Ezra 1:1, Jeremiah's "70-year" prophecies, and the nature of Prophecy

 As part of my daily scripture reading, I read Ezra 1-5. While reading Ezra 1:1, it struck me that there is strong evidence for the "Open Theist" understanding of how prophecy works:

 

Now in the first year of Cyrus king of Persia, that the word of the Lord by the mouth of Jeremiah might be fulfilled, the Lord stirred up the spirit of Cyrus king of Persia, that he made a proclamation throughout all his kingdom, and put it also in writing, saying,

 

In this verse, God acts in space-time to bring about the word he promised/prophesied through the prophet Jeremiah. For God, at least in this verse, prophecy was not simply him looking down the corridors of time and telling Jeremiah what would happen; instead, this prophecy was a promise by God to Jeremiah in how God would act in time and space to bring about his promised and, as a result, demonstrate his power, even using a pagan king (Cyrus) as an instrumental means of fulfilling such.

This jives rather well with my proposed interpretation of 2 Nephi 3:15 (cf. Alma 37:18)--prophecy being more of a promise of how God will act to demonstrate his abilities and his fidelity than simply predicting what will happen. Further, such an approach of God and his foreknowledge tends to result in a "simple foreknowledge" view, which is super problematic (e.g., one who holds it, if they were consistent, would have to argue God is determined by his foreknowledge). On the problems of this model of foreknowledge, see William Hasker, God, Time, and Knowledge.

Interestingly, however, the prophecies from Jeremiah, the 70-year prophecies, further supports contingent, not exhaustive foreknowledge.

Assuredly, thus said the Lord of Hosts: Because you would not listen to My words, I am going to send for all the peoples of the north -- declares the Lord -- and for My servant, King Nebuchadrezzar of Babylon, and bring them against this land and its inhabitants, and against all those nations roundabout. I will exterminate them and make them a desolation, an object of hissing -- ruins for all time . . . This whole land shall be a desolate ruin. And those nations shall serve the king of Babylon seventy years. When the seventy years are over, I will punish the king of Babylon and that nation and the land of the Chaldeans for their sins -- declares the Lord -- and I will make it a desolation for all time. (Jer 25:8-9, 11-12, 1985 JPS Tanakh)

For thus said the Lord: When Babylon's seventy years are over, I will take note of you, and I will fulfill to you My promise of favor -- to bring you back to this place. For I am mindful of the plans I have made concerning you -- declares the Lord -- plans for your welfare, not for disaster, to give you a hopeful future. When you call Me, and come and pray to Me, I will give heed to you. You will search for Me and find Me, if only you seek Me wholeheartedly. I will be at hand for you -- declares the Lord -- and I will restore your fortunes. And I will gather you from all the nations and from all the places to which I have banished you -- declares the Lord -- and I will bring you back to the place from which I have exiled you. (Jer 29:10-14, 1985 JPS Tanakh)

As Christopher M. Hays notes:

So, Jeremiah prophesied that Babylon would conquer Judaea and rule the Israelites and their land for seventy years, after which God promised to restore them. But did things turn out as planned? Not exactly. The Old Testament is littered with texts trying to account for the way in which subsequent history did not line up with Jeremiah’s timeline. Initially, the biblical authors needed to explain why the exile began to wind down too early; then, they had to reverse their tactics and explain why restoration from exile was taking too long; and finally some of them just threw up their hands and denied that the prophesied restoration was ever even inaugurated (however abortively or impartially). In short, the Hebrew Bible seems a veritable cacophony of voices trying to explain why things did not turn out as Jeremiah had prophesied. (Christopher M. Hays, “Prophecy: A History of Failure?” in Christopher M. Hays, ed. When the Son of Man Didn’t Come: A Constructive Proposal on the Delay of the Parousia [Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2016], 23-58, here, p. 26, italics in original)

While Hays’ entire essay should be read, as one example of the reinterpretation of Jeremiah’s original prophecy by Ezra-Nehemiah, he writes:

