As I mentioned, I would be suspicious of those attempting to create a New California since they could very easily be falsely attempting to fulfill the prophecy, just as various false prophets recorded by Josephus falsely claimed to be Israel's messiah (and as I've mentioned on recent programs, the OT actually encourages this suspicion). But why should we object to the idea in principle? In Isaiah 44 God claims to be able to declare the future before it happens, which is how he distinguishes himself from the false gods. So if that same God shows up in real history, why would it invalidate his program to fulfill what he himself planned to do? So, yes, Jesus had a messianic mission to "fulfill" what was written about him, which included riding on the "foal" of a donkey, and giving his life as a ransom for many, among many other things (including being born in Bethlehem, which was out of his control completely. Most importantly, he had to orchestrate the manner of his own death (which involved piercing, cf. Is 53:5, Ps. 22:16, Zec 12:10) his burial (which involved a rich man in his death (Is 53:9) and his resurrection (Is 53:10-12). Most amazing of all is the fact that numerous OT texts declared that Israel's God would be worshipped around the world as a result of the messiah's work (Gen 22:18, Ps. 22:27, Is 9:7, 52:10, 15) and this ended up happening. It seems clear that you've been reading books by skeptical writers, perhaps you should give equal time to those on the other side. I'd recommend that you start with Eusebius' classic book, Proof of the Gospel.
Would you agree that something shouldn’t really be considered fulfilled prophecy if the person fulfilling it is purposely working to achieve it?
For example, if somebody declares, “Someday there will be a New California,” and then others spend years trying to make “New California” a reality and eventually make it happen, is that a fulfilled prophecy?
Jesus actually admitted to actively working to achieve some sort of fulfillment of Isaiah 53:12 as well in Luke 22:37 in the same way he actively made sure to be riding in to Jerusalem on a donkey...(or was is a foal?) Jesus basically told the disciples to be sure to have a couple swords on hand because that would make them (the disciples) actively fulfill the role of the transgressors (people who take up swords) whom Jesus would be numbered with and thus self-fulfill the suffering servant messianic expectation.
Mitch, thanks for your good questions. I agree that it would be discrediting if the nature of the Old Testament prophecies about the promised Messiah-King were capable of being fulfilled by a person who tried to fit his life to the pattern but didn't actually have the qualities of the person promised. But it seems to me that Jesus and the prophecies he claimed to fulfill are different in two respects: (1) Shane and I noted on the program that some prophecies were about dimensions of Jesus' life that no merely human being could possibly control, e.g., his lineage from David, the place of his birth in Bethlehem, the historical context of his birth and people and culture, or the precise kinds of treatment he received in the manner of his death; (2) Jesus was the kind of person who was capable of fulfilling those prophecies in a credible way. There are many people who could have tried to fit their lives to the OT prophetic patterns but would have been unable to do so. But Jesus was the sort of the person who successfully fulfilled those prophecies and he successfully convinced many people who knew those OT patterns well and had reasons to be skeptical. It would take much more than a mere intention and plan to credibly fulfill the OT Messianic prophecies (emphasis on credibly). A person would have to be quite remarkable to convince many people steeped in OT tradition that he was the ultimate fulfillment of passages like Isaiah 9, 11, 42, 49, 50-53; Micah 5; Psalm 110.
Mike, if you're interested and curious, I'll be happy to respond to these objections (and more). But if your satisfied with your current position, and your goal is simply to lecture a Christian about the infuriating nature of their own chutzpah, perhaps you can find another conversation partner.
