The following is an attempted defense of Agabus' prophecy in the book of Acts. Notice how it is weaker than many defenses of purported false prophecies of Joseph Smith:
Did
Agabus predict two events which ‘did not come to pass’?
. . . On page 100, Grudem says,
strictly speaking, Agabus
predicted two events which ‘did not come to pass’ Deut 18:22. (Grudem, Gifts,
p. 100)
I find it shocking that Grudem
would be willing to admit that Agabus would have been judged as a false prophet
in Deuteronomy. Grudem is admitting that if Agabus had lived in the Old
Testament, he would have been stoned as a false prophet! Yet ironically, the
supposed mistaken Agabus has now become a model for New Testament prophecy! On
the same page he says,
Luke so clearly describes the
non-fulfillment of the two parts of the prophecy in the immediately subsequent
narrative. (Grudem, Ibid.)
Earlier he also approvingly quotes
D.A. Carson as saying about Agabus’ prophecy, “I can think of no reported Old
Testament prophet whose prophecies are so wrong on the details” (Grudem, Ibid.,
p. 98). Based on what we have seen about prophecy, if Grudem and D.A. Carson
are right about these mistakes, then we would have to treat Agabus as a false prophet
rather than accepting Grudem’s conclusion that it’s OK for modern prophets to
make mistakes. Was Agabus actually wrong? Absolutely not!
What’s the first purported error?
Grudem claims that Agabus makes a mistake by saying that the Jews will “deliver
him into the hands of the Gentiles” (v. 11) when what actually happened is that
“the Jews do not ‘deliver’ Paul over to the hands of the Gentiles . . . [but]
tried to kill him themselves” (Acts 21:31). He had to be forcibly rescued from
the Jews by the tribune and his soldiers (Acts 21:32033)” (Wayne Grudem, The
Gift of Prophecy in the New Testament and Today [Westchester, IL: Crossway
Books, 1988], p. 97). Grudem calls this a “mistake” that is at “the heart of his
prophecy” and that “on these two key elements, he is just a bit wrong” (Grudem,
The Gift of Prophecy, p. 97-98).
My answer is that Paul’s own language
recorded in Acts 28:17 actually affirms nearly every details of Agabus’
words in 21:11, while in no way contradictory to it. Consider the parallels in
the following chart:
|
Agabus (Acts 21:11) |
Paul (Acts 28:17) |
|
“So shall the Jews in Jerusalem |
“I was arrested (Greek – deo) in |
|
bind (Greek = deo) the man . . .” |
Jerusalem” |
|
“and deliver him over (Greek = |
“and handed over (Greek = |
|
paradidomi)” |
paradidomi” |
|
“into the hands of the Gentiles” |
“to the hands of the Romans” |
Let’s further examine these
details. Agabus says, “So shall the Jews in Jerusalem bind the man,” using the
Greek word deo for bind. Paul said, “I was arrested in Jerusalem” using
the same Greek word deo for “arrested.” So whether you translate it as
bind or as arrest, Paul said that what Agabus prophesied actually happened to
him.
Agabus says, “and deliver him
over,” using the Greek word paradidomi. Paul said, “and handed over”
using the same Greek word.
Agabus said, “into the hands of
the Gentiles,” and Paul says “to the hands of the Romans.”
With these close parallels, it is
premature to declare Agabus in error. Paul certainly does not seem to see him
as being in error. The following scenario is one plausible explanation of what
happened: We know the crowds were trying to kill Paul. Verse 27 speaks of “the
whole crowd,” verse 28 of the “men of Israel”, and verse 30 of “the people,”
but we aren’t told what the Jewish leaders were trying to do. This
arrest takes place in the temple. The Sadducees controlled the temple. The
Sadducees were in bed with Rome, and the High Priest was appointed by Rome.
Ordinarily, the Sadducees tried to cooperate with the Romans in order to save
their jobs. They would no doubt have been trying to keep the crowd from killing
Paul when there were Roman soldiers around. So perhaps they handed Paul over to
the Romans while the crowds were trying to do a lynching. We simply aren’t
told. With Paul himself saying that he was handed over to the Romans, and using
the same language as Agabus, I am comfortable in saying that every detail of
this part of the prophecy was fulfilled.
The second supposed mistake:
Grudem contrasts the statement in verse 11, “So shall the Jews at Jerusalem
bind the man who owns this belt” with verse 33—“the commander . . . commanded
him to be bound with two chains.” The claim is that it was the Romans, not the
Jews who bound Paul, making this “an inaccurate prophecy.”
You cannot call it an error if
there is a plausible explanation. This is the point conservatives make when
liberals claim there are mistakes in the Bible. If you can give two or three
plausible explanations, you cannot say it was an error. Here is a plausible explanation:
There were no doubt two bindings: one with a belt and one with chains. Notice
that Agabus used the belt from Paul’s robe to bind Paul (or, as some interpret
it, to bind his own hands).
Paul’s belt was something that
would have been readily available to the Jews when they “laid hands on him” (v.
27), cried for “help” (v. 28), “seized Paul” (v. 30), took him out of the
temple (v. 30), and beat him (v. 32). It is very likely that they used a
restraint of some sort during that time lapse. The Romans did not use a
belt, but sued chains (v. 33), Though the text does not say it, it makes
perfect sense to say that the Jews bound Paul with ab let (perhaps even his own
belt) in order to beat him, the Romans then come on the scene, the Sadducees
(being nervous about a confrontation with Rome) handed Paul over to the Romans,
and the Romans then used chains for imprisonment. It is clear that Grudem has
not proven any error. (Phillip Kayser, The Canon of Scripture: A
Presuppositional Study [Biblical Blueprints, 2021], 164-67, emphasis in
original)