Prophecy Explorer

The long bar across the middle is the Bible. Its 66 books sit in order, Genesis on the left and Revelation on the right. Each book is as wide as its number of chapters, so Psalms is long and Obadiah is a sliver.

An arc joins a promise to the place where it is kept. A dot marks each end.

Above the bar are two bands. The gold arcs stay inside the Old Testament: a prophet speaks, and a later Old Testament book says it happened. The green arcs run from the Old Testament into the New: a New Testament writer says, in his own words, that a passage was fulfilled in Jesus.

Below the bar are the contested passages. Each is drawn once for each of the three end-times views, in that view's own line: long-dashed blue for Dispensationalism, solid purple for Partial Preterism, double red for Full Preterism. Some of these arcs land on a Bible passage. Others run past Revelation into three boxes that are times, not books: AD 66 to 70, the present age, and what is still future.

The line pattern tells you the kind of fulfilment. A solid line is a prediction. A dotted line is a pattern. A dash-and-dot line is a partial fulfilment with more to come. Where Christian readers disagree on the kind, the label says "2 labels".

Now look at the proportion. Above the bar are 48 links. Below it are 6 passages. That is the first thing this chart teaches.

Picture: the whole chart, then the key. Layers: all.

Start with the gold arcs. These are places where the Old Testament itself names a prophecy and then records the outcome. No later reader has to make the connection; the text makes it.

The clearest run is in Kings. A man of God stands at Jeroboam's altar and says, "Look, a son named Josiah will be born to the Davidic dynasty" (1 Kings 13:2). Generations later Josiah burns bones on that altar, "just as in the Lord’s message that was announced by the prophet" (2 Kings 23:16). Kings closes the loop on Eli's house, on Jeroboam's dynasty, on Jezebel, and on Jehu's line the same way.

The longest gold arcs belong to the exile. Jeremiah gives a number: the nations "will be subject to the king of Babylon for 70 years" (Jeremiah 25:11). Chronicles ends by saying the exile happened "to fulfill the Lord’s message spoken through Jeremiah" (2 Chronicles 36:21), and Ezra opens with Cyrus's decree "in fulfillment of the Lord’s message spoken through Jeremiah" (Ezra 1:1).

Isaiah names Cyrus outright: "who commissions Cyrus, the one I appointed as shepherd to carry out all my wishes" (Isaiah 44:28). Ezra records the decree that sent the people home to rebuild.

Record check (judgment). Seventy years: from the temple's fall in 587 or 586 BC to the second temple's completion in 516 or 515 BC is 70 to 72 years (calculated from the dates on The Whole Story, Chart 2). Babylon itself fell to Cyrus in 539 BC, one of that chart's outside anchors. Another common reckoning starts at 605 BC, the first deportation, and ends with Cyrus's decree and the first return, 539 to 536 BC. Which reckoning Jeremiah means is itself disputed.

Record check (judgment). Josiah and Cyrus. Most critical scholars date the first edition of Kings to Josiah's own time, in the late 7th century BC, and assign Isaiah 40 to 55 to an unnamed prophet of the exile, about 550 to 539 BC. On those readings both names were written down when the men were already known. The conservative case takes both as words spoken long before: Josephus says Cyrus himself read Isaiah's prophecy, and John 12:38–41 quotes Isaiah 53 and Isaiah 6 together and says of both, "Isaiah said these things because he saw Christ’s glory, and spoke about him." Beneath the dating sits the real question: whether God can name a king before he is born. Neither side settles that by dating alone. One more thing is plain from the text: Ezra names Jeremiah's word as fulfilled, not Isaiah's, so the Isaiah arc rests on what the two passages say, not on a stated claim.

Picture: the gold arcs, Kings and the exile. Layer: band 1.

Now the green arcs. A fulfilment formula is a sentence where a New Testament writer stops and says, in effect, that this is what the prophet meant. Matthew uses one more than anyone. "This all happened so that what was spoken by the Lord through the prophet would be fulfilled" (Matthew 1:22).