Mike, thank you for your good questions and for staying engaged here. I don't have time right now to attempt a reply to all of your questions, but I would like to suggest that the "Christian vs. Jew" framing is more historically complicated than that simple binary opposition implies. Jesus was a Jew, the apostles were Jews, and most of the early Christians were Jews. So the dispute between Christianity and later Judaism (i.e., post-70 A.D. forms of Judaism formed around the surviving rabbinic traditions) is a dispute about which religious tradition is the true continuation of the religion of the Hebrew Bible. The apostle Paul (whose life and training made him a Hebrew of Hebrews; see Philippians 3) claimed that Jesus was the means by which the God of Israel was fulfilling his covenant promises to Abraham, David, and the rest of the prophets and that Christians were made heirs of Abraham through faith in Christ (see the end of Galatians 3). So from the beginning of the Christian tradition, the Hebrew language was Christian language, the religion of the Hebrew Bible was the Christian religion, and the Hebrew Bible itself was universally understood and read as the Christian Scriptures. Whether or not later Judaism was right to reject Christianity as a foreign "co-opting" and distortion can only be assessed by testing the evidence for the claims made by Christ and his followers. I simply want to suggest that the discussion not be framed simply as Christian vs. Jew as if Christianity has no legitimate roots in the Hebrew Bible. It is rather a dispute about which religious tradition is the true form of Judaism for this era of history, i.e., the true continuation of the religion of the Hebrew Bible.
Yes, I understand that someone who thinks that the core claims of the Christian faith about the person and work of Jesus would (and should) view Christianity in largely the way you describe. I agree with you that Christian claims should be subjected to critical scrutiny historically and philosophically in same ways we would evaluate other competing claims (like those of the Mormon tradition). I don't think it is historically accurate to say that the Christian faith was created by committee votes. Rather, it was rooted in the early church's firm conviction that Christ rose from the dead. It was an encounter with God that is precisely analogous to the Jewish claim to have encountered God at Mt. Sinai.
I think that there are many ways to answer the prophecy questions you are asking. One point is that the work of Jesus is not yet complete. New Testament scholars overwhelmingly agree that Jesus taught and believed the kingdom of God that he was fulfilling and establishing was both a present and future reality, i.e., it was a reality that would unfold over a long period of time with partial fulfillments in the present leading to greater fulfillments in the future (without a specific time frame attached to the more long-range fulfillments). For example, Christians would say that we are still awaiting the fulfillment of prophecies of world peace and the universal recognition of the one Creator God. So Christians would say that it is not fair to conclude that Jesus has failed to fulfill some OT prophecies when he did not claim that they would all be fulfilled in a short period of time prior to our present day. Indeed, this reframing of redemptive history is one of the major points of division between Christians and the Jewish tradition. It was why his own followers had a hard time understanding his framework for the kingdom of God because it did not fit the narrative in their heads. Obviously the credibility of promises about the future depend on the credibility of the person making those promises and whether or not we do have good reasons to trust him. I think that Shane and I mentioned a number of reasons why Jesus does have credibility because of the way his work in the past has already fulfilled certain OT prophecies.
Other points you raise require more detailed study of the nature of the prophecies themselves. I think it is difficulty to interpret Isaiah 52-53 without concluding that the promised Messianic king would die for the sins of his people. Furthermore, this prophecy fits the larger theological meaning of the entire sacrificial tradition in which the death of a representative secures atonement and forgiveness. I also think there are indications within the Hebrew Bible itself that the promised future temple is a reality that cannot be embodied in a physical structure. Many of the features of the temple portrayed in Ezekiel 40-48 have symbolic dimensions that point away from embodiment in a physical building to a more mysterious and grander way of fulfilling the spiritual function that that the Temple was supposed to play in the life of God's people. Likewise, the OT predicted/prophesied that the nation of Israel would expand beyond its OT membership (Ps. 87:4-6; Isa. 19:18-25; 56:3-7; 66:18-21). Also, the OT predicted/prophesied that the boundaries of Israel’s land and kingdom would expand far beyond its OT limits to include the whole earth (Ps. 2:8; 72:8-11, 19; Zech. 9:10 [cf. Gen. 15:18]; Isa. 26:15-19; 27:2-6; 54:2-3; Dan. 2:34-35, 44-45). It seems to me that Jesus' kingdom and the global growth of the Christian church combining Jews and Gentiles into a renewed and expanded "Israel" looks like it fits these patterns quite well.
