Ezekiel's Prophecy Failure Against Tyre

The following is from the *Errancy Discussion* list, May 21,

1997:

WALID says:
Dear reader,
I have promissed to respond to Mr. Till's arguments because some
muslims (comments : I told on mcd that I am an agnostic not Muslim) like
Adnan and others listen to his word twisting without examining the facts.
By ignorance he might take with him many muslims to a Christless eternity.

TILL
I'm afraid that we are all going to go to a "Christless eternity," but the
thought of that doesn't bother me. Before I was born, I was nothing and had
no awareness of anything, because I didn't exist. When I die, I will return
to what I was... nothing. What is so dreadful about that?

WALID
To me as a Christian that is not a joking matter at all. That's why I think
it is crucial to answer him on mcd. Worse than that, he mocks the God of
Israel. I will reveal his scripture twisting by God's help. My God is the
God of Israel, and not The God of this world who makes tricks like the
magicians of ancient Egypt.

Prophecy Fulfillment: An Unprovable Claim (1)

The following article is from *The Skeptical Review*, 1996 January/February:

by Farrell Till

Just a superficial reading of Dr. Ross's article about the application of probabilities to biblical prophecy fulfillment is enough to see that it is just another attempt to shore up a discredited apologetic argument. Biblical inerrantists have repeatedly tried to prove the divine origin of the Bible through various prophecy-fulfillment claims, but the truth is that no one has ever been able to verify a single example of biblical prophecy fulfillment. I have read many such attempts, and Dr. Ross's effort differs only in that it is, in my opinion, not nearly as good as some I have seen.

What is really ludicrous about Dr. Ross's article is his arbitrary probability figures. They are reminiscent of the ridiculous probability arguments that creationists bandy about to "prove" that life could not have happened without divine creation. Before anyone can determine the probability of any event, he must know all of the factors that would be involved in the occurrence of the event, and this is where the absurdities begin in most creationist and prophecy-fulfillment probability arguments. No one knows how many factors would be involved in the formation of life, and nobody knows how many factors would be involved in the occurrence of a specific event years in the future. Yet biblicists constantly yak about how the probability of such-and-such happening would be one in so many millions or billions or trillions. It's all too ridiculous to deserve serious comment, but because so many fundamentalists use such arguments to impress the gullible, we, unfortunately, have to comment on their "arguments" from time to time.

In order to prove--and I mean *prove*, not just surmise--prophecy fulfillment, one would have to establish four things: (1) the claimant of a prophecy fulfillment is properly interpreting whatever text he is basing his claim on, (2) the prophecy was made *before* and not after the event that allegedly fulfills the prophecy, (3) the prophecy was made not just *before* an event but far enough in advance of it to make educated guesswork impossible, and (4) the event that allegedly fulfilled the prophecy did in fact happen. When Dr. Ross's claims of prophecy fulfillment are examined in terms of these four characteristics of valid prophecy, we will see that none of his alleged prophecy fulfillments can pass muster.

New Testament Prophecy Failures

The following is an excerpt from "Prophecies: Imaginary and Unfulfilled", by Farrell Till:

NEW TESTAMENT FAILURES

Except for the book of Revelation, the New Testament isn't considered as prophetic as the Old Testament; nevertheless, one can still find examples of unfulfilled prophecies and broken promises in the New Testament.

All twelve apostles to be rewarded: When Peter asked Jesus what reward the apostles could expect for forsaking all to follow him Jesus said, "Assuredly I say to you, that in the regeneration, when the Son of Man sits on the throne of His glory, you who have followed Me will also sit on twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel" (Matt. 19:28). A lot of theological rhetoric has been expended on the meaning of "the regeneration." Did Jesus refer to the church era that began on the day of Pentecost when he would sit on the "spiritual" throne of David or did he have in mind a period that would follow his second coming? Regardless of the time period he was referring to, the passage poses a problem. How, for example, could Judas, who was one of the twelve at the time this was said, ever be permitted to sit on a throne in a judge's capacity? In another gospel account, Jesus himself called Judas the son of perdition (John 17:12). So will the "son of perdition" be awarded a throne to sit on during the regeneration? That hardly seems possible, because Jesus said at the last supper that it would have been better for Judas if he had not been born (Mark 14: 21). If he should be awarded a throne in Jesus's kingdom that would make this statement false, wouldn't it? How could it, in any sense, be said of a man elevated to such a position as this that it would have been better for him if he had never been born? Some Bible apologists argue that Jesus, omnisciently knowing that Matthias would be chosen to succeed Judas (Acts 1:23-26), said twelve thrones instead of eleven because of his intention to keep his apostolic crew in full force. If that is so, one might argue that he, omnisciently knowing that Saul of Tarsus would later be called into the apostleship as "one born out of due time" (1 Cor. 15:8), would have been more exact had he said thirteen thrones rather than twelve. Others insist that the number twelve should not be interpreted so literally, that this is just a case of the figure of speech known as ampliatio, the retention of a name or designation after the reason for the original designation has ceased to exist. In counterargument, however, the opposition has every right to ask if there will ever be an end to figurative and spiritual interpretations of scriptures that pose serious problems for the inerrancy doctrine. There were twelve apostles present when Jesus made this prophecy, so why should we not believe that he meant twelve?

