did i say that? i said it was POSSIBLE. but since you wanna duke it out over this one, i'll play.
first of all, the major problem with the fulfillment of this prophesy is that
it's not a prophesy. rather, it's a psalm, traditionally written by (or for?) david. so when it says "my clothes" it's talking about david's clothes.
here's the verse:
quote:
Psalm 22:17-19: (JPS)
Dogs surround me
a pack of evil ones closes in one me,
like lions they maul my hands and feet.
I take the count of all my bones
while they look on a gloat.
They divide my clothes among themselves,
casting lots for my garments.
it's important to note that the dogs/the pack of evil ones/lions are "the mighty ones of Bashan" (verse 13) -- jews from the tribe of Manasseh, NOT ROMANS.
now, when john references this passage, he misunderstands it. john has them divide up his clothing, and cast lots for the extra piece. the other three gospels have this as a single action -- the soldiers cast lots for ALL of the garments. john misread the poetic parallelism (like matthew did with the donkey -- why he didn't with the garment, i don't know) of the verse in psalsm. each pair of lines (or sometimes three) are talking about the same thing. psalms, and every other poem in the bible (and a lot of the prose) uses repition of concepts as a poetic device. the two lines in a pair always talk about the same thing, even if they use different pairings. numbers always increase by one, and sometimes opposites are paired... but it's a very standard style.
what the authors of the gospels are trying to do is reference this whole psalm and make it apply to jesus. it's even where "my god, my god why have you forsaken me?" comes from, this very psalm, which jesus probably had even read. the tone is very similar indeed, but the details don't fit.
[edit]
here's what another source says, with more nt contextual analysis:
quote:
If Jesus was scourged as part of the crucifixion process and then his clothes were once again placed on his wounded bloody body, why would the soldiers want to divide up these blood soaked garments? Indeed, if the scourging continued along the route to the crucifixion, Jesus' clothing would be nothing but bloody rags of no value to the soldiers.
http://www.jewsforjudaism.org/web/faq/faq058.html[/edit]
so in short:
1. not prophesy to begin with.
2. not about jesus and romans.
3. misunderstood poetic style.
4. no real value to jesus's clothing.
still think there's much to that one? or do you wanna try another?
This message has been edited by Arachnophilia, 01-03-2005 04:27 AM