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One of the most enduring myths, and perhaps the most frequently cited justification for the truth of the gospel story is the claim that Jesus of Nazareth was the Jewish messiah and that the Hebrew Scriptures foretold of his coming, birth, life, and death. Yet in most cases of messianic prophecies alluded to in the gospels, they are found to be gross distortions of the Hebrew Scriptures. And in these very same cases, the "fulfilled" prophecies are so tenuous at best, that they can be safely assumed as unfulfilled. So much for the Christian conceit of declaring Jesus fulfilling ALL the prophecies with 100% accuracy!

Since there are too many alleged messianic prophecies, I will be limiting this post to the first six prophecies in the Gospel of Matthew, whom I called the out-of-context master.

1) Born of a virgin

According to Christian beliefs, Jesus of Nazareth was divinely conceived of a virgin. The author of the Gospel of Matthew (an anonymous work) claims that this virgin birth was prophesied in the Hebrew Scriptures:

Now all this has happened, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the Lord through the prophet, saying, "Behold, the virgin shall be with child, and shall bring forth a son. They shall call his name Immanuel;" which is, being interpreted, "God with us." (Matt 1:22-23)

This "prophecy" comes from Matthew's reading of Isaiah 7:14, which reads:

Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign. Behold, the virgin will conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel. (Isa 7:14)

Intense debate on this passage centers on whether or not the Hebrew word almah in Isaiah should be translated as virgin. According to bible scholars, almah usually means young woman, not virgin. Another Hebrew word, bethulah, is more usually used when referring to sexual virginity. A cursory look into the Hebrew Scriptures shows that such is the case. In Exodus 2:8 almah is translated as maiden, young woman, or girl:

Pharaoh’s daughter said to her, "Go." The maiden [almah] went and called the child’s mother. (Exo 2:8)

In this verse, as with most other verses using almah, there is no indication that the maiden is sexually innocent. Indeed, in one usage of almah, it is distinctly non-virgin in context:

The way of an eagle in the air; the way of a serpent on a rock; the way of a ship in the midst of the sea; and the way of a man with a maiden [almah]. (Prov 30:19)

Bethulah is used in the Hebrew Scriptures when referring to a woman who is indeed sexually innocent. Leviticus 21:13-14 is a case in point:

He shall take a wife in her virginity [bethulim]. A widow, or one divorced, or a woman who has been defiled, or a prostitute, these he shall not marry: but a virgin [bethulah] of his own people shall he take as a wife. (Lev 21:13-14)

See also Deuteronomy 22:13-21 where bethulim/bethulah is used when referring to sexual virginity.

But the case is not clear-cut. In Genesis 24 both bethulah and almah is used to refer to the same person:

The young lady was very beautiful to look at, a virgin [bethulah], neither had any man known her. She went down to the spring, filled her pitcher, and came up. (Gen 24:16)

Behold, I am standing by this spring of water. Let it happen, that the maiden [almah] who comes out to draw, to whom I will say, "Please give me a little water from your pitcher to drink" (Gen 24:43)

Yet even in these verses, bethulah is used when emphasising the young woman's virgin state, while almah refers to her being a young woman (maiden) with no reference to her virginity.

Bible scholars have theorised that the author of the Gospel of Matthew, which by the way, is written in Greek, may have used the Septuagint, a Greek translation of the Hebrew Scriptures, as his reference for the Isaiah 7:14 "prophecy." In the Septuagint, as with Matthew, the word used is parthenos, which definitely means a sexual virgin.

Whether or not almah ought to be translated as virgin is but a side-issue. A more damaging criticism for the "born of a virgin" prophecy is the fact that Isaiah 7:14 is not a messianic prophecy. Matthew is notorious in taking Hebrew Scripture verses out-of-context. According to biblical chronology, the events that transpired between Isaiah and King Ahaz of Judah happened around 730 BCE.

