Messiah prophecies

[Plotinus]

By the way, thanks, BirdJaguar! Biblical studies isn't really my field but it can be quite interesting, I think, if you get into it. Of course I may have just proved the opposite.

 

[Birdjaguar]

Your last tome was pretty awesome. You should copy it and put it on the history forum. It will probably be more appreciated there and people will understand just how much work goes into such a post. Thanks I learned alot.

 

[TheTruth]

The Christian faith is based on the assumption that Jesus is the Messiah from the Jewish religion. The Bible says that Jesus is the Messiah, and it documents how Jesus fulfilled quite a few Messiah prophecies. However, it seems like Jesus did not literary fulfill any of the Messiah prophecies. Instead it seems like the New Testament has twisted the prophecies a lot to make it appear like Jesus fulfilled them in an abstract spiritual way. Let me give you a few examples:

One of the most famous Messiah prophecies can be found in Isaiah 7:14: “For this reason the sovereign master himself will give you a confirming sign. Look, this young woman is about to conceive and will give birth to a son. You, young woman, will name him Immanuel.” I have no reason to doubt that Jesus was born by a young woman. That is very common, so it is hardly a prophecy at all. The second part of the prophecy however is more detailed: “You, young woman, will name him Immanuel.” Unfortunately Marry did give her son the name Jesus, not Immanuel, so Jesus did not fulfill that prophecy.

Another famous messiah prophecy can be found in Micah 5:2: “As for you, Bethlehem Ephrathah, seemingly insignificant among the clans of Judah - from you a king will emerge who will rule over Israel on my behalf…” As the prophecy says, Bethlehem Ephrathah refers to a clan, not the town in Judah like the misquotation in Matthew 2:6 makes it appear to be. Since Matthew makes up a rather weak story on how Jesus fulfilled his twisted version of this prophecy instead of claiming that Jesus fulfilled the original prophecy, one could suspect that Jesus was not from the Bethlehem Ephrathah clan after all and therefore did not fulfill this prophecy.

In Jeremiah 23:7-8 “So I, the Lord, say, ‘A new time will certainly come. People now affirm their oaths with “I swear as surely as the Lord lives who delivered the people of Israel out of Egypt.” But at that time they will affirm them with ‘I swear as surely as the Lord lives who delivered the descendants of the former nation of Israel from the land of the north and from all the other lands where he had banished them…’” Jesus did not delivered the descendants of the former nation of Israel from the land of the north and from all the other lands where he had banished them, so he did not fulfill this prophecy either.

The second last sentence in the Protestant Old Testament (Malachi 4:5) promises that the prophet Elijah will return before the Messiah comes. Elijah was a prophet who physically ascended into heaven (2 King 2:11) and he is expected to physically return from heaven before the Messiah arrives. Jesus himself confirms that Elijah must come before the Messiah in Mathew 17:10-13 and Mark 9:11-13, and he suggests that John the Baptist was Elijah. That doesn’t make sense though, because John did not physically descend from heaven like Elijah is supposed to, he had a very different personality, and when somebody asked him if he was Elijah he told them the truth: “So they asked him, ‘Then who are you? Are you Elijah?’ He said, ‘I am not!’ (John 1:21)”. Obviously Elijah has not yet descended from heaven, so Messiah cannot have arrived, which rules out the possibility that Jesus was the Messiah.


Apparently the Bible itself seems to prove that Jesus was not the Messiah, which implies that Christianity is a false religion. I expect that somebody can give me a convincing explanation on why this conclusion is wrong. Good luck!

Edit: And please give me some examples of real prophecies that Jesus actually did fulfill!

I feel Christianity lost it's foundation a long time ago. From what I see, the only reason people continue to believe in it is because of fear. Fear of stepping away from what you've been taught for so long. Fear of the "what if". Ex... What if I stop just believing and start trying to find the truth out myself and something bad happens to me? The fear of being wrong or right. The fear of questioning God. Even though the Creator made us human and not an animal with the ability to choose and to question. But it all comes down to the fear of the unknown. What if?

 

[Plotinus]

Thank you, BirdJaguar - I'm glad it's appreciated. It's not really much work though, as the alternative is to do the work that my company supposedly pays me to do...

The history forum does look pretty interesting, I must say. I'm not sure that my last post would fit into any discussion currently there but I'll keep an eye out - when my supervisor's not looking, anway...

