May 30, 2009

  • (Bible Prophecy) Ezekiel, Tyre, and Nebuchadnezzar

    Intro:

    The following survey of apologetic material will cover the prophecy of Ezekiel against the city of Tyre (Ezekiel 26:1-14 vs Ezekiel 29:17-20), specifically focusing on the supposed retraction of the prophecy in chapter 29.  It appears in one chapter that Ezekiel says Nebuchadnezzar will totally devastate the city and carry away plunder and then three chapters later when that doesn't quite work out, he changes the target to Egypt.  As is, that would be a fairly clear cut case of "never wrong and sometimes right."  After completing this survey I realized my previous conclusions about this set up were mistaken.  I will hit up Robert Bradshaw (link), godandscience.org (link), Apologetics Press (link), JP Holding (link), and atheists Farrell Till (link) and Richard Carrier (link).

    JT (link) is having a conversation with Bryan Harris (link) that involves this prophecy and I thought now might be a decent time to double check things.

    Robert Bradshaw says:

    The prophets predicted that the Lord would bring judgment upon Tyre. Many nations would attack Tyre like the beating of the waves on the seashore (Ezek. 26:3), starting with Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon 26:6-12; cf. Jer. 47:4). Nebuchadnezzar’s army would receive no reward from their campaign against mainland Tyre, but the Lord would give him Egypt instead (Ezek. 29:17-20). The city will be reduced to ruins (26:2; Isa. 23:1, 11) and be subject to Babylon for seventy years. After that it would be allowed to return to its trading (Isa. 23:17-18; Jer. 25:22). The rubble from the city would be thrown into the sea and its treasures taken (Ezek. 26:12). The proud city would become a bare rock (26:4) and would become a place for the spreading of fishing nets (Ezek. 26:5, 14). With the benefit of hindsight we can see that they prophecies were fulfilled with remarkable accuracy. Nebuchadnezzar did ruin the mainland city and make the island subject to him.


    Sounds impressive.  So does Ezekiel chapter 29 retract the prophecy as a failure?

    Apologetics Press says:

    After a closer look at the text, however, such an interpretation is misguided. Ezekiel began his prophecy by stating that “many nations” would come against Tyre (26:3). Then he proceeded to name Nebuchadnezzar, and stated that “he” would build a siege mound, “he” would slay with the sword, and “he” would do numerous other things (26:7-11). However, in 26:12, the pronoun shifts from the singular “he” to the plural “they.” It is in verse 12 and following that Ezekiel predicts that “they” will lay the stones and building material of Tyre in the “midst of the waters.” The shift in pronouns is of vast significance, since it shifts the subject of the action from Nebuchadnezzar (he) back to the many nations (they). Till and others fail to see this shift and mistakenly apply the utter destruction of Tyre to the efforts of Nebuchadnezzar.

    Furthermore, Ezekiel was well aware of Nebuchadnezzar’s failure to destroy the city. Sixteen years after his initial prediction, in the 27th year of Johoiachin’s captivity (circa 570 B.C.), he wrote: “Son of man, Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon caused his army to labor strenuously against Tyre; every head was made bald, and every shoulder rubbed raw; yet neither he nor his army received wages from Tyre, for the labor which they expended on it” (29:18). Therefore, in regard to the prophecy of Tyre as it relates to Nebuchadnezzar’s activity, at least two of the elements were fulfilled (i.e., the siege mound and the slaying of the inhabitants in the field).


    J. P. Holding agrees:

    Our side would say that the "they" in v. 12 refers back the "nations" in v. 3-5, and were represented by Alexander the Great, who did the things described in v. 12, thus fulfilling the prophecy.


    So basically there is a preamble that seems to straight forwardly merge the campaigns and attributes final victory to other than Neb, there's a pronoun shift from "he" to "them" just when the prophecy would get messed up, and then there's internal consistency and interpretative charity in regards to three chapters later.  All in all, it seems as though we have an argument to the better explanation that chapter 29 is not a retraction.  If we allow for some hyperbole, there really isn't a problem if we look at this through the eyes of Ezekiel not being a total dumbass.

    Richard Carrier disagrees:

    It is significant that Carrier neglects the above apologetic point (Farrell Till makes the same skeptical mistake, link):

    Ezekiel 26:3-14 predicts that the city of Tyre will be attacked by many nations, its walls torn down and its rubble cleared away, and it will be a bare rock. Then “out in the sea she will become a place to spread fishnets” and will never be rebuilt. The passage specifically predicts that Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon will do this, and his army will throw the stones, timber and rubble into the sea.

