Was there something you were going to add to that? Sounds like you were going somewhere with it, but I don’t know what.

All that stuff about being the chosen people of a one true god, the kosher laws and all the other laws regulating even the most minute aspects of their lives was a way to maintain identity and cohesion in a violent world where their country was repeatedly invaded and they were carried off to foreign lands.

But, while I’m here…

“These stories were supposed to serve as moral teachings to the Jewish people.’See, this is what happened when we did not follow God’s laws.’ “

If that were the only purpose of those stories, why not make them historical accounts rather than current to that day or prophetic to some day in the future?

The whole point of prophecy as in the case with Macaiah, was to make it plain to the Israelites (and us, for that matter) it was God talking, not some yay-hoo.

Offhand, I’d say probably not.

Now, I’d be the first to tell you that not everything that is prophesied in the Bible has come to pass as of yet. However, there has yet to be any historical or archeological evidence that has seriously (that’s the operative term here, not just agenda-driven, unscholarly hack jobs)contradicted fulfillment of prophetic statements, or times and places those statements were originally made. If anything, subsequent discoveries have served to validate Scripture as written.

Hey, I’m open to proof otherwise…

These stories were supposed to serve as moral teachings to the Jewish people. “See, this is what happened when we did not follow God’s laws.” It is not as though Prophet X spoke of a particular thing happening, someone wrote it down, and then 50 years later someone noticed “Hey, Prophet X was right!”