I have a little problem with minor & major fullfillments in Bible prophecy

by beginnersmind 8 Replies latest watchtower beliefs

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  beginnersmind

  Hi this is the 1st thread (posted only a few times as well) ive started. Dont know why, maybe i thought i would get my head bitten off. You know like a sheep amongst lots of wolves! Anyway i was thinking about prophecies and ones that have or supposed to have a minor and a major fullfillment and what it means for free will, predestination etc. Firstly let me just say im not saying i do or dont believe them its just i have a problem with them. For example lets take the 'last days' one. Now if JW's and other end time groups to some extent i suppose are right on this and again im not saying 100% they are or arent but were supposing they are and remember its an example. If its right i can imagine a number of scenarios. We could have Jesus looking into the future from before coming to earth and seeing what would happen after he arrived and up to 70AD (minor fullfillment) and then having to look again till he came to a time when those things by chance were happening again and then deciding at this time it would be a good to have its major fullfillment. The other one i can imagine is the same till 70 AD but instead of looking for a time when those things by chance were happening he decides at this future time he (or God) will make it happen thus bringing about the major fullfillment. I guess my point is which came first. Was the prophecy 'created' for a known (non interfered) future time or was the future time 'created' for the prophecy? Of course the same goes for any prophecy that has or ones say has two fullfillments and there no doubt can be more scenarios. I hope im not rambling as sometimes i find it difficult to put into words the thoughts that are in my mind.
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  Narkissos

  Welcome beginnersmind,

  Regardless of the number of "fulfillments," the very notion of "prophecy" raises a number of logical problems as you pointed out. Either God canned history right from the beginning and has it played out in time like a movie (and then "prophecy" is a kind of partial "preview"), or "prophecy" is rather a decision he takes, publicises, and then acts on (you find this notion in 1 Kings 8, "with your mouth you said the word and with your hand you made it happen"). In the first case there is never room for either chance or freedom, in the second case it appears as an exception to the normal rules of causality. Not very satisfying (to me) in any case.

  I would add that Bible interpreters usually read multiple fulfillments into Bible prophecies because they are not satisfied with their historical fulfillment, or the lack thereof. However this happens within the Bible canon itself -- e.g. Daniel 9 extending the "seventy years" of Jeremiah into "seventy weeks" (of years), or Revelation extending some features of Daniel to the Roman period.
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  under_believer

  Nark's second possibility is again one of those straws I grasped at several years ago when trying to salvage my faith. I couldn't accept that history was written out beforehand, and the attendant lack of free will that goes along with it, so I had to go with the idea that Jesus was WORKING really hard to make all the prophecies come out right, and there was always the possibility he could screw something up or forget something.
  
  My theory was bolstered by the "it has been accomplished" exclamation of John 19:30.
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  beginnersmind

  Thanks for the welcome Narkissos. I remember on the point of 'God knowing or not knowing everything in the future' being told similar to your illustration of a tv or radio and how we can choose to tune in or turn it off when we want and that was like God with the future. I could accept that was possible. Although i know of those prophecies in Daniel and Revelation i hadnt thought about the Bible itself and the multiple prophecy scanario

  I dont know what to think about the prophecies on Jesus. I mean, wasnt some of them that Roman soldiers would cast lots on his clothes and he would be speared in the side etc. I cant see how Jesus could have been working to fullfill those kind of prophecies although theres no reason he couldnt have been working to fullfill others. The only way i can get my head round this is that God (ie if you believe God & Jesus are seperate) was making it happen to fullfill the prophecies or God decided to look into the future and see what exactly would happen when Jesus would be on the earth and then just 'prophecy' what i saw.

  Thanks for your comments. I guess my point succinctly is that if there are multiple fullfillments of prophecies ie the same or similar things happening in different time periods are they just a coincidence or are they made to happen? Just going back to Jesus. What about Jonah in the big fish for 3 days/nights and that prefiguring Jesus death and resurrection. Coincidence or not? :)
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  M.J.

  Another issue with God "striving" to make things happen the way they're supposed to happen according to phrophecy is the fact that EVIL is involved in most of these prophecies. This would mean that God causes evil to happen in order to fulfil them. This is an unacceptable option as far as the WTS is concerned.
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  OnTheWayOut

  Roman soldiers would cast lots on his clothes and he would be speared in the side etc.

