Proof Jesus was the Messiah

Through one of the other threads about Jesus, I have recently come to a discovery through the proddings of someone who is an unbeliever. It all started when I was asked why I believed that Jesus was the true Messiah in the Bible. I was given a Jewish web site by that person that naturally disagreed that Jesus was the true Messiah. I then began looking up scriptural references regarding the term Messiah in my concordance. To my amazement, there was only one verse that used the term Messiah in the Old Testament. It is Daniel 9:24-26. Here is the verse for those of you heathens without Bibles. Then again, many of you seem to know scripture better than many Christians I know.

24 Seventy weeks are determined upon thy people and upon thy holy city, to finish the transgression, and to make an end of sins, and to make reconcilliation for iniquity, and to bring in everlasting righteousness, and to seal up the vision and prophecy, and to anoint the most Holy.
25 Know therefore and understand, that from the going forth of the commandment to restore and to build Jerusalem unto the Messiah the Prince shall be seven weeks; and threescore and two weeks; the street shall be built again, and the wall, even in troublous times.
26 And after threescore and two weeks shall Messiah be cut off, but not for himself; and the people of the prince that shall come shall destroy the city and the sanctuary; and the end therof shall be with a flood, and unto the end of the war desolation are determained.

I know many of you are saying, "What the ?!??!?! does that mean." Well, I took the liberty of doing some research and came upon this web site.

http://www.bprc.org/topics/fulfill.html

It is a web site about the various prophesies concerning the Messiah. Naturally it is a Christian web site that covered Daniel 9:24-26. This is what is had to say about that verse.

"One of the first things to note in the Old Testament is that God tells us exactly when Messiah would come to earth. In Daniel 9:24-26, he gives us a total of 69 weeks (a euphamism of the day meaning a period of 7 years) or 483 years after Jerusalem and its wall were commissioned to be rebuilt for when the Messiah would be "cut off" for our sins. The best archaelogical evidence dates the rebuilding of Jerusalem at about 453 BC. Four hundred and eighty three years after the city was rebuilt, Jesus was being crucified outside its walls..."

For me, this is astounding. No one can dispute that Daniel was not written during or after the time of Christ. Daniel was written hundred of years before Christ. This prophesy came to pass and there is no refuting it. I conversed with a Jew about the matter and it appears that they believe that God chose to wait past the alloted time due to the iniquity of Israel. The only problem with this is, however, that under Mosaic law a prophetic word must be shown to be 100% accurate or it is considered to be a false utterance. This prophesy has implications for not only the Jew, but any one who questions the validity of Biblical prophecy.

"69 weeks (a euphamism of the day meaning a period of 7 years)."

bible ( a euphamism for a book of lies believed by the gullible).

Originally posted by whodey
Through one of the other threads about Jesus, I have recently come to a discovery through the proddings of someone who is an unbeliever. It all started when I was asked why I believed that Jesus was the true Messiah in the Bible. I was given a Jewish web site by that person that naturally disagreed that Jesus was the true Messiah. I then began looking up s ...[text shortened]... cations for not only the Jew, but any one who questions the validity of Biblical prophecy.

all a bit secret decoder ring really isn't it? I mean, you have to take arbitrary values for the number of days in a year, turn "weeks" into "seven years", and it assumes a start date which cannot be verified. The oldest surviving OT manuscripts date from 130BC (dead sea scrolls). You Christians! 20 / 20 hindsight.

Originally posted by whodey
Through one of the other threads about Jesus, I have recently come to a discovery through the proddings of someone who is an unbeliever. It all started when I was asked why I believed that Jesus was the true Messiah in the Bible. I was given a Jewish web site by that person that naturally disagreed that Jesus was the true Messiah. I then began looking up s ...[text shortened]... cations for not only the Jew, but any one who questions the validity of Biblical prophecy.

Why do you suppose Daniel broke it down into 7 weeks, and 62 weeks? If he really meant 69 of the same time period, why didn't he just say '69 weeks'? And where do you get support for the idea that 'week' can be read the same as '7 years'? (Please discuss this with some of the 'young earth' creationists; I'd love to hear their reaction to the notion that some biblical units of time are not to be taken literally....)

In short, it seems to me that this prophesy 'came true' because christians needed to believe it did so. If the Jews gave us the Old Testament, then why aren't they willing to believe an alleged fulfilled prophesy? You said it yourself...they demand 100% accuracy, or the prophet can not be considered a prophet of God. Why aren't the Jews trying to purge the book of Daniel from the scriptures, or denouncing him as false?

