Often when I ask the question, “How do we know Jesus was/is the Messiah?” I get a response similar to, “He fulfilled all the OT prophecies about the Messiah.”
Can anyone here prove this?
In the book of Genesis, God said, “Let there be light!”
In the New Testament, Jesus is transfigured. It is obviously the same light. Hence, Jesus is the Messiah.
This would be logically impossible to prove. If the NT records that Jesus fulfilled all the prophecies, someone could come back and say the NT record is fiction. At best all that is possible is finding OT prophecies that Jesus wasn’t said to have fulfilled, and argue based on that he wasn’t the Messiah.
Couldn’t the OT be said to be a work of fiction as well?
For the purposes of this discussion, they are both true.
Prove, probably not. Offer evidence in favor (or against), yes.
The problem with positive evidence would be that the scribes of the new testament simply made up stories about a man named Jesus, ‘fitting’ the stories to Old Testament prophesies.
If we assume the NT is true, then we don’t need the OT to prove it. The NT says Jesus was crucified, rose from the dead, and ascended to heaven (amongst other things). On the assumption all those things happened, this is enough to become a Christian.
Would the religion be the same if Jesus wasn’t the Messiah, and was just some other guy who was a good example?
Well, to start off, can we even get a list of the prophecies that were supposed to be fulfilled from the OT?
It may not be possible:
http://www.simpletoremember.com/vitals/jewsandjesus.htm
These are the ones mentioned in the New Testament (I hope I got them all, but I probably missed a couple):
Matthew
8:16 : When the even was come, they brought unto him many that were possessed with devils: and he cast out the spirits with his word, and healed all that were sick:
8:17 : That it might be fulfilled which was spoken by Esaias the prophet, saying, Himself took our infirmities, and bare our sicknesses.
12:14 : Then the Pharisees went out, and held a council against him, how they might destroy him.
12:15 : But when Jesus knew it, he withdrew himself from thence: and great multitudes followed him, and he healed them all;
12:16 : And charged them that they should not make him known;
12:17 : That it might be fulfilled which was spoken by Esaias the prophet, saying,
12:18 : Behold my servant, whom I have chosen; my beloved, in whom my soul is well pleased: I will put my spirit upon him, and he shall shew judgment to the Gentiles.
13:34 : All these things spake Jesus unto the multitude in parables; and without a parable spake he not unto them:
13:35 : That it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophet, saying, I will open my mouth in parables; I will utter things which have been kept secret from the foundation of the world.
27:3 : Then Judas, which had betrayed him, when he saw that he was condemned, repented himself, and brought again the thirty pieces of silver to the chief priests and elders,
27:4 : Saying, I have sinned in that I have betrayed the innocent blood. And they said, What is that to us? see thou to that.
27:5 : And he cast down the pieces of silver in the temple, and departed, and went and hanged himself.
27:6 : And the chief priests took the silver pieces, and said, It is not lawful for to put them into the treasury, because it is the price of blood.
27:7 : And they took counsel, and bought with them the potter’s field, to bury strangers in.
27:8 : Wherefore that field was called, The field of blood, unto this day.
27:9 : Then was fulfilled that which was spoken by Jeremy the prophet, saying, And they took the thirty pieces of silver, the price of him that was valued, whom they of the children of Israel did value;
27:10 : And gave them for the potter’s field, as the Lord appointed me.
Mark
15:25 : And it was the third hour, and they crucified him.
15:26 : And the superscription of his accusation was written over, THE KING OF THE JEWS.
15:27 : And with him they crucify two thieves; the one on his right hand, and the other on his left.
15:28 : And the scripture was fulfilled, which saith, And he was numbered with the transgressors.
Luke
4:14 : And Jesus returned in the power of the Spirit into Galilee: and there went out a fame of him through all the region round about.
4:15 : And he taught in their synagogues, being glorified of all.
4:16 : And he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up: and, as his custom was, he went into the synagogue on the sabbath day, and stood up for to read.
4:17 : And there was delivered unto him the book of the prophet Esaias. And when he had opened the book, he found the place where it was written,
4:18 : The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor; he hath sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised,
4:19 : To preach the acceptable year of the Lord.
4:20 : And he closed the book, and he gave it again to the minister, and sat down. And the eyes of all them that were in the synagogue were fastened on him.
4:21 : And he began to say unto them, This day is this scripture fulfilled in your ears.
21:21 : Then let them which are in Judaea flee to the mountains; and let them which are in the midst of it depart out; and let not them that are in the countries enter thereinto.
21:22 : For these be the days of vengeance, that all things which are written may be fulfilled.
21:31 : So likewise ye, when ye see these things come to pass, know ye that the kingdom of God is nigh at hand.
21:32 : Verily I say unto you, This generation shall not pass away, till all be fulfilled.
(this one turned out to be a bit of a welsh if you ask me)
24:42 : And they gave him a piece of a broiled fish, and of an honeycomb.
24:43 : And he took it, and did eat before them.
24:44 : And he said unto them, These are the words which I spake unto you, while I was yet with you, that all things must be fulfilled, which were written in the law of Moses, and in the prophets, and in the psalms, concerning me.
24:45 : Then opened he their understanding, that they might understand the scriptures,
24:46 : And said unto them, Thus it is written, and thus it behoved Christ to suffer, and to rise from the dead the third day:
24:47 : And that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in his name among all nations, beginning at Jerusalem.
24:48 : And ye are witnesses of these things.