  Yes, Christianity was founded on obscure writings in the OT being applied to Jesus
  in a profound future fulfillment.

  Not everything applied to Jesus was understood to apply to a future Messiah until
  someone wrote or taught that it did apply to him. If Christianity was founded that way, it would
  be natural for the supporters/founders to continue that way, saying that anything
  Christ said or did had a profound future fulfillment. That doesn't mean the writers
  intended it to mean a future profound fulfillment, anymore than the Psalmists did, but
  someone reading the scripture later taught that it had a major fulfillment coming.

  My take from the Borg is that God "causes the future to become" fulfilled. I don't
  know how the rest of Christianity takes it, so your question is really outstanding.
  The Borg says that God sometimes looks ahead at what "will" happen (as in the case
  of casting lots over his garments) and other times, God (or Jesus) causes it to happen (like
  riding into Jerusalem on a colt).
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  Narkissos

  I dont know what to think about the prophecies on Jesus. I mean, wasnt some of them that Roman soldiers would cast lots on his clothes and he would be speared in the side etc. I cant see how Jesus could have been working to fullfill those kind of prophecies although theres no reason he couldnt have been working to fullfill others. The only way i can get my head round this is that God (ie if you believe God & Jesus are seperate) was making it happen to fullfill the prophecies or God decided to look into the future and see what exactly would happen when Jesus would be on the earth and then just 'prophecy' what i saw.

  Just to highlight what OTWO already suggested: read all those so-called "prophecies" in their original (Old Testament) context and you will realise that almost none of them qualifies as a "prophecy," i.e. the prediction of some future event most of them actually describe a past event.

  I would add that the very notion of a future "messiah" is only hinted at very ambiguously in a couple of OT texts and that it mostly developed in the so-called "intertestamental" period and after the birth of Christianity -- both in Christianity and against it, as in Pharisaic-Rabbinical Jewish messianism. But as this happened many OT texts were read in a "messianic" perspective foreign to their original context.

  One possibility is that the writers of the Gospels re-read the OT from the new perspective of a traditional story of Jesus, to "find" correspondences which they construed as "prophecies". But another possibility is that they used OT texts which they (and other messianic groups) deemed susceptible of "messianic" interpretation as narrative material to construct many parts of the story of Jesus, and then pointed to the source texts as "prophecies" fulfilled. The fact that in the earliest Gospel (Mark) the OT allusions are mostly implicit and in the later ones (Matthew, Luke, John) the OT texts are actually quoted as prophecy gives a certain weight to the second option imo.

  Using your last Jonah example as an illustration: there is strictly nothing in the book of Jonah indicating that a future Messiah figure should be killed, buried and resurrected after 3 days/nights. Either we must assume that a Christian tradition about Jesus going through such an experience led to using Jonah as a "prooftext," or the very story of Jonah helped inspire the construction of the Christian story about Jesus (note that the slightly different "third day" pattern can be traced back to another OT text, Hosea 6:1-3).
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  OnTheWayOut

  Just to highlight what OTWO already suggested

  I like you, Narkissos. I was afraid to suggest something along the lines of what you wrote because it was so difficult to write.

  But another possibility is that they used OT texts which they (and other messianic groups) deemed susceptible of "messianic" interpretation as narrative material to construct many parts of the story of Jesus, and then pointed to the source texts as "prophecies" fulfilled.

  You are able to answer so deeply, but not so complicated that it can't be understood.

  Look at the Gospels. Mark just skips the childhood of Jesus, then Luke offers a complicated explanation of how
  Jesus was born, but has Joseph and Mary take him back to Galilee after his circumcision. Now look at the book of
  Matthew, early on (like chapter 2). It seems so labored to say that some OT scripture was fulfilled by anything about
  Jesus, offering no proof. Just stating it and alluding to the OT reference is proof enough. Matthew finds a reference to Egypt that
  Luke forgot (in my opinion). Jesus had to be taken to Egypt. Why?- because Hosea 11:1 says

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  "When Israel was a boy, then I loved him, and out of Egypt I called my son.

  I can imagine that the first Gospel writer just wrote a story about a great Messiah, but the next writer had to offer
  something different, or why would anyone read it? The third had to offer even more.

  Good job, Nark
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  beginnersmind

  You are able to answer so deeply, but not so complicated that it can't be understood.

  I know what you mean. Unlike me who has all this 'stuff' going round in my head which i cant seem to put in words very elequantly.