All true.

And yes, the real story of that prophecy isn’t the Christian one.

That was really helpful, thanks!

As for the “unto us a child is born” prophecy, after some time and reading I did realize that the nativity is fabricated to fit it. I have also read that some Jews consider it to refer to king Hezkiel instead.

This focus on prophecy in Christianity and its apologetics is somewhat new to me. Islamic apologists rarely focus on prophecies or at least don’t give them the same weight in my experience.

So, first, there is the general problem with prophecy arguments altogether (see my old address, Newman on Prophecy as Miracle). They tend to ignore confounding factors (like all claims of psychics, from self-fulfillment to retrodiction). But here the premise is already false (crucifixion was ubiquitous in the Ancient Near East since recorded history). Moreover…

(1) Psalms are not prophecies. They are literally songs, poems, exploring various imagery and concepts through abstraction and metaphor. The probability of a chance conjunction between something sung about and something historically happening in the course of centuries is extremely high without any prediction or miracle.

(2) Crucifixion was everywhere as a terrible fate and had been for ages (there are numerous crucifixion stories in the OT; it was routine in Assyria and Sumer; etc.), and did include piercing (nailing bodies up by various means), as did all manner of torture (note the Psalm does not actually mention crucifixion) and other humiliations.

Most notably, the Psalm does not say the singer is alive when this happens (the Psalm asks God to rescue the protagonist from that fate, i.e. “Please don’t let this happen to me”), and nailing up (or at least tying up) corpses of the executed was standard practice in even Jewish law, but also in many other like cultures there at the time (being nailed up naked as a corpse is what happens to Inanna in her Sumerican crucifixion myth), as a humiliation. The Torah says only that these “hung corpses” must be taken down and buried before sunset; and though the Mishnah describes tying, nailing may have been in use (before or even after that ruling). So the probability of a singer trying to come up with the worst thing he can think of in a song asking God not to let that happen to him is quite high. No need to posit he was trying to predict anything.

(3) And once that Psalm was regarded as prophecy (which likely happened before Christianity; the Dead Sea Scrolls show all manner of similar assumptions as to what is prophecy, and all manner of weird ways to interpret it), fanatics would be looking for anything that fit. Which means the Psalm could have caused the crucifixion of Jesus to be interpreted as a prophesied event (and indeed even as a divine plan at all). Thus the prophecy caused its own fulfillment. The more so if Jesus was even explicitly trying to get himself crucified for that very reason (see my Wichita Talk on that point; and of course, if Jesus didn’t exist, then no actual fulfillment would even be needed, as any imagined one would do, but that argument won’t impress a Christian).

(4) It is also not clear that the Romans ever nailed “hands” in a crucifixion (even if we interpret that to include “wrists”). We only have evidence for the ankles (not even the feet). Descriptions have the arms tied to the crossbeam, not nailed to it, for example (the usual procedure seems to have been to tie the victim to the patibulum, the cross beam, and have them carry it that way to the site, where the upright, the crux, was already permanently installed for reuse, and the patibulum would be hoised atop it, and then the ankles nailed to the crux—indeed we have one archaeological example of an ankle bone with a nail through it). So the Psalm, as written, might actually not be a very good fit to history here, but is largely being forced into the mold with some creative imagination.

So there is nothing all that remarkable here. Any more than in the “child is born” prophecy, which actually was a prophecy, but clearly of an event in the prophet’s own life, and no actual later historical event matches what he intended. The Nativity is entirely a fabrication out of that prophecy, and even then only by twisting its original meaning. It’s as forced as can be. Here, “a song Jews later mistook as a prophecy caused some Jews to look for anyone fulfilling it, in a region where thousands are crucified annually for hundreds of years” is not really a miracle.

I want to ask here about how you would generally respond to a Christian using it as a fulfilled prophecy in the following manner:

“The earlier pre-Roman forms of crucifixion didn’t include the piercing of hands and feet while the Roman version in some cases did, so the coincidence that the Psalm will mention a form of punishment (piercing of feet and hands) that didn’t exist when it was written is improbable.”

I know that showing that Jesus didn’t really exist readily solves this but I am interested in how to counter this argument even if you grant that he existed and was crucified.

Tbh, of all the prophecies claimed by Christians, I found this and the “unto us a child is born” one in Isaiah the only two hard ones to answer.

@Zozeph… Islam is nothing but a plagiarism of Judaism and Christianity… all one needs to demolish Islam is demolish Judaism, because once Judaism is debunked that implies Christianity is bunk and if both Judaism and Christianity are claptrap that implies that Islam is utter lies too. It does not take much logic to understand that and one does not need any expertise in Islam other than to realise that Islam is additional fairy tales BASED UPON the fairy tales of Judaism and upon the fables and tall tales of Christianity. So once one realises that Judaism is fairy tales then there is absolutely no need to waste any time whatsoever debunking the consequently debunked claptrap of Islam that is just rehashed hogwash from Judaism and Christianity.

Mr. Art or fart whoever you are let me tell you you have no grounds to stand. Come online and lets see who becomes the bleeding chip, do you dare.

Wow, your primer on Islam counter-apologetics is impressive and very useful ! I am now a little more confident to enter a meaningful conversation with a muslim. As always, your blog contains many links to other very interesting blogs and other resources. A little addictive, I must say 🙂 !

Thank you very much !

Nice summary essay, IMO.