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Disclaimer: In this article we approach the topic of comparisons of the Jewish Messiah and Messianic prophecy as against the Christian Messiah and Christian Messianic prophecy using a "literal-historical" approach to the facts at hand. If you have studied our other websites then you know that "the Christ" can be interpreted from 3 different perspectives: "literal-historical", "mystical" and "mythological". Again for purposes of comparing Judaism vs Christianity we adopt in this website and for all studies in this website a supposed "literal-historical" interpretation of "the Christ" as well as Jesus. Only in so doing can we adequately contrast the truths of Judaism and Christianity. I will let you be the judge after such studies as to the conclusions you must draw from such a "literal-historical" approach to Jesus of Nazareth. Now on with the study.
If there is any topic upon which Christian apologists love to rely for their defense of Christianity in general and Yeshua in particular, it is the alleged accuracy of what are commonly referred to as the Messianic prophecies. Christians constantly refer to the alleged applicability of numerous Old Testament prophecies to Yeshua of Nazareth and contend that no one in all of history fulfills these prophecies to the degree that Jesus/Yeshua does. If you ask almost any Christian they will tell you that Yeshua/Jesus fulfilled all the Old Testament prophecies and that he is “the” Messiah because of such a fact. Such statements are made by those who never once in their life ever compared the Hebrew Scriptures as taken from the Jewish Bible with the supposed faithful translations of them as found in their Christian Bibles [both the Old and New Testaments in the Christian Bible]. I never did either always supposing that there were no differences; that is until my study after graduating Seminary took me deeper into the purposeful forgery of the Christian Bible and Christian texts. Few undertake or even know to undertake such a study. Even the majority of Christian commentators will say the same things in the books they write and assure the Christian community that we we have a "fulfilled" Messianic prophecy fulfilled by Jesus when sadly they have failed to make the same comparisons. Over the years in my Pastorate in Dallas, Texas, the heart of the Bible belt, I was in study on the average 5 hours a day, and it was in this deep study that I began to become aware of the lack of true Biblical knowledge held by those who claim to be “spiritual authorities” in the church. I would be astonished that often these men would be on television purporting to be leaders of the flock of G-d but to those who knew different their lack of Biblical knowledge was so apparent. It was no better on the staff of the church where I Pastored. You only need to attend one staff meeting for a few hours at our “mega-church” to be convinced of such facts. It seems if we can preach and speak loudly and have 10-15 scriptures memorized then the consensus is that one must be a Biblical authority and worthy to lead the people of G-d. Let me say up front this is one of the most tragic fallacies I have even encountered in my whole life. That is until I my studies advanced into the "mystical" interpretations of "the Christ" along with studies into Gnosticism and later the "mythological Jesus" and my studies into Astronomy.
I wish to be fair in my presentation of information in this series of articles and the following website so I wish to point out both sides of the fence. In this regard is well stated by Josh McDowell on page 161 in Evidence for the Faith, Practical Apologetics: "For only 48 of these prophecies to be fulfilled in any one individual using the modern science of probability, is one in every 1 x 10 to the 157th power. That means 157 zeros.... No wonder Yeshua constantly appealed to prophecy to substantiate his claims." This surely sounds convincing to the reader for we are assured by such authors that Yeshua easily fills the bill in this area.
Answer for yourself: If you are basing your mathematical calculations of accurate prophecy from a "falsified" and "forged texts" and you don't know it, as it appears Mr. McDowell does not, then how valid are such "influencing" numbers on the accuracy of such a statement? If you are using "forged texts" then such impressive numbers that would appear to make Jesus the Messiah are absolutely meaningless!
Now the question we have to look into is if our Christian Bibles are faithful representatives for the Hebrew Masoretic Texts and we will examine such line upon line, and precept upon precept in this website.
On page 141 in Evidence that Demands a Verdict McDowell reiterated the same argument by saying, “The apostles throughout the NT appealed to two areas of the life of Yeshua of Nazareth to establish His Messiahship. One was the resurrection and the other was fulfilled messianic prophecy. The OT, written over a 1,000 year period, contains several hundred references to the coming Messiah. All of these were fulfilled in Yeshua Christ, and they establish a solid confirmation of His credentials as the Messiah”. In essence, the argument is that Yeshua must be the messiah because only Yeshua fulfilled so many of the messianic prophecies.
