Are there ANY Bible prophecies that indisputably came true?

Saying 'take charge and reproduce' is a prophecy?

You betcha!

  Wow thats not stretch at all is it?

Only around 6,000 years.

Sylvia

Previously posted:

The original poster asked, “Are there ANY Bible prophecies that indisputably came true?”  Of course, by the time the hidden rules of the presupposition game were slowly revealed by the skeptics, the answer seems to be, “no.”

 

The hidden rules of the presupposition game are:

 

1. If a prophecy was made in one book of the Old Testament and fulfilled in another book of the Old Testament it must always be assumed that the prophecy was a recent edit added after the fact (about 400 BC) and did not exist in the first writing of the book.
2. If a prophecy was made in the Old Testament regarding the future Messiah (e.g. virgin birth, born in Bethlehem, died via crucifixion, resurrected from the dead) then whenever the New Testament demonstrates that Jesus fulfilled that prophecy it must be assumed that the gospel writer invented those details about Jesus and that they never actually happened to Jesus.

 

In short, the hidden rules of the presuppositionalists guarantee that no biblical prophecy can ever be accepted as valid prophecy.  Worse, it makes every Old Testament book of the Bible a fabrication filled with falsehoods and every New Testament apostle that wrote a letter or endorsed a gospel account to be a flagrant liar. 

 

Virtually the entire Christian faith is dependent on the truths that Jesus was born of a virgin, was born in Bethlehem, lived a perfect life, died a sacrificial death, and resurrected from death to life.  Since all those events were first prophesied in the Old Testament about the Messiah, it means that either Jesus fulfilled them all and was the Messiah, or, every foundational aspect of Christianity is a brazen lie and never happened. 

 

In other words, if one accepts that Jesus did live a perfect life, and/or died a sacrificial death via crucifixion, and/or resurrected from death to life, then you have “personal proof” that at least five Old Testament prophecies absolutely were fulfilled. 

 

Opposite that, if one accepts that the gospel writers and the apostles all lied in their writings about such things as Jesus being born of a virgin, Jesus being born in Bethlehem, His perfect life, His sacrificial death by crucifixion, and His resurrection to life, then EVERY aspect of Christianity is false and immoral; all of it having been based on falsehoods.  There can be nothing good or wholesome in the Christian religion in such a case for it is all comprised of deceit, errors, and intentional mis-directions.

 

Now, if every Bible prophecy is a fabrication and was never made in real human history, then God never revealed Himself in it or through it, ever.  For example, Abraham could never have encountered God because God always prophesied the future (including a son and a nation) to Abraham on every encounter.  Certainly Moses never encountered God because at the burning bush God supposedly prophesied that Moses would lead the nation out of Egypt into the promised land originally granted to Abraham (a prophecy later fulfilled by Joshua). 

 

 

Kind David was given a future-telling prophecy that his lineage would rule Israel for eternity and would save all the world from their sins.  That too had to have been a lie, a fake future-telling prophecy, a fabrication added to the scrolls by devious scribes in 400 BC. 

 

And the worst part, there never was a promised Messiah.  Every promise of a Savior/Messiah in the Old Testament was a future-telling prophecy.  Every one.  If all of those prophecies were recent edits by sneaky Jewish scribes in 400 BC and were not made by the original prophets who first wrote the books, or, if they were never fulfilled by anyone, including Jesus, then the world never did have a Messiah from the line of David.  No Messiah means no sacrifice was made for sins.  No sacrifice for sins means no forgiveness and no salvation.  None. 

 

That about sums up the two choices: 

1. Every patriarch in the Bible is a liar for having claimed an encounter with God and having claimed to have been given a future-telling prophecy regarding a promised land, a great nation, or a coming Messiah, thus, all of Judaism and all of Christianity are a giant conspiracy of uncounted liars covering a span of four thousand years.
2. The prophecies were presented to the original patriarchs just as the Scriptures report them and Jesus is the fulfillment of every one of the prophecies just as the gospels, apostles, and eyewitnesses have reported. 

Which choice is backed by the best evidence and is more plausible?  If you have a presupposition that everything supernatural is impossible, you will choose option one.  If you presuppose a living personal God who loves His creation and has communicated with it, option two may have some appeal for you.

As for me and my house, we have chosen to believe in the Lord.

 

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I noticed that all the rejections of biblical prophecy quote no extant documents written by eyewitnesses that claim the prophecies were faked.  Instead, all the rejections are one of two kinds:

1. there is not as much ancient secular literature as I would personally like to see supporting the prophecy, or,
2. well, I have no evidence this was faked after-the-fact, but it could have been, so, I think it was

Those are not strong counter arguments against the thousands of written extant documents of the Bible.  There is no ancient written evidence that all or any of the Bible's prophecies were faked or post-dated, only unsupported allegations from modern authors.

We don't need evidence that they were fake. YOU need evidence that they were authentic. You have none. Unlucky.

You have chosen to believe in the Lord, so you will therefore accept anything that makes him more believable = confirmation bias.