Originally posted by whodey
Through one of the other threads about Jesus, I have recently come to a discovery through the proddings of someone who is an unbeliever. It all started when I was asked why I believed that Jesus was the true Messiah in the Bible. I was given a Jewish web site by that person that naturally disagreed that Jesus was the true Messiah. I then began looking up s ...[text shortened]... cations for not only the Jew, but any one who questions the validity of Biblical prophecy.

Well.
Yup.
You've convinced me.

I'm off to church this coming Monday.
Or is it Tuesday you do your worshipping?

Here is an interesting website which focuses on the difficulties of translating these verses, and the different versions of this passage that resulted.

http://www.tyndale.cam.ac.uk/Scriptures/www.innvista.com/scriptures/compare/seventy.htm

The problem with prophesy is it is almost always vague. A quick look around the internet and we have various sites giving various ways of calculating the prophesy. For example:

http://www.angelfire.com/nt/theology/dan09-24.html
http://www.bibleprobe.com/daniel1.htm

Then we notice that both the quoted sites admit that there are multiple ways of doing the calculation and that they have decided to choose the particular one that fits the 'facts' they are trying to proove. They give no reason for doing so other than that it fits beter than other methods of calculating it. They also give no valid reason for any of the reinterpretation of days into years. If Daniel was such a great prophet why didnt he just say 490 years or whatever or even give an actual date! Anyone with even basic math skills should realise that most prophesies of this nature can be used to fit almost any set of 'facts'.
What is interesting about it however is that the fact that no Messiah appears around the time prophesied it prooves undoubtedly that Daniel was a false prophet and thus the Bible itself must be wrong!

Indeed, the prophecy (like many prophecies) can be read many ways. One of which coincides with Christ.

You know, I wondered about the vagueness of prophecy some time ago. I asked myself, why would it be stated as such that it could reasonably be interpreted multiple ways?

I concluded that there were really only two reasonable explanations.

1) Prophecy is nothing more than an allegory in the myth of religion.

2) God, in his infinite wisdom, chose not Day X for an event, etc. to occur. Instead, he chose day X, Y, or Z for the event, etc. to occur.

The 'why' of which could be very debatable, the most theistically proprietary answer I could surmise would be that since God chooses not to directly control everything, he offers several paths of action depending upon the choices we as his creation collectively make. Hence, God's will be done as well as the choice of humanity.

This is, of course, merely my musings. Carry on with the head vs. wall match. 😉

Originally posted by Omnislash
Indeed, the prophecy (like many prophecies) can be read many ways. One of which coincides with Christ.

You know, I wondered about the vagueness of prophecy some time ago. I asked myself, why would it be stated as such that it could reasonably be interpreted multiple ways?

I concluded that there were really only two reasonable explanations.

1) Pr ...[text shortened]... umanity.

This is, of course, merely my musings. Carry on with the head vs. wall match. 😉

It's impossible for an omniscient god not to control everything.

Here is another web site that explains the time line a little better.

http://www.theprophecies.com/mathprophecy1.html

"He (Messiah the King) will be revealed
7 weeks + 62 weeks (weeks of years)
after the commandment to rebuild Jerusalem and its walls,
then He (Messiah) will be cut off (executed)"

This is a mathematical prophecy....

-A week of years (shabua or shabu'im) = 7 years
- "cut-off"....the actual Hebrew word used was karath, literally means "executed"
- the "70th Week" (last seven days) of this prophesy is yet future- See the 'Apocalypse'.

God gave the Jews the most sophisticated calendar on Earth. It is both a Lunar and a Solar calendar. The Jewish calendar uses a 360 day lunar (and prophetic) year and then adds a "Leap Month" on specific years to accurately coincide with the Solar cycle we use on our 'Julian' calendar.....

The Bible uses 360 day years for prophesies and expects us to add the appropriate 'leap months' on schedule. So, the easiet way to unravel this prophesy is to first convert this prophecy into days....

1. Add 7 + 62 weeks of years = 69 week years in this prophecy
2. Multiply 69 (weeks) x 7 (to get the total number of years in this prophecy) = 483 years
3. Multiply 483 years x 360 (to get the total number of days in this prophecy) = 173,880 days

So, the prophet Daniel, who lived 500 years before Jesus-Yeshua wrote that from the day of the commandment to rebuild Jerusalem and its walls, until the coming Messiah would be 173,880 days!
(Note: This prophecy was also translated from Hebrew into Greek in the Septuagint almost 300 years before Jesus-Yeshua made his prophetic entry into Jerusalem, riding on a donkey.)

