I figured I wanted to do something rather constructive yet probably thoroughly boring. It will, however, force me to practice my Hebrew quite a bit, so here goes [edit]Does need some editing, but I kind of promised to post this today. Will do some editing and more debunking tomorrow[/edit].

Introduction
In Christian apologetics and missionary work, a commonly stated claim is that Jesus fulfilled anything from several dozen to several hundred messianic prophecies. Oftentimes, this claim is accompanied by a list of a few dozen. These are generally hand-picked to seem impressive.

There's a handful reasons for this reliance on such proof texts. In part, they seem to offer independent corroboration of Christian claims - the same Old Testament that the Christians use is generally understood to be used by the Jews as well, and for the Jews to have tampered with texts that predate Christianity in a way that undermines Judaism in favour of Christianity would seem rather far-fetched - hence, it would seem, the verses used to support this doctrine are genuine. Secondarily, because the Jews had accepted these texts prior to the emergence of Christianity, they seem to offer undeniable proof that someone had predicted the events described in the gospels centuries in advance. Finally, such a number of predictions would really be impressive - although the calculations some apologists offer - e.g. 1/1038 chance of accidentally fulfilling them clearly are based on arbitrarily picked numbers. (e.g. this calculation.)

Many attempts to debunk this actually fail because the arguments that are used (in part) are mistaken - e.g. the usual explanation that the prophecies have been made up post-facto in order to prop up a failed messiah can only be applied to a handful of them. Not all are taken out of context, not all are mistranslated, not all are fabrications. Similar problems do pop up. Of course, the prophecies aren't right, but this doesn't improve the value of bad arguments.
A believer who encounters such bad arguments will be further convinced that the unbelievers reject Christianity out of rebellion and hate of God rather than because of reason. To a naive Christian who hasn't read through this, it will seem legit.

At a first glance, such a huge list of fulfilled prophecies would be impressive. We know the texts haven't been altered greatly after the events allegedly took place. Keep in mind, the Old Testament is mostly shared by the Jews, and they reject the idea of Jesus being the messiah. Had the Jews altered the text, it would scarcely be in a way that favours Christian claims. So the sometimes repeated claim that these prophecies have been inserted in the text post-facto is somewhat false - and most Christians will be under the impression that it's entirely false. Both arguments are wrong, however.

Since this claim is so often repeated by Christians, I've decided to do a thorough and meticulous debunking. I hope people will find it useful whenever someone presents the 'hundreds of prophecies' as proof of Jesus being the messiah. And I hope Christians that have been swayed by these verses will read it and realize they've been mislead. I hope Christians will realize their faith is not as solidly supported by evidence as they like to think, and that unbelievers may actually lack in belief for other reasons than rebellion against God. I know a lot of Christians base their faith on this evidence, and think it undeniably strong - they may seriously hold these prophecies to be such strongly undeniable evidence that unbelief would be downright irrational.

As a first list to deal with, I've decided to go for a list of 365 prophecies he supposedly fulfilled. We'll see a number of types of sleight of hand going on in here, and I'll probably try and classify them along such lines. Prophecies not in that list may be dealt with at any point, though. I welcome people to post prophecies not listed in that list.

Two other reasons for doing this does come to mind: reading through this material will increase my ability to grasp an ancient text written in a culture much different from mine, and secondly, it will give me some insight into how people with a particularly bad case of confirmation bias parse anything they can grab.

At the same time, I do admit I am no expert on Biblical Hebrew (and most definitely not on Koine Greek). Anyone who finds me wrong in any claim is welcome to dispute my claims, as long as serious arguments and preferrably also reasonably impartial sources can be provided.

So, let's get started. Unusually for this kind of argument, I'll grant most assumptions the believer would bring along - actual prophecy, the existence of an actual God, heck, let's throw in Young Earth Creationism while we're at it. However, in return, I will not hold back stuff that contradicts Christianity either, and will end this entire ordeal by pointing out a multitude of biblical verses fulfilled by Jesus and Christianity that would imply quite the opposite of what Christians like to tell, in order to illustrate how far you can twist the words of the Bible if you just know enough of it.

Proof texts
[edit:] while editing this, I lost some data due to a software crash. I won't paste in the biblical verses immediately again, it was a fair amount of work, but I'll go about doing it at some later point. I will reedit this to the quality it was before the crash soon. [/edit]

I start out with the twenty first from that list, just to showcase a bunch of them. Later on, I'll skip and jump a bit, especially to the more interesting and central ones - Daniel's prediction of when the Messiah's going to appear, Isaiah's virgin birth and suffering servant prophecies, etc. I will at some point soon also post two subversions of OT prophecies just for fun.

