I realized through feedback and reading back over my blog posts that I haven’t been taking as much of a scientific approach as I probably should be taking. So this week, I wanted to provide some bible verses with some slightly more concrete evidence to back it up. Please keep in mind while reading all of these posts that I am only human, and I cannot begin to understand God, or even some of the science I talk about, so do not make your basis of religion or science on what you see here, whether that impression be good or bad. Let this be something that sparks your curiosity and spurs you to find a better place to find the answers you are looking for.
With that in mind, this week I want to take a step back and approach science in its most strict definition instead of trying to tackle the applications of it such as physics. Science is, first and foremost, a way of thinking that helps you draw sound conclusions, and I believe that can be applied to anything. So I am going to try something different this week and also bring lit into the discussion.
I am a huge lit nerd, and I thing I absolutely love finding in books I read is foreshadowing. It helps me to take this passion and use it to analyze the Bible so that I can take it for what it is. So this week, I am going to analyze the main example of foreshadowing in the Bible: prophesies.
If you look at the Bible like any other piece of literature you would study in class, you realize that Jesus was not what everyone expected. Jews at the time expected the messiah (the chosen one) to come handsomely riding in on horseback and be immediately accepted by everyone. But when you look in the Old Testament, prophesies of the messiah do not predict that to be the case. Yes, the Old Testament predicts that the messiah will be born in Bethlehem (Micah 5:2) and be born of a virgin mother (Isaiah 7:14), and that the messiah would suffer and die on a cross (Zechariah 12:10a, Psalm 22:14-16), but there is so much more in Jesus’ life that was predicted by prophesies….
- Contrary to popular belief, the Old Testament actually predicted that the messiah will be rejected by his people (Isaiah 53: 1,3) and that Jesus would hang out and suffer with who society deemed as the “sinners” (Isaiah 53:12a)
- And it was not only predicted that Jesus would be betrayed by someone he knows (Judas Iscariot), but also that he would be betrayed for 30 pieces of silver (Psalm 41:9, Zechariah 11:12-13)
- And in addition to the prediction of Jesus’ death on the cross, there were even prophesies of specifics during the crucifixion like dividing up the messiah’s clothes (Psalm 22:18) and the fact that none of his bones would be broken (Numbers 9:12)
- **In numbers, they were talking about how to sacrifice a Passover lamb (which temporarily atoned for the sins of Jewish people), and there is a beautiful poetry seen in many places in the Bible that depicts Jesus as the ultimate Passover Lamb, that atoned for everyone’s sins for past, present, and future. If you want to know more about the background of this, come talk to me!
- Finally, it was even predicted that Jesus would be laid in a rich man’s grave (Isaiah 53:9) and that he would raise from the dead (Psalm 16:10, Psalm 30:3)
I know it seems like I’m using the Bible to back up the Bible, but the truth is that the Old Testament and the New Testament stand apart from each other. The interesting thing is that the Old Testament and the New Testament were separated by about 400 years, so the chance that so many finite details could line up is very small. And these are only the beginnings of the many incredibly detailed prophecies that were paralleled in the New Testament. The connections between the prophecies and the fulfillment are what draw these very different books together. Taking into consideration the gap of time between the books, the more I learn and study the Bible, and especially the Old Testament, it amazes me how every passage seems to reflect the New Testament, which is pretty freaking incredible.
This post reminds me of the two religious studies courses I took at Mercyhurst with Robert von Thaden (I’m referencing him by name, because he’s that cool). One of the things that he liked to point out every single class period is that humans are the ones recording what they believe to be the word of God, and that they’re not doing it in a vacuum, but as part of larger communities with specific desires and specific fears and specific needs and specific histories. He helped ground our questions about certain passages by always asking: What were they reading when they wrote this? What was the community’s situation like? etc. It’s sometimes difficult to tell because the Bible, as it’s read today, usually isn’t broken down into its component source material. But here’s a link to the lesson I remember most vividly, on the “Documentary hypothesis” of the Pentateuch: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Documentary_hypothesis
Really interesting post. I’ve never thought about backing up the bible with the bible, and I’m not sure how it works, but you seem to make logical sense. I can tell how much work you put into finding the perfect verses, and it helped make your post easier to follow. Overall great job!
i’ve always heard that the Bible is a great piece of literature and I’ve read some of Milton’s work, but I’ve never analyzed the Bible in this manner. That’s amazing how there are so many similarities between the Old and New Testament even though they were written so far apart!
Interesting read. Carbon dating also indicates that the Old Testament books were written before the New Testament accounts. I would be interested in seeing a post based on your thoughts of the recent “Science vs Creationism” debate. Personally, I have little support for such debates. I feel as if they only further to try to alienate science and religion and treat them as an “either – or” situation. Not to mention that it’s essentially a scientific debate about something that cannot be 100% proven OR disproven.
Ahh your blog it great!! I love it, but I just have to play devil’s advocate here–well, not really–but along the lines of using the Bible to support the Bible, not sure how that exactly makes sense to someone who may not believe in the Bible (I do, but there are people who don’t). Is there anyway you could logically prove the Bible’s legitimacy with this foreshadowing? Aside from that–good use of Bible verses, I always enjoy reading your blog!
This is an excellent post that really highlights some of the main predictions made by the Old Testament. And I think you do a great job at putting emphasis on the fact that the two testaments were written so far apart from one another! You also did a great idea by backing it with exact verses which is awesome! Great post. I love reading your posts =D
Hey guuuuurl. I just wanted to comment and say that I have been reading your blog, and I think it’s really interesting. That being said, I haven’t really commented yet because most of this info is so foreign to me that your blogs, for me anyway, are more of an introduction to certain topics and ideas, as opposed to a spin on a belief I already have, as it may be for some other people. I appreciate your posts though!