Henry Imler November 14th, 2008

Magneto, after skewering Xavier in Ultimate Origins 5.  No relation to the post, I just thought it was a cool pic.

Conservative scholars and practitioners have a lot invested in biblical prophecy.  For them it is a great confirmation that the Bible was divinely inspired.  After all, if your God tells you what is going to happen in 30 or 200 years, and it happens, then that can only bolster your claims. 

For many scholars and practitioners [1] if a text is written ex eventu, then the implication is that the text is somehow less inspired.  After all, you can’t really make the appeal to prophecy then, now can you? 

For this reason, when it comes to the dating of texts such as Daniel, Jeremiah, and Mark, conservative scholars are beholden to forcing the texts to be written before the events in the prophecies. [2]     Ironically, this approach actually neuters the text they are wanting to save.

You have to remember that just about all ancient texts are propaganda.  I don’t mean that in a negative sense, only that these texts are being written for a specific purpose – to influence people to buy into their message.  Nothing, not even so-called “histories” are just reporting the facts, ma’am.  Prophecies are huge in terms of their rhetorical effects.  As Mark Goodacre puts it, “The prediction only gains traction because the reader is saying, ‘Hey, yes! I know what that’s about!’”  It is a powerful argument in favor of the text in the reader’s eyes.  The writers of the text know this and skillfully employ the use of fulfilled prophecy to this end.

Now, lets assume that the text is written down and disseminated before the event in question happens.  The once powerful effect of prophecy loses its power.  Now, in the reader’s eye, doubt is summoned and laid over the text.  Here, our imaginary reader says to herself, “Man, Jesus is saying that the temple is going to be destroyed, but… just look at it!  It is still standing!”  Prophecies only gain rhetorical power after they are fulfilled.  Thus, in forcing the writers to pen unfulfilled prophecies, scholars deny the texts their original power over the reader.

Now, notice what I am not saying.  In no way does this assume that the writers are inserting fake prophecies onto their characters.  From a position of faith, I believe that Jesus, Jeremiah, Daniel and others uttered their prophecies beforehand.  However, this is a different question than when the texts were written.  And when we are dating texts, we need to let the evidence speak louder than our theological preconceptions which may or may not be artificial.  If we date from a position of theological comfort, then we need to reevaluate our methods.

For more reading on this topic, see NTWong’s Scholarly dating of Daniel to After the ‘Prophecies’ were ‘Fulfilled’ and Mark Goodacre’s Dating Sacred Texts on the Basis of Fulfilled Prophecy. 

1. at least ones I have heard in lectures at Central Christian College of the Bible and others in person and in print [↩]
2. And really, as a person of faith, this is attractive, even if I think it prejudices this theological implication over other more concrete forms of evidence. [↩]

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