1. Genesis 3:15.....Seed of a woman (virgin birth).....Luke 1:35, Matthew 1:18-20
This will mostly be dealt with in the next item, but it's worth noticing that seed is in the plural in the traditional Hebrew vocalization of the text. Neither Luke nor Matthew allude to this verse in the OT, so thinking that they understood this as the first prophecy of a virgin birth seems unfounded.


2. Genesis 3:15.....He will bruise Satan's head.....Hebrews 2:14, 1 John 3:18
And the LORD God said unto the woman, What [is] this [that] thou hast done? And the woman said, The serpent beguiled me, and I did eat.
And the LORD God said unto the serpent, Because thou hast done this, thou [art] cursed above all cattle, and above every beast of the field; upon thy belly shalt thou go, and dust shalt thou eat all the days of thy life:
And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel. Unto the woman he said, I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception; in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children; and thy desire [shall be] to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee.
This, obviously, is a just-so story explaining why some snakes are poisonous and bite people. There's no reason to assume this is messianic. Of course, the Old Testament authors did at times write metaphorically, and Christianity has also come up with the idea of dual fulfillment. However, if it were the case that it does have a spiritual significance, the choice of aspect on the verb is a bit weird - Jesus' bruising of Satan's head, supposedly, is kind of final, and would therefore call for a perfective verb. The given verb reads more naturally in a habitual sense - and a habitual verb indicates recurrence. Not final victory.


3. Genesis 5:24....The bodily ascension to heaven illustrated....Mark 6:19
The verse in Genesis says "Enoch walked with God; then he was no more, because God took him away." How anyone reads this as a prophecy of something anyone is expected to do is quite ... telling about their reading comprehension. Or their desire to shoehorn anything they can to fit.
I'm not even considering this 'taken out of context'. This is so remarkably unlike what it's supposed to be that it qualifies as 'not even out of context'. 0/3


4. Genesis 9:26-27...The God of Shem will be the Son of Shem...Luke 3:36
Again, this is not even out of context. It's not even there. The verse only mentions "the God of Shem", not any son of Shem or anything. 0/4.

5. Genesis 12:3...As Abraham's seed, will bless all nations...Acts 3:25,26
In Hebrew, lots of singular nouns refer to plural referents, a bit like, say, football team or family do in English. Also, if this is a messianic promise, it's kind of circular. The actual text tells Abraham that the nations of the world will be blessed through him - nothing particularly specifically hinting at Jesus. 0/5

6. Genesis 12:7...The Promise made made to Abraham's Seed...Galatians 3:16
Even in Paul's own writings, he interprets singular seed to refer to multitudes a lot of times, so he's being inconsistent and eisegetic - reading meanings into a text that he wants in that text. 0/6.

7. Genesis 14:18...A priest after Melchizedek...Hebrews 6:20
This isn't a prophecy. Melchizedek is seen as a foreshadowing of Jesus, but if we can pick foreshadowings willy-nilly, anyone ever can be made to seem a foreshadowing of anyone. 0/7

8. Genesis 14:18........A King also........Hebrews 7:2
And Melchizedek king of Salem brought forth bread and wine: and he [was] the priest of the most high God.

No. Prophecy. (See previous item.) 0/8.
The verse in Hebrews listed as a fulfillment deal with theological constructs, not with things Jesus actually did or was proclaimed as.

9. Genesis 14:18...The Last Supper foreshadowed...Matthew 26:26-29
All Jewish festive meals contain wine and bread - the Last Supper is rather a repetition of a Jewish trope, than something foreshadowed. Also, Matthew doesn't allude to this verse. 0/9

10. Genesis 17:19.......The Seed of Isaac.......Romans. 9:7
This only promises Abraham that both his sons Isaac and Ishmael will be made great - the next verse even predicts Ishmael as the father of 12 princes (and if we want, let's intepret that as the Torah predicting the twelve imams of Shia Islam!). The passage in Romans doesn't talk about how Jesus fulfilled this - it talks about how the seed of Isaac only is seed by flesh, and that being seed of Isaac isn't sufficient to be a child of God. Kind of shooting oneself in the foot there. Also, there, Paul is using singular seed to refer to a multitude, so he's kind of having this bite his own argument in the foot. 0/10

