Ezekiel incorrectly predicts Babylon would conquer Egypt
Ezekiel incorrectly predicts the destruction of Tyre (Tyrus) by Nebuchadrezzar
Micah incorrectly predicts the destruction of Jerusalem
The prophet Daniel makes some misstatements
Jeremiah predicts the wrong number of years for exile
Ezekiel predicted Babylon would conquer Egypt and was wrong.
Ezekiel predicts that Nebuchadrezzar of Babylon will conquer Egypt utterly destroying it, slaying and scattering it’s people, and that it will stay uninhabited for 40 years.
In 568 BCE Nebuchadrezzar tried to conquer Egypt and Egypt survived with no apparent damage.
Aahmes ruled for another generation over a prosperous Egypt and lived to see Nebuchadrezzar die. No Egyptians were scattered or dispersed.
(Ezek 29:10 NRSV) therefore, I am against you, and against your channels, and I will make the land of Egypt an utter waste and desolation, from Migdol to Syene, as far as the border of Ethiopia.
(Ezek 29:11 NRSV) No human foot shall pass through it, and no animal foot shall pass through it; it shall be uninhabited forty years.
(Ezek 29:12 NRSV) I will make the land of Egypt a desolation among desolated countries; and her cities shall be a desolation forty years among cities that are laid waste. I will scatter the Egyptians among the nations, and disperse them among the countries.
(Ezek 30:10 NRSV) Thus says the Lord GOD: I will put an end to the hordes of Egypt, by the hand of King Nebuchadrezzar of Babylon.
(Ezek 30:11 NRSV) He and his people with him, the most terrible of the nations, shall be brought in to destroy the land; and they shall draw their swords against Egypt, and fill the
land with the slain.
Ezekiel predicts the destruction of Tyre (Tyrus) by Nebuchadrezzar and is wrong again.
Ezekiel incorrectly predicts that the island of Tyre (Tyrus) will be utterly destroyed and "made a bare rock" which will "never be rebuilt".
At the time of the prediction, it seemed like to be a sure thing, but 13 years of seige later Nebuchadrezzar gives up. The Island of Tyre is not destroyed or even conquered. It is not made
"a bare rock" that will "never be rebuilt".
Ezekiel admits his error in Ezek 29:17
(Here the conquest of Trye looks like a sure thing so Ezekiel makes his prediction)
(Ezek 26:1 NRSV) In the eleventh year, on the first day of the month, the word of the LORD came to me:
(Ezek 26:7 NRSV) For thus says the Lord GOD: I will bring against Tyre from the north King Nebuchadrezzar of Babylon, king of kings, together with horses, chariots, cavalry, and a great
and powerful army.
(Ezek 26:14 NRSV) I will make you a bare rock; you shall be a place for spreading nets. You shall never again be rebuilt, for I the LORD have spoken, says the Lord GOD.
(Ezek 27:32 NRSV) In their wailing they raise a lamentation for you, and lament over you: "Who was ever destroyed like Tyre in the midst of the sea?
(13 years of futile effort by Nebuchadrezzar later…)
(Ezek 29:17 NRSV) In the twenty-seventh year, in the first month, on the first day of the month, the word of the LORD came to me:
(Here Ezekiel admits he was wrong)
(Ezek 29:18 NRSV) Mortal, King Nebuchadrezzar of Babylon made his army labor hard against Tyre; every head was made bald and every shoulder was rubbed bare; yet neither he nor his army got anything from Tyre to pay for the labor that he had expended against it.
(So he then predicts that God decides to give Egypt to him instead, another Ezekiel prophecy that completely failed)
Micah predicts the destruction of Jerusalem (which at the time was about to be invaded by Sennacherib and seemed inevitable) blaming the destruction on the corruption of the priesthood of Judah.
Jerusalem was sieged, but the destruction didn’t happen.
A century later Jeremiah quotes Micah and tries to excuse the failed prophecy by saying that "the Lord changed his mind" about that destruction.
(Micah 3:12 NRSV) Therefore because of you Zion shall be plowed as a field; Jerusalem shall become a heap of ruins, and the mountain of the house a wooded height.
(~100 years and no destruction later…)
(Jer 26:18 NRSV) "Micah of Moresheth, who prophesied during the days of King Hezekiah of Judah, said to all the people of Judah: ‘Thus says the LORD of hosts, Zion shall be plowed as a field; Jerusalem shall become a heap of ruins, and the mountain of the house a wooded height.’
(Jer 26:19 NRSV) Did King Hezekiah of Judah and all Judah actually put him to death? Did he not fear the LORD and entreat the favor of the LORD, and did not the LORD change his mind about the disaster that he had pronounced against them? …
The prophet Daniel incorrectly states that in the third year of the reign of King Jehoiakim, Nebuchadnezzar will conquer Judah.
The third year of Jehoiakim’s reign was 606 BCE, at which time Nebuchadnezzar was not yet king of Babylon. It was in 597 BCE that Nebuchadnezzar takes Jerusalem, by then Jehoiakim had died.