According to Isaiah 7, war broke out when King Rezin of Syria allied himself with King Pekah of Israel (sometimes referred to as Ephraim) attacked Jerusalem (7:1). Yahweh ordered Isaiah to go to King Ahaz to reassure him that the invaders would not triumph (7:3-7). Isaiah offered to King Ahaz a sign from Yahweh (7:11), but Ahaz refused (7:12). Isaiah answered back that Yahweh will give him a sign nonetheless, saying:

Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign. Behold, the virgin will conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel. He shall eat butter and honey when he knows to refuse the evil, and choose the good. For before the child knows to refuse the evil, and choose the good, the land whose two kings you abhor shall be forsaken. (Isa 7:14-16)

The importance of this sign is not so much the boy himself, but that his age is used as a unit of time. Before the child knows good from evil, that is, before the age of accountability (ranging from five to 12 years), both the king of Syria and Israel/Ephraim would be "forsaken" (killed). Indeed, this prophecy has nothing to do with Jesus and Mary some seven hundred years off. And depending on which part of the Hebrew Scriptures you read, this prophecy about the destruction of the kings of Syria and Israel was either fulfilled (2 Kings 16:1-9 and 2 Kings 17:5-6) or failed miserably (2 Chronicles 28:5-6).

Another point that gets less notice is the fact that Jesus was not named Immanuel nor was he once called Immanuel. If, as enthusiastic bible thumpers claim, that Jesus fulfilled 100% of the messianic prophecies with 100% accuracy, then Jesus not being called Immanuel in the Greek Scriptures would be troubling. Jesus in Hebrew is Yehoshua and means "Yahweh is salvation" (or Yahweh is my saviour). Immanuel, as translated by Matthew, means El (God) is with us. So the two names couldn't be related etymologically.

But if we turn to Isaiah 8 we find Isaiah "going" to a prophetess, "and she conceived, and bore a son" named Maher Shalal Hash Baz (Isa 8:3) who is referred to as Immanuel (8:8). Again, we see that this, and only this, is the fulfillment of the sign alluded to in Isaiah 7:14, that the prophetess is the almah in question and their child with Isaiah is the Immanuel.

2) Born in Bethlehem

A second messianic prophecy found in the Gospel of Matthew is the "fact" that Jesus' birth in Bethlehem was a prophecy:

He called together all the chief priests and the teachers of the Law and asked them, "Where will the Messiah be born?" "In the town of Bethlehem in Judea," they answered. "For this is what the prophet wrote: 'Bethlehem in the land of Judah, you are by no means the least of the leading cities of Judah; for from you will come a leader who will guide my people Israel.'" (Matt 2:4-6)

Which refers to a verse in Micah 5:

But you, Bethlehem Ephrathah, being small among the clans of Judah, out of you one will come forth to me that is to be ruler in Israel; whose goings forth are from of old, from everlasting. (Micah 5:2)

While the "prophecy" of Jesus' virgin birth is not a messianic prophecy, this one seems to be genuine. But this verse is not as clear as to what it means. Specifically, it is not clear if the messiah would come from the town of Bethlehem or was a descendant of (and thus a member of the clan of) Bethlehem (the son or grandson of) Ephrathah, who was listed as a person in the Hebrew Scriptures (1Chr 4:4).

Both Matthew and Luke place Jesus' birthplace in Bethlehem. Matthew ties it with Micah 5:2, Luke takes it for granted that the Messiah would come from Bethlehem. John reports an argument among the crowd who listened to Jesus' speech:

Many of the multitude therefore, when they heard these words, said, "This is truly the prophet." Others said, "This is the Christ." But some said, "What, does the Christ come out of Galilee? Hasn’t the Scripture said that the Christ comes of the seed of David, and from Bethlehem, the village where David was?" (John 7:40-42)

In this encounter, some of the scoffers question the assertion made by others that Jesus is the "Christ." They ask sarcastically "does the Christ come out of Galilee?", knowing that the Christ was supposed to be "of the seed of David, and from Bethlehem, the village where David was" (7:42). This implies that the crowd is familiar with the tradition that the Messiah (Christ) will come from the town of David at Bethlehem. They either got it from Micah or similar traditions.