To convert the 173,880 days found in this prophecy into our 365.25 day solar years (the 0.25 adjusts for leap years)...

173,880 days divided by 365.25 (days in a year) = 476 years (our solar 'Julian' calendar)

So, the prophet Daniel told us it would be 476 years form the 'commandment to rebuild Jerusalem and its walls' to the time the Messiah of Israel would first be revealed to the nation and to the world...

The commandment....

This prophecy of the coming Messiah is both remarkable and extremely precise. There were other orders to rebuild the Temple, but, there was only one commandment to restore Jersusalem and its wall. On March 14th, 445 BC, as confirmed by modern archaeology, King Artexerxes 1 of Persia issued the commandment to rebuild Jerusalem adn specifically included its wall (see Nehemiah 2:2-9...the book of Nehemiah records this account of rebuilding the city and its wall.)

Prophecy fulfilled....

Now take the 476 years in this prophecy and simply start counting from March 14, 445 BC (when the command to rebuild the city Jerusalem and its wall was given) and you end on the exact year (even the very day) Jesus-Yeshua rode 'triumphantly' into Jerusalem...... as written about in Zechariah 9:9.. written around 500 BC.

Thus, on the 10th day of Nisan (Palm Sunday) 32 AD...476 years after the command was given to rebuild the city and its wall...Jesus came riding into Jerusalem....

A remarkable prophesy...simply count the years!

March 14, 445 BC Order issued to rebuild the wall
to April 6, 32 AD 10th of Nisan, 'Palm Sunday' - Jesus welcomed as
------------------- King and Messiah
=477 years
-1 year Subtract one for no "0" AD or BC
--------------------
=476 years

I can appreciate those of you that view the prophesy I have provided as a mere contrivence of Christians wanting to prove Jesus as Messiah. Now that I have provided the Christian perspective on the matter, I will now share the fact that the first people to believe that Daniels prophesy pointed to the coming of the Messiah were acturally rabbis. In the Babylonian Tumlmid, Sanhedrin 96-99 (written roughly between 200-500 C.E.) the rabbis expressed disappointment that the Messiah had not come during the expected time when Jesus was around. Here is a web site showing this as well as more prophetic evidence that the Jews expected the Messiah around the time of Jesus.

http://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/mark_eastman/messiah/sfm_06.htm

I could take the word of modern day scholars for the interpretation of Daniel 9:24, or I can take the word of Jewish scholars who were rabbis and also closer contemporaries of Daniel himself. They did the math and came to the same conclusions that Christians do today. They had no motive to prove Jesus as the Messiah in coming to this conclusion. In fact, they killed him.

Originally posted by howardgee
"69 weeks (a euphamism of the day meaning a period of 7 years)."

bible ( a euphamism for a book of lies believed by the gullible).

No, no, no. The correct response is......"Your God eats babies"

Originally posted by shavixmir
Well.
Yup.
You've convinced me.

I'm off to church this coming Monday.
Or is it Tuesday you do your worshipping?

My intention in posting this was not to convert anyone necessarily. If Christ himself could not convert everyone he came into contact with via the evidence of his miracles and such, what makes me any better? My intention was to prove a point. My point is that the Christian faith is not a blind faith. It is not comparible to beilieving in the tooth fairy, for example. Our faith is substantive and there is evidence for it.

Originally posted by whodey
My point is that the Christian faith is not a blind faith
It is not comparible to beilieving in the tooth fairy, for example. Our faith is substantive and there is evidence for it.

Don't use the word « evidence » with such a ease. Evidence ? No. Thousands people were looking for evidences in the bible during centuries... Of course they find some : think about Nostradamus !

One excellent question you musk ask yourself is « Did Jesus (as a man, or even as a semi-god) live really ? ».
If you answer yes, you're believing what the Vatican is telling you. Why not ? But you will understand that I could fell free not to believe with you, and don't look for evidences that don't exist.
If you answer no, you're only assuming the bible as a myth helping you (I hope 😀) to be better, to feel better... Another time, no evidences !

You have the right to believe in Jesus or in the tooth fairy, but understand that you are believing, and only believing.

You're faith is not a blind faith ? Maybe... But, that's strange every peace of man is convinced that is own faith is the right faith... how bizarre !