Prophecy wrongly predicts own fallibility

Frodologist scholars were flabbergasted yesterday, when, during a routine reexamination of a religious text for clues as to Frodo’s opinion on winter shorts, they happened upon a hidden prophetic warning. It appears that the Frodological prophecy foresees its own fallibility:

“And it shall come to pass that none of it shall come to pass.”

The discovery is alarming in that all of the text’s other predictions have so far panned out. For example, it predicted that when the sins of hobbits angered Frodo, a terrible storm should fall upon the land. And it did last summer, when seasonal rains flooded a few fields and delayed the corn harvest by several days. While no one is sure which sin in particular attracted the wrath of Frodo, whatever it was must have been bad, because the storm came. That kind of thing doesn’t just happen.

Prophecy also proclaims that the River Anduin shall dry up when Frodo’s return is imminent. And the great river did exactly that when a group of local hobbits dammed the Upper Anduin in order to fulfill the prophecy.


That's dam fine prophecy fulfillment, boys!

Yet another example is the widely recognized claim that Frodo will not return until His Hobbit Hole is rebuilt for the third time. It hasn’t, and he hasn’t.

I could give more examples, but I won’t, because prophecy predicts that I won’t. The problem provided by the erroneous passage is of course obvious, but in case it isn’t I’ll explain it for the sake of padding out this article.

Prophecy has so far been infallible, meaning that the prediction of its fallibility is wrong and renders it fallible. But when prophecy is wrong, the prophecy that it will be wrong will be vindicated and it will be proof that the Second Coming of Frodo is imminent. But how will scholars know when the prophecy is wrong, thereby proving that prophecy was right in predicting that it would be wrong? Most predictions are so widely worded that we could attribute anything to them, and the others we just ignore.

If prophecy is to be proved correct by it being wrong, Frodologist scholars will have to be more cautious in proclaiming fulfillment. Theologians are expected to start consulting religious skeptics to judge more accurately whether any given prophecy has been fulfilled, since after so many years of sycophantic agreement with scripture, they have apparently lost the ability to think critically.

Will atheists be the ones to save the Faith? That seems like an attention-seekingly implausible conclusion…