More Prophecies Unfulfilled - The Old Testament Revisited

This is an old article, from my defunct website. An amateur effort at exegesis. It's a long one folks, so my apologies.

Sometimes, it seems, that I protest too much; but I feel that I must preface many of my extrapolations with the protest that I am indeed a tolerant and open-minded man. But I must also repeat my motto, ad infinitum, it seems; res ipsa loquitur ("the thing speaks for itself"). Logic is my curse; reason is a harsh mistress, for she requires facts, and not romantic fiction. I confess in my youth that I was a Romantic, and had a baroque meritocracy: I was far too open-minded, in that way that Ayn Rand describes as 'flitting from one idea to another, never settling on one' (a paraphrase). Not that I am an objectivist: I am a skeptic, and one who does his homework. Logic teaches the laws of non-contradiction, and the process of elimination. In this treatise, with all personal considerations aside, we will look at the value-biases of the NT, and do the comparative homework to disabuse the notion of Jesus and his fulfillment of OT prophecy.

The 1st target is that of Deut 18:21 - 21: THE ALLEGORICAL METHOD enabled writers to link the present with the past; it could bring any ritual or drama into line with current ethics. It UTTERLY IGNORED THE INTENTION OF THE WRITER of the original and obvious significance of a mystery ceremonial, AND REPLACED THESE BY THE READER'S OR OBSERVER'S OWN INTERPRETATION. It idealized what was said into what should have been intended. Abundant scope was offered to this prevalent allegorism by the symbolism of the mysteries." (pp. 49-50, S.Angus. The Mystery Religions. Dover Publications. [1925], 1975)Christianity's "success" in converting the peoples of the Roman Empire to the new religion was via the fusion of Hellenistic Greek metaphysics with earlier Judaic concepts. Re-packaged in Hellenistic garb (the Messiah as LOGOS), the new religion eventually eclipsed the more conservative Rabbinic Judaism, which was less Hellenized. "

You may say in your heart, 'How will we know the word which the LORD has not spoken?' When a prophet speaks in the name of the LORD, if the thing does not come about or come true, that is the thing which the LORD has not spoken, the prophet has spoken it presumptuously; you shall not be afraid of him

(The NAS Bible). Now we come to the heart of the matter. Firstly, the OT as we know it is CHOCK full of prophesies that never occurred. (Isaiah and Ezekiel are the two that spring to mind).
From http://www.geocities.com/paulntobin/prophecies.html#isaiah;
Isaiah's Failed Prophecies
The prophet Isaiah, for instance, foretold the drying up of all the waters of the Egypt, and the destruction of all land used for plantation due to this drying up of the River Nile.

Isaiah 19:5-7:

"And the waters of the Nile will be dried up, and the river will be parched and dry; and its canal will become foul, and the branches of Egypt's Nile will diminish and dry up, reeds and rushes will rot away. There will be bare places by the Nile, on the brink of the Nile, and all that is sown by the Nile will dry up, be driven away, and be no more.

This part of Isaiah, widely accepted by scholars to be written around the eighth century BC, is about 2750 years old. And in all this period of two and three quarters millennia, this prophecy has yet to be fulfilled! Moreover it is clear from the context that Isaiah prophecy was meant for the Egypt of his time. For it was with that Egypt that Isaiah and his people had a grievance against, and the prophecy was a warning to them. Obviously this is a clear example of an unfulfilled prophecy. In a similar vein, Isaiah predicted the complete and utter destruction of Damascus
Isaiah 17:1-2 An oracle concerning Damascus. See, Damascus will cease to be a city, and will become a heap of ruins. Her towns will be deserted forever... As we noted above, it is now almost three millennia since that prophecy and Damascus remains a vibrant city to this day. While Damascus had been overran many times in its past, it is still around. Thus the prophecy that says Damascus will cease to be a city forever is obviously false. Isaiah also spoke of a prophecy God made to Ahaz, the King of Judah that he would not be harmed by his enemies:

Isaiah 7:1-7

In the days of Ahaz...king of Judah, Rezin the king of Syria and Pekah the son of Remaliah the king of Israel came up to Jerusalem to wage war against it, but they could not conquer it...And the Lord said to Isaiah "Go forth to meet Ahaz...and say to him, 'Take heed, be quiet, do not fear, and do not let your heart be faint...at the fierce anger of Rezin...and the son of Remaliah. Because Syria...and the son of Remaliah has devised evil against you saying "Let us go up against Judah and terrify it and let us conquer it for ourselves..." thus says the Lord God: "It shall not stand and it shall not come to pass..."