    I guess I could have noticed earlier the bizarre twist there inherent in his paragraph where he says it predicts many nations will destroy Tyre, but then says only Neb will do it.  So which is it?  FAIL. 

    However, the basic gist of how underwhelming the prophecy is still stands:

    It is all too likely that Ezekiel is issuing propaganda flattering his captor to get on his good side, while wishing ill on an old enemy of the Jews.  Moreover, Ezekiel could easily have intelligence about the king’s plans since he would see the preparations. His prophecy about Tyre was issued in 586 B.C. Nebuchadnezzar began the siege of Tyre only a year later.

    If someone like Neb was interested in taking down Tyre, it follows that perhaps others would be too, later in history.  We could issue a specific prophecy against Iran and North Korea (or even Iraq back in the Bush Sr. years) and the fact one country continues to be significant in military campaigns has a certain self fulfilling prophecy quality to it.  Some countries and towns just have it coming to them whether from divine retribution or otherwise.

    God and Science.org says:

    One amazing example is the city of Tyre. Ezekiel 26:3-5,7,12,14 and 16 (17) predict:
    1. Nebuchadnezzar will take the city.
    2. Other nations will participate in the fulfillment.
    3. The city is to be made flat like the top of a rock.
    4. It is to become a place for spreading nets.
    5. Its stones and timber are to be laid in the sea.
    6. The old city of Tyre will never be rebuilt.

    So it seems Ezekiel may have had insider information on number 1.  Three through five appear to be just likely scenarios for any conquering effort.  Two is probably a good guess based on how much of a pain in the arse Tyre was in general and its strategic location for military efforts.  And six appears to be misrepresentative as though Ezekiel ever specified the "old" city.  Maybe it means the mainland would never be rebuilt.  I don't know.

    Carrier continues:

    Alexander’s successors built up Tyre as the powerful naval and merchant port it had always been and it remained an influential city for over a thousand years. It has never been a bare rock. It still stands even to this day. The modern city of Tyre sits beside and atop the ancient ruins (many of which still stand), and has a population of over 70,000, twice what it was in Alexander’s day. It is now a major Lebanese financial center. And what about the fishnets? Authors like Newman are fond of citing a 19th century tourist who saw fishnets stretched over the rocks of Tyre as proof of the fulfilled prophecy, ignoring the fact that fishnets have always been stretched over bare rocks in every city with a fishing industry since the invention of the net, and they were no doubt stretched across the rocks of Tyre long before Ezekiel was even born.

    In fact, Newman never tells his readers that Ezekiel actually went on in verse 26:19 to predict that Tyre would be covered by the sea, and in 26:21 he says it would never be found, two clearly failed predictions.

    I suppose that must that last part must be ANE hyperbole mixing with the Sheol metaphor?  Dunno.  Overall, given how much the Bible is allowed to exaggerate and disown specifics, it seems pointless to try to make the prophecy mean anything other "this town is going to get really messed up in some way."  It's not like Ezekiel couldn't have seen that coming.

    Outro:

    As is, I agree with the apologetic response to the one portion of this issue and can't find anything of substance (other than one bit that Holding responds to) to overturn it.  While it is plausible that it was normal for a prophet to get things wrong and find normative ways to roll with it, interpretative charity seems to make a better explanation in this case.  I'll await to be corrected on that.  Ultimately though, as a "...a flagship prooftext for those who claim divine inspiration for the Scriptures...," it falls under the category of too mundane to take seriously since Ezekiel and Neb were contemporaries and the subsequent history seems explicable by probability and chance alone.   

    Ben

Comments (12)

