Prophecy re-visited

Good point about the allegory / parable differences. How do we know if the Matthew / Mark passages are allegories or parables ? Given that the audience of the time were the priests and Pharisees (Mt:21:45, Mt:22:1, Mt:22:15), the implied threat about what happens if you mistreat God's prophets and son would have made perfect sense.I have not forgotten about the temple destruction prophecy, but I'd rather wait -if you don't mind- for the discussion with MTW about the rules to bottom out, before I start on specific prophecies.

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"In life, you have to face that some days you'll be the pigeon and some days you'll be the statue."

OK, Mike's obviously not interested in giving his definition of a valid prophecy. Any other Christians / 'unbelievers' want to contribute ?Purpledawn, I'll wait one more day for any replies and then I'll be happy to discuss the temple prophecy, if you still wish to.

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"In life, you have to face that some days you'll be the pigeon and some days you'll be the statue."

Hey PE,you just had to rub it in didn't you ?we played so bad, it was painful to watch!P.S you even got the score right, I'm impressed!

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"In life, you have to face that some days you'll be the pigeon and some days you'll be the statue."

Hi Nosy,thanks for the welcome and the kind words!I had a brief look at the Bootcamp forum, but I'm afraid I didn't fully understand its purpose. Is it a 'debating skills practice' forum? If so, how can I help ?P.S one question: It seems that my username is associated with a number of postings by another 'Legend' dating back to 2002. I only registered on May 2004. Is that normal? can I get rid of these postings?thanks, L

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"In life, you have to face that some days you'll be the pigeon and some days you'll be the statue."

Hi Brian,I see your point. But what happens when a prophecy does not come to pass? What does that suggest about the credibility of the god who 'inspired' the prophecy ?

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"In life, you have to face that some days you'll be the pigeon and some days you'll be the statue."

Hi Brian,wouldn't this be covered by the Probability criterion, where we would examine the probability of the event's occurrence?

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2. Probability. Prophecy must predict events that are unlikely to come true in the timeframe and circumstances prophecised.

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If, for example, the prophecy was :
'if you do X, then tomorrow morning the sun will not rise'
the event in question is the non-rising of the sun. As the probability of this occurring is miniscule, I would have no problem with accepting this prophecy.If the prophecy was:
'if you do X, tomorrow morning your car won't start'
the event in question is the failure of my car to start. As my car has been known to do this occasionally, I would say that the probability applied to this event is not small enough, for me to accept this prophecy. Personally, I agree. However, there are people who claim the opposite. I would like some of these people to discuss why they think so.

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"In life, you have to face that some days you'll be the pigeon and some days you'll be the statue."

as prompted by purpledawn at Message 40, let's have a look at specific prophecies, specifically part of the Olivet discourse, as given in [Mk:13:1 - 13:37, Mt:24:1 - 24:35: ,Lk:21:1 - 21:33].In these passages, Jesus predicts, amongst other things, that the Jerusalem temple will be destroyed :

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Mk:13:2: And Jesus answering said unto him, Seest thou these great buildings? there shall not be left one stone upon another, that shall not be thrown down.

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Mt:24:2: And Jesus said unto them, See ye not all these things? verily I say unto you, There shall not be left here one stone upon another, that shall not be thrown down.

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Lk:21:5: And as some spake of the temple, how it was adorned with goodly stones and gifts, he said,
Lk:21:6: As for these things which ye behold, the days will come, in the which there shall not be left one stone upon another, that shall not be thrown down.

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Jesus, even goes as far as giving a timescale for the prophecy : the generation of his audience (the disciples) [Lk:21:32, Mt:24:34, Mk:13:30].The part of the prophecy about the destruction of the temple meets ,IMHO, the Specificity and Timescale criteria (Message 1). The question is, does it meet the Precedence and Probability criteria? Was the prophecy made before 70 AD, when the temple was destroyed by the Romans?The dating of the Gospels merits a thread of its own, but I find the following dates plausible (Dating the gospels ):
Gospel of Mark: +65-70 CE
Gospel of Matthew: +75 CE
Gospel of Luke: +80-90 CE
Gospel of John: +95-100 CEAssuming -and that's a big assumption- that at least one of the Gospels was written before the destruction of the temple, leaves us with one criterion to be met : Probability. How probable did it seem, at the time the prophecy was made, that the temple would be destroyed ? If the Gospel of Mark was written only a few years before the temple destruction, as indicated above, could its destruction be a predictable outcome, given the geopolitical conditions at that time ?My take on this is, simply, I don't know. I need to do some research on this before I form a opinion. Anyone who's already done this and/or has some insight into this feel free to enlighten me.In anticipation,

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"In life, you have to face that some days you'll be the pigeon and some days you'll be the statue."

