Postscript to An Eternal Nation

Prophecy Fulfilled?

There were several threads left open in the previous post, and I would like to address several of those points here.

Although I believe I have offered a sufficient naturalistic overview of Jewish history, many would object that this does not address the reliability of the prophecies themselves. How could a 1^st millennium BCE have predicted that the chain of events would play out this way? If we approach the argument not as evidence from Jewish survival, but rather as fulfilled prophecies, the argument seems to remain valid.

Let us revisit the prophecies we discussed. I listed 8 prophecies: 1) The Jewish nation will survive for eternity, 2) Exile and dispersion, 3) Persecution, 4) Few in number, 5) Light unto the nations, 6) The land will remain desolate, 7) The Torah’s survival, 8) Return to the land.

Prophecies 1 and 7 regarding the eternity of the Jewish people have clear motivations to predict them, and indeed are common amongst prophecies of virtually every religion. Additionally, much of the use of the terms ברית עולם or the like in context seem to be merely declarations of the strength of the covenant or laws, and needn’t be taken as literal predictions. However, the predictions about exile seem rather counterintuitive, for why would a propagator of a religion want to predict such doom?

However, viewed in context, this seems to be a misrepresentation. The Torah on numerous occasions presents a covenant, in which divine favor can be achieved through loyalty to God, and if they fail to uphold the Torah, they shall suffer serious consequences. This is usually not intended as a prophecy, rather a warning, with the goal of providing motivation to keep the Torah.

This format of making a covenant with lists of blessing and curses in the end which are contingent on fulfillment of the covenant is ubiquitous in other ancient Near East documents, particularly Hittite and Neo-Assyrian suzerainty-vassal treaties (between a ruling empire and a vassal state). This is a common theme in religious texts as well, and is displayed in the Code of Hammurabi, Akkadian prayers and Lamentations, Hittite priestly instructions, and the Egyptian Book of the Dead. They are replete with prophecies predicting prosperity, health, and strength on the one hand, and famine, sickness, and defeat on the other. Many of the specific examples strongly mirror those in the Leviticus and Deuteronomy. This is also an attitude prevalent throughout many of the Prophetic books, including Amos, Hosea, Micah, (First) Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel.

However, what is different about Israelite prophecies is the focus on exile. While this is not completely unique, it is definitely a theme which is discussed more than we observe by other ANE cultures. For that we need to understand more about ANE beliefs about homeland, and the conditions when these prophecies could’ve been written according to a non-believer.

The culture in which the Torah is referring is one where nationhood, land, and enmity of foreign nations and foreign gods were of utmost importance. The genesis of the nation according to the Torah involved leaving a foreign power which enslaved them, and conquering Israel from seven other contemporary civilizations. The Torah is replete with polemics against all the surrounding nations, such as Edom, Moab, Ammon, Assyria, Canaan, and Egypt, together with etiologies to build these narratives. This is a strong pattern throughout Nach, and is typical of ANE ethnocentrism, and with ethnocentric religions in general. This is because Israelite religion revolved around Israelite national identity, the belief in their supremacy, and their attachment to the land, and accordingly, this focus on national identity guided its views on other nations. The land as well plays a central role, with the covenant in Deuteronomy addressing their right to the land, the prosperity of the land, and the rights of other nations to their own lands. Accordingly, the most appropriate form of warning to include in the covenant would be one of exile, persecution at the hands of the nations, remain few, at the land shall remain desolate, as this is most representative of God’s side of the covenant.

Furthermore, throughout the prophetic books we find many prophecies addressing the looming exiles of Assyria in the Northern Kingdom and Babylon in the Southern Kingdom. These prophecies were not written in a vacuum, but were utilizing the political realities of the day to represent the warnings of God. This is one of the reasons that scholars argue that these Deuteronomistic prophecies were written immediately preceding the exile or in its aftermath. Whether or not you accept this claim, it should be considered at least plausible enough to be able to account for why these specific warnings were used.

The promises of return and rejuvenation can also be understood in this light. Being that the decline of Israel was seen as divine retribution for Israel’s sins, it should follow that when the nation renews its commitment to the covenant, God would allow them to return to Israel and restore their former glory. It also serves the purpose of providing hope and consolation, whether these were prophecies are post-exilic, or whether they were written prior for the event that the looming exile will materialize. Additionally, this was the way to maintain commitment to the Israelite deity in face of the fact that Israel was conquered by a foreign power (which is built on its monotheistic roots, as noted in the previous post).

Lest one object that the Torah was written centuries before the exile, aside from the arguments in modern scholarship against this point, the entire belief in Mosaic authorship stems from the theological position that the Torah was given to Moses at Sinai. Being that we are trying to demonstrate that very claim from the argument of fulfilled prophecies, it would be circular to use that conclusion to remove the objection we just raised.