Yet according to II Chronicles, Syria and Pekah did conquer Judah!
II Chronicles 28:1, 5-6 Ahaz was 20 years old when he began his reign...

[T]he Lord God gave him into the hand of the king of Syria, who defeated him and took captive a great number of his people...He was also given into the hand of the king of Israel who defeated him with great slaughter. For Pekah the son of Remaliah slew a hundred and twenty thousand in Judah in one day...

Same source, http://www.geocities.com/paulntobin/prophecies.html#tyre

Ezekiel's Failed Prophecies on Tyre and Egypt
Ezekiel made a prophecy that, at the time he wrote, seems most likely to be fulfilled. The prophet was writing, in 587BC, at the time when Nebuchadnezzar was laying siege on Tyre. With such a powerful army like Nebuchadnezzar's, it was not surprising that Ezekiel prophesied the fall of Tyre to the Babylonian king.

Ezekiel 26:7-14

"For thus says the Lord: "Behold I will bring upon Tyre from the north Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon, king of kings, with horses and chariots, and with horsemen and a hosts of many soldiers. He will slay with the sword your daughters on the mainland; he will set up a siege wall against you. He will direct the shock of his battering rams against your walls, and with his axes he will break down your towers...With the hoofs of his horses he will trample all your streets; he will slay your people with the sword and your mighty pillar will fall to the ground...they will break down your walls and destroy your pleasant houses... I will make you a bare rock... you shall never be rebuilt, for I have spoken," says the Lord God."

The whole passage clearly prophesied the sack and complete destruction of Tyre by Nebuchadnezzar. However, the vivid description of the sack and fall of Tyre never happened. After a siege of thirteen years, until 573BC, Nebuchadnezzar lifted his siege on Tyre and had to arrive at a compromised agreement. Thus Nebuchadnezzar did not destroy Tyre. Alexander the Great destroyed Tyre, 240 years later. And furthermore, despite the prophet, the city of Tyre was eventually rebuilt.

It's amazing that despite this disconfirming evidence some apologists actually try to salvage that prophecy. One example is Josh McDowell in his Evidence that Demands a Verdict. In it he claims that the prophecy was actually fulfilled. We will look at two of his specific arguments regarding the prophecy. First this is what McDowell writes about the "destruction of Tyre"

When Nebuchadnezzar broke the gates down he found the city almost empty. The majority of the people had moved by ship to an island about one half mile off the coast and fortified the city there. The mainland city was destroyed in 573, but the city of Tyre on the island remained a powerful city for several hundred years.

The implication of this paragraph is clear: that Nebuchadnezzar destroyed a major portion of Tyre. However McDowell got it wrong! Tyre's main city was always on the island. The part of the city on the mainland is nothing more than a suburb. In other words, Nebuchadnezzar could achieve no more than take over a relatively minor part of the city. Furthermore it is obvious from the passage in Ezekiel that the complete destruction of Tyre by Nebuchadnezzar was prophesied. McDowell tried to argue that the complete destruction by Alexander the great was the one actually prophesied here. This is a forced reading on the passage-nowhere in the passage was anyone else except Nebuchadnezzar mentioned. However the most powerful argument against McDowell's apologetics is that Ezekiel himself admitted that this prophecy was a mistake!

Ezekiel 29:17-20

...the Lord God came to me: "Son of man, Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon made his army labour hard against Tyre; every head was made bald and every shoulder was rubbed bare; yet neither he nor his army got anything from Tyre to pay for the labour that he had performed against it..."

McDowell tried to twist history to show that Tyre has never been rebuilt. His argument is that the modern city of Tyre is not the old city of Tyre since the former was not on the exact location of the latter. Suffice to say that no one agrees with such a twisted method to fulfill prophecy. Furthermore the prophecy says that Tyre shall never be rebuilt after the destruction by Nebuchadnezzar-which never happened-since he never destroyed the city. Even after the destruction by Alexander the Great, the city was still rebuilt. In fact the city of Tyre was even referred to, by that name, in the New Testament (Mark 7:24, Acts 12:20). Tyre exists to this day and has a population of about 12,000. Having failed in one prophecy did not make Ezekiel shy about making more:

Ezekiel 29:8-12

...thus says the Lord God. And the land of Egypt shall be desolation and a waste...no foot of man shall pass through it and no foot of beast shall past through it; it shall be uninhabited for forty years. And I will make the city of Egypt desolation in the midst of desolated countries; and her cities shall be desolated forty years... I will scatter Egyptian among the nations, and disperse them through the countries.

