleged prophecy
of The Book of Mormon (the "Civil War" prophecy in
Doctrine and Covenants)2
was only a logical extension of the current trends and not
true prophecy. In fact, the prophecy turned out to be
false on several counts.3
Further, the prophecies of well-known occultists such as
Nostradamus, Jeane Dixon, and Edgar Cayce show them to be
false prophets because (1) they give numerous false
prophecies and (2) the prophecies are so vague and unclear
that they have no "correct" interpretation, hence no
proper fulfillment. Yet people continue to read into them
all kinds of contradictory meanings.4
In conclusion, only the Bible contains fulfilled prophecy.
As Dr. Henry Morris comments:
One of the
strong objective evidences of Biblical inspiration is
the phenomenon of fulfilled prophecy. The Bible is
essentially unique among the religious books of mankind
in this respect. Some of them contain a few vague
forecasts, but nothing comparable to the vast number of
specific prophecies found in the Bible…. No man or angel
or demon can predict specific events and personages that
will appear scores or even hundreds of years in the
future. Only God can do this…. Consequently, it is in
His Word, the Holy Scriptures, and only there,
that prophecies of this sort are found.5
This assessment is confirmed by Bernard Ramm, Ph.D., who
has made a detailed study of prophecy. He concluded:
Real prophecy
is peculiar to the Bible…. Whereas prophecy is an
occasional phenomenon of non-Christian religions, it is
part and parcel of biblical religion. Prophecy is not
part of the very fiber of non-Christian religions, and
it is believed because the system is already believed.
But biblical prophecy is not only deeply buried in the
very tissues of the Old Testament religion; it was a
means of establishing it…. Prophecy pervades the
entire Bible. It is not an isolated phenomenon, but
prophetic material is found in the historical books, in
the poetical and wisdom books, and in the prophets. It
is found in the Gospels and Epistles, and the Bible
concludes with a rather large prophetic volume
(Revelation). Here again it is to be noted that prophecy
has deeply and vitally penetrated into the very heart of
biblical religion.6
Consider the words of R. S. Foster who has also made a
detailed study of comparative religion and prophecy in the
Bible. In his The Supernatural Book (p. 111), he
comments:
No
well-accredited prophecy is found in any other book or
even oral tradition now extant, or that has ever been
extant in the world. The oracles of heathenism are not
to be classed as exceptions. There is not a single one
of them that meets the tests required to prove
[legitimate, divine] supernatural agency, which every
Scripture prophecy evinces. So far as we have been able
to find there is no exception to this sweeping remark.7
Or, consider the comments of Cicero in his De
Divinitate, xlvii:
How many of
these Chaldean prophecies do I remember being repeated
to Pompey, to Crassus, and to Caesar himself! according
to which not one of these heroes was to die except in
old age, in domestic felicity, and in perfect renown: so
that I wonder that any living man can yet believe in
these impostors, whose predictions they see falsified
daily by these facts and results.8
Winston Churchill once quipped at a Cairo Press
Conference, February 1, 1943, "I always avoid prophesying
beforehand, because it is a much better policy to prophesy
after the event has already taken place."9
But in the Bible, prophecy after prophecy made
beforehand has come true, and no one can logically
explain this apart from genuine divine inspiration.
