The Fabulous Prophecies of the Messiah

• The Significance of Messianic Prophecy
• Birth Prophecies
• Ministry Prophecies
• Betrayal Prophecies
• Crucifixion Prophecies
• Conclusions
• Notes
• Acknowledgements
• References
• Postscript

"The Old Testament ... contains several hundred references to the Messiah. All of these were fulfilled in Christ and they establish a solid confirmation of his credentials as the Messiah."
-- Josh McDowell (1972), p. 147

"I have examined all the passages in the New Testament quoted from the Old, and so-called prophecies concerning Jesus Christ, and I find no such thing as a prophecy of any such person, and I deny there are any."
-- Thomas Paine (1925), p. 206

These two quotations express diametrically opposed views about whether or not the life of Jesus as described by the New Testament gospels fulfills prophecies of the Jewish Messiah found in the Hebrew scriptures. Josh McDowell's view is the standard evangelical Christian view, found in countless Christian apologetic works. The view expressed by Thomas Paine, however, is much less widely known. This is unfortunate, because Paine is correct. Every case of alleged fulfillment of messianic prophecy suffers from one of the following failings: (1) the alleged Old Testament prophecy is not a messianic prophecy or not a prophecy at all, (2) the prophecy has not been fulfilled by Jesus, or (3) the prophecy is so vague as to be unconvincing in its application to Jesus.


The Significance of Messianic Prophecy
Before examining specific claims of fulfilled messianic prophecy, some remarks should be made about its significance. The fulfillment of biblical prophecy is a central pillar in evangelical Christian apologetic arguments for the truth and accuracy of the Bible. The Bible contains many statements about future events which are intended to be prophetic--the books of the prophets, such as those of Isaiah and Jeremiah, are full of them. Of these statements, many are about actual historical events of the past. Given our present knowledge of the chronology of the Bible's writing, however, in most cases it cannot be demonstrated that the prophetic statements do not post-date the events being predicted. In the case of the Old Testament prophecies of the Messiah, however, we have documents (e.g., the Dead Sea Scrolls) which do predate the time at which the historical Jesus is believed to have lived. If numerous specific and detailed prophecies in the Old Testament were found to match the life of an historical Jesus, this would provide considerable evidence in support of the Christian faith. This is just what Christian apologists claim to be the case.

On the other hand, if it were found that there are no such specific prophecies fulfilled by Jesus, or that there are specific messianic prophecies which were not fulfilled by Jesus, this would be evidence against the truth of Christianity. Since Christianity claims accuracy and truth of both the Old and New Testaments, it is bound by the biblical standards for a true prophet of God set forth in the Hebrew scriptures. The book of Deuteronomy puts forth these standards when it says that Moses, speaking on behalf of God in chapter 18, verse 22, proclaimed that "When a prophet speaks in the name of the Lord, if the thing does not come about or come true, that is the thing which the Lord has not spoken. The prophet has spoken it presumptuously; you shall not be afraid of him." In verse 20, he says that "... the prophet who shall speak a word presumptuously in my name which I have not commanded him to speak, or which he shall speak in the name of other gods, that prophet shall die." In other words, any prophecy from God is guaranteed to be accurate, and any prophecy which is not from God but given in his name shall guarantee the death of the prophet.

While these standards require that prophecies from God are accurate, truth of a prophecy does not guarantee that it comes from God. Deuteronomy 13:1-5 points out that false prophets may also be accurate, but true prophets will never lead Jews astray from their religion, under penalty of death.[1]

If, as I will show, there are messianic prophecies which are not fulfilled by Jesus (and which will not be fulfilled in the future), then these standards entail that either Jesus was not the Messiah or the prophecies in question were not made by a true prophet of God. Both horns of the dilemma have the consequence that any form of Christianity which maintains biblical inerrancy is false.


Birth Prophecies
There are a number of alleged messianic prophecies about Jesus' birth: prophecies about the location, manner, and time of his birth, about his genealogy, and about events which were to occur at the time of his birth. Probably the most famous of these prophecies is the prophecy that Jesus would be born of a virgin. The gospels of Matthew (1:18-25) and Luke (1:26-35) both claim that Jesus was born of a virgin, but only Matthew (1:23) appeals to the Hebrew scriptures as an explanation for why this should be the case. The verse appealed to is Isaiah 7:14, which reads: "Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign: Behold, a virgin will be with child and bear a son, and she will call his name Immanuel."

There are a number of difficulties with this passage. As many have noted, the Hebrew word translated as "virgin" in this verse is "almah," which is more accurately translated simply as "young woman." The Hebrew word "bethulah" means "virgin." In the book of Isaiah, "bethulah" appears four times (23:12, 37:22, 47:1, 62:5), so its author was aware of the word. In the New American Standard translation of the Bible, all other appearances of "almah" are translated simply as "girl," "maid," or "maiden" (viz: Genesis 24:43, Exodus 2:8, Psalms 68:25, Proverbs 30:19, Song of Solomon 1:3, 6:8). Thus the claimed fulfillment adds a biologically impossible condition which is not even present in the original prophecy.[2]

Another problem is that nowhere in the New Testament does Mary, Jesus' mother, refer to him as "Immanuel." Thus we have no evidence that one of the conditions of the prophecy was ever fulfilled.

But the most serious problem with this alleged messianic prophecy is that it has been taken out of context. Looking at the entire seventh chapter of Isaiah, it becomes clear that the child in question is to be born as a sign to Ahaz, King of Judah, that he will not be defeated in battle by Rezin, King of Syria, and Pekah, son of the King of Israel. Jesus' birth was some seven centuries late to be such a sign. In Isaiah 8:3-4, a prophetess gives birth to a son--Maher-shalal-hash-baz--who is clearly described as the fulfillment of the prophecy in Isaiah 7:14.[3]

J. Edward Barrett (1988, p. 14) points out evidence that early Christians rejected the virgin birth. One piece of Barrett's evidence is that in 1 Timothy 1:3-4, the writer (who may or may not be the apostle Paul) advises that his audience "instruct certain men not to teach strange doctrines, nor to pay attention to myths and endless genealogies, which give rise to mere speculation rather than furthering the administration of God which is by faith." The earliest gospel, Mark, lacks an account of Jesus' birth, as does John, the latest gospel. Virgin birth is obviously quite relevant to genealogy, and both Matthew and Luke present Jesus' genealogy in close proximity to the story.

A second claimed birth prophecy is that Jesus would be born in the city of Bethlehem, cited in Matthew (2:1-6), Luke (2:4-7), and John's (7:42) gospels. Of these, Matthew and John specifically refer to prophecy in the Hebrew scriptures. The passage referred to is Micah 5:2, which reads: "But as for you, Bethlehem Ephrathah, too little to be among the clans of Judah, from you one will go forth for me to be ruler in Israel. His goings forth are from long ago, from the days of eternity." "Ephrathah" is the ancient name of Bethlehem (Genesis 35:19, Ruth 4:11) but, to confuse matters, "Bethlehem Ephrathah" is also the name of a person: Bethlehem the son (or grandson) of Ephrathah (1 Chronicles 4:4, 2:50-51). This prophecy could therefore refer to either a native of the town or to a descendent of the person. If the latter, Jesus does not qualify since neither of his alleged genealogies (more on these below) list either Bethlehem or Ephrathah. If the former (more likely since Bethlehem was the birthplace of King David, from whom the Messiah is supposed to be descended), then Jesus qualifies by birthplace[4] but fails to meet the condition of being "ruler in Israel." Christians claim that this is a prophecy which will be fulfilled at the Second Coming.

There are various alleged genealogical prophecies about the ancestry of the Messiah. It is claimed that Genesis 22:18 and 12:2-3 are prophecies that the Messiah will be a descendent of Abraham, but these verses say nothing about the Messiah. They say simply that the descendents of Abraham will be blessed. Other claimed prophecies about the Messiah's ancestry are that he will be of the tribe of Judah (Genesis 49:10, Micah 5:2, of the family line of Jesse (Isaiah 11:1, 10, and of the house of David (Jeremiah 23:5, 2 Samuel 7:12-16, and Psalms 132:11). Some of these do appear to be genuine messianic prophecies, but others simply seem to refer to future kings. All of these verses refer to kings--and thus none have been fulfilled by Jesus.

But the problems for these prophecies run even deeper. Is Jesus actually of the tribe of Judah, the family line of Jesse, and the house of David? The sole evidence for this is two sets of genealogies for Jesus, in Matthew 1:1-17 and Luke 3:23-38. Both of these trace Jesus' lineage through his father, Joseph. If the virgin birth story is taken seriously, then Jesus lacks the proper ancestry. On the other hand, if the genealogy in Matthew is taken seriously, then Jesus has as an ancestor Jeconiah (Matthew 1:12), of whom the prophet Jeremiah said, "Write this man down as childless, a man who will not prosper in his days, for no man of his descendants will prosper sitting on the throne of David or ruling again in Judah." (Jeremiah 22:30) The genealogy in Luke suffers from the same problem, since it includes Shealtiel and Zerubbabel, both of whom were descendents of Jeconiah.

A final oft-noted problem is that the genealogies in Matthew and Luke contradict each other and the Hebrew scriptures. Was Jesus' grandfather on Joseph's side Jacob (Matthew 1:16) or Eli (Luke 3:23)? Was Shealtiel's father Jeconiah (1 Chronicles 3:17, Matthew 1:12) or Neri (Luke 3:27)? Matthew 1:11 omits Jehoiakim (who in Jeremiah 36:29-30 suffers a curse similar to that of his son, Jeconiah) between Josiah and Jeconiah (1 Chronicles 3:15 and Matthew 1:4 omits Admin between Ram and Amminadab (Luke 3:33). Finally, Matthew 1:13 says that Abiud is the son of Zerubbabel, Luke 3:27 says that Rhesa is the son of Zerubbabel, but 1 Chronicles 3:19-20 lists neither as sons of Zerubbabel.[5]

Another prophecy related to the birth of Jesus is the claim that the Messiah would be born at a time when King Herod was killing children. Only the gospel of Matthew (2:16-18) makes this claim, quoting a prophecy of Jeremiah (31:15) which states that "A voice was heard in Ramah, weeping and great mourning, Rachel weeping for her children; and she refused to be comforted, because they were no more." There are two problems with this alleged messianic prophecy: it is not a prophecy about children being killed and it is quite doubtful that there ever was such a slaughter of innocents by Herod. "Rachel weeping for her children" refers to the mother of Joseph and Benjamin (and wife of Jacob) weeping about her children taken captive to Egypt. In context, the verse is about the Babylonian captivity, which its author witnessed. Subsequent verses speak of the children being returned, and thus it refers to captivity rather than murder. The slaughter by Herod is also in doubt because the writer of Matthew is the only person who has noted such an event. Flavius Josephus, who carefully chronicled Herod's abuses, makes no mention of it.

Matthew goes on to claim that to evade Herod's murders, Jesus was taken as a child to Egypt. This is done, according to Matthew 2:15, in order "that what was spoken by the Lord through the prophet might be fulfilled, saying, 'Out of Egypt did I call my son.'" This is a reference to Hosea 11:1, which is not a messianic prophecy at all. It is a reference to the Exodus of the Jews from Egypt.