Answer for yourself: Again if what we read and trust to be faithful translations of these "hundred references to Jesus" supposedly in the Hebrew Scriptures can be shown to be purposeful mistranslations in the Greek and English Christian Bibles, purposeful misquotations, verses purposefully taken out of Scriptural context and misapplied to Jesus, and pure Scriptural inventions out of thin air then how accurate can we be in our faith that this Christian depiction of Jesus as the Hebrew Messiah is accurate?
Opposing this understanding and statements of Josh McDowell is over 2000 years of Jewish interpretation of their own Hebrew Scriptures which testify that neither Jesus nor anyone has fulfilled the Messianic Scriptures and to say that Jesus or anyone else "is" or "was" the Messiah is a claim that is made without Hebraic Scriptural support but rather finds its momentum based upon pure emotionalism and lack of true Scriptural knowledge of the Hebrew texts.
Answer for yourself: What is the truth of the matter? Are Our Christian Bibles and our religious texts faithful in translation to the Hebrew Bible or could it be remotely possible that our Christian Bibles and our religious texts have been purposefully altered and purposefully mistranslated and misquoted and purposefully taken out of context or even invented in order to make is appear as if Jesus is the fulfillment of the Hebrew Scriptures...and we not know it because we and our spiritual authorities have not done the adequate studies to see such deceptions on the pages of our Christian Bibles?
Answer for yourself: How can we be certain that what I intimate is true if you have never personally made such comparisons yourself let alone investigated for yourselves the truth concerning the integrity and origin of your Christian Bible, its origin, its changes and falsifications when compared with the Hebrew Bible?
Well you can see that if what I say is true then there is a great need for you, the reader, to study and find the truth concerning these issues.
Lost in the abundance of apologetic assurances that Yeshua/Jesus of Nazareth is the Messiah is two central facts:
I know, you are probably bewildered at the second fact stated above and shaking your head and beginning to think that such a statement comes from one "demon possessed", but let me assure you that over 20 years, I said "years", of in-depth study of the Old Testament and the Hebrew Scriptures and manuscript evidences, I as an ordained Pastor, continually had to bow my knee to such truths because the Messianic prophecy of the Old Testament and its depiction being "fulfilled" by Jesus in the New Testament, when properly understood as taken from the Hebrew Bible, does not support such Messianic claims made by mainline Christianity. You may have yet to see of what I speak, but when you undertake a serious investigation of this major problem as I did, day after day, year after year, then you will have no recourse but to see what I did…for it is there and if you are "fully clothed and in your right mind" then you will see what I and everyone else uncovers when you examine for yourself this textual deception given Christians and all followers of this Jesus by Rome in the Bibles we inherited from them. Simply said they are forgers!
The problem for 99.9% of all Christians, Christian Pastors, and many Christian writers, is that they fail to adhere to the strict laws of Biblical hermeneutics or “interpretation” of the texts when developing their religious belief system. Besides not knowing that many of their passages and Scriptures in their Christian Bibles are forgeries when compared with the Hebrew we find that more often than not religious concepts from years of preaching and sermonizing are read into these passages, either consciously or unconsciously, when the original writer of passage had no such intention when he wrote these passages or taught them to others. To often than not our hearts lead our heads and we end up continually reading into various passages what we want them to say; continually failing to draw out from the passage the intended meaning of the writer as he originally wrote the passage. And we don't even know we are doing this since this is what we have been doing our whole lives. Not aware of these Laws of Interpretation for the Ancient Scriptures, we don't follow them and fall prey to reading into the texts what we have heard preached before and want to believe and make associations in our minds which can be shown to be groundless when these texts are examined critically under such rigorous disciplines.
Over these next articles in this series, I will examine with you Messianic prophecies in the Old Testament and their proposed fulfillments in the New Testament. I will explain them in detail and provide the necessary information to expound their meanings with Biblical and historical facts. It will be up to you to make an intelligent decision concerning these passages based upon the facts as you see them for yourselves. Let your emotion follow the facts and the facts only. Have faith in the facts and you'll find the truth. We must stop letting our emotions and desires overrule demonstrable facts. It will be my contention after examining in detail such Old Testament prophecies that the Jews and the Jewish scholars have been correct in their assessment of their own Scriptures for these last 2000 plus years and that nothing of real import in the entire Jewish Bible can be applied with definite precision to events in the life of Jesus as depicted in the Roman New Testament. Instead, as the facts are presented, you will have ample evidence and proof that the earlier followers [Essenes and later Gentiles] of "the Joshua-Jesus" of Egyptian history have twisted, distorted, and perverted many if not almost all of the Old Testament verses that could even remotely be applied to the Messiah and have tried to make them apply to this supposed "Joshua-Jesus" when there never did. This applies to not only some of the Jewish followers of this "Joshua-Jesus" who desired his coming as the hoped for deliverer of Israel but especially to the later Gentile Church who would forge these religious texts into documents handed down to us today as supposedly "historical, infallible and inerrant." Historical accuracy and messianic reliability have been of far less importance than establishing Yeshua/Jesus as the embodiment of mankind's savior to these who crafted these New Testament passages in the first place.