Virtually the entire Christian faith is dependent on the truths that Jesus was born of a virgin, was born in Bethlehem, lived a perfect life, died a sacrificial death, and resurrected from death to life

EverAStudent,  what evidence would I need to provide that would satisfy you that those three things did not, could not, have happened?  How can you talk of evidence and plausibility concerning such nonsense?

I think the question is reveresd.  The Bible does exist.  Its existence means it is the assertion, it is the evidence.  Since it has prophecies (which have been fulfilled) the burden of proof is on the skeptic to show that NONE of those prophecies were real, that they were all written after-the-fact.

What evidence is needed to constitute proof that every biblical prophecy was written after the event that fulfilled the prophecy?   The best evidence would be to produce the original unfaked scrolls, or copies of them, you know, the scrolls that did not have the prophecies in them in the first place, the scrolls that the rogue scribes allegedly added material to centuries later.  Since the Hebrew Old Testament Scriptures circulated widely wherever the people went, copies of those prophecy-free scrolls ought to be everywhere...

Show me the copies of those scrolls and you have some solid evidence.

No one desputes that the scrolls were ever prophecy free, what is desputed is that they were (with the exception of Jesus) written before the prophecies were fulfilled. The burden of proof is on you to find evidence that they were written before, evidence which has not been found.

In the case of Jesus and a few others, there is very little evidence that these prophecies were fulfilled as there is little evidence that Jesus existed, let alone did the things that the gospels said. There are no contemporary references to Jesus, the earliest mention of him was decades after he was said to have lived.

In answer to the original question:  NO.

In response to the off topic tangent about the gospel accounts of Jesus' life:  All anyone has to do is read the first chapters of Matthew and Luke to know that the gospels don't even agree on the events surrounding Jesus' birth and early childhood.  "Eyewitness accounts" my ars.

As already pointed out by Leolaia and Mrs. Jones,  42 is the Answer to the Ultimate Question of Life, the  Universe, and Everything.

Dave

Psychotic Parrot wrote: "No one desputes that the scrolls were ever prophecy free, what is desputed is that they were (with the exception of Jesus) written before the prophecies were fulfilled. "

So it is your personal belief that none of the Jewish Scriptures were penned until after all the prophecied events they contained had already happened in chronological history, which puts the penning of all the Jewish Scriptures at about 300 BC, 100 years after there were no more prophets in Israel. 

I actually admire that theory because it conveniently explains why there are no extant copies of prophecy-free Scriptures hanging around.  But, it is hard for me to envision that there were no written Jewish Scriptures from Moses to Nehemiah and no written prophecies of promised land, release from exile, or future Messiahs for them to cling to during that 1500 years.  What evidence do you present that there were no Jewish Scriptures until 300 BC?

I believe that the Bible is a cultural artifact of primitive Middle-Eastern tribes and their historical offshoots. It is a collection of shepherd's fables, recalled hallucinations and "dream-time" images, entirely a product of the human mind.

The best and most accurate prophecies were written AFTER the events they predicted took place.

For example, I can now prophesy that man named Jimmy Carter will be a President of the United States, et voila! I am correct! AMAZING!

If asked how I do it, I reply that I converse with invisible people. Wow! Is that impressive, or what? I am lying, of course, but you don't know that, because you want to believe.

Nathan Natas....There was a recent example of an ex eventu prophecy made by Scott Walkington.  He claimed that he had a prophetic revelation in March 2001 and that the message he received from Jesus dates to that time.  He claims that he accurately predicted 9/11, the Iraq War, and the death of Arafat in 2004, and he goes on to claim that the rapture would occur before Bush leaves office.  There is a video of Walkington at a church expounding on this prophecy from March 2001, which was posted on Youtube in December 2008 (causing quite a stir because it implied that Obama would never become President).  The end of Bush's tenure in office lay in the future and thus the last item is a genuine attempt at predicting the future; the rest for the most part are ex eventu claims aimed at establishing Walkington's credibility.  In the thread devoted to the video, I subjected it to a literary analysis and found reason to doubt that the video was in fact made in 2008 and had the current election in view.  Walkington's prediction about Arafat was partly wrong (he claimed that America would be blamed for Arafat's death, triggering WWIII), and no attempt is made in the video to harmonize this failure with history.  This indicated quite clearly to me that the video in fact was filmed in the autumn of 2004 during the Bush-Kerry election at a time when Arafat was dying and when it looked almost certain that Bush was going to lose to Kerry.  This means that Walkington was already a failed prophet in 2005 but he resurrected his prophecy in 2008 because he had another chance to have it come true with the Obama election (when it was certain that Bush was leaving office for good).  This is exactly the kind of phenomena we find with ex eventu prophecies where there is a rather sharp break between the prophecy's amazing accuracy and its stunning failure.

Walkington's video is found here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dR2XEeoK-A8

However after his prophecy's failure, he set the video to "private".  I wish I wrote a transcript of the whole thing, as it provides a valuable modern-day example of the phenomenon.