[The editor of Ezra-Nehemiah has to] explain why the restoration from exile had been so sluggish! Even seventy years after the invasion of Judea, things still hadn’t come together as Jeremiah had prophesied. Jeremiah 29:10-14 (cf. 25:11-12) promised that after the seventy years God would return the Israelites from exile and restore their fortunes. But it is not as if all the Israelites had returned to the Promised Land by the time the Temple had been rebuilt. Only a portion of the Israelite population hobbled back to Judaea under Cyrus’s decree (Ezra 2:1-65). When Ezra’s ministry began around 458 BCE, a solid 130 years into the exile, he was still only leading a modest contingent of Israelite exiles to Jerusalem (see Ezra 8:1-20), and even then, their travel required the gracious permission of King Artaxerxes (Ezra 7:11-28). A dozen years after that, Nehemiah undertook his ministry (Neh. 2:1-10), and he too lamented that the exile was far from over (Neh. 1:1-11). Thus, in about 446 BCE, some 141 years after the destruction of the Jerusalem Temple, Nehemiah was still in Persia; the walls of Jerusalem lay in ruins; and those who had supposedly escaped captivity remained “in great trouble and shame” (Neh. 1:3). To compound matters, Nehemiah the governor of Judah, Nehemiah’s predecessors had been exploiting and oppressing the Israelite residents. To put it mildly, the restoration of Israel after seventy years that Jeremiah promised had proven an overstatement; God’s “plans to prosper them and not to harm them” (Jer. 29:11) were not coming to pass as advertised.

So, the editor of Ezra-Nehemiah had to back-pedal. Although he wanted to read the prophecy of Jeremiah as being fulfilled in more-or-less literal, chronological terms, he was obliged to see 515 BC as the beginning of a fulfillment that remained quite incomplete even seventy additional years later. The editor of the book, summoning a pitiably quixotic optimism, seemed to hope that, with men such as Ezra and Nehemiah at the helm, Israel might steer a course toward complete restoration. (Ibid., 28-29, comment in square brackets added for clarification)

Commenting on another example of a biblical prophet reworking Jeremiah's prophecy, James L. Kugel wrote:

 Daniel the Re-interpreter

Certainly the best biblical example of the tendency of later prophetic figures to reinterpret the existing Scripture is found in the book of Daniel. Daniel relates that on one occasion he “consulted the books concerning the number of years that, according to the word of the LORD that had come to Jeremiah the prophet, were to be the end of Jerusalem’s desolation, seventy years” (Dan 9:2). This introduction in itself is surprising. The book of Jeremiah does indeed report that the prophet had said that in seventy years, the Babylonians would be punished and Israel’s fortunes would be restored (Jer 29:10; cf. 25:12)—and this, give or take a few years, is exactly what happened. So what was Daniel consulting the books for? Seventy years are seventy years. But then the angel Gabriel appears and informs Daniel on the real meaning of Jeremiah’s promise: he didn’t mean seventy years, but seventy groups of seven years apiece, making for a total of 490 years:

While I was still speaking, praying, and confessing my sin and the sin of my people Israel, setting my supplication before the LORD my God on my God’s holy mountain—while I was still in the midst of praying, the “man” Gabriel, whom I had seen in the earlier vision, was sent forth in flight and reached me at the time of the evening offering. He spoke to me enlighteningly and said: “Daniel, I have come to you now to give you insight and knowledge. A the start of your prayer, a word went out, and I have come to tell it . . . Seventy groups of seven years have decreed for your people and your holy city. (Dan 9:20-24)

As we have seen above, the notion of 490 years exactly was not unique in Second Temple Judaism, and the reason is not hard to find. Biblical law stipulates that the jubilee year is to come around once every forty-nine years (Lev 25:8); the number 490 is simply one jubilee multiplied by ten (which comes out to be the same as Daniel’s seventy “weeks of years” that is, the seventy units of sevens in Dan 9:24). So it came about that 490 years also appears here and there as a mega-unit of time in the Dead Sea  . . .In any event, this last-cited passage from Daniel recalls a number of themes already seen above: (1) the prophets of old (in this case, Jeremiah) had prophesied, but them themselves didn’t understand the hidden message of their prophecies; (2) this in turn reflects the fact that most prophets are actually long-range predictors, their predictions having to do with times far distant from their own; (3) an angel (here, Gabriel) is needed to explain the significance of ancient prophet’s (here, Jeremiah’s) words . . .thereby also turning his book into yet another collection of long-range predictions, some of which had already occurred or where coming to pass in his own time. (James L. Kugel, The Great Shift: Encountering God in Biblical Times [New York: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2017], 252-53)

Such is further proof of the contingent nature of scriptural promises and prophecies.