At the end of the same chapter of Matthew (2:23), its author writes that Mary, Joseph, and the child Jesus settled in Nazareth, in order "... that what was spoken through the prophets might be fulfilled, 'He shall be called a Nazarene.'" There is no such prophecy in the Hebrew scriptures, though some claim this refers to Judges 13:5. This verse describes an angel speaking to the mother of Samson, telling her that her son "shall be a Nazirite." This is not only not a messianic prophecy, it can't be what Matthew is referring to. A Nazirite is quite different from a Nazarene. A Nazarene is an inhabitant of Nazareth, but a Nazirite is a Jew who has taken special vows to abstain from all wine and grapes, not to cut his hair, and to perform special sacrifices (see Leviticus 6:1-21). Jesus drank wine (Matthew 26:29, Mark 14:25, Luke 22:18), and so could not have been a Nazirite.

A prophecy relating to the time of the Messiah which many evangelical Christians find extremely convincing is found in the book of Daniel. It is probably no exaggeration to say that this prophecy, more than any other, convinces Christians that Jesus was the Messiah. Daniel 9:24-27 says:

Seventy weeks have been decreed for your people and your holy city, to finish the transgression, to make an end of sin, to bring in everlasting righteousness, to seal up vision and prophecy, and to anoint the most holy place.

So you are to know and discern that from the issuing of a decree to restore and rebuild Jerusalem until Messiah the Prince there will be seven weeks and sixty-two weeks; it will be built again, with plaza and moat, even in times of distress.

Then after the sixty-two weeks the Messiah will be cut off and have nothing, and the people of the prince who is to come will destroy the city and the sanctuary. And its end will come with a flood; even to the end there will be war; desolations are determined.

And he will make a firm covenant with the many for one week, but in the middle of the week he will put a stop to sacrifice and grain offering; and on the wing of abominations will come one who makes desolate, even until a complete destruction, one that is decreed, is poured out on the one who makes desolate.

The word translated in these verses as "weeks" is a form of the Hebrew word for "sevens," and is interpreted by Christians to mean seven years rather than seven days. Thus "seventy weeks" in verse 24 is interpreted to mean seventy periods of seven years, or 490 years, "seven weeks" in verse 25 is interpreted to mean 49 years, "sixty-two weeks" in verses 25 and 26 is interpreted to mean 434 years, and "one week" in verse 27 is interpreted to mean seven years.

The starting point of the prophecy is the "issuing of a decree to restore and rebuild Jerusalem." A decree described in the Bible to rebuild the temple in Jerusalem is found in 2 Chronicles 36:22-23 and Ezra 1:1-4. These verses describe the decree issued by Cyrus, king of Persia and contemporary of Daniel, in 538 B.C.E. "Seven weeks and sixty-two weeks," or 483 years, after this decree would be 55 B.C.E., many years too soon for Jesus.

So Christians must reject the equation of the decree in verse 25 with that of Cyrus, and they do. What other decrees are available? Josh McDowell (1972, p. 180) offers three alternatives: a decree of Darius described in the book of Ezra, a decree of Artaxerxes described in Ezra, and a decree of Artaxerxes described in Nehemiah. The decree of Darius, described in Ezra 6:1-9, was to conduct a search of the archives to find the text of the decree of Cyrus, and then to resume the construction of the temple at Jerusalem using tax money. This occurred around 522 B.C.E. (see Ezra 4:24), which would put the coming of the Messiah at 39 B.C.E.--still too early for Jesus.

The decree of Artaxerxes to Ezra described in Ezra 7:11-28 allows for the people of Israel to return to Jerusalem, taking with them various support from the royal treasury. This decree was issued in 458 B.C.E. (see Ezra 7:7), which would put the coming of the Messiah at 26 C.E. This works fairly well if you take the end of the "sixty-two weeks" to be the beginning of Jesus' ministry, though most Christians take the end point to be the crucifixion due to the reference in verse 26 of the Daniel prophecy to the Messiah being "cut off." Most Christians reject this decree, as well as those of Cyrus and Darius, as being the appropriate starting point for the prophecy. One exception is Gleason Archer. Archer (1982, pp. 290-291) argues that Ezra 9:9 implies that Ezra was given permission by Artaxerxes to rebuild the walls of Jerusalem, despite the fact that they were not rebuilt until the time of Nehemiah (see Nehemiah 1:3. Ezra 9:9 states that God has not forsaken the Jews but has given them a chance "to raise up the house of our God, to restore its ruins, and to give us a wall in Judah and Jerusalem." In defense of the end point of the "sixty-two weeks" being the beginning of Jesus' ministry rather than his crucifixion, Archer points out that verse 26 of the prophecy says only that the Messiah's being "cut off" occurs after that time period, not necessarily immediately after it.

The decree of Artaxerxes to Nehemiah described in Nehemiah 2:1-6 is really no decree at all. Rather, Artaxerxes gives Nehemiah letters of safe conduct for travel to Judah and to obtain timber to rebuild the gates of the temple and the walls of Jerusalem. This occurred in 445 B.C.E., putting the time of the Messiah at 39 C.E., too late for Jesus, who is believed to have been crucified some time between 29 and 33 C.E. Despite these flaws, most evangelical Christians adopt this as the appropriate decree because Nehemiah rebuilt the walls of Jerusalem. In order to make the 445 B.C.E. starting point result in an ending point 483 years later that is either at the beginning of Jesus' ministry or at the time of the crucifixion, something other than a 365-day year must be used. The most popular such calculation, due to Sir Robert Anderson and promoted by Josh McDowell, is to adopt a "360-day prophetic year"--an invention of Anderson based on his reading of Revelation 11:2-3, where he equates 42 months with 1260 days, giving 30 days per month. Using "prophetic years" puts the end of the 483-year period at 32 C.E., believed by many to be the year of the crucifixion. Robert Newman (1990, pp. 112-114) points out several flaws in this calculation scheme which together are fatal to it: (1) Revelation 11:23 does not justify the invention of the "prophetic year," because there is no indication that 1260 days is said to be exactly 42 months (it could be 41.5 rounded up), (2) a 360-day year would get out of synch with the seasons, and the Jews added an extra lunar month every two or three years to their 354-day lunar year, giving them an average year length of about 365 days, and (3) the present consensus on the date of the crucifixion is 30 C.E. rather than 32 C.E.

Newman offers his own alternative: the use of sabbatical years, which do have biblical justification (Exodus 23:10-11 and Leviticus 25:3-7,18-22). Every seventh year is a sabbatical year. Newman uses information from the first book of Maccabees, which has reference to an observance of a sabbatical year, to calculate that 163-162 B.C.E. was a sabbatical year and therefore 445 B.C.E., the starting point of the Daniel prophecy, falls in the seven-year sabbatical cycle 449-442 B.C.E. If this is the first sabbatical cycle in the count, the sixty-ninth is 28-35 C.E., a time period that the crucifixion falls in. In response to the criticism that the prophecy says that the Messiah will be "cut off" after sixty-two weeks, Newman says that in conventional Jewish idiom "after" means "after the beginning of."

There are further problems for all of the above interpretations, which Gerald Sigal (1981, pp. 109-122) points out. Foremost among Sigal's criticisms is that the Masoretic punctuation of the Hebrew Bible places a division between the "seven weeks and sixty-two weeks," meaning that rather than stating that the Messiah will come after the combined time periods, he will come after the "seven weeks" alone. Another criticism Sigal makes is that the Hebrew text does not put a definite article in front of the word "Messiah" (or "anointed one"). The Revised Standard Version of the Bible is translated with these facts in mind, and it gives the Daniel 9:24-27 as follows:

Seventy weeks of years are decreed concerning your people and your holy city, to finish the transgression, to put an end to sin, and to atone for iniquity, to bring in everlasting righteousness, to seal both vision and prophet, and to anoint a most holy place. Know therefore and understand that from the going forth of the word to restore and build Jerusalem to the coming of an anointed one, a prince, there shall be seven weeks. Then for sixty-two weeks it shall be built again with squares and moat, but in a troubled time. And after the sixty-two weeks, an anointed one shall be cut off, and shall have nothing; and the people of the prince who is to come shall destroy the city and the sanctuary. Its end shall come with a flood, and to the end there shall be war; desolations are decreed. And he shall make a strong covenant with many for one week; and for half of the week he shall cause sacrifice and offering to cease; and upon the wing of abominations shall come one who makes desolate, until the decreed end is poured out on the desolator.

Using the Masoretic punctuation, the "sixty-two weeks" goes with the rebuilding of the city rather than with the coming of the Messiah. This interpretation explains why "seven weeks and sixty-two weeks" are given separately, rather than simply stating "sixty-nine weeks." Most apologists are either unaware of or ignore the Masoretic punctuation, but Robert Newman (1990, p. 116) rejects it on the grounds that "such punctuation may not date back before the ninth or tenth century AD" and that the structure of the verses as a whole favor his interpretation.

The result of all this? The Daniel prophecy is not nearly so convincing as it might initially appear to someone presented only with one of the interpretations that "works." It is not surprising that with four choices for beginning points (the decrees of Cyrus, Darius, and Artaxerxes, plus the letters of Artaxerxes for Nehemiah), several possible choices for end points (the birth, ministry, and crucifixion of Jesus), and at least three ways of counting (ordinary years, "prophetic years," and sabbatical cycles) calculations have been found for which Jesus fits the prophecy. There are good reasons to reject each of these interpretations. The first two choices for beginning points don't work for any offered interpretations. The Artaxerxes decree works for ordinary years with the ministry of Jesus as the end point, but says nothing about rebuilding Jerusalem. The Artaxerxes letters work for sabbatical cycles with the crucifixion as an end point, but they are not a decree to rebuild the city of Jerusalem. Rather, they gave Nehemiah safe conduct to Judah and permission to use lumber from the royal forests. Finally, none of them take into consideration the Masoretic punctuation, which, if not itself in error, eliminates all of them as possible interpretations of the text.


Ministry Prophecies
Alleged prophecies about Jesus' life and ministry claim that he would be preceded by a messenger (i.e., John the Baptist), that he would have a ministry in Galilee, that he would perform miracles, and that he would have a triumphant entry into the city of Jerusalem on a donkey. The first of these, that he would be preceded by a messenger, refers to Isaiah 40:3, which reads, "A voice is calling, 'clear the way for the Lord in the wilderness; make smooth in the desert a highway for our God.'" This verse speaks not of a messenger for the Messiah, but of the Jews being released from the Babylonian captivity. Another verse claimed to offer the same prophecy is Malachi 3:1, which says "Behold, I am going to send my messenger, and he will clear the way before me." This may be plausibly taken as a messianic prophecy. But did John the Baptist actually "clear the way" as a messenger for Jesus? The historian Flavius Josephus writes about John the Baptist, but makes no link of his name with that of Jesus (Antiquities of the Jews, 18.5.2; Josephus (1985), p. 382). The earliest of Christian writings, the letters of Paul, make no mention of John the Baptist. The gospels (and the book of Acts, written by the author of Luke) are the only real evidence of a link. But the gospel evidence does not hold up. The gospel of John shows John the Baptist explicitly recognizing Jesus as the Messiah (John 1:25-34) before being cast into prison by Herod (John 3:23-24). But the gospels of Matthew (11:2-3) and Luke Luke 7:18-22) depict John the Baptist, in prison, sending his disciples to Jesus to ask if he claims to be the Messiah. If the story in John were true, John the Baptist would have had no reason to ask this question. (For more on John the Baptist and his relation to Jesus, see Miosi (1993).)

