Topic
The Messiah and the Covenant
What the prophets expected, and whether Jesus matches it.
Claims
- “Jesus did not bring world peace”The peace the prophets promised has not come, and Christians do not say it has. Their claim concerns the order of events, and it turns on the resurrection.Read the answer
- “The Messiah cannot die before reigning”The Tanakh and the rabbis both speak of an anointed one who suffers or is killed. The Christian claim joins suffering and reign in one person, and rests on the resurrection.Read the answer
- “The New Testament misuses the Hebrew Bible”Some citations fail as predictions. Read as the pattern-reading Jewish interpreters also practiced, they make a different claim, one you can test against the Hebrew.Read the answer
- “The suffering servant is Israel”Isaiah does call Israel his servant. Isaiah 53 describes an innocent individual struck for "my people," who dies and then lives, a profile that strains the national reading.Read the answer
- “The Torah covenant is everlasting”"New covenant" is Jeremiah's phrase, promised to Israel and Judah with the Torah written on the heart. Christians claim Jesus fulfills it, not that God replaced Israel.Read the answer
- “The virgin birth mistranslates almah”Almah means a young woman, and the Jewish translation is fair. But "virgin" was a Jewish rendering before Jesus, and the doctrine rests on the Gospels, not one word.Read the answer
Reasons
- Daniel 9 and the Messiah before the Temple's destructionDaniel 9 is difficult and its arithmetic is disputed, but its sequence is clear. An anointed one is cut off, and then the city and sanctuary are destroyed.
- Jesus and messianic prophecyIsolated proof texts do not settle the question. A pattern of suffering and reign runs through Isaiah, Zechariah, Daniel, Micah, and the Psalms.
- The new covenant promised in the prophetsJeremiah, not the church, coined the phrase "new covenant." He promised it to Israel and Judah, with the Torah written on the heart and sin remembered no more.
- The resurrection as messianic vindicationA crucified Messiah looked like a contradiction to Jesus' own followers. They read his resurrection as God overturning that verdict, and argued it from the Psalms and Isaiah.