One of the best ways to confirm the Christian faith is through prophecies in the Old Testament fulfilled in Christ. As I read through certain portions of the Old Testament I can’t help but be amazed at the evident hand of God in the composition of these Scriptures.
God tells the Israelites, who were continually toying in henotheism (i.e. one main God and many lesser gods), to bring these so-called gods into account by making them tell what would happen in the future. In this mocking of other gods, God called on them to prophesy.
“Bring your idols so that they might tell us what is going to happen. Tell us the former things, what they are, that we may consider them, that we may know their outcome; or declare to us the things to come.” (Isa 41:22)
The idea goes like this: God, by definition, is transcendent. God created all things, including time. Therefore, God, in his essence, does not reside in any part of his creation, including the parameters of time. Therefore, he alone has exhaustive knowledge of the future out of necessity. No other created thing has innate access to this kind of knowledge—not man, angels, demons, or Satan. God alone knows the future. Therefore, any consistently accurate prediction of future events must come from him. If the Bible accurately predicts future events in detail, we must pause and consider the implications.
Most evangelicals are well aware of this. We have some very popular defenses of the faith that consistently use prophecy to convince others that Christ is God’s son. I am certainly not against this at all. As I said, this is very convincing to me as well. There are certain passages about Christ that stand out more than any other. Isaiah 53 of course. The entire chapter looks as if it was written after Christ’s death, yet it was written 700 years before. We even have scrolls of Isaiah that date at least 150 years before Christ. As well, the book of Daniel. Specifically, I look at Daniel chapter 9. This is not an easy chapter to understand, but once grasped it very convincingly predicts when Christ would die over 400 years later. (The best book to pick up on this subject is Harold Hoehner’s Chronological Aspects of the Life of Christ).
There are many others that stand out. However, I think that we Christians should be careful concerning which prophecies we include in our apologetic arsenal. While we look at the Old Testament and see Christ in prophecy, imagery, foreshadowing, and typology, we look at it though our beliefs that are already in place. There is nothing wrong with this. In fact, for us Christians it is very exciting to begin to see Christ everywhere in the Old Testament.
However, there is a problem. There are certain “prophesies” about Christ in the Old Testament that need to be distinguished from those we use for evangelistic/apologetic purposes. In other words, there are certain prophecies that carry great and convincing weight, but others are of less apologetic value.
Examples:
1. Isaiah 7:14: Born of a virgin.
I often hear people using Isaiah 7:14 as definitive proof that Christ was the Messiah.
“Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign: The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and will call him Immanuel.”
Why shouldn’t we use it? Matthew did (Matt. 1:22-23). The problem is that when we look at that passage in Isaiah, the original context does not look like a predictive prophecy about the Messiah, but an immediate prophecy (“sign”) given to Ahaz concerning his current national predicament. Read the entire chapter and you will see what I mean. The prophecy must have been fulfilled in Ahaz time in order for it to have any relevance or make any sense.
Besides all of this, in the original Hebrew, the word used here, almah, simply means “young woman.” It may be supposed that most young women were virgins, but in the original context, the miracle was not that Ahaz would see an actual virgin with a child, but that his enemies would be defeated by the time the child (maybe Isaiah’s child yet to be born) reached a certain age.
We Christians see a sort of “foreshadowing” or typological prophecy that extends on the nuance of the word “young woman” due to the circumstances of the Christ advent. Post-Christ, we see this as a reference to Christ’s virgin conception. However, for the skeptic, this can be easy dismissed due to the context and the meaning of almah.
2. Zech 12:10: Piercing of Christ’s side
Christians rightly see a reference to the piercing of Christ in the words of Zechariah.
“And I will pour out on the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem a spirit of grace and supplication. They will look on me, the one they have pierced, and they will mourn for him as one mourns for an only child, and grieve bitterly for him as one grieves for a firstborn son.