But even more than these patterns, I would point to evidence for Jesus' bodily resurrection from the dead. I believe that the historical argument for the reality of this event is quite strong. If Jesus truly rose from the dead, that would provide a very strong confirmation of his credibility as a prophet. We would have to discuss the specifics of the evidence and weigh the strength of the counter-arguments to assess this claim, of course. Just wanting to put that on the table for consideration. Even Jesus' own followers were ready to reject him as a failure until his resurrection. It was their unshakable belief in his resurrection that reoriented their perspective on him and his mission that gave birth to the Christian church.
You might be surprised to discover that I actually encourage you to ask questions like, "Who should I believe?" Though you wouldn't know it by listening to many Christian voices in our day, I'm convinced that the Bible actually encourages this sort of skepticism. It's certainly possible that Christians are co-opting Judaism in the same way that Mormons are co-opting Christianity, and I encourage you to consider that hypothesis. Think it through, along with other perspectives. As you do, beware of your own biases and interests -- since it's easy to dismiss or ridicule other points of view that you don't understand very well, or that seem strange and foreign. Often the truth is strange and foreign! FYI, I'm on a tight editing deadline today and won't be able to respond to your list of objections until tomorrow at the earliest.
There are a LOT of issues that you've raised that still need to be addressed, and I'm not quite sure where I should begin at this point. Why don't you send me one question at a time (which I have a better chance of responding to in a reasonable amount of time). I'll start the ball rolling with your comment about the Trinity. This was certainly confusing for me coming from a Jewish background, but the more I've studied, the more I've seen that ancient Jews before the time of Christ discussed issues related to the unity and plurality of God's nature as revealed in various OT texts. If you're interested, I discussed this with Talmud scholar Daniel Boyarin here: https://whitehorseinn.org/resource-library/shows/the-jewishness-of-johns-gospel/
As I mentioned, I would be suspicious of those attempting to create a New California since they could very easily be falsely attempting to fulfill the prophecy, just as various false prophets recorded by Josephus falsely claimed to be Israel's messiah (and as I've mentioned on recent programs, the OT actually encourages this suspicion). But why should we object to the idea in principle? In Isaiah 44 God claims to be able to declare the future before it happens, which is how he distinguishes himself from the false gods. So if that same God shows up in real history, why would it invalidate his program to fulfill what he himself planned to do? So, yes, Jesus had a messianic mission to "fulfill" what was written about him, which included riding on the "foal" of a donkey, and giving his life as a ransom for many, among many other things (including being born in Bethlehem, which was out of his control completely. Most importantly, he had to orchestrate the manner of his own death (which involved piercing, cf. Is 53:5, Ps. 22:16, Zec 12:10) his burial (which involved a rich man in his death (Is 53:9) and his resurrection (Is 53:10-12). Most amazing of all is the fact that numerous OT texts declared that Israel's God would be worshipped around the world as a result of the messiah's work (Gen 22:18, Ps. 22:27, Is 9:7, 52:10, 15) and this ended up happening. It seems clear that you've been reading books by skeptical writers, perhaps you should give equal time to those on the other side. I'd recommend that you start with Eusebius' classic book, Proof of the Gospel.
Would you agree that something shouldn’t really be considered fulfilled prophecy if the person fulfilling it is purposely working to achieve it?
For example, if somebody declares, “Someday there will be a New California,” and then others spend years trying to make “New California” a reality and eventually make it happen, is that a fulfilled prophecy?
Yes, I would be very suspicious of that sort of thing. But I'm not sure how that would explain a text like Isaiah 52-53.
Jesus actually admitted to actively working to achieve some sort of fulfillment of Isaiah 53:12 as well in Luke 22:37 in the same way he actively made sure to be riding in to Jerusalem on a donkey...(or was is a foal?) Jesus basically told the disciples to be sure to have a couple swords on hand because that would make them (the disciples) actively fulfill the role of the transgressors (people who take up swords) whom Jesus would be numbered with and thus self-fulfill the suffering servant messianic expectation.