How many does Matthew have? It depends on what you count. In the NET, ten sentences pair "fulfilled" with "spoken" and a quotation (1:22, 2:15, 2:17, 2:23, 4:14, 8:17, 12:17, 13:35, 21:4, 27:9). Add 13:14, "the prophecy of Isaiah is fulfilled", and it is eleven. Add the two times Jesus says the scriptures must be fulfilled without quoting one (26:54, 26:56), and it is thirteen. Add 2:5 and 3:3, which say "it is written" or "the one about whom the prophet Isaiah had spoken" without the word fulfil, and it is fifteen. (Calculated from the NET text.)

This chart draws the ones with a single Old Testament text at the other end. Matthew 2:23, "that Jesus would be called a Nazarene," is a real fulfilment claim, but no one Old Testament verse says it, so it is in the list of links considered and not drawn.

Look at how many green arcs land in the first chapters of Matthew. The birth, the flight to Egypt, the move to Galilee: Matthew wants the reader to see that Jesus' life is already written in Israel's scriptures.

Record check (judgment). Matthew 27:9 says, "Then what was spoken by Jeremiah the prophet was fulfilled." The closest words are Zechariah's: "So I took the 30 pieces of silver and threw them to the potter" (Zechariah 11:13). Jeremiah buys a field (Jeremiah 32:6–9), and in chapter 19 he buys a clay jar from a potter and breaks it in a valley where innocent blood had been shed. Many readers think Matthew combined the two and named the senior prophet. The arc is drawn from Zechariah and labelled pattern.

Picture: the green arcs into Matthew. Layer: band 2.

A prediction names something specific before it happens.

The scribes answer Herod from Micah: "As for you, Bethlehem Ephrathah, seemingly insignificant among the clans of Judah" and, after the dash, "from you a king will emerge who will rule over Israel on my behalf" (Micah 5:2). Matthew gives their answer as "And you, Bethlehem, in the land of Judah, are in no way least among the rulers of Judah" (Matthew 2:6).

Record check (judgment). Put the two side by side and the words differ: "seemingly insignificant" in Micah, "in no way least" in Matthew. The town, the tribe and the ruler are the same. New Testament writers often quote the sense, or the Greek translation, rather than the Hebrew word for word. Matthew's answer also folds in the shepherd line from 2 Samuel 5:2. The link does not depend on the wording matching.

Zechariah says, "Look! Your king is coming to you: He is legitimate and victorious, humble and riding on a donkey" (Zechariah 9:9). On Palm Sunday Matthew writes, "This took place to fulfill what was spoken by the prophet" (Matthew 21:4).

A prediction like these is checked by history: Bethlehem, a donkey, a king. That is why every view on this chart agrees about them.

Picture: Micah to Matthew and Zechariah to Matthew. Layer: band 2.

A pattern is different. An earlier event or person is read as a picture of a later one. The first event was not a failed prediction; it happened, and it meant something then. The later one fills it out.

Hosea looks back, not forward: "When Israel was a young man, I loved him like a son, and I summoned my son out of Egypt" (Hosea 11:1). Matthew says Jesus' return from Egypt fulfilled it: "I called my Son out of Egypt" (Matthew 2:15). The Son relives Israel's story, and where Israel failed, he does not.

Isaiah 7:14 is the standard case where readers disagree. The NET reads, "Look, this young woman is about to conceive and will give birth to a son." Matthew reads, "Look! The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son" (Matthew 1:23). Isaiah gives the sign to King Ahaz with a time limit: "Before the child knows how to reject evil and choose what is right, the land whose two kings you fear will be desolate" (Isaiah 7:16).

Some readers take Isaiah 7:14 as a direct prediction of the virgin birth. Others read a sign given in Ahaz's own day that Matthew sees filled to the full in Jesus. Both readings confess the virgin birth; they differ on how the prophecy works. So the arc carries two labels.

Learning to tell prediction from pattern guards against two mistakes. One reads every pattern as a coded timetable. The other reads every prediction as only a pattern.

Picture: Hosea to Matthew and Isaiah 7 to Matthew. Layer: band 2.

Two Old Testament texts carry more green arcs than any others: Isaiah 53 and Psalm 22.

