Introduction to 300+ Prophecies

The 300+ Messianic Prophecies Fulfilled by the Life of Jesus Christ

Some people say that there is no real proof for the existence of the biblical Jesus Christ. They’re mistaken because there are over 300 Old Testament prophecies that were explicitly and implicitly fulfilled by his very historical existence, a period of which is described in "The Validity of Jesus' Resurrection" , as well as non-biblical sources such as Josephus discussing Jesus' existence in the same manner in the Antiquities. The Bible actually verifies itself, especially when it comes to Jesus Christ. In his book More Than a Carpenter, Josh McDowell states:

“Over and over again Jesus appealed to the prophecies of the Old Testament to substantiate his claims as the Messiah…’And beginning with Moses and with all the prophets he explained to them the things concerning Himself in all the Scriptures’ (Luke 24:27). Jesus said to them, ‘These are My words which I spoke to you while I was still with you, that all things which are written about Me in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms must be fulfilled’ (Luke 24:44). He said, ‘For if you believed Moses, you would believe Me, for he wrote of Me’ (John 5:46). He said, ‘Abraham rejoiced to see My day” (John 8:56). The apostles, the New Testament writers, etc., constantly appealed to fulfilled prophecy to substantiate the claims of Jesus as the Son of God, the Savior, the Messiah. ‘But the things which God announced beforehand by the mouth of all the prophets, that His Christ should suffer, He has thus fulfilled’ (Acts 3:18). ‘And according to Paul’s custom, he went to them, and for three Sabbaths reasoned with them from the Scriptures (meaning the Old Testament), explaining and giving evidence that the Christ had to suffer and rise again from the dead, and saying, “This Jesus whom I am proclaiming to you is the Christ”’ (Acts 17:2,3). ‘For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received, that Christ died for our sins, according to the Scriptures (in other words, Christ’s death was prophesied in the Old Testament), and that He was buried, and that He was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures’ (1 Corinthians 15:3,4). (1977)

But even though the Bible is internally consistent regarding messianic claims related to such prophecy, some argue that “these prophecies were written down after the time of Christ and fabricated to coincide with his life. This might sound feasible until you realize that the Septuagint, the Greek translation of the Hebrew Old Testament, was translated around 200-150 B.C. This Greek translation shows that there was at least a two-hundred-year gap between the prophecies being recorded and their fulfillment in Christ (McDowell, 1977).” **

Despite internal consistency and external evidence, however, according to McDowell, some believe the following:

“…that Jesus deliberately attempted to fulfill the Jewish prophecies. This objection seems plausible until we realize that many of the details of the Messiah’s coming were totally beyond human control. For example, the place of birth. I can just hear Jesus in Mary’s womb as she rode on the donkey: ‘Mom, we won’t make it…’ When Herod asked the chief priests and scribes, ‘Where is the Christ to be born?’ they said, ‘In Bethlehem of Judea, for so it has been written by the prophet’ (Matthew 2:5). The time of his coming. The manner of his birth. Betrayal by Judas and the betrayal price. The manner of his death. The people’s reaction, the mocking and spitting, the staring. The casting of dice for his clothes. The non-tearing of his garment, etc. Half the prophecies are beyond his fulfillment. He couldn’t work it out to be born of the seed of the woman, the lineage of Shem, the descendants of Abraham, etc.” (1977)

While it may seem that there are slight inconsistencies when Old Testament references to Christ are quoted in the New Testament, the slight difference in wording is simply due to the Old Testament being written in Hebrew while the New Testament was written in Greek; all of the New Testament references are consistent with the Old Testament prophecies. The messianic prophecies detail the entire life of Christ, and it has been calculated that the odds of one person being able to fulfill all these prophecies are 1 in (81129638414606681695789005144064) to the third power multiplied by 2. So there is NO POSSIBLE WAY that this can be a coincidence.

Notes: I used this website: http://dansims.home.mindspring.com/messiah.htm and the King James Version of the Bible as outlines for biblical references; I improvised on some of these references to provide you with the best possible meaning for each fulfilled prophecy. Actual quotes from these references were typed out for clarity using New International Version, or NIV, and King James Version, or KJV, Bibles. Old Testament verses are quoted first, then followed by the New Testament verses. Also, corresponding Old Testament prophecies quoted in the New Testament are in all caps. For the calculated number, it was calculated using the probability of 0.5, which represents either the individual messianic prophecy in question is either true or not true (a very basic calculation). In this case, being that these prophecies are true, the probability for each prophecy is then raised to the power of the total number of messianic prophecies to obtain the final calculation. In other words, since Jesus successfully fulfilled x number of prophecies, the odds of that happening are (0.5)x.

** Of course, McDowell is off on how long the gap is, which is obviously about 150 years. Also, although it is still disputed what year exactly when Jesus was born, this author tends to believe in 1 BC/1 AD.