From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Prophecy recorded after the fact
This article is about historiography and theology. For paranormal criticism, see
Postdiction
. For the scientific technique, see
Retrodiction
.
Vaticinium ex eventu
(
Classical Latin
:
[waːt???k?n?.???
?ks
eː?w?n?t?uː]
, "prophecy from the event") or
post eventum
("after the event") is a technical
theological
or
historiographical
term referring to a
prophecy
written after the author already had information about the events being "foretold". The text is written so as to appear that the prophecy had taken place before the event, when in fact it was written after the events supposedly predicted.
Vaticinium ex eventu
is a form of
hindsight bias
. The concept is similar to
postdiction
.
Examples
[
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]
In religious writings
[
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]
The Babylonian "
Marduk
Prophecy", a text describing the travels of the Marduk idol from
Babylon
, "prophesies" of the statue’s seizure during the sack of the city by
Mursilis I
in 1531 BC,
Assyria
, when
Tukulti-Ninurta I
overthrew
Kashtiliash IV
in 1225 BC and took the idol to
Assur
, and
Elam
, when
Kudur-Nahhunte
ransacked the city and pilfered the statue around 1160 BC. A copy
[1]
was found in the House of the Exorcist at Assur, whose contents date from 713?612 BC and is closely related thematically to another
vaticinium ex eventu
text called the Shulgi prophecy, which probably followed it in a sequence of tablets. Both compositions present a favorable view of Assyria.
The
Book of Daniel
utilizes
vaticinium ex eventu
, by its seeming foreknowledge of events from
Alexander the Great
's conquest up to the persecution of
Antiochus IV Epiphanes
in the summer of 164 BCE.
[2]
The stories of the first half are legendary in origin, and the visions of the second the product of anonymous authors in the
Maccabean
period (2nd century BCE).
Its inclusion in
Ketuvim
(Writings) rather than
Nevi'im
(Prophets) was likely because it appeared after the canon for those books had closed, and the dominant view among Jews and scholars is that Daniel is not in any case a prophetic book but an
apocalypse
.
Statements attributed to
Jesus
in the
Gospels
that foretell the destruction of Jerusalem (e.g., Mark 13:14,
[4]
Luke 21:20
[5]
) and its temple are considered to be examples of
vaticinia ex eventu
by the great majority of
Biblical scholars
[6]
(with regard to
the siege of Jerusalem in AD 70
, in which the
Second Temple
was destroyed).
[7]
[4]
However, there are some scholars who only see the verses from Luke as constituting a
vaticinium ex eventu
(and those of Mark not),
[4]
while a few even go as far as to deny that the verses from Luke refer to the destruction of the temple in AD 70.
[7]
Secular
[
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]
- The Ancient world saw the technique of
vaticinium ex eventu
used by a wide variety of figures, from
Pindar
and
Herodotus
to
Horace
and
Virgil
.
[8]
- The
Divine Comedy
by
Dante Alighieri
includes a number of such prophecies of Dante's own exile from Florence.
- In
Jerusalem Delivered
,
Torquato Tasso
uses the
vaticinium ex eventu
trope in presaging the discovery of America by
Christopher Columbus
: "Un uom de la Liguria avra ardimento / a l'incognito corso esporsi in prima"
[9]
- References in the late correspondence of
Virginia Woolf
to "how I love this savage medieval water [...] and myself so eliminated"
[10]
are sometimes taken as presaging her suicide by drowning a few months later: the danger of
vaticinium ex eventu
has however also been observed.
[11]
See also
[
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]
Notes
[
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]
- ^
Tablet K. 2158+
- ^
Lester L. Grabbe (2001). "A Dan(iel) For All Seasons". In John Joseph Collins, Peter W. Flint (ed.).
The Book of Daniel: Composition and Reception
. supplements to Vetus Testamentum ( vol. 83). Vol. 1. Leiden & Boston: Brill. p. 230.
ISBN
9004226753
.
.
- ^
a
b
c
Hengel, Martin (14 March 2003) [1985].
Studies in the Gospel of Mark
. Wipf and Stock Publishers. p. 127 fn. 86.
ISBN
978-1-72520-078-4
.
- ^
Browning, W. R. F. (2000) [1996].
"Vaticinium ex eventu (or post eventum)"
.
A Dictionary of the Bible
(2 ed.). Oxford University Press. p. 387.
doi
:
10.1093/acref/9780199543984.001.0001
.
ISBN
978-0-19-954398-4
.
- ^
Boyd, Gregory A. (1 October 2010).
Cynic Sage or Son of God?: Recovering the Real Jesus in an Age of Revisionist Replies
. Wipf and Stock Publishers. p. 238.
ISBN
978-1-60899-953-8
.
- ^
a
b
Soulen, Richard N.; Soulen, R. Kendall (2001).
Handbook of Biblical Criticism
(3rd ed.). Westminster John Knox Press. p. 204.
ISBN
9780664223144
. Retrieved
19 February
2015
.
- ^
J. J. O'Hara,
Death and the Optimistic Prophecy in Vergil's Aeneid
(2014) pp. 128-9
- ^
Tasso, Torquato (1971).
Gerusalemme Liberata
. Turin: Einaudi. p. 459.
- ^
Quoted in H. Lee,
Virginia Woolf
(1996) p. 752
- ^
Olivia Laing,
To the River
(2011) pp. 195-8
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