Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Peter Kirk" <Peter_Kirk AT sil.org>]

Yes, Ian, you made your original point, which I accept: "Aren't all these
prophecies vaticinio ex eventu, as the status quo suggests, given 1 Enoch
and Daniel?" And I don't want to start a discussion about Daniel, but rather
about Isaiah. I was assuming that Isaiah was prophesying before the fact,
and you were right to point out that this is unproven.

My objection was rather to your second posting, when you use the word "fact"
about your alternative hypothesis. I am simply pointing out that this is
also unproven. If you say "fact", I expect conclusive evidence, which
doesn't exist either way.

Peter Kirk



-----Original Message-----
From: Ian Hutchesson [mailto:mc2499 AT mclink.it]
Sent: 06 February 2001 10:49
To: Biblical Hebrew
Subject: Re: Child theme in Isaiah 6-12


>Ian, you are back to your old "if" trick, plus calling your unproven
>hypothesis a "fact". If these prophecies are vaticinio ex eventu, then
>Jonathan and I are wrong, granted. But if they are genuine prophecies, or
>simply predicitions based on Isaiah's reading of the politics of his time,
>then Jonathan or I may be right. Your argument from one or perhaps two
cases
>of vaticinio ex eventu does not prove (though it might "suggest", the word
>you correctly used earlier) that none of the Biblical authors could ever
>make any predictions about the future. You also have a problem with dating.
>For your evidence about 1 Enoch to be relevant, you have to date Isaiah
6-12
>not too many centuries earlier, but in that case how did the author know
the
>facts (as he must do for vaticinio ex eventu) about what had happened in
the
>8th century BCE?

My original point, incidentally, is that you are assuming that they are
prophecies before the fact. It is rather amusing that you demand evidence
from me when you are not willing to provide a jot for what you assume.


Ian