  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bible_prophecy
  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prophecy

Let's look at another messianic "prophecy" that EverAStudent cites:

Some of the prophecies that are pretty hard to account for except that they show the foreknowledge of God are: <snip> Messiah to be executed by crucifixion although Jews executed their own by stoning (Psalm 22:16, Zechariah 12:10, 13:6, John 20:25-29)

Psalm 22 does not say that it is predicting what will happen to the messiah. It is a lament poem describing what the author, putatively King David, was experiencing himself.  It was turned into a messianic prophecy when Christians, viewing Jesus as the "Son of David", turned to all the Davidic psalms as source material on the life of Jesus, particularly the passages concerning (or which could be construed as concerning) David's trial at the hands of Ahithophel.  As such, new meaning is inevitably read back into the source texts.  For instance, there is nothing in Psalm 22:16 that of itself concerns capital punishment or crucifixion per se.  It doesn't say that the messiah would be crucified.  The text has to be read with this already in mind and with the subject ("me") already referring to the messiah for such a reading to be possible.  Taken on its own terms, Psalm 22 is very much akin to what is in Job which unlike Psalms was not exploited as a source of OT "prophecy" because it does not have "Davidic" credentials.  More specifically, the content in Psalm 22 is closely paralleled by similar poems in Babylonian literature, such as the Ludlul Bel Nemeqi.  Compare: "My brother became my foe, my comrade beame a malignant demon, ... they assembled their host, together they came upon me ... My flesh was a shackle, my arms being useless, my person was a fetter, my feet having given way ... From writhing my joints were separated, my limbs were splayed and thrust apart .... Marduk, he restored me! He smote the hand of my smiter ... It was Marduk who put a muzzle on the mouth of the lion that was devouring me, Marduk took away the sling of my pursuer and deflected his slingstone".  Psalm 22 is essentially a Hebrew attempt at this kind of text; it doesn't in any way present itself as a prophecy of the future.

The text in v. 16 is also highly difficult and likely corrupt.  The MT has two variants in the verse: k-'ry "like a lion" and k'rw, which is uninterpretable.  The dominant MT reading (found also in Symmachus) yields the following: "Dogs have surrounded me, a band of evil men has encircled me, like a lion my hands and my feet".  This reading is awkward and likely wrong since the third clause lacks a verb (the Aramaic Targum supplies the missing verb "they bite" in order to improve the wording of the text).  Or the three lines could be reparsed such that the verse is a bicolon (e.g. "As dogs a band of evil men has surrounded me, like a lion they encircle my hands and feet").  The spelling of 'ry "lion" is also at variance with 'ryh elsewhere in the same poem (v. 14, 22), suggesting that "lion" is not correct in v. 16.  It is possible then that k'rw is older than k'ry and the latter was one solution influenced by the other references to lions in the poem.  What makes k'rw uninterpretable is that no such root k'r exists in biblical Hebrew.  The LXX interprets k'rw as deriving from the root krh or kwr "to dig", which is probably not correct (as there is an extraneous aleph).  The LXX version of the verse thus states that "they dug my hands and my feet".  This is the genesis of the "they pierced my hands and my feet" translation, which is biased by Christian crucifixion imagery, as "pierced" better fits the image of metal nails than "dug", but the correct translation of the Greek (and of krh, the root that the LXX supposes) is indeed "dug".  The Old Latin versions use foderunt "they dug" as well (cf. Tertullian, Cyprian, Lactantius, Augustine, and Cassiodorus).  The imagery in the LXX is not that of crucifixion but of a pack of dogs "digging" at the poet's hands and feet, clawing and biting at his limbs as he's fending them off.  This image is reinforced by v. 20 in which the poet begs for salvation "from the paw/hand of the dog (m-yd klb)".  Another possibility is that k'rw is either a corruption of kwrw "they bound, wrapped with cloth" (unattested in Hebrew but there is an Arabic root kwr "to wrap cloth around a body part, like a turban") or a double corruption of 'srw "they bound" (as in 1QH 5:37-38, which occurs in a similar poetic lament).  Either of these is suggested by a third translation option (alongside "like a lion" and "they dug") in the ancient versions; Aquila's Greek version has epedésan "they have bound" in Psalm 22:16 and Jerome has Latin vinxerunt "they have bound" in his Psalterium Iuxta Hebraeos.  If kwr existed as a Hebrew root which subsequently dropped out of the language (resulting in the confusion between versions), then the image is that of the hands being bound together with cloth (as fetters), and the same with the feet.  But there is another fourth option that should also be considered.  The root may well be Aramaic k'r "they soiled, marred" (= Hebrew k`r), which is precisely the correct philological form and thus it is possible that we have an Aramaism here.  But this reading has no versional support like the others.  So in the end, the meaning of Psalm 22:16 is very uncertain but in neither of the translation options is "crucifixion" really inherent in the text.  Briggs' commentary of the Psalms accepts the LXX reading "they dig into my hands and feet", and notes that this refers to "the dogs with their teeth ... The extremities are first gnawed by the dogs.  This is the translation best sustained by the Vrss. and the context.  EV 'pierce' is not justified by the Hebrew word, and was due to a desire for a specific reference to the crucifixion" (Vol. 2, p. 196).