However, outside of Christian circles, this does not look like a prediction of the piercing at the cross at all. It simply looks like God referring to his own “piercing” which could have any number of meanings, all of which point to Israel abandoning God and the ensuing pain. Isreal will recognize God whom they have hurt after he restores them in the future. Christians simply take the “piercing” literally since Christ (God) was pierced.
3. Psalm 22:16: Piercing of Christ’s hands and feet.
Another passage that we see some details of Christ’s death is Psalm 22:16.
“Dogs have surrounded me; a band of evil men has encircled me, they have pierced my hands and my feet.”
Again, while Christians have a lens through which we interpret this passage, others do not. It is very hard to get Christ’s crucifixion out of the original context which is David’s situation. It is even harder to qualify this as a predictive prophecy as there is no indication that David is talking about anyone but himself. David is calling out to God for help as his enemies are overwhelming him. David’s hands and feet have been pierced (metaphorically or literally). We Christians see Christ in this, and rightly so. It is a foreshadowing typology of what Christ would endure on the cross. However, from the skeptics perspective, this is normally going to carry very little weight as the original context answers all their questions.
4. Psalm 34:20: No bones of Christ will be broken
In a proverbial statement about the righteous, the Psalmist says this:
“He [God] protects all his bones, not one of them will be broken.”
Once again, Christians see a reference to Christ’s crucifixion. Remember, the soldiers come to break his legs so that he will die before dark and find that he is already dead. John uniquely sees this as a fulfillment of the Psalm (Jn 19:36).
However, once again, the original context of the Psalm is not a predictive prophecy about Christ. While the Christian’s faith will cause them to see Christ in this section of the Old Testament, those outside have no obligation to see this as anything other than a proverbial reference to God’s protection of the righteous.
There are many others that I could cover here, but these will suffice. I pray that no one is misreading me here. I am not saying that these passages are not about Christ in a very real sense. I believe they are. All I am saying is that we need to be careful to distinguish between those prophecies that are truly predictive and apologetically more useful and those that are typological references that carry weight and significance only for those who are already believers.
It was Theodore of Mopsuestia (Theodore the Interpreter), on of the great Antiochians of the fourth-century, who first encouraged Christians to distinguish between predictive prophecy and typology. I am afraid that in our zeal to be good apologetic students, we often don’t think through these things as well as we should and end up looking rather naive.
Teach people about Christ from the Old Testament. Use the Old Testament to show the legitimacy of Christ. Let us just be careful to qualify what we say, understanding that unbelievers are not always going to see the same things. I think that this will make our defense of the faith more substantial.
76 replies to "The Problem of using Old Testament Prophecy to Defend Christ"
Also, Matthew’s use of the OT is dealt with quite well in David Turner’s commentary (Matthew, BECNT: 2008).
Lastly, Peter Gentry at SBTS has a new article out on Daniel 9 in the Southern Baptist Journal of Theology. It is free to read, and I have linked to it in the “Saint and Sinner” name above.
Also, David Turner has dealt with Matthew’s use of the OT quite nicely in his commentary (Matthew, BECNT: 2008).
Lastly, Peter Gentry has a new article out on Daniel 9 in the Southern Baptist Journal of Theology. It is free to view, and I have linked to it through the “Saint and Sinner” name above.
Also, David Turner has dealt with Matthew’s use of the OT quite nicely in his commentary (Matthew, BECNT: 2008).
Lastly, Peter Gentry has a new article out on Daniel 9 in the Southern Baptist Journal of Theology. It is free to view online: “Daniel’s Seventy Weeks and the New Exodus”. I would link to it, but I am afraid that the program that this website uses would block it.
You all need to check out
Michael Brown’s 4 volumes
“Answering Jewish Objections to Jesus”
I feel that he deals very well with these questions.
Doug Boahem
My apologies for thaking so long to respond to your contribution.
