Re: Question - please help me get this

Please show me some prophecies that Jesus fulfilled. Matthew in particular had a very vivid imagination in what exactly was a prophecy, and how Jesus is alleged to have fulfilled them is quite amusing.

Consider, for example, Matthew 2:5-6, wherein Herod asks the chief priests and the scribes for the birthplace of the savior --

5: And they said unto him, In Bethlehem of Judaea: for thus it is written by the prophet,

6: And thou Bethlehem, in the land of Juda, art not the least among the princes of Juda: for out of thee shall come a Governor, that shall rule my people Israel.

This sequence refers, as far as anyone can tell, to Micah 5:2 --

2 But thou, Bethlehem Ephratah, though thou be little among the thousands of Judah, yet out of thee shall he come forth unto me that is to be ruler in Israel; whose goings forth have been from of old, from everlasting.

What folks might not realize is that, besides being the name of two different villages, Bethlehem of the house of Ephrathah is a character in the Old Testament, and that the Septuagint tranlsation uses, instead "Bethlehem, house of Ephrathah", and another translation sets it up as "though you are small among the clans of Judah".

In other words, we're not talking about Jesus being born in Bethlehem (among thousands of villages in Judah), but instead that a ruler of Israel is prophecied to be a descendent of Bethlehem in the house/clan of Ephratah.

Now, if you can find a way to get from Bethlehem to Mary (or Joseph, if we must), then we might actually have a basis for prophecy fulfillment, and I'll happily let you win this fight. But the "fact" of Jesus being born in the town of Bethlehem does not fulfill the prophecy of Micah 5:2, except only as depicted in Matthew 2:5-6, which is clearly a misrepresentation. Matthew's version of the prophecy text, as allegedly relayed by the chief priests and scribes at the time, does not match the known text of Micah 5:2.

So there's at least one prophecy that Jesus did not fulfill, despite a valiant attempt by Matthew to make it so. Tweet