11. Genesis 21:12 …Seed of Isaac…Romans 9:7, Hebrews 11:18
Again, Romans 9:7 ... talks about something entirely different, and Hebrews does likewise - it talks about how Abraham was driven by faith, and how this faith even believed in God's ability to overcome paradoxes, how Abraham was willing to even sacrifice his own son, through whom he was promised offspring. Someone mentioning a verse from the OT decades after you've died in a discussion about theology doesn't make you fulfill that verse after your death. 0/11

Also, all prophecies that the messiah will be of so-and-so tribe are really not prophecies - they are promises. And not everyone of those tribes will be the messiah. So using 'he was of the right tribe' as a proof or an argument doesn't really help- thousands upon thousands have been of the right tribes, and some have even done better at fulfilling messianic prophecies than Jesus - e.g. Simon Bar Kochba. 0/12

12. Genesis 22:8...The Lamb of God promised...John 1:29
The verse in genesis talks about how Abraham lied to Isaac about what he was going to sacrifice. Of course, the point of that particular turn is that Abraham's prophetic ability was so great that even when he lied, he was right. Now, also, the lamb was promised for a burnt offering - an olah - something Jesus' death doesn't qualify as by far. 0/13

13. Genesis 22:18...As Isaac's seed, will bless all nations...Galatians 3:16
As I've already mentioned, Paul is being inconsistent by selectively parsing seed as semantically singular here. And in thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed; because thou hast obeyed my voice. The focus on obedience here is also kind of anti-protestant - it doesn't speak about grace or faith, but of obedience. Certainly both Jews and Christians will see this as a promise of the messiah, but this is only fulfilled by a Messiah if he is the messiah, so using it as proof that someone is the messiah is kind of circular, and therefore can't be used as a litmus test for messianic claimants. 0/14

14. Genesis26:2-5..The Seed of Isaac promised as the Redeemer..Hebrews11:18
This teaches, interestingly enough, a rather unprotestant stance - that Abraham was rewarded by God for his good acts. The reward is that his offspring shall be given land, and that they will be a blessing to all nations. No redeemer mentioned. 0/15

15. Genesis 49:10...The time of His coming...Luke 2:1-7; Galatians 4:4
Since what the sceptre of genesis 49:10 is isn't specified very clearly, this is kind of odd. What or who Shiloh is supposed to be isn't really stated clearly either. 0/16

16. Genesis 49:10.......The Seed of Judah.......Luke 3:33
Nowhere in that verse is it stated that Shilo - whoever or whatever that is, is to come from Judah, just that no sceptre nor lawgiver will depart from Judah until such a time. Judah did have kings until long after Jesus was around - if we count the exilarchs, we get several centuries ahead. Some interpretations of what it means even have the sceptre still resting soundly with Judah. And Judah still has people developing the legal system that the Torah law is, in effect being lawgivers.0/16

17. Genesis 49:10......Called Shiloh or One Sent......John 17:3
His name was Jesus, not Siloh. He isn't called Shiloh either anywhere in the NT. "One sent" is just guesswork as to what it means, and a verse in John where someone says he's been sent doesn't quite cut it. I've been sent too to places, we're not declaring me a messiah due to that, are we? Furthermore, he used that wording about *himself*, making it even less important. 0/17.

18. Genesis 49:10...To come before Judah lost identity...John 11:47-52
Has Judah even lost its identity by now? Also, isn't this just counting #15 twice? 0/18

19. Genesis 49:10...To Him shall the obedience of the people be...John 10:16
Lots of Christian adherents of his don't obey him, and not all peoples (in fact, the Hebrew uses a plural there) obey him. He also has competition - lots of people obey Mohammed, and a bunch of other teachers to lesser extents. His own people doesn't obey him. But anyway, I did feel kind of inclined to grant him this one, as the guy really does have a fair share of adherents world wide. Then I realized the compiler of this list has tried counting this same verse five times, and that does deserve some kind of punitive measure. Not counting this half hit as one is sufficient retribution imho. 0/19

20. Exodus 3:13,14........The Great "I Am".......John 4:26
Right, Exodus doesn't prophecy, it just showcases how God introduced himself to Moses. Now Jesus, to the question of whether he is the messiah, answers that 'yes, that's me' (essentially), and we get a Messianic prophecy out of that. Consider me unimpressed. Again, not even out of context is the level of badness this has. 0/20

Appreciate the work, Zwaarddijk!

Perhaps the most impressive "prophecy" is the fitting of Isaiah's "suffering servant" to Jesus. As with many of your examples above, a) there's little reason to think this is even a prophecy, and b) there's ample reason to think that the gospels re-wrote the Jesus story to fit with the prophecy, especially the presence of two thieves on Golgotha, and Jesus' extremely dubious burial in Joseph of Arimathea's tomb.