On page 37 in The Real Messiah Aryeh Kaplan summarized the situation in a manner that can only be described as exemplary by saying,
"The early Christians tried to justify their contention by finding hints of it in the Jewish Scriptures. They went over the entire Bible with a fine tooth comb, looking for any evidence however flimsy, to prove that Yeshua was the Messiah, and that their entire logical structure was in accord with ancient Jewish teachings. In many cases, they were not above:
in order to prove their point. One needs no further evidence than the fact that most modern Christian Bible scholars totally reject almost all the "proofs" of the early Christians. Indeed, some of the best refutations of these "proofs" may be found in contemporary Christian Bible commentaries."
If you are not a prolific reader then you know of no such “modern Christian Bible scholars” which relate the truth about this Messianic deception to the Christian Church along with the fallacies that traditional Gentile Christianity stand upon for their Messianic doctrines. But believe me if you were to go to a Barnes and Noble book store or a Boarders’ book store you would find that the secular religious sections are full of them. The problem is that these writers and their books exposing such Christian lies and deceptions are not going to make the top 100 of a Joshua’s, Zondervan's, or Christian Family Books stores!
On page 186 in The Jew and the Christian Missionary Gerald Sigal stated in the same vein, "The evangelists are endeavoring, time and again, to link their claim to passages in the Hebrew Bible in order to find support for their contention that Yeshua is the Messiah and the fulfillment of what the prophets had to say about the Messiah. Yet details large and small abound which show that this is an impossibility."
The typical Christian today, because of his personal failure to be able to read Hebrew let alone know the Hebrew Scriptures thoroughly, as taken from the Hebrew Bible of the Jews, the real Old Testament as opposed to the Christian's fabricated Old Testament, is set up for religious deception from the pulpit of his church because he reads the English versions of what he believes to be faithful representations of the Hebrew Scriptures. But he is not alone for his pastor is right there with him in this regard for few, if any pastors have the skills to do such language studies. This is crucial as you will come to see. Little did I know when in Seminary that my Christian Bible and my "Old Testament" was not accurate to the Hebrew Scriptures in hundreds of "key" places. I would a Masters in Divinity and not know this fact and only come to this awareness in my search for a "Jewish Jesus" when inquiring into Hebrew sources for such information. That knowledge of the inaccuracies in my Christian Bible would only come when studying the Jewish Messiah from a "Jewish view" since being prompted and altered by various Jewish writers on their Jewish Messiah to the fact that many Christian texts and prophetic passages in my Christian Bible which I cherished were "forged" on purpose thousands of years ago. Wanting to prove my faith "correct" I took these Jewish writers on trying to justify the correctness of my inherited Messianic beliefs given me by my birth faith of Christianity and the religious texts that I grew up with in my Christian church. Such a task will more often than once result in tears as the truth of my inherited faith was exposed before my eyes through this critical study and comparison of the Hebrew texts of the Jewish Tanakh with the Old and New Testaments of my Christian Bible. The result would be that I would see too clearly that my faith in Jesus, as depicted to be the Jewish Messiah in the Roman New Testament, was in gross error in many places when compared with the corresponding Hebrew texts taken from the JPS Tanakh or the Stone Edition Tanakh (Jewish Bibles). If one were to know authoritatively the Old Testament prophecies as they exist in the Hebrew texts about the coming of the Messiah and know them within their historical context then he could easily spot lies and deceptions from the pulpit by those who literally brainwash their flocks with perversions of these Biblical truths. But again in their defense they fall into the same trap of "trusting their Christian Bibles" and the texts within them. This is not done maliciously for surely no one who comes to this knowledge can remain in the pulpit for I know that from personal experience since finally resigning my position no longer to continue the charade. But remember that our Seminaries don't teach these truths to young pastors and we are using texts in our Christian Bibles we are taught to "trust" which, when investigated, are not reliable when compared to their Hebrew counterparts and not knowing this we spread error and teach it sadly as Divine truth. We end up teaching error concerning the Jewish Messiah and never know it for we never know the truth about our Christian Bibles; that is until we accidently read a comment here or there to this fact, and being challenged, take up the mantle of seeking truth and begin serious personal study into these areas. Most Christians will be born, live, and die and never know the difference for honestly, our Christian leaders, for the most part, are unqualified to teach the Scriptures without such in-depth study and few have paid the price to gain this knowledge.
