this the Christian had given a list of prophecies fulfilled in the birth of Christ

         This is a reply from Ann Broomhead to a Christian on the

        E-Net. Previous to this the Christian had given a list of

        prophecies fulfilled in the birth of Christ. Here is Ann's very

        adept reply.

    ----------

    In .8 you gave a list of prophecies which you said foretold the

    coming of the Messiah, whom you identified as Jesus Christ.  I

    have several problems with this list.

    I suppose the best way to cover your list is in the order given.

    1. He would become offspring of a woman

    Charles, you do realize that this is not an astounding revelation,

    don't you?  Judaism is indeed patriarchal, but it is not devoid of

    all sense on that account!  Eve is the acknowledged mother of Cain

    and Abel, but that doesn't make one of them the Messiah. King

    Solomon is given as the son of Bathshua, and fulfills your

    prophecies 3 through 8, but that doesn't make him the Messiah

    either.

    Let me tell you a few things about the story of Eve and the

    serpent. For one thing, the date 1450 bce is wrong.  It is wrong

    by about a thousand years.  Genesis was one of the last books of

    the Bible to be written down.  Second, the image of the woman, the

    tree, and the serpent is far older than the Bible; I have a

    picture showing this combination that is dated to 2330-2150 bce.

    The Bible version is a reworking of the elements to conform to the

    worldview of the Jews.  If you keep in mind that the enemies of

    the Jews worshipped a Goddess who had a serpent for a consort, and

    whose priestesses handled venomous snakes in their religious

    rituals, you will easily grasp why the Jews wished to teach that

    "good" women had nothing to do with serpents.

    Now, the explanation you give for "he shall bruise your head and

    you shall bruise his heel." is certainly ingenious, but it is

    wrongheaded, and blatantly ex post facto.  After all, when a

    poisonous serpent fangs someone in the ankle (which is the only

    way such a small creature could "bruise" a heel), that someone is

    liable to die.  Further, if a man clubs a snake over the head on

    soft ground, it may well have no effect beyond bruising.  Snakes

    don't have much brain to scramble, after all.

    But it does explain the byplay between the "Fat Broad" and the

    snake in the "B.C." comic strip.

    2. He would be born of a virgin and called Immanuel

    The term "almah", which Christians persist in translating as

    "virgin" means *only and always* "a young woman".  "Bethulah"

    means virgin. The prophecy is trying to convey the idea of, well,

    "a nice Jewish girl"; i.e., a woman who is married young, and who

    promptly produces a boy as her first offspring, with no false

    starts.  (This contrasts with Sarah, for example.)

    Jesus isn't called Immanual.  Nor is his name called Immanual.

    (C.f., the name of the Hartford Science Fiction Society is called

    Fred.) Immanual means "God is with us" but Jesus means "God is

    salvation". It is not the same.

    Now Jesus fulfills the first part of the prophecy begun in Isaiah

    7:14, but so do a few zillion other people.  But he does not

    fulfill the second part of the same verse, nor the REST of the

    prophecy, which is that before he is old enough to eat solid food,

    "the land before whose two kings you are in dread will be

    deserted."

    3. He would be a descendent of Abraham

    It would be absolutely astonishing if the Savior of the Jews was

    *not* a descendent of Abraham.  This is not a prophecy; it is only

    a truism.  Also, the verse can (and should) be taken to refer to

    the Jewish people, who, according to the Bible, were created to be

    "a light unto the nations".

    4. He would be a descendent of Isaac

    Since Isaac is a descendent of Abraham, this subsumes 3.

    5. He would come out of Jacob

    Since Jacob is a descendent of Isaac, this subsumes 4.

    6. He would belong to the clans of Judah and a descendent of Judah

    Since Judah is a descendent of Isaac, this subsumes 5.

    7. He would be a descendent of Jesse

    Since Jesse is a descendent of Judah, this subsumes 6.

    8. He would come out of David and be a descendent of David

    Since David is a descendent of Jesse, this subsumes 7.

    So let us look at the published ancestry of Jesus, and the

    published descent of David:

    According to Luke 3:31, we have ..."the son of Melea, the son of

    Menna, the son of Mattatha, the son of Nathan, the son of

    David"... and according to I Chronicles 3:1 "These are the sons of

    David..." and  in verse 5 "These were born to him in Jerusalem:

    Shimea, Shobab, Nathan..."  (The same as in II Samuel 5:14.)

    So far so good.  But it ends there.  There is no indication that

    Nathan had any children.  (Nathan of Zobah had a son, Igal, but

    that is a different Nathan (II Samuel 23:36).  There was a Nathan

    in the court of Solomon who had two sons, Azariel and Zabud, but

    since Zabud was a priest, that means that Nathan was of a priestly

    line, and not a son of David (I Kings 4:5).)

