False Prophets Series – Part 1: Nostradamus

History is littered with individuals and sacred texts that make the momentous claim of being able to see into the future. In this series of articles, we are going to examine the prophetic credentials of those in whom millions of people have put their trust. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, and we will utilise a number of different tools in order to put the most popular of those in history to the test.

Nostradamus

Michel de Nostredame (December 14, 1503 – July 2, 1566), usually Latinised as Nostradamus, was a French physician and reputed seer who published collections of prophecies that have since become widely famous. In 1555, he published the first edition of his most famous work, titled, The Prophecies (or, The Centuries). It included 10 groups (centuries) of 100 prophetic quatrains (four-line poems) each, covering many nations and spanning from the sixteenth century to the year 3797.

Nostradamus is arguably the most popular soothsayer in history. Since 1775, at least one book on Nostradamus has been published every 20 years, and since 1840, at least one every decade [43]. Nearly 450 years have passed since Nostradamus first published his Centuries, yet the number of translations and commentaries found in bookstores bears testimony to the perpetual interest in his prophecies. Millions of people all over the world believe in his predictions and keep looking for proof that they are real and will all come true.

Is his massive popularity justified? Could Nostradamus really see into the future? We can arrive at an answer by analysing the nature and accuracy of his prophecies. Here are some examples of such prophecies:

As you can see, one major issue with his predictions is that they can be so vague that they are often described as verbal jigsaw puzzles. His prophecies contain French and Latin terms, historical allusions, anagrams, puns, odd spellings, partial words, inverted word order, and so on. Now, if Nostradamus were a true prophet, would he have needed to cloud his predictions with such vague and ambiguous language? The predictions of false prophets are often vague in nature for a good reason. This characteristic makes it easy for their followers to claim a fulfilment of prophecy when the inevitable happens – eventually something, somewhere, will occur which bears enough of a similarity to the prophecy that it will seem like the prophecy was an accurate prediction.

In fact, what we find is that when Nostradamus does provide detail, such as specific dates, places and events, many of his prophecies are demonstrably false. In the following prophecy he predicted that disease, famine and war would devastate the human race by the year 1732:

Even though he gave himself a window of 177 years for this prophecy to come true, it still failed to materialise. Moreover, thanks to the Industrial Revolution of the eighteenth century there were major advances in agriculture which resulted in the human population exhibiting unprecedented sustained growth; the exact opposite of what Nostradamus predicted!

In another prophecy, he predicted that the world would experience great terror from the sky in the month of July 1999:

As July 1999 approached, his followers applied the name “King of Terror” to, among other things, the Antichrist, nuclear war, a giant meteor, and a foreboding solar eclipse. Yet none of these terrors came from the sky in July 1999.

Did Nostradamus believe that he could see into the future? It seems that he presents contradictory answers. On the one hand Nostradamus explicitly claimed that he could not be mistaken:

Contrary to these claims, however, Nostradamus acknowledged the possibility of error:

We can see that his personal accounts present a mixed picture. Regardless of whether he claimed prophethood for himself, an analysis of his often vague and, indeed, mistaken predictions have shown that he did not have knowledge of the unseen. The Italian scholar Francesco Guiciardini, a contemporary of Nostradamus, mocked those who had willingly accepted Nostradamus’ prophetic ability despite evidence to the contrary. He declared, “How happy are the astrologers! Who are believed if they tell one truth to a hundred lies, while other people lose all credit if they tell one lie to a hundred truths.” [9]

Muhammad ﷺ A Genuinely Inspired Prophet

The purpose of spending some time looking at examples of false prophets and false systems of prophesy was to establish a benchmark to help us distinguish truth from falsehood. One can only make accurate predictions about the future and get it right every time when one is inspired by God, Who has perfect knowledge of the future. Muhammad ﷺ demonstrated this unique quality of possessing an insight into the unseen throughout his Prophethood. He not only made numerous detailed predictions about the future which came true, as shown in this article here, but he also rejected the baseless superstitious beliefs and practices of his day, as shown in this article here. These facts should leave us in no doubt that he was inspired by God Almighty.

References

1 – The Centuries, Quatrain 8 – 19.

2 – The Centuries, Quatrain 4 – 26.

3 – Preface to The Centuries – a letter to his son.

4 – The Centuries, Quatrain 10 – 72.

5 – Gottfried & Fritz, The Prophecies of Nostradamus, Prefacer to Cesar Nostradamus.

6 – Edgar Leoni, Nostradamus and His Prophecies, p. 131.

7 – Ibid., p. 327.

8 – Ibid., p. 328.

9 – Will Durant, The Renaissance: A History of Civilization in Italy from 1304-1576 A.D., p. 528.