(Dan 1:1 NRSV) In the third year of the reign of King Jehoiakim of Judah, King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon came to Jerusalem and besieged it.
(Dan 1:2 NRSV) The Lord let King Jehoiakim of Judah fall into his power, as well as some of the vessels of the house of God. These he brought to the land of Shinar, and placed the vessels in the treasury of his gods.
Jeremiah incorrectly predicts 70 years for the Babylonian exiles but they only lasted 59 years.
The 1rst exile started in 597 BCE when Nebuchadnezzar first takes Jerusalem and appoints Zedekiah king (Judah’s last king). Nebuchadnezzar has temple equipment taken away.
The start of the 2nd exile was in 586 BCE when Nebuchadnezzar takes Jerusalem a second time putting down a rebellion and destroys the temple.
The end comes in 538 BCE when Cyrus takes Babylon and ends the Babylonian kingdom. Jews are then allowed to return to Judah.
(Jer 29:10 NRSV) For thus says the LORD: Only when Babylon’s seventy years are completed will I visit you, and I will fulfill to you my promise and bring you back to this place.
Hey Capella,
Interesting.
Cheers.
Hey, just curious, are there other Bible prophesies that have failed?
It’s hard to tell. Like most astrologists and fortune tellers, the prophets of the Bible were intentionally vauge so that whatever they forecasted could be retroactively applied to whatever does actually happen.
The prophecies I gave are some where the prophet went out on a limb so to speak and gave specifics.
Again, curious, after Sept. 11th some people were saying that Nostradamus had predicted the event, citing a vague passage about fire in the sky at a 45 degree angle (something like that). Are the bible prophecies the same way, then, where they are so vague that they could fit any number of actual events? Or is there grounds for something more to these predictions by Nostradamus and others?
Jeremiah has said that if God intends to do evil to a people and they repent, then God changes his mind about the evil he was to do to them. This explains much of what you say. There is no reason to believe that a small exile of Judeans were not taken in 606/605 BCE, which would make the exile 67 years long, still not the 70 prophesied, but closer. Daniel reinterprets the 70 years to be Judah’s desolation, marked by the holy temple, which would be 586 BCE temple destroyed to 516 BCE the temple rededicated, making an exact 70 years. However, you miss my favorite failed prophesy of the Bible, Daniel 10-12. According to this oracle of Daniel, the end of the world would have taken place in 164 BCE, which never happened and we are all still here.
jonah was a prophet..*ooo ooo* but he never really got it * sad but true* if you watch him you can spot it *a doodle- ly dooo!* he never got the point.
Even in Jonah…God sends the prophet to tell the city of their doom. They repent and God changes his mind. Jonah gets mad because he wanted to see them be destroyed for their unfaithfulness. God can change his mind. Humans have choices and God will make everything work out for those who love him. If his people repent. He’ll spare them :) I’m not at all suprised that the prophets were wrong about what God ends up doing a few times. Remember…you’re accountable for your own actions…not theirs….it is good to question some things…builds brains if you ask me…and faith..
CAM: According to the bible, God is not fluid, he/she is unchanging. Either this is a contradiction of that, or God was not being honest with Jonah and God is a liar.
CAM, your explanation is as silly as can be.
So then, do you honestly believe that God will give you an advantage in war as long as you sit on the sidelines and raise your hands into the sky, too?
Exodus 17:11
So overall… mmm Ezekiel was pretty wrong in MANY things ;)
I also suggest mentioning Isaiah 17.1 – “An oracle concerning Damascus. Behold, Damascus will cease to be a city and will become a heap of ruins.” Considering the fact that it has been about 27 centuries since this prophecy was given and Damascus has never ceased to be a city, I’d say that this is a pretty good example of failed prophecy.
Considering that the city of Tyre still exists to this day, I’d think Ezekiel’s book would be thrown out of the Bible completely. With all the weird images Ezekiel saw, I wonder if he was a drug addict.
Hey, just curious, are there other Bible prophesies that have failed?
As I’ve mentioned before, it’s hard to tell. Like astrologists and fortune tellers, most of the time the prophets of the Bible were intentionally vauge enough so that whatever they forecasted could be retroactively applied to whatever does actually happen.
When they weren’t being vauge it was usually because they were prophesying something that was undoubtably about to happen or the prophecy was inserted into the text after the events had already happened.
The prophecies I gave where the only few that I have personally found where the prophet went out on a limb and gave specifics enough to pin them down as unarguably failing.
actually, god himself made a failed prediction
he said that if Adam or Eve ate from the tree of knowledge, they would die, but they didn’t
(genesis 3:3)But of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden,God hath said, Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest you die
the serpent, however, made a correct prediction:
(genesis 3:4)And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die
What about Jesus himself (and some of his disciples predicting that ‘some alive today will not taste death before My return’?
That’s right apbrit,
In Gen. 2:17, god tells adam on the day he eats the fruit, he will die.
In Gen. 3:6, we learn that adam did indeed eat the fruit.