Prophecies: Imaginary and Unfulfilled

The following is from the October-December, 1991 issue of *The Skeptical Review*. It is a thorough refutation of the claims of prophecy fulfillment in the Bible. (Be warned, it is equivalent in length to about 44 standard type-written pages):

by Farrell Till

Prophecy fulfillment is a popular argument that bibliolaters rely on in trying to prove the divine inspiration of the Bible. They claim that the Bible is filled with recorded events that prophets foretold years and even centuries before they happened. They argue that there is no way to explain how these predictions could have been so accurately made except to conclude that the Holy Spirit enabled the prophets who uttered them to see into the future. In prophecy fulfillment, then, they see evidence of God's direct involvement in the writing of the Bible.

A very simple flaw in the prophecy-fulfillment argument is that foreseeing the future doesn't necessarily prove divine guidance. Psychics have existed in every generation, and some of them have demonstrated amazing abilities to predict future events. Their "powers," although mystifying to those who witness them, are not usually considered divine in origin. If, then, Old Testament prophets did on occasions foresee the future (a questionable premise at best), perhaps they were merely the Nostradamuses and Edgar Cayces of their day. Why would it necessarily follow that they were divinely inspired? Even the Bible recognizes the possibility that uninspired prophets can sometimes accurately predict the future:

"If there arises among you a prophet or a dreamer of dreams, and he gives you a sign or a wonder, and the sign or wonder comes to pass, of which he spoke to you, saying, `Let us go after other gods'--which you have not known--`and let us serve them,' you shall not listen to the words of that prophet or that dreamer of dreams, for Yahweh your God is testing you to know whether you love Yahweh your God with all your heart and with all your soul" (Deut. 13:1-3, NKJV with Yahweh substituted for "the LORD").

By the Bible's own testimony, then, natural psychic ability could offer a perfectly sensible explanation for any example of prophecy that bibliolaters might cite in support of the inerrancy doctrine, but an unbiased contextual examination of the alleged prophecy will very likely uncover an even more rational explanation. Usually, Bible "prophecies" turn out to be prophecies only because imaginative Bible writers arbitrarily declared them to be prophecies. The same can be said of their alleged fulfillments: the fulfillments are fulfillments only because obviously biased New Testament writers arbitrarily declared them to be fulfillments.

Jesus Christ: Stunt Rider

The following is an excerpt from, *Prophecies: Imaginary And Unfulfilled* by Farrell Till:

As noted earlier, no event was too trivial for Matthew to see prophecy fulfillment in it, and one of his silliest prophecy-fulfillment claims concerned the so-called triumphal entry of Jesus into Jerusalem shortly before his betrayal and crucifixion. The story was related by all three synoptic-gospel writers, but Matthew's version differs significantly from Mark's and Luke's. Mark and Luke simply had Jesus riding into Jerusalem on a colt to the cheers and hosannas of the multitudes (Mark 11:1-10; Luke 19:28-40). Matthew, however, had to build it into a dramatic prophecy-fulfillment:

When they had come near Jerusalem and had reached Bethpage, at the Mount of Olives, then Jesus sent two disciples, saying to them, "Go into the village ahead of you, and immediately you will find a donkey tied, and a colt with her. Untie them and bring them to me. If anyone says anything to you, just say this, 'The Lord needs them.' And he will send them immediately." This took place to fulfill what had been spoken through the prophet, saying, "Tell the daughters of Zion, Look, your king is coming to you, humble, mounted on a donkey, and on a colt, the foal of a donkey."