And what about Zechariah 12:10?  This is another very difficult and textually uncertain passage.  It occurs in an oracle that is parallel in many ways with the "Gog and Magog" oracle in Ezekiel 38-39, which envisions Jerusalem surrounded by all the nations of the earth rising up against the city, but with Yahweh spreading his tent of protection over the city and the clans of Judah like a torch "will consume the peoples round them to right and left" (v. 2-7).  The scene is thus that of war and one in which the Jews successfully battled the foreigners besieging Jerusalem (such is the kind of text that encouraged the Zealots to fight against the Romans in AD 66-70).  Yahweh promises that "I shall set myself to destroy all the nations who advance against Jerusalem", and with foreign domination ended, the House of David is restored on the throne of Jerusalem (v. 8-9).  Once Davidic rulership is restored, Yahweh bestows on the House of David a spirit of kindness and prayer (v. 10).  And here we come to the difficult passage that is cited as a messianic prooftext pertaining to the crucifixion of Jesus in the NT.  But even without considering it, it is already apparent that the situation in Zechariah 12 is quite different than the circumstances of Jesus' passion.  Jesus was not crucified at a time of war — a war in which the Gentiles besieging Jerusalem are utterly annihilated.  This is parallel to the annihilation of Gog's armies "on the day Gog attacks the land of Israel" in Ezekiel 38:18-23 and 39:1-16. When the Jews receive the spirit of kindness, they begin to mourn and weep on account of a stabbed individual or individuals (v. 10).  The author of John takes this figure to be Jesus on the cross, as he was mourned by his disciples.

What makes Zechariah 12:10 so difficult is that its Hebrew syntax can be parsed and understood in a myriad of ways, resulting in quite a few different renderings in the Greek versions.  The best discussion of the complexities involved in the text of this verse can be found in M. J. J. Menken's Old Testament Quotations in the Fourth Gospel: Studies in Textual Form (1996), pp. 168-178.  One common way of translating the MT as it was vocalized by the Masoretes is "They will look on me (hbytw 'ly) whom they have stabbed through ('t 'shr-dqrw)".  The version closest to this reading is that of Theodotion, which survives in two variant forms: "They shall look on me (epiblepsontai pros me) whom they have pierced (hon exekentésen)" and "They shall look on me, to whom they have pierced (eis hon exekentésen)".  The Latin Vulgate understands the verse similarly: "They will look to me (aspicient ad me) whom they have pierced (quem confixerunt)". This reading however is exegetically difficult because there is nothing elsewhere in the text about the Jews piercing God; even worse is the fact that reference switches in the next main clause from the first person to the third.  The author of the gospel of John read the text differently.  He vocalized 'ly as 'eley (poetic form of the preposition "to") instead of the Masoretic 'elay "on me" (a minority of MT MSS, incidentally, vocalize 'ly as 'eley), and translated 'eley with the Greek preposition eis: "They will look (opsontai) to the one whom they pierced (eis hon exekentésen)".  The second Theodotionic variant thus appears to be a compromise between these two readings. The Johannine version no longer has gaze directed at God per se, and it lacks the problem of pronoun reference shifting from the first to the third person.  Aside from the ambiguity with 'ly, the grammatical phrase 't 'shr is also problematic.  The above translations take it in its usual sense as heading an accusative relative clause.  But 't "with" can function outside the relative clause as setting up a double object construction.  The translation of Aquila understands the text in this sense, "They will look on me with the one whom they pierced (sun hó exekenteesan)".  Here 't is rendered with sun "with", sharply distinguishing "the one whom they pierced" from God.  Contrary to how the author of John understands the scripture, the pierced one is not the object of gaze in Aquila; the pierced one rather is accompanying those who are gazing at God.  Yet another way of understanding the Hebrew can be found in the LXX.  The wording is quite unusual at first glance because of how the second verb is represented: "They shall look to me (epiblepsontai pros me) because they have danced triumphantly (anth' hón katórkhesanto)".  The dancing actually makes sense in the context of the chapter because v. 10 follows the depiction of Jewish victory over their enemies, but there is actually a textual corruption in the Vorlage or the translator misread the verb; here dqrw is misread as rqdw "they have danced".  If we substitute the correct verb, the sense is rather: "They shall look to me because they have pierced [others] (anth' hón exekentésen)".  This also makes very good sense of the context because this follows the slaughtering of the nations by the "clans of Judah" (v. 6), and the people look to their God and mourn those they killed like their own children.  The LXX anth' hón "because" (which occurs frequently as a causal conjunction in the LXX, cf. Genesis 22:18 LXX, 26:5 LXX, Leviticus 26:43 LXX, Numbers 25:13 LXX, etc.) takes 't as an accusative of limitation (see Joüon, 126g), analogous to how it is used in Exodus 6:3 ("you shall circumcise yourselves in respect of ['t] the flesh of your foreskin"), 1 Kings 15:23 ("he was ill as to ['t] his feet"), and elsewhere. A. S. van der Woude thus translates the Hebrew in his critical commentary as "They shall look on me on account of the one whom they have pierced".  The JPS version reads "They shall look unto me because they have thrust him through," the Judaica Press translation reads "They shall look to me because of those who have been thrust through", and the ArtScroll version reads "They will look toward me because of those whom they have stabbed". The text is ambiguous as to whether the figure is an individual or a collective and the use of the singular pronoun in the rest of the verse is not decisive since the singular and plural are both used with collective entities (cf. Hosea 11:1-2).  The simplest way of expressing this in English is: "They shall look to me on account of whom they stabbed" (here there is no commital on whether the stabbees are singular or plural). 

