About Prophecy

Summary

The website content critically examines the validity of prophecies, particularly those attributed to Nostradamus and biblical sources, questioning their authenticity and the tendency to interpret them post-event.

Abstract

The article "About Prophecy" delves into the nature of true prophecy versus fabricated or misinterpreted predictions. It uses the example of a supposed Nostradamus prophecy about the 9/11 attacks to illustrate how vague writings can be retroactively applied to historical events. The text points out that the so-called prophecy was actually written after 9/11 and is not consistent with Nostradamus's style or historical context. Similarly, it critiques biblical prophecies, such as those concerning the cities of Tyre and Sidon, which have not come to pass as described. The article suggests that ancient writers often used mythical terms to convey moral lessons, and these writings lack specificity, leading to varied interpretations. It also touches on the idea that prophecies can be self-fulfilling, influencing the actions of believers. The author concludes that prophecies lack the extraordinary evidence required to be considered true and suggests a skeptical approach to such claims.

Opinions

The author, Benjamin Radford, is skeptical of prophecies, especially those attributed to Nostradamus that seem to predict modern events.
Post-event interpretations of prophecies are seen as attempts to find relevance in otherwise vague and general statements.
The article casts doubt on the authenticity of prophecies, noting that some, like the Nostradamus 9/11 prophecy, were created after the events they supposedly predict.
Biblical prophecies, such as the destruction of Tyre and Sidon, are critiqued for not aligning with historical outcomes.
The use of mythical language in ancient texts is viewed as a storytelling device rather than a means of predicting the future.
The author suggests that the fulfillment of some prophecies may be influenced by the beliefs and actions of those who follow them.
A call for a high standard of evidence is made, asserting that prophecies should be verifiable and falsifiable to be credible.

What counts as true prophecy? Are there hoaxes?

Illustration by Nat Basil via iStock Photo.

“Two steel birds will fall from the sky on the Metropolis / The sky will burn at forty-five degrees latitude / Fire approaches the great new city / Immediately a huge, scattered flame leaps up / Within months, rivers will flow with blood / The undead will roam the earth for little time.” Yet nobody read that Nostradamus ‘prophecy’ before 9/11 and guessed the date, the city, or the method used in the attack. Only after the fact did speculation spread like blazing JP-4 fuel.

On September 11, 2011, Benjamin Radford of LiveScience wrote, “Those who believe in prophecy sift through reams of Nostradamus’s vague writings trying to breathe new meaning into stale words.” The first couple of sentences do look pretty specific, but are they? What other interpretations might twin towers have? What could the prophet mean by steel birds? Well, cities were common in Nostradamus’ day. A castle surrounded by a moat protected most. A hinged drawbridge could be lowered from the central door allowing passage over the trench but serving as a secure door during attacks. On either side of the drawbridge/door were towers allowing soldiers from within the castle to repel enemy forces trying to breach the door. Why can’t the steel birds be iron balls hurled from catapults and the fire be the burning projectiles soaked in crude oil? War was common then, and Nostradamus would have known that such an attack would happen, not just once but often.

But we don’t even need to offer other interpretations to the prophecy above because it’s apocryphal, written after the event. We know, because it isn’t even in quatrain form, it isn’t among Nostradamus’ writings, and it talks of steel, which wasn’t discovered until 1854, several hundred years after the prophet died. There are other examples, but current authors wrote them in modern times; after the 9/11 attack they supposedly ‘predicted’ had already occurred. That was a favorite trick of the priests and scholarly set who wrote the Tanakh (Hebrew Old Testament) beginning no earlier than the 10th century BCE, thousands of years after Moses. It was a simple matter to record the time and place where a spate of ethnic cleansing transpired.

It was commonplace to write in mythical terms intended to teach by a parable in ancient writing. These verses lack a specific location and time, and they are vague enough that different denominations and even different parishioners within a given church disagree on their meaning. We see such prophecy in the New Testament’s discussions of the end times. Because those apocalyptic images are vague, every generation finds clues that point to their living in that frightening moment. That’s been going on for over 2,000 years; no end times yet detected.

Some prophecies are about the future and are specific enough to falsify or verify, but that never came to pass. Tyre and Sidon are both port cities in Lebanon, and both are still there today. There are fishing nets drying in Tyre, but there are buildings, too. Ezekiel prophesied (EZK.26.1–21) that Tyre would be sacked by Nebuchadnezzar and never be rebuilt. The destruction occurred in 586–573 BCE but that was just about the time Ezekiel lived in exile. The biblical account is likely history, not prophecy. And the part about never being rebuilt is simply not true, as the modern photo of Tyre shows.

Finally, the picture is made even murkier by prophecies someone might act on, making them potentially self-fulfilling. The prediction that Israel would be scattered then regathered in the Levant might have helped fuel their rebellion against Rome in 70 CE and the free world’s restoration of Israel via the League of Nations. So it is unremarkable that these events occurred.

Perhaps there is some magical way a medium or shaman might hear the whispers of a creator deity or read facts about the future from the arrangement of tea leaves in a pot. Perhaps human scientists of the future have discovered a time machine and are here with us right now, ready to tell us what’s coming next.

But the time to invest belief in a claim is after its claimants have met their burden of proof, and true prophecy would be an extraordinary claim demanding extraordinary evidence. We’d expect the claim to be verifiable and falsifiable, and no prophecy I am aware of has cleared this hurdle.