The prophecy of being a light unto the nations in of itself is unremarkable. Any religion which claims to be the sole possessor of the truth such as biblical monotheism is expected to contain such remarks, as it regards the rest of the world as living in darkness and falsehood, with the Israelites being the source of truth and light. Additionally, the verses of this prophecy are rather ambiguous and are open to various interpretations. The blessing that was said to Abraham ‘Through you all the families of the land shall be blessed,’ does not specify what being blessed means, and it is arguably referring to material blessing similar to the beginning of the verse, מברכיך ברוך ומקללך אאר, which cannot be referring to spiritual influence. (I’m not sure if there is an era which can be clearly called a fulfillment of this interpretation, possibly the era of Solomon, at least according to the biblical account, but if so, the non-believer will object that it was written during the divided kingdom.) The verse in Issaiah as well can be translated as a ‘light amongst the nations’, as opposed to ‘a light unto the nations’, as discussed in the previous post.

I think it is fair to conclude that the motivations behind the prophecies can be well accounted for, and the fulfillment of the prophecies can be accounted for as well, as discussed in the previous post. Nevertheless, the believer might still argue that the overlapping of the prophecies and their fulfillments cannot be marked up to mere coincidence, although he will be forced to concede that it is not as strong evidence as previously assumed.

However, based on the reasoning provided above, it does not need to be ascribed to mere coincidence. As I have explained, the prophecies were likely influenced by the past occurrence of exile, or at the least in face of their looming threat, and the return was a direct product of the prophecy itself, rendering it a self-fulfilling prophecy. The other prophecies are either part of this interplay between the predictions and the events, or they are closely connected and are likely to be both predicted alongside exile and return and to actually occur together with them. (Additionally, if these prophecies were indeed generic to ANE religions, than as long as any one would survive, they would have this concurrence, and it would simply be survivor bias.)

Furthermore, if there is nothing extraordinary about either the predictions or the events, simply picking eight prophecies which were fulfilled is mere cherry picking amongst the thousands of prophecies throughout the Hebrew Bible. While I am not arguing that other prophecies were necessarily falsified, as they can be interpreted allegorically, included in the rule that God can change his mind from evil, (as evidenced in the story of Jonah,) or explained to be referring to the messianic era, which has not yet occurred. However, it is sufficient to render such methods unfalsifiable if we are dealing with the category of biblical prophecies as a whole, and not specifically the extraordinary ones. Therefore, such an argument is disqualified, as the claim that biblical prophecies were fulfilled encompasses such a broad spectrum of events that there is no way to avoid false positives. This is demonstrable from the various prophecies which are claimed to have been fulfilled in other holy books, most notably the Quran.

It is also worth pointing out that these prophecies themselves are not without issues, as the Torah seems to suggest that the Jewish people will first return to God and only then will be redeemed, which does not seem to have occurred.

The Land Shall Remain Barren

In the first post, I left this phenomenon unexplained. However, since it is merely an argument from one specific prophecy, as I believe I have sufficiently accounted for the others, I don’t think it’s evidentiary powers are sufficient to prove the point.

That being said, there are several minor objections we can raise. Firstly, this is not one of the major predictions like exile and return, rather it is part of a long list of particular examples of the events of the exile. Within that list itself we don’t have any account for many of the particular events mentioned, and it seems reasonable that they were not all fulfilled. This can be either because they are not prophecies, but elaborations on the curse in general, and so long as the general curse is fulfilled, the prophecy is still fulfilled, or because they are merely hyperbolic examples to illustrate the primary point, but it is not intended literally for each one specifically. If this is true, I don’t see why we should treat the prophecy about the land remaining barren differently. Secondly, the Torah does not clearly say that other nations will not be able to cultivate it, rather it will remain barren ‘whilst you are in the land of your enemies’, suggesting that its barrenness is simply due to lack of human cultivation, which is further supported by the verse’s comparison to the Sabbatical year. Thirdly, while I am no agricultural expert, it seems fairly reasonable that part of the reason why the land remained barren is because there was no concerted effort to ensure otherwise. Although many nations have conquered Palestine throughout its history, it was largely for religious purposes, and there were little attempts to actually settle the land. After the first wave of Aliyah and the Zionists began planting farms, naturally the land restarted to flourish. Additionally, many modern innovations, such as desalination, were used to rebuild Israel’s agriculture. The mere fact that 2,000 years ago they was no known agricultural problem can simply be a shift in the climate or something similar.

The Nation’s Reactions

The reader חוקר pointed out another prophecy in Deut. which was fulfilled unexpectedly. Deut. 29:24 described how the nations will react when seeing the destruction of the land - ואמרו על אשר עזבו את ברית יהוה אלהי אבתם אשר כרת עמם בהוציאו אתם מארץ מצרים. We would expect the nations reactions to be a vindication of the power of the own gods or themselved, and not consider it a punishment from the Israelite deity. See for example the rhetoric of Sennacherib in Kings 2 18:33, where he boasts ההצל הצילו אלהי הגוים איש את ארצו מיד מלך אשור. However, due to the rise of Christianity and Islam, this refrain has indeed been commonly referred to throughout history. Particularly significant is the Christian doctrine of suppersessionism, where the destruction of the Temple is seen as a rejection of the Jewish people by God.

In conclusion, although I consider this argument to be the strongest argument for the divinity of the Torah, it is not without strong counterarguments, and is also insufficient for one who does not assign a high prior credence to the proposition. I would like to leave off, that whether or not you find this argument convincing in terms of evidence, it is a testament to the resilience of our great nation and the power of our ancient traditions at preserving our identity. Am Yisroel Chai!!