There is No OT Prophecy Fulfilled in the Life, Death or Resurrection of Jesus

That's my claim, Christian. Do you want to dispute this? Once again, but to be more specific: There is no OT prophecy of Jesus' birth, ministry, death, or resurrection that is to be legitimately considered a prophecy that was fulfilled in any grammatical-historical sense pointing specifically to Jesus.

11 comments:

Jason Long said...

Farrell Till once told me about this debate he held at a church, before which the church held their regular business meeting. If I recall correctly, they were going to hold a fundraiser to send one of the younger people to ministry school. Till took out his checkbook and offered to pay for the whole thing if they could prove one single OT prophecy of Jesus. They didn't even attempt it.

Brad Haggard said...

I've been waiting to start the discussion on this...

OK, before we start, John, let's define some parameters.
Do you want to argue based mainly on interpretation method, or are you prepared to attack every prophecy purported in the NT?

And just to start things off, I'll lay out the most famous prophecies which Jesus attributed to Himself, in Isaiah 53 and 61. Tell me what you make of those passages.

Anonymous said...

Brad, I don't have the time to deal with all of the prophecies here. I have written about the Messianic ones in my book. The sufferring servant was identified with Israel by the author of that portion of Isaiah himself (42:18-24; 44:1-2; 49:3). Now how would you feel if Mormons quoted something from the OT out of context and applied it to Joseph Smith or Jesus visiting the Americas? You wouldn't allow them to take things out of context, and I don't when the NT writers do that with the Suffering Servant of Isaiah.

Brad Haggard said...

John, lets not drag Mormons through the mud here. Even though I don't agree with them, I'm finding that I at least have to give them a hearing.

I suspected you wouldn't want to go over every passage (though you didn't respond to the two which I cited), so let's go to method.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think you're allowing for any midrash in the interpretation of these passages. This was an accepted interpretation method of the day. I don't think it fair to place our restrictions on a text which did not work within those parameters. Enns' Incarnation and Inspiration is helpful here.

But further, the tone of your post suggests that there are no messianic prophecies in the OT. Now if you are prepared to argue that in the 2nd Temple period that there was no Messianic/Apocalyptic expectation from scripture, then be my guest. It is clear that Jews, from reading scripture, expected some Messianic/Apocalyptic event in their time.

Anonymous said...

Brad, would you accept midrash if done in the service of the Jehovah's Witnessess? Then why should you think I would accept it when the early church writers did?

I did respond to Isaiah 53, the suffering servant passage!

As far as a Messianic hope goes, a hope expressed is not a prediction. Anyone can express a hope for a savior of the American economy, for instance, but that's different than predicting Obama is that savior unless one makes specific predictions that can be verified in his life. One must provide details such that it shows what it's supposed to show. Predictions by psychics or self-fulfilling horoscope readings do not count, just like the passages in the OT don't count, since they can be read in so many different ways.

Brad Haggard said...

John, you're saying that there is no explicit prophecy in the OT pertaining to Jesus, but I think you are loading the dice.

Jehovah's Witnesses are another red herring. They didn't come to their beliefs through rabbinic midrash. But what is certain is that the people closest to the writings, in 2nd Temple Judaism, attributed a number of passages to a coming Messiah. This was a hope, to be sure, but it was based upon a careful telling and retelling of the prophetic books. Just because they aren't clear to you doesn't mean they weren't clear to the intended audience.

So what I propose is to simply let the Bible speak on it's own terms. The writers used midrash and apocalyptic images to convey their story, and you complain that they didn't use historical/grammatical exegesis. You're comparing apples and oranges. For us to be good interpreters of scripture, we need to immerse ourselves in the context of the writers themselves, and for them the biblical evidence was overwhelming. I'm not prepared to dismiss their readings offhand because I have some new insight 2000 years later and thousands of miles removed from the events.

daniel hutchinson said...

John, you are avoiding this one.

One of the main weaknesses I'm picking up on this site fwiw is the meal made of differences between Christian sects. It's really besides the point.

The first OT prophecy I would reference would be Genesis 3:15.

Adrian said...

Genesis 3: 13 Then the LORD God said to the woman, "What is this you have done?"
The woman said, "The serpent deceived me, and I ate."

14 So the LORD God said to the serpent, "Because you have done this,
"Cursed are you above all the livestock
and all the wild animals!
You will crawl on your belly
and you will eat dust
all the days of your life.

15 And I will put enmity
between you and the woman,
and between your offspring and hers;
he will crush your head,
and you will strike his heel."



What the...? When someone challenges you to think of a prophesy of Jesus, that's the line you think of? I'm flabbergasted.

Jonathan MS Pearce said...

John, how many prohpecies were written into the OT, and how many prohecies did not get canonised due to them being incorrect? I remember one passage talking about there being 800 prophets. Now assuming this is their full time job, that's a lot of prohecies just from them!

So if some prophecies are vaguely interpretable as being 'right', surely we can accept this as being statistically viable.

If I made 200 prophecies about what would happen to my boss next week, I imagine some of them to be quite accurate, even though they are merely guesses.

So prophecies are useless unless we know from how many prophecies they were chosen, and whether they were ex post facto.

Anonymous said...

Good day, John. Great idea this blog! I am very interested in one of your last post. I want a book that, taking into account historical evidences of the bible real writers dates, analyzes all the "said" prophecies to demonstrate if there is any real prophecy or prediction. Could you suggest me one of these:
-Biblical Nonsense: A Review of the Bible for Doubting Christians
-Godless: How an Evangelical Preacher Became One of America's Leading Atheists
-Bible Prophecy: Failure or Fulfillment?
-Who Wrote the Bible?
-Losing Faith in Faith: From Preacher to Atheist.
THANKS! and keep on yr good job!

Anonymous said...

Thanks Bradshow!

Apart from my chapter on the same topic in my book, I recommend Callahan's Bible Prophecy: Failure or Fulfillment?

I only published this comment of yours because we don't allow duplicate comments.

Cheers.