The facts about Jesus presented by Scholars.
Reading the Old Testament, it becomes clear that Someone is coming. Bible scholar Ray Stedman says that “Someone” is God’s promised Messiah:
From the very beginning of the Old Testament, there is a sense of hope and expectation, like the sound of approaching footsteps: Someone is coming!… That hope increases…as prophet after prophet declares yet another tantalizing hint: Someone is coming!¹
The Bible contains hundreds of prophecies predicting future events. Imagine knowing in advance who will be the next Prime Minister of Great Britain or the President of the United States in 2050. Or, what the greatest invention of the 25th century will be. Or what the stock market will do next year. Or the winning number of the next Powerball lottery! [Read more…]
The Old Testament had foretold that God would come to earth as a child to be our Savior and Lord (Isaiah 9:6). It also foretold that this Savior, or Messiah, would suffer horribly as he took upon himself the sins of the world. So in some miraculous way, the Messiah would be both God and man. Several prophecies foretold that his suffering would be almost unbearable. Jesus claimed that he was that Messiah. [Read more…]
According to the Scriptures, the God of the Hebrews spoke to his people through prophets, men and women who were especially attuned to God and who may or may not have been a part of the religious establishment. Some of the prophets’ messages were for the present; others, for the future. Either way, their role was to proclaim God’s declarations and disclosures to the people. [Read more…]
What if the Christian scribes who copied scrolls of Isaiah and the other Old Testament prophetic books altered them to make them correspond to Jesus’ life?
This is a question many scholars and skeptics have asked. And it seems possible, even plausible at first glance. [Read more…]
The early Christians were accused by the Romans of stealing glory from Caesar, and by the Jews of robbing glory from God (Yahweh). Christianity is criticized by some as being “too Jesus focused.” But is that what the apostles thought? [Read more…]
Christmas means different things to different people. To most, it is a heartwarming time with family and friends. To many children, it’s about presents and Santa. To merchants, it means a season when many retailers finally begin making money.
But if you were to go back seven hundred years before the birth of Christ and ask the prophet Isaiah what it means to him, he would tell you Christmas is about the birth of a special child: [Read more…]
According to the Hebrew requirement that a prophecy must have a 100 percent rate of accuracy, the true Messiah of Israel must fulfill them all or else he is not the Messiah. So the question that either vindicates Jesus or makes him culpable for the world’s greatest hoax is, did he fit and fulfill these Old Testament prophecies? [Read more…]