The Old Testament predicted Jesus?

[Galvatron]

My fundie co-worker says this a lot as evidence of the Bible's prophetic accuracy. Naturally, I can't get many details out of him, but does anyone here have an idea what he's talking about?

[Howedar]

And if a messiah hadn't come yet, that wouldn't prove the Bible wrong, cause they were just on the way right? Nice fallicious reasoning by whoever that is.

[Tsyroc]

My fundie co-worker says this a lot as evidence of the Bible's prophetic accuracy. Naturally, I can't get many details out of him, but does anyone here have an idea what he's talking about?

It's the same kind of thing as any prophecy or horoscope for that matter. The prophecys are vague enough so events can seem to fit or be interpreted to fit. I doubt you'll find anything that is exact down to the T. If so, how do we know that the disciples didn't just lie about it later? Also, since the prophecys were known what's to stop Jesus from trying to make specific things he did from appearing to match the prophecies?

Anyway, if Jesus had matched the prophecies so well there wouldn't be a Jewish religion anymore because everyone would have agreed that he was the messiah.

[lgot]

Daniel if I am not mistaken. The fundie is right. There is a prophecy and most what happens in the gospels meet the prophecy.
Funny what you can do when you know about what you are writing, aint ? Esy to write that Jesus did all that was in prophecy when you write this 20 years after that...

[Durandal]

My fundie co-worker says this a lot as evidence of the Bible's prophetic accuracy. Naturally, I can't get many details out of him, but does anyone here have an idea what he's talking about?

The Bible's accuracy in predictions regarding its own stories doesn't exactly impress me.

[SeebianWurm]

I'm always stumped by that line where it talks about naming the child Jesus. It says along the line that it was predicted that the savior would be named Immanuel, and then the child whom is the messiah is named Jesus - all in the same chapter. WTF? How can they not see that it directly destroys the accuracy of the prediction?

[Darth Wong]

Since Jesus and a hundred other guys were wandering around pretending to be the fulfillment of prophecy, it's no great feat for the prophecy to "come true". When someone knows about a prophecy and tries to make it come true, it is not so much prophecy of the divine as incitement to lunacy.

Besides, it's always more interesting to see where it failed to predict things. Where in the Old Testament does it predict all of this taking place while the Jews are a vassal-state of the Roman Empire? Where does it predict that the Roman Empire would even exist? A rather odd prophecy to "predict" the coming of a Messiah and not notice the trivial fact that he would do so under a new Empire which has already become the greatest of its age, or that this mighty (but strangely unforeseen and apparently not noteworthy) Empire would execute him.

[Vympel]

The claims of prophecy from the OT are an absolute joke.

1: Firstly, Coyote will set you straight

2: The book of Matthew is notorious for making up prophecy from OT passages which were nothing of the sort- e.g. the virgin birth

[paladin]

IIRC there was a roman poem called the shepherd that supposely predicted the birth of Jesus. This fact was point out of course after the Romans converted to Christianity.

[Durandal]

You also have to remember that countless scriptures and texts were stricten during the compilation of the Bible. For all we know, we could have missed out on hundreds of completely bogus prophecies.

[Howedar]

In all fairness, we could also have missed out on some that magically prove the validity of the Bible. Lack of material does not an arguement make.

[Darth Wong]

In all fairness, we could also have missed out on some that magically prove the validity of the Bible. Lack of material does not an arguement make.

Yes it does. If you say "your idea hasn't a shred of evidence to back it up", that is a perfectly valid rebuttal.

[Coyote]

The claims of prophecy from the OT are an absolute joke.

1: Firstly, Coyote will set you straight

2: The book of Matthew is notorious for making up prophecy from OT passages which were nothing of the sort- e.g. the virgin birth

Vympel! You are indeed a prophet! I shall convert my garage to a church immediately...

But yeah, the Messiah was supposed to be born "of a young woman" (not necessarily a virgin) named Jesse, and the child would be named Immanuel. He is supposed to be of the same family line as King David. Remember, King David had children with Sheba, the Queen of Kush [Ethiopia], so the Messiah may well end up being Black (I'd love to see Pat Robertson pop a vein over that).

Jesus was one guy among many riding a wave of "messianic fever" that was popular at the time, and his supposed final proof of Divine status was the Resurrection, which took place after his death and which no one actually saw. The stories about people talking to his resurrected body are conflicting-- one story puts him in the Galilee region, another in Jerusalem-- and the two accounts seem exclusive of one another.

In one of the Jewish Biblical Commentaries (I can't find which one) the Messiah is also supposed to enter Jerusalem on the back of a white donkey (or at least a donkey) and I believe he is supposed to be led in by the Prophet Elisha. Again, this did not happen...

[lgot]

I think this only shows good evidence of the who and to whom the author of the text was adressing. In the texts where Jesus is more messianic and tied to the his hebrewish side, those prophecies are in mind and the author do a good effort to make up with that. In the texts that Jesus is already walking to his divine status and they are already talking to christians and with the intention of conversion, those prophecies are put aside...
All those prophecies are actually come from different momments and in that period it all mixed up...
It was a good time to come a messiah...

[Durandal]

It was a good time to come a messiah...

Not really, since lots of them got stoned for heresy.

[lgot]

not in this sense...Good time because of the mess there. It was very easy to find space in the needs and motivations of palestine there for a messianic movement.

[Coyote]

It's actually kind of an interesting question-- why, of all the people running about claiming to be the Messiah, did Jesus's story end up being the winner? Naturally, we'd be asking this question of anyone else's story had they risen to the top of the heap, but Jesus didn't seem to have any particular "angle" to his story that made it more interesting.

But maybe they hitched the tale to the already popular "Mithras" legend, and the martyr aspect made it seem dramatic...

[Darth Wong]

There's always somebody who wins the lottery. And it's usually a welfare bum too, so the analogy fits

[lgot]

I believe the christian evolution explains it. Jesus was no longer a terrain messiah, but divinity. As such, his philosophy and aims turned no longer to be this world (please, the philosophy of it, not the real pratice). As such they also turned to be more open to foregeins and had a separation of the national feeling (Paul and Peter fight shows it) of the hebrews. Most of those messiah are tied with the nation of Israel and the patriotic feeling there. Those leaders and cult come easily in conflict with the Romans interest and probally suffered more when the rebelion happened and the romans destroyed jerusalem. Since the christians could be apart of this conflict and had conversions outside the hebrewish circle they could survive and therefore Jesus figure became more important.
Of course, one of those leaders had to be the most charismatic and intelligent. Maybe it was Jesus and it explain it also...