This passage must take the cake for the most prophecies proven wrong!
Egypt has never been desolate and wasted.
Men and people have always walked through it.
There has never been a single moment (let alone forty years) when Egypt was uninhabited.
Egypt has never been a desolated countries surrounded by more desolated countries.
Its cities has never been desolated for any period of time
And finally there was no Egyptian Diaspora.
Ezekiel tried his luck with another prophecy regarding Nebuchadnezzar:
Ezekiel 29:20 I

have given him [Nebuchadnezzar] the land of Egypt as his recompense for which he has labored, because they worked for me, says the Lord God.

Mr. Tobin is exacting in his analysis, but the question that puzzles me most, is that, according to the aforementioned Deut 18:21-22, both Ezekiel AND Isaiah should be excluded! Apologists proclaim the nonsense that it stipulates a select subsection of Egypt, and therefore it was fulfilled, but it holds no water. If read within the parameters of said chapter, it is obviously speaking of the entire nation, not a set of selected areas.

An apt example might be: archeologists a thousand years from now might claim that the lyrics "from sea to shining sea" only refer to the coastal lands of America, not the landlocked ones (this of course would be a matter of debate for the words 'from' and 'to', as the English language, if still extant in that millennia, would be as confusing as Aramaic is today, and the disputation of literal vs. figurative).
While Nebuchadnezzar (II) did indeed defeat Egypt, and rendered the Pharaoh's reigns inconsequential, the above listed details never came about. But these are examples of the sort we can expect from the OT. There are numerous mistakes in it, far too many to list here. There are the glaring contradictions about Saul's death for instance, from http://www.jesusneverexisted.com/apostles.html;

Multiple deaths - a biblical motif for making sure the bad guys get it REALLY bad!
The 4 very different deaths for King Saul;
1 Samuel (31:4) says that Saul "Took a sword, and fell upon it".
2 Samuel (1:2-10) says Saul, at his own request, was slain by an Amalekite.
Later in 2 Samuel (21:12) we read that the Philistines on Gilboa killed Saul.
But then in 1 Chronicles (10:13-14) we learn that Saul was slain by God!
In all fairness, the fourth quote was taken out of context, as 1 Chronicles 10:11 agrees w/2 Samuel (21:12) about the Philistines, God having worked indirectly through them (read the passage yourself).
Onwards to more failed prophecies:
From http://www.bibleorigins.net/FailedPropheciesDateTexts.html:

"Deut 30:7, RSV, "And the Lord your God will put all these curses upon your foes and enemies who persecuted you."

Nehemiah rebuilds Jerusalem's walls in fear of his enemies. In fear, he orders that the doors to the city not to be opened until late in the day, so as to avoid an ambush at the gates in the early morning hours and they are to be closed early in the day to avoid ambushes late in the evening (Neh 7:3-4)
Jeremiah portrays God stating that David will never lack a man to sit upon the throne of Israel, nor will the day ever come that a Levite priest shall fail to be in God's presence presenting burnt offerings. Yet, these prophecies were not fulfilled. David' descendants after the Exile (ca. 587-538 BCE) never were restored to the throne. In 70 CE the Romans destroyed the Temple. In 135 CE the Romans put down the Bar Kochba rebellion and this time destroyed Jerusalem carrying off into captivity her people. The Levitical priests who were to be in God's presence performing their duties, that is the feeding of God, "for ever," never again offered burnt sacrifices and meal offerings.
Jeremiah 33: 17-18, RSV,

"For thus says the Lord: David shall never lack a man to sit on the throne of the house of Israel, and the Levitical priests shall never lack a man in my presence to offer burnt offerings, to burn cereal offerings, and to make sacrifices for ever. The word of the Lord came to Jeremiah: "Thus says the Lord: If you can break my covenant with the night, so that day and night not come at their appointed time, then also my covenant with David my servant may be broken, so that he shall not have a son to reign on his throne, and my covenant with the Levitical priests my ministers."

