u/Joseon2

I think it's fair to say the vast majority of Christians would accept that each prophecy in the Bible is correct and will come true, or has come true already. Also, that all the books of the Bible tell the truth and cannot be plain incorrect (very liberal Christians may disagree, so this isn't aimed at them).

With that accepted, I propose that Christianity contains an internal contradiction which works on Christianity's own terms: Ezekiel prophesies a restored jewish Israel with priests and animal sacrifices to atone for sins, something that cannot happen according to the core Christian belief that Jesus' sacrifice is the only atonement for sin and the old jewish ritual laws have been made obsolete.

Laying out the case:

1. During the jews' captivity in Babylon, Ezekiel prophecied God's plan with great detail, including: the jews' restoration to Israel, their priesthood restored (including animal sacrifices to atone for sins), God's people following ritual and dietary laws, a king from the family of David who will have descendents, a massive temple separate from the city of Jerusalem (described in detail), and the land divided fairly between the priests, the king, and the twelve tribes. Much of this is about restoring rules found in the Torah (Ezekiel 36-48; Exodus; Leviticus; Numbers)

2. This did not happen at the time. When the jews were allowed to return to their land by the Persians, their priesthood was reinstated and they built a temple, but it did not resemble Ezekiel's blueprint at all and was located in Jerusalem. There was no restoration of the kingship, nor a division of the land that remotely resembled what Ezekiel prophesied.

3. Therefore, as a true prophecy found in scripture, if this hasn't come true yet, it will in the future.

4. The New Testament teaches the following: Jesus is the prophesied king from the line of David, the jewish priesthood and its animal sacrifices were made defunct by his sacrifice, he is immortal and will be king forever, the new Jerusalem will be for Christians, ritual and dietary laws are abolished, and there will not be a physical temple - the true temple is in heaven and is equated with God's presence. (John 1:29; Romans 3:23-25, 4:25; Ephesians 5:2; Hebrews (throughout); 1 John 2:2; Revelation 21:22)

5. The above is not just the plain meaning of the New Testament but is the interpretation of all mainstream Christian denominations. (Some examples: Eastern Orthodoxy - John of Damascus, Exposition of the Orthodox Faith 4.11; Catholicism - Catechism of the Catholic Church 599-605; Lutheranism - Smalcald Articles II.1; Anglicanism & Presbyterianism - Westminster Confession VIII)

Therefore, in Christianity a true prophecy from Ezekiel directly contradicts the true statements in the New Testament. Christianity holds that both are true but both cannot be true, therefore Christianity contradicts itself and cannot be correct.

As a clear-cut example, the animal sacrifices laid out in the Torah are instructed to be carried out forever and atone for sins. Ezekiel says these will be restored in the new Jerusalem. The New Testament says they cannot atone for sins and are abolished (see below)

Some example contradictions:

Subject	Ezekiel	New Testament
Priesthood of the clan of Aaron	Lasts forever and will be restored (Exodus 28:43; Ezekiel 40:46)	Obsolete and will be abolished (Hebrews 7:12, 18-19, 23-24)
Animal sacrifices	Atone for sins, will be done forever, and will be restored (Ezekiel 43:7-27 with Leviticus 16:6-34)	Cannot atone for sins and are abolished (Hebrews 10:1-9)
The king's status	The king is not a priest and won't enter the inner temple, he offers animal sacrifices to atone for sins (Ezekiel 42:13-14, 45:8-11; 46:1-10)	Jesus is the priest-king and enters the heavenly inner temple (Hebrews 1:5-13; 6:19-20), his sacrifice abolishes the animal sacrifices (Hebrews 9:9-26)
The temple	There will be a new physical temple run by the jewish priests (Ezekiel 40-48; Zechariah 14; see also Mishnah, Middot 2)	There will be no physical temple (Revelation 21:22; Hebrews 3:1-6, 8:1-4)
Status of the uncircumcised	Barred from entering the new temple (Ezekiel 44:4-9)	Circumcision makes no difference (Galatians 5:6-12, 6:15), and all Christians have access to the heavenly temple (10:19-22)

Responses to common counter-arguments

1. The prophecy was conditional, it would only happen if the Jews obeyed God. (Some apologists even claim that most prophecies were conditional and conditionality should be assumed unless stated otherwise, e.g. InspiringPhilosophy).