  • Thank you for your input.  I am somewhat confused how the critics of Ezekiel 26 somehow think it was either a cover-up of sorts or some blatant mistake by Ezekiel in switching from specifics with Nebuchadnezzar to a general pronoun like "they."  History has proven (just consult the encyclopedia) that Neb. did lay siege of Tyre for 13 years.  Then history proves the "They" to be exactly that...several nations also rose up against Tyre.  The writing of Ezekiel was before Neb. and "They."  Here is exactly what the Encyclopedia says about Tyre and the history of its fall: "Probably the best-known episode in the history of Tyre was its resistance to the army of the Macedonian conqueror Alexander the Great,
    who took it after a seven-month siege in 332. He completely destroyed
    the mainland portion of the town and used its rubble to build an
    immense causeway (some 2,600 feet [800 metres] long and 600–900 feet
    [180–270 metres] wide) to gain access to the island section.     After the
    town’s capture, 10,000 inhabitants were put to death, and 30,000 were
    sold into slavery. Alexander’s causeway, which was never removed,
    converted the island into a peninsula."  Then further on the Encyclopedia says..."Tyre was under Muslim
    rule from 638 to 1124, when it fell to the Crusaders, and until the
    13th century it was a principal town of the kingdom of Jerusalem. The Holy Roman emperor Frederick I Barbarossa, who died on the Third Crusade, was buried in its 12th-century cathedral. Captured and destroyed by the Muslim Mamlūks in 1291, the town never recovered its former importance."  Read all of that and then go back again and read Ezekiel 26.  How could Ezekiel have known to change from singular to plural hundreds of years before it went from singular to plural unless it was prophetic?  Is it possible that some, who claim error, are doing their own version of misinterpretation of the original prophecy to suit their own agenda?  Just throwing that out there.  I hope readers will look at the facts of the city of Tyre, go back and read all of Ezekiel 26, and then compare again what history has recorded and logically figure out how all of that happened to a city to the point of being detailed such as what I have bolded above.

  • @oeshpdog2 - Well for a long while I didn't notice the pronoun shift as it is very subtle.  Obviously I've changed my position since.

    "How could Ezekiel have known to change from singular to plural hundreds of years before it went from singular to plural unless it was prophetic?"

    Here's the verses after the pronoun shift:

    "12 They will plunder your wealth and loot your merchandise; they will break down your walls and demolish your fine houses and throw your stones, timber and rubble into the sea. 13  I will put an end to your noisy songs, and the music of your harps will be heard no more.14 I will make you a bare rock, and you will become a place to spread
    fishnets. You will never be rebuilt, for I the LORD have spoken, declares the Sovereign LORD.    "

    Isn't that just typically what happens to towns that get sacked?  Sometimes they get rebuilt and sometimes they don't.  *shrug*

    For all we know Ezekiel sat down to write chapters 26-29 in one sitting after Neb had failed.  Or whatever Ezekiel did predict was tweaked to fit what actually happened after the fact.  So knowing the extent to which Neb conquered and then hoping for the worst in the future just seems like inevitability and/or luck as I said near the end of the post.  One nasty naval port town gets hit a few more times in history and never quite recovers fully.  Is that a bigger deal than it seems to be?  I don't know.  Skeptics can always claim this sort of thing, but it is the finickiness of history and religion.  Do you trust every other religious group in the world other than the ancient Jews to be that objective?  I don't. 

    Ben

  • Well...there are 2 things in the passage above that still strike me as something history could not tweak or that Ezekiel could not have gone back in later chapters to change because they happened so many years after Ezekiel's writing.  Historians have verified that Alexander the Great did throw the timber and rubble of the original city into the sea to make the "mole" or causeway.  Do most conquerors do that?  Also...historians (not so ancient) have bore record to the fact that the original site of Tyre is bare and fisherman even today go there to lay their nets out to dry.  Is that also something fitting with what usually happens in history or is that another specific being fulfilled?  Since chapter 26 mentions singular and plural, how could man have tweaked history to the point that both were found to be true?

  • @oeshpdog2 - The fishnets thing probably was common (as historian Richard Carrier notes above in the post).  The fact that Alexander turned it into a peninsula (rather than all the rock just being dumped) would seem to count against it.  26:12 says, "they will break down your walls and demolish your fine houses and throw your stones, timber and rubble into the sea," and it's followed shortly by 26:19 that seems to predict the wrong thing: "This is what the Sovereign LORD says: When I make you a desolate city, like cities no longer inhabited, and when I bring the ocean depths over you and its vast waters cover you..."  One would think the mainland would be mostly underwater...not the entire island expanded to the opposite shore.  So it might be common to toss the rubble into the sea to get rid of it and uncommon to do what Alexander did which incidentally wasn't predicted.   