Isaiah's servant suffers for others. "He was wounded because of our rebellious deeds, crushed because of our sins" (Isaiah 53:5). Four New Testament writers point to him. Matthew applies 53:4 to Jesus' healings (Matthew 8:17). John quotes 53:1 (John 12:38). Philip meets an Ethiopian reading 53:7–8 on the road, "and beginning with this scripture proclaimed the good news about Jesus to him" (Acts 8:35). Peter writes, "By his wounds you were healed" (1 Peter 2:24), and says the prophets "predicted the grace that would come to you" (1 Peter 1:10).

Psalm 22 is David's cry: "They are dividing up my clothes among themselves; they are rolling dice for my garments" (Psalm 22:18). At the cross the soldiers throw dice for Jesus' tunic, and John writes, "This took place to fulfill the scripture" (John 19:24). Is the psalm a prediction or a pattern? Acts 2:30 calls David "a prophet", so readers label it both ways.

The other arcs here come to the cross from the Passover lamb, "you must not break a bone of it" (Exodus 12:46; John 19:36), and from Zechariah's "they will look to me, the one they have pierced" (Zechariah 12:10; John 19:37).

Picture: Isaiah 53 and Psalm 22 into the Gospels, Acts and 1 Peter. Layer: band 2.

The longest arcs on the chart start in Genesis and 2 Samuel. They carry the promise that holds the whole Bible together.

God tells Abraham, "so that all the families of the earth may receive blessing through you" (Genesis 12:3). Paul says the scripture "proclaimed the gospel to Abraham ahead of time" (Galatians 3:8).

God tells David his son will build a house, and "Your house and your kingdom will stand before me permanently" (2 Samuel 7:16). Look at the two arcs from that chapter. The gold one ends in 1 Kings: Solomon builds the temple and says, "The Lord has kept the promise he made" (1 Kings 8:20). The green ones go much further. The angel tells Mary that "the Lord God will give him the throne of his father David" and "his kingdom will never end" (Luke 1:32–33). Peter says David "was a prophet and knew that God had sworn to him with an oath to seat one of his descendants on his throne" (Acts 2:30).

So one promise has a near fulfilment and a full one. That is why the gold arc carries two labels.

The land promise works the same way on this chart. Joshua says, "Not one of the Lord’s faithful promises to the family of Israel was left unfulfilled; every one was realized" (Joshua 21:45). Dispensational writers hold that the land promise still waits for a future fulfilment for Israel. The other two views do not. Three Ways People Read the End of the Story takes this up under "What About the Land Promises to Israel?"

Picture: Genesis 12 to Galatians 3, and the arcs from 2 Samuel 7. Layers: bands 1 and 2.

Some promises are fulfilled in part, with more expected. The dash-and-dot arcs mark them.

On the day of Pentecost Peter says, "But this is what was spoken about through the prophet Joel" (Acts 2:16). The Spirit poured out on all kinds of people happened that morning. But Joel's quotation goes on to blood, fire, smoke, and a darkened sun "before the great and glorious day of the Lord comes" (Acts 2:20). Many readers take the outpouring as fulfilled at Pentecost and the day of the Lord as still to come. The three end-times views draw that line in different places.

In the synagogue at Nazareth Jesus reads Isaiah 61 and says, "Today this scripture has been fulfilled even as you heard it being read" (Luke 4:21). He stops reading in the middle of a sentence. The next words in Isaiah are "the day when our God will seek vengeance" (Isaiah 61:2).

The other arcs of this kind are Elijah (Malachi 4:5–6; Matthew 17:11–13), the new covenant (Jeremiah 31:31–34; Hebrews 8:8–12) and David's fallen tent (Amos 9:11–12; Acts 15:15–17). In each one, readers agree something was fulfilled and disagree on whether more remains. Amos 9 sits on the edge of the contested list: Dispensational writers read the rebuilt tent as still future for Israel, and Pulling the Threads: Dispensationalism takes it up in "8. One Citizenship, Not Two".

This kind of reading is a guard. It keeps the reader from saying everything is finished, and from saying nothing has happened yet.

Picture: the dash-and-dot arcs. Layer: band 2.

Now go below the bar. The first contested passage is Daniel's seventy weeks: "Seventy weeks have been determined concerning your people and your holy city" (Daniel 9:24). The verses end with a covenant and a halt to sacrifice: "He will confirm a covenant with many for one week. But in the middle of that week he will bring sacrifices and offerings to a halt" (Daniel 9:27).