The text is difficult and there is a good deal of disagreement about which reading best represents what the author intended.  But the reference to stabbing (dqr) is likely connected to the war described in the preceding verses.  Normally dqr refers to the through-and-through stabbing of a person by a sword or other weapon in battle (Numbers 25:8, Judges 9:54, 1 Samuel 31:4, Isaiah 13:15, Jeremiah 37:10, 51:4, etc.).  This is quite different from the poking of Jesus' side with a spear in a non-martial context as described in John 19:17.  The passage in Zechariah 12:10 also may have mortal stabbing in battle in view because the very next verse (v. 11) compares the mourning of the pierced to the mourning at Hadad-Rimmon on the plain of Megiddo, likely where Josiah was killed in battle (2 Kings 23:28-30, 2 Chronicles 35:20-27).  The link with Josiah suggests that a single kingly, messianic figure may be in view here, as there is indeed such a figure in 9:9-10.  Later rabbinical interpretation of the verse took this approach, viewing the Messiah ben Ephraim as the lesser messianic figure who dies in advance of the larger Messiah.  But nowhere does the messianic figure of 9:9-10 reappear in the battle described in ch. 12, and there is no mention of such a figure dying, whether in battle (which is wholly inconsistent with v. 8), much less stabbed by his own people.  The stabbing is only mentioned obscurely in retrospect.  The context imo better supports a reading that interprets the stabbing as pertaining to those killed in battle in v. 6; it would be unusual to mourn for one's enemies which explains why it specifically results from the bestowal of the "spirit of kindness" from God.  In support of this reading is the very detailed way in which the mourning is depicted as occurring "clan by clan" within Judah; in v. 12-14, the word mshpchwt "clan" occurs an astonishing 9 times.  This emphasis on each and every clan involved in the mourning has its antecedent in v. 6: "When that day comes I will make the clans ('lp, another word for "clan") of Judah like a brazier burning in a pile of wood, like a flaming torch in stubble, and they will consume the peoples round them to right and left".  In any case, the verse is open to quite a few different interpretations and in no sense requires the application that John gives to it.

Maybe someone can comment on this info.Leolaia, maybe?

http://www.jehovahs-witness.net/jw/friends/183723/1/The-role-of-the-New-Testament-authors-in-shaping-the-character-of-Jesus-Christ-into-their-vision-of-the-Jewish-messiah

