Not familiar with this Russel guy so whatever.
Interesting that you would include Jonah in the list of Prophets, then say that only 100% accuracy is acceptable. Jonah went to Nineveh and said "Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown". No caviets, no outs. Just that it would happen. Nineveh repented and God saved the city, nullifying Jonah's prophecy. Jonah wasn't happy.
Ezekiel prophesied that Tyre would be plundered by the Babylonians. Part of the prophecy also said Tyre would never be rebuilt and exist no more. The Babylonians tried, failed, and the plundering Babylonian plundering didn't happen. Tyre Again a prophet that by your standards must have 100% accuracy.
And then there is Jesus Himself saying "This generation shall not pass, till all these things be fulfilled" that didn't happen.
100% accuracy to be a true prophet? Really?
but they each batted ZERO on all prophecies of consequence or meaning.
Zero accuracy for Joseph Smith? Sure about that? I'll admit that I don't have an exact count of how many prophecies Smith made in order to calculate his accuracy, but just with the LDS migration to the Rockies, LDS flourishing in the Rockies, the church reaching to all nations and tongues, I would say without any doubt that Joseph Smith was definitely not batting zero.
The standard is pretty strict - any failed prophecy makes him a false prophet by biblical standard
Deuteronomy 18:20-22.
"But the prophet, which shall presume to speak a word in my name, which I have not commanded him to speak, or that shall speak in the name of other gods, even that prophet shall die. And if thou say in thine heart, How shall we know the word which the LORD hath not spoken? When a prophet speaketh in the name of the LORD, if the thing follow not, nor come to pass, that [is] the thing which the LORD hath not spoken, [but] the prophet hath spoken it presumptuously: thou shalt not be afraid of him."
You are factually incorrect in asserting there were no caveats given in Jonah’s addressing the Ninevites. THey were told that if they humbled themselves from the greatest to the lowest and sincerely repented that they might be spared.
I don’t know about you, but if a guy comes walking up from the seashore bleached by gastric juices, clothes in tatters, smelling like whale barf...pointing his finger and telling me “Repennnnnnnnnnt...!”
I’d repent in a hurry - as the people of Nineveh did. That was the most successful revival preached in the entire Old Testament!
It is also not correct to contend that my meaning was “No” prophecies” ever made by Smith came to pass
I argue “No prophecies of consequence...” and I stand one hundred percent by that.
“Prophecies” given concerning the growth of a church can serve (and have served) as imperatives for a church and its people to make certain they are fulfilled. Self-fulfilling prophecies that aggrandize the mormon church, or are highlighted in order to lend it undeserved credibility and status - simply are not prophecies, period. Prophecy in the Bible was always intended by the Holy Spirit to highlight the workings of G_d , to glorify his name. Predictions about the mormon church were not so intended, but were an outpouring of the egomania of Smith and his close associates
Even so, although the LDS organization has reached many nations and tongues, they have not reached “all” - and a great deal of what they have accomplished has been done “piggybacking” on real, proper Orthodox (protestant or catholic) Christianity and its name and fame.
They are doing that still today - offering copies of the KJV Bible, masquerading as being just like every other church (”We’re Christians too - we’re your neighbors...”), deceiving others and never telling the casual listener that the KJV they offer is the JST - Joseph Smith Translation (as if Smith had the ability, knowledge, or right to conduct a translation, or call himself a translator of anything whatsoever.)
Study the nature of what things constitute a prophecy or prediction of a future event, and you will find that narrows the field - regardles of whether Smith himself may have defined some of his own pronouncements as such, there is a certain lack of risk in some sorts of predictions.
It is one thing to look at Israel during Christ’s time and prophesy that Jerusalem would fall, and the Temple would be destroyed - even though they were under the thumb of Rome - and quite another to “predict” the same fate 45 years later when conditions were markedly different (Jerusalem fell in 79 AD to Titus).
Similarly, when there was so much religious freedom and general latitude on the American frontier -it was not a stretch to expect the church might make it beyond the Rocky Mountains.
Do you know that the Babylonian plundering of Tyre never happened?
Similarly, do you know of what Christ was speaking when He said “This generation shall not pass...”? Because I am absolutely certain of this - the Son of G_d had something specific in mind, and as sure as he is seated at the right hand of the Father, it will come to pass precisely as He spoke it.
It is not for you or I to question Christ in such manner - but for Him to question us.
A.A.C.
He wasn't 'happy' because he WANTED the Ninevites zapped!#2
#1. Jonah 3:2 "Go to the great city of Nineveh and proclaim to it the message I give you."
#2. Jonah 4
1. But Jonah was greatly displeased and became angry.
2. He prayed to the LORD, "O LORD, is this not what I said when I was still at home? That is why I was so quick to flee to Tarshish. I knew that you are a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger and abounding in love, a God who relents from sending calamity.