There are several mundane ways in which a prediction of the future can be fulfilled but this is my (and the Bible-writers) favourite:
Vagueness. The prophecy can be worded in such a way that people can interpret any outcome as a fulfillment. Nostradomus's prophecies are all of this type. Vagueness works particularly well when people are religiously motivated to believe the prophecies.
Taken from: http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CH/CH110.html
1. Only in recent years has science discovered that everything we see is composed of invisible atoms. Here, Scripture tells us that the "things which are seen were not made of things which do appear."
-Vagueness. The phrase "things which are seen were not made of things which do appear." refers to something magical and supernatural. Interpreting it to refer to our current understanding of atoms is a huge leap of logic (by the way where in the Bible is this passage found?).
2. Medical science has only recently discovered that blood-clotting in a newborn reaches its peak on the eighth day, then drops. The Bible consistently says that a baby must be circumcised on the eighth day.
- Debunked: The Bible specifies the best time for circumcision. http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CH/CH135_1.html
3. At a time when it was believed that the earth sat on a large animal or a giant (1500 B.C.), the Bible spoke of the earth’s free float in space: "He...hangs the earth upon nothing" (Job 26:7).
-Debunked: The Bible says that the earth is unsupported. http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CH/CH132.html
4. The prophet Isaiah also tells us that the earth is round: "It is he that sits upon the circle of the earth" (Isaiah 40:22). This is not a reference to a flat disk, as some skeptic maintain, but to a sphere. Secular man discovered this 2,400 years later. At a time when science believed that the earth was flat, is was the Scriptures that inspired Christopher Columbus to sail around the world (see Proverbs 3:6 footnote).
-Debunked: The Bible says that the earth is round. http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CH/CH131.html
5. God told Job in 1500 B.C.: "Can you send lightnings, that they may go, and say to you, Here we are?" (Job 38:35). The Bible here is making what appears to be a scientifically ludicrous statement—that light can be sent, and then manifest itself in speech. But did you know that radio waves travel at the speed of light? This is why you can have instantaneous wireless communication with someone on the other side of the earth. Science didn’t discover this until 1864 when "British scientist James Clerk Maxwell suggested that electricity and light waves were two forms of the same thing" (Modern Century Illustrated Encyclopedia).
-Vagueness. For the ancients, lightning and light are two separate things. Without twisting anything, the passage refers to lightning talking which is pure superstition but is something that the ancients would have no trouble believing.
6. Job 38:19 asks, "Where is the way where light dwells?" Modern man has only recently discovered that light (electromagnetic radiation) has a "way," traveling at 186,000 miles per second.
-Vagueness. The question: "Where is the way where light dwells?" is CLEARLY asking for direction and not the speed.
7. Science has discovered that stars emit radio waves, which are received on earth as a high pitch. God mentioned this in Job 38:7: "When the morning stars sang together..."
-Vagueness. The ancients are referring to actual stars singing and not radio waves. This is something that the ancients would have no trouble believing.
8. "Most cosmologists (scientists who study the structures and evolution of the universe) agree that the Genesis account of creation, in imagining an initial void, may be uncannily close to the truth" (Time, Dec. 1976).
-You dont need to be divinely inspired to imagine that prior to creation, the only thing that exists is a "void" or a state of nothingness.
9. Solomon described a "cycle" of air currents two thousand years before scientists "discovered" them. "The wind goes toward the south, and turns about unto the north; it whirls about continually, and the wind returns again according to his circuits" (Ecclesiastes 1:6).
-You dont have to be divinely inspired or scientifically adept to understand wind patterns. In fact learning it is essential to be a sailor. Solomon must have learned it from his sea-faring neighbors, the Phoenicians.
10. Science expresses the universe in five terms: time, space, matter, power, and motion. Genesis 1:1,2 revealed such truths to the Hebrews in 1450 B.C.: "In the beginning [time] God created [power] the heaven [space] and the earth [matter] . . . And the Spirit of God moved [motion] upon the face of the waters." The first thing God tells man is that He controls of all aspects of the universe.
-Vagueness. Science DOES NOT expresses the universe in five terms: time, space, matter, power, and motion. Also, selectively picking words and assigning interpretations to it does not constitute a DIVINELY FULFILLED prophecy.
11. The great biological truth concerning the importance of blood in our body’s mechanism has been fully comprehended only in recent years. Up until 120 years ago, sick people were "bled," and many died because of the practice. If you lose your blood, you lose your life. Yet Leviticus 17:11, written 3,000 years ago, declared that blood is the source of life: "For the life of the flesh is in the blood."
-Debunked: Moses reveals that blood is the essence of life. http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CH/CH135_2.html
12. All things were made by Him (see John 1:3), including dinosaurs. Why then did the dinosaur disappear? The answer may be in Job 40:15–24. In this passage, God speaks about a great creature called "behemoth." Some commentators think this was a hippopotamus. However, the hippo’s tail isn’t like a large tree, but a small twig. Following are the characteristics of this huge animal: It was the largest of all the creatures God made; was plant-eating (herbivorous); had its strength in its hips and a tail like a large tree. It had very strong bones, lived among the trees, drank massive amounts of water, and was not disturbed by a raging river. He appears impervious to attack because his nose could pierce through snares, but Scripture says, "He that made him can make his sword to approach unto him." In other words, God caused this, the largest of all the creatures He had made, to become extinct.
-Debunked: Behemoth, from the book of Job, was a dinosaur. http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CH/CH711.html
13. Encyclopedia Britannica documents that in 1845, a young doctor in Vienna named Dr. Ignaz Semmelweis was horrified at the terrible death rate of women who gave birth in hospitals. As many as 30 percent died after giving birth. Semmelweis noted that doctors would examine the bodies of patients who died, then, without washing their *snip*
-Debunked: The Bible specifies good medical and hygienic practices. http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CH/CH135.html
14. Luke 17:34–36 says the Second Coming of Jesus Christ will occur while some are asleep at night and others are working at daytime activities in the field. This is a clear indication of a revolving earth, with day and night at the same time.
-Vagueness. Here is the entire passage and related verses:
17:31 In that day, he which shall be upon the housetop, and his stuff in the house, let him not come down to take it away: and he that is in the field, let him likewise not return back.
17:32 Remember Lot's wife.
17:33 Whosoever shall seek to save his life shall lose it; and whosoever shall lose his life shall preserve it.
17:34 I tell you, in that night there shall be two men in one bed; the one shall be taken, and the other shall be left.
17:35 Two women shall be grinding together; the one shall be taken, and the other left.
17:36 Two men shall be in the field; the one shall be taken, and the other left.
If the passage about the two men in the field referred to daytime activities, it would have been stated close to verse 17:31. In fact, it could be interpreted that the phrases "in the day" and "in that night" describe only the passage adjacent to it. In other words, the phrase "in that night" have no bearing to subsequent verses like the "two men shall be in the field . . ." . In addition, slaves working in the fields at night is not unheard of.
15. "During the devastating Black Death of the fourteenth century, patients who were sick or dead were kept in the same rooms as the rest of the family. People often wondered why the disease was affecting so many people at one time. They attributed these epidemics to ‘bad air’ or ‘evil spirits.’ However, careful attention to the medical commands of God as revealed in Leviticus would have saved untold millions of lives. Arturo Castiglione wrote about the overwhelming importance of this biblical medical law: ‘The laws against leprosyin Leviticus 13 may be regarded as the first model of sanitary legislation’ (A History of Medicine)." Grant R. Jeffery,
*snip*
-Debunked: The Bible specifies good medical and hygienic practices. http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CH/CH135.html