It is clear from the passage in John that the crowd questions Jesus' credentials as the annointed (Messiah) because he is from Nazareth of Galilee, not Bethlehem which is in Judah, another country. It is likely that the historical Jesus, to the extent that actually existed, was a Galilean and not from Bethlehem. John did not attempt to correct the crowd's impression that Jesus was not from Bethlehem, most likely because John probably believes that Jesus is indeed a Galilean. It is only in John 7:42 where we find the word Bethlehem in his gospel, and that John didn't bother to write a birth narrative in the first place. Indeed, Jesus himself agrees with the crowd's beliefs of his origin:

Jesus therefore cried out in the temple, teaching and saying, "You both know me, and know where I am from." (John 7:28f)

In order to escape the indelible stamp of Jesus' lowly origins, the authors of Matthew and Luke made up stories of how the Galilean Jesus could have been born in Bethlehem and meet that messianic requirement.

In Luke, Joseph and Mary are residents of Nazareth in Galilee, who had to travel to Bethlehem for a census. There are several problems with this story. First, why would a census require people to travel back to the land of their ancestors? This would be a logistical nightmare. And why stop with David? Joseph could have just traced his family all the way back to Adam or Abraham and move to their places of birth (in Eden for instance). Or he could've stopped at Heli, his grandfather in Luke's genealogy (Luke 3:23), whose birthplace is probably also from Galilee. Also, this census, and the resulting massive movement of people, is not recorded in any reliable contemporary document of that era. It is a Lukan fiction.

In Matthew, Joseph and Mary were already residents of Bethlehem and didn't require to travel for a census (no census is recorded in Matthew). After the so-called "Massacre of the Innocents" (another "messianic prophecy") Joseph's family traveled to Egypt (yet another "messianic prophecy") and settled finally in Nazareth in Galilee, which eventually became identified as Jesus' hometown. It doesn't help Matthew's credibility that the Massacre never happened and that his two other messianic prophecies are gross misquotations of Hebrew Scriptures, as we shall see.

So while Micah 5:2 can be understood to be a messianic prophecy, and that it most likely refers to the Messiah coming from the town of Bethlehem, we have no good reason to believe that Jesus fulfilled this prophecy. First, as I've shown, the two birth narratives in the Gospels are inconsistent with each other and bears the marks of fiction. Second, in another part of the Gospels Jesus implies that the crowd is not mistaken in their belief that he came from Galilee. Third, if we read the context of Micah 5, we would see that Jesus did not, in fact, fulfill the prophecy 100%.

One wonders why Matthew, who loves to quote the Hebrew Scriptures, would choose to quote just one verse in Micah 5, for there are other verses in that chapter that expounds more on what the Jews would expect from the Messiah. In Micah 5:4-6 we read:

He shall stand, and shall shepherd in the strength of Yahweh, in the majesty of the name of Yahweh his God: and they will live, for then he will be great to the ends of the earth. He will be our peace when Assyria invades our land, and when he marches through our fortresses, then we will raise against him seven shepherds, and eight leaders of men. They will rule the land of Assyria with the sword, and the land of Nimrod in its gates. He will deliver us from the Assyrian, when he invades our land, and when he marches within our border. (Micah 5:4-6)

From this description, the awaited Messiah would be a military leader, being a descendant of the royal bloodline of the great King David. Jesus did not lead an army according to the Gospels, nor did he protect Israel from, and later invaded, the Assyrians (which was no longer a country 600 years before Jesus). Bible believers have claimed that Jesus would not come to glory as the King until his second coming. Till then, this messianic prophecy is unfulfilled.