Christian apologists claim that Jesus' Galilean ministry is prophesied by Isaiah 9:1, which says, "... in earlier times he [God] treated the land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali with contempt, but later on he shall make it glorious, by the way of the sea, on the other side of Jordan, Galilee of the Gentiles." All this verse says is that God will make the area "glorious"--it says nothing of ministry by the Messiah. The subsequent verses (Isaiah 9:6-7) speak of a child to be born who will be king, whose "name will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Eternal Father, Prince of Peace." Jewish tradition says that this refers to King Hezekiah, not the Messiah (Sigal 1981, pp. 29-32). Isaiah 9:7, if applied to Jesus, is unfulfilled since it speaks of his kingship.

Prophecy of Jesus' miraculous healings are purported to be found in Isaiah 35:5-6 and Isaiah 32:3-4. The latter does not speak of healing, but says that "the eyes of those who see will not be blinded, and the ears of those who hear will listen. And the mind of the hasty will discern the truth, and the tongue of the stammerers will hasten to speak clearly." It is further stated that this will occur during the reign of a king (Isaiah 32:1), which did not occur in Israel during Jesus' ministry. The former verse, on the other hand, describes people being healed ("the eyes of the blind will be opened, and the ears of the deaf will be unstopped") but also, in verses 7-8, describes land being "healed." There is no clear indication here that these healings have anything to do with the Messiah, rather, it is God himself doing the healing. The gospels contain no account of Jesus healing land.

A final prophecy dealing with Jesus' life and ministry is Zechariah 9:9, which says "Behold, your king is coming to you ... humble, and mounted on a donkey, even on a colt, the foal of a donkey." Again, Jesus was not king, so that aspect of the prophecy remains unfulfilled. The alleged fulfillment of this prophecy is also problematic. According to Mark (10:11-19), Luke (19:28-38), and John (12:12-19), Jesus entered Jerusalem riding on a donkey. But Matthew 21:1-11 has Jesus riding on both a donkey and a colt, indicating his misunderstanding of the prophecy.


Betrayal Prophecies
A number of alleged prophecies relate to Jesus' betrayal by Judas. These include prophecies that Jesus would be betrayed by a friend for thirty pieces of silver and that this money would be thrown into the temple and used to buy a potter's field. Two verses taken as prophecies of betrayal by a friend are Psalms 41:9 and Psalms 55:12-14, the former of which reads, "Even my close friend, in whom I trusted, who ate my bread, has lifted up his heel against me." Both are psalms which speak of feelings of pain from being betrayed by a close and trusted friend. Yet Jesus already had foreknowledge of his betrayal by Judas (John 13:21-26), and so must not have trusted him. When the gospel of John (13:18) quotes from Psalms 41:9, it tacitly admits this problem by omitting the phrase "in whom I trusted." Neither verse from the Hebrew scriptures gives any indication of being intended as prophetic.

Matthew 26:14-15 states that Judas Iscariot was paid thirty pieces of silver by the Jewish priests as payment for his betrayal. Matthew 27:9-10 claims that this is done to fulfill a prophecy of Jeremiah:

Then that which was spoken through Jeremiah the prophet was fulfilled, saying, "And they took the thirty pieces of silver for the price of the one whose price had been set by the sons of Israel; and they gave them for the potter's field, as the Lord directed me."

The problem here is that the quoted verse appears nowhere in the book of Jeremiah. There is a verse which is quite similar in the book of Zechariah, but there the prophet Zechariah is speaking about himself and no betrayal is involved. Christian apologist Gleason Archer (1982, p. 345) tries to resolve this problem by citing various verses in Jeremiah which refer to "the prophet purchasing a field in Anathoth for a certain number of shekels" (32:6-9), "the prophet as watching a potter fashioning earthenware vessels in his house" (18:2), "a potter near the temple" (19:2), and God saying "Even so I will break this people and this city as one breaks a potter's vessel" (19:11). Why does Archer write "a certain number of shekels" instead of giving the number specified in Jeremiah? Because Jeremiah 32:9 says seventeen shekels, not thirty. What Archer has done here is simply look for the words "potter," "shekel," and "field" in an attempt to argue that Matthew really was referring to Jeremiah rather than Zechariah. But there is really no question that Matthew meant to refer to Zechariah rather than Jeremiah. Compare Zechariah 11:12-13:

And I said to them, "If it is good in your sight, give me my wages; but if not, never mind!" So they weighed out thirty shekels of silver as my wages. Then the Lord said to me, "Throw it to the potter, that magnificent price at which I was valued by them." So I took the thirty shekels of silver and threw them to the potter in the house of the Lord.

Again, this is Zechariah speaking of his own experience rather than a messianic prophecy. But Matthew 27:5-7 tries to fulfill this non-prophecy by telling a story of Judas Iscariot throwing his payment into the temple before committing suicide, after which the priests use the money to buy a potter's field. This story does not appear in the other gospels (though Acts 1:18-19 says that Judas himself, rather than the priests, bought a field with the (unspecified amount of) money earned by his betrayal).

Another problem with this alleged prophecy is that in the earliest (Syriac) manuscripts of Zechariah, verse 13 does not even contain the word "potter"--instead, it says "treasury," which makes more sense but further damages its credibility as prophecy. (The Revised Standard Version gives the verse as "Cast it into the treasury," with the "to the potter" translation relegated to a footnote.)


Crucifixion Prophecies
Christian apologists are perhaps most impressed by a number of alleged prophecies relating to Jesus' crucifixion. They claim that the Hebrew scriptures contain prophecies that Jesus would be crucified, that his garments would be divided by the casting of lots, that he would be given wine mixed with gall or myrrh, that he would cry out about being forsaken, and that none of his bones would be broken. There are several verses taken to refer to crucifixion: Psalms 22:16, Zechariah 12:10, and Zechariah 13:6 are typical examples. Psalms 22:16 reads, "For dogs have surrounded me; a band of evildoers has encompassed me; they pierced my hands and my feet." This is a psalm of David which gives no indication of being prophetic and which describes the speaker being hunted down and killed rather than being crucified. Gerald Sigal (1981, p. 98) argues that the Hebrew word translated here as "pierced" is "ariy," which means "lion," and so a more accurate translation would be "like a lion [they are gnawing at] my hands and feet." Gleason Archer (1982, p. 37), however, argues that "they pierced" is correct, based on the Septuagint's translation and other considerations.

Zechariah 12:10 says "they will look on me whom they have pierced; and they will mourn for him, as one mourns for an only son ...." The gospel of John (19:37) takes this as prophecy fulfilled by Jesus' crucifixion, but there is no indication that this speaks of crucifixion. Further, the "him" being mourned for is not the "me" that is being pierced. The Jewish interpretation of this verse is that God is speaking of the people of Israel being "pierced" or attacked (Sigal 1981, pp. 80-82).

Zechariah 13:6 speaks of "these wounds between your arms," spoken of one who claims not to be a prophet and to have been sold as a slave in his youth (Zechariah 13:5). Wounds between one's arms are not characteristic of crucifixion, and Jesus was neither sold as a slave nor claimed not to be a prophet.

Only the gospel of John speaks of Jesus' garments being divided among the soldiers and their casting of lots for his tunic (John 19:23-24), and he cites (Psalms 22:18 as the prophecy which is thereby fulfilled. This latter verse reads, "They divide my garments among them, and for my clothing they cast lots." This verse tells of one event--clothing being divided by the casting of lots. But John transforms it into two events: first the division of Jesus' clothing apart from his tunic (John 19:23) and then casting of lots for his tunic (John 19:24). It appears that John created a story in an attempt to provide a fulfillment for his misunderstanding of a verse which gives no indication of being a prophecy in the first place.

Matthew (27:34) speaks of Jesus being given "wine to drink mingled with gall" and Mark (15:23) says he was offered "wine mixed with myrrh." These are both taken to be references to Psalms 69:21, which says "they gave me gall for my food, and for my thirst they gave me vinegar to drink." The Hebrew word here translated as "gall" is "rosh," meaning poison or gall, and referring to some poisonous plant. The verse says that poison is being put into food, which does not apply to the crucifixion. Myrrh, which is not poisonous, is referred to by the Hebrew word "mor," which does not appear in Psalms 69:21. This psalm, which speaks repeatedly of flood waters, gives no indication of being either prophetic or of applying to Jesus.

The gospels of Matthew (27:46) and Mark (15:34) give Jesus' last words as "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me," a quotation of Psalms 22:1. Luke (23:46) gives "Father, into thy hands I commit my spirit" as Jesus' final words, while John (19:30) has Jesus say "It is finished." Only the first of these is claimed to be fulfillment of prophecy, yet it is hardly miraculous that Jesus would make such a statement. Presumably Jesus was familiar with the Hebrew scriptures. Such a remark, however, is inconsistent with Christian theology. Why would Jesus, supposed to be God incarnate, speak of being forsaken by himself at all, let alone at the culmination of his plan for human salvation? It is also not apparent that Psalms 22 is either prophetic or applicable to Jesus (see Sigal 1981, pp. 95-99).

A final prophecy I wish to examine relating to the crucifixion is that Jesus' bones would not be broken. It is only the gospel of John (19:32-36) which tells of soldiers breaking the legs of the crucifixion victims to hasten their deaths, yet sparing Jesus because he was already dead. John 19:36 cites Psalms 34:20, "He keeps all his bones; not one of them is broken," as the prophecy which is thereby fulfilled. There is no indication that Psalms 34 is intended as prophetic, nor that it applies to Jesus. The intent in the gospel of John is to represent Jesus as a sacrifice, specifically corresponding to the paschal lamb (e.g., John 1:29, 36). A requirement of the paschal lamb is that none of its bones be broken (Exodus 12:46, Numbers 9:12). But this analogy fails for several reasons: the paschal lamb was not for the atonement of sin, and Jewish sacrifices were required to be completely without blemish, sore, or injury (Leviticus 22:20-25) while Jesus was scourged and mutilated (John 19:1; Sigal 1981, pp. 265-268).