That apologists continue to put so much store in these "prophecies" just goes to show how little textual criticism has penetrated into popular Christian circles, or indeed, popular consciousness in general.

Fascinating, thanks.

What a task, and at the heart of where I believe theists should be challenged.

Well done.

John

Oh this thread is gonna be Epic
A bible study
Thanks
/me grabs his concordance

Looking forward to you measured input as ever.

Bible experts are short on the ground here.

John

At least theist ones are...

I'd also like the following threads
- Real people saved by spiderman
- Prophecies fulfilled by Jack Bauer
- Top 10 makeup tips by the hulk

Animavore wrote:Is this what Bible study is all about? Reading the Bible like Nostradamus?
Forgive my ignorance but I'm Catholic. We don't do Bible study. That is to say the laity don't.

You can find a bunch of references to some of them - the more obvious ones - in the church fathers, especially the suffering servant songs and a bunch of others. You do find explicit references to some in the NT itself as well.

I do suspect that finding more of them mostly is a protestant pastime. I doubt many serious theologians - academy calibre ones - have done anything of the kind since the 19th century. And even they would have compiled quite a lot more conservative lists than the one I link to in the original post.

Ultimately, no, this isn't the entirety of Bible study - there's a lot more to it - this is really almost an aberration. But for some Christians, this is probably a popular kind of self-deception - inflating the perceived evidence in their favor. What I am trying to do here, is serious Bible study (minus the actual historical study) - trying to figure out what the text actually tries to convey. Whether what it says actually corresponds to historical reality is something I won't get myself into here (partially, because ancient history doesn't interest me much as far as details go, it's more the general living conditions of people and the thought patterns they had. Not to learn what to think, but to learn what they thought. Proper Biblical study can be used to debunk this kind of bullshit use of the Bible.

If God existed, and if he had planted a lot of clear references to something that did happen 30CE in books written several centuries earlier, it would be kind of impressive. Seriously so. But these Christians are settling for a pretty bad praxis, one that would make pretty much every person ever be able to claim dozens upon dozens of messianic fulfillments for himself. And that's orders of magnitude less impressive - so many orders less that it gets negatively impressive.

Later today, I'll post another bunch of ten-fifteen of them, and a more detailed look at the virgin birth prophecy.

I might at some point get into a tangential topic and talk a bit about the use of Midrash (and its two kinds) in Judaism in antiquity - to some extent, it's a relevant topic to put this use of the bible into context.

Can we start with Melchisedec?

Some folks who try to discredit Jesus as a copycat by likening Him with Dionysus, forget that Melchisedek predates Dionysus.

Melchizedek was a prophetic type, who not only had authority to rule as king, but he also had authority to offer sacrifices to God - rare among biblical kings, for neither King David or his son, King Solomon, had authority to offer sacrifices to God, only a priest had such authority from God. Jesus, as both priest and king is a startling correlation with Melchisedec.

BTW - what are we going to do with the prophecy paradox?
Jesus does action "A"
Action "A" is foretold in the Old Testament.
People say..."oh well Jesus is deliberately mimicking in order to give the appearance of prophecy fulfilled.."

The paradox? How do we know when the prophecy REALLY IS fulfilled?

Lion IRC wrote:BTW - what are we going to do with the prophecy paradox?
Jesus does action "A"
Action "A" is foretold in the Old Testament.
People say..."oh well Jesus is deliberately mimicking in order to give the appearance of prophecy fulfilled.."

The paradox? How do we know when the prophecy REALLY IS fulfilled?

I guess you're right. You never can know. So any apologist who tries to use "prophecy fulfillment" as an argument in favour of Christianity is wasting his time. Any such argument is unverifiable and, therefore, useless. Well spotted, Lion IRC.

Lion IRC wrote:Can we start with Melchisedec?

Some folks who try to discredit Jesus as a copycat by likening Him with Dionysus, forget that Melchisedek predates Dionysus.

Melchizedek was a prophetic type, who not only had authority to rule as king, but he also had authority to offer sacrifices to God - rare among biblical kings, for neither King David or his son, King Solomon, had authority to offer sacrifices to God, only a priest had such authority from God. Jesus, as both priest and king is a startling correlation with Melchisedec.

BTW - what are we going to do with the prophecy paradox?
Jesus does action "A"
Action "A" is foretold in the Old Testament.
People say..."oh well Jesus is deliberately mimicking in order to give the appearance of prophecy fulfilled.."