Dear Leolaia, thank you for your in depth interpretation: The text in v. 16 is also highly difficult and likely corrupt.  The MT has two variants in the verse: k-'ry "like a lion" and k'rw , which is uninterpretable.  The dominant MT reading (found also in Symmachus ) yields the following: "Dogs have surrounded me, a band of evil men has encircled me, like a lion my hands and my feet".  This reading is awkward and likely wrong since the third clause lacks a verb (the Aramaic Targum supplies the missing verb "they bite" in order to improve the wording of the text).  Or the three lines could be reparsed such that the verse is a bicolon (e.g. "As dogs a band of evil men has surrounded me, like a lion they encircle my hands and feet").  The spelling of 'ry "lion" is also at variance with 'ryh elsewhere in the same poem (v. 14, 22), suggesting that "lion" is not correct in v. 16.  It is possible then that k'rw is older than k'ry and the latter was one solution influenced by the other references to lions in the poem.  What makes k'rw uninterpretable is that no such root k'r exists in biblical Hebrew.  The LXX interprets k'rw as deriving from the root krh or kwr "to dig", which is probably not correct (as there is an extraneous aleph ).  The LXX version of the verse thus states that "they dug my hands and my feet".  This is the genesis of the "they pierced my hands and my feet" translation, which is biased by Christian crucifixion imagery, as "pierced" better fits the image of metal nails than "dug", but the correct translation of the Greek (and of krh , the root that the LXX supposes) is indeed "dug".  The Old Latin versions use foderunt "they dug" as well (cf. Tertullian, Cyprian, Lactantius, Augustine , and Cassiodorus ).  The imagery in the LXX is not that of crucifixion but of a pack of dogs "digging" at the poet's hands and feet, clawing and biting at his limbs as he's fending them off.  This image is reinforced by v. 20 in which the poet begs for salvation "from the paw/hand of the dog (m-yd klb )".  Another possibility is that k'rw is either a corruption of kwrw "they bound, wrapped with cloth" (unattested in Hebrew but there is an Arabic root kwr "to wrap cloth around a body part, like a turban") or a double corruption of 'srw "they bound" (as in 1QH 5:37-38 , which occurs in a similar poetic lament).  Either of these is suggested by a third translation option (alongside "like a lion" and "they dug") in the ancient versions; Aquila 's Greek version has epedésan "they have bound" in Psalm 22:16 and Jerome has Latin vinxerunt "they have bound" in his Psalterium Iuxta Hebraeos .  If kwr existed as a Hebrew root which subsequently dropped out of the language (resulting in the confusion between versions), then the image is that of the hands being bound together with cloth (as fetters), and the same with the feet.  But there is another fourth option that should also be considered.  The root may well be Aramaic k'r "they soiled, marred" (= Hebrew k`r ), which is precisely the correct philological form and thus it is possible that we have an Aramaism here.  But this reading has no versional support like the others.  So in the end, the meaning of Psalm 22:16 is very uncertain but in neither of the translation options is "crucifixion" really inherent in the text.  Briggs' commentary of the Psalms accepts the LXX reading "they dig into my hands and feet", and notes that this refers to "the dogs with their teeth ... The extremities are first gnawed by the dogs.  This is the translation best sustained by the Vrss. and the context.  EV 'pierce' is not justified by the Hebrew word, and was due to a desire for a specific reference to the crucifixion" (Vol. 2, p. 196).

I perceive that you are personally distressed to see any passage as a Messianic prophecy unless the prophet says something like: "Here is a future-telling Messianic prophecy."  You are not the first to be critical of the style in which prohecy has been transmitted.  Merely because the style and wording do not match your personal comfort zone or stylistic demands does not invalidate the twin fulfillment of the prophecy, one in David and one in Jesus.

Your critique how the word k'rw must refer to a dog's diggining into the flesh with his teeth is very impressive.  Of course I accept that this is exactly what the author of Psalm 22 meant.  Equally obvious is that the Psalmist did not mean that actual dogs were piercing his hands and feet, but dogs was a metaphor for the men who were doing so.  So these evil men (dogs) were digging into his flesh.  How and why?  We are not aware that David was actually wounded in battle by sword or spear, so how can these evil men (these dogs) be digging into his hands and feet, piercing them with their teeth?

Further, whenever did evil men gamble for David's clothing (Psalm 22:17)?  If David is not here referring to his own personal experience, then whose experience is he lamenting?  Was David inspired to write beyond his own difficulties and incorporate a prediction of the coming Messiah, a product of his own bloodline? 

One more indication that this is the nature of Messianic prophecy.  Consider that nowhere in the Old Testament (the Jewish Scriptures) does it ever say that the tabernacle or temple are types (prophecies) of Christ.  Yet the typeology and symbolism of every element of the tabernacle/temple and the Passover only match Jesus and His sacrifice.  The skeptic will rely on "coincidence" or an accusation of clever gospel writers (which is inevitably meant to imply that the clever writers invented/lied about the details of Jesus' life so as to ensure they matched the tabernacle/temple type) to explain away the prophetic nature of the Passover/temple/tabernacle.

Why can you not accept that the gospel writers may not have been truthful? You've no reason to trust them.

Honestly, I detect no "personal distress" in any of the posts made by Leolaia.  All I read is a knowledgeable and direct examination of the actual evidence.  I can imagine that such examination may cause "personal distress" to believers who are confronted  with the possibility that their belief system has been built upon an elaborate fiction.

The skeptic will rely on "coincidence" or an accusation of clever gospel writers (which is inevitably meant to imply that the clever writers invented/lied about the details of Jesus' life so as to ensure they matched the tabernacle/temple type) to explain away the prophetic nature of the Passover/temple/tabernacle.

Let me refer once  again to the events surrounding Jesus birth and childhood.  Since both "Matthew" and "Luke" claim that prophecies were fulfilled in the birth and early childhood of Jesus,  why do their stories differ on so many counts.  For one example:  Did Jesus and his parents go to Egypt or Nazareth?

So, are the  narratives of Jesus' birth just pious fictions compiled by "clever gospel writers"?

  Belief in a possible God beyond the known proven stuff is a faith and subjec-
tive matter.  The ones who try to prove He is or isn't (including with scrip-
tures) miss the point--they have more in common than they seem to realize.  If
you want to have the faith, you can interpret the verses (followers found new
meanings in verses as prophecy verses about Jesus, etc.) to suit it with no more
distress than if you love a song but can't prove anyone else has to feel the
same.

