There's a facet of dispensationalism geared towards satisfying the rationalist, those who might otherwise be skeptical of theology.

Grant Jeffrey is among these teachers, demonstrating the authenticity of the Bible through fulfilled prophecy. The establishment of the state of Israel is the crowning moment, to which significant biblical prophecy points, almost to the exclusion of Christ's First Advent. Prior to 1948, had Christians any assurance that their Bible is the word of God? But I digress ...

I watched Dr. Jeffrey's program on TV last week and I had a problem from the get-go: his fixing of Israel's national "birthday" on 5/15 and declaring God's word precise to the very day.

Everyone knows it's 5/14, a special day to me for other reasons.

Grant handles the discrepancy by saying that their declaration of independence took effect the following day. Close enough, right?

Here are some of his teachings online:

"A Mathematical Error with the Bible?"
"Ezekiel Prophesied the 1967 Recapture of Jerusalem"

We're talking about not only 100's of years but also juggling ancient Judaism's sacred calendar of 360 days and second Adars with the modern West's secular calendar of 365.25 days, translating Nisan into April, and, if you bring Daniel into it (as must be done to rescue Jeremiah's predictions, at least in part), Babylonian conventions of marking time. So what's a day or two here and there? Who am I to quibble?

For the sake of argument, let's agree on mid-May.

How likely is it that Jeremiah predicted the establishment of the state of Israel¹ with greater precision than an event closer to his own time, the duration of the Captivity? This has always puzzled me. Read the commentaries on Jeremiah 25, even the mainline conservative ones admit that the numbers don't add up:

New Jerome Biblical Commentary: "This prediction has been the subject of ample and frequent discussions. If we remember that 70 is often a symbol of 'many', then we would think that Jeremiah only intended a long period without any specification of time." (page 286)

NAB: "This Jeremiah intends as a round number, to signify that the present generation must die out."

Scofield's notes: "The seventy years are considered by some to be a round number. Others find the number to be exact, counting from about 604 B.C. (the first deportation being in Jehoiakim's reign, whereas the second was in 597 B.C. in Jehoiachin's reign, and the last in Zedekiah's reign in 586 B.C.) to about 535 B.C. when the exiles returned to the land after the decree of Cyrus."

Sproul's Reformation Study Bible: "This period may be counted in round figures from 605 B.C. to 538 B.C., when the exiles began to return home following Cyrus's decree."

Reformed: "Seventy years was a standard formula in ancient Near Eastern cultures to describe the duration of a god's displeasure with his people. It could be lengthened or shortened, depending on how the people reacted to the judgment. The number 70 roughly corresponds to the number of years between the first deportation in 605 B.C. and 538 B.C. ..."

Jewish Study Bible: "The significance of the period is uncertain, though it likely reflects the human life span."

¹ "10 Bible prophecies fulfilled in 1948" - 100prophecies.org