Jesus and Messianic Prophecy

[Halcyon]

• Messiah was to be born at Bethlehem: Micah 5:1
• Messiah would be from the tribe of Judah: Genesis 49:10
• Messiah would present himself by riding on an ***: Zechariah 9:9
• Messiah would be tortured to death: Psalm 22
• Messiah would arrive before the destruction of the Second Temple: Daniel 9:24-27
• Messiah's life would match a particular description, including suffering, silence at his arrest and trial, death and burial in a rich man's tomb, and resurrection: Isaiah 52:13-53:12

These prophecies and others are why i don't think Jesus was the Messiah, its all so convienient.

Jesus was born in Bethlehem, but only after his family was sent there for a cencus that historians say never happened.

He came out of Egypt after escaping there to avoid being killed under Herod's infanticide episode - again historians find no evidence for this, even Flavius Josephus a historian who lived just after Jesus's death failed to mention any such massacre.

He rides into Jerusalem on a donkey - have you read this part in the gospel?! It seems so pointless, like the whole scene was designed to fulfill this very prophesy.

And the Passion, well sure there are similarities with Isaiah 52:13-53:12, but who wouldn't suffer being crucified?
Also, there are several parts in those passages that don't apply to Jesus. It says that he was stricken by God, that he was ugly and deformed, despised, rejected and unesteemed by men.
These are not descriptions of Jesus, in fact many of the opposites a true, he often attracted large groups of people, which despised, unesteemed and deformed men do not. If he was the Son of God, how was he also stricken by God?
The text in Isaiah as a whole does not gel with the life of Jesus, only isolated portions are similar.

The matter of Jesus's lineage. Firstly, if you believe he was the literal son of God, then the ancestors of Joseph do not matter, he was not a literal descendant of David, only an adopted one.
If you believe Jesus was the son of Joseph, then you must question the motives of the two gospel writers who included a lineage of David to Joseph, they could have written them just to fulfill the Davidic line prophecy - this seems likely since the lines of descent are different in the two gospels.

In summary, i think it more likely that the gospel writers simply made up some far-fetched stories to create the belief that Jesus fulfilled lots of prophecies, and so get people to think he was the Messiah.

 

[Booko]

In summary, i think it more likely that the gospel writers simply made up some far-fetched stories to create the belief that Jesus fulfilled lots of prophecies, and so get people to think he was the Messiah.

Do people really believe anyone is a prophet just because of prophecies? Even in those times?

At most, I'd think of prophecies as signposts to direct you to look somewhere. What you find when you look there, still has a further burden of proof to get past before being accepted.

That is, if prophecies led you to look at some person as a possible Messiah, but his character turned out to be a pedophile or something, you wouldn't just say, "Yup, that's the Messiah!" would you?