    Ben

  • @WAR_ON_ERROR - Hey Ben,

    First...thanks for the respectful discourse.  I hope that my replies are coming off as respectful as yours are.  My intent is to be just that.  I am asking this next question in all seriousness.  Is it possible that critics have over analyzed Ezekiel 26 to the point of trying to insert doubt where so many would have never made such an assumption?  I equate it to the conspiracy theorists of our day.  For example...no one should dispute the fact that Nebuchadnezzar laid siege on Tyre for the 13 years that scholars agree that he did.  Second, no one should dispute the "They" being fulfilled by the fact secular historians prove that Alexander the Great, Muslims and other "nations" have come up against and occupied Tyre at some point in history.  Third...no one should dispute that Alexander the Great did toss the timber and rubble of the city into the sea, correct?  Fourth, no one should dispute that historians also agree that the original site of Tyre is not where Tyre is today.  Then you throw in the fisherman and their nets and you have several facts about this nation of Tyre that history says is true.  At a minimum, someone would have to agree that the prophecy of Ezekiel at least eluded to the events that have transpired in history.  Does not logic then have to ask, has there been any other nation throughout the history of the world that has been discussed by some ancient manuscript like the book of Ezekiel and then have those things discussed come to fruition?  Does anything jump out at you or anyone else? 

    Critics have gone over Ezekiel's prophecy to the point that I am afraid some have not followed the context of how Ezekiel wrote (or a lot of the prophets as far as that goes) and they fail to equate metaphors even with how things actually happened.  What if someone said...the meanings of verse 19 is both literal and figurative?  Would that negate the reality of what actually happened?  what if someone described the events as "The enemy army would be (and was) so overwhelming that it would be like a flood to the conquered country?" And then went on to describe that "the timbers and the walls, since being thrown into the sea then allowed water to flow over them."  Can you see then that it could have a literal and figurative meaning? 

    If someone reads the Bible cover to cover, they will see that the writers always involved both the metophoric and the literal meanings of things when they described an event, characteristic etc.  This is why it is so important to read things in total contaxt which involves chapters and entire books in some cases.  If I took a moden book today and read a chapter and then argued against ideas of the entire book, then everyone would argue that I violated the rules of interpretation and reason.  But so many do that with the Bible because they frankly have never picked it up to read it cover to cover, start to finish so they choose chapters of books and then argue against other chapters of books to somehow prove error.

    So...if you take the events that history records and compare them to Ezekiel 26 and then give merit to other events by understanding a potential metaphoric meaning, it is hard to find where the events did not happen just as it states. 

  • @oeshpdog2 - "Is it possible that critics have over analyzed Ezekiel 26 to the point of trying to insert doubt where so many would have never made such an assumption?"

    In short, yes.  That is possible and I see it happen often enough.  However, of course the other possibility as was simply stated in the post before getting into details is also a reasonable possibility:

    Richard Carrier: It is all too likely that Ezekiel is issuing propaganda flattering his captor to get on his good side, while wishing ill on an old enemy of the Jews.  Moreover, Ezekiel could easily have intelligence about the king’s plans since he would see the preparations. His prophecy about Tyre was issued in 586 B.C. Nebuchadnezzar began the siege of Tyre only a year later.

    Me:  If someone like Neb was interested in taking down Tyre, it follows that perhaps others would be too, later in history.  We could issue a specific prophecy against Iran and North Korea (or even Iraq back in the Bush Sr. years) and the fact one country continues to be significant in military campaigns has a certain self fulfilling prophecy quality to it.  Some countries and towns just have it coming to them whether from divine retribution or otherwise.

    That's the gist.  The accurate stuff is basically contemporary and the vague stuff isn't. 

    "Does anything jump out at you or anyone else?" 

    We might even grant this tentatively and rate it on a scale.  Perhaps Ezekiel didn't have insider information, couldn't have anticipated Neb's campaign or the extent of it, didn't write it all down after the fact, or have his books tweaked by well meaning pious frauds afterwards.  I'm not in a position to say.  Since the Tyre prophecy is supposed the cream of the crop as far as Biblical prophecy goes, I might grant this prophecy a "B" grade and then systematically evaluate all the other not quite as potent prophecies.  I imagine there would be a lot of "C's" where we couldn't really tell from history what was going on and possibly some D's where it really looks like the Bible got it wrong (but maybe it didn't) and maybe even a definite F or two.  One or two B's doesn't really affect the overall case (since that's chance, right?) and I'm not really sure I should be granting a B here.  Maybe a C+?  I dunno. 

    I plan to do such a study eventually and this post will be a part of it.  It helps to cover more ground like that (and allow yourself to call it as it may naturally appear to be) rather than obsessing over the details like we really know any better.  So yes, to return to your first observation, I'm very weary of skepticitus and actively pursue methods to do better than that.  I'm always open to suggestions. 

    If you are looking for feedback on how you are doing in terms of polite discussion here, I approve.  :D   It seems you are asking honest questions.

