The above image is from a post by J. M. Green that focuses on precisely what the image illustrates: the problematic nature of prooftexting and appeals to texts as allegedly predictions of later things.
Jeremiah 10:2-4 reads (in the version that most people who oppose Christmas trees would likely quote):
Thus saith the Lord, Learn not the way of the heathen, and be not dismayed at the signs of heaven; for the heathen are dismayed at them. For the customs of the people are vain: for one cutteth a tree out of the forest, the work of the hands of the workman, with the axe. They deck it with silver and with gold; they fasten it with nails and with hammers, that it move not.
Reflecting on a text like this one, and its meaning within its original literary and historical context and removed from it, can be a useful exercise for those who find it hard to grasp what is problematic about prooftexting – whether carried out by the Bible’s authors or by modern apologists.
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