As you know, there are people who believe that their Holy Books are literally true-every word being ‘written by God’. Islamics and in fact all ‘fundamentalists of whatever faith fall within this ‘box’.
Others, will say that the scriptures contain a wide variety of things, poetry , politics, allegory etc. and that they should be viewed from that perspective. In my experience Hebrews and more ‘liberal’ (hate that word) Christians would fit in here.
From my readings , the one thimng which humanity CRAVES is certainty – so if you tell a fundamentalist that portions ofhis scriptures are not literally correct- he will curse you.
A fundamentalist will insist that the scene in Genesis depicting the serpent and two trees is LITERALLY correct – whereas the non-literalist will tell you that the truth lives at a higher level and that this scripture is allegorical-a parable which shows that mans first sin was to try to make himself equal to God
I would follow the non-literalist line – but this is offensive to many .
About 20 years ago an unedited copy of the Holy Koran going back to the 7th century was unearthed – and copies sent to scholars all over the world
It was totally unedited, and to the surprise of many, it read remarkably like portions of the Hebrew Bible ! The passages relating to ’70 virgins’ and ‘jihad’ were nothing like what we are told today- so subsequnt ‘editors’ have been very busy inserting their interpretations. Muslims interviewed by the research team all said that this was a “Western Plot” -but, knowing human nature and it’s propensity to forge and distort -in God’s name- nothing surprises me.
Something which has greatly distresses me over the years, is how badly some of the OT ‘prophisies’ fit into the NT perspective. I have often used the words ‘shoe-horned’ to fit.
OUT OF SPACE – SEE NEXT MESSAGE
Douglas Adu-Boahen.
Continued
This debate comes to me as a ‘gift from God” since I realise that some of the material I have problems with is a foreshadowing typology of what Christ would endure on the cross. (see Michael Pattons commets right at the start of this debate)
In contribution number 19 (above) I mention how this applies to the “suffering Messiah” verses.
The Bible is a book written by INSPIRED MEN – but there are many places where the writers just plainly ‘got it wrong” and we have to deal with this reality. In others scriptures have been adjusted to fit doctrinal positions over the millenia.
Muslims used to tell me that ‘their scriptures’ were 100% accurate due to the way they were assembled. Knowing human nature -and having said what I said above- I think not.
We are all ‘feeble and frail’ and each one of us has to find his own way through this ‘maze’ . With Gods guidance this is possible-but it’s not easy.
Best Regards
John Brien
[email protected]
Carl D’Agostino
Sorry it’s taken so long to come back to you -I live in a different time zone to yours – makes things different.
I’m not an expert of the field of the Ancient Egyptian religion. I did pull a ‘blog’ off the www once by a person called Jesse Acutt- “Pagan Triads, the Trinity, and the Holy Spirit in the New Testament.
I hesitate to mention it as I’ll be accused of suscribing to its views!
I would however say something in general terms AND I”M NOT SAYING THAT THE DOCTRINE OF THE TRINITY WAS DERIVED FROM PAGAN EGYPTIAN TRIADS OR FROM GREEK (NEO-PLATONIST) PERSONNIFICATION OF THE ATTRIBUTES OF DEITIES
Such ideas were however ‘common currency’ in the fourth century and the idea of ‘three in one’ would not have been a difficult pill to swallow by people living at that time.
Joel- your comments (#43) ring true!
Blessings
John Brien
Carl D’Agostino
This will be my last contribution to this debate but I would like to follow up on a point I made earlier-and that was the utilisation or rather distortion. of OT verses to ‘paint a Chrostological gloss” over the Tanakh.
As we have discussed earlier Typological foreshadowing is common and acceptable -but people must also understand when this is being done.
Take Isaiah 9 verse5
In my attempts to dig for truth, I have been diverted and lied to by people I would not normally describe as ‘evil’.
As we have discussed in this debate, Biblical Hebrew poses difficulties to the extent that tense and punctuation have to be determined by context
The TRUTH is that Chapter 9 is written in the PRESENT tense -all of it!