    Ben

  • At the time, the mainland city was known as Uzu by some and as Sur, by others.  

    Some apologists try to make it seem as if the mainland city was known as Old Tyre and island city as New Tyre.  This simply isn't true.
    What appears to have happened is that Ezekiel was very upset that after the fall of Jerusalem in 597, some Tyrians gloated over the fact that Tyre was going to get back the trade that Jerusalem had temporarily diverted from Tyre.  Ezekiel "prophecies" seem more like propaganda designed to encourage Nebucchadnezzar to conquer Tyre once and for all--that he (Nebucchadnezzar) would have Yahweh's help.  Of course, this didn't happen.
    As for the many armies to which Ezekiel refers, it simply means that Nebucchadnezzar had mercenaries from other nations.  It does NOT mean that over time many nations would, one by one, attack Tyre with eventual success coming only God knows when.
    Some apologists have noted that prophecies are not valid unless they are specific in their predictions.  Therefore, isn't it reasonable to require that prophecies be specific as to the date when they are going to be fulfilled?
    The Book of Revelations suffers from the same problem.  For over two thousand years, Jesus is going to be "coming soon."
    As for those who pander to the gullible--which is what fundamentalist/evangelical preachers so--it's all about money, making their incomes as fat as they can be.
    Ezekiel was in a similar position.  He wanted Jerusalem to become prosperous again with international trade diverted there, away from Tyre.  Note the lists of goods traded by the various nations . . . it's all about money!

  • I apologize for the typo in the fourth sentence from the end which should read "--which is what fundamentalist/evangelical preachers do--".

    And I should add that Ezekiel did have access to "insider information."  He lived on the Chebar Canal in Nippur.  On the hill on the other side of the canal was the sprawling estate of Murashu & Sons, a family prominent in lending money and making investments, essentially a banking firm.  Fortunately some of the clay tablets recording their deals have survived.
    For over a thousand years before Ezekiel's time, long distance communication in those days was accomplished by means of fire-signals so it would not have taken the Murashu family or Ezekiel long to get news from Jerusalem.

  • The pronoun "he" vs "they" business is nonsense.  Nebucchadnezzar did not do all the things "he" was supposed to have done singlehandedly.  Those things were done by the men in the armies that Nebucchadnezzar had brought together.

  • @Fred Glynn - Some athiests are trying to muddy the stream of historical evidence with their own opinions. Please stick to verifyable evidence.

    In order to understand scripture you need to take into consideration the fact that the original hebrew text had neither punctuation marks nor paragraphs, which in this case makes it necessary to pay closer attention to what pronouns are used. You denying that does not make it true.

    Nebucchadnezzar did ALL the things the "he" was supposed to do.

    The Bible does NOT say that Nebuchadnezzar alone would demolish Tyre. This is a false assumption. On the contrary, it says that “many nations” would do so in “waves” (see v. 3). If these verses were all referring to Nebuchadnezzar then how on earth could the prophecy EVER be fulfilled?

    Nebuchadnezzar’s attack was the first wave and was confined to “THE MAINLAND” settlements (v. 8). Notice that he came with horses and chariots (v. 10), not ships!

    "isn't it reasonable to require that prophecies be specific as to the date when they are going to be fulfilled?"

    That depends on the motive behind the prophecy. You are simply assuming that Biblical propecies were written to prove the existence and reliability of God to the secular world. If you have biblical evidence that shows that God is desparately trying to prove himself then please provide it.
    Considering the obviuos fact that God could provide each and every man on this planet with his own personal burning bush, and that he in the scriptures defines the law of righteousness by faith, it seems to me that God would only provide enough evidence to encourage and strengthen those that have faith in him.

    There will always be a choice available for mankind: remain in stiff-necked denial, or believe in God's "foolishness" (1 Corinthians 1:21)

  • Some critics claim that the prophecy declares that the area will no longer be inhabited, but this is not true.

    Verse 19 is the one in question:

    "When I make you a desolate city, like cities no longer inhabited, and when I bring the ocean depths over you and its vast waters cover you.."

    Firstly, this verse is only referring to one specific point in time.

    Secondly "like cities no longer inhabited" is basicly saying "like a ghost town". It is not saying "you will never be inhabited" but rather "when I make you desolate like a ghost town..".

    Furthermore, that the prophecy indicates that fishermen would spread their nets there, implies habitation.

  • @UppsalaDragby - "the prophecy indicates that fishermen would spread their nets there, implies habitation".  Good point, rarely mentioned.

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