3) Called out of Egypt

The Gospel of Matthew has a third alleged messianic prophecy concerning the sacred family's stay into Egypt. In chapter 2 we read:

He arose and took the young child and his mother by night, and departed into Egypt, and was there until the death of Herod; that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the Lord through the prophet, saying, "Out of Egypt I called my son." (Matt 2:14-15)

Matthew's (mis)quote comes from Hosea 11:1, which reads:

When Israel was a child, then I loved him, and called my son out of Egypt. (Hos 11:1)

We can see why Matthew chose not to quote Hosea properly, for we see that the "son" being referred to is not a messiah but the nation (or the people) of Israel being called out of Egypt as described in Exodus. No other gospel wrote about this trip. In Matthew's desperate attempt to fulfill his misunderstanding of the non-prophecy in Hosea 11, he had to fabricate the story of the sojourn to Egypt.

4) Massacre of the Innocents

On the very next verse, the Gospel of Matthew makes up another prophecy:

Then Herod, when he saw that he was mocked by the wise men, was exceedingly angry, and sent out, and killed all the male children who were in Bethlehem and in all the surrounding countryside, from two years old and under, according to the exact time which he had learned from the wise men. Then that which was spoken by Jeremiah the prophet was fulfilled, saying, "A voice was heard in Ramah, lamentation, weeping and great mourning, Rachel weeping for her children; she wouldn’t be comforted, because they are no more." (Matt 2:16-18)

This event is known as the Massacre of the Innocents, and Matthew's reference for this prophecy is in Jeremiah 31:15:

Thus says Yahweh: A voice is heard in Ramah, lamentation, and bitter weeping, Rachel weeping for her children; she refuses to be comforted for her children, because they are no more. (Jer 31:15)

Just like the last item, this manufactured prophecy relies on gross misrepresentation of Hebrew Scriptures. As can be gleaned from the context of Jeremiah 31, the prophet Jeremiah (or the author claiming to be the prophet Jeremiah) was referring to the Babylonian Exile. We can see this theme throughout the chapter:

Again will I build you, and you shall be built, O virgin of Israel: again you shall be adorned with your tambourines, and shall go forth in the dances of those who make merry. (Jer 31:4)

For thus says Yahweh, Sing with gladness for Jacob, and shout for the chief of the nations: publish, praise, and say, Yahweh, save your people, the remnant of Israel. Behold, I will bring them from the north country, and gather them from the uttermost parts of the earth, along with the blind and the lame, the woman with child and her who travails with child together: a great company shall they return here. (Jer 31:7-8)

Hear the word of Yahweh, you nations, and declare it in the islands afar off; and say, He who scattered Israel will gather him, and keep him, as shepherd does his flock. (Jer 31:10)

Thus says Yahweh: A voice is heard in Ramah, lamentation, and bitter weeping, Rachel weeping for her children; she refuses to be comforted for her children, because they are no more. Thus says Yahweh: Refrain your voice from weeping, and your eyes from tears; for your work shall be rewarded, says Yahweh; and they shall come again from the land of the enemy. There is hope for your latter end, says Yahweh; and your children shall come again to their own border. (Jer 31:15-17)

Only in the fertile mind of Matthew can the lamentation of Jeremiah become a prophecy of Jesus.

In fact, the Massacre of the Innocents in Matthew is probably inspired by a similar story told about Moses:

The king of Egypt spoke to the Hebrew midwives, of whom the name of the one was Shiphrah, and the name of the other Puah, and he said, "When you perform the duty of a midwife to the Hebrew women, and see them on the birth stool; if it is a son, then you shall kill him; but if it is a daughter, then she shall live." (...) Pharaoh commanded all his people, saying, "You shall cast every son who is born into the river, and every daughter you shall save alive." (Exo 1:15-16, 18)

And just like the last item, Matthew had to manufacture a non-event, the Massacre, to fulfill the non-prophecy. There is no record or evidence of such a slaughter, and the best that can be mustered by the religious is the "fact" that Heord was a despicable person and he "could've" ordered such atrocities, as it "fits perfectly with his character."