Conclusions
It is worth briefly examining some conclusions regarding messianic prophecies quite contrary to mine presented by Peter Stoner (1952) (and repeated in McDowell (1972)). Stoner calculates the probability of just eight messianic prophecies[6] being fulfilled as 1 in 10^21 (McDowell (1972), citing a more recent edition of Stoner's book, gives the probability as 1 in 10^17. Jeffrey (1990, pp. 17-20) gives a list of eleven messianic prophecies[7] and a probability of 1 in 10^19.) There are a number of problems with Stoner's calculations. The probability of each prophecy being fulfilled by chance was arrived at by getting an estimate from "a class in Christian Evidences" at Pasadena City College sponsored by Inter-Varsity Christian Fellowship (Stoner 1952, p. 71). These estimates did not consider any of the above objections to these prophecies, nor did they consider the possibility of intentional fulfillment. (For example, a Messiah claimant might hire a John-the-Baptist-style messenger to precede him, or intentionally ride a donkey into the city of Jerusalem.) Another problem with this method is that such probability estimates are notoriously unreliable.[8] Of these problems, the most serious is Stoner's failure to consider the objections I have offered above, and it alone is sufficient to invalidate his calculations.

I have examined more than two dozen alleged messianic prophecies which Christian apologists claim are fulfilled by Jesus. Although there are many more claimed such prophecies (e.g., McDowell (1972) lists 61 in some detail and refers to numerous additional verses without details), these are by far the best examples, by the apologists' own reckoning.[9] This examination shows that none stands up as a specific, detailed, and accurate prediction of an event which came to occur in the life of Jesus. Instead, the purported prophecies appear to be the result of deliberate attempts by the gospel writers and Christian apologists to find post hoc similarities between events described in the New Testament and the Hebrew scriptures. Messianic prophecies, contrary to apologists, do not provide evidence for Christian faith.


Notes
[1] It could be argued (and has been argued by Jews at least since the third century) that Jesus led Jews astray from their religion and was therefore a false prophet. See Sanhedrin 43a in the Babylonian Talmud (Epstein 1935, p. 281).

[2] It should be noted that some Christian apologists claim that "virgin" is meant because the Jewish translators of the Old Testament into its Greek form (the Septuagint) used the Greek word "parthenos" ("virgin") for "almah" in translating this verse. This probably indicates, rather, that Matthew used the Septuagint. Gerald Sigal (1981, p. 24) points out a case (Genesis 34:3) where the Septuagint uses "parthenos" for the Hebrew word "na'arah" ("girl") when the woman in question is most definitely not a virgin (see Genesis 34:2). Nahigian (1993, p. 13) also points out that later Greek translations of Isaiah, by Aquila, Theodocion, Lucian, and others did not use "parthenos" to translate "almah" in Isaiah 7:14.

[3] The usual Christian response is to invoke a doctrine of "double fulfillment" of prophecy. Note that this, combined with the Christian view that "almah" means "virgin," means that the Christian must accept two virgin births.

[4] The gospel of John says nothing about Jesus being from Bethlehem, but instead says that he is from Nazareth in Galilee. See John 1:45-46 and 7:41-42,52.

[5] There are two common attempts made to resolve these contradictions. The most common among evangelical Christians is to claim that Luke's genealogy is that of Mary, not Joseph. This fails to explain the repeated convergence followed by divergence as you trace the ancestry backward. It also fails to explain why the Luke genealogy contains almost twice as many ancestors as Matthew's in the same time period. Yet another problem is that this explanation conflicts with the Catholic tradition which says that Mary's parents were Joachim and Anna. A second explanation, favored by Catholics, is that each case of divergence is the result of Levirate marriage. That is, the discrepant fathers are brothers of each other, and when one died the other married his brother's wife (see Deuteronomy 25:5). This explanation also fails to explain the difference in number of ancestors.

[6] Micah 5:2 (born in Bethlehem), Malachi 3:1 (preceded by a messenger), Zechariah 9:9 (enters Jerusalem on a donkey), Zechariah 13:6 (betrayed by a friend, wounded in hands), Zechariah 11:12 (betrayed for thirty silver pieces), Zechariah 11:13 (silver thrown in temple and used to purchase potter's field), Isaiah 53:7 (remains silent before accusers), and Psalms 22:16 (hands and feet pierced). All of these except the Isaiah verse have been examined above (see note 9).

[7] Jeffrey gives the same eight as Stoner and McDowell (substituting Isaiah 40:3 for "preceded by a messenger" and Psalms 41:9 for "betrayed by a friend") and adds Isaiah 53:5 (wounded and whipped by enemies), Isaiah 50:6 (spit upon and beaten), and Isaiah 53:12 (crucified with thieves). These latter three verses are not addressed in this article; see note 9.

[8] See Kahneman, Slovic, and Tversky (1982) and Falk (1982).

[9] Prophecies I have not dealt with include Isaiah's writings about the "Suffering Servant," which are dealt with by Sigal (1981, pp. 35-68) and in issue 30 (June 1985) of Biblical Errancy.


Acknowledgements
Thanks to Ed Babinski, who recommended Gerald Sigal's book, and to Robert Sheaffer (sheaffer@netcom.com) for his helpful comments on an early draft of this article, and to David Wood (dpw@sei.cmu.edu) for pointing out the RSV translation of Zechariah 11:13.

All Bible quotations, except where otherwise noted, are from the New American Standard translat

Response To The Fabulous Prophecies of the Messiah

James D. Price, Ph. D.



Jim Lippard's article was written in an attempt to discredit the claims that certain Messianic prophecies in the Old Testament were fulfilled in Jesus Christ. His article is copyrighted with the following permission for use:

This text copyright © 1993 by Jim Lippard, 2930 E. 1st St., Tucson, AZ 85716 (lippard@rtd.com). Permission is granted to redistribute this file electronically provided this notice is retained. Quotations from his article are made under the provisions of the above permission.

My own statements in this response to Lippard's article are not copyrighted and may be distributed without restriction. My response consists of several sections: (1) basic flaws in Lippard's reasoning; (2) presentation of evidence for legitimate predictive prophecy; (3) response to Lippard's discussion of the significance of Messianic prophecy; and (4) response to Lippard's rejection of specific Messianic prophecies. In this latter section I follow Lippard's outline in which he divides his critique into five sections: (a) birth prophecies; ministry prophecies; © betrayal prophecies; (d) crucifixion prophecies; and (e) conclusions.


Basic Flaws
Lippard's article is characterized by three basic flaws: (1) disregard of philosophical differences; (2) failure to consider historic Jewish Messianic tradition; and (3) shallow scholarship.


Philosophical Differences
Lippard provided two quotations, one from a Christian, Josh McDowell, and another from an atheist, Thomas Paine, with exactly opposite views on Jesus Christ and Messianic prophecy. He then declared Paine to be right without discussing the fundamental difference in their philosophical presuppositions.

But any consideration of prophecy must surely include such a discussion. If one begins with an anti-supernatural presupposition, as did Paine and Lippard, then that automatically excludes the possibility of true predictive prophecy which is by its very nature supernatural. Thus, whenever an atheist like Paine is faced with a possible instance of predictive prophecy, he must rationalize and try to explain it away. He is satisfied with any flimsy excuse to discredit the prophecy, because, after all, predictive prophecy cannot really happen according to his anti-supernatural presupposition.

Lippard exposed his anti-supernatural presupposition when he said: "Given our present knowledge of the chronology of the Bible's writing, however, in most cases it cannot be demonstrated that the prophetic statements do not post-date the events being predicted." However, this statement involves circular reasoning, because the scholars who post-dated prophecies did so because of their own anti-supernatural presupposition. That is, they reasoned that there is no such thing as long-range, specific predictions, therefore, any such apparent predictions must necessarily have been given after the event predicted. But such reasoning is purely subjective and philosophical, not based on valid historic evidence. It impugns the veracity of the Biblical prophets, making them fraudulent, in spite of their godly reputation. How could such alleged fraudulent literature have gained canonicity and be regarded as the divinely inspired Word of God? The ancient Jews were not gullible. The truly fraudulent literature, and there was some, was never regarded as canonical.

McDowell, on the other hand, is willing to allow the possibility of the supernatural, and thus is willing to acknowledge the existence of true predictive prophecy when it is verified by valid historic evidence. As I demonstrate later, true prophecies exist in the Hebrew Bible that cannot be post-dated, therefore, it is appropriate to conduct the discussion of Messianic prophecy under McDowell's presupposition. Any true prophecy will stand the test of valid historic scrutiny, and any false prophecy will be exposed. On the other hand, it is vain to conduct a discussion of any type of prophecy under Lippard's anti-supernatural presupposition, because such a discussion can only lead to atheism. It begins with atheism and can only lead to atheism. Lippard may pretend to reason in McDowell's philosophical arena, but his anti-supernaturalism is frequently unmasked in the way he reasons and rationalizes.


Jewish Messianic Tradition
Lippard leads his readers to believe that the early Christians invented most of the Old Testament predictions they claim were fulfilled in Jesus Christ. That is, the alleged predictions were not previously regarded as Messianic prophecies, but were associated with Jesus after the fact. This is reflected in his statement: "the alleged Old Testament prophecy is not a messianic prophecy or not a prophecy at all." Lippard was strongly influenced by Gerald Sigal, a modern Jewish apologist who also opposes Christian interpretation of the Messianic prophecies. Lippard, citing Sigal, declared what they identify as "the Jewish interpretation," giving the impression that it is the historic Jewish interpretation. But what they really give is a modern Jewish interpretation, one that has developed as the result of debates with Christians since the time of Christ.

The truth is that there was a strong Messianic tradition long before the time of Christ, a tradition that was well known among the Jews of Jesus' day. It was this tradition that the early Christians knew and applied to Jesus This tradition is preserved in the pre-Christian translations of the Old Testament made by the Jews, such as the Septuagint (LXX), and the Aramaic Targums. These translations were somewhat standardized by the time of Christ, so the Messianic traditions contained in them have remained rather unaffected by later debates with the Christians. The post-Christians translations made by the Jews reflect the effects of their debates with the Christians and their resultant anti-Christian bias. It is no surprise that the post-Christian Jewish apologists switched from the Septuagint to the later Greek translations of the Old Testament.

The ancient Jewish Messianic traditions are also still present in the Talmudic literature, although somewhat tainted by the post-Christian debates. These ancient Jewish sources indicate that the passages in the Old Testament understood by the early Christians as Messianic were also understood by the ancient Jews as Messianic. Alfred Edersheim, a Christian Jew and scholar of the nineteenth century, one much more acquainted with the complexities of Messianic prophecy than Thomas Paine, compiled a list of 456 such references to the Messiah in ancient Jewish literature: 75 from the Pentateuch, 243 from the Prophets, and 138 from the Writings, supported by more than 558 separate quotations from the rabbinic literature.[1] So, although Lippard and Sigal may not regard the passages as Messianic prophecies, they were regarded as such by both ancient Jews and Christians. Lippard and Sigal have essentially disregarded these ancient Jewish Messianic traditions, and have invented a modern definition of what constitutes a Messianic prophecy--one that suits their own apologetic agenda. I will call attention to these ancient traditions in my responses to Lippard's discussion of specific Messianic passages.