The NT writers have also chosen to interpret this verse a certain was – but to be quite frank – this is not the RIGHT way.
After researching this with the local Synagogue and the Hebrew Department at Cambridge University I find that the Tanakh translation has been pcked up correctly by the (Vatican approved)
NAB Bible. I am not a Catholic -but ‘hats-off” to the NAB team for their integrity and scholarship.
For a child is given to us
upon his shoulders dominion rests
they name him Wonder-Counsellor
God-Hero
Father-forever
Prince of Peace
Note
Doesn’t say HE IS – THEY NAME him
Present tense
Doesn’t say almighty God ,but God-Hero ( as David was)
Father Forever -Christ was never called “Father”
For the angry literalists who
The notes at the back of this book observe “In Christian tradition and liturgy this passage is used to refer to Christ.”
So – Typological Prophesy is fine . but no more than that.!
Before I bow-out I would like to thank Michael Patton for initiating a super debate. The subject is one which has caused me a great deal of anguish and I have found it helpful.
If you ever write a conclusion -or book summaring your findings I would be most interested in obtaining a copy.
God…
I have found Michael Brown’s 4 volumes “Answering Jewish Objections to Jesus” very helpful. He is a top apologist in this area.
John:
The TRUTH is that Chapter 9 is written in the PRESENT tense -all of it!
I’m not so sure. The verbs are certainly not in the present tense. And while it’s true that the mapping from Hebrew verbs to English verbs isn’t direct, this doesn’t seem like the present tense to me. (In any language, the tense of a text is only partially determined by the tense of the verbs. A good example from English is a waiter in a fancy restaurant who asks, “did you want some more coffee?” The past-tense verb is part of a present-tense question, and the wrong answers is, “well, I did, but it’s too late now.”)
As for “Wonder-Counselor,” I have lots more here.
-Joel
Hi Joel
Many thanks for that!
Joel , I’m not an expert-in fact I have a science background, am an econometrician and CPA – so you can tell how ignorant I am about theological matters!
However, I DO know how to use all the resources needed to determine truth – and I know when I am being deceived.
While studying Isaiah I have been knowingly deceived by ‘good’ men – desperate to prevent me getting to the truth. All of this for ‘doctinal’ and other reasons.!!!
May I suggest that you
(i) Contact your local synagogue and speak with a scholar (be aware of possible bias)
(ii)Contact the department of Ancient Languages at a world-class university and ask to speak to the person who lectures ancient Hebrew. These chaps are very helpful if they are convinced that you are not a ‘zealot’ pursuing a limited agenda.!
(iii) Contact the editorial tean who edited the New American Bible
NAB) – they can be contacted through Oxford University Press
198 Madison Avenue New York , New York 10016-or THe
Catholic Bible Society.
PLEASE do not listen to the ‘gymnastics’ and ‘tap-dancing’ that seems to emanate from the American Southern States!
They will drive you round in circles and you will end up as confused as I once was! Their agenda is one of extreme literalism, as they fear that if the scriptures are not held to be literally correct that they will lose their authority and lead to moral decay. I believe that this may be true for some people -but most modern educated people require truth above everything else.
Finally, The NAB translation may be criticised on the grounds that the punctuation may be changed to reflect ” Wonderful in counsel is our God-Hero”- but that does not alter the thrust of my message.
Very Best wishes
John Brien
[email protected]
Hi Joel
Many thanks for that!
Joel , I’m not an expert-in fact I have a science background, am an econometrician and CPA – so you can tell how ignorant I am about theological matters!
However, I DO know how to use all the resources needed to determine truth – and I know when I am being deceived.
While studying Isaiah I have been knowingly deceived by ‘good’ men – desperate to prevent me getting to the truth. All of this for ‘doctinal’ and other reasons.!!!