The Bible stands apart from all other literature, secular
or religious. In the history of the world, there is no
other book like this one. As Bernard Ramm argues:
Prophecy in
many cases is very minute in its specifications. It is
not, as shall be dealt with later, a matter of vague
generalization or happy guesses. People are named before
birth; kingdoms are outlined before their historical
existence; battles are described before occurring, and
personal destinies are delineated before the persons
themselves are born…. Even if the prophecies are dated
by the [skeptical] critics they still fall outside the
possibility of being explained as prophecies after the
event…. In practically every case we have given the
radical [critic] the benefit of the doubt in dating the
prophecies, so that the examples of fulfilled
predictions lie outside the dates of the passages
set by the radical critic.10
As noted, Dr. Ramm points out that the prophecies deal
with the remote future even to the extent of describing
kingdoms that do not yet exist. Further, he observes that
prophecy, although sometimes ambiguous, is often clear –
and that occasionally it is the exact opposite of what
human intelligence and wisdom would predict:
Prophecy
frequently deals with the very remote in time and with
people or kingdoms that do not as yet exist. Certainly,
if the traditional date of Daniel be accepted, and if
Rome is the fourth kingdom of Daniel, the prescience of
the Book is incontrovertible. It is again true if Isaiah
be given its traditional dating that specific detail
predictions have amazing fulfillments…. [furthermore]
The fulfillment of the prophecy is clear; in other
words, fulfillment is not equivocal or ambiguous. This
does not mean that this is so in every case…. But it is
true that in many cases the fulfillment is unequivocal
and unambiguous. Prediction itself is not proof of
supernaturally known information. It is the fulfillment
that indicates the presence of the supernatural, and the
fulfillment of prophecy is "evidence before our eyes
addressed to our senses." …Prophecy is occasionally
of a nature as to be in exact opposition as to what
unguided human intelligence would predict…. Relevant to
this are the predictions about the destruction of
Jerusalem, the downfall of Nineveh, the capture of
Babylon, and the rout of the Assyrians.11
The late Dr. Arthur C. Custance was an extremely well read
scholar. He was a member of several prestigious scientific
associations and author of the seminal ten-volume series
The Doorway Papers (Zondervan, 1976), The Seed
of the Woman, and other works now, fortunately,
on the Internet. In one of his volumes in this series,
Custance provides examples of fulfilled prophecies "which
leave no shadow of doubt as to their validity" and are "as
nearly as unchallengeable as one could hope for." Why?
Because these prophecies were written 300-600 years in
advance of their fulfillment and the fulfillment was "so
specific that its correspondence with the original
prophetic statement is unquestionable."12
He cites two specific illustrations with multiple
predictions concerning the cities of Tyre and Jerusalem
which "establish beyond a shadow of doubt that God is able
to make prophetic statements giving details which could
not possibly have been foreseen by human beings apart from
revelation."13
Why? Because "All these prophecies have about them
elements of surprise in the way in which they have been
fulfilled so that it is scarcely possible for even the
most skeptical listener, after being informed of the
details, to suggest that such prophetic statements could
ever have resulted merely from keen insight with regard to
the future history of the city, or a happy coincidence
turning a wild guess into an established fact."14
Notes
1 e.g., Anis
Shorrosh, Islam Revealed (Nashville, TN: Nelson,
1988), pp. 95-97.
2 Arthur W.
Pink, The Divine Inspiration of The Bible (Grand
Rapids, MI: Baker, 1971), pp. 1-8.
3 John
Ankerberg, John Weldon, Everything You Ever Wanted to
Know About Mormonism (Eugene, OR: Harvest House,
1991), pp. 349-350.
4 James
Bjornstad, 20 th
Century Prophecy: Jeane Dixon, Edgar Cayce
(Minneapolis, MN: Bethany, 1977); John Ankerberg, John
Weldon, Cult Watch (Eugene, OR: Harvest House,
1991), p. 340.
5 Henry
Morris, Many Infallible Proofs (San Diego, CA:
Creation Life Publishers, 1974), pp. 181-182.
6 Bernard M.
Ramm, Protestant Christian Evidences (Chicago,
IL: Moody Press, 1971), pp. 84-85.
7 In ibid.,
p. 90.
8 Custance,
p. 107.
9 Rhoda
Thomas Tripp, compiler, The International Thesaurus
of Quotations (NY: Thomas Y. Crowell, 1970), p. 512.
10 Ramm, pp.
85, 89, 96.
11 Ibid., pp.
85-86.
12 Custance,
pp. 109, 119.
13 Ibid., p.
110. Dr. Custance reveals why these predictions could
not result from the expected extension of then present
trends: "Aldous Huxley… in his Brave New World,
and George Orwell in his 1984 [comprise]… a
logical extension of present trends rather than
[being] prophetic in the biblical sense. As such, the
authors took little risk on the whole in making them,
for ‘coming events cast their shadows before’ By
contrast, there are biblical predictions so specific in
detail and so far removed from being merely logical
extensions of the present, that only God, or someone who
has opened his mind to another source of inspired
knowledge that is wholly evil, would risk making them."
(Ibid., p. 115, emphasis added.)
14 Ibid., p.
129.
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