Besides twisting, perverting, and distorting Old Testament verses in such a manner as to apply them to this Roman Jesus/Yeshua, apologists long ago, when challenged by those who knew the truth of the Hebrew Scriptures and Messianic prophecy, devised a devious mechanism by which to account for the fact that Yeshua/Jesus obviously did not fulfill many of the most prominent prophecies. This problem is tremendous and said in a more simpler manner as this: We need to be "Old Testament Christians" before we are "New Testament Christians".
Answer for yourself: And why is this?
If we were "Old Testament Christians" first then we could have spotted every time a Hebrew Scripture which was purposefully taken out of context, misquoted, mistranslated, or even creatively invented in order to present a picture of this New Testament Jesus being the "fulfiller" of Old Testament Messianic prophecy. But we are not knowledgable enough and not qualified to spot such "frauds" in our Bibles and most Christian Churches and pastors seldom if any time mention the Old Testament except for Malachi when they want to collect money and the tithe [incidentally which they don't use according to the Commandments in the Hebrew Scriptures that mandate the money be used in certain ways only; but that is another study for another day].
Christianity teaches that those numerous predictions that Yeshua/Jesus failed to complete during his sojourn on planet earth will, they allege, be fulfilled when he returns a second time. In other words, what Yeshua/Jesus didn't complete during his first appearance will be accomplished the second time around. For utter deception this ploy has no equal. Using that subterfuge, anyone could claim to be the messiah. All they need do is allege that whatever they did not accomplish while on earth this time would be carried out when they return at some indeterminate time in the future.
Anyone who has read the Old Testament with any degree of objectivity knows that there is only one messiah and that is all, and he is going to come once, and that is it. The Second Coming concept is nothing more than a Christian ruse to conceal some blatant shortcomings on the part of the Christian Jesus/Yeshua. If you recall in the New Testament this same Jesus told his generation that many would not die before the Messiah comes; yet it never happened...at least not yet. You cannot have it both ways or invent "get out of jail free" passes when your theology goes not "fit"!
According to Old Testament prophecies, as taken from the Hebrew texts, the Messiah's arrival would usher in and make manifest in the world certain events. Such “events” would be the sign and validation that such a one was “THE” Jewish Messiah. There are many "anointeds" in the Bible but only one predicted to come in the "last days" and be the eschatalogically "anointed."
Before I tell you what these signs and events are comprised of, I would like you to take a piece of paper and write down what you think or know from your Christian experience and past sermons what the Messiah was to accomplish when he came. Go get a pencil and paper and do it now if you would then we can pick up where we left off.
Remember it was to the Jews this "Messiah" was promised and not to the Gentiles and these Jews and their Rabbis, of all people, know their own Hebrew Scriptures best and are best qualified to both know and teach the truth about their own Messiah! The Jewish people were told what to look for. It seems absolutely ridiculous to me today that they could reject the Messiah in their midst or reject him if he did and accomplished what the prophets had prepared them to acknowledge when they so desperately prayed and longed for him. Something is wrong somewhere I reasoned if these Jewish people in the first century rejected this Jesus for some reason. I could never understand, at that point in my studies, how one such as this Jesus, as depicted in the New Testament, which preached righteousness and healed all manner of diseases, could be rejected by anyone. Either Yeshua/Jesus did or did not fulfill the prophecies which these Jewish people and their Rabbis and trained Scriptural authorities were told to expect by Moses and the Prophets. So take the test yourself and then compare with the following and see how much you knew about what the Messiah is to accomplish when he came.
Answer for yourself: Have you opened the window lately and looked around for these things above or seen them lately?