John
12:37 : But though he had done so many miracles before them, yet they believed not on him:
12:38 : That the saying of Esaias the prophet might be fulfilled, which he spake, Lord, who hath believed our report? and to whom hath the arm of the Lord been revealed?
12:39 : Therefore they could not believe, because that Esaias said again,
12:40 : He hath blinded their eyes, and hardened their heart; that they should not see with their eyes, nor understand with their heart, and be converted, and I should heal them.
12:41 : These things said Esaias, when he saw his glory, and spake of him.
12:42 : Nevertheless among the chief rulers also many believed on him; but because of the Pharisees they did not confess him, lest they should be put out of the synagogue.
13:18 : I speak not of you all: I know whom I have chosen: but that the scripture may be fulfilled, He that eateth bread with me hath lifted up his heel against me.
13:19 : Now I tell you before it come, that, when it is come to pass, ye may believe that I am he.
17:11 : And now I am no more in the world, but these are in the world, and I come to thee. Holy Father, keep through thine own name those whom thou hast given me, that they may be one, as we are.
17:12 : While I was with them in the world, I kept them in thy name: those that thou gavest me I have kept, and none of them is lost, but the son of perdition; that the scripture might be fulfilled.
For genuine Messianic prophesies in the Tanakh look here.
The only OT criterion for the Messiah which Jesus fulfilled was that he was Jewish. All the NT “fulfillments” are pretty much based on decontextualized fragments of non-Messianic verses from the Septuagint recast as “prophecies” of Jesus. In some cases, OT stuff was simply inserted into the Gospels to make literary points or fill gaps (Jesus is made to quote from Psalms 22 on the cross, for instance).
Since so much of the NT uses the OT as a hypotext it really isn’t very useful or telling to find “fulfilled” prophecies in the NT anyway. You have one literary tradition which openly cannibalizes a prior literary tradition to build its own mythology. The people who wrote the Gospels were working long after the fact and were using the Greek Septuagint as a source. They searched the OT for hints or scraps of knowledge about Jesus and wrote their own texts accordingly. Most of the stuff they decided was about Jesus had nothing to do with the Messiah when read in context and often was not even predictive prophecy at all.
[Brian of Nazareth] Oh all right, all right I AM the messiah! Now…![/Brian of Nazareth]
I am so sorry.
Matthew was the writer that was really worried about using the prophets to prove that Jesus was the Messiah. However, to do so he pulled things massively out of context. For example, the flight to Egypt only appears in Matthew. He cites something out of one of the prophets (and I don’t remember who off the top of my head) that, as it was written, “I brought my son out of Egypt.” Or something like that. Anyway, when you look at the referenced verse, it’s clear in context that the prophet is talking about the people of Israel as a whole. Or you get the amusing mental picture of Jesus riding into Jerusalem on both a donkey and a colt simultaneously (I think those are the two animals.) Once again, it’s an effect of Matthew pulling something out of the Hebrew scriptures and doing so literally. Yes, the verse referenced mentions two animals, but it’s poetic repetition, not two actual animals.
I don’t think you can prove that Jesus is the Messiah because of things exactly like that. You have to start from a position that Jesus was the Messiah and that the prophets were actually giving prophecy about events centuries in the future instead of advice for near the time they were alive. To me, at least, that isn’t very convincing.
Hosea 11:1
“When Israel was a child, I loved him,
and out of Egypt I called my son.”
Perfect example of decontextualization.
Fascinating stuff, DtC. Thanks.
In fairness I should probably point out that there does exist an eisogetic approach to Biblical interpretation called “dual prophesy” in which it is claimed that those fragments cited as fulfilled prophesy in the NT actually have two meanings. The infamous “Emmanuel” quotation from Isaiah, for instance, is said to have both its prima facie meaning (which when read in context is clearly about events conemperaneous with the characters in that book and is not a Messianic prophecy) as well as a more cryptic Christian prefiguration which was understood by the evangelists only in retrospect.
This is faith-based interpretation, though and really can’t be supported by critical scholarship. It can’t be disproven either, of course (how do you disprove a divine secret meaning?) but it’s not exactly persuasive to anyone who isn’t already a believer. I think that the “dual prophecy” approach is really more of a means to preserve an a priori faith in inspired scripture than anything else.
I disagree. Elisha raised at least one person from the dead. Elijah ascended to heaven. I don’t venerate either of them as my perfect & infallible only path to God. Jesus could have been a Jewish prophet who got deified by the descendants of his followers.
But the other things in the NT include stuff like Jesus was the only son of God conceived by a virgin woman. If one assumes that is true, being a Christian makes sense. If you want to argue Jesus was just a Jewish prophet and followers embellished the tale, then that doesn’t meet the OP’s criteria that the NT be true.
Jesus has definitely not yet fulfilled all the OT prophecies. Christians hold he will in the Second Coming. However, anyone who argues Jesus already fulfilled to OT propecies just hasn’t actually read them.
My three favorites-
Psalm 22 (the “Forsaken” Psalm), Isaiah 53 (the Suffering Servant), Daniel 9:24-27 (the “Seventy Weeks” Messianic timeline). They aren’t proofs, but they are some pretty good signposts to me.
There are some of those “dual prophecies” I was talking about. 
I know that FriarTed is far too educated on the Bible not to know that the passages he mentions have much different interpretations in Judaism than in Christianity, but they are…let’s say…“poetic” enough that reading them through a lens of faith has always allowed Christians to see Jesus in them.