The disciples went and did as Jesus had directed them; they brought the donkey and the colt, and put their cloaks on them, and he sat on them (21:1-7, NRSV). 

There are two conspicuous points of difference in Matthew's version of this event and Mark's and Luke's: (1) Matthew had Jesus riding BOTH a donkey and her colt; Mark and Luke had Jesus riding only a colt, and (2) Matthew saw it as fulfillment of a prophecy; Mark and Luke said nothing at all about prophecy fulfillment being involved.

I won't address the familiar fundamentalist "explanation" of the numerical inconsistency that says, "Well, if there were two donkeys, then there had to be one." Inerrantists invariably resort to this dodge to "explain" numerical discrepancies in the Bible. Did the gospel writers appear to disagree on the number of people who went to the tomb on the morning of the resurrection? Well, no problem! John simply chose to tell about one of them (Mary Magdalene); Matthew chose to tell about two (Mary Magdalene and the other Mary); Mark chose to tell about three (Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome). If, however, there were several who went, as Luke indicated, then there is no error, because if there were several, then there was one, exactly as John said, and there were two, exactly as Matthew said, etc. Although this argument apparently satisfies diehard fundamentalists who are going to believe in Bible inerrancy regardless of what evidence to the contrary may exist, it offers no sensible explanation as to why the omniscient, omnipotent Holy Spirit would inspire John to write an infallibly perfect account of the visit to the tomb that mentions only one person, but on different occasions the same omniscient, omnipotent Holy Spirit would inspire Matthew, Mark, and Luke to write infallibly perfect accounts of the same story that all differ in the matter of who went to the tomb. After the first "perfect" gospel story had been written, what could have been going through the Holy Spirit's mind on these subsequent occasions that made him decide that this point had to be changed, not just once but three times? That is a confusing matter, to say the least.

The Prophecy Farce

From *The Skeptical Review*, May/June 1998:

By Farrell Till 

What about all of the prophecy fulfillments? Biblicists almost always ask this question when their belief in biblical inerrancy is challenged. No doubt those who ask the question sincerely believe that prophecy fulfillment is irrefutable proof that the Bible was divinely inspired, but in reality the question reflects a naive view of the Bible for which no credible evidence exists. The "evidence" most often cited by prophecy-fulfillment proponents will usually fall into two categories: (1) Unverifiable claims by biased biblical writers that certain events fulfilled certain prophecies. (2) "Fulfillments" of prophecies that were probably written after the fact. Anyone can successfully refute prophecy-fulfillment assertions by simply demanding clear evidence when confronted with either category of claims. In other words, if a biblicist cites a New Testament claim that such and such event fulfilled such and such prophecy, simply insist on seeing reliable nonbiblical corroboration that the alleged fulfillment event actually happened. Herod's massacre of the children in Bethlehem would be an example of an uncorroborated event. The massacre allegedly fulfilled an Old Testament prophecy (Matt. 2:18), but no one has ever found an extrabiblical source that corroborates the lone biblical reference to this event. If corroborating evidence of a fulfillment event should exist, then demand evidence that the "prophecy" of this event was undeniably written before the event. In the debate over Jeremiah's 70-year prophecy, which resumes in this issue of TSR (pp. 4-11), the demand for clear, undeniable evidence that this prophecy was made before the fact has proven to be an insurmountable hurdle for Dr. Price, who has yet to produce extrabiblical corroboration of the prophecy.

Another--and even more effective-- counterargument to use against those who claim that prophecy fulfillment proves the inspiration of the Bible requires sufficient knowledge of the Bible to show that many Old Testament prophecies obviously failed. Anyone who is willing to put the time into learning just a few of those failures will have no problems rebutting the prophecy-fulfillment claims of any biblicists he/she may encounter. The prophetic tirades of Isaiah (13-23) and Ezekiel (24-32) against the nations surrounding Israel provide a treasure house of unfulfilled prophecies. Ezekiel, for example, prophesied that Nebuchadnezzar would destroy Egypt and leave it utterly desolate for a period of 40 years, during which no foot of man or beast would pass through it (chapter 29), but history recorded no such desolation of Egypt during or after the reign of Nebuchadnezzar.

