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Re: Legend, Yes, etc

> Looking around you and saying "if we keep going this way..." and then
> writing _1984_ doesn't count as prophecy in the biblical sense.  It's
> extrapolation, and that's different.

Hmmmm ... did the prophets never extrapolate?  I'm thinking particularly
of Jeremiah, who seems to have been almost the only person in Jerusalem
who realized that, well, gosh, if the Jews rebelled against the
Babylonians, the Babylonians just might give them a crushing defeat.

I don't think Jeremiah *had* to have divine insight to make that kind of
prediction.  Though perhaps he did, for his other prophecies.

> So you can't start with stuff now and go back looking for prophecies.
> (The author of the Gospel of Matthew makes this mistake, and ends up
> altering Jesus's story to make it match his (incorrect) understanding of
> the prophecy.  He thinks Zach. 9:9 is referring to two different
> animals: a colt and a donkey, and so he has Jesus ride two different
> animals simultaneously into Jerusalem, in "fulfillment" of the prophecy.
> See Matt 21:1-7, and make sure you use a translation that doesn't
> correct the author's mistake, like the NIV does.  But I digress...)

Actually, my copy of the NIV *doesn't* correct the author's mistake.  But
yeah, Matthew's use of prophecy can get pretty goofy, by modern standards,
anyway.  In 27:9-10, he cites a passage from Zechariah but credits it to
Jeremiah; in 1:22-23, he quotes Isaiah 7:14 as though it had something to
do with the virginal conception, when Isaiah's prophecy was already
fulfilled in Isaiah 8:3-10ff; and in 2:23, he comes up with a prophecy
that even the NIV translators couldn't find in the Old Testament.

Matthew's goof-up in 21:1-7 is particularly interesting because he almost
certainly based that portion of his gospel on Mark's gospel, and Mark
11:1-7 seems to get it right -- "Jesus ... sat on it" instead of "Jesus
sat on them", that sort of thing.  It would seem that Matthew actually
thought he was *correcting* Mark on this point!  Bizarre.

--- Peter T. Chattaway --------------------------- peter at chattaway_com ---
 "I detected one misprint, but to torture you I will not tell you where."
      Winston Churchill to T.E. Lawrence, re Seven Pillars of Wisdom

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