Teresa and Arthur Beem on the Prophecies of William Miller and Ellen G. White

 

Teresa and Arthur Beem are former SDAs who are now Roman Catholics. They wrote an interesting book, It’s Okay Not to be a Seventh-Day Adventist which contained a very good discussion of the “Investigative Judgment” and how, being honest, it is an absolutely ghastly doctrine with no biblical or historical foundation at all. They also had a number of chapters refuting the SDA understanding of the Sabbath vis-à-vis the New Covenant.

 

In the book, they had a discussion of William Miller’s failed 1844 prophecy and some failed prophecies of Ellen G. White. I represent them here as a contrast to the contingent prophecies one finds in the Bible (e.g., Mic 3:12 [cf. Jer 26:18-19] and those of Joseph Smith [see Resources on Joseph Smith’s Prophecies]):

 

Was Miller Another Jonah?

 

Adventists argue that Miller’s prophecy about 1844 was like Jonah’s. It was a conditional prophecy; its fulfillment resting on the obedience or disobedience of its audience. But are the two scenarios alike? A comparison shows that Miller denied God had commanded him to preach; Jonah was commanded. Nineveh was spared because of the genuine repentance; the relieved people glorified God. When the people of God repented and listened to Miller, there was only tragedy and disappointment—loss of faith, even suicides. Why would God punish those who had sincerely turned to Him and given all for Him? Miller’s prophecy did not bring glory to God.

 

Jonah never recanted that God had spoken to him and given him a message. Miller and many of his followers agreed that they had been mistaken.

 

There is yet a greater message in the story of Jonah that gives a specific purpose for God’s wrath not to have been poured out upon the Ninevites. Jonah was a symbol of Christ. The three days and nights in the tomb of darkness were the ante-type (precursory symbol) of Christ’s experience in the tomb. Repentant Nineveh, symbolizing the gentiles, was spared the damning prophecy just as the new Covenant of grace is extended to the gentiles after the cross. This broader meaning of this story is the purpose of the unfulfilled prophecy of wrath. The Great Disappointment had no broader message than pain. (Teresa Beem and Arthur Beem, It’s Okay Not to be a Seventh-Day Adventist: The Doctrine that Attempts to Repair the Temple Veil [North Charleston, S.C.: BookSurge Publishing, 2008], 49)

 

 

 

Several of Ellen’s predictions failed. Most apologists for Ellen will tell you that her prophecies did not come true because they were conditional prophecies like Jonah’s warning to Nineveh (Note: they already used that excuse for Millers’ failed prophecy). This in no way can cover all of Ellen’s failed prophecies. Also, White proponents mitigate her mistakes with the anticipatory “they just haven’t occurred yet.” You can easily see that excuse could linger forever. Below are a few of the faulty premonitory visions:

 

Pestilence. “Soon the dead and dying will be all around us” (Present Truth, Sept. 1849, p. 10). That prophecy was made in 1849. We are not aware, nor is any reference in history that there was a mass pestilence during that time.

 

New Dates. Lucinda Burdick, Ellen’s friend, recorded that the prophetess made more predictions of apocalyptic dates following the disappointment of 1844. These are not found among Ellen’s published writings by the SDA church, but can be found in the Advent Christian Publishing Society. Burdick claims Ellen told her that God said He would come in June of 1845. When that date again failed, she declared the vision had been in the “language of Canaan” and she had misunderstood—the real date was September of that year. Again, failure. Then came the year 1856 prediction that failed. Ellen finally gave up date setting. Ellen warned Lucinda Burdick that they would soon meet with trouble and be thrown in prisons when they visited the coast of Maine. When that did not happen, many of Ellen’s supporters began to doubt the validity of her visions (Grant, Miles, Examination of Mrs. Ellen White’s Visions. Advent Christian Publication Society, Boston, 1877).

