Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Yitzhak Sapir" <yitzhaksapir AT gmail.com>]

On 10/30/07, Dave Washburn wrote:

> On 30 Oct 2007 at 8:22, Yigal Levin wrote in part:
>
> >Since none of us have yet recieved direct prophecy from God, we
> > cannot "take on faith" that the authors of the Bible did either.
>
> This is perhaps the biggest fallacy of all in "modern" scholarship.  "It 
> hasn't
> happened to me or anyone I know, therefore it doesn't happen."  Yes, I
> know I'm simplifying, but that's the essence of the argument.  And it's
> nothing but a cop-out.

The argument is actually more complex.  Let us suppose that we do
have a proven example of a prophecy from God in exhibit A.  How do we
know that exhibit B is also an example of a prophecy from God?  Well, if
the text in exhibit B deals only with events that took place in the past, we
could suggest that two necessary (but insufficient) conditions are that
1) those events took place exactly as described, and 2) the text is proven
to have been written before those events.  What this means, however,
is that we have to prove both (1) and (2) independent of the assumption
that it was a prophecy from God.  Otherwise, we get into circular
reasoning.

Yitzhak Sapir