Readers will notice on pages 9-10 of this issue that Michael Bradford is so upset with my refusal to accept his claim that supernatural suppositions are as logically reasonable as naturalistic ones that he has said he will never submit another article to The Skeptical Review. This is his choice, of course, but as I show in my reply to him on pages 10-11, much of his problem is rooted in an apparent inability to recognize the difference in argumentation and mere assertion. He relies primarily on trying to assert his way to convincing us to accept whatever his articles attempt to defend. His latest articles have tried to show that supernatural suppositions are just as logically defensible as naturalistic ones, but Bruce Wildish, Dave Matson, and I have shown that they obviously aren't. More on that is in my reply to Bradford on the pages cited above.
Some readers have argued, as Alex Donnelly did (TSR, March/ April 2001, p. 15), that belief in prophecy fulfillment is rational if one assumes the existence of the supernatural. In the foregoing article, Dave Matson has shown that this is an indefensible proposition To show the irrationality of accepting prophecy-fulfillment claims on nothing but an unverifiable assumption that ancient mystics possessed supernaturally endowed insights into the future, I will examine just a few claims of biblical prophecy-fulfillment to show that Matson's naturalistic stance is far more reasonable than an unfounded belief in "divine inspiration," by which "prophets" were able to see into the future.
The rebuilding of Jericho has been touted by Bible fundamentalists as an example of exact prophecy fulfillment. According to Joshua 6:26, after the destruction of Jericho a specific curse was pronounced on the person who would rebuild the city.
Joshua then pronounced this oath, saying, "Cursed before Yahweh be anyone who tries to build this city -- this Jericho! At the cost of his firstborn he shall lay its foundation, and at the cost of his youngest he shall set up its gates!"
Needless to say, the Bible claims that this prophecy was fulfilled exactly as Joshua had predicted.
In his days Hiel of Bethel built Jericho; he laid its foundation at the cost of Abiram his firstborn, and set up its gates at the cost of his youngest son Segub, according to the word of Yahweh, which he spoke by Joshua son of Nun (1 Kings 16:34).
As hard as it may be for rational thinkers to believe, biblical inerrantists will quote these verses as an example of amazing prophecy fulfillment, but even a child who has not been indoctrinated to believe that the Bible is the inspired "word of God" should be able to see the absurdity in thinking that this is a verifiable case of prophecy fulfillment.
First of all, there is no way to corroborate the claim that Hiel rebuilt Jericho and experienced the losses of his sons, because there are no other records, not even in the Bible, of the events alleged here. Reasonable people, then, must recognize at least the possibility that this was just a fabricated prophecy fulfillment, and the evidence will show that fabrication was more of a likelihood than just a possibility. The author of 1 Kings, being familiar with the text in Joshua, could easily have made up the story of Hiel and put it into his text to give the appearance of a prophecy having been fulfilled, or even a later editor of both books could have inserted the prophecy into Joshua and then the fulfillment into 1 Kings.
A comparison of the texts supports these probabilities, because clear signs of either common authorship or else the plagiarizing of exact language by whoever wrote 1 Kings 16:34 is very much in evidence. This author didn't say that Hiel's firstborn son Abiram had died after the foundation of Jericho had been rebuilt and that his youngest son Segub had died when the gate was put into place. Instead, he used the same language almost verbatim that was in the alleged prophetic text in Joshua. Hiel had "laid the foundation at the cost" of his first son and had "set up the gate at the cost" of his other son. The language is far too similar to see this as anything but a probable attempt to fabricate a prophecy fulfillment. When I encountered such strikingly similar expressions in two different student essays when I was teaching freshman composition classes, I immediately suspected either collaboration in the writing of the essays or just coincidental plagiarism from the same sources. Discussions of the problem with the student authors almost always confirmed my suspicion.
This, of course, is a "naturalistic"explanation of the "prophecy fulfillment," which will undoubtedly irritate Bradford and his supernaturalist cohorts, but it is a far more sensible interpretation of the texts than the naïve assumption that a deity had supernaturally enabled Joshua to know with such phenomenal accuracy the exact details of what would happen 500 years into the future. We experience thousands of naturalistic events each day of our lives, but I, for one, have never witnessed a verifiable supernatural event. That being true, it is infinitely more reasonable to accept a naturalistic explanation of this "prophecy fulfillment" than to assume that supernatural insights enabled someone to know with such uncanny accuracy what layover 500 years ahead.
A similar example is also in the book of 1 Kings. When the unified kingdom of David and Solomon split after Solomon's reign, Jeroboam, who had come to power in the northern kingdom, set up an altar at Bethel to discourage his subjects from going to Jerusalem to offer their sacrifices (1 Kings 12:25-33). As the story was told, a "man of God" went from Judah to Bethel to prophesy against Jeroboam's altar. While Jeroboam was officiating at the altar, the "man of God" pronounced a curse on it.
"O altar, altar, thus says Yahweh: ‘A son shall be born to the house of David, Josiah by name; and he shall sacrifice on you the priests of the high places who offer incense on you, and human bones shall be burned on you.’" He gave a sign the same day, saying, "This is the sign that Yahweh has spoken: ‘The altar shall be torn down, and the ashes that are on it shall be poured out’" (1 Kings 13:2-3)
This "prophecy" was very specific: (1) A "son" would be born to the house of David. (2) His name would be Josiah. (3) He would sacrifice on this same altar the priests who offered incense on it. (4) The altar would be torn down. (5) The ashes on the altar would be poured out. If fulfillment of all of these details could be established, this would certainly be an example of remarkable prophecy fulfillment that would be enough to convince any skeptic of the reality of supernatural occurrences.
