Six Failed Bible Prophecies

The Bible is a book, not unlike a Stephen King novel but a lot less believable and certainly less exciting. There are a lot of things wrong with this ancient tome, not the least of which are the many assertions, or prophecies, claimed by the authors as absolute truths which originated with God himself, and therefore must not be questioned.

Well, the fact is, like many things the Old Man was alleged to have said lots of them have been well, wrong. Here are six examples of Biblical future telling that made about as much sense as a guy named Jesus rising from the dead and ascending into heaven.

Let’s face it, if the Bible were true it would not contain any failed prophecies, yet it does. Before we explore these failed prophecies let’s discuss the so-called fulfilled prophecies. Most of the prophecies from the Old Testament, like those fulfilled by Jesus, are only “fulfilled” within the stories of the New Testament.

In light of the Bible being a work of fiction this is no big deal, the writers of the New Testament simply wrote stories involving characters who fulfilled the prophecies made in the Old Testament stories. As for the prophecies that are claimed to have been fulfilled by actual real life events they are vague prophecies that could easily be applied to any number of events. There are cases where the Bible makes very specific prophecies but to no surprise these are the ones that have failed:

Isaiah 17:1 “An oracle concerning Damascus: See, Damascus will no longer be a city but will become a heap of ruins.”

FAIL: Damascus is still inhabited today with well over a million people and there was never a time where it ceased to be a city. It is widely known as being the oldest continuously inhabited city in the world. Isaiah 19:4-5 “I will hand the Egyptians over to the power of a cruel master, and a fierce king will rule over them, declares the Lord, the LORD Almighty. The waters of the river will dry up, and the riverbed will be parched and dry.” FAIL: The river mentioned here is the Nile which never dried up and is still one of Egypt’s greatest natural resource. Isaiah 52:1 “Awake, awake, O Zion, clothe yourself with strength. Put on your garments of splendor, O Jerusalem, the holy city. The uncircumcised and defiled will not enter you again.” FAIL: There are still uncircumcised people living in Jerusalem even today. Ezekiel 30:10-11 “This is what the Sovereign LORD says: I will put an end to the hordes of Egypt by the hand of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon. He and his army – the most ruthless of nations – will be brought in to destroy the land. They will draw their swords against Egypt and fill the land with the slain.” FAIL: Ezekiel predicts that Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon will conquer Egypt utterly destroying it, slaying and scattering its people. In 568 BCE Nebuchadnezzar tried to conquer Egypt and Egypt survived with no apparent damage. Aahmes ruled for another generation over a prosperous Egypt and lived to see Nebuchadnezzar die. The Egyptians were not scattered or dispersed. Ezekiel 29:10-11 “therefore I am against you and against your streams, and I will make the land of Egypt a ruin and a desolate waste from Migdol to Aswan, as far as the border of Cush. The foot of neither man nor beast will pass through it; no one will live there for forty years.” FAIL: Never in its long history has Egypt been uninhabited for forty years. Matthew 16:28 “I tell you the truth, some who are standing here will not taste death before they see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom.” 23:36 “I tell you the truth, all this will come upon this generation.” 24:34 “I tell you the truth, this generation will certainly not pass away until all these things have happened.”

FAIL: Jesus states in Matthew that all the signs marking the end of the world would be fulfilled before his generation ended, before the people that were standing infront of him “taste death.” Those people have been dead for over 2000 years and the world did not come to an end, neither have all those signs been fulfilled.

Many thanks to our friends at Truth Saves for story contributions.