The Jeremiah Dilemma

From  *The Skeptical Review*,  October-December, 1990:

By Farrell Till 

Before the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls, the oldest known manuscripts of the Old Testament dated from 895 A.D., a fact that raised significant questions about the integrity of the Masoretic text. Since tradition assigned the authorship of some Old Testament books to writers who lived as long ago as the 15th century B.C., faith in Bible inerrancy required one to believe that uninspired scribes had somehow copied these books for more than 2,000 years without infusing significant error into the texts. That being too much for some to accept, the inerrancy doctrine lost a lot of followers. Liberal minded Christians began to think of the Bible as a sacred book whose ideas had been divinely inspired but not necessarily the very words, not even the words in the long defunct "original autographs" that inerrancy spokesmen like to talk about.

Ezekiel's Prophecy About Egypt

In Ezekiel 29:8-21, Ezekiel prophesied that king Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon (c 634 – 562 BC) would destroy  Egypt and leave it utterly desolate for a period of 40 years, during which no foot of man or beast would pass through it. But history records no such desolation of Egypt during or after the reign of Nebuchadnezzar.

Ezekiel's Failures

by Farrell Till

(excerpted from Prophecies: Imaginary and Unfulfilled)

Possibly the most pessimistic of the Old Testament prophets, Ezekiel proclaimed impending doom upon everyone from Judah itself to the enemy nations surrounding it. The failure of his prophecies to materialize as he predicted makes a compelling argument against the Bible inerrancy doctrine. In one of his doom's-day prophecies, Egypt was to experience forty years of utter desolation:

Therefore, thus says Yahweh God: "Surely I will bring a sword upon you and cut off from you man and beast. And the land of Egypt shall become desolate and waste; then they will know that I am Yahweh, because he said, `The River is mine, and I have made it.' Indeed, therefore, I am against you and against your rivers, and I will make the land of Egypt utterly waste and desolate, from Migdol to Syene, as far as the border of Ethiopia. Neither foot of man shall pass through it nor foot of beast pass through it, and it shall be uninhabited forty years. I will make the land of Egypt desolate in the midst of the countries that are desolate; and among the cities that are laid waste, her cities shall be desolate forty years; and I will scatter the Egyptians among the nations and disperse them through the countries" (29:8-14).

Talk about extravagant rhetoric, we certainly have it in this passage. No such desolation has ever happened to Egypt; there never has been a time in recorded history when Egypt was not inhabited by man or beast for forty years, when its cities were laid waste and desolate, when its people were all dispersed to foreign lands, etc. Bible defenders, of course, resort quickly to figurative and future applications, but their strategy just won't work. Future fulfillments are excluded by patently clear references that Ezekiel made to contemporary characters who were to figure in the fulfillment: "Son of man, set your face against Pharaoh king of Egypt, and prophesy against him" (29:2). Although Egypt still survives as a nation, its rule by pharaohs ended long ago. Furthermore, Ezekiel identified Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, as the instrument Yahweh would use to bring about Egypt's desolation: "Therefore thus says Yahweh God: `Surely I will give the land of Egypt to Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon; he shall take away her wealth, carry off her spoil, and remove her pillage, and that will be the wages for his army'" (29:19). Clearly, then, Ezekiel had in mind a contemporary fulfillment of this prediction. As for spiritual or figurative explanations of the prophecy, just what events in Egyptian history were so catastrophic in the days of Nebuchadnezzar and the pharaohs that they could justifiably be considered a figurative desolation of forty years? Unless bibliolaters can identify such a catastrophe, their figurative interpretations must be regarded as just more attempts to sweep aside another embarrassing prophecy failure.

Raised On The Third Day In Accordance With The Scriptures?

This is another post from the Errancy Discussion list from June 14, 1997. After Magill, our Christian apologist, committed the logical fallacy of begging the question (i.e., in a debate, when one assumes that what he is arguing for is true without putting forth any evidence for it), Farrell Till, then gives an example of real argumentation:

MAGILL
Magill- Yes, would anyone want to have assurance and peace of
everlasting life in Christ Jesus? It's such a terrible thing to have
one's eternal destiny settled. It's such a horrific thing to know you
are going to live forever in a perfect body that will never again be
subject to corruption and mortality with all its hurts and pains. It's
such a tramatic experience to give one's life over to Jesus Christ
and have the shed blood of His sacrafice be personally applied to
my sin and atone for the penalty that I rightly deserve yet will never
receive because Christ has bore the penalty for me in my place.

"For the wages of sin is death but the gift of God is everlasting life
IN Christ Jesus." (Romans 6:23)

TILL
As usual Magill engages in question begging with no attempt at all
to offer reasonable supporting evidence for the questions he begs.
As I said in a posting yesterday, I don't intend to dignify postings
like this with responses. However, I will urge Magill again to make
a serious effort to debate logically. I'll even help get him started.