The Romans in 70 and 135 CE broke God's covenant with the Levitical priests; He hasn't had a meal in nearly 2000 years.
Jeremiah envisioned God as stating that the Exile would last 70 years, at the conclusion of these 70 years God would destroy Babylon and it would never be dwelt in again, because of what the Chaldeans had done to Jerusalem and their destruction of the Temple. The prophecy did not come about as envisioned.
The Exile began ca. 587 BCE and ended ca. 538 BCE, only 49 years were spent in Exile, not 70 years. Babylon was not destroyed by the Medes (Jer 51:11). Jeremiah wrote his prophecy around 587 BCE, shortly after the fall of Jerusalem. What he didn't know was that in 560 BCE Cyrus of Persia would defeat the Medes, and that it would be Persians who would set God's people free. Babylon peacefully surrendered to Cyrus the Persian who was welcomed into the city. Babylon would continue to exist with inhabitants until the 1st century CE. The city went into a long slow economic decline after the Hellenistic Greeks came to power, when Seleucus I moved the new capital to a Greek planned city named in his honor, some 60 miles away. The governing classes, followed by artisans, migrated to the new capital. Over the following centuries, more inhabitants abandoned Babylon, the city turned into farmlands, with only a few priests still offering sacrifices at the shrines. By the 1st century CE the city was deserted. So much then for the Lord's righteous fury in destroying Babylon and setting his people free with her collapse! I must conclude that Isaiah and Jeremiah spoke "presumptuously" when they declared God had spoken to them.
Jeremiah was quite specific about when Babylon would be destroyed and how and by whom. The Jews would serve the Babylonians as slaves for 70 years, then Babylon would be destroyed. It didn't happen.
Jer 25:11-13, RSV,

This whole land shall become a ruin and a waste, and these nations shall serve the king of Babylon seventy years. Then after seventy years are completed, I will punish the king of Babylon and that nation, the land of the Chaldeans, for their iniquity, says the Lord, making the land an everlasting waste. I will bring upon that land all the words which I have uttered against it, everything written in this book, which Jeremiah prophesied against all the nations."

Jer 29:10, RSV,

For thus says the Lord: When seventy years are completed for Babylon, I will visit you, and I will fulfil to you my promise and bring you back to this place. For I know the plans I have for you, says the Lord, plans for welfare and a hope. Then you will call me, and I will hear you. You will seek me and find me; when you seek me with all your heart, I will be found by you, and I will restore your fortunes and gather you from all the nations and all the places where I have driven you, says the Lord, and I will bring you back to the place from which I sent you into exile."

Jer 51: 11, RSV,

"The Lord has stirred up the spirit of the Medes, because his purpose concerning Babylon is to destroy it, for that is the vengeance of the Lord, the vengeance for his temple."

Jeremiah has God declaring that He, God, will pardon the iniquity of Israel and Judah upon their restoration from the captivity with the fall of Babylon, and that no more will iniquity be found in the land. As noted earlier, Ezra and Nehemiah contradict Jeremiah's prophecy that no more will iniquity or sin be found in Israel or Judah upon the fall of Babylon and the restoration of his people to their land.
Jeremiah 50:18-20, RSV,

"Behold I am bringing punishment on the king of Babylon and his land, as I punished the king of Assyria. I will restore Israel to his pasture...In those days and in that time, says the Lord, iniquity shall be sought in Israel, and there shall be none; and sin in Judah, and none shall be found; for I will pardon those whom I leave as a remnant."

Evidently 'gawd' chose not to pardon his people ("the remnant" who returned from the Captivity) upon their restoration, for iniquity abounded in the land, with foreign women being married and the Sabbath not being observed (Neh 10:30-31).
Jeremiah also proclaimed that gawd intended to write his law upon his people's hearts, such that there would be no need for a man to teach his fellow man about learning gawd's way, because gawd will forgive his people's iniquity and remember no more their sins. Jerusalem would be rebuilt with its walls, never again to be uprooted or overthrown.
Jeremiah 31: 27-40, RSV,

"Behold, the days are coming, says the Lord, when I will sow the house of Israel and the house of Judah with the seed of man and the seed of beast...I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah, not like the covenant which I made with their fathers when I took them by the hand to bring them out of Egypt, my covenant which they broke, though I was their husband, says the Lord. But this is the covenant which I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord: I will put my law within them, and I will write it upon their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. And no longer shall each man teach his neighbor and each his brother, saying, 'Know the Lord,' for they shall know me, from the least of them to the greatest, says the Lord; for I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more...Behold, the days are coming, says the Lord, when the city shall be rebuilt for the Lord from the tower of Hananel to the Corner Gate...It shall not be uprooted or overthrown any more for ever."