5) Called a Nazarene

Wonders of scripture-bending never cease with the Gospel of Matthew. By the end of the second chapter, yet another messianic prophecy is introduced by the gospel writer:

And came and lived in a city called Nazareth; that it might be fulfilled which was spoken through the prophets: "He will be called a Nazarene." (Matt 2:23)

As we have come to expect, Matthew corrupts (or misunderstands) the words of his beloved Hebrew Scripture:

"for, behold, you shall conceive, and bear a son; and no razor shall come on his head; for the child shall be a Nazirite to God from the womb: and he shall begin to save Israel out of the hand of the Philistines." (Judges 13:5)

The Nazirites are fanatical followers of god that have consecrated (nazir) themselves for their god's service. To be a nazirite, one must take the vow descibed in Numbers 6:1-21 and to live by it. In the passage in Judges, the child who became a nazirite is Samson, of Zorah, the Israelite superman who kills Philistines like flies. Jesus may have been a Nazarene, but not a nazirite, and the reference to Judges 13:5 is not a messianic prophecy.

6) The Great Light

Matthew continues his messianic references that Jesus "fulfilled." At the start of his ministry, Jesus moved out of his hometown of Nazareth to Capernaum, and this Matthew believes is also presaged by the great prophet Isaiah:

Now when Jesus heard that John was delivered up, he withdrew into Galilee. Leaving Nazareth, he came and lived in Capernaum, which is by the sea, in the region of Zebulun and Naphtali, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken through Isaiah the prophet, saying,

"The land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali, toward the sea, beyond the Jordan, Galilee of the Gentiles, the people who sat in darkness saw a great light, to those who sat in the region and shadow of death, to them light has dawned." (Matt 4:12-16)

This is based on a passage in Isaiah:

Turn to the law and to the testimony! If they don’t speak according to this word, surely there is no morning for them. They will pass through it, very distressed and hungry; and it will happen that when they are hungry, they will worry, and curse by their king and by their God. They will turn their faces upward, and look to the earth, and see distress, darkness, and the gloom of anguish. They will be driven into thick darkness. But there shall be no more gloom for her who was in anguish. In the former time, he brought into contempt the land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali; but in the latter time he has made it glorious, by the way of the sea, beyond the Jordan, Galilee of the nations. The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light. Those who lived in the land of the shadow of death, on them the light has shined. (Isa 8:20-9:2)

The problem with this "prophecy" is that Isaiah is referring to an event that has already happened, 600 or so years before Jesus' lifetime. Matthew mutilates the passage to obscure its original meaning.

In the Isaiah passage, the prophet Isaiah is exhorting his people to turn to the Law, not to mediums (8:19-20). Since they have turned away from their god, they wander around hungry and distressed, cursing their god as their world turn dark with anguish (8:21-22). But the gloom has abated; just as Yahweh brought contempt to the lands of Zebulun and Naphtali, so he will glorify these three places: the way of the sea [Dor], beyond the Jordan [Gilead], and Galilee of the nations (9:1-2). Not one whiff of messianic prophecy.

This is part of my National Bible Week series.

One of the most common defense Christians (and perhaps other scripture-centric religionists) use when shown that the bible contradicts itself, or when it says things that are morally, scientifically, or philosophically absurd, is to utter the refrain "you're taking the verse out of context." My papist wife, who has never cracked open the bible and relies on the catechism for her religious knowledge, would use that knee-jerk response whenever I criticize how divergent the Roman church is from the bible.

My reply to her, and to everyone else who uses that excuse, is to read the entire chapter in question, sometimes cross-referencing it with other verses to show the cultural and scriptural background of the book's author. I even bought a copy of the Catholic New American Bible just so that she can't make the further claim that "Protestant" bibles are biased.

Recently, I realized that the "out-of-context" argument can be answered in another way. If you're going to criticize me of quoting the bible out-of-context, then what's stopping you from criticizing the "master of out-of-context quotations," the anonymous author of the Gospel According to Saint Matthew (henceforth referred to as Matthew for convenience)?