 

[Pikachu]

What truth? - That the bible is true?

…

If you want to defend the bible and say it is a solid study of the divine -
Then please do so, but by doing that - You are then not an atheist, as you claim.

As an atheist - You are meant to deny the divine, remember?

…

Are you fighting for or against religon here?

Why is it important if Plotinus really is an Atheist or not? And what in his/her posts made you think that he/she would defend anything divine? If you want respect you should try to counter your opponents argumentation instead of their integrity.

Be careful - I could imagine you becoming religious at the end of it all.

I am very surprised to see you coming with this statement. Why would you fear that someone who critically studies the bible could become a Christian because of it? Perhaps you are insecure about your views of Christianity? That could explain why you are afraid of looking at evidence about religions.

I take it that Plotinus has been rendered incapable of answering his own posts?

What a stupid statement! Of course Plotinus is capable of answering, but that shouldn’t stop others from joining the discussion.

While the Dead Sea scrolls do present what some see as evidence of sources for some biblical content,
Please give conclusive proof that no church or holy leaders have ever misinterpreted the biblical texts for their own advantage.

Why do you bring different interpretations of the bible into this part of the discussion? Are you trying to confuse your audience or something? Nobody deny that many people have misinterpreted the biblical texts for their own advantage, but there is a big difference between misinterpreting a text and changing the actual text. We have only argued that the written text has stayed nearly unchanged for a long time. Try to challenge that argumentation if you disagree!

I never said the entire bible, I merely pointed out that there are important aspects of
it that can be twisted by religious leaders to serve their own agenda, whatever that may be.

So you are backing off from you claim that Christians have considerably edited the Old Testament? Then it looks like you have learned something here. You are quite right that some Christian leaders are notorious at twisting the words in the bible to server their own agenda. But they extremely rarely change the bible. They only twist the words they find there and take them out of context.

Here's a few...
Genesis 49:10 (From Judah)
Micah 5:1 - 2 (Born in Bethlehem, God)
Isaiah 52:15 - 53:12 (a sacrifice, the only innocent dies for the guilty)
Psalm 22:18

Thank you! Finally somebody answered my question. As you probably expect, I am now going to tell you that you are wrong:

Genesis 49:10 says "The scepter will not depart from Judah, nor the ruler’s staff from between his feet, until he comes to whom it belongs; the nations will obey him”. The prophecy tells that the Jewish Kingdom would not fall until 'whom it belongs' (Messiah?) appears. Jesus arrived to late to fulfill this prophecy as the kingdom already had fallen both to the Babylonians and later to the Romans by the time Jesus claimed to be the Messiah (if he really did claim that at all?).

Micah 5:1-2 I have already discussed. Jesus wasn’t born in Bethlehem, but if the prophecy is about the Bethlehem Ephrathah clan instead (like I think), Jesus might fulfilled it anyway. But the prophecy also says that this dude would give the Jews victory in their war with the Assyrians (Micah 5:5), something Jesus never did.

Isaiah 52:15-53:12 and Psalm 22:18 are not Messiah prophesies. Let me quote Plotinus: ”Isaiah 53 seems to be about some unnamed contemporary or past person, whilst Psalm 22 seems to be the psalmist's own experience ”

The angel didn't say, "you shall name him Immanuel" it was "he shall be called Immanuel" (In my translation anyway). It's not refering to a literal name, but a title.

Angel? You are talking about the misquotation in Matthew 1:23, right? Look it up in Isaiah 7:14 and you will see a slightly different formulation. It is a name, but this isn’t really a Mesiah prophecy anyway. The prophecy is fulfilled in Isaiah 8:3-8 by Isaiah’s own son.

Thank you, BirdJaguar - I'm glad it's appreciated. It's not really much work though, as the alternative is to do the work that my company supposedly pays me to do...

The history forum does look pretty interesting, I must say. I'm not sure that my last post would fit into any discussion currently there but I'll keep an eye out - when my supervisor's not looking, anway...

You could start a new thread related to this topic. You obviously have a lot of knowledge that the history forum would appreciate if you share.

 

[IglooDame]

I felt that his arguments and mine were alike enough to warrant my response. I don't know if he'll be back or not.

In light of Plotinus' awe-inspiringly complete and informative response, I now feel like a high school physics teacher that said "yeah, Einstein and I pretty much agree on the relativity thing."

