Messianic Prophesies

[Trajik]

Peace to all,

I have a question I have been looking into recently. Why does the New Testament use small excerpts from various old testament books to show the Messiaship of Christ. I will give you one example below. Thanks in advance.

The Bible tells us that Jesus has said : “I am thirsty” [John 19:28]

Now, I am told that it fulfills the prophecy found in [Psalm 69:21] "They put gall in my food and gave me vinegar for my thirst " , since [Psalm 69:21] is one of the messianic prophecies of Jesus found in the Hebrew Bible (the Old Testament).

But if you read the rest of the psalm. " God, you know my folly; the wrongs I have done are not hidden from you" [Psalm 69:5]

If the prophecy in Psalm 69 is about Jesus Christ (as I am taught), then Jesus (according to the Bible) :

1. has folly
2. has done wrongs

Can anyone explain this to me. I have also read this say in the Isaiah prophesies. Only a portion is given but when you read the whole chapter it clearly it talking about Israel my first born. Can you all help me out with this.

IS 49

You are my servant he said to me, Israel, through whom I will show my glory.

Thank you really for any help you can give me. It just seems the further I go into these prophesies the more I ground I lose per se.

Trajik

 

[Liberian]

Trajik,

Hello and welcome to the Catholic Answers Forums. I hope you have a blessed and fruitful time here.

Quite frankly, I don’t know precisely what to say to your question. It is my experience that “prophecy-fulfillers” stop things in mid-sentence when they so desire. The prophecy in Isaiah about “The spirit of the Lord is upon me, he has sent me to bring good news and … proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor” was read by Jesus in the synagogue in Nazareth … and He stopped just before He got to the line “… and the day of the Lord’s vengeance.”

Personally I don’t put too much store in them one way or another.

• Liberian

 

[thistle]

Peace to all,

I have a question I have been looking into recently. Why does the New Testament use small excerpts from various old testament books to show the Messiaship of Christ. I will give you one example below. Thanks in advance.

The Bible tells us that Jesus has said : “I am thirsty” [John 19:28]

Now, I am told that it fulfills the prophecy found in [Psalm 69:21] "They put gall in my food and gave me vinegar for my thirst " , since [Psalm 69:21] is one of the messianic prophecies of Jesus found in the Hebrew Bible (the Old Testament).

**But if you read the rest of the psalm. " God, you know my folly; the wrongs I have done are not hidden from you" [Psalm 69:5] **

If the prophecy in Psalm 69 is about Jesus Christ (as I am taught), then Jesus (according to the Bible) :

1. has folly
2. has done wrongs

Can anyone explain this to me. I have also read this say in the Isaiah prophesies. Only a portion is given but when you read the whole chapter it clearly it talking about Israel my first born. Can you all help me out with this.

IS 49

You are my servant he said to me, Israel, through whom I will show my glory.

Thank you really for any help you can give me. It just seems the further I go into these prophesies the more I ground I lose per se.

Trajik

The Haydock commentary in the D-R Bible interprets that as “the follies and sins of men which I have taken upon myself.”

 

[Trajik]

Peace Thistle,

Really… I never knew this. I was just going off my own New American bible for Catholics. Is this a new find as far a bible studies go? I read the same from a couple of different bibles. Maybe my bible is a bit off? I just check my Catholic Study bible. This is great to hear for me. I was starting to wonder. I had someone challenge me to show them where is shows he was the messiah. I looked and well you can see from my post I was a bit concerned because of what I read in my NAB. What is the best bible transaltion to have as a Catholic.

Liberian,
Thanks for you comments. I am sorry my question was a bit odd to you. Have a great day all and have a blessed new year.

Trajik

 

[thistle]

Peace Thistle,

Really… I never knew this. I was just going off my own New American bible for Catholics. Is this a new find as far a bible studies go? I read the same from a couple of different bibles. Maybe my bible is a bit off? I just check my Catholic Study bible. This is great to hear for me. I was starting to wonder. I had someone challenge me to show them where is shows he was the messiah. I looked and well you can see from my post I was a bit concerned because of what I read in my NAB. What is the best bible transaltion to have as a Catholic.

Liberian,
Thanks for you comments. I am sorry my question was a bit odd to you. Have a great day all and have a blessed new year.

Trajik

I also have the NAB Catholic Study Bible but many forum members say the commentary is not very good (some argue its almost heretical but I don’t know about that) so I tend to use the D-R Bible with the Haydock Commentary.

 

[Malcolm_McLean]

Peace to all,

I have a question I have been looking into recently. Why does the New Testament use small excerpts from various old testament books to show the Messiaship of Christ. I will give you one example below. Thanks in advance.