The arithmetic is drawn on The Whole Story, Stop 10. This chart shows where each view lands the weeks.

The blue lines (Dispensationalism) end the 69th week at the triumphal entry in Luke 19 (Sir Robert Anderson's AD 32) and send the 70th week far to the right, into "still future". The whole church age falls in the gap.

The purple lines (Partial Preterism, Kenneth Gentry) end the 69th week at Jesus' baptism in Matthew 3, put the 70th week in his ministry with the cross in the middle, and send the destruction of 9:26 to AD 66–70 as its result.

The red lines (Full Preterism) also start the 70th week with Jesus, but run it to AD 70.

Record check (judgment). Gentry's AD 26 is an inclusive count; elapsed years give AD 27. Don Preston's own anchors make the 70th "week" about 40 years long. (Calculated, from The Whole Story's data.)

Record check (judgment). Daniel's date. Many critical scholars date the book to the first half of the 2nd century BC and read its visions against the persecution under Antiochus IV, who reigned from 175 to 164 or 163 BC. On that view, parts of Daniel are history written as prophecy. The conservative case dates it to the 6th century BC: its Aramaic was in court use from the 7th century on, Belshazzar did reign in Babylon while Nabonidus was away, and Jesus calls him "Daniel the prophet" (Matthew 24:15). Eight fragments of the book were found at Qumran, the oldest copied in the late 2nd century BC. A copy of about 125 BC fits either date; defenders argue it leaves too little time after 165 BC for a new book to be accepted as scripture, and that is a judgment, not a measurement. The date decides whether Daniel 9 is prediction. It does not decide between the three lines here, because all three read it as prediction.

Picture: Daniel 9 and its arcs. Layers: all three end-times views.

On the Mount of Olives the disciples ask, "Tell us, when will these things happen? And what will be the sign of your coming and of the end of the age?" (Matthew 24:3). Jesus' answer turns on one sentence: "I tell you the truth, this generation will not pass away until all these things take place" (Matthew 24:34).

The blue line (Dispensationalism) sends Matthew 24 to "still future". The words "this generation" mean the generation that sees the signs; Scofield read it as the Jewish people. But a second blue line runs from Luke 21:20–24 to AD 66–70. Thomas Ice reads that passage as the AD 70 destruction of Jerusalem, a judgment on the Jewish people. So this view agrees that AD 70 was foretold. It disagrees that Matthew 24 is about it.

The purple line (Partial Preterism) sends Matthew 24:1–35 to AD 66–70. The words "this generation" mean the people Jesus was speaking to. The great tribulation is the Roman war, and the coming on the clouds is the language of judgment. Christ's bodily return is still future.

The double red line (Full Preterism) sends the whole discourse, Matthew 24 and 25, to AD 66–70, the coming and the gathering included. Nothing is left.

Record check (judgment). Some teachers in the Dispensational line have set dates from this chapter. Hal Lindsey's reading pointed to about 1988, and Edgar Whisenant named 1988. Neither happened. Scofield, Walvoord and Ice, as read for The Whole Story, set no dates. See The Whole Story, Stop 11.

Three Ways People Read the End of the Story lays all three side by side in "6.3 — Christ's Second Coming".

Picture: the arcs from Matthew 24 and Luke 21. Layers: all three end-times views.

Revelation opens and closes on time words: "what must happen very soon" (Revelation 1:1), and "Do not seal up the words of the prophecy contained in this book, because the time is near" (Revelation 22:10). What those words mean depends on when the book was written and what it is about.

The blue line (Dispensationalism) dates the book about AD 95, under Domitian, and sends chapters 4 to 22 to "still future": the tribulation, a literal thousand years on earth, then the new creation.

The purple lines (Partial Preterism) date it under Nero, before AD 70. Most of chapters 4 to 19 go to AD 66–70; the beast is Nero. The thousand years of chapter 20 go to the present age. Christ's return, the resurrection, the judgment and the new creation, from 20:11 on, go to "still future".

The double red line (Full Preterism) sends the whole book to AD 66–70, the thousand years (read as AD 30 to 70) and the return included.

