Old Testament Prophecies Real or Not?

[Seraph]

I guess you could say I'm having a small faith crisis right now. I'm having doubts about Jesus and whether He is who He says He is or not. I still believe He is, but my faith is being challenged. For starters, I'm not entirely convinced by many of the verses that are often cited to be foretelling of Jesus. For example, Psalms 22 is often cited as evidence that the messiah will have his hands and feet pierced saying "For dogs have surrounded me; A band of evildoers has encompassed me; They pierced my hands and my feet." (Psalms 22:16). However, after reading the whole psalm, it seems to me that David was not doing any prophesizing at all but was in fact talking about himself and the hardships he was going through at the time, (to my understanding, he wrote this after his affair with Bathsheba when his sons were turning against him). Many of the other verses that are often cited, including the ones on this site, seem either extremely broad and could be refering to anyone, or they don't seem to be talking about a messiah at all. It seems to me that these verses are being taken out of context in order to point to Jesus. And, I hate to say it, but one claiming to be the messiah without evidence doesn't have much credibility.

I need help on the matter.

[Canuckster1127]

Seraph,

Thanks for being honest on where you are on these issues.

I'd suggest 2 things that I would do if I were in your situation.

1. Do a Bible Study. Go systematically through the New Testament and find where it quotes from the Old Testament in terms of fulfilling prophesy.

2. Consider that Old Testament Prophesy often has two elements to it. There is an immediate context or short term fulfillment and then there can be and often is a broader, less literal fulfillment that looks forward to God's overall plan of redemption such as the coming of Christ and the Return of Christ. Further, read the book of Revelation and consider why the images and language are so metaphoric.

Past of what you are running into, I think, is trying to read and understand the Scriptures as a westerner. We have very strong intellectual and cultural biases about how we think the scriptures should read and what they should mean. Try to learn more about the Hebrew mindset, which you'll see when you look at how the New Testament treats the Old Testament, and consider how the original people reading these passages thought and how they saw what the Bible says.

Even though the New Testament was written in Greek and includes a great deal for the Gentiles which is a more western mindset, there is still a lot to learn from taking the approach I suggest. In the NT, the books that are written more to the Eastern mindset includes, Matthew, John, Hebrews and the Revelation.

Let me know if this helps or if you need more.

Blessings,

Bart

[Seraph]

Thanks a lot for replying Canuckster,

I feel better now after finding some more prophesies, mainly Isaiah 52:13-Isaiah 53:12 which is a very obvious depiction of Jesus.

I can also understand how many occurences in the Old Testament have both an immediate and a less immediate fullfillment of God's agenda. But that leaves me wondering, when the hebrews read these passages, how did they determine what was simply an account of what was happening in the present and what was supposed to have another fullfillment way later on in the future? For example it says that Hosea 11:1 "When Israel was a youth I loved him, and out of Egypt I called My son" is foretelling of Mary and Joseph's flight to Egypt with Jesus, but if I were a hebrew reading this, I would probably think that the "son" in this verse was Israel and that it was only talking about when Moses lead the Israelites out of Egypt, not hinting a moment in the Messiah's life.

[Canuckster1127]

Thanks a lot for replying Canuckster,

I feel better now after finding some more prophesies, mainly Isaiah 52:13-Isaiah 53:12 which is a very obvious depiction of Jesus.

I can also understand how many occurences in the Old Testament have both an immediate and a less immediate fullfillment of God's agenda. But that leaves me wondering, when the hebrews read these passages, how did they determine what was simply an account of what was happening in the present and what was supposed to have another fullfillment way later on in the future? For example it says that Hosea 11:1 "When Israel was a youth I loved him, and out of Egypt I called My son" is foretelling of Mary and Joseph's flight to Egypt with Jesus, but if I were a hebrew reading this, I would probably think that the "son" in this verse was Israel and that it was only talking about when Moses lead the Israelites out of Egypt, not hinting a moment in the Messiah's life.

Seraph,

You're right. What I keep in mind is that the same Holy Spirit who inspired the Old Testament, also inspired the new and therefore, Where the NT quotes or alludes to the OT it is by means of inspiration as well. When there is a direct fulfillment like what you reference above which clearly provides the context for the immediate near term issue, that doesn't mean that an additional longer term application is going to follow the same rules or pattern. That's sort of the thing I was talking about when I said you have to learn to look at things less like a westerner and more like a Hebrew or early semitic Christian.