And in Gen. 5:5, we find that adam lived to the ripe old age of 930.
Did god forget?
Was he just kidding?
Or…Did someone make all this up????
well in regaurds to adam, and apbr..
apbrit, so adam and eve are still alive, the idea most logical people get from reading that is that men could not die until disobeying god, they did not suffer, by eating the fruit they learned good from evil seperating the world from the supernatural grace of god.
adam, the keyword in your post is lived.. dunno how you missed that unless you were being bias.. they did eventually die according to scripture.
Where do you people get this? Adam and Eve were never real. Adam and Eve represent the spiritual fall of our (spirit/soul) out of Eden (heaven) into the physical realms. People really think there was a real adam and eve with a real snake? Who teaches this stuff?
@Shasiti: majority of christians in america. you’d be surprised how stupid most evangelicals are.
(insult snipped) @ apbrit: about Adam and Eve. Do you even get what God meant by that when He said they would die because of their disobedience? It wasn’t just the fact that they ate a fruit. Oh big deal. The fact was that in the Garden, they had all the riches and glory life could ever have because they were in the presence and love of the Living God. (sorry liza, but I had to snip the evangelism also)
In the story Adam and Eve didn’t have the “knowledge of good and evil” yet they were held responsible for not recognising the difference between the two. Some think this story wasn’t well thought through by the ancient author(s).
Thanks for this great website. Have you read “The christian delusion” by Loftus, Barker,Price, Carrier, Avalos, Babinski? It is also a great summary. I was a christian who never knew about the Ancient near east beyond the Bible writings. I now think that religion evolved out of primitive superstition. The Bible is a diary by men who were guessing. They had a god hypothesis that has been shown false. There is no input from a god into this world. God was created by man in his own image.
[...] 19:10: “The proof of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy.”; Hmm… Except for these ones: Capella’s Guide to Atheism – A guide from an ex-Christian to Bible errors, Bible contradictions…
I would like to say something; it deals with what I think could be a failed biblical prophecy.
Reading Anatoly Fomenko’s book ‘History: Fiction or Science’ (and assuming it is true), we find that the book of Revelation, according to the horoscope referred that is employs when making the prophecy, acutally dates to the middle ages.
If you study history, the entire world believed the earth would soon be destroyed because, according the Byzantine Chronology, the 7000th year from Adam was quickly approaching. The book was written in response to the fears that the world’s end was soon at hand. That is why the book mentions the end as coming quickly.
Of course, many haven’t even considered the fact that this book is based on middle aged star charts.
Just a thought…
Further notes about Bible prophecy…
Most of what we think is Bible prophecy is actually alterations after the fact or misrepresentations of the text. The classic example is that Jesus will be born of a virgin, when the original text does not include virgin but rather says young women… Some prophecy. Another classic example is the fradulent book Daniel which pretends to be written during the time of captivity in Babylon but was actually written 300 years later. Its always easy to prophecy after the event – but then you run into problems where you get your facts wrong which of course happens in Daniel.
Another really interesting way of finding false prophets in the bible (95% of them are false prophets) is to check the Laws of Moses to see if their conduct is in line with that. The problem is that if you remove the narratives, the histories and all these crazy prophecies and just focus on Moses’s Laws things suddenly start to make logical and humanistic sense.
For example, Solomon and David order the construction of a Temple that is really forbidden by Exodus 20 “24‘You shall make an altar of earth for Me, and you shall sacrifice on it your burnt offerings and your peace offerings, your sheep and your oxen; in every place where I cause My name to be remembered, I will come to you and bless you. 25‘If you make an altar of stone for Me, you shall not build it of cut stones, for if you wield your tool on it, you will profane it. 26‘And you shall not go up by steps to My altar, so that your nakedness will not be exposed on it.’”
Goes to prove your point, but from a non-atheist believers perspective that much of the “foretelling” of destruction of Israel is not prophecy but just predicting outcomes based on how many of Moses’s Laws the Jews violate and then how God punishes them.
I think you can add Harold Camping’s “Rapture” to the list as we are all still here!
Hey there, You’ve done a great job. I’ll definitely digg it and in my opinion recommend to my friends. I’m confident they will be benefited from this site.
I can prove there is not one miss quote in the Bible.. Read 2 Corinthians 4:4-7. That is one of the reason’s you can not understand the Bible. It is a spiritual book and must be interpreted with spiritual eyes. You must be Born Again to understand the Bible. If you read from your natural mind you will never get it.. Read the story of Nicodemus He was a Pharisee and that is equal to having your PhD in Theology. John 3:1-12 You will never understand spiritual things until you get saved. I will pray for your Salvation..
Kevin, I appreciate your concern and prayers. If you would have read my website a little before criticizing it and judging me for not being born again, you might have run across my testimony and the fact that I was a born again Christian which is stated clearly at the top under the title of this blog.
Also your contention that you have to be born again to understand the Bible is what’s known as a logical fallacy called a “special pleading.”
Interesting thoughts… Have you ever experienced God?
Please read the comment above your comment for your answer.