Why Didn't The Biblical Prophets Foresee Oil, Black Gold, Texas Tea???

[DistressedAmerican]

Just Askin'...

[tuvor]

1. Bush: 'prophets' is the same thing as 'profits,' right?

"So what's the problem?"

[DistressedAmerican]

2. Ah The Learning Disability. I Get It!

Must be tough getting through life that stupid. Good thing he's a Bush or he'd be on the street.

[bryant69]

3. Is that a serious question?

Or what?

Bryant
check it out --> http://politicalcomment.blogspot.com

[DistressedAmerican]

6. I Guess That Depends On How YOU Take It.

[bryant69]

7. Ah.

By the way I appreciate you capitalizing the YOU as a sign of respect, but it really isn't necessary.

[Dhalgren]

4. Because they could only "foresee" things

that they already knew. That's the great big secret with all of these "prophesies", from every corner: they only see what they already know. They couch all of their "prophesies" in vague generalities , with the hope that their words can be applied to almost any situation. The gullible then exclaim at the "power" of the "prophet"! It's good work when you can find it...

[The Straight Story]

5. Not sure they needed to

They saw rising power and it's abuses, and how it would all develop over time.

But then, maybe they did see oil. Some say that the big army in revelation of 200 million is the chinese, and maybe they are there because they want the oil and are doing the same thing we have done - invade to get it. Islamic countries work with them and cut a deal - give us Israel and we give you oil. Etc and so on.

A lot of theories, ways to interpret. In that sense the scripture helps keep people reading and studying it because it is not overly clear and the person writing it had a limited vocabulary with which to share what he saw.

Just some rambling thoughts :)

[leftofthedial]

17. yeah, and a "day" is a billion years

and the "Big bear of the north" is either the Russians or Reagan or maybe the Vikings

and "kill" (as in thou shalt not) is really just certain technical categories of murder.

[The Straight Story]

23. see my other reply

#22 above or below, I am disoriented :)

[leftofthedial]

25. The Old Testament is clearly mythology and bad history

Parts of the Old Testament are cryptic, especially to a modern reader.

The New Testament is a political document designed to be so ambiguous that anyone can interpret it anyway they want for any purpose they want.

It doesn't contemplate oil (or much else that has happened in the last 2000 years) because the men who made it up had no idea about the future.

:-)

[The Straight Story]

26. I disagree with that to some exent

The people back then had a limited vocabulary with which to describe what they saw. A simple text analysis can reveal a lot in that (also, see sir arthur conan doyles works, I have done some analysis of them based on the words he used and when and how they integrated into his works).

We as a church, or believers, work to extract things they saw using the terms they had to use then and bring such things into a modern light where we can define it better using a broader language.

Even if it is all fantasy - it is interesting to try and use the clues of language then and now and see how it fits into the now using the odd words used then. How would one describe something with which they were not familiar using a limited dictionary?

John saw something (as did others) - maybe he is way wrong, and so were the rest - but it is nonetheless interesting to examine it all in the light of modern constructs. People like puzzles, and this is the big one in western civilization.

They did have an idea of the future - mankind would be it's own worst enemy. They were right on that, as we are now. We failed at the start and ruined a paradise, we are doing the same thing now.

[leftofthedial]

27. the bible is interesting for several reasons

including

the semantics and arcane language (although the translations have been such a political football over the centuries that one rarely knows what they are reading)

some beautiful poetry

interesting history and legend

occasional great words of wisdom

As for foretelling the future, unfortunately, the bible has been more of a self-fulfilling prophecy than an insightful glimpse of things to come. It does point out human weaknesses, but it has also stigmatized behaviors that are not "evil." Furthermore, it has given license to more evil, inhumanity and destruction than any other book I'm aware of.

[The Magistrate]

19. A Simpler Interpertation, Mr. Straight

Is that the writings applied to the time in which they were written, that they failed to accurately describe or predict events, and that subsequently persons with an over-great personal and professional investment in the texts could not muster the integrity required to acknowledge the failure....

[The Straight Story]

22. Or duality and a roadmap

As Jesus said, the end times (Starting to many after his leaving the earth) will be like a woman in birth.

She feels the same pains, over and over, but they get closer as the end of it gets nearer.

In a duality sense people over the ages were able to use prophecy as a guide in their time as things fit in some ways, but not in all ways (ala jews in Israel).

In another sense there were two ends to come - one in the age of those living and one later on. Daniel spoke about several empires followed by a final one. The roman empire did end, but a second one, greater in scope, would also arise from those ashes and things would repeat on a larger scale.