Shallow Scholarship
As I mentioned earlier, Lippard and anti-supernatural proponents in general rationalize their position, and are satisfied with anything that seems to discredit an alleged Messianic prophecy. If they find a possible alternate interpretation, they latch onto it as evidence that the passage is not Messianic, or as evidence that the passage is not a prophecy. But this is shallow scholarship. A possible alternate interpretation proves nothing. One must also refute the possibility that the passage can be Messianic or can be a prophecy. Often their alternate interpretations, which may appear good on the surface, are found to introduce inconsistencies into the broader context which violate the sound rules of hermeneutical exposition. I will call attention to instances of their shallow scholarship as I respond to:


Lippard's discussion of specific Messianic passages
Another point related to Lippard's scholarship is the various ways in which the New Testament writers, especially Matthew, used the term "fulfilled." Often the term was used in its literal sense, meaning that the author understood an event in the life of Jesus to be the literal fulfillment of a specified Old Testament prophecy. At other times the New Testament writers used the term in its figurative sense, meaning that the author saw some significant parallel between an event in the history of Israel and a similar event in the life of Jesus. The New Testament writers assumed that the common sense discernment of their audience would distinguish between their literal and figurative use of the term, without a specific indication in the text In those instances where the New Testament writers used the term in its figurative sense, Christians do not claim that there was a literal fulfillment of prophecy, or even that the cited Old Testament passages is a prophecy. Lippard seems to have failed to use common sense discernment in these situations, or else he deliberately appealed to some of these cases in order to strengthen his argument and mislead his readers. But such tactics only expose his shallow scholarship.


Valid Prophecies
The Old Testament contains several clearly validated long-range, specific prophecies the proclamation of which cannot be post-dated, and the fulfillment of which has been documented. These confirm the fact that such prophecies exist and that it is appropriate to assume the possibility of true, long-range specific prophecies in discussion of Messianic prophecy.


The 70 Year Captivity
The prophet Jeremiah was a prophet whose prophetic ministry is historically validated and dated. His ministry spanned the reigns of King Josiah, Jehoiakim, and Zedekiah (c. 627-583 B.C.). He recorded the early events leading up to the captivity, the destruction of Jerusalem, and the events immediately following. In the fourth year of Jehoiakim (605 B.C. cf. Jer. 25:1) he proclaimed the following prophecy:

Therefore thus says the Lord of hosts: "Because you have not heard My words, behold, I will send and take all the families of the north," says the Lord, "and Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon, My servant, and will bring them against this land, against its inhabitants, and against these nations all around, and will utterly destroy them, and make them an astonishment, a hissing, and perpetual desolations. Moreover I will take from them the voice of mirth and the voice of gladness, the voice of the bridegroom and the voice of the bride, the sound of the millstones and the light of the lamp. And this whole land shall be a desolation and an astonishment, and these nations shall serve the king of Babylon seventy years." (Jer. 25:8-11).

A short time later, Jeremiah added an additional detail to the prophecy:

For thus says the Lord: "After seventy years are completed at Babylon, I will visit you and perform My good word toward you, and cause you to return to this place." (Jer. 29:10)

The fulfillment of this prophecy is recorded twice (2 Chron. 36:19-23; Ezra 1:1-4):

Then they burned the house of God, broke down the wall of Jerusalem, burned all its palaces with fire, and destroyed all its precious possessions. And those who escaped from the sword he carried away to Babylon, where they became servants to him and his sons until the rule of the kingdom of Persia, to fulfill the word of the Lord by the mouth of Jeremiah, until the land had enjoyed her Sabbaths. As long as she lay desolate she kept Sabbath, to fulfill seventy years.

Now in the first year of Cyrus king of Persia, that the word of the Lord by the mouth of Jeremiah might be fulfilled, the Lord stirred up the spirit of Cyrus king of Persia, so that he made a proclamation throughout all his kingdom, and also put it in writing, saying, "Thus says Cyrus king of Persia: All the kingdoms of the earth the Lord God of heaven has given me.

And He has commanded me to build Him a house at Jerusalem which is in Judah. Who is among you of all His people? May the Lord his God be with him, and let him go up." (2 Chron. 36:19-23)

Jeremiah was an old man when he proclaimed this prophecy. He lived to experience the destruction of Jerusalem, the fulfillment of the first part of the prophecy. However he died shortly after that in Egypt. There is no way this prophecy can be post-dated. The Jewish scribes who lived seventy years later were aware of the prophecy, attributed it to Jeremiah, and regarded it as being fulfilled in their time. Only an anti-supernaturalist would dare to post-date this prophecy.


The Josiah Prophecy
After the death of Solomon about 931 B.C., the northern ten tribes of Israel rebelled against Solomon's son Rehoboam, and under the leadership of Jeroboam they became an independent kingdom. Shortly after that Jeroboam established pagan centers of worship in Bethel and Dan. It was while Jeroboam was worshipping at the shrine in Bethel that the Lord sent an unnamed prophet to proclaim a prophetic judgment on the shrine and its priests. The prophecy reads:

And behold, a man of God went from Judah to Bethel by the word of the Lord, and Jeroboam stood by the altar to burn incense. Then he cried out against the altar by the word of the Lord, and said, "O altar, altar!

Thus says the Lord: 'Behold, a child, Josiah by name, shall be born to the house of David; and on you he shall sacrifice the priests of the high places who burn incense on you, and men's bones shall be burned on you.'"

And he gave a sign the same day, saying, "This is the sign which the Lord has spoken: Surely the altar shall split apart, and the ashes on it shall be poured out." So it came to pass when King Jeroboam heard the saying of the man of God, who cried out against the altar in Bethel, that he stretched out his hand from the altar, saying, "Arrest him!" Then his hand, which he stretched out toward him, withered, so that he could not pull it back to himself. The altar also was split apart, and the ashes poured out from the altar, according to the sign which the man of God had given by the word of the Lord. (1 Kings 13:1-5)

The fulfillment of this prophecy took place in the early years of the reign of King Josiah (c. 628 B.C.), about 300 years later. The fulfillment is recorded in 2 Kings 23:15-16:

Moreover the altar that was at Bethel, and the high place which Jeroboam the son of Nebat, who made Israel sin, had made, both that altar and the high place he broke down; and he burned the high place and crushed it to powder, and burned the wooden image. As Josiah turned, he saw the tombs that were there on the mountain. And he sent and took the bones out of the tombs and burned them on the altar, and defiled it according to the word of the Lord which the man of God proclaimed, who proclaimed these words.

It is true that the Book of Kings was written after both of these events, the prophecy and its fulfillment. But there is no reason to suppose that the accounts of the prophecy and its fulfillment were fabricated and not derived from reliable ancient records. Why would the historian jeopardize the integrity of his history by including fraudulent stories? Only an anti-supernaturalist would fabricate such an explanation to avoid the reality of long-range, specific prophecy.


Roman Destruction of Jerusalem
Daniel foretold the Roman destruction of Jerusalem and the Second Temple:

And the people of the prince who is to come shall destroy the city and the sanctuary. (Dan 9:26)

This prophecy must refer to the Roman destruction of Jerusalem and the Second Temple in A.D. 70. In Daniel's day, Jerusalem was destroyed and Solomon's Temple was in ruins. Daniel spoke of this as a future event, so he anticipated the rebuilding of the city and sanctuary. No matter how the date of the Book of Daniel is determined, whether the 6th century B.C. (the conservative date) or the 2nd century B.C. (the liberal date), this prophecy cannot be post-dated. Actual manuscripts of the book exist dating from the first century B.C.

This ends the list of verifiable long-range predictions. Many more could be documented; these are only a few examples.


The Significance Of Messianic Prophecy
Lippard correctly described the Biblical standards for a true prophet of God. He then set up an alleged dilemma, based on the Biblical standards of a true prophet, according to which he claimed that "there are messianic prophecies which are not fulfilled by Jesus (and which will not be fulfilled in the future)." Then he concluded:

These standards entail that either Jesus was not the Messiah or the prophecies in question were not made by a true prophet of God. Both horns of the dilemma have the consequence that any form of Christianity which maintains biblical inerrancy is false.

This is a false dilemma on both counts. His allegation that some Messianic prophecies were not fulfilled by Jesus is based on his shallow scholarship which cannot stand up under careful scrutiny. Many of his denials are based on prophecies that relate to the future Messianic Kingdom. These of course have not been fulfilled by Jesus or by anyone else. But to deny the possibility of their future fulfillment, as his statement above implies, is another evidence of his anti-supernatural presupposition. He reasons that they "will not be fulfilled in the future" because true predictive prophecy is impossible. He reasons further that since these prophecies have not been fulfilled that the Biblical prophets must not be true prophets of God, furthermore evangelical Christianity [and orthodox Judaism by implication] must be false and the Bible full of errors.

On the other hand, evangelical Christians and orthodox Jews believe that the mass of prophecies that have been fulfilled in history are evidence of the certainty of the fulfillment of prophecies that still relate to the future.

Such reasoning is based on evidence, not on philosophical presupposition. There is no a priori reason to deny the possibility of the fulfillment of prophecies relating to the Messianic Kingdom and other future events.

Christians do not claim that Jesus fulfilled those prophecies that relate to the Messianic Kingdom. Jesus taught that He must die as a vicarious sacrifice for the sins of the world, that He must be buried and rise again from the dead on the third day--all of this in fulfillment of Old Testament prophecies. He taught that He must ascend to the Father and return again sometime in the future as King to set up the Messianic Kingdom foretold in the Old Testament. Lippard, in his shallow scholarship, constantly alludes to the fact that Jesus was not a king, had no kingdom, and did not function as a ruler, as though these facts refute the Messianic claims of Christians--claims that Christians never make.

So, much of his argumentation does not address the real issues. Furthermore, Lippard alleged that Jesus was a false prophet when he stated:

It could be argued (and has been argued by Jews at least since the third century) that Jesus led Jews astray from their religion and was therefore a false prophet. [his Endnote 1].

These false charges have never been substantiated. Moses identified a false prophet as one who would lead the Jews away from worshipping only Jehovah, the God of Israel, and who would lead them instead to worship false gods (Deut 13:1-5). Jesus always remained faithful to Jehovah; He never advocated the worship of any other god--He was a true monotheist. He practiced and taught true Biblical piety, holiness, purity, honesty, integrity, love, mercy, and justice. His teachings were truly profound. He exposed the hypocrisy of certain Jewish traditions, but He never opposed that form of Jewish religion that was consistent with the Old Testament.

The Jewish antagonists of Jesus' day attempted repeatedly to entrap Him on religious matters, but He always demonstrated that His teaching and practice was consistent with the letter and spirit of the Mosaic law. He even gave them this challenge: "Which of you convicts Me of sin?" (John 8:46). When the Jewish Sanhedrin finally condemned Him to death, it was not for any matter of religion but because He claimed to be the Messiah, the Son of God, and that He would come in the future to receive the Messianic Kingdom (Mark 14:61-64; cf. Dan. 7:13-14). This they interpreted as blasphemy, not as leading the Jews into idolatry. Many modern Jews regard Him as the greatest Jew who ever lived; and even though they do not accept Him as their Messiah, they regard Him as the Messiah of the Gentiles.