 

Time Short. “I saw that the time for Jesus to be in the most holy place was nearly finished, and that time can last but a very little longer” (Early Writings 58). An angel told her in 1850 that “Time is almost finished-get ready, get ready, get ready.” She was also shown that in a matter of months the seven last plagues would begin (Early Writings 64, 67).

 

Appearance at Slave Emancipation. In an early vison Ellen wrote she saw the black slaves received their freedom at the same time as the Second Coming (Early Writings 35). She also claimed that in vision God told her the slaveholder will be held accountable for his slave’s sins. “God cannot take to heaven the salve who has been kept in ignorance and degradation, knowing nothing of God and the Bible, fearing nothing but his master’s lash, and holding a lower position than the brutes. But he does the best thing for him that a compassionate God can do. He permits him to be as if he had not been” (Early Writings 276). (So why is God freeing them at the Second Coming then?)

 

If Adventists truly believe Ellen’s prediction, that would cut down considerably the number of people who could be in heaven. Throughout history most civilizations have had slaves. The Israelites were slaves in Egypt, Babylon and during the Roman Empire. Perhaps she just meant hat God could not save the American black slave. Again, the White apologists call this a conditional prophecy.

 

Slavery in the South. “Slavery will again be revived in the Southern States; for the spirit of slavery still lives. Therefore it will not do for those who labor among the colored people to preach the truth as boldly and openly as they would be free to do in other places” (Spalding and Mann Collection 23). Adventists respond that she is speaking symbolically and that the attitude of the slavery will return to the south. But she is speaking of a literal taking of the Three Angels’ Message to southern blacks. The Sabbath Message that could not be kept by a slave who had no freedom to rest would bind them in guilt. She was against giving the new Sabbath Message to the southern slave.

 

Literal slavery has not returned—symbolic slavery is everywhere with everyone. So again, this [is] a false prophecy.

 

Food for Worms. This specious divination if the best known among Adventists. “I was shown the company present at the Conference. Said the angel, ‘Some food for worms, some subjects of the seven last plagues, some will be alive and remain upon the earth to be translated at the coming of Jesus’” (Testimonies for the Church 131/32 and Spiritual Gifts 208.2). Penned in 1856, we can say with assurance that everyone attending that conference is now officially, “food for worms.” None of them saw the seven last plagues, unless you want to argue the state of the dead and say that they are all now in heaven and will see the seven last plagues, which would put Ellen in a worse predicament as far as the Adventist soul sleep doctrine.

 

We have often heard people excuse this prophecy by saying that she related what she saw at the Second Coming and it just appeared that some stayed alive to see it. The problem is that Ellen is not recording what she saw but what the angel said. He told her, “some will be alive and remain upon the earth to be translated at the coming of Jesus.” Someone here is suspect of giving false information because they all died. We must ask, did Ellen see the devil who “masquerades as an angel of light?” (2 Corinthians 11:14).

 

There are also guardians of the White legacy who would suggest that this vision was a conditional one. But if you look at the context there are no words that suggest that the angel was speaking based upon any conditions that needed to be met. (Ibid., 90-92)

 

 On the issue of Seventh-day Adventism, I have not discussed that group in much detail. However, for a response to an anti-LDS book by a SDA author where I address the topics of anthropology and eschatology, see:

Response to Douglas V. Pond on Biblical and LDS Anthropology and Eschatology

Hebrew as “Deformed English”

 This is a spoof piece based on the charge the characters in the Anthon Transcript are "Deformed English"

 We have come into possession of a work supposedly written in a script called “Aramaic Square Characters” but the language is supposedly called “Hebrew.” While an interesting specimen, the characters are clearly a clumsy hoax, as they are a modified (some would even say deformed) form of the Latin Alphabet with some being based on Arabic numbers.

