Christians in general–and preachers of prophecy in particular–attribute the fulfillment of hundreds of Old Testament messianic prophecies to Jesus of Nazareth. Often these claims arise in the uncritical environment of Christian churches or popular literature that is treating messianic prophecy. People with critical thinking abilities, and those endowed with a skeptical nature, often have key questions that remain unaddressed in such environments. These thinkers and skeptics are the people that will be most interested in this work.
The primary question addressed is this: ‘Do critically acceptable historical-evidential reasons exist for believing that Jesus Christ is the direct fulfillment of some specific Old Testament messianic texts?’ Approaching this question within a framework that eliminates any possibility of staged prophetic fulfillment, and those that may occur by mere chance or collusion, produces results that must be taken seriously. Even with these strict criteria, Jesus emerges as the only viable candidate to fulfill some of the prophecies included in this study. For other prophetic texts, the evidence is not as abundant or convincing. However, even these texts yield several minimal facts that directly impinge on New Testament claims about Jesus.
عن المؤلف
Douglas D. Scott is a professor of Bible and Theology for the Global University Graduate School of Theology. His doctoral work focused on the fields of theology and apologetics. He also earned an MDiv and MS in Bible and Theology from Southwestern Assemblies of God University. His undergraduate Business Administration degree is from Colorado Christian University.Douglas Scott and his wife Suzan are originally from Colorado, and currently reside in Missouri. They have one daughter (Melisa), a son-in-law (Tim), and two grandsons (Deric and Zechariah).The Scotts serve as Assemblies of God world missionaries (AGWM) with International Ministries and Global University. As missionaries, they served several years in South Africa as interim directors and faculty members of a Bible school. Presently they enjoy a worldwide higher education teaching ministry and serve in various roles at Global University.