Understand as an ordained Pastor I want the truth and desire to teach the truth; I don't want "religion." As "truth" began to dawn upon me the more I studied outside the "Christian Box" I was challenged to my very core; especially in light of the dawning fact that my religious texts in my Christian Bible were highly unreliable. And I don't want to believe "in Jesus" or the depiction of Jesus in the New Testament if such a characterization is not truthful to the Jewish Messiah or the historical record. It goes even deeper than this when you study advances beyond "Jesus" into the studies of "the Christ". I want and deserve the truth; G-d never gave us a lie or intended you be told one in His name or in the name of Jesus. I have found in my studies that Essenes and later antisemitic Gentiles with theological agendas which are derived from "literalized" sun worship are the culprits here and passed off such lies as supposed "Divine Revelation" to the non-Hebrew speaking world as if Divine truths from G-d. Simply said both these Essenes and later anitsemitic Gentiles of the emerging Roman Church "literalized" the "Christ within" along with the "allegorical sungods" which were but pictures of the "Descent of the Soul" but that is a difficult study that must wait for another day. We have our plates full with problematic Messianic prophecies as it is. As stated above if you had been familiar with the Hebrew Scriptures and not their corrupt Greek, Latin, and English versions prior to coming to Christianity then you would have spotted the fraud and forgery of the Hebrew Scriptures before letting yourself become brainwashed by them most of your life. This is one major reasons the Jewish people, who know their own Scriptures, don't and cannot accept this Christian Jesus. If you had this knowledge of the Hebrew Scriptures before reading the falsified Christian Old Testaments along with further misrepresentations in the New Testament then you could have spotted the falsification of these Hebrew passages as applied to this Jesus and you would have known that they remain unfulfilled today thereby making the identity of the true Jewish Messiah unknown.
Answer for yourself: In all honesty, have these and similar prophecies materialized during the life of Yeshua/Jesus in the first century before 70 C.E. or even after his supposed death and resurrection? Look at the list above and it is not hard to see the truth for yourself.
It is because of such prophecies that we must study to find the truth about this "Jesus Story" and this requires seeking out EVERY PROPHECY AS TAKEN FROM THE HEBREW BIBLE AND COMPARING IT WITH NOT ONLY THE FACTS OF HISTORY FOR THEIR FULFILLMENT BUT THE TRANSLATION OF THEM IN OUR CHRISTIAN BIBLES IN ORDER TO SEE IF WE HAVE BEEN TOLD THE TRUTH CONCERNING THEM AND IN SO DOING DETERMINE IF OUR CHRISTIAN OLD AND NEW TESTAMENTS ARE FAITHFUL TO THE BIBLE THE JEWS USED AND BELIEVED IN. This is a lot of work and effort and I have tried to simply such a study on this website for the interested student who wants the truth about the "Jesus Story".
Answer for yourself: Who really was this Jesus in the New Testament, what was his purpose, and was he “the” Messiah? If this Jesus was not the Jewish Messiah then what really lies behind this "Jesus Story"? Now this next question is one to remember.
Answer for yourself: Who is this "Jesus Christ" if not the Jewish Messiah? Can this "Jesus Christ" be found as far back as Ancient Egypt and what did this Spiritual Concept mean then? Has the true meaning of this "Jesus Christ" remained intact down through recorded history or did this Spiritual Concept change and if so when and who was responsible for it? Could it be Rome in the 3rd century that changed this "Jesus Christ" and gave the world forged religious texts that promoted such a change? Well again that is something the reader and student does not need to forget for you will be rewarded in your faithful study of our websites with the answers and truth behind this "Jesus Story" as your studies advance.
Answer for yourself: Has the Christian Church down through history failed to teach the truth about "Jesus Christ" ? Has Rome taught concepts and religious dogmas about this Jesus that are false? Well it is time to find out!
On page 7 in The Real Messiah Aryeh Kaplan stated, "Yeshua could not have been the Messiah. The Prophets predicted a world of peace and love after the Messiah's coming, and this certainly does not exist today."
On page 36 Kaplan says, "First of all, the Jews had a tradition, well supported in the teachings of the Prophets, that the Messiah would bring about major changes in the world. The 'spiritual kingdom' [of Yeshua Christ] did not in any way fulfill these prophecies. The Jews were furthermore unconvinced by the answer of the 'second coming,' since it is not even hinted at in Biblical literature."
On page 71 Kaplan correctly states, "All the prophecies that Yeshua did not fulfill the first time are supposed to be taken care of the second time around. However, the Jewish Bible offers absolutely no evidence to support the Christian doctrine of a 'second coming.' . . . All the embarrassing prophecies that he did not fulfill are swept under the rug of a 'second Coming.'"
And on page 55 Kaplan encapsulated the entire issue very well: "Nowhere does the Jewish Bible say that the Messiah would come once, be killed, and return again in a 'second coming.' The idea of a second coming is a pure rationalization of Yeshua' failure to function in any way as a messiah, or to fulfill any of the prophecies of the Torah or the Prophets. The idea is purely a Christian invention, with no foundation in the Bible."