May I suggest that you
(i) Contact your local synagogue and speak with a scholar
(ii)Contact the department of Ancient Languages at a world-class university and ask to speak to the person who lectures ancient Hebrew. These chaps are very helpful if they are convinced that you are not a ‘zealot’ pursuing a limited agenda.!
(iii) Contact the editorial tean who edited the New American Bible
NAB) – they can be contacted through Oxford University Press
198 Madison Avenue New York , New York 10016-or THe
Catholic Bible Society.
PLEASE do not listen to the ‘gymnastics’ and ‘tap-dancing’ that seems to emanate from the American Southern States!
They will drive you round in circles and you will end up as confused as I once was! Their agenda is one of extreme literalism, as they fear that if the scriptures are not held to be literally correct that they will lose their authority and lead to moral decay. I believe that this may be true for some people -but most modern educated people require truth above everything else.
Finally, The NAB translation may be criticised on the grounds that the punctuation may be changed to reflect ” Wonderful in counsel is our God-Hero”- but that does not alter the thrust of my message.
Very Best wishes
John Brien
[email protected]
John,
You should contact the Hebrew Dept at Cambridge again and ask them if the Hebrew verb is based on a tense system or is aspectual. If they say the former, then I think you’ve gotten the wrong department. Hang up, and call the Hebrew Dept. at Oxford. There is no Present Tense in Hebrew. You can use an Imperfective or a participle, but tense is determined by context, not the verb.
Hodge
Your comment takes me back to the start of my search for truth.!
A few years ago I was told by a Jew of an alleged “Christological gloss” which ‘you Christians” have painted over “our” scriptures!
I selected a few verses to study- and Isaiah 9 v5 was one of them.
I got onto the internet and discovered literally hundreds of sites offering to advise me-99.9% promoting the ‘traditional’ point of view.
In Africa we talk about a river which is ‘lined with crocodiles’ and that is true in this instance!
I was advised-
(i) There is no punctuation or tense in Ancient Hebrew- these have to be determined by context
(ii) “The Jews” don’t even understand Hebrew so don’t talk to them! (humility!)
For several years I tacitly accepted these comments until I had a chance meeting with an Internationally recognised authority on Ancient Hebrew..who lectures at a famous British University.
He confirmed (i) and (ii) above and then said ” The aspect or context of Isaiah Chapter9 is such as one would use when discussing contemporary events”
I was therefore pleased to see that the NAB (New American Bible)
has had the integrity to follow this line of reasoning.
When I confronted my local pastor he admitted that what I had discovered was true-he had known about it all the time but “people require certainty and loss of certainty causes some people to lose their faith”
I must say that this dialogue, along with The Great Trinity Debate
have grearly enhanced my understanding of the scriptures- and people! – but I’m still left with a sense of hopelessness regarding humanity.!
People that I once regarded as ‘the best’ are ‘feeble and frail’ like the rest of us.!
One final comment- the title of the debate “Using OT prophest to defend Christ” perhaps gives the wrong impression. No-one I know ‘attacks’ Christ based on OT verses-Christ speaks for himself throughout the ages!
Blessings John
Interesting post.
John, I don’t think asking “you Christians” or “the Jews” will necessarily help.
But Dr. Hoffman *is* one of the world’s leading Hebrew scholars, if he says the verbs aren’t in the present tense, you can take that to the bank. His credentials are on his website: http://www.lashon.net.
The Hebrew department at Cambridge probably uses his books.
Hi Brian
I.m afraid that I’m going to say something very sad- I don’t trust any ‘apologist’!
I have been ‘led down the garden path’ by apologists for years and do not readily believe anyone who claims expertise in a subject.
Some contributors have made the interpretation of Ancient Hebrew a ‘rocket science’ !! It is NOT
People who lived 2000 years were not super-humans who wrote in some obscure code!
They were men and women like us who had no difficulty in determining if one was discussing the past, the present or the future.