Matthew's gospel is full of out-of-context references to the Hebrew Scriptures (a.k.a. the Old Testament), mostly in the author's vain attempts to find Messianic Prophecies that would vindicate Jesus of Nazareth as the Messiah, to the exclusion of a hundred other candidates during that era. These Messianic Prophecies, in turn, have changed how people (aside from the Jews) read the Hebrew Scriptures. It's no longer a collection of history and mythology of the Jewish people and their state, but it's just one big prologue to the birth of Jesus.

To give but one example, in what is probably the most well known Messianic Prophecy, Mattew quotes a verse from the Book of Isaiah:

¹⁸ Now the birth of Jesus Christ took place in this way. When his mother Mary had been betrothed to Joseph, before they came together she was found to be with child of the Holy Spirit;
¹⁹ and her husband Joseph, being a just man and unwilling to put her to shame, resolved to divorce her quietly.
²⁰ But as he considered this, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream, saying, "Joseph, son of David, do not fear to take Mary your wife, for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Spirit;
²¹ she will bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins."
²² All this took place to fulfil what the Lord had spoken by the prophet:
²³ "Behold, a virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and his name shall be called Emmanuel" (which means, God with us).

Matt. 1:18-23 (NRSV)

¹⁴ Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign. Look, the young woman is with child and shall bear a son, and shall name him Immanuel.

Isaiah 7:14 (NRSV)

There are a few problems with Matthew's quotation of Isaiah. One, Matthew uses the word virgin (greek - parthenos) whereas the original is young woman (hebrew - almah). While most other versions would also use the word virgin in Isaiah, it is usually because they're reading the verse in light of Matthew's quotation. It is believed that Matthew used virgin (parthenos) because he used the greek Septuagint version of the Hebrew Scripture, which also used the word parthenos. In the original Hebrew the word used is almah, which is not quite the same as virgin. Almah means young woman or maiden, while another Hebrew word, bethulah, would be the equivalent for parthenos/virgin.

Also, in Matthew's quote, he uses the future tense "shall conceive" while the original uses the present tense "is with child." Randel Helms notes that "Hebrew has no future tense as such" (p. 49) and suggests that it should be read in the present tense.

Ok, so Matthew is not a good transcriber, but even if the two objections can be met, he is still guilty of out-of-context quotation. If we read Isaiah 7, we can see that the verse does not refer to a future prophecy of the coming Messiah. The chapter starts with the Kingdom of Ahaz (Judah) being attacked by King Rezin of Aram and King Pekah of Israel . Isaiah was sent by the Hebrew god to Ahaz' court to console the king, assuring the monarch that the invasion will not succeed. To prove his point, Isaiah says:

¹⁴ Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign. Look, the young woman is with child and shall bear a son, and shall name him Immanuel.
¹⁵ He shall eat curds and honey by the time he knows how to refuse the evil and choose the good.
¹⁶ For before the child knows how to refuse the evil and choose the good, the land before whose two kings you are in dread will be deserted.

Isaiah 7:14-16 (NRSV)

In other words, before the child learns good from evil (a time span of a few years), his enemies will be defeated. It's not a prophecy about Jesus or the Messiah, and Matthew grossly distorted what the text plainly says. A part of the child's life, from conception to about the age of three or four, is used by Isaiah as a metric of time. To read Messianic Prophecy from it is to engage in creative mental acrobatics.

When the Jews return to Zion
And a comet fills the sky
And the Holy Roman Empire rises,
Then you and I must die.
From the eternal sea he rises,
Creating armies on either shore,
Turning man against his brother
'Til man exists no more.

That quote is from the movie The Omen, which I recently rewatched (perhaps for the fifth or sixth time). Uttered by a character named Father Brennen, he claims that it is from the book of Revelations. But after doing a search with several different versions of the bible, I am unable to find it there. Does anyone know if this prophecy is indeed biblical?

Oh, BTW, I recently found out that Hollywood will remake the Omen for release on June 6, 2006 (the sixth day of the sixth month of the sixth year of the new millennium). According to IMDB, it will star Liev Schreiber and Julia Stiles, which seems to me to be good choices. I hope they make is as creepy as the original.