The Bible tells us that Jesus has said : “I am thirsty” [John 19:28]

Now, I am told that it fulfills the prophecy found in [Psalm 69:21] "They put gall in my food and gave me vinegar for my thirst " , since [Psalm 69:21] is one of the messianic prophecies of Jesus found in the Hebrew Bible (the Old Testament).

But if you read the rest of the psalm. " God, you know my folly; the wrongs I have done are not hidden from you" [Psalm 69:5]

If the prophecy in Psalm 69 is about Jesus Christ (as I am taught), then Jesus (according to the Bible) :

1. has folly
2. has done wrongs

Can anyone explain this to me. I have also read this say in the Isaiah prophesies. Only a portion is given but when you read the whole chapter it clearly it talking about Israel my first born. Can you all help me out with this.

IS 49

You are my servant he said to me, Israel, through whom I will show my glory.

Thank you really for any help you can give me. It just seems the further I go into these prophesies the more I ground I lose per se.

Trajik

The New testament writers weren’t particularly sophisticated exegetes. When the Church says that the writing were “inspired” it does not mean that the author was magically protected from making the slightest error, but that the Holy Spirit intended their works to survive as our main source of evidence for Jesus.

To some extent the gospel writers may have manipulated events to make prophecies come true. At this distance in time it is very difficult to be entirely sure, but some incidents, such as when Jesus, incongriously, is depicted as riding into Jerusalem riding two animals, have a definite flavour of manipulation. No serious modern bible scholar dismisses the possibility of this happening.

At other times they are naive. The famous case is the quote from Isaiah “and a virgin shall conceinve and bear a child”. The New testament writer is simply accepting the Septuaguint , which is quite probably a mistranslation of the Hebrew. The mistranslation is not, as you will sometimes hear alleged, Christian in origin. What has almost happened is that there was a pre-existing tradtion that Jesus was born of a virgin, the evangelist has remembered a snippet of scripture and said “that applies”, even though in context, the link is pretty tenuous.

 

[Trajik]

Peace Malcolm,

By what you wrote I think maybe you were alluding that some of the gospel writers may have put their own twist to the prophesies to make them work. Sort of like creative accounting? Make the numbers balance out per se? I know bad analogy but I just got off work after a long break.

It makes me wonder then if some of the prophesies were cited did not really talk of Jesus the Lord. Am I going a bit too far in my thinking here? If so just give me a whack and I will get it. Thanks again all.

Trajik

 

[Della]

Peace Malcolm,

By what you wrote I think maybe you were alluding that some of the gospel writers may have put their own twist to the prophesies to make them work. Sort of like creative accounting? Make the numbers balance out per se? I know bad analogy but I just got off work after a long break.

It makes me wonder then if some of the prophesies were cited did not really talk of Jesus the Lord. Am I going a bit too far in my thinking here? If so just give me a whack and I will get it. Thanks again all.

Trajik

The Gospel writers weren’t trying to fit the OT to the life of Jesus after the fact. What they were doing was citing OT quotations that bore witness to the things Jesus had done that fulfilled them. They weren’t interested in “proving” from these verses that Jesus was who he claimed to be, rather they were saying more like, “Oh yes! That’s how that verse has been fulfilled by Christ.”

As for the verse from Isaiah, it is not “proof” of anything, rather it shows that God had more in mind for Israel than the original sign of a “young woman” having a child intended. It had a meaning for those to whom it was first given as well as to those who saw in Christ its fulfillment. And as is usual, the latter meaning is greater than the first one, as Christ, who followed Moses was greater than Moses.

By the Gospel writers citing OT verses such as this one they were making the OT relevant to the followers of Christ as the fulfillment of God’s promises of a Messiah.

I hope that helps you.

 

[HoneyBee79]

I have also wondered about the seemingly arbitrary use of Old Testament quotes by the New Testament authors. I think scripture is so rich and (especially in the Old Testament prophetic literature) almost layered that it really takes the full spectrum of historic interpretation along with having our own minds progressively renewed in the knowledge of God by the Holy Spirit to understand it.
I’m not Catholic (but also not anti-Catholic) and don’t know how the following thoughts will be or should be viewed and I submit them humbly. If I need to be corrected, please don’t hesitate. I want to understand the Truth. That said, here are some things I keep in mind in reading New Testament quotes of the Old Testament:

