I have a geeky sort of love for Christian apologetics, the way some people are addicted to their favorite video games, comic books or Hollywood characters. So whenever the opportunity arises to host a podcast with Dr. Jeremy Howard of B&H Publishing Group, I’m enthusiastically first in line – not unlike a paunchy middle-age man dressed like Spock at Comi-Con.
Jeremy recently sat down with me to address the question, “Did Jesus really rise from the dead?” (Podcast coming soon!) But even before the microphone levels were checked, I had to ask Jeremy about another burning issue prompted by an e-mail I received recently: How much of the Bible is prophecy? I thought that would be an easy answer, falling somewhere between zero and 100 percent.
Not so fast. Jeremy said this issue is complex, but he patiently took the time to explain, and then to follow up with a written note, which is posted below. Read on. Enjoy. Live long and prosper.
Jeremy Howard: Christians often appeal to fulfilled prophecies as a way of persuading unbelievers that the Bible is inspired by God. Prophecies can powerfully indicate the Bible’s divine inspiration, but when it comes time to show the unbeliever some examples, Christians commonly make a misstep that undermines the effectiveness of their argument.
At the heart of the problem is the failure to distinguish predictive prophecies from typological prophecies. Predictive prophecies set up an expectation for future fulfillment(s). Original hearers of the prophecy, plus readers of the prophecy once it is written down, recognize that the prophet/author is foretelling a future event. This becomes an especially powerful witness to the unbeliever since the Bible’s ability to foretell events years or even centuries in advance is evidence that God, who knows the future, has disclosed the future through the writings of His chosen authors. The book of Daniel, Genesis 49:10, and Isaiah 52:13 - 53:12 are examples of predictive prophecy.
Typological prophecies are different because they are not predictive. They do not set up an expectation for fulfillment because readers do not recognize them as prophecies until after their fulfillment. A good example is found in Matthew 2:15, where Matthew says of Jesus’ stay in Egypt: “He stayed there until Herod’s death, so that what was spoken by the Lord through the prophet might be fulfilled: ‘Out of Egypt I called My Son.’”
Matthew does this same sort of thing several times in his Gospel. Though readers may assume this means Matthew is alluding to predictive prophecies of the Old Testament (OT), when they go back and read the original context of the OT passage he is quoting or alluding to (Hosea 11:1 in this case), they are hard pressed to discern that the author was prophesying anything at all. If an unbeliever picks up on this fact while you are arguing that prophecy is a proof of biblical inspiration, he or she is apt to conclude that biblical prophecies are not predictive and therefore do not help prove the Bible’s inspiration.
What is going on here? Old Testament scholar Ray Clendenen has an interesting way of answering this question. Drawing an analogy from pop culture, he notes that each episode of the old television show “Alfred Hitchcock Presents” begins with a partial silhouette drawn onto a white background. If you were to look at the image for the first time, having no advance knowledge of the show’s name or content, there is little if any chance you would guess who the silhouette represents. But moments after the reel beings to roll, Hitchcock walks up to the wall and fills out or “fulfills” the silhouette. The silhouette was tailor-made for Hitchcock, but the viewer never foreknew or expected this.
Typological prophecy is much like this. Readers do not recognize its presence or purpose until the fulfillment arrives. Very possibly the authors of the prophecy did not understand all the entailments of what they were writing either. In this way there is much subtle and divinely-inspired silhouette-tracing in Old Testament literature, but observers were unlikely to recognize it as such until Messiah walked onto the scene and fulfilled the silhouette.
By “silhouette” I mean the themes, types and events in the OT. Jesus is the fulfillment of these. Matthew and other New Testament authors recognized this after Jesus had accomplished all He had set out to do, and thus they rightly named Jesus as the fulfillment of many OT passages even though readers of those passages had not previously recognized them as prophetic.
Posted by Rob Phillips
Director, Communcations Department
