Examples of extended prophecies

[Bob Crowley]

I've been participating in a short four week online course on aspects of Biblical theology, run by the Australian Catholic University.

The third week just gone was entitled "Looking back and looking forward: History, prophecy, and apocalypticism in ancient Jewish and Christian thought" by Dr Gareth Wearne

As part of it he mentioned the business about the mark of the beast and "666" representing the anti-Christ. He made a case for it representing Emperor Nero, who was the arch-enemy of the Christians around the time Revelation was being written.

I lifted the following excerpt from this source - What is 666 in the Bible?

In the biblical world, the number seven stood for wholeness and completeness, so to be called a “666” was an insult implying that you were short of being the real thing. Also, if you take the Greek form of the name of the Emperor Nero, the Roman emperor around the time of Revelation, and write it in Hebrew, the letters, which can also have numeric values, “add up” to—you guessed it—666.

However as a former Protestant, I think aspects of Revelation do indeed refer to some future events, and not just to events and characters familiar to John's contemporaries (assuming the Apostle John was the author).

My argument is that a prophet can have more relevance than he thinks, long after he is dead and gone; that is, his prophecy can have an extended meaning.

As an illustration I used an extract from the French politician and historian Alexis de Tocqueville, who wrote way back in 1835 that "Their (US and Russian) starting-point is different, and their courses are not the same; yet each of them seems marked out by the will of Heaven to sway the destinies of half the globe.”

He was writing in horse and buggy days, long even before the first modern industrial war (US Civil War) and wouldn't have had the first inkling of the future Soviet Union, the Nuclear MAD arms race, nuclear submarines, the rise of the internet due to the US military, electronic banking, satellites and all the rest. Yet his words remained prophetic, written over a hundred years before the US-Soviet influence took centre stage.

I'm wondering if there are other non-Biblical prophets who could be seen as a case in point, writing well ahead of their time, so their words came to have an extended prophetic meaning, in a similar way to the Apostle John knowingly or unknowingly writing a portent of some far distance developments?

 

[UnpopularOpinion]

I've been participating in a short four week online course on aspects of Biblical theology, run by the Australian Catholic University.

The third week just gone was entitled "Looking back and looking forward: History, prophecy, and apocalypticism in ancient Jewish and Christian thought" by Dr Gareth Wearne

As part of it he mentioned the business about the mark of the beast and "666" representing the anti-Christ. He made a case for it representing Emperor Nero, who was the arch-enemy of the Christians around the time Revelation was being written.

I lifted the following excerpt from this source - What is 666 in the Bible?



However as a former Protestant, I think aspects of Revelation do indeed refer to some future events, and not just to events and characters familiar to John's contemporaries (assuming the Apostle John was the author).

My argument is that a prophet can have more relevance than he thinks, long after he is dead and gone; that is, his prophecy can have an extended meaning.

As an illustration I used an extract from the French politician and historian Alexis de Tocqueville, who wrote way back in 1835 that "Their (US and Russian) starting-point is different, and their courses are not the same; yet each of them seems marked out by the will of Heaven to sway the destinies of half the globe.”

He was writing in horse and buggy days, long even before the first modern industrial war (US Civil War) and wouldn't have had the first inkling of the future Soviet Union, the Nuclear MAD arms race, nuclear submarines, the rise of the internet due to the US military, electronic banking, satellites and all the rest. Yet his words remained prophetic, written over a hundred years before the US-Soviet influence took centre stage.

I'm wondering if there are other non-Biblical prophets who could be seen as a case in point, writing well ahead of their time, so their words came to have an extended prophetic meaning, in a similar way to the Apostle John knowingly or unknowingly writing a portent of some far distance developments?

Nonsense , if by "some" somebody means 500 + prophecy yet to be fullfilled he is delusional

 

[Bob Crowley]

Would you mind pointing out where I said anything about 500+ prophecies yet to be fulfilled?

I gave a single example, and what I'm after are similar non-Biblical "prophecies" which had a real outcome. I could think of a few SF writers eg. Jules Verne, Sir Arthur Clarke, etc, but that's not quite what I'm after.