Jesus's Prophecy Of His Gospel

In Matthew 24:14 Jesus prophesied that his new little religion/gospel would eventually be preached worldwide. The literal Greek text reads thus: "And will be proclaimed this gospel of the kingdom in all the inhabited earth for a testimony to all the nations. And then will come the end."1. It was an itty bitty new little religion considered by the mainstream as a cult when the prophecy was uttered.2. The one who made the prophecy was soon after executed. Bigtime negative for the shakey new religion, humanly speaking.3. His desciples who were to begin the fulfillment were neither wealthy, powerful, highly educated nor influential.4. The mainstream religion of the time and region did everything possible to stop/hinder the spread of the new cult.5. The original desciples were nearly all executed also, according to tradition.6. Jerusalem, headquarters of the religion was soon invaded and routed.7. The Ceasars of Rome determined to stamp out the religion after the destruction, inflicting terrible torture and death to the Christians.8. When the prophecy was uttered, most of the inhabited world was not even discovered yet.So folks now, here we are with the prophecy pretty much fulfilled and that gospel book an all time best seller for decades, when humanly speaking the odds of it's ever being fulfilled were nigh unto impossible.This again is a prophecy of Jesus given during that same Olivet Discourse to his desciples who questioned him about the end time, that same discourse which we debated concerning the city of Jerusalem.[This message has been edited by buzsaw, 10-23-2003]

Once again, this is somewhat vague as a "prophecy" fulfilled.I totally agree that what he said would happen has happened, but it has happened for many religions which 1) started under persecution, 2) survived until picked up by a powerful force (for Xtianity it was Rome), and 3) lasted until modern times where globalization has spread them worldwide.It may surprise you, but very few religions (except the Mayan or Aztec), or religious leaders prophecize that they will LOSE during times of persecution. Especially in tough times, religion plays the role of eternal calm from the storm. It will survive and last forever. Otherwise why are people listening?So, yeah it has come true. Is this a prophecy, or the same plain luck of the world many other religions (which currently exist) have experienced?One may note that even wicca has come back from near extinction to be a relatively thriving faith. Were early witches that cursed the Xtians and said they'll rise again prophetic?Something more remarkable please. Something not everybody says (especially when the chips are down), or that is mundane and carried out through mere self-fulfillment, and preferably something concrete in description outside the control of man anyway.------------------
holmes

To add to Holmes'reply this seems to be a simple case of self-aggrandisement. Isn't being a cult leader all about making grandiose claims ?And as has already been shown the Oliver discourse appears to predict an imminent apocalypse, leaving no time for the word to spread to lands unknwon at the time.To deal with osme of the specific points raised, the claim that the disciples were nearly all executed is a very LATE tradition with no support from even nearly contemporary times (older traditions have most of them surviving).Roman persecution was sporadic - sometimes severe but frequently non-existent, and it is Roman patronage from the time of Constantine that is responsible for much of the success of Christianity.The sect was already widespread into gentile lands by the time Jerusalem was destroyed. It is hardly clear that Jerusalem acted as a genuine central authority. The early church seems to have been highly decentralised and this structure may well date back to before the fall of Jerusalem.So the odds against success are not so bad as it seems. The odds are even better when it is realised that if the sort of claim involved is quite common - it would only take one success to produce a prophecy that *seems* impressive. Without knowing how many fledgeling religions made similar claims and failed we do not have a true picture of the real situation.

Holms and PaulK,The prophesy is more significant because it was prophesied to extend to the entire inhabited world at a specified time when other prophecies of the same book were to be fulfilled, such as the ousting of the gentiles from the city of Jerusalem, the phenominal advance of knowledge, ditto world travel, ditto world government.

This sort of distortion simply weakens your case. The prophecy was supposed to be fulflled before the end, and that's it. If the end as predicted does not occur, then the only way it could be held to have failed is if Christianity died out altogether - and who would care then ?There are other problems I could point out, but it is certainly true that there is no World Government nor any likelihood of a World Government in the forseeable future. If it were really true that these events were to happen "at a specified time" we cannot judge it a success and must consider it very likely to fail.