Sorry old chap- I have been deceived too many times and have the greatest disrespect for people with an ‘agenda’ – especially when it comes to religion.
Sad reflection on human nature!
By the way my Hebrew source is ‘impeccable’.
Blessings
John
John,
You’re deception is your paranoia that you will be deceived. In it, you assume that your lack of qualification in the area is sufficient to tangle with scholars who frankly know a ridiculous amount more concerning the subject about which you’ve chosen to “self-educate.” Since you’ve studied so much, in your own mind, then you would know that everyone is an apologist of his or her own views, including yourself. But there is data outside of ourselves that can be given a voice in the mix. The way that verbs function, the lexical meaning of a word, etc. are things that we have right in front of us and can examine if we have the right tools to do so. The idea that you can even call your Hebrew source impeccable when you don’t have the ability to judge either way, displays your heavy apologetic at work, i.e., I like what scholar X said instead of scholar Y, so scholar X is impeccable and cannot be refuted. Why don’t you just pick a jelly bean out of jar and choose your scholars that way. It would be no more different than the bias of a layman choosing what interpretation of a stele written in Egyptian hieroglyphs he liked best. What you should distrust the most, since it has the greatest possibility of deceiving you, is your own analysis.
Hodge
Let me be quite blunt- it is people like you who stood in the way of getting to the truth for so many years – and I feel quite angry about that.!
I have moved along and am not going back down that track!
I will not be in Britain until the end of the year and so will not talk to my contact at Cambridge until we meet face to face.He is not the kind of man that one can phone and make small-talk with.
However, in the meantime I still believe that
(i) The Hebrew Bible
(ii) The New American Bible
got it right.
I have not met any man who has a monopoly of the ‘truth’
and I have learnt to distrust zealots and anyone with a strong agenda. My ‘strong agenda” (you call it paranoia!) is that I don’t readily accept things from so-called experts whether its about Evolution, climate-change, nuclear energy or whatever. They are just people -like all of us and subject to error or bias.As they say, “truth is the daughter of time”
I will not be returning to this debate and it has become
pointless
Best Wishes
John
John,
Yes, people like me, who have facts, often get in the way of people who want to argue counter to those facts. You will find a scholar to back up anything you want to believe. You just won’t find an educated one backing up a distortion of facts. The problem is that I’m not even sure what your argument is. I wasn’t arguing against it. Frankly, I just caught a couple errors in what you were saying. I’m not quite sure how my corrections negate or support what you’re saying. I just wanted to correct your factual errors. That’s the funny part about your zealots comment, and why I think paranoia is a good assessment of your disposition. I urge you concerning one thing, John: When you go into the emergency room, don’t try to tell the surgeon he doesn’t know what’s he’s talking about because you talked to some other surgeon once, and you now think you’ve got a better grasp of medicine now than he does. Such is a deadly game to play.
Hodge
When I go to the emergency room I am completely ‘at the mercy’ of the registrar in charge.
If my treatment is elective, I would do a lot of research before committing myself to a course of treatment. Data is available to help one make up ones mind!
I managed to get through to my UK contact last night and he have me the ‘full story’
LINGUISTICALLY what you say is correct. It is POSSIBLE that the context of Isaiah 9v5 COULD BE ‘future gazing’.
As my friend says ” I explain to my students that Hebrew is, as it were, has only participles”
The next question, is it PROBABLE?
Certainly many Jews have always regarded the subject of the verse to be Hezekiah. The ‘context’ suggested that at the time.
We have to make up our minds about it- there are aspects of the context which make me cautious. Christ was never called ‘ Father Forever”for example. In fact he would be staggered, for example to have been referred to as ‘Father’
By the way, I do hold that Christ is the Messiah -I still have serious doubts about ‘prophetic ” aspects of the OT.
I found Michael Pattons comments regarding “Typological Foreshadowing” and the Bishop of Durhams assessment regarding ‘reframing’ to be meaningful.
