> This is all very interesting and certainly worthy of further study. However, my main question then becomes, doesn't this point more to the veracity of the Old Testement and not necessarily the New? Wouldn't this evidence (which I'm assuming, perhaps incorrectly, and I'm sure you'll correct me if I'm wrong, comes mainly from the Old Testement) point me more towards converting to Judaism than Christianity?

The prophecies concerning the survival of Israel are prevalent in the New Testament as well as the Old Testament. I don't think what information about Israel I gave so far shed any light on the specific question of Judaism vs. Christianity. One way to figure that one out is to look at specific Old Testament prophecies fulfilled in the New Testament. Another way might be to look at New Testament prophecies concerning Israel that are not made in the Old Testament, although I don't know off-hand if there are any really good examples of that that would be of use here.

This seems like a good place to talk about Messianic prophecies concerning Christ, which Mrs. Issachar was wondering about earlier. A study of Messianic prophecies is, I think, not only another set of reasonable evidence to support the divine inspiration of the whole Bible but also specifically substantiates the New Testament and the divinity of Christ.

There are 332 prophecies concerning Christ in the Old Testament, or so I understand, as I have not personally verified or even counted each one. I have, however, looked at a chunk of them. Some are more compelling than others -- some are explainable or dismissable in isolation, while others are noteworthy in and of themselves, but it is the volume and unerring correctness of the whole bunch that is what is compelling. Unearthed out of more of my notes, here are some of these prophecies, accompanied by the New Testament fulfillment of them:

- He would be born in Bethlehem. (Micah 5:2 / Luke 2:4-7)

- He would be born of a virgin. (Isaiah 7:14 / Matthew 1:18-25, John 1:30-35)

- He would be referred to as Immanuel. (Isaiah 7:14 / Matthew 1:23)

- He would be preceded by a messenger. (Isaiah 40:3 / Matthew 3:1-2)

- He would enter Jerusalem on a donkey. (Zechariah 9:9 / Luke 19:35-37)

- He would be rejected by his own people. (Isaiah 53:3 / John 7:5,48)

- He would be betrayed by a friend. (Psalm 41:9 / Matthew 10:4)

- He would be betrayed for thirty pieces of silver. (Zechariah 11:12 / Matthew 26:15)

- The thirty pieces of silver would be cast into the temple. (Zechariah 11:13 / Matthew 27:5)

- The thirty pieces of silver would be used to buy a potter's field. (Gosh, that sounds familiar.) (Zechariah 11:13 / Matthew 27:6-7)

- He would be forsaken by his disciples. (Zechariah 13:7 / Mark 14:50)

- He would be given gall and vinegar to drink. (Psalm 69:21 / Matthew 27:34,48)

- His hands and feet would be pierced. (Psalm 22:16 / Luke 23:33) (What's interesting about this prophecy is that crucifixion was not a form of capital punishment used in David's time. [David wrote most of the psalms.] Stoning was the usual form.)

- There would be (literal) darkness at his crucifixion. (Psalm 22:6-8 / Matthew 27:45)

- He would cry, "My God, My God, why hast thou forsaken me?" (Psalm 22:1 / Matthew 27:46)

- He would not answer his accusors. (Isaiah 53:7 / Matthew 27:12-19)

- He would make intercession for his persecutors. (Isaiah 53:12 / Luke 23:34)

- Lots would be cast for his garments. (Psalm 22:18 / Matthew 27:35, John 19:23-24)

- His bones would not be broken. (Psalm 34:20 / John 19:33-36)

- His side would be pierced. (After Christ died on the cross, a guard stabbed him in the side with his spear to make sure he was really dead.) (Zechariah 12:10 / John 19:34)

- He would be buried in a rich man's tomb near the wicked. (Isaiah 53:9 / Matthew 27:57-60)


Now, the usual questions about prophecies apply. Are the prophecies ambiguous, fixable, or likely to occur anyway? For some of the above, and the remaining few hundred I missed, sure. The prophecy "he would be betrayed by a friend" does not personally impress me in isolation because that is something likely to occur anyhow. Who hasn't been betrayed by a friend? Born in Bethlehem? That doesn't impress me in isolation because it's fixable: pick someone born in Bethlehem that grows up to resemble the one foretold.

But a man born of Bethlehem betrayed by a friend for thirty pieces of silver which were cast into the temple and used to buy a potter's field? That's tougher to dismiss.

Now here's the next question. Is this all retrofitted? Maybe someone took the events concerning Christ's life and looked back in the Old Testament, picking and choosing prophecies that seemed to fit. The Old Testament is large, much of it being comprised of prophetic books, and surely some prophecies could be found lying around that resembled Christ's life?

I think a study of the prophecies precludes that in many cases. Although the Old Testament is large, prophecies concerning Christ tend to be grouped together. Psalm 22, for example, is a prophetic psalm, not very long, that gives, depending on how you count, in the neighborhood of 10-12 prophecies JUST about Christ on the cross in the first 18 verses (three are given above) and nothing that seems wrong. Someone picking and choosing prophecies to retrofit would not have likely found so many in one single psalm, or, if by some miracle he had, would not have found them all conveniently describing different details about the same event. Zechariah 11:12-13 gives all the aforementioned details about the thirty pieces of silver in just two verses -- this, too, was not a series of prophecies assembled into a whole from dispersed hand-selected verses.

A third example is the bulk of the book of Isaiah, which was understood *prior* to Christ to be a prophetic book primarily concerning the Messiah and the circumstances of his life. The bulk of the book of Isaiah reads like a story of Christ's life, predicting circumstances of his birth in and around Isaiah 7, continuing roughly in order until the circumstances of his rejection and and persecution at the end of his life in and around Isaiah 53.

I listed some Isaiah prophesies above, but I saved others until now, because in isolation they are not so compelling. For example, Isaiah 50:6 says he would be smitten and spit upon (fulfilled in Matthew 26:67), and Isaiah 53 says he'd be wounded and bruised (fulfilled in Matthew 27:26). For a number of reasons, these prophecies don't impress me in isolation, but in context, they do: Isaiah was already understood to be a prophetic story of the Messiah's life and is substantiated by other less negotiable prophecies (some of which are listed above, such as that he would be born in Bethlehem and buried in a rich man's tomb near the wicked), so to see other prophecies (wounded and bruised; smitten and spit upon) present, falling into place about *when* they should is, for me, significant.

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Now here's the big question. What are the odds that, given enough time, SOMEBODY would have come along that just happened to match with many -- or even all -- of the prophesies and consequently been incorrectly thought the Messiah?

In his book "Science Speaks," Professor Peter W. Stoner used the law of compound probabilities to determine the odds of a certain prescribed number of biblical prophecies relating to Christ being fulfilled. His findings were evaluated by the American Scientific Affiliation and found to be sound, as documented by H. Harold Hartzler in the book appropriately named "American Scientific Affiliation."

Stoner calculated that the chances of one lone individual precisely fulfilling eight specific prophecies relating to Christ* and found the odds to be 1 in 10^17. Already, the odds are against any one of however many billions of people have ever lived since the Old Testament prophecies were written fulfilling those eight prophecies.

The chances of fulfilling 48 of the prophecies were calculated at 10^157, an astronomical figure beyond human comprehension: that's around 10^58 times the number of protons in the universe. Yet Christ fulfilled around 332.

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(*Not all of the Messianic prophesies concern things that can easily be calculated in terms of odds. Stoner used eight prophesies he felt he *could* express in terms of odds, and, again, the American Scientific Affiliation thought this to be sound.)