wolfbiblemoon

So, because Israel turned away from God there is now a severe drought that is also making life tough for the wild animals. That's what you call an appropriate punishment.

God tells Jeremiah that the other prophets he's seen and heard are false and is going to kill them for claiming they speak for God, the voice in your head would be quite likely to claim it is real and that the voices in everyone else's heads were false.

Being a prophet continues to make Jeremiah unpopular and he moans to God about how lonely and friendless he is, God then threatens to sack him as prophet if he doesn't stop whining. He gets protection from his enemies as part of his prophet gig, and God warns him not to get married or have children because his family would just die in all the punishment God is about to get around to giving out.

Jeremiah is to tell everyone that it's really important for them to observe the Sabbath, it's not clear if that will avert the disaster God is going to bring but everyone should not do any work on that special day anyway.

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From:

zteccc.livejournal.com

Sin impacts more than the sinner. Other people are impacted and so are animals at times. Sin is like a ripple in a still pond, it starts small, but impacts the entire pond with time. Consider sin today (or crime if you prefer). Despite arguments to the contrary, there is no victim-less crime. Crime impacts the criminal, the criminal's acquaintances, the society that the criminal lives within, etc. Choose a crime (or sin) and you'll see the impact. People sinned, a drought was punishment (in the hopes that the people would return to the covenant), yes, some animals suffered too.

A prophet lived or died by his prophecy. If a prophet predicted that something was going to happen, it had better come to pass. If it did not, that prophet was doomed. Either a king (commonly) or the people (less commonly) would eventually kill that prophet because it would be clear that the prophet wasn't from God. Unfortunately, prophets also understood that kings wanted to hear good news about their kingdom. Most prophets were just sycophants for the kings. As long as they didn't get it wrong too often, they could hang around and flatter the king and they would do well. Such "prophets" knew that they were just making stuff up, but it wasn't a bad life since they could be vague with their predictions, but sooner or later they were likely to be caught. For example, sooner or later a king would ask about the outcome of a battle and the king would be quite angry if they predicted one outcome (victory) and got another (utter defeat). Prophets of this type often ended up being executed by the king they served. Notice, however, that the prophecies of true prophets of God (Elijah, Elisha, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Haggai, Zechariah, etc.) did come true, which is the real measure of a prophet. If it were just voices in their head, they wouldn't have been so accurate.

The last section is once again an example of how the people of Judah didn't even keep one of the simplest of commandments. Of all of the commandments, doing no work on the Sabbath should be easy (especially since nobody else was doing any either), and yet even this command they wouldn't keep.

The covenant was willfully disregarded with full knowledge of the consequences.

From:

wolfpurplemoon

What proof do you have that all the prophecies of the so called 'true' prophets came true? Or even that they were made before the events they apparently prophesied, and that these prophets were even real people, they could each just be an amalgam of several prophets with just the accurate predictions recorded. I'm just aware that people like to confirm their bias and ignore the stuff that doesn't fit, which is why 'psychics' are so popular.

From:

zteccc.livejournal.com

Fair question. History objectively provides us most of the answers.

Take for example Elijah. He prophesied that there would be no rain or dew except by his word for years. This was fulfilled, the drought lasted three years before Elijah confronted the prophets of Baal at Mt. Carmel, defeated them (pretty neat event that was) and then prayed for the rain to come. The rain came at that point (see 1 Kings 17-18).
Elijah also prophesied that Jehu, a man not in line for the throne, would become king of Israel (the Northern portion of the Divided Kingdom) and that Hazael (again not in line for the throne) would become king over Aram. Both of these occurred (see 1 Kings 19 15-16 fulfilled in 2 Kings 8 and 9). Note that although my references are from the Bible, they are supported by archaeological evidence and other histories. In short they are objectively proven fulfilled prophecies.

Similarly, let's take Jeremiah. In the current book, he prophesied that Judah (the Southern portion of the Divided Kingdom) will be conquered and the people will be taken to live elsewhere. They will be held in captivity for 70 years before they will return home. This is exactly what happened, in 609BC the Babylonian empire conquered Assyria (which included Judah). The Babylonias started deporting people from Judah to Babylon. This practice continued until shortly after the Babylonian empire was conquered 70 years later in 539 BC by the Persians (Jeremiah was dead by then, so he couldn't have written it after the fact). The fall of Babylon was prophesied by Isaiah no later than 681 BC (over 100 years prior to it occurring, an unthinkable event at the time it was written due to Babylon's strong defenses).

So we know the prophecies fit history, but there was more to your question. Some of the answer comes from the texts that were found, early manuscripts of these books predating the events that occurred. Isaiah, for example, was written prior to the fall of Babylon. Jeremiah was written prior to and during Judah's exile, but prior to the return home when the Persians conquered Babylon. These dates have been verified by archaeology and via old versions of the manuscripts that have been found. Of course the real important prophecies (from a Christian standpoint) are the ones about Jesus. There is no doubt that they were all written prior to Jesus' birth since the Canonical Old Testament was established by Nehemiah and Ezra over 400 years prior to his birth.

One more point, you ask how we knew whether these are real people. The answer is that The Bible isn't the only history of the time. There are other ancient texts, other histories that have been read that corroborate the stories including the persons in some cases. In the case of Jeremiah, there is admittedly tenuous evidence of him (and being a prophet, not a King or other official, one wouldn't expect much), but one recent development is the discovery of a tablet in 2007 that identifies a "Nebo-Sarsekim" from Babylon (an official under Nebuchadnezzar). Jeremiah 39:3 references Nebo-Sarsekim. This reference certainly suggests that the book was contemporary to the Babylonian conquest and lends credibility to the work (nobody could have guessed, when writing the book over 2,500 years ago, that we'd find a tablet with this name who held an appropriate rank). Similarly, recently evidence was uncovered that shows the existence of Pontius Pilate which confirms that the Gospels were contemporary works to the time of Jesus and not Medieval fabrications.

From:

wolfpurplemoon

Thanks for your detailed answer, I still think it's plausible that only prophesies that turned out true were kept in the records and that what you say about prophets appeasing their kings would mean that there were probably plenty of prophesies about the fall of a powerful enemy, so one had to be right eventually. And even if a few predictions had a positive hit, it doesn't prove that the prophets were talking to God just like a psychic coming up with a few facts about dead loved ones is not proof they are actually talking to those who've passed on.

From:

zteccc.livejournal.com

Your hypothesis might explain successful prophecies of events that occur in the prophet's lifetime, however it wouldn't explain prophecies that occur beyond the prophet's life; especially when we have documentation of the prophecy being unaltered in the interim. For example, Isaiah's prophecy of the fall of Babylon is fairly specific and it occurred 100 years after Isaiah's book was written. Similarly, Jeremiah's prophecy of 70 years of domination by Babylon is accurate and the writing is dated before the fall of Babylon.

More to the point from a Christian perspective, prophecies about Jesus were written well before his birth, are specific and yet are fulfilled. There are even texts that still exist dating hundreds of years prior to Jesus' birth that match the current texts, so we know that the prophecy wasn't altered to fit Jesus' life.

What we see in the Bible, is an accuracy level significantly better than "a few predictions" having "a positive hit". And we do know that many of these predictions were written well before the events occurred.

No, it doesn't prove that the prophets were talking with God. Perhaps, as a group, they were just extremely lucky. Statistically the accuracy of the Bible would indicate an astronomical level of luck. Perhaps they should have taken that luck to Vegas...

From: (Anonymous)

The accuracy of the historical events recorded in the Bible is more strongly attested to than any document written in that time period. Archaeologists, historians and scientists continue to validate the events and people recorded in the bible through a variety of sources.