Birth Prophecies
Lippard discussed several prophecies that Christians relate to the birth of Jesus: Isaiah 7:14, the prophecy of His virgin birth; Micah 5:2, the prophecy of His place of birth; prophecies of Messiah's ancestry; Jeremiah 31:15, a prophecy related to Herod's slaughter of the innocent children; Hosea 11:1, a prophecy referring to Messiah return from Egypt; Daniel 9:24-27, a prophecy concerning the time of Messiah's appearance. In the sections that follow I discuss Lippard's treatment of these prophecies.


Isaiah 7:14
This prophecy foretells the virgin birth of the Messiah. It reads: "Therefore the Lord Himself will give you a sign: Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a Son, and shall call His name Immanuel." Lippard listed four problems with this passage: (1) the word "virgin" is a mistranslation, and should be translated "young woman" or "maiden"; (2) Jesus' mother never called Him Immanuel; (3) the prophecy was given to Ahaz, King of Judah, and was fulfilled in Isaiah 8:3-4; and (4) the early Christians rejected the virgin birth.

1. The meaning of the Hebrew word "almah."
   
   The key to an understanding of the meaning of this passage is the Septuagint (LXX) translation which uses the Greek word "parthenos" (virgin) to translate the word "almah." The LXX was translated by Jews before the time of Christ and so preserves the pristine Jewish Messianic tradition before it was affected by the debates with the early Christians. Further evidence that this passage was regarded by the early Jews as Messianic is indicated by the Talmudic reference of 7:21 (an integral part of the whole prophecy) to Messianic times[2]. Thus it is wrong for Lippard todismiss the significance of the LXX here. It is true that the Greek word "parthenos" may sometimes not mean virgin in the strict technical sense of the term, but the normal meaning of the word should be understood unless the context demands otherwise.
   
   It is true that the Hebrew word "almah" is also translated in other places as "maid" or "maiden," but one must not forget that these words are synonyms for "virgin" as any English dictionary clearly indicates. Our present immoral culture has obscured the issue, but in earlier English culture (and Hebrew culture) an unmarried young woman was expected to be a virgin. So, whether one referred to an unmarried young woman as a virgin or as a maiden, the same thing was meant.
   
   This was such a strong expectation in ancient Hebrew culture that a girl guilty of fornication was put to death, and a raped young woman was unsuited for marriage. Thus Joseph thought to set Mary aside when he learned she was with child, and was only prevented from doing so by angelic intervention (Matt 1:18-25). Thus Jewish culture expects the word to mean virgin in this context.
   
   It is true that Hebrew has another word "bethulah" that means virgin. But this word is used to refer to any virgin, ranging from a little girl to a mature young woman; whereas the word "almah" refers only to a sexually mature young woman.[3]
   
   In the Hebrew Bible the word refers only to young women that are virgins. So for example, Genesis 24 relates the story of the betrothal of Rebekah to Isaac. In verse 16 she is referred to as "a virgin ["bethulah"], neither had any man known her"; whereas in verse 43 she is referred to as a virgin ["almah"]. In such contexts the words are synonymous. No usage of the word "almah" in the Hebrew Bible can be shown to mean other than a sexually mature virgin, and this passage is no exception.
   
   The context of this passage demands the sense of virgin here. The prophecy is called a "sign" [Hebrew "'oth"] which frequently implies something supernatural. In verse 11 the Lord told King Ahaz: "Ask a sign ['oth] for yourself from the LORD your God; ask it either in the depth or in the height above." Such a sign obviously could have been anything, such as the sign given later to King Hezekiah: the sun moving back in its orbit by ten degrees (Isa 38:7-8). But Ahaz refused to ask for a sign, so the LORD gave His own sign, the sign of the virgin born Messiah, not to be fulfilled in the days of Ahaz, but in the future.
   
   Now only a virgin birth would qualify as such a sign--there is nothing supernatural about a young woman becoming pregnant, it happens all the time. Lippard refers to the foretold event as "biological impossible"--another indication of his anti-supernatural presupposition. But a number of biologically impossible events have happened. Adam was created without father or mother. Eve was made from Adam's flesh and bone without father or mother. Isaac was conceived when his parents were both beyond the age of possible conception. Several people were raised from the dead. All of these events were biologically impossible, but they happened nevertheless; unless one rationalizes, as Lippard does, that such things are a priori impossible and so the stories must be legends or myths.
2. Mary and Immanuel.
   
   Lippard asserted that Jesus' mother never called Him Immanuel. This is an argument from silence, which proves nothing--another example of Lippard's shallow scholarship. On the other hand, the inclusion of the name in the quotation of Isaiah 7:14 implies that Mary did call Him by that name.
   
   Matthew saw the significance of the name and so translated it as "God with us," but he must not have seen the need of recording an actual event in which Mary, or anyone else, called Jesus Immanuel. It should be noted that the Hebrew of Isaiah 7:14 could be translated either "she shall call His name Immanuel" or "you shall call His name Immanuel." The Hebrew is ambiguous at this point The LXX translators evidently understood it as the latter and interpreted it as "they shall call His name Emmanuel." This is how it is quoted in Matthew 1:23.
   
   So Lippard's argument is irrelevant.
3. The prophecy was given to Ahaz.
   
   Lippard erroneously stated that the prophecy was given to King Ahaz and was fulfilled in 8:3-4. This is another example of Lippard's shallow scholarship. After King Ahaz refused to ask a sign from the Lord, Isaiah turned to the elders of the house of David and said: "Hear now, O house of David! Is it a small thing for you [plural] to weary men, but will you [plural] weary my God also? Therefore the Lord Himself will give you [plural] a sign ..." (7:13-14). Thus, God offered a sign to the king, but when the king refused the sign, the Lord gave His own sign, not to a king but to a nation, not an immediate physical sign but a distant Messianic sign.
   
   Furthermore, the sign was not fulfilled in 8:3-4. There it says that the prophetess, Isaiah's wife, not the "almah," conceived and bore a son. She called his name Maher-Shalal-Hash-Baz, This does not sound anything like Immanuel which means "God with Us."[4] It is true that the word "Immanuel" occurs twice in chapter 8 (vss. 8, 10). But the passage from verse 5 to 10 is on another subject not related to the son born in 8:3-4; it is a pronouncement of judgment, not of deliverance and comfort. This is confirmed by the fact that in 9:6-7 the promised Son is still seen as coming in the future. It is true that in 8:18 Isaiah said: Here am I and the children whom the LORD has given me! We are for signs and wonders in Israel from the LORD of hosts who dwells in Mount Zion.
   
   But this must not confuse the issue. The signs were in the meanings of their names, one of which meant "Speed the Spoil, Hasten the Booty" (a sign of judgment), and theother meant "A Remnant Shall Return" (a sign of future restoration). The signof the virgin born Messiah would be much more than a name, it would be a person who would be God with Us.
4. The early Christians rejected the virgin birth.
   
   Based on statements made by J. Edward Barrett, Lippard alleged that the early Christians rejected the virgin birth. This is based partly on the outmoded idea that the Gospels were written relatively late and that they reflect theological ideas developed after the departure of first generation Christians. These antiquated ideas must be set aside because the manuscript evidence from the first and second century no longer allows that possibility.[5] Furthermore, the writings of the early Church Fathers do not support such a thesis. The Gospels must be regarded as genuine, not late fabrications. The fact that two Gospels do not record the birth of Jesus is not significant. The fact that two record the virgin birth is more that adequate.
   
   One record is sufficient to establish any event in the life of Jesus.
   
   Lippard asserts that 1 Timothy 1:3-4 implies that Paul rejected the virgin birth, but that passage is vague and mentions nothing of the birth of Jesus or Mary's lack of virginity. If Paul really rejected the doctrine he could have been much more specific than that. But Paul made a much clearer reference to the virgin birth when he wrote: "But when the fullness of the time was come, God sent forth his Son, made of a woman, made under the law, to redeem them that were under the law, the we might receive the adoption of sons." (Gal 4:4) The phrase "made of a woman" is significant because Paul usually referred to Jesus Christ as the seed of Abraham or the seed of David. No Lippard's shallow scholarship is inadequate here.

Micah 5:2
This prophecy foretells the birthplace of Messiah; it reads: But you, Bethlehem Ephrathah, though you are little among the thousands of of Judah, yet out of you shall come forth to Me the one to be ruler in Israel, whose goings forth have been from of old, from everlasting.

Lippard rejects this prophecy as being fulfilled by Jesus because:

(1) Bethlehem Ephrathah may be either a place [the city of Bethlehem in the land of Judah] or a person [Bethlehem the son of Ephrathah (1 Chron. 4:4; 2:50-51)]; and, (2) Jesus failed to meet the condition of being a "ruler in Israel."

(1) Bethlehem Ephrathah may be either a place or a person. The possibility of Bethlehem Ephrathah being a person is a smoke screen--another example of Lippard's shallow scholarship. That name does not appear in the references he gave. In one place the reference is to "Ephrathah the father of Bethlehem" (1 Chron. 4:4), and in the other it refers indirectly to Bethlehem as the grandson of Ephrathah (1 Chron. 2:50-51). However, in the Hebrew Bible, personal names do not appear in the form Bethlehem Ephrathah, but only in the form Bethlehem the son of Ephrathah. So the name under discussion can only be a place name, not a personal name. Lippard ignored the fact that this passage has been traditionally regarded among the Jews as foretelling the birthplace of the Messiah.[6]

Matthew recorded the fact that the scribes in the days of Jesus' birth knew this tradition (Matt 2:3-6). Jesus was born in Bethlehem, so He did satisfy that part of the prophecy.

(2) Jesus was not a "ruler in Israel." Lippard acknowledged that "Jesus qualifies by birthplace but fails to meet the condition of being 'ruler in Israel.'" Lippard recognized that Christians understand that this rulership will be fulfilled in the second coming of Christ, yet he refuses to permit Christians this twofold aspect of Messianic prophecy. He insists that if Jesus did not fulfill those details that relate to the future Messianic Kingdom, then he is disqualified as the Messiah. But such shallow scholarship ignores two distinct aspects of the Messianic mission. How can Messiah be born of a virgin in Bethlehem (Isa 7:14; Mic 5:2), and also come in the clouds to receive the kingdom from the Ancient of Days (Dan 7:13-14)? How can Messiah suffer and die for the sins of the world (Isa 53), and also rule and reign forever as king (Dan 7:14, 27)? Both of these ideas are part of the Messianic tradition of the ancient Jews and Christians. Either there was to be two Messiahs, as some Jewish tradition seems to assume, or there was to be two phases of Messiah's ministry: one as the suffering servant, another as a conquering king, as the Christians understand it. Lippard demands that Jesus fulfill the requirements of two distinct Messiahs or the requirements of two distinct phases of Messiah's ministry. Either way, his demands are illogical and unreasonable. So there is nothing wrong with concluding that Jesus qualifies by birthplace, and will qualify as ruler in Israel in the future Messianic Kingdom.