 

Observe the following similarities (which can be multiplied if needs be):

 

Hebrew Letter/Vowel Point	Latin Alphabet or Arabic Number
א	A and X
כ‎ ג‎ ב‎	Backwards “C”
ד‎ ז‎ ו‎ ך‎	7
ח‎ ה‎	n
ט‎ ע‎	U
ֹ and י‎	The tiddle of “i”
ָ	T
ַ	Subtraction sign (-) and/or underscore (_)
ס‎ ם‎ מ‎	The number 0 and/or the letter o
ק‎	Backwards ‘q’ and/or P
ש‎	W

 

ל

l

Clearly, this “Hebrew language” and its “Aramaic Square script” alphabet is a fraud, as the characters of this book (“Beresheit” [talk about a made up word!]) is nothing more than an amateur re-working of the Latin Alphabet with some modifications to Arabic numbers thrown in!

 

Further Reading

 On "Deformed Egyptian" in the Anthon Transcript

Interview with Hanna Seariac for FAIR Voices on Mariology

 I was recently interviewed by my friend Hanna Seariac for the FAIR Voices podcast on the topic of Mariology (the theology of Mary, the mother of Jesus). It has just been posted:

FAIR Voice Podcast #11: Sunday Special with Robert Boylan

For more on the topic of Mariology, see my book Behold the Mother of My Lord: Towards a Mormon Mariology

Margaret Barker, "The Original Setting of the Fourth Servant Song"

 

I own and have read all of Margaret Barker’s books. There are some Latter-day Saints out there who think she is the next best thing since sliced bread; some think she is off her rocker. I take a mid-way position. I appreciate her ability to think outside the box at times and come up with fresh ideas—some of these ideas I think are good and hold up to scrutiny; others . . . not so.

 

In one of my favourite tv shows of all time, Parks and Recreation, Ron Swanson, a fellow hardcore libertarian, said the following to Leslie Knope:

 

"Capitalism . . . It's what makes America great, and England okay, and France terrible.”

 

One would rework Swanson’s quote thusly:

 

“Barker’s ability to think outside the box . . . It’s what makes The Great High Priest great; The Great Angel pretty good; and The Mother of My Lord dreadful.”

 

Notwithstanding, her article, “The Original Setting of the Fourth Servant Song” (PKA “Hezekiah’s Boil,” JSOT 95 [2001]:31-42) is a pretty good article. In it, she shows that the Fourth Servant Song (Isa 52:13-53:12) is set (and was written) during the time of Proto-Isaiah (Barker accepts multiple authorship of Isaiah, but believes this belongs to the Proto-Isaiah corpus, not Deutero).

 

On the topic of the Fourth Servant Song in the Book of Mormon and Abinadi’s use thereof, see my article:

 

Isaiah 52:13-53:12, Mosiah 14, and KJV Chapter and Verse Separations in the Book of Mormon

Evidence for Indigenous "Others" in the Book of Mormon from Helaman 5-7

Commenting on the evidence for “others” in the Book of Mormon, Blake Ostler provided the following example based on a careful reading of Helaman 5-7:

 

In Helaman 5, Mormon notes that “the more part of the Lamanites were convinced of [the truth] because of the greatness of the evidences which they had received.” (Helaman 5:50) As a result, “the Lamanites had become the more righteous part of them, a righteous people, insomuch that their righteousness did exceed that of the Nephites, because of their firmness and their steadfastness in faith” (Helaman 6:1). The Lamanites began to move freely among the Nephites, traveling to the Nephite city of Zarahemla so that “the Lamanites did also go withersoever they would, whether it were among the Lamanites or among the Nephites, and thus they did have free intercourse one with another” (Helaman 6:8).

 

In the midst of this openness among the Lamanites and Nephites, Nephi, the son of Helaman, goes northward among an unnamed people to preach to them. Indeed, not only Nephi but also the Lamanites go to the “people in the land northward” to preach: “And it came to pass that many of the Lamanites did go into the land northward; and also Nephi and Lehi went into the land northward, to preach to the people” (Helaman 6:6). However, these “people in the land northward” are so wicked that Nephi cannot remain among them.