How true! On page 58 in The Jew and the Christian Missionary Sigal notes, "Having fulfilled the Law and the Prophets, what is the need for the second advent? If he truly brought about all that was promised concerning the peaceful society the Messiah will bring, as stated in the Law and the Prophets (Isa. 2:1-4; Jer. 23:5-6; Ezek. 34:23-31; Amos 9:13-15), there should be no reason for a second advent."
Succinctly stated, the Second Coming has no basis in the Jewish Bible and numerous scholars have noted as much.
The concept is plagued by another problem as well. The New Testament enunciates many events that are to precede the Christ's arrival.
On page 336 in The Bible Has the Answer apologists Morris and Clark ask: What are the signs that the return of Christ may be soon? Their response:
It is not possible to predict the exact time of the second coming of Christ (Mark 13:32). On the other hand, Christ actually commanded us to recognize when his coming was near by saying, "When ye shall see all these things, know that it is near, even at the doors. (Matt. 24:33). A few of these things are . . .: A general decline in morality. . ., A widespread decline in religious faith. . .. A prevalence of a naturalistic evolutionary philosophy in science . . ., A rebellious attitude of most of the younger generation . . ., Conflict between the prosperous and the poor . . ., Rapid rise of anti-Christian leaders and philosophers . . .. Infiltration of false teachers and leaders into Christian churches . . ., Successive world wars, and widespread fear and confusion regarding the world's future.
This list is always trotted out by Christian propagandists at every opportunity.
Answer for yourself: But, notice anything interesting about the events included therein? Every sign mentioned has been applicable to every generation and every period in history.
As far as a decline in morality is concerned, it has never been very high from the beginning; so it is difficult to see how it could have declined from the bottom.
One can't help but notice a third major problem with the alleged Second Coming. Yeshua and his cohorts repeatedly stated that the Second Coming was imminent:
Answer for yourself: What should we learn from this?
Any impartial observer and "thinking believer" must concede that the failure of anything resembling the Messianic Kingdom or its Messiah to arrive after two thousand years does not constitute "quickly" by any stretch of the imagination. The prophecy is exposed as full of problems.
Not only is the Second Coming an invalid concept, but several statements written by the New Testament writers and ascribed as if Yeshua himself spoke such regarding Old Testament messianic comments are incorrect:
Information to be presented later will clearly show that the true Hebrew Scriptures taken from the Jewish Tankah and not the altered ones in the Christian Bible does not testify of Jesus/Yeshua. I will show the reader how Isaiah, chapters 52 and 53, for example, speak not about a "single person" but the corporate nation as a whole. There is absolutely no room for a singular personal Messiah in Isaiah 53. The evidence is presented in detailed form to make sure the reader does not miss this important truth that goes unnoticed by almost all Christians who read the "forged" Isaiah in our Christian Bibles.
Having noted that the Second Coming has no biblical basis and Yeshua looked upon himself without any biblical backing as the fulfillment of the one who was prophesied, the question now becomes one of analyzing the prophecies themselves in order to determine the extent to which they are applicable to him. Ultimately, of course, that is the crucial question.
Answer for yourself: Does Yeshua fulfill the Old Testament prophecies as he claims, and, if so, to what extent? Was it Jesus' fault that they were never fulfilled or are there reasons why they could not be fulfilled in his day?
That is a whole other question addressed later in this website. I wholeheartedly believe that God would want us to understand His Divine Revelation as contained in the Hebrew Bible and approach these messianic prophecies in their historical context and let G-d find a way to fulfill them if He so chooses, and who knows, maybe we might be surprised one day how this will occur but to ascribe to this Jesus something that is without foundation does the Hebrew Scriptures injustice.
Upon that question rests the entire superstructure of Jesus' messianic credentials. If the entire display of messianic predictions cannot be reliably applied to this New Testament Jesus when examined under the light of critical examination from the Hebrew Scriptures then understand that the depiction of Jesus, his disciples, and his propagandists as found in the New Testament is a deception of the greatest degree that has ever come out of the woodwork.
Now...let us turn to the prophecies and compare them from the Hebrew to the Greek/English and let us see if our Roman Church Fathers and the Catholic Church has given us faithful translations of the Hebrew Scriptures...the Bible that the Jews used in the first century!
Let us continue our study.
Bennoah1@verizon.net