Mitch, thanks for your good questions. I agree that it would be discrediting if the nature of the Old Testament prophecies about the promised Messiah-King were capable of being fulfilled by a person who tried to fit his life to the pattern but didn't actually have the qualities of the person promised. But it seems to me that Jesus and the prophecies he claimed to fulfill are different in two respects: (1) Shane and I noted on the program that some prophecies were about dimensions of Jesus' life that no merely human being could possibly control, e.g., his lineage from David, the place of his birth in Bethlehem, the historical context of his birth and people and culture, or the precise kinds of treatment he received in the manner of his death; (2) Jesus was the kind of person who was capable of fulfilling those prophecies in a credible way. There are many people who could have tried to fit their lives to the OT prophetic patterns but would have been unable to do so. But Jesus was the sort of the person who successfully fulfilled those prophecies and he successfully convinced many people who knew those OT patterns well and had reasons to be skeptical. It would take much more than a mere intention and plan to credibly fulfill the OT Messianic prophecies (emphasis on credibly). A person would have to be quite remarkable to convince many people steeped in OT tradition that he was the ultimate fulfillment of passages like Isaiah 9, 11, 42, 49, 50-53; Micah 5; Psalm 110.
Mike, if you're interested and curious, I'll be happy to respond to these objections (and more). But if your satisfied with your current position, and your goal is simply to lecture a Christian about the infuriating nature of their own chutzpah, perhaps you can find another conversation partner.
Mike, thank you for your good questions and for staying engaged here. I don't have time right now to attempt a reply to all of your questions, but I would like to suggest that the "Christian vs. Jew" framing is more historically complicated than that simple binary opposition implies. Jesus was a Jew, the apostles were Jews, and most of the early Christians were Jews. So the dispute between Christianity and later Judaism (i.e., post-70 A.D. forms of Judaism formed around the surviving rabbinic traditions) is a dispute about which religious tradition is the true continuation of the religion of the Hebrew Bible. The apostle Paul (whose life and training made him a Hebrew of Hebrews; see Philippians 3) claimed that Jesus was the means by which the God of Israel was fulfilling his covenant promises to Abraham, David, and the rest of the prophets and that Christians were made heirs of Abraham through faith in Christ (see the end of Galatians 3). So from the beginning of the Christian tradition, the Hebrew language was Christian language, the religion of the Hebrew Bible was the Christian religion, and the Hebrew Bible itself was universally understood and read as the Christian Scriptures. Whether or not later Judaism was right to reject Christianity as a foreign "co-opting" and distortion can only be assessed by testing the evidence for the claims made by Christ and his followers. I simply want to suggest that the discussion not be framed simply as Christian vs. Jew as if Christianity has no legitimate roots in the Hebrew Bible. It is rather a dispute about which religious tradition is the true form of Judaism for this era of history, i.e., the true continuation of the religion of the Hebrew Bible.
Yes, I understand that someone who thinks that the core claims of the Christian faith about the person and work of Jesus would (and should) view Christianity in largely the way you describe. I agree with you that Christian claims should be subjected to critical scrutiny historically and philosophically in same ways we would evaluate other competing claims (like those of the Mormon tradition). I don't think it is historically accurate to say that the Christian faith was created by committee votes. Rather, it was rooted in the early church's firm conviction that Christ rose from the dead. It was an encounter with God that is precisely analogous to the Jewish claim to have encountered God at Mt. Sinai.
