The first prophecy that Christian Answers gives us is a prophecy in 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...". This allegedly foretells the coming of Jesus, and his birth in Bethlehem, 700 years in advance. The problem of course is that Bethlehem Ephrathah is not a town. 1 Chronicles 4:4 tells us that Bethlehem, son of Ephrathah is a person. Further, neither Bethlehem nor Ephrathah is in either of Jesus' genealogies (as given in the gospels of Matthew and Luke), so it is clearly not a messianic prophecy. Strike one.
The next prophecy comes from Isaiah 7:14, which allegedly states that Jesus would be born of a virgin. As I've previously covered, the word is not "virgin" it's "young woman" (Isaiah used the word for "virgin" four times in his book, 7:14 was not one of those times). Further, the prophecy is fulfilled in Chapter 8 when the priestess gives birth to a son who is referred to as "Immanuel" and clearly fulfills the prophecy. Thus this second prophecy is not a messianic prophecy either. Strike two.
The third prophecy (which conveniently doesn't include a verse) claims to be a prophecy that Jesus' hands and feet would be pierced by crucifixion. The typical verses associated with this alleged prophecy are Psalms 22:16 and Zechariah 12:10. The former is a Psalm of "David" which describes a man being hunted and killed by wild animals (or in some translations, humans who are likened to wild animals) and gives no mention of crucifixion. The latter reads "... they will look on Me whom they have pierced and they will mourn for Him as one mourns for an only son...". The curious part here is that the "Me" who has been pierced is clearly not the "Him" who is being mourned for. If we assume that it is a crucifixion story, we must ask "Who was the 'Him' who was being mourned for while Jesus was busy being on the cross?" That said, if you do not read these verses with the express intent of linking them to the crucifixion story, nothing in the stories will lead you to believe that they actually refer to a crucifixion, so there's no reason to delve into the question of who the "Him" was any further. What we do know is that neither verse was intended as a messianic prophecy. Strike three. Batter's out.
Even though the batter's out, let's briefly take care of the last two "prophecies" that Christians Answers gives us.
The fourth prophecy comes from Malachi 3:1, and claims to be a direct quote by Yhwh himself that the messiah would be a contemporary of the temple in Jerusalem, which was destroyed in the year 70 C.E. Of course, the temple was also completed around 515 B.C.E., meaning that literally millions of people were contemporary to the Temple in Jerusalem. For Jesus to be one of them would be quite literally an accident of birth, and not at all impressive, even if he had fulfilled numerous other prophecies alongside it.
Many Christians like to backtrack and assure us that the "Messenger" referred to by Malachi is John the Baptist, and base their claim on the fact that the Gospel authors state as much. At best, what we have is hearsay. Of course, if you read the rest of the passage, you'll notice that the Messenger was supposed to purify the Levites so that they could go back to offering sacrifices in the Temple. Meanwhile, according to Christian teachings, John "cleared the way" for Jesus who did away with all further sacrifices. So the Messenger was supposed to "clear the way" for the reinstatement of sacrifices, while John supposedly "cleared the way" for the abolition of them. In short, John didn't do what the messenger was supposed to do, and cannot have fulfilled the prophecy.
The fifth and final prophecy is possibly my favorite, if for no other reason than the fact that it shows that just how fallible the gospel authors really were. Christian Answers asks us to compare Zechariah 11:11-13 to Matthew 27:6-10. Of course these passages are very similar, both involving paying 30 pieces of silver to a potter (which is only impressive if you assume that Matthew didn't include this bit specifically to make it sound like Jesus had fulfilled some sort of prophecy), but look at Matthew's passage closely, and you'll notice that Matthew doesn't say that Jesus fulfilled a prophecy made by Zechariah, he says that Jesus fulfilled a prophecy by Jeremiah. To save face, some Christians claim that this refers to Jeremiah 32:6-9, in which a man buys his cousins field (no mention is given as to whether this cousin is a potter or not) for 17 pieces of silver. Clearly not a very accurate prophecy at all (of course, Jeremiah's passage clearly wasn't intended as a prophecy, so how much could we really expect).
Now let's go back and look at the passage in Zechariah 11 more completely. In this passage Zechariah first goes to cast out the evil "shepherds" of a certain nation. Verses 11-12 strongly suggest that the "sheep" or "flock" in this passage are actually people, meaning that the "shepherds" are probably the religious leaders. Both Yhwh and Zechariah have apparently become fed up with this nation (which, according to verse 14 was probably either Israel, or Judah, or both), and have decided to cut their ties with the nation, and leave them to their own devices. Upon his quitting his post, the people give him 30 pieces of silver, and he throws it to the potter in the Temple. So far this sounds almost nothing at all like the Jesus story, but wait! Verse 16 promises that Yhwh will send this nation a "shepherd"! This passage contains a messianic prophecy after all! What does Yhwh tell us about this "shepherd":
"I will give this nation a shepherd who will not care for those who are dying, nor look after the young, nor heal the injured, nor feed the healthy. Instead, this shepherd will eat the meat of the fattest sheep and tear off their hooves." [Emphasis added]This is the "messiah" that Zechariah prophesied! One who would neither heal the sick, nor feed the healthy. So each of Jesus' supposed miraculous healings, and even his famous "feeding of the 5,000" stands as evidence that this prophecy was not referring to Jesus at all.
In the interest of brevity (it may be too late for that) I'll not bother delving in to the 325 other alleged prophecies unless someone specifically asks for some of them. (That said, if you are interested, you can find information on virtually all of the alleged prophecies Here)
In closing, it may well be true that the odds of someone fulfilling eight messianic prophecies are only 1 in 10^17. If so, I confess that those are impressive odds. The tricky part (read: the virtually impossible part) is finding eight prophecies that were made in regard to Jesus, and that he actually fulfilled!
This has been your Sunday Sermon, go without god.
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