Buz - I hope this isn't too much of a tangent, but you refer to the expansion of knowledge fairly often as a fulfilled prophecy. Given the immersion I've had in ideas about end-time prophecies, I'm surprised this doesn't sound as familiar to me as the rest of the things you mention. Can you refer me to a verse?(this is an honest, non-rhetorical question)

It's from Daniel (and therefore refers to the second Century B.C.)

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8. When the prophecy was uttered, most of the inhabited world was not even discovered yet.

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(1) True, but in historical context this does not necessarily matter. The Romans were ruling most if not all of the inhabited world.
(2) Now that we have known the whole inhabited world for a couple of centuries with Christian missionaries preaching soon after the discoveries, why hasn't the world come to an end yet?

How does this make it more significant? If he made some statement to suggest that the entire inhabited world was vastly larger than the KNOWN inhabited world, I would start to feel some greater empathy that this was a prophecy.Likewise if he was in the ballpark (which is to say mentioning years) of how long it would take, I'd be much more empathetic.After all, as far as I can know he was referring to Xtianity being taught around the Europe-MidEast region (with no knowledge of Native Americans, inuits, aboriginals, etc etc). Uhmmmmm... gentiles still live in Jerusalem. Some are even in the Israeli government. Are we to expect a purge soon? Open a thread on this one, because it could at least be quantified in a way to avoid the self-fulfilling abilities of men. I do wonder at the number of advances we have had in the past, and the projected advances we have yet to achieve (some may not be for a century or more). I do hope this gets quantified/qualified as the one above. It could be something a bit more significant than the two you've posted so far. As above though, world travel has been around for a number of centuries as well as the worldwide preaching of the Bible. This monkey wants to throw a wrench right about now. If anything, the Iraq War has proved that a world government not only DOES NOT exist, there won't be one in the conceivable future.What do you consider a world gov't?So far the first two prophecies you've opened threads on have been week, and this peak at future prophecies suggest even if true we are not close to any "end times".------------------
holmes

The Bible is still being spread throughout the world buz. But for the Athiest out there according to your interpertation or for your interpertation the world at the time the Apostles where on the earth was ONLY ROME so there for it reached the entire known world. If you want to take it further the end also came in a way because the christian religon took over rome, pagan was expelled,etc You can take it even further by remembering the prophecies about the stars falling from the sky, etc, this could be metaphore and be speaking about the gods of the pagan religon, in anycase the stars sure fell when the christian religon or formally known as catholic took over.-Quiz[This message has been edited by Quiz, 10-23-2003]

But why? What possible reason is there to assume that gMat is anything other than what it appears to be on the surface, i.e., redacted apologetics and hearsay?[This message has been edited by ConsequentAtheist, 10-23-2003]

On second thought, not a good post.[This message has been edited by buzsaw, 10-23-2003]

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I totally agree that what he said would happen has happened, but it has happened for many religions which 1) started under persecution, 2) survived until picked up by a powerful force (for Xtianity it was Rome), and 3) lasted until modern times where globalization has spread them worldwide.

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1. Of the scores of religions/cults which have emerged, only a very few have survived to become world religions.2. My point here is that of the scores of religions/cults which have existed the last two milleniums, none of these had prophesied that they would become world religions and if they had prophesied they wouldn't have the other prophecies that the Bible has to lend support to the specific fulfillment of the prophecy such as the Bible has given to show that the end time events which were to accompany the gospel prophecy at the time it was to be fulfilled would be in place at the same time.This is supernatural stuff; stuff, which as complicated complex DNA just doesn't happen by spontaneous naturalistic happenstance. You schoolastically saturated scholars of secularistic stuff need to be deprogrammed and apprised of the reality of the supernatural.

That's the problem, Buz. The supernatural just doesn't exist. It can't, by definition. On the one hand, if it's something that can affect reality, then it's not supernatural, it's natural. On the other, if it's superior to nature and can't affect it, then there's no reason to suppose it exists.This is such an obvious paradox about the supernatural that I'm surprised that somebody as old as you hasn't picked up on it.

I don't get what you are saying. All I was agreeing with was that it is true that (like he said would happen) Xtianity is taught across the inhabited world. Is this wrong?The point of my post was supposed to be that just because what he said would happen, did happen, does not prove that he prophesized anything.------------------
holmes