Not only did god not write his law upon his restored people's hearts, Ezra found it necessary to teach his people 'Know the Lord,' (Ezra 10) in contradiction to Jeremiah's prophecy. As for Jerusalem, although it was rebuilt by Nehemiah ca. 445 BCE, the Romans in 135 CE destroyed it, and rebuilt it as a Roman city naming it after the emperor Hadrian; Jews were not allowed within the city on pain of death. So, Jerusalem was not only "overthrown" by the Romans, but its peoples were "uprooted" and carried off into slavery.
Isaiah thought Medes would destroy Babylon.
Isaiah 13:1-22, RSV,

"The oracle concerning Babylon which Isaiah the son of Amoz saw...Behold I am stirring up the Medes against them, who have no regard for silver and do not delight in gold. Their bows will slaughter the young men; they will have no mercy on the fruit of the womb; their eyes will not pity children. And Babylon, the glory of the kingdoms, the splendor and pride of the Chaldeans, will be like Sodom and Gomorrah when God overthrew them. It will never be inhabited or dwelt in for all generations...its time is close at hand and its days will not be prolonged."

Isaiah, writing all this ca. 704 BCE was not aware that in 550 BCE Cyrus the Persian would defeat the Medes and take over rule of their empire. Babylon would fall not to the Medes, but to the Persians. The city was not destroyed, it surrendered peacefully to Cyrus in 539 BCE, there was no great slaughter, no destruction of the city, no going into exile as slaves.
Olmstead noted that Babylon surrendered and was spared any destruction by Cyrus-

"Near the beginning of October, Cyrus fought another battle at Opis on the Tigris... on October 11 Sippar was taken without a battle...and on October 13, 539, Gobryas, governor of Gutium, and the troops of Cyrus entered Babylon without battle. Afterward, when Nabu-naid returned to Babylon, he was made prisoner. The last tablet dated by Nabu-naid is from October 14, the day after Gobyras captured Babylon, but it was written at Uruk, to which the welcome news had not yet penetrated.... Babylon was well treated by Cyrus...on October 29 Cyrus himself entered Babylon. Branches were spread in his path, and he proclaimed peace to everyone in the city."

(Pp.50-51, "Founder Cyrus," A. T. Olmstead. History of the Persian Empire. Chicago. The University of Chicago Press. Phoenix Books. 1948, reprint 1963)."
I feel that the following is crucial to understand how these 'fulfilled' prophecies are interpreted in this day and age. From http://www.bibleorigins.net/ChristOriginsMechanismsAllegory.html -

"Allegory was the application of philosophy to mythology, which sought in the myths, however crude, a hidden spiritual meaning. Allegory was probably developed earlier among the Greeks than among the Jews. The Stoics, deriving this method from the Cynics, brought it to perfection as a theological weapon; by means of which they were able to conserve the form of popular religion while transforming the content...How early the allegorical method was adopted by the Jews it is difficult to determine with certainty. It certainly would be in demand as early as the translation of the Septuagint in Egypt. Aristobulus used it freely in his exposition on the Pentateuch, and Schurer believes that allegoric exegesis was in vogue in Palestine a considerable time before the days of Philo, who applied it wholesale to the Hebrew scriptures. He was followed by Paul, through whom allegory entered upon its long career in Christian theology.

A little further on:

"It has been largely forgotten by Christian scholars and believers that the New Testament is NOT a direct heir of the religious and moral attitude of the Old Testament. Between the compilation of the Old Testament and time of Jesus, many centuries elapsed and the very nature of the Jewish approach to God and man had been transformed.
CHRISTIANITY AROSE ON THE BASIS OF THESE FRESH NEW JEWISH ACHIEVEMENTS...On the other hand, there seems to be a kind of inhibition in the mind of 'gentile' scholars who still hesitate to consider the results of studies about the origins of Christianity written by Jewish born human beings. Strangely enough this restraint in regards to Jewish scholarship can also often be observed even in the field of the research of Jewish sources. Seldom are the Jewish contributions in this area of scholarship utilized by Christian scholars. Often these works are not even known to them." (pp. xvii, xxviii, "Introduction." David Flusser. Judaism and the Origins of Christianity. Jerusalem. The Magnes Press. The Hebrew University. 1988. ISBN 965-233-627-6 )

And some more:

