by A.S.K. Joommal

In the Bible we find prophecies that have been falsified by history. Isaiah foretold the drying up of all the water of Egypt and the consequent destruction of all meadows and sown land, whose existence depends on the periodic overflow of the Nile. 

“And the waters of the Nile will be dried up, and the river will be parched and dry; and its canals will become foul, and the branches of Egypt’s Nile will diminish and dry up, reeds and rushes will rot away. There will be bare places by the Nile, on the brink of the Nile, and all that is sown by the Nile will dry up, be driven away, and be no more.” (Isaiah, 19:5-7)  (Revised Standard Version). 

            None of these predictions have been fulfilled or seem likely to be fulfilled. To relegate their fulfilment to a remote future stultifies the prophet’s warning, since it was against the Egypt of his age that he and his people had a grievance. 

            Jeremiah prophesied that Jehoiakim will have none to sit on the throne of David, but he was succeeded  by his son Jehoiachin. (Jer. 36:30; 2 Kings, 24:6). 

            Ezekiel prophesied the utter destruction of Tyre by Nebuchadnezzar, King of Babylon. 

“With the hoofs of his horses he will trample all your streets; he will slay your people with the sword; and your mighty pillars will fall to the ground. They will make a spoil of your riches and a prey of your merchandise ………

And I will stop the music of your songs, and the sound of your lyres shall be heard no more. I will make you a bare rock; you shall be a place for the spreading of nets; you shall never be rebuilt; for I the LORD have spoken, says the Lord GOD.”  (Ezekiel, 26: 11-14). 

            Nebuchadnezzar did not destroy Tyre. This feat was reserved for Alexander the Great, 240 years after the time of Nebuchadnezzar, and despite the prophet, Tyre was rebuilt. And to-day it is inhabited by thousands of people. 

            Again and again it is prophesied in the New Testament that Jesus will shortly return in the clouds from heaven, where he is now sitting at the right hand of God, in order to raise the dead, judge the world, and set up his kingdom on a renovated earth. Jesus said: 

a).        “This generation shall not pass, till all these things be fulfilled.”  (Matt. 24:34) 

b).        “There be some of them standing here, which shall not taste of death, till they see the Son of man coming in his kingdom.”  (Matt. 16:28) 

            In the Epistles of Paul and other New Testament propagandists we find the same confidence: 

a).         “The time is short.”   (1 Cor. 7:29) 

b).         “In these last days.”  (Heb. 1:2) 

c).        “….but now once in the end of the world hath he appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself.”  (Heb. 9:26) 

d).        “For yet a little while, And he that shall come will come, and will not tarry.”  (Heb. 10:37) 

e).        “… who verily was foreordained before the foundation of the world, but was manifest in these last times for you.”  (1 Peter, 1:20) 

f).         “But the end of all things is at hand.” (1 Peter, 4:7) 

g).         “…. behold, the judge standeth before the door.” (James, 5:9) 

The opening words of the Revelation run thus: 

“The Revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave unto him, to shew unto his servants things which must shortly come to pass ….” (Rev. 1:1) 

            Almost the last verse of this book gives the following assurance: 

“He which testifieth these things saith, Surely I come quickly. Amen. Even so, come, Lord Jesus.”  (Rev. 22:20). 

            The “shortly” of the first of these texts and the “quickly” of the second, both have the force of “very soon.” 

            The first generation of Christians died without the world changing its normal course, and, though hope of a speedy advent of Christ was slow to wane, men began to complain by about the middle of the second century, that “all things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation.”  (2 Peter, 3:4). 

            The author of the Second Epistle of Peter is a literary forger, writing probably more than a hundred years after Jesus, who wants to be taken for the leader of the Twelve. His quibble that one day must be understood as a thousand years for the divine point of view, so that the promise of an imminent event means that millennia may first elapse, is too ridiculous to be discussed! 

            Bible adherents are requested to consider the following text in the light of the many Biblical prophecies that subsequent events have falsified: 

“When a prophet speaketh in the name of the Lord, if the thing follow not, nor come to pass, that is the thing which the Lord hath not spoken, but the prophet hath spoken it presumptuously: thou shalt not be afraid of him.”  (Deuteronomy, 18:22).