-I think the Psalms and Prophetic utterances are more conversational than we expect. There aren’t script notes marking who is talking to whom. I think sometimes David writes what He is saying to God, sometimes what he is saying to other people and sometimes what God is saying to Him privately, publically, to Angels, etc. I think sometimes the point of view changes where it isn’t marked for us to see even from verse to verse within a Psalm.
For example in Jeremiah - is it God who says He doesn’t have enough tears to cry or Jeremiah? The text doesn’t tell us but theologically it could matter. I often assume long passages are written from one point of view on and on and then notice seemingly contradictory or at least internally engaging ideas. Maybe the New Testament writers were shown by the wisdom and revelation of the Holy Spirit (and Jesus Himself like on the road to Emmaus when He opened up the scriptures to show His disciples what was written of Him) those kinds of details so they understood how one verse applied to Jesus while something written 3 verses later might not.
For example: In The Song of Songs I have in my Bible there are indications of who is speaking when. But I have been told that these notes were not in the original Hebrew text - only the spoken words without indication of who was speaking them. Imagine reading that book as just one “Song” by one singer (as the title alone would seem to indicate). It would be especially different and difficult when reading the book mystically as a Song of Jesus the Bridegroom and His church, the Bride! Jesus spiritually fulfills a certain role expressed in only some of the verses of that book - and likewise the Bride. Then of course there are the “friends or maidens”. Maybe certain (not all) other Psalms and prophetic writings contain similar use of dialogue without giving us the easy to follow screenplay-style layout and this is why we are confused by the conclusions drawn by the New Testament authors.

 Another thing to consider takes this idea a step further.  I once noticed something very interesting in the way Old Testament quotes are used in the first 2 chapters Hebrews. Hebrews 1:5,8,10 etc. quote things the Father said to the Son.  And Hebrews 1:6 quotes the Father telling Angels to worship the Son.  And Hebrews 2:11-13 quotes what Jesus said to His Father.  Of course in the original Psalms and writings such as Isaiah that are quoted no indication is given of that sort of detail.

Not only is there (possibly) some use of dialogue unmarked as such between people but there is (according to the author of Hebrews) embedded into parts of the Old Testament recorded dialogue between the persons of the Trinity within the Godhead. Or at least there is writing that can be fulfilled that way even if Isaiah himself didn’t mean to be recording it as such. Of course sometimes Isaiah and others clearly wrote when God was speaking and when he was. But maybe sometimes he didn’t.

When I noticed these chapters in Hebrews I felt very humbled by the rich depths of our scripture. With the Protestant background I come from there are seemingly endless interpretations of scripture. But when The Holy Spirit opened the apostle’s eyes to the Scriptures as they read and preached about Jesus using the Old Testament, He obviously had VERY SPECIFIC interpretations to share with them. And what seems arbitrary to me only seems so because I am a spiritual infant and need to grow “into the head” in both understanding and holy action.

Sorry this reply is so long!

 

[Daniel_Marsh]

In Jewish methods of interpretation all you have in the Psalms text you quoted is a parallel of events. fulfill often means completed.

answering-islam.org/Authors/Arlandson/prophecy_m_j.htm

google.com/search?hl=en&sitesearch=answering-islam.org&q=Matthew+parallel+Jesus+egypt

Another example of this pesher parallel exegesis is, Matthew 2:15 where Jesus coming “out of egypt” is a parallel to Isreal coming out of egypt. This form of interpretation is well within the boundries of Messianic exegesis of that century.

Matthew 2:15

where he stayed until the death of Herod. And so was fulfilled what the Lord had said through the prophet: “Out of Egypt I called my son.”

Hosea 11:1

"When Israel was a child, I loved him,
and out of Egypt I called my son.

Book: Messianic Exegesis: by Donald Juel

Hebrews 1

1In the past God spoke to our forefathers through the prophets at many times and in various ways, 2but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, and through whom he made the universe. 3The Son is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of his being, sustaining all things by his powerful word. After he had provided purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty in heaven.

Revelation 22:18-19
18I warn everyone who hears the words of the prophecy of this book: If anyone adds anything to them, God will add to him the plagues described in this book. 19And if anyone takes words away from this book of prophecy, God will take away from him his share in the tree of life and in the holy city, which are described in this book.

Hebrews 1 along with Rev 22:18-19 makes it plain that there is not to be any additional prophets that deliver inspired scriptures, thus muhammad is not a prophet of God. The next major event after Jesus first coming is his Second Coming, and thus no prophets who add to scripture in that time frame. Since, Muhammad delievered the koran as scripture in islam, that places him squaring in the position of a false prophet.

Muhammad denies that Jesus is God, that alone rules him out as a true prophet.

1 Corinthians 15:3-5
3For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, 4that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, 5and that he appeared to Peter, and then to the welve.

As I understand it, Muhammad or Islam also denies the death and resurrection of Jesus and thus the atonement of Jesus that too tells us christians that muhammad is a false prophet.