OT, my viewpoint on prophecy is a combination of a few explanations. You say you're not talking about 1914, but it's actually a very good example. The last thing that held me in the truth was CTR's pointing to 1914 for many years, and then it was when WWI broke out. Then, one day I asked myself, if 1975 saw the start of WWIII, would it be an anchor date that we'd point at to prove that JWs are correct? Looking at it that way, I then saw the 1914 prediction for what it was - a lucky guess (not even that lucky, since they missed the month...)
I think the bible's prophesy (and indeed all prophesy) can be explained by one or more of the following:
1. Lucky/educated guess.
2. Overly Vague or hedging. (it's always a red flag when the prophesy is only fully understood after it's fulfilment). A good example of this would be most of the stuff in Daniel, especially the JW's favorite of the gold/silver/coper/iron/clay statue. Daniel predicted that one power would fall and give rise to another, then god would end all of it. The only part that's fulfilled is that world powers change over time - what a prophesy! This is how modern-day psychics operate, it shouldn't surprise us that this isn't a new con. This also explains litterally everything that people attribute to nostradomus, who was likely just writing satire disguised as prophesy to avoid being killed for daring to speak out against the government.
3. Post-fulfilment writing. I.e. the prophesy is written after the event it 'predicts.' Daniel's prediction of cyrus' overthrow of babylon likely falls in this category. This prophesy was a difficult one to get past as I stuggled with my athiesm, until I did a little research. It took a while to get past my JW programming, as they always say that experts claim it was written after the fact because of it's accuracy...in reality experts say it was written after the fact because it probably was, and that conclusion has the nice side effect of explaining it's accuracy. Being as the bible was written in a time when most people couldn't read or write, this wouldn't be difficult to pull off. All it would've taken is one "expert" religious leader to write it in there, and tell everyone it had always been there.
4. Fabricating events to fit prophesy. This is how I would explain many of the prophesies concerning jesus (notably, casting lots over his garments when he was killed). How would the bible writers even have known that? Were they buddy-buddy with the roman gaurds that killed thier savior? It seems likely that (if jesus was actually a real person) the accounts written about him were massaged to fit prophesy.
5. Self fullfilling prophesy. I'm not convinced Jesus was a real guy, but if he was, I suspect that he was an oppurtunist that realized that people were looking for the messiah and the timing was right so he jumped in to fill the role. He also likely had a good knowledge of bible prophesy that allowed him to maneuver things so that he could claim he was the fullfillment.
Having said that, assuming you're a christian, how would you explain the fullfiled prophesies of other religions? It can be enlightening to examine prophesies that other people subscribe to (that you don't) as a way of objectively re-examining the ones you hold dear.