  The Egypt/Nazareth one:
  http://www.danofisrael.com/id84.html

  For things like that, search with Google.  You'll probably find explanations
like that.

I perceive that you are personally distressed to see any passage as a Messianic prophecy unless the prophet says something like: "Here is a future-telling Messianic prophecy."

Why should I appear "personally distressed" to you?  My post was aimed at giving a detailed consideration of the texts you cited as "pretty hard to account for except that they show the foreknowledge of God", as prophecies that the OP requests "that indisputably came true".  What I wanted to show is that the messianic application of these two texts is hardly "indisputable" and the texts themselves do not show that they were indeed written with divine foreknowledge.  We all know how easy it is to read a prophetic application into the text; we see the Society do it all the time (the trumpet blasts of Revelation really corresponding to Bible Student conventions in the 1920s, anyone?).  We reguarly read in the Watchtower examples of ordinary stories of the OT which have no prophetic pretensions whatsoever turned into "prophetic dramas" foretelling the "earthly organization" and the "faithful and discreet slave class".  So in order to find an example of an OT prophecy that is really "indisputable" and "shows divine foreknowledge", you really have to rule out this kind of interpretation creating a prophecy where none exists.  As I said the other day, there are two ways a prophecy may come into existence "after the fact".  One is that the author is writing after the event; these kind of prophecies are probably in the minority.  What is far more common is that a non-prophetic text is made into one by the interpreter "after the fact" (or a prophecy is reconfigured into a different kind of prophecy), such that the prophecy of the trumpet blasts in Revelation is now construed as really "about" the JW conventions all along. Now remember what I said about the burden of proof.  All the examples you cited are neatly explained, or imo better explained, by the thesis of the NT writer drawing on the OT in composing his gospel narrative.  So in order to truly demonstrate that a prophecy reflects divine foreknowledge, you are going to have to find better examples than that.  In the case of a messianic prophecy, it going to have to be one in which the messianic import is exegetically explicit in the text (i.e. not read into it), the meaning of the source text is not muddied by textual corruption, grammatical or conceptual ambiguities (i.e. the meaning is clear and represents a natural rather than forced reading of the text), the fulfillment naturally conforms to the plot and scenario of the original (i.e. the application does not match a single motif while ignoring the rest of the prophecy), the prophecy has to be unusual in some respect (i.e. not pertaining to a common phenomenon or propensity), the fulfillment has to be independently attested as an actual event, and the fulfillment occurs beyond the control of the messianic figure (i.e. he cannot attempt to make the prophecy come true of his own accord).  An example that meets all these criteria would be far more credible as a "messianic prophecy" than those you cited.

Merely because the style and wording do not match your personal comfort zone or stylistic demands does not invalidate the twin fulfillment of the prophecy, one in David and one in Jesus.

It's not about comfort zone; it's about whether the prophecy is "really there" in the text.  You are presuming what you want to prove; you are reading the text with a messianic lens, so it will be a messianic prophecy to you.

Equally obvious is that the Psalmist did not mean that actual dogs were piercing his hands and feet, but dogs was a metaphor for the men who were doing so.  So these evil men (dogs) were digging into his flesh.  How and why?  We are not aware that David was actually wounded in battle by sword or spear, so how can these evil men (these dogs) be digging into his hands and feet, piercing them with their teeth?

Of course it is a metaphor, that is exactly what you find in that kind of poetic literature.  The same kind of imagery is found in the Babylonian parallel, e.g. "Marduk saved me from the lion's mouth" (= Psalm 22:21).  The metaphor pertains to how the righteous sufferer is pained and injured by those who persecute him.  Or was David mauled by cannabalistic fiends?  The metaphor is just that....it doesn't require "David" to have literally been injured by sword or spear.

Further, whenever did evil men gamble for David's clothing (Psalm 22:17)?  If David is not here referring to his own personal experience, then whose experience is he lamenting?

You are taking the metaphors far too literally.  These lament poems usually exaggerate the situation into the most extreme utmost despair to give the poem its emotional impact.  Neither did "David" drown and sink to the depths of the waters, as in the other lament poem in Psalm 69.  Does this mean that if David didn't experience drowning, then someone else (the Messiah?) would drown in a lake or sea?  Maybe Jesus' attempt at walking on water wasn't all that successful?  I can cite many other examples from the Qumran Thanksgiving Hymns (1QHoyadot) in which the author describes God saving him from all sorts of dire peril that are all metaphorical.

One more indication that this is the nature of Messianic prophecy.  Consider that nowhere in the Old Testament (the Jewish Scriptures) does it ever say that the tabernacle or temple are types (prophecies) of Christ.  Yet the typeology and symbolism of every element of the tabernacle/temple and the Passover only match Jesus and His sacrifice.

Every element?  Really?  Not even the writers of the NT went that far.

The skeptic will rely on "coincidence" or an accusation of clever gospel writers (which is inevitably meant to imply that the clever writers invented/lied about the details of Jesus' life so as to ensure they matched the tabernacle/temple type) to explain away the prophetic nature of the Passover/temple/tabernacle.