"What has been elaborated here is the history of perhaps the most powerful and enduring of the "strong misreadings" (to use Harold Bloom's term) that make up our cultural heritage...At any given moment, in any given interpretive community, a range of (mis-) readings of any text is possible...Allegorical interpretation, ancient, medieval, and modern, has a bad reputation in our time. We imagine the allegorists to have been guilty of willful deception in distorting the meaning of texts, imposing foreign ideas upon them, and then compounding their crimes by appealing to those texts as authority for the very ideas they have fraudulently attached to them." (pp.298-299. Robert Lamberton. Homer the Theologian. Berkeley. University of California Press. 1986, 1989)

Mr. Walter Reinhold Warttig Mattfeld y de la Torre, M.A. Ed. (author of this website) concludes this with:

"Conclusions: Christianity arose from Hellenized Judaism. It's re-interpretations of the Hebrew Bible or Old Testament, employed "Allegory," which allowed a different reading of the ancient texts, a reading that opposed earlier readings by main-stream Judaism as understood and defended by the Rabbis of the first and second centuries A.D.
Jesus as the Messiah or Christ was re-formatted as "The Logos" ("The Word" John 1:1-5) a Greek metaphysical concept UNKNOWN to the pre-Hellenistic writers of the Hebrew Bible or Old Testament.
Christianity's views on God's intent employed not only an allegorical re-reading of the ancient pre-Hellenistic texts, but also the selective turning of "a blind eye" to Old Testament verses that contradicted Christian teachings. For example, the Prophets all understood that God would bestow upon all his people (the Nation) in one fell swoop, his Holy Spirit, allowing them to keep his Torah (Laws), upon their return from exile in Babylon. The Christians did NOT cite these prophecies in their "New Testament," they proclaimed that (contra the Prophets), the Holy Spirit could be obtained ONLY by those individuals, on a case-by-case basis, who confessed Jesus was the Christ and who became baptized into his death (cf. my article on God's bestowal of his Holy Spirit in the Old Testament vs. the New Testament).

The following link is also advised: http://www.bibleorigins.net/HolySpiritMessiahOTvsNT.html.

We can extrapolate the following, as such: The Hellenistic concept of allegory was (wholly, or in part) borrowed by the 'apostles', and due to the obvious incompetence of the unknown authors, the tenets of modern-day Christianity are built on fraud. There are no (repeat, emphasis here, NO) validations of OT prophecies vis-à-vis Jesus (which will be dealt with in another essay). Indeed, the interpretations of rabbinic scholars say otherwise. The use of the term 'ot' is implicit in ALL of these prophecies (the term is directly applied as imminent fulfillments of said prophecies: and, as stated before, all of these directly relate to the aforementioned Deuteronomy clause.
How indeed, are prophets to be measured in terms of several hundred years? It defies the imagination that anyone could stay gullible for that long). We can therefore and safely dismiss the fabrications that say otherwise, clumsy as they are. A further web link for the interested reader is here: http://www.bibleorigins.net/Presuppositions.html. I personally find Mr. De La Torre a fascinating read. Of course, Hellenism played a semi-substantial role in ancient Israel (between its one-time reign as world empire, and the impact of Greek philosophy due to its demographic nearness). But we also need to remember that Hebraic society was very resistant to change, and extremely insular. Witness the wholesale genocide of opposing world-views in re: the Canaanites, as one example. Whenever they were in power, they put entire nations to the sword. The influence of Hellenism, it stands to reason, was very slow and gradual. It has been observed by men more learned than I, that there was a substantial shift in the first century in the Middle East in the view of community at large to the individual. Originally, the Greeks (like the Hebrews) focused on a community-based ideology (indeed, the general concept B.C.E was that, upon arrival of the Messiah, the entire nation would be lifted up into the arms of God en masse), but then, pending the impact of Platonism, the ideals of Socrates, etc. that the individual became the philosophical focus.

In summation, the OT comes apart at the seams in regards the concept of inerrantism. Divinely inspired? Sure, if 'god 'is infinite and perfect, then one would expect the alleged scriptures to be so as well (failing that, far more accurate, one would think). Note that I am not referring to the characters of the authors, pseudipigraphic or otherwise: it is in the glaring errors and stumbles that one discovers in the actual analysis of the selected Talmudic writings. We are all finite beings, to be sure, and no man is exempt from making mistakes. But the volume of errors, in texts that are reputed to be the 'Operator's Systems Manual' for the human race, defies credence, suspends belief, and contradicts the 'divine' message.