Answer: God instructs Ezekiel to tell the prophecy to the Israelites so they will be ashamed, hear the plan of the temple, and will build it (Ezekiel 43:10-12). Examples of conditional prophecy in the Old Testament explicitly state they are conditional (Jeremiah 18:1-11; 26:1-6, 19; Deuteronomy 28; Jonah 3; 2 Kings 20:1-6), there is no such statement in Ezekiel. Also, even if it were a conditional prophecy, that means it was a possibility, and so the objection still stands: it was possible that everything prophecied by Ezekiel could happen, which would directly contradict Christianity, because in Christianity the things prophecied by Ezekiel are impossible due to Jesus' atonement was supposedly God's plan all along and is unchangeable (see Hebrews 6:13-20).

2. It's symbolic. It represents Jesus and the New Covenant.

Answer: This is the view of early Christians like Jerome and Gregory the Great. Their interpretations are extremely loose and feeble. For example, Gregory's Homily on Ezekiel 2.3.11 (on Ezekiel 40:7) suggests the measurements of the length and breadth of a side room represent the length of expectation for Jesus and the breadth of charity Christians should have. The text directly contradicts these attempts at symbolism, for example the Prince (the new king) would logically be interpreted as Jesus in the Christian view, which is how Jerome interprets him in his Commentary on Ezekiel 14.45:15-17 but just a few verses earlier he's forced to say the Prince isn't Jesus because God admonishes the Princes for being violent and oppressive (14.45:9). Many more examples along these lines can be provided. Additionally, Ezekiel compares this Temple vision with his earlier vision of the real first Temple and what was happening there, further emphasising that this is meant to be a real physical temple like the first (Ezekiel 43:1-3 referring to Ezekiel 8-11).

3. It was fulfilled when the second temple was build.

Answer: The second temple did not resemble Ezekiel's temple. According to Josephus, the temple precinct was small and was expanded by Herod the Great, and neither layout was anything like Ezekiel's (Josephus, Jewish War 5.184-237, Antiquities of the Jews 15.388-430; compare to the highly regular and massive scale of Ezekiel's temple). Additonally, Ezekiel's prophecy includes a Davidic king and all twelve tribes being alloted to the land of Israel (Ezekiel 48), neither of which happened in the second temple period.

4. It's a millenial temple that will only have one-off memorial animal sacrifices.

Answer: The animal sacrifices are explicitly for atoning for sins (e.g. Ezekiel 43:18-26, 45:18-20) and are described as part of the continuing operation of the temple which won't cease

5. It was only a hopeful message for the Jews, Ezekiel never expected it to be built.

Answer: God's message for Ezekiel to deliver outright says he must proclaim it to the jews so they will be ashamed and will receive the plans for the temple to build (Ezekiel 43:10-12). See also the above response to the symbolism argument.

---

I used the following sources for the patristic commentaries on Ezekiel

Thomas C. Oden (ed.) (2008) Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture. Old Testament XIII; Ezekiel, Daniel.

Migne (ed.) Patrologia Latina, vol. 25

Link: https://archive.org/details/epic-cycle-complete-2026.07

I think everybody's fascinated when they discover that the Iliad and Odyssey didn't tell the whole Trojan War story and there are six lost epics about it. This is my previous edition of the fragments, edited so they can be read as a continuous story without losing any accuracy. I only added a few linking words, standardised the names, and changed some tenses, to fit the pieces together.

I also included introductions, a map, family trees, and a glossary of names to make it easier to follow.

This updated edition has lots of small corrections and a new section on the Iliad and Odyssey's "cycle", i.e. all the references to the broader story in the two Homeric epics. Some are similar to the lost cyclic epics, but others are intriguingly different, like the absence of any hint of the Trojan Horse in the Iliad, which instead implies the Greeks could climb the city wall.

Hope you guys find it interesting!

You know the kind: a powder so fine it's basically liquid, tastes like acrid dust, no resemblance to real pepper, and hardly anyone uses it. I understand it's cheap shit, but how do they make it taste so bad? Surely it's just pepper? And why even have it?

I have a Writer document which I've set up to recognise text style 'Heading 1' as chapter titles and have them appear as Headers on each page. This works perfectly for the entire document except for two pages where it won't use the last 'Heading 1' paragraph and instead seems to pick up random body text as the title and is displaying this in the contents and header instead. These problem pages are the same page style as the rest of the pages with headers.

You can see in the attached image of the contents, at page 57 the "Addendum: [etc]" is Heading 1, but the "Introduction" and big block of text are just body text, so I have no idea why it's picking them up as chapter titles.

I've tried setting up chapter headings again under Tools > Heading Numbering but it makes no difference. Any idea what's going wrong?

LibreOffice 25.8.7.3

ODT format