When you say that skeptics "explain away the prophetic nature of the Passover/temple/tabernacle," you are already presuming what has yet to be demonstrated, without giving the alternative explanation due consideration.  The alternative explanation accounts for the same similarities with the OT, it is a simpler explanation (it does not involve supernatural foreknowledge), and it is well-motivated (the gospel writers were interested in explaining the meaning of Jesus life and death).  What makes your explanation inherently better than the one you dismiss? 

It also doesn't require that all the details of Jesus' life were "invented", but certainly some.  Although you don't believe it is possible that details of the gospel narratives could be invented through examination of the OT, would you then agree that the story about Judas Iscariot swelling up to a huge bloated mass, with his eyes sunken into his flesh and with worms investing his genitals, is indeed a historical truth?  That is what Papias in the early second century AD reported, drawing on what he learned from those who knew the apostles.  Now, one may be inclined to dismiss this story as a legendary expansion of the Judas story, but not so fast!  It's all a fulfillment of Bible prophecy.  Psalm 69 is another lament poem that was exploited for messianic prophecies in the NT, and the persecutor of the subject of the poem was identified with Judas by the gospel writers, such that the author of Luke regarded v. 25 ("Let his habitation be desolate") as fulfilled by Judas in Acts 1:20.  This same verse was applied to Judas in Papias, for his bloated mass was so repulsive and disgusting that when he died the stench was so great that "the area is deserted and uninhabitable even now".  All the other disgusting details "fulfill" other verses of Psalm 69 and 109 (the latter psalm is also applied to Judas in Acts 1:20, "Let another replace his leadership" quotes from Psalm 109:8).  The bloating up of Judas fulfills Psalm 109:17-18 LXX ("He has dressed himself up in curses like a cloak, and it entered him like water into his insides").  The bloated flesh covering up his eyes fulfills Psalm 69:23 LXX ("May their eyes be darkened and go blind") and the worms infesting his genitals fulfills the next line in the same verse ("Make their loins quiver continually").  So there you have it — another messianic prophecy about what would happen to Jesus' betrayer!  Or, it is simply that Christians turned to the OT to come up with details about what happened to Jesus and those associated with him?  That is merely an extension of the same process of biblical interpretation and storytelling that the "skeptics" believe occurred in the writing of the gospels.

Finally, why assume that such writers were necessarily "lying"?  If the gospel writers regarded themselves as inspired by God to write and interpret the story of Jesus, why shouldn't have they turned to what they believed to be the most reliable witness of all, the inspired Word?  They may well have found the OT more trustworthy than any human witness.

Psychotic Parrot wrote: “Why can you not accept that the gospel writers may not have been truthful? You've no reason to trust them.”

Excellent question.  The skeptic in me does question whether they were truthful, just as my inner skeptic repeatedly questioned the veracity of Moses’ accounts of his own encounters with God.  I have read many contemporary writings of those who dismiss the gospel writers as having invented those elements of Jesus’ life which would match both the Old Testament predictions and the descriptions of the Messiah, effectively using subterfuge to turn Jesus into a Messiah.  In short, their writing is assumed to lack the integrity of accuracy (and we can throw Peter and Paul into that mix for the letters they wrote that recap the same messages as the gospel stories).

However, little concrete evidence is available to show that these men invented the details of Jesus’ life.  Most usual in the books and articles I have read repudiating the accuracy of the gospels is the argument that since supernatural prophecies are impossible the only “realistic” or "academically honest" explanation is that the evangelists pre-dated their material and invented “facts” that never occurred.  In short, they all collaborated to produce a massive (and successful) conspiracy to which they all prematurely surrendered their lives.

The conspiracy they are accused of inventing is to confirm Judaism’s monotheistic Messianic leanings and instituting a “next” wave off of Judaism that highly values honesty, morality, charity, and the gracious forgiveness of sins. 

Decades of reading have left my choice obvious.  Though I naturally distrust any claim of supernaturalism, the biblical supernatural explanation is simply more consistently credible to me than the unproven accusations that each and every participant cooperated in the same lie over the course of 3500 years for the goal of converting others to morality, love, and forgiveness. 

What did those who accuse the gospel writers of deception want me to convert to?  Humanism, atheism, and the fluid ethics of pragmatism. 

Until concrete evidence becomes available to dissuade me, my faith lies in the Christ of the Bible.

Leolaia wrote: “It also doesn't require that all the details of Jesus' life were ‘invented’, but certainly some. … Finally, why assume that such writers were necessarily "lying"? 

Interesting perspective.  They invented “facts” that never happened, but they were not liars because they were merely generating piously inspired fiction?  Fiction entertains, lies deceive.  I seriously doubt the gospel writers’ main interest was to entertain.  Therefore, any invention of “facts” is a lie. 

Perhaps, to destroy all of Christianity, all one has to do is find concrete and compelling evidence (not subjective allegations) that the gospel writers lied, no?