Needless to say, the Bible claims that every one of these details was fulfilled. The reign of a Judean king named Josiah, who was descended from David, began in Jerusalem some 300 years later (2 Kings 22-23). During renovations of the temple, "the book of the law " was "discovered"(22:8), which most Bible scholars see as an explanation for the sudden appearance of the Deuteronomic law in Jewish literature. Hilkiah the priest reported the discovery to king Josiah, who read it and rent his clothes in anguish upon realizing that the commandments of this law had not been kept either by him or the people (22:12-13). Josiah then instituted reforms, which resulted in the "fulfillment" of the rest of the details in the man of God's prophecy.
Moreover, the altar at Bethel, the high place erected by Jeroboam son of Nebat, who caused Israel to sin -- he [Josiah] pulled down that altar along with the high place. He burned the high place, crushing it to dust; he also burned the sacred pole. As Josiah turned, he saw the tombs there on the mount; and he sent and took the bones out of the tombs, and burned them on the altar, and defiled it, according to the word of Yahweh that the man of God proclaimed, when Jeroboam stood by the altar at the festival; he turned and looked up at the tomb of the man of God who had predicted these things.Then he said, "What is that monument that I see?" The people of the city told him, "It is the tomb of the man of God who came from Judah and predicted these things that you have done against the altar at Bethel." He said, "Let him rest; let no one move his bones." So they let his bones alone, with the bones of the prophet who came out of Samaria (2 Kings 23:15-18).
What is wrong with seeing this as a genuine case of prophecy fulfillment, which had resulted from a "man of God" having been supernaturally endowed with power to see into the distant future? The only thing I can see wrong with it is that it would require an almost incredible naïveté when a far more likely naturalistic interpretation could explain it.
The book of 2 Kings was obviously written after the reign of Josiah; otherwise, the story of his religious reforms and subsequent death in a battle with the Egyptians at Megiddo could not have been recorded in it (23:29). This author, then, was writing after the fact! The alleged prophecy by the "man of God" had already been spoken (if indeed it ever was), and the reign of Josiah was over. How easy, then, would it have been for an author living in superstitious times to have put into the mouth of the "man of God" a detailed "prophecy" and then write an account of Josiah's reign to give the appearance that this prophecy had been fulfilled with remarkable accuracy?
That is a far more reasonable interpretation than one based on a supernatural supposition that "prophets" were divinely endowed in those days with the ability to see into the future. If Bradford or Donnelly should encounter a claim of prophecy fulfillment like this in another holy book, it would take them only seconds to see through it, but when they find such as this in the Bible, they accept it without question. That isn't a presupposition of the supernatural. It is a supposition that the Bible of all religious books is the only one divinely inspired, and that is the fallacy of special pleading. What Bradford and his supernaturalist cohorts need to do is find an example of a detailed prophecy that was verifiably made before the events that presumably fulfilled it, but that kind of prophecy fulfillment is hard to come by.
In Deuteronomy 18:15, Yahweh promised the coming of another great prophet like Moses.
I will raise up for them a prophet like you from among their own people; I will put my words in the mouth of the prophet, who shall speak to them everything that I command. Anyone who does not heed the words that the prophet shall speak in my name, I myself will hold accountable (Deut. 18:15-16).
Christians believe that Jesus Christ was the fulfillment of this prophecy. What are their grounds for this belief? Well, the Bible tells them so. According to Acts 3, the apostles Peter and John healed a lame man at the door of the temple after which Peter preached to the crowd that gathered in amazement and told them that "faith in his [Jesus's] name was what has made this man strong" (v:16). He then told the crowd that Jesus was the prophet like unto Moses whom God had promised to send to them.
Moses said, "The Lord your God will raise up for you from your own people a prophet like me. You must listen to whatever he tells you. And it will be that everyone who does not listen to that prophet will be utterly rooted out of the people" (vs:22-23)
Peter went on to say that "all the prophets, as many as have spoken, from Samuel and those after him, also predicted these days" (v:24). The problem is that Peter presented no evidence at all that Jesus was the prophet God had promised or that all of the prophets from Samuel had spoken of "these days." He just asserted both, and gullible Bible believers have uncritically accepted his mere (see Applications, p.16) word. In fact, we don't even have Peter's word. We just have the word of a writer who said that Peter said this, and even if we could know that Peter did say it, how could we know that he was right? Based on readings in the Qur'an (Surah 28: 43-50), Muslims, for example, believe that Muhammad was this prophet, and they have just as much evidence for their claim as Christians do that this prophet was Jesus. Both claims are simply unsupported assertions in holy books that cannot be proven to be what their adherents claim they are.
Bible believers like Bradford and Connelly will, of course, protest that if we would just presuppose the supernatural intervention of "God" in human affairs, it would then be perfectly sensible to believe that Peter was divinely inspired to know that Jesus was the prophet whose coming Moses had predicted. There is an adage, however, that says what proves too much proves nothing at all. A Muslim could just as reasonably argue that if one presupposed the supernatural intervention of Allah in human affairs, then it would be sensible to believe that Muhammad was the prophet whom Moses had predicted. That kind of reasoning could prove the fulfillment of any prophecy in any religious holy book; hence, what proves too much proves nothing at all.
In naturalistic matters, however, we don't have to "presuppose"
a natural law that make unsupported objects fall to earth. We see it
happen every day. We don't have to "presuppose" a natural law that
causes water to seek its own level. We have seen evidence of it
throughout our lives. Naturalistic presuppositions, as Bruce Wildish
said, are empirically derived. That is why it is far more reasonable to
accept a naturalistic explanation of apparent prophecy fulfillments
than to assume that some god bestowed on ancient mystics supernatural
insights that enabled them to see into the future.
