Wednesday, March 03, 2004
Prophecy?
Somone posted a link to an article on the Morning News web site about the Passion of Christ Blooper Reel. One of the Ads linked to the web site passionofchrist.com. I clicked. One of these pages claims to list some of the prophecies about the messiah that Jesus fulfilled. They also claim that there are over 300 messianic prophecies in the old testament. I've been reading through some of these claims and I think it would be easier to argue for Nostradamus's prophetic vision of the 21st century.
Most of what I've read so far points to phrases in the Old Testament taken out of context and linked to a passage of the Gospels. Some of them go so far as to use nothing but a reference from one of the Epistles to verify a messianic prophecy.
Normally I don't bother with such things. I want to know what the Jews expected from a messiah, and how did those expectations change. The history of the concept of the messiah is something I want to research later on in life. When apologetic christians claims that Jesus fulfilled all these prophecies they state it as a fact, and since I want to be just as sure about God as they appear to be, every once in a while I dip into the messianic "prophecies" to see what they're talking about.
I did a similar thing with a panel from a Jack Chick pamphlet about eight years ago, and what I found holds true for the Passion of Christ web site. They take a passage from the New Testament where the Old Testament is quoted and claim a prophecy has been fulfilled.
Example: One fulfillment is listed as Acts 3:25: "You are the descendants of the prophets and of the covenant that God gave to your ancestors, saying to Abraham 'and in your descendants all the families of the earth shall be blessed.'" My NRSV Study Bible links this passage to Genessis 22:18, which reads "and by your offspring shall all the nations of the earth gain blessing for themselves, because you have obeyed my voice."
The Genesis 22:18 passage is part of a larger monologue of the angel of Lord who is speaking to Abraham right before he lived in Beer-sheba. The Passion of Christ web site lists the prophecy of Gen 18:18, which reads (including v. 17) "The Lord said, 'Shall I hide from Abraham what I am about to do, seeing that Abraham shall become a great and might nation, and all the nations of the earth shall be blessed in him?" (this is the prelude to Abraham questioning God about the impending destruction of Sodom and Gamorrah)
How is this prophecy and fulfillment? First of all, Peter (in Acts) is quoting the earlier passages from scripture. He is speaking to a crowd of Isrealites, trying to convince them that Jesus is the Messiah, and came to the people of Isreal to turn them from their sins. He is also defending himself because he had just healind a crippled beggar. He is simply quoting what has been said before. He states in Acts 3:19: Repent therefore, and turn to God so that your sins may be wiped out, so that times of refreshing may come from the presense of the Lord, and that he may send the Messiah appointed for you, that is, Jesus, who must remain in heaven until the time of universal restoration that God announced long ago through his prophets." Peter is preaching.
It gets more complicated. This clearly can only work as a prophecy and fulfillment if a lot of extra bits of text are put around them, and even then it is dangerously close to taking one thing out of context to justify another thing.
Give me a quatrain any day. They don't have context, just symbolism to muck through. ¶ 2:19 PM
Most of what I've read so far points to phrases in the Old Testament taken out of context and linked to a passage of the Gospels. Some of them go so far as to use nothing but a reference from one of the Epistles to verify a messianic prophecy.
Normally I don't bother with such things. I want to know what the Jews expected from a messiah, and how did those expectations change. The history of the concept of the messiah is something I want to research later on in life. When apologetic christians claims that Jesus fulfilled all these prophecies they state it as a fact, and since I want to be just as sure about God as they appear to be, every once in a while I dip into the messianic "prophecies" to see what they're talking about.
I did a similar thing with a panel from a Jack Chick pamphlet about eight years ago, and what I found holds true for the Passion of Christ web site. They take a passage from the New Testament where the Old Testament is quoted and claim a prophecy has been fulfilled.
Example: One fulfillment is listed as Acts 3:25: "You are the descendants of the prophets and of the covenant that God gave to your ancestors, saying to Abraham 'and in your descendants all the families of the earth shall be blessed.'" My NRSV Study Bible links this passage to Genessis 22:18, which reads "and by your offspring shall all the nations of the earth gain blessing for themselves, because you have obeyed my voice."
The Genesis 22:18 passage is part of a larger monologue of the angel of Lord who is speaking to Abraham right before he lived in Beer-sheba. The Passion of Christ web site lists the prophecy of Gen 18:18, which reads (including v. 17) "The Lord said, 'Shall I hide from Abraham what I am about to do, seeing that Abraham shall become a great and might nation, and all the nations of the earth shall be blessed in him?" (this is the prelude to Abraham questioning God about the impending destruction of Sodom and Gamorrah)
How is this prophecy and fulfillment? First of all, Peter (in Acts) is quoting the earlier passages from scripture. He is speaking to a crowd of Isrealites, trying to convince them that Jesus is the Messiah, and came to the people of Isreal to turn them from their sins. He is also defending himself because he had just healind a crippled beggar. He is simply quoting what has been said before. He states in Acts 3:19: Repent therefore, and turn to God so that your sins may be wiped out, so that times of refreshing may come from the presense of the Lord, and that he may send the Messiah appointed for you, that is, Jesus, who must remain in heaven until the time of universal restoration that God announced long ago through his prophets." Peter is preaching.
It gets more complicated. This clearly can only work as a prophecy and fulfillment if a lot of extra bits of text are put around them, and even then it is dangerously close to taking one thing out of context to justify another thing.
Give me a quatrain any day. They don't have context, just symbolism to muck through. ¶ 2:19 PM
