Uniqueness of Jewish Prophecy

 Jewish prophecy has an odd quality.  I'd often noticed it when reading parts of the Bible, especially Daniel.  It always confused me.  I didn't understand what this was until I got an apologetics book by a Jew.  The book was intended to persuade Jews to convert to Christianity.

So there are two basic types of prophecy in the Bible.  This I had long known.  Normal prophecy is when God tells someone something to tell to other people.  The prophet has been sent by God with a message.  Typological prophecy is when something happens that is similar to what happens later.  For example, Paul calls Adam a type of Christ.  Here there is no direct message from God.  Instead the events occur normally and God providentially oversees that they are also foretelling future events.  God inspires someone to write about these events for a purpose of that time.  But all along there is an additional prophetic message for the future.  So there are revealed prophecies and there are typological prophecies.

Now I can get to the thing that I learned from the book.  All Jewish revealed prophecies are also typological prophecies.  The two are always connected.  In other words, the prophet is sent by God with a message about the future.  And yet the prophets message sounds very similar to events of the past.  And yet it is also different from the past in many respects.  After the prophet gives the message, the prophecy itself will undergo partial fulfillments.  The concept is so strange that the grammar checker on Blogger is confused.  Did I have to make up a word to make the point?  There will be multiple instances where the prophecy is fulfilled.  Each time, more of the components will be present.  Sometimes additional components will be brought in.  And each time we get closer to the ultimate fulfillment.  These various components we look for are called signs.  When all of the signs are in place, then the final stage is here.

A major example of this can be found in Mark 13.  Here, Jesus predicts something.  On the one hand, he seems to be clearly talking about the destruction of Jerusalem.  This took place in 70 AD.  It even involved the Roman siege of where the Jews ran out of food.  And the temple was destroyed.  But one wall remained standing to this day. 

On top of this, Jesus apparently was speaking about some dark future time that has not happened.  Jesus spoke of the Abomination standing where it ought not to be.  Now He has connected His prophecy to one from Daniel.  And it also connects to events of the past.  After Alexander the Great died, his empire was split into 4.  The Seleucid empire ruled Judea.  Antiochus Epiphanes actually put an altar to Zeus in the Temple at Jerusalem.  It was this action along with other things like his mandating of pagan worship that led to the Jewish revolt and decades of independence.

Furthermore, the later Romans never set up pagan altars in the Jewish temple.  They burned it down.  They would have left the gigantic stone walls standing.  But all of the temple's gold had melted into the huge blocks.  So they knocked them down at great cost to get the gold.  Jesus was clearly talking of an event that still has not occurred by 70 AD.  He also connected the events of the past into His prophecy.  He now also tied it in with Daniel's prophecy.

Centuries after the Jewish temple was destroyed, the site became one of the most sacred in Islam.  Islam is a religion that claims to follow Jesus but twists His gospel into salvation by works.  It has other moral failings as well.  And a mosque now sits on the site of the Jewish temple.  A major sign of this prophetic tapestry appears to be in place.

 

The basic idea is this.  When there is an event that clearly had some prophetic significance, then that event will be filled with signs.  Future events will be partial fulfillments where only some of the signs are in place.  Once all of the signs are in place, then the ultimate fulfillment has come.