PROPHETS DIDN’T FORETELL JESUS

 
Christians claim that God can see what is going to happen in the future. He is a celestial fortune-teller. They also claim that in order that we might be able to show that Jesus was his Messiah, Prophet and Son that he foretold things about him in the Old Testament.

One is struck by the importance that the biblical Jesus attached to fulfilling what the prophets of the Old Testament allegedly foreseen about him (Matthew 5:17; Luke 24:27; Luke 24:44; Matthew 26:56; Luke 4:20,21; Acts 3:18; Luke 22:37; Acts 10:43; 1 Corinthians 15:3,4; Matthew 2:4-6; Acts 13:29). He used these prophecies as credentials. If he was wrong about them then he was not the son of God.

Acts 17:2,3 has Paul arguing with his hearers for three Sabbath days using the Old Testament thus explaining and proving that it was necessary for Jesus the Messiah to suffer and rise from the dead.  This makes Paul a liar for no proof that a resurrection was predicted can be found in the texts.
 
Scholars agree that the prophecies do not fit Jesus and were never meant to.
 
The Christians respond that it looks that way but God put the prophecies together in such a way knowing that the first Christians would by using their method of interpretation see that they matched Jesus. God inspired the interpretation method. This is just a cop-out. Anybody could make prophecies using that kind of standard.
 
The Bible that Christians plunder for the prophecies is not the Bible but a mistranslation called the Septuagint.
 
This fraud was enabled by St Augustine among others.
 
“For the Septuagint translators are justly believed to have received the Spirit of prophecy; so that, if they made any alterations under His authority, and did not adhere to a strict translation, we could not doubt that this was divinely dictated.” “And therefore we find that the apostles justly sanction the Septuagint, by quoting it as well as the Hebrew when they adduce proofs from the Scriptures.”(St. Augustine, City of God)

 
MESSIAH IN GENESIS

Let us examine the alleged prophecies about the coming of Jesus in the Law of Moses.

Jesus claimed that the Law predicted his coming (John 5:46,47; Luke 16:31). When Jesus said in Luke 24:44 that all that was written about him in the Law had to be fulfilled it alarms us for the Law makes the most banal predictions that are taken for references to him. A man who is so easy to please with evidence is worth watching. The context says that he claimed that the Law predicted his death and resurrection! It never even predicted his death!

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* Genesis 3:15. God tells Eve that her seed will crush the head of the snake that enticed her to sin which will strike at his heel. 'The Hebrew says, “He will bruise thy head” ' (page 23, The Case for Jesus the Messiah). So, the seed refers to a special male person who will be either Eve’s son or her descendant. The Hebrew word translated crush or bruise means to do severe and irreparable damage (page 24, The Case for Jesus the Messiah).
 
Alleged Fulfilment. Jesus crushing Satan by letting Satan put him on the cross which ended in the world being saved from Satan. Jesus by atoning for sin on the cross took the world from Satan and crushed Satan's power. 
 
The Hebrews consider this prophecy to speak of the Messiah (page 25, The Case for Jesus the Messiah). They thought that the Messiah would wage war against evil and crush the serpent’s head that way.

The Truth. The prophecy does not speak of Jesus for it is most likely to be literally true when it could be literally true in the sight of the author of the prophecy. The Bible reports miracles so talking snakes would be possible in the Bible view. It is stupid to say that the talking snake must be a symbol for talking snakes don't exist. The author of the prophecy was surrounded by religions that had even more bizarre beliefs.
 
God said that the snake would die for it would crawl on its belly all its life. It was a real snake. So the person it would attack would be somebody that was born in Adam’s day for Adam would be expected to outlive the snake. The person who would kill the serpent would be either Abel or Seth who were sons of Eve.

The seed’s being bitten was to be a punishment for Eve so it was not Jesus who was so far down the line that she would not have cared if he was crucified ten times over. Moreover, Jesus’ death was not meant to make us sad when he told the ladies of Jerusalem not to mourn for him and was to be a source of joy for us for it saved us from sin. Sin was Eve’s biggest problem now and she would have been delighted to hear that somebody was going to save her.