Regards
John
Brian:
Thank you for your kind words.
(i) There is no punctuation or tense in Ancient Hebrew- these have to be determined by context
John:
It’s true that there was no punctuation in Ancient Hebrew (but in some important cases they used words instead).
It is not true that there was no tense. And while you are right that the final tense of a text depended in part on context, that’s true of all languages.
and I have learnt to distrust zealots and anyone with a strong agenda
My only agenda is figuring out what the texts originally meant. (That’s what prompted me to write my last book.)
More generally, I think there are at least two common approaches to the Bible. One starts with the ancient texts and tries to figure out what they meant. The other starts with the religious context of the texts and tries to fit the texts into that context.
I agree that it’s usually a mistake to consult someone who specializes in the second approach if what you want to pursue is the first goal. But I also don’t think that distrusting all experts will prove particularly productive for you.
-Joel
Joel
Many thanks for your sage advice!
I guess I was ‘blurring the boundaries’ of the two approaches you mentioned.
I have in fact been expressing my frustration with those who would ‘shoe-horn ‘ scriptures into their particular doctrines and dogmas.
What is the name of your book?
Best Wishes
John
Re My comment #2 First paragraph statement, I am greatly influenced by controversial Passover Plot. Any feelings about that author’s contentions
? Also believe gospels fixed and edited to fit an orthodoxy that becomes foundation of Roman Church esp. omission women(Elaine Pagels).I did not mean to imply that Paul did not accept lineage of Jesus like in all the begets, but that it was not an important consideration to validate Christ as Messiah for him. It is a validation construed to validate in eyes of skeptic Jews. And fulfillment of prophesy was probably not a crucial necessity in validation of Christ as Messiah for Paul. The validation comes in the majesty of the resurrected Christ and the invitation thereby presented for salvation and redemption. For Paul that’s the only proof necessary. This idea also leads him to dismiss keeping of Law as conditional to enter Kingdom.
John:
My book about (re)discovering what the original language of the Bible meant is called And God Said: How Translations Conceal the Bible’s Original Meaning. The book’s website has more information.
-Joel
p.s.: Polycarp is running a book giveaway this month, offering a free signed copy of my book to the winner.
Here is the dilemma: Every Christian Old Testament Bible scholar, pastor, and priest on the planet says that the Old Testament prophesies the birth and death of Jesus of Nazareth as the Jewish Messiah (ben David). However, every (non-messianic) Jewish “Old Testament” scholar and rabbi adamantly states that there is not one single prophesy in the Hebrew Bible about Jesus.
So who are we poor, ignorant, non-Hebrew speaking, non-Bible scholar, saps to believe?
In lieu of spending the next 10 -15 years becoming a fluent Hebrew-speaking Old Testament Bible scholar yourself, I would suggest using some good ol’ common sense. Who is more likely to be correct:
1.) Jewish sages and rabbis who have spent their entire lives immersed in Jewish culture, the Jewish Faith, the Hebrew language, and the Hebrew Bible—for the last 2,000 years— or, 2.) seminary graduates from Christian Bible colleges in Dallas, Texas and Lynchburg, Virginia?
Sorry, Christian scholars, but using good ol’ common sense, I have to go with the Jewish scholars. And Jewish scholars say that Christian translators deliberately mistranslated and distorted the Hebrew Bible to say things in the Christian Bible that is never said in the original Hebrew—all for the purpose of inventing prophesies into which they can “shoehorn” Jesus!
I strongly recommend that every Christian read orthodox Jewish author, Asher Norman’s book, “Twenty-Six Reasons Why Jews Don’t Believe in Jesus”. This fascinating, easy-to read book written for the layperson/non-scholar, demonstrates, step by step, how the alleged “prophecies” about Jesus in the Old Testament were manufactured by the authors of the New Testament. You will be shocked by the strong evidence that Jews present for their belief that Jesus absolutely could not have been the Jewish Messiah.