If nothing else, the whole thing is worth looking at from a societal view point and exercise in how powers rise and the greed they have. Time and again we see in the bible such things, and yet mankind has still not learned from this. It is not related to religion (see china), it is related to mankind. As we grow larger, have bigger weapons, it does not take a book of the bible for us to see the path we are on. It only re-enforces what we can already see for some. That we are on a path to destruction, and we have been this way since time began and mankind will not change. He is doomed due to his own ways, and the only way it will change is if god intervenes and ends the rule of man.

Maybe that will never happen, maybe there is no god, maybe the bible is all a myth. But I think it is still right in the path we are on and what will happen. We will make a bad, bad mess of things and bad times are ahead for us. I am a christian, I believe the word and study it - but I sure don't need to rely on it for the reasons I see the end is near. They didn't have nuclear weapons in the 1300's, there was disease and there were plagues, but they were limited to geography.

Now we have airline travel, nuclear weapons, bio weapons, etc and so on. And we have people in power, and always will, that are nuts.

So ignore the bible all you want, fine with me - I chose my life and you yours and I am cool with that. That does not mean it is not right, even if it was all made up. Someone back then had the foresight to see the path mankind was on, and we have in no way disappointed them.

[DistressedAmerican]

24. Well Put!

[Bluerthanblue]

8. VERY interesting question, - and another

...parallel to the 'oil' and 'god' connection is the little known, but at the time VERY intense connection that the whaling industry- and WHALE oil, which was an essential comodity for much of the americas for a long time, and how 'religion' used and abused what was a VERY important 'rescource' at the time, especially in New England-

PBS did a segment several years ago about it, and i had never known how much 'religion' was used to obtain power, and pervert the most basic of lifes rescources-

i wish i could find a link- i'll try-

[DistressedAmerican]

9. Great point. The Preachers In New England In That Time Were

certainly not environmental advocates. Some do today but, surprisingly few in my opinion. Dominion over it and all that!

Seems with all of this conflict over a single resource "Prophets" should have described something that sounds like it.

How about Nostradamus?

"Black water from the sand" or some such thing...

[DistressedAmerican]

10. Kick!

[Lerkfish]

11. well, actually, they did...

Revelation 6:6
And I heard a voice in the midst of the four beasts say, A measure of wheat for a penny, and three measures of barley for a penny; and see thou hurt not the oil and the wine.

:)

[Zenlitened]

12. Um, that was olive oil, wasn't it?

:shrug:

[Lerkfish]

13. could be, but if you take it in context,

revelations is highly cryptic. how would John understand references to oil?
he'd hear oil and think they meant olive oil. They also used oil lamps, so oil as fuel would not be a completely foreign concept.
Or when he described stars fallen to earth that poisoned the sea and the land, that could quite easily be nuclear weapons viewed from a first century perspective.

[Zenlitened]

14. "Cryptic." that's one word for it!

Intentionally vague, as all "prophecy" is. Leave plenty of room to plug in data after the fact.

[Ladyhawk]

16. Yep. That's prophecy for you.

I'm with Thomas Edison: "Religion is all bunk."

[Hubert Flottz]

15. "Thou anointest my head with light sweet crude oil!"(crisco)

"Thou preparest the labels in the presents of mine enemy!"(EVIL DOERsssss)

[Deja Q]

18. Texas tea is lethal to anyone who drinks it.

:scared:

[kenny blankenship]

20. Also if the Bible can contradict and overrule science

on matters of the origin of life and the separate species, and it is a source of authority, then we must ask: how good an authority is it?

Why not ask why the prophets never mentioned petroleum? Certainly they were concerned about the future, and certainly petroleum has been and is playing a key role in that future. And it was practically under their feet. Fair question!

Here's another: how many more millennia of biblical interpretation would have required to deduce the double-helical geometry of DNA for example?

Or how about a biblical derivation of the ring shape of benzene--(a problem of accounting for the double carbon bonds that perplexed chemists for years)? Why didn't biblical scholars figure out that the earth revolved around the Sun--something so basic? And how many more millennia of biblical exegesis would have been required for them to figure this out, (all assuming of course that the Bible has authority over science and all the answers can be found there.)

If the Bible can't manage to get basic things right, has much wrong information, and is of no use for discovering the truth of small scientific questions, how can it be trusted in large scientific matters? In science small things--data, observations,--go to make larger things. Grand conclusions do not precede the small facts, the way they do in religion. This book, the bible, is a terribly poor non-authority in any and all scientific contexts, and of no value whatsoever in education, except as literature. I strongly recommend all students of western literature read ALL of it--parts of it many times. In a science classroom however it must have NO place and needn't be spoken of.

[DistressedAmerican]

21. Evening Kicker!