Eve was to have a baby who would grow up to be bitten by the snake. He will kill it but it will have struck at his heel. We don’t know if the baby dies or not but he will suffer. If this stuff is metaphorical, then why is it Eve’s seed’s heel that is attacked and not his neck or abdomen. Why is it where it could do the least damage? This suggests that the seed will not die. The physical attack will not be fatal. Christians may respond that Jesus’ death was only temporary and not serious which is the explanation. But aren’t all our deaths supposed to be temporary? You would not speak of a death and resurrection using the metaphor of a heel being bitten for something like a failed attempt to kill would be pictured by it better.

We know that the “the word “enmity” in the Hebrew Scriptures always refers to hatred between persons. It is never used between and animal and a person” (page 22, The Case for Jesus the Messiah). The serpent is a personal being – not necessarily a symbol for a person for God could make snakes that were as personal as ourselves. So if Jesus is the seed then Jesus must hate the snake and his seed. But Jesus loved everybody unconditionally according to the New Testament so he was not the seed.

Rome used to say that it was not a male who would kill the snake but a female, the Virgin Mary. This was based on an alteration of the original text made by Roman Catholicism. But if Roman Catholicism were correct, it would mean that the saviour was to be a woman!
 
Perhaps Mary was to kill the snake just by giving birth to Jesus the enemy of the snake? Surely it would be more correct to say that Jesus crushed its head by becoming man in her? He did the most. He did the work. Rome says that Mary saved the world by consenting to give it the man who save it but the gospels do not say if God really cared about her consent or not. He could perhaps have sent Jesus to save us without using Mary's womb to bring him into the world.
 
When you say that somebody will save, you mean that that person will be directly responsible for saving and cannot use the words to refer to that person’s mother saving others by bringing the person who will save into the world. Never assume an indirect sense when the sense could be direct for you must keep things simple.

Jesus did not do the head of the serpent any grave damage by dying on the cross. If smashing the head of the serpent is symbolic then it suggests Jesus turning the Devil into an imbecile or killing him. Otherwise the symbolism can mean whatever you want it to mean.
 
If Jesus was harming the serpent’s power then why not say that the seed will break the Devil’s body which will be more apt?
 
According to the New Testament, Jesus did not crush the Devil’s head for the Devil is still active and working harder than ever. The Book of Revelation says that Satan will have more power than ever before some day. And moreover, Jesus’ atonement was able to save before it happened for God sees the future so the prediction of a crushed serpent is meaningless if you adopt the Christian understanding for it was crushed the moment Satan left Heaven. To say that Jesus crushed the Devil in himself by resisting sin is silly for that would be no punishment for the Devil who couldn’t expect to win over the Son of God or God incarnate. It wouldn't be a punishment for Eve either.
 
Will Jesus crush the Devil by throwing him into Hell someday when there is nobody left for him to tempt? Leaving him with nobody to tempt and mislead is hardly crushing his head and besides he has the damned to work on. They would be more profitable to him.
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* Genesis 49:10. This says that the scripture, the power to rule, will never leave the tribe of Judah until Shiloh comes and the people will obey him.

Alleged Fulfilment. Jesus was born into the tribe. Shiloh means the peaceful one. Jesus was supposed to be the prince of peace. The people have not obeyed him yet but they will. The prophecy is said to indicate a time when the Son of God would come.

The Truth. Judah did not rule Israel for a time until Jesus came – Rome did that though there were Jewish puppet kings like Herod the Great (Herod 1 The Great, Biblical Concordance). When the verse is about kingship and when it says that Judah will rule until Shiloh comes and that Shiloh will be obeyed it is plainly saying that the people will obey Shiloh when he comes. The Jews did not obey Jesus. The verse isn’t about the people converting but the time of the second coming.
  
 
BOOKS FORECASTING A MESSIAH?

 
Jesus told the world that the Prophets, the Old Testament apart from the Law, predicted things about him. The New Testament says he belonged to the line of royal blood that God cursed. God vowed that the line of Coniah would never reign. So Jesus was not Messiah or king. Christians lie that God forgave the line but no clear evidence of that exists in the Bible. It is just speculation. There is something amiss when they have to use speculation especially in a matter so serious. Because if they are wrong, they are following a bogus Messiah.

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* Malachi 3:1. God says that he will send a messenger before he comes to the Temple as the Angel of the Covenant.

Alleged Fulfilment. God sending John the Baptist as a forerunner for Jesus and visiting the Temple in the person of his Son.

New Testament Interpretation. It imagines that this is the fulfilment (Matthew 11:10).