Western thinking focuses on sequential events, which are tied together by logic. Eastern thinking doesn't focus on time sequentially and has a more holistic and all at once type thinking that is very different than ours. They wouldn't even think to ask some of the questions that immediately spring to mind for us because they don't think that way. We have to remember that the Bible was primarily written to people in the original audience who didn't think entirely like we do. Nowhere is that more evident than in Prophecy issues and the way the NT uses the OT is a good example of it.

Does that help?

[JesusSmiles]

Western thinking focuses on sequential events, which are tied together by logic. Eastern thinking doesn't focus on time sequentially and has a more holistic and all at once type thinking that is very different than ours.

Wow....I've never thought if it like that! Actually, their way is the better way since God moves in a timeless eternity. Maybe we, as Westerners, make it much more complicated than it should be.

I saw a documentary on tv a few years ago about this tribe who lived down in South America. They didn't have clocks or calendars...therefore no concept of time as we know it. I remember thinking how FREE that must feel.

[Seraph]

Err...sorry, im a little baffled by their way of thinking and how it would make them read past occurences and interpret them as events to come. You'd probably have to explain it to me more.

But oh well, it's only certain verses that raise doubt. Many others are clearly talking about Jesus, even with our western way of thinking.

[Canuckster1127]

Err...sorry, im a little baffled by their way of thinking and how it would make them read past occurences and interpret them as events to come. You'd probably have to explain it to me more.

But oh well, it's only certain verses that raise doubt. Many others are clearly talking about Jesus, even with our western way of thinking.

I'm not suggesting there is not sense of time or that western thought can't understand. Sometime's it's subtle and other times it's not. We have the same kind of issues today with different cultures around the world so it's nothing new. Probably the simplest way to illustrate it would be to consider the emphasis in focus relative to time. Westerners, in particular Americans, view time as a sequential move from past to the present to the future. That seems so simple to us, that we take it for granted and as logical and very few of us think about it and believe everyone else sees it the same way. Because we're a scientific and technologically based society we have a strong emphasis on the future and how we will make this world a better place. Sometimes almost to the point where we fail to note the present and live in and enjoy the moments we are experiencing right now.

Not so in many Eastern cultures. It can vary and it is subtle, but for them time is not so much a sequence with just a very fleeting present moment which moves rapidly from future to past, but their concept and experience of time can measure the "present" by stretches of time far greater than what we imagine. In addition, often as a society the focus will be upon the past and the history of their nation by which they guage their identity and they see the future as an opportunity to return to the greatness of that past time that they believe defines them.

This is very much the case in terms of many stages of Israel's history. That is why there is such an emphasis on genealogies tying them to the past and the ones to whom covenants were given and promises made. That is why they define themselves like the children of Abraham or place like the City of David.

When we come along as 20th century westerners and we don't think about that or account for it in our reading of certain passages we can make natural assumptions about things that on a closer look cause confusion or misleading.

We naturally read the passage and understand the words and images by what they mean to us. Prophecy can be nebulous without adding additional layers of confusion.

This ties into things like the creation debate, because, in my opinion, much of the YEC movement, the way it is defined today looks at the passages as they are translated into English and they rest of axiomatic concepts that to them are self-evident. Day means Day, for instance. It's tempting to take the view that the language of the Bible is just as precise and time sensitive as our own use of English, even in specialized fields of science today which were not around at the time of the Bible's deliverance to its original audience.

You can overstate these issues and I'm not suggesting that we should stretch this beyond certain points, but you have to think about it and account for it and not simply imagine that there are no cultural, language or time differences in terms of how things are viewed.

That's getting a little off from your original question, but does that help?

[Seraph]

Yeah, I think I understand it better

Thanks Canuckster

[fdesilva]

I have not studied theology. However I do know that the Jews have always been expecting a Messiah.
Now obviously the Messiah needs to come to bring something new and surprising.
This is precisely what Christ did. His life is radicle, its about humility, love, suffering and the resurrection.
To me it is this that makes Christ the Messiah. The fact that the Jews expected a incredible leader called the Messiah and A leader did turn up that could rise from the dead through His own power and God called him the Messiah.