prophecies of Jesus [Fwd: Jesus & Holy, Holy, Holy]

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>You first ask about Scripture about Jesus and prophecies He fulfilled.

>Really, there are so many, it's almost "take your pick."  Maybe if you would

>consider the Psalm of the Cross, Psalm 22, to start.  See what you think

>about it.


One of the most tragic flaws in our interpretation of the Bible has been
our ignorance of its ancient literary context, especially Jewish midrash. 

It was a common and accepted method for a writer in those days to take
ancient passages or literary characters and re-write them to tell a modern
story or message. When this is understood then one can see that Psalm 22
was used to deliberately construct the story of Jesus passion. 

This is not an isolated example. In fact most stories of Jesus in the
gospels can be shown to be either midrashic constructions or re-writings of
pagan myths or a blend of both. An eyetwitness tells what he sees. There is
no evidence that any of the gospel writers got any of their information
about Jesus except from various re-interpretations of Old Testament and
other texts in the light of new (spiritual) concepts of the Messiah from
works like the Book of Enoch. 

If one takes the time to read the literature and religious ideas that were
around in those days then the NT suddenly no longer looks like a mysterious
black book that just fell out of the sky from God. 

Just one example: Centuries before Christ, every new year (Jewish passover
season) Mesopotamians would celebrate with a ceremony that had the king,
after declaring his innocence, being struck on the cheek by the high priest
in order to induce tears; the king would be stripped of his clothes and a
condemned criminal appointed king for the day instead. 3 days later the
public would celebrate the resurrection of a god. Another hymn has the
details of an innocent god being tried and condemned with 2 other
criminals, and being executed with a spear thrust in his side, and then
buried in a rock, visiting evil spirits while 'dead', and then being
resurrected the 3rd day. There is simply no doubt that these ideas were
already familiar to first century Jewish writers, so when they came to
write about a trial that had no disciple of Jesus as a witness.....

Neil

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