 

There are two crucial points about Nephi’s missionary activities: (1) the text does not name the people to whom he preached but was rejected; and (2) these people are neither Nephites nor Lamanites because the Lamanites had become righteous and willingly accepted the gospel and went to preach to these people also. While the Nephites and Lamanites move freely through each other’s lands in a climate of peace, the people to whom Nephi goes are so antagonistic that he cannot remain among them:

 

Now it came to pass in the sixty and ninth year of the reign of the judges over the people of the Nephites, that Nephi, the son of Helaman, returned to the land of Zarahemla from the land northward. For he had been forth among the people who were in the land northward, and did preach the word of God unto them, and did prophecy many things unto them; And they did reject all his words, insomuch that he could not stay among them, but returned again unto the land of his nativity. (Helaman 7:1–3, emphasis added)

 

The text twice refers to those to whom Nephi and the Lamanites preached not as Lamanites but as “the people in the land northward.” Why doesn’t the text just say that Nephi went to the Lamanites and that the Lamanites rejected him as it does virtually every other time that a Nephite goes to preach to Lamanites? It is fairly clear that in this instance, “the people who were in the land northward” are not Lamanites. We know this because the text states that the Lamanites had become righteous and many had accepted the gospel, and the Nephites had great missionary success among them. So who are these “other” people in the land northward who had rejected Nephi and the Lamanites? The text doesn’t say—but because those who rejected Nephi are neither Nephites nor Lamanites, it has to be a third group of people that remains unnamed in the text. (Blake Ostler, DNA Strands in the Book of Mormon, Sunstone 137 [May 2005]: 63-71, here, p. 65) 

Jewish Traditions about the Rock that Followed the Israelites and 1 Corinthians 10:4

 

In 1 Cor 10:4, the apostle Paul wrote that the Israelites "did all drink the same spiritual drink: for they drank of that spiritual Rock that followed them: and that Rock was Christ." Jewish scholar, Raphael Patai, recounts a Jewish tradition (one which Paul is clearly dependent upon) about this movable rock which would later be recorded in works such as  Sukkah 3.11 ff.

 

A rather peculiar fantastic legend, recorded in a large number of sources, the earliest of which are Tannaitic, finds its possible to connect the desert wanderings of the Children of Israel with the supposed treasures hidden in the sea. While sojourning in the desert, the Children of Israel were supplied with water by the so-called "Miriam's Well," which was a miraculous source:

 

The well that was with the Children of Israel in the desert was like a rock full of sieves, from which water rose and gushed forth, like from the mouth of a ewer. It went up with them to the mountains, and went down with them to the valleys, wherever Israel halted, it halted opposite them, in front of the door of the Tabernacle. The princes of Israel would surround it with their staffs in hand, and would chant to it the song, "Spring up, O well, sing ye unto it" (Num. 21:17), whereupon the water would gush forth and rise like a column, and each one of them would draw it with his staff to his tribe and his family, as it is written, "The well which the princes digged, which the nobles of the people delved, with the scepter, and with their staves. And from the wilderness to Mattanah, and from Mattanah to Nahaliel, and from Nahaliel to Bamoth, and from Bamoth to the valley . . . " (ibid. vv. 18-20). And it surrounded the whole camp of God, and watered the face of the wilderness, and became great rivers, as it is written "and steams overflowed" (Ps. 78:20). And they were sitting in light boats [Hebrew isq'faoth], and went one to the other, as it is written, "they ran, a river in the dry places" (Ps. 105:41) . . . and they turned into a big river, and flowed into the Great Sea, and brought from there all the treasures of the world.

 

The legend makes the "Well of Miriam" supply water to great navigable rivers flowing into the sea, and envisages the Children of Israel enjoying the hidden treasures of the sea while still wandering in the desert! (Raphael Patai, The Children of Noah: Jewish Seafaring in Ancient Times [Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1998], 128-29)