 

[Iggy]

@Plotinus. Very informative and interesting reading.

 

[cgannon64]

Let me chime in too.

I've always called that statement a conspiracy theory, but I don't have the education or essay-writing skills to prove it.

 

[NateDawgNY]

Originally posted by Plotinus
Isaiah 53 seems to be about some unnamed contemporary or past person

Wrong assumption. The Talmud specifically states that Isaiah 53 is Messianic prophecy. Let me re-iterate this point by posting what I wrote earlier.

Here is what the Talmud (and other contemporary texts) have to say about
Isaiah 53:

"The Messiah, what is his name? The rabbis say, the leprous one; those of the house of Rabbi say, the sick one, as it is said, "Surely he has carried our sickness."
Sanhedrin 98b
Babylonian Talmud

"He is speaking of King Messiah: "Draw near to the throne and dip your morsel in the vinegar," this refers to the chastisements, as it is said, "But he was wounded for our transgressions, bruised for our iniquities."
commentary from the Midrash Rabbah

"Behold my servant. Messiah shall prosper; he shall be high, and increase, and be exceeding strong: as the house of Israel looked to him through many days, because their countenance was darkened among the people, and their complexion beyond the sons of men."
Targum Yochanan

"In the hour in which they tell the Messiah about the sufferings of Israel in exile, and about the sinful among them who seek not the knowledge of their Master, the Messiah lifts up his voice and weeps over the sinful among them. This is what is written, He was wounded for our transgressions, he was crushed because of our iniquities. Those souls then return to their places. In the Garden of Eden there is a Hall which is called the Hall of the Sons of Illness. The Messiah enters that Hall and summons all the disease and all the pains and all the suffering of Israel that they should come upon him, and all of them come upon him."
The Zohar 2:212a

While all of these texts may have different ideas about who the Messiah will be, there is little doubt that they all believe that Isaiah 53 is a prophecy about the Messiah.

 

[Plotinus]

I'm glad the post was well received - I didn't want to slip into rising to Curt's bait and risk spamming a thread that's supposed to be about Messianic prophecies. But it looked like a bit of groundwork needed to be done in clearing away the conspiracy theories to allow a proper discussion of the issues that Pikachu wanted to look at. I'm no expert on Biblical studies, whatever Igloo may say! I'm really a historian of doctrine, and only semi-professional at that (I write books on it in my spare time - or when the supervisor's not looking). And Pikachu - I'm a "he" - otherwise I'd be Hypatia...

NateDawg, as I said before, when I commented on Isaiah 53 I was referring to what the text itself indicates rather than other interpretations of it. From your marshalling of the evidence, it looks like you probably have me at a disadvantage here. But I understand that the text in question probably dates from not long after the Babylonian exile - that is, late sixth century BC. Lots of handy information at http://www.earlyjewishwritings.com/isaiah.html for those who want to check this.

The Talmud, from which the passages NateDawg cites are taken, is not part of the Christian or Jewish Scriptures, but is a long series of reflections and commentaries on the Jewish Scriptures. These developed orally in the Jewish communities and were written down, I believe, between the second and fifth centuries AD, although much of the material went back a lot earlier.

Now, I am definitely no expert on the Talmud or other Jewish writings, but I would say that if we want to know what the author of Isaiah 53 was talking about, I don't think that devotional literature written some centuries later is necessarily the final word on the subject. That is especially so if that literature was actually written later than the New Testament. The Christians were trumpeting Isaiah 53 as a prophecy about Jesus, whom they believed to be the Messiah. So no wonder if some Jews were perhaps positively influenced by Christianity and interpreted the text in a similar way (although not applying it to Jesus, obviously). I wouldn't be surprised if there were some more negative Jewish texts which also argue for a more anti-Christian interpretation of the Scripture too. However, I'm nowhere near knowledgeable enough to find any. In other words, whilst a Jewish interpretation of the text in question as Messianic prophecy is certainly interesting and raises a variety of questions, I think it would be as rash to say that this proves that the text is indeed such a prophecy as it would be to say that Christian interpretations of it prove the same thing. This is not to say that Isaiah 53 is definitely *not* a Messianic prophecy, simply that it remains to be shown, in the absence of (for example) any mention of the word "Messiah" in the text itself.