I think that there are many ways to answer the prophecy questions you are asking. One point is that the work of Jesus is not yet complete. New Testament scholars overwhelmingly agree that Jesus taught and believed the kingdom of God that he was fulfilling and establishing was both a present and future reality, i.e., it was a reality that would unfold over a long period of time with partial fulfillments in the present leading to greater fulfillments in the future (without a specific time frame attached to the more long-range fulfillments). For example, Christians would say that we are still awaiting the fulfillment of prophecies of world peace and the universal recognition of the one Creator God. So Christians would say that it is not fair to conclude that Jesus has failed to fulfill some OT prophecies when he did not claim that they would all be fulfilled in a short period of time prior to our present day. Indeed, this reframing of redemptive history is one of the major points of division between Christians and the Jewish tradition. It was why his own followers had a hard time understanding his framework for the kingdom of God because it did not fit the narrative in their heads. Obviously the credibility of promises about the future depend on the credibility of the person making those promises and whether or not we do have good reasons to trust him. I think that Shane and I mentioned a number of reasons why Jesus does have credibility because of the way his work in the past has already fulfilled certain OT prophecies.
Other points you raise require more detailed study of the nature of the prophecies themselves. I think it is difficulty to interpret Isaiah 52-53 without concluding that the promised Messianic king would die for the sins of his people. Furthermore, this prophecy fits the larger theological meaning of the entire sacrificial tradition in which the death of a representative secures atonement and forgiveness. I also think there are indications within the Hebrew Bible itself that the promised future temple is a reality that cannot be embodied in a physical structure. Many of the features of the temple portrayed in Ezekiel 40-48 have symbolic dimensions that point away from embodiment in a physical building to a more mysterious and grander way of fulfilling the spiritual function that that the Temple was supposed to play in the life of God's people. Likewise, the OT predicted/prophesied that the nation of Israel would expand beyond its OT membership (Ps. 87:4-6; Isa. 19:18-25; 56:3-7; 66:18-21). Also, the OT predicted/prophesied that the boundaries of Israel’s land and kingdom would expand far beyond its OT limits to include the whole earth (Ps. 2:8; 72:8-11, 19; Zech. 9:10 [cf. Gen. 15:18]; Isa. 26:15-19; 27:2-6; 54:2-3; Dan. 2:34-35, 44-45). It seems to me that Jesus' kingdom and the global growth of the Christian church combining Jews and Gentiles into a renewed and expanded "Israel" looks like it fits these patterns quite well.
But even more than these patterns, I would point to evidence for Jesus' bodily resurrection from the dead. I believe that the historical argument for the reality of this event is quite strong. If Jesus truly rose from the dead, that would provide a very strong confirmation of his credibility as a prophet. We would have to discuss the specifics of the evidence and weigh the strength of the counter-arguments to assess this claim, of course. Just wanting to put that on the table for consideration. Even Jesus' own followers were ready to reject him as a failure until his resurrection. It was their unshakable belief in his resurrection that reoriented their perspective on him and his mission that gave birth to the Christian church.
You might be surprised to discover that I actually encourage you to ask questions like, "Who should I believe?" Though you wouldn't know it by listening to many Christian voices in our day, I'm convinced that the Bible actually encourages this sort of skepticism. It's certainly possible that Christians are co-opting Judaism in the same way that Mormons are co-opting Christianity, and I encourage you to consider that hypothesis. Think it through, along with other perspectives. As you do, beware of your own biases and interests -- since it's easy to dismiss or ridicule other points of view that you don't understand very well, or that seem strange and foreign. Often the truth is strange and foreign! FYI, I'm on a tight editing deadline today and won't be able to respond to your list of objections until tomorrow at the earliest.
There are a LOT of issues that you've raised that still need to be addressed, and I'm not quite sure where I should begin at this point. Why don't you send me one question at a time (which I have a better chance of responding to in a reasonable amount of time). I'll start the ball rolling with your comment about the Trinity. This was certainly confusing for me coming from a Jewish background, but the more I've studied, the more I've seen that ancient Jews before the time of Christ discussed issues related to the unity and plurality of God's nature as revealed in various OT texts. If you're interested, I discussed this with Talmud scholar Daniel Boyarin here: https://whitehorseinn.org/resource-library/shows/the-jewishness-of-johns-gospel/