Long-time subscribers will recall that when he came onto the list, we
were discussing Jesus's prediction that he would be three days and
three nights in the heart of the earth and the contexts of what the
gospels  claimed about the length of his burial. Magill sent a posting
that accused us of stupidity and said something to the effect that
we need to study what the OT says about the Messiah's resurrection
on the third day.

In response to this, I challenged Magill to cite the OT scriptures that
refer to or in any way imply that the Messiah would die and be resurrected
on the third day. Magill, of course, was unable to supply the OT
references, because they simply don't exist. I pointed out that NT
writers clearly indicated in the following scriptures that the OT had

predicted a third-day resurrection of the Messiah:

Luke 24:45 Then he [Jesus] opened their minds to understand the
scriptures,
46 and he said to them, "Thus IT IS WRITTEN, that the Messiah is
to suffer and to rise from the dead on the third day....

I Corinthians 15:3 For I handed on to you as of first importance
what I in turn had received: that Christ died for our sins in 
accordance with the scriptures,
4 and that he was buried, and that he was raised on the third day
IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE SCRIPTURES....

Now here are two NT writers who clearly said that the OT said that
the Christ would rise from the dead on the third day. If skeptics are
as ignorant as Magill claims we are, then why doesn't he produce
the OT scriptures that Luke and Paul were referring to? That would
really expose our ignorance. Magill, however, hasn't produced these
scriptures for the simple reason that they do not exist. Anyway, I 
have  presented this challenge to him again, so let's wait and see 
if he can produce the OT scriptures that made a third-day 
resurrection claim.

Farrell Till

The Uniqueness Of The Bible

Farrell Till answers Josh McDowell's, "The Uniqueness of the Bible", link.

Pro-Supernatural Bias (2)

Part two (of two) of Farrell Till's rebuttal of Dr. James Price's response to Jim Lippard's article "The Fabulous Prophecies of the Messiah":

TILL

Contemporary records were also strangely silent about the earthquake at the time of Jesus's death, which allegedly shook open the graves of many saints who then went into the city and appeared unto many (Matt. 27:52-53).  Like the supernatural darkness at midday, word of such a remarkable event as this would surely have been spread through the region, if not the known world, so that references to it would have been left in contemporary records, but none exist.  The historian Seneca was born in 4 B.C., the same year that most New Testament scholars fix the time of Jesus's birth.  He and Pliny the Elder, another contemporary of Jesus, wrote detailed accounts of all of the known natural disasters and phenomena, past and present, earthquakes, floods, meteors, comets, eclipses, etc., but neither one mentioned either a three-hour darkness at midday or an earthquake that shook open tombs and resurrected "many" dead people.  In chapter 24 of *The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire,* Edward Gibbon refers to the silence of Seneca and Pliny on the midday darkness and accepts this as reason to believe that no such event ever happened.

The silence of Josephus about such remarkable events as these is also hard to imagine.  His father, Matthias, was a priest in Jerusalem at the very time that Jesus was allegedly crucified and resurrected (*The Life of Flavius Josephus,* 2:7-12), so we can hardly imagine Josephus's father witnessing such phenomenal events as the midday darkness and the resurrection of "many" saints and not talking about them in the family circle as Josephus was growing up.  Likewise, we can't imagine Josephus not referring to these events if his father had indeed mentioned them. Josephus mentioned several minor Messianic claimants, whom history has now all but forgotten, but he made only two short, disputed references to a Messiah whose life was accompanied by truly amazing events. There is argument from silence; there is argument from unreasonable silence, and it is unreasonable to think that really remarkable events like these could have happened without any contemporary references to them having survived.

Pro-Supernatural Bias (1)

This is part one of a rebuttal by Farrell Till of 

part  of Dr.  James Price's response to Jim 

Lippard's  article The Fabulous Prophecies of 

the Messiah. It, along with part two which will be posted later,is an excellent short summary 

of many of the problems with the "evidences" Christian apologists give for Christianity. 

Regrettably, I have not been able to find the 

rest of Till's rebuttal. All Christians need to 

read this--a classic by Mr. Till from 1996:

From: Farrell Till

Subject: For M. Dawud: Response to Price 

Mr. Dawud: 

You have asked me to reply to Dr. James Price's response to Jim Lippard's article "The Fabulous Prophecies of the Messiah," which Lippard had posted on his home page.  You wanted me to respond to it in *The Skeptical Review,* but Price's response totals 130k, and it would require more than two complete issues of TSR just to publish the text of Price's article.  Since his response consisted of many unsupported assertions, to adequately rebut many of his points, I would need much more space than he took to make the assertions.