I agree. I just thought it would be interesting to see if it met the validity criteria, to begin with.How does Luke's version give credence to the idea that it was written after 70 AD ?

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"In life, you have to face that some days you'll be the pigeon and some days you'll be the statue."

Hi PD,Thanks for your insight into this.In my previous posts I've been using the terms 'allegory' and 'parable ' interchangeably. I apologise for the confusion this may have caused.I accept that the wicked servants 'parable' has allegorical meaning. I also accept the following symbolisms:Owner = God
Tenants = Jews
Killing of Servants = Rejection of Earlier Prophets
Son = JesusWhat I don't accept is that the killing of the tenants represents the destruction of the temple. This representation can only be applied with post-hoc reasoning. The context in which this allegory is given is : Jesus is back in the temple, having trashed it the day before. He is confronted by the priests and pharisees, who -it's fair to assume- are quite angry and upset with him. He is questioned about his authority by an angry crowd.Given this context, Jesus -with this allegory- achieves two purposes: (a) Demonstrates his authority (son of the landowner), (b) carries across the message of punishment for those who reject / mistreat God's prophets and son.It's interesting that he even changes his style to ask a rhetorical question "What shall therefore the lord of the vineyard do?", hoping -no doubt- to elicit some emotional response from the crowd, many of whom would have been likely to be tenants or landowners themselves. In that sense, the passage is very much like a parable.The point is obviously taken, as :

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Mk:12:12: And they sought to lay hold on him, but feared the people: for they knew that he had spoken the parable against them: and they left him, and went their way.

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In light of the above, these symbolisms would make more sense :Killing the tenants = an (unspecified) punishment to befall the Jews.
Giving Vineyard to others = others will be given the opportunities, until now given to the chosen people.My view is that this allegory doesn't lend any more credence to the probability of the gospel been written after 70 CE, as it would stand perfectly well even if the temple hadn't been destroyed.sincerely,L.

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"In life, you have to face that some days you'll be the pigeon and some days you'll be the statue."

I consider the destruction of Jerusalem to be the result of an effective suppression of the Jewish rebellion by the Romans, nothing more nothing less.I understand how one could see it as punishment for the death of Jesus, but then the same could be said for the Bar Kochba revolt (132 CE), the anti-Jewish measures of Christian Emperor Constantius (337 CE), the Holocaust, etc.With hindsight, any one of these events could be symbolic of the killing of the tenants. Why this particular one?

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"In life, you have to face that some days you'll be the pigeon and some days you'll be the statue."

I think the point of contention here is the assumption that every allegoric symbol must represent a specific event / person that is already known, or has already occurred, for it to make sense.You're saying that because of this assumption, the allegory must have been written after the death of Jesus and after the destruction of Jerusalem, otherwise no specific representations for the two symbols exist.The implication of this is that the author of Mark didn't quote Jesus in this passage (as you claim it wouldn't have made sense at that time) but rather inserted it long after the alleged events took place, when the symbols could be represented by specific events.IMHO, an allegory may symbolise not just specific persons and events but also personality traits, human conditions and other abstract representations. If we don't make the above assumption, the allegory makes perfect sense in the time and place where it is alleged to have been said. The killing of the Son symbolises harmful intent to Jesus. The killing of the tenants synbolises God's vengeance. What Jesus is saying is 'If you harm me, you will bear God's vengeance'. I think the audience understood this well, as Mark:12:12 says. What the Pharisees believed Jesus to be is irrelevant at that moment; what they thought the crowd believed is important, as they feared the people would turn against them, as the crowd was obviously on Jesus's side.

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Mk:11:18: And the scribes and chief priests heard it, and sought how they might destroy him: for they feared him, because all the people was astonished at his doctrine.
Mk:11:32: But if we shall say, Of men; they feared the people: for all men counted John, that he was a prophet indeed.

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Mk:12:12 implies that they got the message. I know I would have, in their position. I agree with this, I just think that this allegory by itself doesn't give us any indications for dating this gospel, as I believe it to stand well in the context in which it was allegedly said.In any case, I can't help but feel that this thread is veering away from the topic, though I do appreciate your input on this allegory passage.Dear All,
If anybody wants to talk about what a valid prophecy should be, or about specific prophecies, now's a good time....L.

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"In life, you have to face that some days you'll be the pigeon and some days you'll be the statue."