Nuray

Submitted by Drew (United States), Oct 24, 2006 at 00:03

Is the fact that Jesus wasn't accepted as the Messiah by the Pharisees a proof that he wasn't the Messiah? Who do you think the early church was, anyway? Jews, my friend. Besides, it was prophecied in the Old Testament that he wouldn't be accepted, but that they would murder Him. As for the Old Testament, it is extremely reliable regarding the preservation of the original text. If you believe that the original authors of the books of the OT (Old Testament) goofed it up right away, then this doesn't help you. If that's how you view it, then how could you say it was ever God's word at all? In that case, the OT and NT don't come from God, but from man.

However, if you think that the original autographs of the books were actually the word of God, then all it really takes is a little history to really make you think about their reliability. First off, the OT. If you are familiar with the Hebrew history, you know that the group in charge of copying the books (manuscripts) were called the scribes. The scribes operated under a strict set of guidelines. They were not allowed to copy more than one letter at a time (a system of look, write, look, write, all one letter at a time), they had to read the word aloud as they wrote it, if there were 4 or more errors on a page, they could not correct it, but had to destroy it, and if there were 3 errors found in final review of a manuscript, it had to be destroyed (not just corrected).

They counted every letter in every book, and they knew how many times each letter occurred. They also counted to the middle letter of each book. They knew which letter should be at the middle, and if it wasn't there, it was thrown away. They were never allowed to copy from memory, and that's all just some the rules in their system of copying Scripture. If that's not trustworthy, then I'm not sure what is.

If you'd like to know some archeological findings that support the accuraccy of the OT, then let me know. I'd be happy to take some more time to write here. I have another question... What kind of God can't protect His very word in some fashion or another? While some men surely defile, defame, and erroneously change the Scriptures, isn't it likely that God would maintain accuracy in a given system of practiced copying of His word, inside His divine protection? You'd have to think that the OT is effectively entirely altered from its original state to not think that God was to come in physical form as a Messiah.

All Jews (other than the Sadducees) were waiting for a Messiah, they (especially the Pharisees) just had their own presuppositions of what the Messiah would be (they wanted a political Messiah). Many Jews embraced Jesus of Nazareth as the Messiah. Thousands, in fact. Besides, If Jesus hadn't died, it wouldn't be a proper fulfillment of the required sacrifice for atonement of sins.

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