The Truth. John the Baptist initially believed and then doubted that Jesus was the Christ (Matthew 11). He was no angel then. A vacillating man is not a proper forerunner but a block. God could not make such a silly prediction unless he indulges in doing stupid miracles for any Jew could fulfil the prediction.

The prophecy does not mention an incarnation so it is most likely to predict a theopany or apparition from God in the Temple.

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* Micah 4:2. All nations will receive the Law from Jerusalem.
  
Alleged Fulfilment. Jesus will give the Law of God to all people.

The Truth. Jesus told lies about the Law. He said that when God told Moses he was the God of Abraham,
Isaac and Jacob that it proved that the doctrine that people will rise from the dead is in the Bible. The Law, not a perversion of it, will go out. Where does the Old Testament say that Jesus will send it out of Jerusalem?

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* Micah 5:2. In Bethlehem of Judea, will come one who had his origin from of old. In The Case for Jesus the Messiah we learn that quedem or from old “literally means from ‘ancient time, aforetime’ (page 74)”. Or it can mean from eternity.
 
New Testament Interpretation. Predicts that Jesus will be born in Bethlehem. Matthew deliberately misquoted the verse in his gospel to make it a more convincing prediction about Jesus.
 
The Truth.
Matthew took it out of context.

The prophecy says that when his mother gives birth to him the exiles of Israel will come back to it which did not happen when Jesus was born (v3). The prophecy says only that the man will come from Bethlehem so he was not necessarily born there. The man will have existed before he was born perhaps as an angel or something.
 
The verse does not prove that the figure must be God as he came from eternity which only God can do. The Bible never mentions eternity - the concept comes from Greek Philosophy. The verse then if it refers to eternity means it in the poetic sense of long ago.
 
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* Jeremiah 23:5,6. A king will come to save Israel and Judah who will be called Yahweh our Righteousness.

Alleged Fulfilment. Jesus is Yahweh our righteousness and will save them some day.

New Testament Interpretation. None.

The Truth. The word save can mean lots of things. Jeremiah doesn’t say if he means the Messiah or a Messiah. And he does not say the King will save but only that the people will be safe in his day. The name of the person does not mean that he will be God for the popular Jewish name, Joshua or Jesus, meant God the saviour. The king could be called Yahweh our righteousness as a nickname or title.

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* Jeremiah 31:15. Rachel weeps for her children for they are dead in Ramah.

Alleged Fulfilment. The massacre of the innocents by Herod in Bethlehem.

New Testament Interpretation. The Matthew gospel is explicit in claiming that this is the fulfilment (Matthew 2:17).

The Truth. Ramah was not Bethlehem but a village five miles north of Jerusalem. God tells Rachel to stop crying for he will bring the rest of her children back. The passage refers to the return of the Jews to Israel after they were deported to Babylon. Rachel mourns those who have died and God promises to bring the rest home to console her. Rachel here is the long-dead wife of Jacob. She is not really crying – the prophet is just being poetic for she was the ancestress of the people who are dying and exiled, the people of Ephraim.
 
It isn’t advisable to take a poetic passage literally to locate forecasts about Christ in it.

Christians say that the prophecy of chapter 31 must refer to the time the Messiah was on earth. This is false. Up until verse 31, there is nothing that might be messianic in it. After that it starts to tell us about the new covenant. Christians say that Jesus brought in this new covenant so it is about Jesus. But God can make a new covenant without a messiah. And who is to say the covenant is the one Jesus brought in? God says the new covenant will make everybody miraculously know the truth and Israel will become holy in all its ways. This covenant is not that of Jesus Christ for it never did these things. Christians reply that it will in time but that only makes it a potential covenant!
 It is highly unfair to say a prediction is messianic when it doesn’t say that itself.

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 * Isaiah 7:14.  The Virgin shall conceive and bear a son called Emmanuel which means God is with us.
 
Alleged Fulfilment: Jesus being born of Mary who was a virgin.
 New Testament Interpretation: The Matthew gospel says the prophecy predicts the birth of Jesus from the Virgin Mary.
 
The Truth: In context, Isaiah 7:14 says the prediction was a sign for king living centuries before Christ. Jesus was not called Emmanuel. Matthew read parthenos in the Septuagint the translation of the old Testament Book of Isaiah and quoted the verse with parthenos in it. But the original Hebrew – and it is only the original that counts, the word translated virgin was almah which meant a young woman. The prophecy has been altered from the original. The claim made by Matthew for the prophecy insults God's intelligence! And ours!