Michel de Nostredame (Nostradamus) is perhaps the most famous non-biblical prognosticator of the future in history. Books and television documentaries portray Nostradamus as this great seer of the future on par or superior to the prophets of the Bible. Nostradamus is so well-known that so-called “prophecy experts” seek to make a living off of the predictions that he made over 400 hundred years ago.
I’m sure virtually everyone who is reading this article is familiar with Nostradamus and his place in history. I’m also certain that virtually everyone has an opinion about Nostradamus and the validity of his predictions. I want to give my views on Nostradamus in case there is someone who has not yet formed an opinion on him and/or his predictions.
The method that Nostradamus used to generate his predictions is a major red flag. According to Erika Chattam, Nostradamus was an occultist who at night consulted with occult works and used occult techniques as he worked to record his predictions.[1] This is a major red flag because the Bible totally condemns occult practitioners.
“10 There shall not be found among you any one that maketh his son or his daughter to pass through the fire, or that useth divination, or an observer of times, or an enchanter, or a witch, (11) Or a charmer, or a consulter with familiar spirits, or a wizard, or a necromancer. (12) For all that do these things are an abomination unto the LORD: and because of these abominations the LORD thy God doth drive them out from before thee.” (Deuteronomy 18:10-12)
In addition, Peter Lemesurier (author of The Encyclopedia of Nostradamus) indicated that Nostradamus believed his predictions came from divine revelation.
“His revelations, he constantly claimed, were of Divine, not human, origin let alone the product of mere magic. Indeed, only such Divine revelations, he repeatedly pointed out in his dedicatory letters … could possibly hope to foretell the future”.[2]
The Bible says that a true prophet of God is a person who gets all predictions correct.
“When a prophet speaketh in the name of the LORD, if the thing follow not, nor come to pass, that is the thing which the LORD hath not spoken, but the prophet hath spoken it presumptuously: thou shalt not be afraid of him.” (Deuteronomy 18:22)
Nostradamus has made failed predictions. The following is Nostradamus’s most infamous failed prediction:
The year 1999, seventh month,
From the sky will come a great King of Terror.
To bring back to life the great King of the Mongols,
Before and after Mars to reign by good luck.
In this failed prediction Nostradamus predicted the appearance of an Antichrist-type figure in July 1999, who would go on to restore the life of Genghis Khan. I don’t know about you, but I did not hear about the appearance of a great king of terror in July 1999 or the return of Genghis Khan from the dead. I do not see any way that Genghis Khan returns to life.
Another major issue with Nostradamus’s predictions is that they are written in extremely abstract language. The abstractness of Nostradamus’s language enables people to make what they want out of what Nostradamus writes. For instance, some people claim that Nostradamus predicted President Kennedy’s assassination when he wrote:
The great man will be struck down in the day by a thunderbolt.
An evil deed, foretold by the bearer of a petition.
According to the prediction another falls at night time.
Conflict at Reims, London, and pestilence in Tuscany.
The prediction is clearly about a man being assassinated. However, to say that this refers to President Kennedy’s assassination is a complete stretch and a case of someone seeing what they want to see from an abstract prediction.
I would not doubt that Nostradamus may have had some help from the spiritual forces of evil when crafting his predictions. Erika Chattam claimed that Nostradamus was demon-possessed. Whether or not Nostradamus received some help from the spiritual forces of evil to craft his predictions, his predictions do serve as a useful tool for them. Nostradamus’s predictions help convince some people to think that non-biblical sources can be as reliable as or even more reliable than Bible prophecy.
Do You Want to Study Bible Prophecy? Get My Free eBook!
Join my mailing list, and as a special welcome gift, I’ll send you my eBook guide to studying Bible prophecy. You’ll also get my latest articles and updates delivered to your inbox.
Your privacy is valued. For more information, please read the Privacy Policy.
Scary stuff about Nostradamus there.
I think a lot of people look for new sources of revelation because they view the Bible as being outdated. People want to find new sources of revelation so they will naturally gravitate to someone like Nostradamus even though he’s unreliable.
I never understand why people will look to someone like Nostradamus, whose writings are so vague they could mean just about anything, and, as you have stated, isn’t even reliable, but they refuse to look at the prophecies of the Bible which are completely accurate, and understandable. I think, perhaps, they don’t want the Bible to be correct because they don’t want to deal with sin.