Record check (judgment). The early date rests on evidence inside the book. The earliest outside witness, Irenaeus, writing about AD 180, places John's vision near the end of Domitian's reign. See The Whole Story, Stop 12. By Full Preterism's own account the AD 70 return and resurrection were unseen, so the record can neither confirm nor refute them; the question is settled from the text.

Revelation: A Walk-Through goes through the book chapter by chapter, Dispensational and Partial Preterist readings side by side.

Picture: the arcs from Revelation. Layers: all three end-times views.

Ezekiel sees an invasion: "In future days I will bring you against my land so that the nations may acknowledge me" (Ezekiel 38:16). Revelation uses the names again after the thousand years: Satan will "deceive the nations at the four corners of the earth, Gog and Magog, to bring them together for the battle" (Revelation 20:8).

The blue lines (Dispensationalism) send both to "still future". Thomas Ice defends "the pretribulational, post-rapture view of the timing" of Ezekiel's invasion, and he notes a second dispensational view that puts it near the middle of the tribulation. Revelation 20 is a second, final revolt at the end of the thousand years.

The purple lines (Partial Preterism) split. One runs back from Ezekiel to Esther 9. James B. Jordan proposes that "the book of Esther describes the fulfillment of the battle of Gog and Magog": Haman and his allies are Gog, and "the Jews gained power over their enemies" (Esther 9:1). Revelation 20's revolt goes to the end of the present age, just before Christ returns; Gentry, the postmillennial voice, puts it after the long reign of the gospel, near the end of history.

The double red lines (Full Preterism) send both to AD 66–70 (Brad Baker). Full preterists do not all agree on Revelation 20: a rival reading, associated with Duncan McKenzie, begins the thousand years at AD 70 instead. The chart draws Baker's.

Record check (judgment), Dispensationalism. Scofield's 1917 note, written before the Soviet Union was founded in 1922, already named Russia: "headed up by Russia". What changed afterward were the allies and the reasons: first the Soviet Union, later Russia with Iran and Turkey. Pulling the Threads: Dispensationalism documents this in "11. No Brake on the Reassignment", and the same section notes the objection that Soviet-as-Magog was a popular layer, not doctrine from Ryrie or Saucy.

Record check (judgment), Partial Preterism. The same test applies to the purple arc. Ezekiel 39:10 says Israel will take the loot of those who looted them. Esther 9:10, 15 and 16 each say the Jews took no plunder. Ezekiel 39:9–12 also has seven years of burning weapons and seven months of burying the dead, and Esther has nothing like either. A defender can read Esther as the fulfilment in outline, and this is one writer's proposal, which is why the arc is drawn that way. The reader should see the difference. The full preterist placement (Baker, AD 66–70) is second-hand and was not tested here.

Paul writes, "And so all Israel will be saved" (Romans 11:26). The blue line sends it to "still future": John Walvoord reads a national deliverance of Israel when Christ returns. The purple lines go to the present age: Gentry expects "future, massive conversions among the Jews" before the return, and the amillennial wing, in Gentry's summary, reads "all Israel" as the church that fulfils Israel's promises; Lee Irons, writing as an amillennialist, reads it as the whole church, Jews and Gentiles together. The double red line sends it to AD 66–70 (Michael Sullivan).

Picture: the arcs from Ezekiel 38 to 39, Revelation 20 and Romans 11. Layers: all three end-times views.

Turn every layer on and step back.

Above the bar, 48 arcs. Prophets in Israel spoke, and the Old Testament itself recorded the outcome. Then the New Testament writers stood at the cross and the empty tomb and said, again and again, that this is what the prophets spoke of. Christians who disagree about the end of the story agree about these.

Below the bar, 6 passages. That is where the three views part, and they part honestly. Each line on this chart is drawn in that view's own writers' terms. The chart does not tell you which line to hold; the books on michlaude.com argue that, and this chart's links take you to them.

Notice where the agreement sits. The promises above the bar are kept in a person. Bethlehem, the donkey, the servant, the pierced one, the throne of David: every green arc lands on Jesus.

So whatever you decide about Daniel's seventy weeks, the dates are not the point. The point is the one the arcs keep landing on: "that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you sent" (John 17:3). He did not hand us a schedule to learn. He said, "Remain in me, and I will remain in you" (John 15:4).

Picture: the whole chart. All layers.