Problems of Genealogy
Lippard listed several problems of a genealogical nature that relate to the Messianic claims of Jesus: (1) the prophecies that Messiah would be a descendant of Abraham (Gen 12:2-3; 22:18) do not mention Messiah; (2) prophecies that Messiah would be of the tribe of Judah (Gen 49:10; Micah 5:2), of the line of Jesse (Isa 11:1, 10), and of the house of David (2 Sam 7:12-16; Psa 132:11; Jer 23:5) refer only to kings; (3) the genealogies of Jesus recorded in Matthew and Luke contradict each other; (4) both genealogies trace Jesus' lineage through Joseph, which, if the virgin birth is true, deny Jesus proper lineage; and (5) both genealogies include Jeconiah who was excluded from having a descendant as king by a curse from God (Jer 22:30).

(1) A descendant of Abraham. Lippard denied that Genesis 12:2-3 and 22:18 mention the Messiah, so Jesus' claim to be a descendant of Abraham has nothing to do with fulfilling Messianic prophecy. Again Lippard's shallow scholarship fails to acknowledge that ancient Jewish tradition identifies these passages with the Messiah.[7] Jesus was a descendant of Abraham, and so did satisfy the Messianic expectations associated with these passages.

(2) Prophecies refer only to kings. See response (2) to Micah 5:2 above.

(3) The genealogies are contradictory. Lippard alleges that the genealogy of Jesus recorded by Matthew and the one recorded by Luke contradict one another.

This is another example of his shallow scholarship. Luke's genealogy extends back to Adam whereas Matthew's extends only to Abraham; there is no contradiction there. From Abraham to David both genealogies agree; there is no contradiction there. From David to Jesus the genealogies are entirely different (except possibly for Shealtiel and Zerubbabel). Matthew traces the descent from David through Solomon, the kings of Judah, and their subsequent descendants to Joseph, providing Jesus with a legal right to the throne of David. Luke traces the descent from David through his son Nathan by an entirely different path. So from David on the genealogies differ but the do not contradict one another.

Various possible methods of harmonizing the two genealogies exist which Lippard essentially ignored. For example Joseph, whose natural father was Jacob may have been adopted by Heli. Another possibility is that Matthew recorded the genealogy of Joseph, and Luke recorded the genealogy of Mary. This is supported by the fact that Matthew recorded Joseph's dream in which the angel addressed him as "Joseph son of David" (Matt 1:20); whereas Luke recorded the words of the angel Gabriel to Mary: "the Lord God will give Him the throne of His father David" (Luke 1:32), thus indicating that the virgin born Son would derive His right to the throne through Mary's ancestry. This second possible explanation is the more likely one and is compatible with the Greek text of Luke; Luke's text does not use the word "begot" or the word "son" (except once) to express genealogical descent, but merely the grammatical genitive case. Notice that in the English translation the word "son" is in italics. The Greek text can be translated thus: "Now Jesus Himself began His ministry at about thirty years of age, being the son (as was supposed of Joseph) of Heli" Luke 3:23), where the word "son" is understood in its broader sense of "grandson." So Joseph's relationship to Heli could be merely that of son-in-law.

The difference in length of the genealogies between David and Jesus are explained by Matthew's words "So all the generations from Abraham to David are fourteen generations, from David until the captivity in Babylon are fourteen generations, and from the captivity in Babylon until the Christ are fourteen generations" (Matt 1:17). Matthew deliberately restricted the number of ancestors to 42 (3 x 14) to fit into his mnemonic formula, whereas Luke's genealogical list was more complete. This explains why Jehoiakim[8] was omitted from the list between Josiah and Jeconiah, as well as others in the period between Jeconiah and Joseph. In addition, Lippard listed some alleged discrepancies between the genealogical records in First Chronicles and those in the New Testament, but these are best explained by the fact that the records in Chronicles are not complete, as demonstrated by a comparison of the records of Chronicles with the records of the other Old Testament books.

(4) Both lists deprive Jesus of proper ancestry. Lippard assumed that both lists provide contradictory ancestry of Joseph and thus deprive Jesus of proper ancestry to claim the throne of David. However, I demonstrated above that Luke's genealogy is very likely that of Mary; if so, the problem is resolved. But even if both lists provide ancestries for Joseph, the words of the angel Gabriel to Mary indicate that she also was a descendant of David, "the Lord God will give Him the throne of His father David" (Luke 1:32). So in either case the problem is solved. Again Lippard did not do his homework.

(5) Cursed Jeconiah is in both records. Lippard saw a problem with both lists containing Shealtiel and Zerubbabel, especially because Matthew lists the father of Shealtiel as Jeconiah and Luke lists his father as Neri. Lippard then concluded that the curse on Jeconiah also affected Luke's genealogy and disqualified Jesus on both counts. Two solutions have been proposed: (a) Shealtiel and Zerubbabel are not the same persons in the two lists; ( Jeconiah had no natural children according to Jeremiah's curse (Jer 22:30) but Shealtiel the son of Neri became his adopted son and so legal heir to the throne of David, and natural heir to the throne through his descent from David through Nathan. In either case the curse on Jeconiah does not pass on to the successive generations.


Jeremiah 31:15--Herod's Murder of the Innocents
Matthew 2:16-18 records an incident in which Herod ordered his troops to slaughter the little children of Bethlehem. Matthew related this event to Jeremiah 31:15:

Then Herod, when he saw that he was deceived by the wise men, was exceedingly angry; and he sent forth and put to death all the male children who were in Bethlehem and in all its districts, from two years old and under, according to the time which he had determined from the wise men. Then was fulfilled what was spoken by Jeremiah the prophet, saying:

A voice was heard in Ramah, Lamentation, weeping, and great mourning, Rachel weeping for her children, Refusing to be comforted, Because they are no more.

Lippard listed two problems with this passage: (1) it is not a prophecy of children being killed but a lament over the Babylonian captivity; and (2) the incident probably did not happen because it was not mentioned by Josephus

(1) Not a prophecy. Lippard is right that this passage is not a Messianic prophecy; it is an instance where Matthew used the term "fulfilled" in its figurative sense. Matthew saw a similarity between the mourning of the people of Israel for their children who were carried off as captives to Babylon and the mourning of the people in the same area for the massacre of their children. Christians do not regard this passage from Jeremiah as a Messianic prophecy.

Lippard's shallow scholarship seeks problems where none exist.

(2) The incident did not happen. Next Lippard questioned the historic validity of Matthew's account. But again he argues from silence--a common error of his shallow scholarship. The fact that Josephus did not record the event is of no consequence. Josephus did not write an exhaustive history of Herod's life, but picked those events in Herod's life that satisfied his own political and literary objectives. Josephus did record several of Herod's atrocities, but this one failed to attract the interest of Josephus for two possible reasons: (a) the event was rather insignificant from his perspective, involving a relatively small number of children in a small village; and ( it was related to a Jewish Messianic theme which Josephus regularly avoided.


Hosea 11:1, Messiah's Return from Egypt
Matthew referred to this passage as "fulfilled" when Jesus' family returned from Egypt. Matthew wrote: "When he [Joseph] arose, he took the young Child and His mother by night and departed for Egypt, and was there until the death of Herod, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the Lord through the prophet, saying, 'Out of Egypt I called My Son'" (Matt. 2:14-15). Lippard was right in denying that this is a Messianic prophecy; it is another example of Matthew using the term "fulfilled" in its figurative sense. Early Jewish tradition regarded the Messiah as idealized Israel, and saw Messianic implications in many of the events in Israel's history. Matthew, in harmony with this Messianic tradition, saw such a connection with this event in the life of Jesus. Thus he figuratively spoke of it as "fulfilling" [making complete] the saying in Hosea. Lippard discredits his scholarship by appealing to such passages as these.


Matt 2:23--He Shall Be Called a Nazarene
In Matthew 2:23 the author wrote: "And he came and dwelt in the city called Nazareth, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophets, 'He shall be called a Nazarene.'" Lippard correctly asserted that there is no such prophecy worded like that. However, the ancient Jews had eight names for the Messiah which were derived from references to the Messiah in the writings of the prophets [note the plural here and in the verse above]. The most prominent of these names was the name "Tsemach" or "Branch."[9] Another name was "Netser" a synonym of "Tsemach" which also means "Branch." In the ancient Jewish Targum, this name is applied to the Messiah in Isaiah 11:1 which reads "And the King shall come forth from the sons of Jesse, and the Messiah shall grow great from the sons of his sons." The Hebrew name of the city of Nazareth ("Notsereth") is derived from the same Hebrew root as the name "Netser," and has the meaning "offshoot" with an implication of insignificance. This probably explains Nathanael's derogatory question, "Can anything good come out of Nazareth?" (John 1:46). A resident of Nazareth was called in Hebrew a "Notsri" or Na zarene. In later years the Jews referred to a Christian as a "notsri" or Nazarene, probably a term of derision. That term is still used of Christians today in Israel. Thus, while the exact quotation appears nowhere in Scripture, it represents the consensus of what the prophets said was one of the names of the Messiah, and it is another instance where Matthew used the term "fulfilled" in its figurative sense.


Daniel 9:24-27, the Time of Messiah's Appearance
This prophecy states: (24) Seventy weeks are determined For your people and for your holy city, To finish the transgression, To make an end of sins, To make reconciliation for iniquity, To bring in everlasting righteousness, To seal up vision and prophecy, And to anoint the Most Holy.

(25) Know therefore and understand, That from the going forth of the command To restore and build Jerusalem Until Messiah the Prince, There shall be seven weeks and sixty-two weeks; The street shall be built again, and the wall, Even in troublesome times.

(26) And after the sixty-two weeks Messiah shall be cut off, but not for Himself; And the people of the prince who is to come Shall destroy the city and the sanctuary. The end of it shall be with a flood, And till the end of the war desolations are determined.

(27) Then he shall confirm a covenant with many for one week; But in the middle of the week He shall bring an end to sacrifice and offering. And on the wing of abominations shall be one who makes desolate, Even until the consummation, which is determined, Is poured out on the desolate.

Evangelical Christians usually regard this passage to define the time when the Messiah will come, namely sixty-nine weeks of years (69 X 7 3D 483 years) after the issue of a decree to rebuild Jerusalem and the Temple. Christians have determined several explanations of this passage that define a time that coincides with the time of Jesus. Lippard rejects each of these explanations for two reasons: (1) the alleged decrees do not meet the criterion of commanding the rebuilding of Jerusalem and the Temple; and (2) the translation and interpretation of the passage do not conform to the Masoretic punctuation of verse 25 as indicated by the accents.

(1) Only two decrees are regarded by Christians as favorable to an interpretation pointing to the time of Jesus: (a) the decree of Artaxerxes to Ezra described in Ezra 7:11-28; and ( the decree of Artaxerxes to Nehemiah described in Nehemiah 2:1-6.

Regarding the decree of Artaxerxes to Ezra, Lippard rejects it because it does not specifically contain reference to rebuilding the city and Temple. How ever, the recorded content of the decree may not have been complete, as is known about the decree of Cyrus; and Archer pointed out that Ezra 9:9 implies that the fuller decree really did contain such a command. This decree was issued in 458 BC., so an elapse of 483 years would put the coming of the Messiah in A.D. 26, which was near the beginning of Jesus' ministry. Lippard himself said: "This works fairly well"; so this explanation is satisfactory, even though some Christians prefer an alternate view.

