Many fundamentalists insist that New Testament Messiac prophecy fulfillment is one way we can tell the Bible is divinely authored; after all, as the argument goes, the incredible accuracy of these prophecies must show the reliability and divine nature of Scripture. To those involved in bibliolatry, the proofs available from the Bible through prophecy establish the Bible as of divine origin by the hand of the omniscient God of the Bible. The issues of prophecy fulfillment is so popular, that numerous internet sites and commentaries pound the prophecy drums as the singular most important aspect of Christainity. As one site (Genuine divine Bible prophecy) so declares:
Today, the only way Bible scoffers can explain away this astronomical probability is to discredit the prophecies in one way or another. Their only alternative is to accept that God is the author of the Scriptures. The Bible is a reliable book of genuine divine prophecy. You can trust it!Interestingly, the authors of this site fail to tell us how they arrived at the "Genuine" part. None the less and putting the circular reasoning and bifurcation aside, this is but just one example of the many prophecy proponents that exist in print (Mcdowell, Stobel, Price etc.) on the internet, (see above) and on television (Van Impe, Meyer, Shambach, etc. ad nauseam). I am not picking on this one internet source since others abound, but it will do to use it as a template for the rest and an example of how the prophecy fullfillement argument goes.
I am also not interested, in this essay, to examine why or how these prophecies are nonsense, the product of over active imaginations, misinterpretations, projections, or just plain fraudulent except for the one example below; There are many fine and credible sources that do that, most notable being Farrell Till and the Skeptical Review, both in hard copy and on the internet. The part of this I wish to focus on and examine is the real lack of specific Old Testament prophecies and it's associated lack of mention in the Gospels. This is an legitimate question to ask: Where are the some of the important O.T. prophecies that should pertain to Jesus?
Biblioholics, far and wide, have had enough time to scour, strip mine, and bottom dredge the Bible in their search for Old Testament prophecies apparently fulfilled by Jesus in the Gospels. Indeed, and to be sure, their mission began by them taking the lead from the Gospel writers who, apparently didn't go quite far enough in producing prophecy after prophecy in relation to the life of Jesus to show that he was the long awaited for Messiah of the Old Testament. Ironically, they, both the ancient and modern evangelists, seemed to conveniently omit the "real" Old Testament predictions of the coming of their Messiah: That the world would be perfected and there would be a unity of faith (Isaiah 45:23); He would ruled over the whole world (Zech 14:9); And the whole world would follow Judaism (Zech. 8:23). The fact that Jesus accomplished none of these Messianic requirements should eliminate him from Messiah contention, but that's a subject for another day.
In the New Testament, the evangelist writers, especially Matthew and Luke go to some kind of extremes trying to tie Jesus to the Old Testament prophets, (perhaps in an attempt to mollify the anti-Jewish sentiment expressed in Mark's gospel) sometimes using non existent passages or misinterpreting the passages to make a prophecy where none exist. One example of this is in Mat. 2:23 where the evangelist declares, "So was fulfilled what was said through the prophets: "He will be called a Nazarene."" No where in the Old Testament will one find this prophecy. Poor Matthew also gets his Old Testament prophets wrong, attributing a prophecy to Jeremiah, where it was Zachariah that "foresaw" Judas throwing the silver to the potter (Mat 27:10).
The modern fundamentalist has taken this prophecy mining effort to new heights virtually making Matthew and Luke look like pikers in return. One such case is the prophecy that Jesus being raised from the dead was prophesied from Psalms 16:8-11:
8 I have set the LORD always before me. Because he is at my right hand, I will not be shaken. 9 Therefore my heart is glad and my tongue rejoices; my body also will rest secure, 10 because you will not abandon me to the grave, nor will you let your Holy One see decay. 11 You have made known to me the path of life; you will fill me with joy in your presence, with eternal pleasures at your right hand.The title of this Psalm is called the 'mikten of David'; Mikten is probably a literary or musical term, but it plainly states this is David talking. Matthew and Luke do not refer to the resurrection of Jesus using this improbable passage; But that doesn't stop a verse-mining prophecy seeker from doing so. At first glance, how is it possible that a mikten of David could possibly apply to Jesus? And second, it's written in the first person. Replacing "David" at the appropriate places renders this "fabulous prophecy" totally worthless:
8 I (David) have set the LORD always before me (David). Because he is at my (David's) right hand, I (David) will not be shaken. 9 Therefore my (David's) heart is glad and my (David's) tongue rejoices; my body (David's) also will rest secure, 10 because you will not abandon me (David) to the grave, nor will you let your Holy One (or anointed one, David) see decay. 11 You have made known to me (David) the path of life; you will fill me (David) with joy in your presence, with eternal pleasures at your right hand.We now can see there is no prophecy here remotely suggest the Messiah would be raised from the dead let alone return to earth at a future date.
Herein lies my argument: For all the supposed prophecies, none exist for some of the most poignant and prominent events described in the Gospels relating to Jesus. While all these fantastic prophecies are suppose to be about what happened to Jesus, what is missing and most troubling in the process is the lack of prophecy for some of the most important events.
A common place prophecy, such as Jesus's entry to Jerusalem on donkey (Zech 9:9, Mt 21:1-7) takes prophetic priority over such major events as the Last Supper or the Foot Washing scene, an event that at least one commentary listed as one of the most important symbolic gestures ever made by Jesus (Richards, Victor Bible Background Commentary, pg. 253). How could the prophets in a divinely inspired book, miss these future events when they seem to see an everyday mundane occurrence, that hundreds of people fulfilled everyday, as a prophecy, (such as riding a donkey into Jerusalem). How could they then not see or fail to deliver a prophecy of such an important event as the Last Supper or Foot Washing rite? How could the resurrection of the saints not be foretold, but Jesus entering the temple, another everyday occurrence is important enough to be prophesied (Malachi 3:1), and still omits the purpose and significance of Jesus entering the temple, that he chased the moneychangers out.
With that in mind, here are some events that should have been tied to Old Testament prophecy but some how seem to miss the divine cut:
Now some may quibble that an inference can be made, the such as in the case of the massacre of innocents, that even though it's not mentioned in the O.T. prophecy, Mary, Joseph, and Jesus's flight *to* Egypt wasn't necessary to mention, because their *return* was the most important part to fullfill the propecy of Hosea 11:1: "Out of Egypt I have called my son." But one problem is immediately apparent with this line of thinking: The "prophecy" of the slaughter of innocents is found in Jeremiah 15:31. Wouldn't a more natural place to mention the flight to Egypt and back be in Jeremiah where we find "Rachel weeping for her children because they are no more"? If the prophet could see Rachel weeping surely he could see three people fleeing and returning since these two events are so closely related. The two most glaring examples on this list are the lack of a third day prophecy and second coming prophecy. How could the God-inspired prophets, relating God's plan for the future, completely miss the two most important events in the Gospels that virtually define Christianity?
I am sure others may come up with
more examples, but
this should be enough to prove my point. I rest self
assured that if bibiloholics can be as creative to
find a verse that has Jesus riding a donkey in
Jerusalem, they surely could and would have found ones
pertaining to the list above. They won't because they
can't and that's a problem for the amazing accuracy
and fabulous examples of prophecy fulfillment.
Clearly, preaching fantastic prophecy fulfillment is
just that: a fantasy, created by biblioholics to
bolster adherence to an errant and disjointed book
they continue to believe in. The most important
prophecies were never made, never fulfilled, and the
fabulous prophecies of the Bible are reduced to silly
donkey rides that fundamentalists keep taking.