NateDawg, I think it would be helpful if you could provide more information on the sources you cite, and in particular why they indicate that the Isaiah passage (and indeed the other passages of the Old Testament) are intended to be Messianic prophecies, apart from the use made of them by later people.

 

[NateDawgNY]

Originally posted by Plontinus
I think it would be as rash to say that this proves that the text is indeed such a prophecy as it would be to say that Christian interpretations of it prove the same thing. This is not to say that Isaiah 53 is definitely *not* a Messianic prophecy, simply that it remains to be shown, in the absence of (for example) any mention of the word "Messiah" in the text itself.

That's really a key issue with regard to interpreting prophecy. None of the prophecies that refer to the Messiah, actually have the hebrew word "Mashiach" in them. So, that leaves it up to you or I to determine whether or not the text in question is talking about the Messiah.
Now let me digress for a moment with regard to the Talmud.
The Talmud is considered an authoritative record of rabbinic discussions on Jewish laws, ethics, customs, legends and stories. And it is the basis for all later codes of Jewish law. This is a very reliable source with regard to prophecy. All the Rabbis that took part in writing it had spent their entire lives studying the Torah & the rest of the Tanak.

Originally posted by Plontinus
NateDawg, I think it would be helpful if you could provide more information on the sources you cite, and in particular why they indicate that the Isaiah passage (and indeed the other passages of the Old Testament) are intended to be Messianic prophecies, apart from the use made of them by later people.

I will try and see what I can dig up. It is very hard to find the actual text of the Talmud online.
Here's some info about the Talmud
Talmud

 

[NateDawgNY]

I came across some more info, so I thought I'd dig up this thread for discussion.

The following are excerpts from Rabbi Kaplan's Handbook of Jewish Thought:

"On the other hand, numerous passages indicate that the Messiah will come in a more prosaic manner, such as "Behold, your king comes to you... humble and riding upon a donkey" (Zechariah 9:9).

"The initial Messiah will be killed as it is written:
They shall look to Me because they have thrust him through, and they shall mourn for him, as one mourns his first born son" (Zechariah 12:10).

"The theory of two Messiah's (or some have held as two comings of Messiah):

The Messiah of whom we have been speaking will be a direct descendent of King David, from the tribe of Judah. He is therefore known as Mashiach ben Dovid or Messiah the son of David. There is also a tradition that there will be another Messiah, from the tribe of Ephraim, the son of Joseph, who will precede Mashiach ben Dovid. He is therefore known as Mashiach ben Yosef or Mashiach ben Ephraim."

Without getting too much into this, I would like to re-open the floor for further discussion.

 

[Warman17]

most christians will just use what you just said as the second coming of Jesus, thus fulfilling all the prophesies the second time around and fulfilling the "2 messiahs" idea. This however, is not so. You can continue to say for the next 5000 years that Jesus will fulfill the second coming when there will be no second coming.

 

[NateDawgNY]

Far be it for me to present an argument on behalf of Christianity, for I am not a Christian, however I will present what I happen to come across.
Now, as I have stated previously, I do not believe that a person called Jesus existed, but I do believe that one called Yehoshua ben-Yosef did exist. Do I believe that he was the Messiah? That is irrelevant. I will present what I find, and you can decide to for yourself whether the one called Yeshua was the Messiah.

Regarding the two Messiah issue, I have posted what I wrote earlier in case you didn't get a chance to read it.

Within the Tanak (slightly different from the Christian Old Testament), there are two images of Messiah. Some, like the Essene community of Qumran interpreted this to mean there will be two Messiahs. Others have intrepreted this to be one Messiah who fills both roles. I will illustrate the difference between the two. You can draw your own conclusions.

Suffering Messiah:
Originate in Bet-Lechem
Micah 5:2
Make his appearance on a donkey
Zechariah 9:9
His purpose will be to attend to the needs of others
Isaiah 61:1-2; 11:13; 49:6
Suffer and die
Isaiah 53


Victorious Messiah:
Originate in the heavens
Daniel 7:13
Make his appearance in the clouds
Daniel 7:13
His purpose will be judgement
Isaiah 11:4-5
He will be victorious over his enemies
Zechariah 14:1-9​

Keep in mind that nowhere in the Tanak does it say that there will be two Messiahs. This is merely interpretation, and each sect of Judaism has it's own interpretation. It is late, so I will post more later.