This requirement is due to the obvious fact that assertions are generally brief but rebuttals of assertions require  detailed analysis and support. For that reason, I will not be publishing Dr. Price's response, because I would probably have to devote more than an entire year of publishing space in discussion of this one issue.

As a compromise, I intend to respond to Dr. Price via the internet.  I will have to do this in a series of replies that I can see taking at least a year to complete, because I do have many other demands on my time.  I will probably post these replies on my "Errancy" list, and I will send CCs to Dr. Price and people who have challenged me to debate him.  Dr. Price, of course, will be entitled to respond to any of my rebuttals, and I will also post them on the errancy list. 

GENERAL IMPRESSIONS: 

My general impression of Dr. Price's rebuttal article is not at all favorable.  It is slightly better than many attempts I have seen to prove biblical prophecy fulfillment, and it is certainly better than Dr. Hugh Ross's article on the subject that I published in the January/February 1996 issue of TSR and responded to in a series of three rebuttals.  This, however, is not saying very much, because Ross's article was, in my opinion, incredibly simplistic.  Price did at least try from time to time to present evidence to support his supposition rather than simply make bald assertions, and for that he is to be commended.  This compliment should not be construed to mean that Dr. Price did not at times make bald, unsupported assertions, because he certainly did, as I will be pointing out.  I am merely recognizing that some of his rebuttal arguments were accompanied by supporting information.

Prophecy Fulfillment And Probability

A very concise and accurate statement by Farrell Till concerning biblical prophecy. Excerpted from Prophecy Fulfillment And Probability, The Skeptical Review, 1993 / July-August:

...Mr. Dobbs alleged that the miracles of Jesus had been prophesied in Isaiah 53:4-5, his crucifixion in Psalms 22:16, his resurrection in Psalm 16:10, and his ascension in Psalm 68:18. Examination of these passages in context, however, reveal the same problem that Earle Beach and I discussed above relative to Jeremiah 31:15. The statements are notoriously obscure and become prophecies only through the arbitrary claims of the New Testament writers who lifted them out of context and applied them to situations that the original writers were not referring to. So there is no way that anyone can establish that these "prophecies" were originally intended to be prophecies. All we have is the mere unsubstantiated word of the New Testament claimants that they were meant to be prophecies, and that is not a good enough foundation to build a probability argument on.

Bible "Prophecies" Of Jesus Christ

It is claimed by fundamentalist Christian apologists that there are over 300 prophecies about Jesus Christ in the Old Testament that are fulfilled in the New Testament. One Church-of-Christ preacher even had this as his number one reason that one should consider the Bible the inspired word of God. But when one critically examines this extraordinary claim one finds that it, like all other miraculous claims by these fundamentalist Christian apologists, is all wishful thinking. The following post is taken from chapter 13 of Joseph Wheeless's, *Is It God's Word?*:

THE "PROPHECIES" OF JESUS CHRIST

The Miraculous "Virgin Birth" of Jesus

Matthew, whose gospel was written later, comes first in the order of gospels in our printed collections, for the reason that he gives a detailed "revelation" of the manner of miraculous conception and virgin birth of the Subject of his biography. He begins his book with the genealogy of Jesus, which we elsewhere take notice of. He then proceeds with inspired pen to record:

"Now the birth of Jesus Christ was on this wise: When as his mother Mary was espoused to Joseph, before they came together, she was found with child of the Holy Ghost. Then Joseph her husband, being a just man, not willing to make her a public example, was minded to put her away privily. But while he thought on these things, behold, the angel of Yahveh appeared unto him in a dream, saying, Joseph, thou son of David, fear not to take unto thee Mary thy wife: for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Ghost. And she shall bring forth a son, and thou shalt call his name JESUS: for he shall save his people from their sins." (Matt. i, 18-21)

The foregoing is pure fiction; here follows the crowning instance wherein "the false pen of the scribes hath wrought falsely":

"Now all this was done, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken of the Lord [Heb., Yahveh] by the prophet, saying, Behold, a virgin shall be with child, and shall bring forth a son, and they shall call his name Emmanuel, which being interpreted is, God with us."