The paradox? How do we know when the prophecy REALLY IS fulfilled?

You are skipping wildly about. We are looking at (alleged) links between the Testaments. If you bring up a character from Genesis, you need to cite the verse(s) in Genesis and the (allegedly) pertinent New Testament verses.

lobawad wrote:

Lion IRC wrote:Can we start with Melchisedec?

Some folks who try to discredit Jesus as a copycat by likening Him with Dionysus, forget that Melchisedek predates Dionysus.

Melchizedek was a prophetic type, who not only had authority to rule as king, but he also had authority to offer sacrifices to God - rare among biblical kings, for neither King David or his son, King Solomon, had authority to offer sacrifices to God, only a priest had such authority from God. Jesus, as both priest and king is a startling correlation with Melchisedec.

BTW - what are we going to do with the prophecy paradox?
Jesus does action "A"
Action "A" is foretold in the Old Testament.
People say..."oh well Jesus is deliberately mimicking in order to give the appearance of prophecy fulfilled.."

The paradox? How do we know when the prophecy REALLY IS fulfilled?

You are skipping wildly about. We are looking at (alleged) links between the Testaments. If you bring up a character from Genesis, you need to cite the verse(s) in Genesis and the (allegedly) pertinent New Testament verses.

Look up.
They are right there in the Op.
Didnt read it?

It is all fairy stories so why bother.

Lion IRC wrote:

<Snip>

BTW - what are we going to do with the prophecy paradox?
Jesus does action "A"
Action "A" is foretold in the Old Testament.
People say..."oh well Jesus is deliberately mimicking in order to give the appearance of prophecy fulfilled.."

The paradox? How do we know when the prophecy REALLY IS fulfilled?

Biblical prophesies are called postdictions. It’s very easy to do and it works like a charm with the bible. You write one part... wait a while, then write the next part to fit the first part.

The hard one is predicting. Now that one makes or breaks a scientific theory as an example. The power of predicting is that it’s spot-on and proves beyond the shadow of a doubt that one is onto the truth.

The bible (as par for the course) fails miserably at prediction, but sails the high seas when it comes to postdiction.

I will give the bible its due however. I’ve read it cover-to-cover many times and there is one thing that is correct and true beyond any shadow of a doubt. While this may seem odd coming from an atheist, I don’t care... the truth is the truth even if it’s found within the pages of god’s holy word.

And what is that truth in the bible that I speak of?

Apart from the verses mentioning in the Op, (lobawad!) I think another strong correlation between Melchisedec - priest/king and Jesus - priest/king, is the symbolism of gifts presented at the nativity.

Gold, for the king
Frankincense, for the priest
And myrrh, additionally, for the annointing of the dead - Jesus' death being the atonement sacrifice.

(See Matthew 2:11)

Scot Dutchy wrote:It is all fairy stories so why bother.

Because it helps religious people think that their book of nonsense actually does more than drone on and on about how their god of love and infinite mercy is always killing people.

They’ll make connections (regardless of facts) between the OT and the NT in a desperate attempt to delude others into thinking that the book has even one iota of credibility.

Intellectually, yes, I’d be the first to agree, the subject is interesting, but only from an academic POV. To accept its nonsense as having any relevance to reality however, well one would be better off reading some decent fiction that was written by an intelligent author who knows how to make a story, not only interesting, but consistent from chapter to chapter.

Lion IRC wrote:Can we start with Melchisedec?

Some folks who try to discredit Jesus as a copycat by likening Him with Dionysus, forget that Melchisedek predates Dionysus.

Melchizedek was a prophetic type, who not only had authority to rule as king, but he also had authority to offer sacrifices to God - rare among biblical kings, for neither King David or his son, King Solomon, had authority to offer sacrifices to God, only a priest had such authority from God. Jesus, as both priest and king is a startling correlation with Melchisedec.

BTW - what are we going to do with the prophecy paradox?
Jesus does action "A"
Action "A" is foretold in the Old Testament.
People say..."oh well Jesus is deliberately mimicking in order to give the appearance of prophecy fulfilled.."

The paradox? How do we know when the prophecy REALLY IS fulfilled?

I think you are be a bit general there. If we are going to investigate this in detail then it more like -

Action A is foretold in the OT
Jesus does action B according to Gospel writer 1
Jesus does action C according to Gospel writer 2
Gospel writer 1 says actions A and B are the same
Gospel writer 2 says actions A and C are the same
Jesus has little to do with any of this.

John

Jesus' life...The Gospels have "little to do any of this"
What?
They are ENTIRELY about His life