    Looking to Luke 3:27, we read ..."the son of Joanan, the son of

    Rhesa, the son of Zerubbabel, the son of Shealtiel, the son of

    Neri"... and to I Chronicles 3:17-19, we find references to both

    Zerubbabel and Shealtiel, but Zerubbabel is the son of Pedaiah,

    the younger brother of Shealtiel, and the father of Shealtiel is

    Jeconiah, not Neri, and the sons of Zerubbabel do not include a

    Rhesa.  This is a strike out.

    Let us try the alternative geneology in Matthew 1:2-16.  This

    matches up with I Chronicles 3:1-24, until we reach Matthew 1:8-9:

    "... Joram the father of Uzziah, 9 and Uzziah the father of

    Jotham..." In Chronicles, the only son of Joram listed is Ahaziah,

    whose only listed son is Joash, whose only listed son is Amaziah,

    whose only listed son is Azariah, whose only listed son is Jotham,

    and now we are back on track -- after dropping three generations

    of the royal family, and misstating one.  In verse 11, we lose

    Jehoiakim between Josiah and Jeconiah.  In verse 12, Matthew makes

    the same mistake about the relationship about Zerubbabel and

    Shealtiel that Luke makes.  In verse 13, we depart from the

    geneology of Chronicles entirely.

    Interestingly, Matthew shows only 10 generations from Zerubbabel

    (born circa 570 bce) to Joseph, whereas Luke has 19 generations.

    The two even disagree on the identity of Joseph's father; he is

    Jacob to one and Heli to the other.

    Lastly, since Christians claim that Joseph is *not* the father of

    Jesus, his geneology is singularly unimportant to these prophetic

    claims.  Only that of Mary should be, and it isn't given.

 9. He would be born in Bethlehem

    Actually, since his parents lived in Nazareth before he was born,

    and since he was raised in Nazareth, there is a school of thought

    which holds that he was born in Nazareth.

    Also, since Micah 5:2 refers to "Bethlehem Ephrathah, ... among

    the clans of Judah, from you shall come forth..." it is referring

    to the *lineage* of Bethlehem Ephrathah, not the *location*, and I

    have already demonstrated that, taking Christian beliefs into

    account, we know *nothing* about the lineage of Jesus.

    10. Wise men or kings from the east will come to the child Christ

    and present Him with gifts.

    You point to a reference to "the kings of Seba and Sheba", which

    are from the *south* of Judea and Israel, so kings from the *east*

    would not fulfill the prophecy.  Magi are usually priests of

    Mithra, but the term can also be used to refer to healers, miracle

    workers, and astrologers.  (Also, see .9.)  They are never kings,

    so their putative presence does not fulfill any prophecy.

    Let's look at the full verses:  Psalms 72:10-11 is  "May the kings

    of Tarshish and of the isles render him tribute, may the kings of

    Sheba and Seba bring gifts!  May all kings fall down before him,

    all nations serve him!"  Tarshish?  The isles?  Their kings

    weren't around at the birth of Jesus, were they?  And what of the

    use of the subjunctive "may"?  This isn't a prophecy at all.  It's

    a wish, like "O King!  live forever!"

    Isaiah 60:6 says "A multitude of camels shall cover you, the young

    camels of Midian and Ephah; all those from Sheba shall come.  They

    shall bring gold and frankincense, and shall proclaim the praise

    of the Lord."  Camels?  I recall no miracle of well-behaved

    camels. Proclaim?  I don't recall the Magi doing that, either.

    Jesus doesn't match this verse at all well.  And there is the

    matter of the myrrh.

    There is no number 11.

    12. He would come out of lowly background and be despised 

    This directly contradicts the direct descent from David, King of

    Israel, doesn't it?  Also, as a carpenter, raised as the son of a

    carpenter, he had an upper-class background, and a skilled and

    highly-respected profession.  Carpenters didn't just slam boards

    on posts, y'know, they were stonemasons, and decorative carvers

    too.  (This should make the reference to publicans and prostitutes

    more comprehensible.)

    Also, since *any* prophet is without honor in his own land, anyone

    claiming to be a prophet is going to be despised by someone; it

    comes with the territory, and is more a truism than a prophecy.

    13. He would be in Egypt before returning to Israel 

    If Jesus had been raised in Egypt, and only left there out of a

    strong compulsion to return to his homeland, I might believe that

    "out of Egypt I called my son" referred to him.  As it is, it

    clearly refers only to the Exodus.

    14. Children will be slaughtered by Herod because of his fear of

    the rise of another King.

    The verse Jeremiah 31:15 says "... A voice is heard in Ramah...

    Rachel is weeping for her children..."  You say that Ramah is

    between Bethlehem and Jerusalem.  It is not.  It is four miles

    northwest of Anathoth, which in turn is north of Jerusalem, while

    Bethlehem is south of Jerusalem.  Ramah is between *Nazareth* and

    Jerusalem, but so is just about everything else in Judea, since

    Nazareth is so far north, and does nothing for an undocumented

    massacre in Bethlehem.

    Ann Broomhead