Regarding the decree of Artaxerxes to Nehemiah, Lippard stated that this "is not a decree at all." He is right that Nehemiah did not record the text of a decree, but the fact that letters were written is made clear in the text (verse 7), and the intent of the letters is also given by such statements as:

"And I said to the king, 'If it pleases the king, and if your servant has found favor in your sight, I ask that you send me to Judah, to the city of my fathers' tombs, that I may rebuild it.' Then the king said to me (the queen also sitting beside him), 'How long will your journey be? And when will you return?' So it pleased the king to send me; and I set him a time" (Neh 2:5-6). Clearly Nehemiah requested permission to go to Jerusalem to rebuild it, and the king sent him.

The later text of the chapter indicates that permission was granted for the restoration of the Temple as well. So, although the text of the decree was not recorded, its existence and intent are clearly indicated. Thus the decree of Artaxerxes to Nehemiah is a legitimate possibility as the starting point of the sixty-nine weeks of years.

Lippard rejected the decree of Artaxerxes to Nehemiah, which was issued in 445 B.C. because the 483 years would put the coming of Messiah at A.D. 39, a time that was too late for the ministry of Jesus. His point is well taken if one is satisfied with shallow scholarship. Sir Robert Anderson's attempt to explain this apparent discrepancy is ingenious, and is accepted by many Christians because his explanation seems to account for the 483 years to the very day of Christ's triumphal entry into Jerusalem. Like Lippard, other Christians are disturbed by Anderson's explanation because he used unnatural units of time --years of 360 days, rather than 365 days, based on the assumption that prophetic years contain only 360 days. Robert Newman provided an alternate explanation that does not involve this compromise. He pointed out that the unit of measure in the text of Daniel is the "shabua" (heptad of years, or a Sabbatical cycle), not years or days. According to Jewish custom, numerical considerations are limited to the nearest whole unit of measure, in this case a heptad. So taking into account that the decree was issued sometime in the middle of the first heptad, and Jesus was crucified sometime during the sixty-ninth heptad, this decree satisfies the conditions. It is interesting that Lippard did not criticize Newman's explanation, other than to accuse him of violating the Hebrew punctuation.

(2) Lippard, based on the work of Sigal, points out that the punctuation of the Hebrew text, as indicated by the Masoretic accents, places a major division of the verse between the seven weeks of years and the sixty-two weeks of years in verse 25. This makes the passage state that the Messiah will come after the seven weeks of years, and another Messiah after the sixty-two weeks. He is right, the Masoretic accent known as Athnach (the second strongest of the disjunctive accents) separates the seven weeks from the sixty-two weeks. This would seem almost conclusive if one were satisfied with shallow scholarship. But one must know more than the elementary concepts of the Masoretic accents before such conclusions can be made. The most important principle regarding the Masoretic accents is that they are primarily musical and only secondarily grammatical.

William Wickes, the most highly respected authority on the Masoretic accents, stated: "The character of the accentuation is ... preeminently musical."[10] Likewise, Israel Yeivin, a modern Masoretic authority wrote that the primary function of the accents "is to represent the musical motifs to which the Biblical text was chanted in the public reading."[11]

My own research on the Masoretic accents has verified this principle.[12] The placement of the accents of a verse are usually in harmony with the grammar of the Biblical text; but they are governed primarily by the musical demands of cantillation, and especially in poetry (as is this text of Daniel), the musical demands may overrule the grammatical demands. For example, in 1 Chronicles 1:7, a prose section, the text reads: "The sons of Javan were Elisha and Tarshishah, Kittim and Rodanim." This verse has a predicate with a fourfold compound predicate complement. In this verse the Athnach separates Tarshishah from Kittim. Grammatically there is no reason to place the major division of the verse in the middle of the compound predicate complement. According to the accents the verse should be punctuated "The sons of Javan were Elisha and Tarshishah; Kittim and Rodanim." Such punctuation is grammatically illogical. But the situation is even worse in 1 Chronicles 1:13-16 which constitutes only one sentence in English (and Hebrew): "Canaan begot Sidon, his firstborn, and Heth, and the Jebusite, and the Amorite, and the Girgashite, and the Hivite, and the Arkite, and the Sinite, and the Arvadite, and the Zemrite, and the Hamathite." This sentence contains a compound object of the verb "begot" with eleven elements each joined with the others by the conjunction "and." Yet this compound object is divided into four segments by the strongest disjunctive accent in Hebrew: Silluq with Soph Pasuq. There is no grammatical reason to divide this sentence into four segments. The reason for such grammatically illogical divisions is musical, due strictly to cantillation not grammar and syntax.

Such grammatically illogical divisions occur often, especially in poetry. So for example, in the very verse under discussion (Dan 9:25) a rather strong disjunctive accent (Tiphcha) separates "seven" from "weeks," words that are obviously grammatically related; a disjunctive accent (Garshaim) separates "weeks" from "sixty-two," again words that are obviously grammatically related; and a second time the rather strong disjunctive accent (Tiphcha) separates "troublesome" from "times," words that are obviously grammatically related.

So one cannot take an elementary approach to the accents of any verse. The punctuation of a translation, although often guided by the Masoretic accentuation, must be governed by the grammar, syntax, and exposition of the Hebrew text. These linguistic features often must overrule the musical cantillation. So in this passage, the punctuation preferred by Lippard, Sigal, and the RSV divide the verse so that it makes little sense. It calls for the introduction of two different Messiahs where the text obviously refers to only one; otherwise the laws of linguistics expect a distinguisher such as "another" to mark the fact that the second word "Messiah" has a different referent. Otherwise the same referent is expected.

It may be objected that the word "Messiah" in this passage is without the definite article and so refers to an indefinite person than to the well known Messiah of Jewish tradition. However, it is likely that the word is used here as a proper name that requires no article. That makes it even more evident that both occurrences of the word have the same referent.

A translation should be in harmony with reality, that is, it is expected to correspond with actual history. The advocates of the alternate punctuation should be able to identify the Prince Messiah that came on the scene after forty-nine years; they should be able to explain why the city and the Temple were not rebuilt until the era of the sixty-two weeks, and who the new Messiah was who appeared after the sixty-two weeks. This should not be too difficult, because such advocates usually post-date the Book of Daniel, so the author himself should have know who they were. Lippard did not address these problems, probably because those of his anti-supernatural persuasion do not expect Scripture to be historically accurate anyway. The proposed "messiahs" that I have seen proposed by advocates of the alternate punctuation have not appeared very "messianic" to me, indeed they are rather flimsy excuses for rejecting the Christian translation and interpretation, which at least correspond with history and have a real Messiah. Finally, itis appropriate to keep the traditional punctuation because the rabbinic literature relates this passage to the time of the destruction of the second Temple,[13] just subsequent to the crucifixion of Jesus Christ by forty years (the mystical number of prophecy).


Ministry Prophecies
In this section Lippard critiques three different prophecies related to the ministry of Jesus: (1) the prophecies of a forerunner (John the Baptist); (2) the prophecy of a ministry in Galilee; (3) the prophecy of Messiah's names; and (4) the prophecy of the triumphal entry into Jerusalem.


The Forerunner Prophecies
Lippard discussed two prominent passages that are regarded by Christians as prophecies relating to John the Baptist as forerunner of the Messiah: (1) Isaiah 40:3,which Lippard asserts does not relate to a messenger for the Messiah; (2) and Malachi 3:1 which Lippard denies was fulfilled by John the Baptist.


Isaiah 40:3
This passage reads:

The voice of one crying in the wilderness: "Prepare the way of the LORD; Make straight in the desert A highway for our God."

Regarding this passage, Lippard stated: "This verse speaks not of a messenger for the Messiah, but of the Jews being released from captivity." This is a strange interpretation of a passage that mentions nothing of captives or of Babylon. Instead, it mentions the way of the LORD, and of a highway for our God.

The text goes on to read:

Every valley shall be exalted And every mountain and hill brought low; The crooked places shall be made straight And the rough places smooth; The glory of the LORD shall be revealed, And all flesh shall see it together; For the mouth of the Lord has spoken.

The text is obviously speaking figuratively of the preparation for the coming of the LORD, not captives. Lippard ignored the fact that this passage was viewed Messianically in the early rabbinical literature.[14] This is confirmed by the LXX translation of this passage that rendered verse 5 as "And all flesh shall see the salvation of God." (cf. Luke 3:6). Also the Aramaic Targum translates verse 9 as "Say to the cities of the House of Judah, the Kingdom of your God shall be manifested." These ancient Jewish translations clearly indicate that the Jewish translators understood that the prophet was looking beyond any future restoration of captives to the Messianic era of the Kingdom of God.

This Messianic expectation of the early Jews was made clear when John the Baptist identified his ministry with this passage:

Then they said to him, "Who are you, that we may give an answer to those who sent us? What do you say about yourself?" He said: "I am "The voice of one crying in the wilderness: 'Make straight the way of the LORD, '" as the prophet Isaiah said. (John 1:22-23)

The priests and Levites who interviewed John understood the Messianic application of this passage; and they understood the implication of John's basic message: "Repent for the kingdom of the kingdom of heaven is at hand" (Matt. 3:2). Obviously John regarded his ministry as preparing the way for the Messiah; and John regarded his ministry as basically fulfilled when he officially identified Jesus as the Messiah:

The next day John saw Jesus coming toward him, and said, "Behold! The Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world! This is He of whom I said, 'After me comes a Man who is preferred before me, for He was before me. I did not know Him; but that He should be revealed to Israel, therefore I came baptizing with water.'" And John bore witness, saying, "I saw the Spirit descending from heaven like a dove, and He remained upon Him. I did not know Him, but He who sent me to baptize with water said to me, 'Upon whom you see the Spirit descending, and remaining on Him, this is He who baptizes with the Holy Spirit.' And I have seen and testified that this is the Son of God." (John 1:29-34)

So, regardless of Lippard's objection, if Jesus was the Messiah, and we have many reasons to believe so, then John did what this passage depicts: he prepared the way of the Lord, Jesus Christ, the Messiah; he fulfilled the prophecy.


Malachi 3:1
This passage reads:

"Behold, I send My messenger, And he will prepare the way before Me. And the Lord, whom you seek, Will suddenly come to His temple, Even the Messenger of the covenant, In whom you delight. Behold, He is coming," Says the LORD of hosts.

Regarding this passage, Lippard stated: "This may be plausibly taken as a messianic prophecy.[15] But did John actually 'clear the way' as a messenger for Jesus? The historian Flavius Josephus writes about John the Baptist, but makes no link of his name with that of Jesus." Here Lippard, in his usual shallow scholarship, argues from silence. Josephus did write much about John, but again his history was not exhaustive, but was focused on his own political and literary objectives, which, as I mentioned earlier, had littte interest in Messianic prophecy. By making such a statement, Lippard implied that the Gospel records are unreliable and contradictory history. However, the Gospel of John,