This chapter opens with an example of how fingerprints, which are unique identifiers on a human, can tie in with other evidence to give a better picture of who was at a crime scene. Strobel argues that, much like fingerprints can provide conclusive evidence for a crime scene, there is evidence that “[Strobel:] …establishes to an astounding degree of certainty that Jesus is indeed the Messiah of Israel and the world.” (Strobel, CFC, P. 187).
I’d like to draw attention to the fact that Strobel, within the first few paragraphs of this chapter, has already drawn the conclusion that we should be take from this chapter. Being led by the nose this way feels very condescending to anyone who reads this book with the intent to draw their own conclusions. If you’re reading through the book, watch for how he presents leading questions to work towards the foregone conclusion rather than present evidence for the case he is trying to make. Much like a young earth creationist will refuse to show evidence that does not support their worldview, Strobel does not not show the evidence against his case.
In this chapter, Strobel interviews Louis S. Lapides who appears to be a Christian turned Jew. Presumably, this is to gather evidence of Jesus’s prophecy fulfillment.
A Spiritual Quest Begins
This section can be skipped if you’re not interested in hearing about Lapides’ journey from Judaism to Christianity. I certainly started skimming it after a couple paragraphs. Including this much background on the person he’s interviewing seems very unnecessary. I’d prefer if the every chapter started off by presenting evidence for it’s case rather than an unnecessary biography each time.
I Can’t Believe in Jesus
This is a continuation of the above section. The only thing of interest here is that Louis received a bible and began looking through scriptures to find evidence of Jesus.
Pierced for our Transgressions
This section starts out talking about how prophecy after prophecy in the old testament keeps talking about someone who will come. Some “[Lapides:] …prophet greater than Moses who will come and whom we should listen to.” (Strobel, CFC, P. 193). Lapides claims to have been “[Strobel:] …stopped cold by Isaiah 53” (Strobel, CFC, P. 193) due to it’s predictions of the Messiah. He claims “[Lapides:] Here was a picture of a Messiah who would suffer and die for the sins of Israel…”(Strobel, CFC, P. 193). The book helpfully includes the part of Isaiah that is supposed to show this prophecy.
Here’s a quick rundown of the common verses used to support or refute the prophecy for Jesus.
- Isaiah 53:1 is quoted in John 12:37-38 where it’s shown that Jesus is not going to be believed in.
- Given that the gospels were written with the intent to persuade and show prophecy fulfillment, this sounds like someone inserted a verse to give “authority” to John.
- Isaiah 53:4 is incorrectly quoted in Matthew and alleges it refers to Jesus.
- Similarly to John 12:37-38, it seems likely that the writer was seeking for prophecy fulfillment and had to twist some verses.
- Isiah 53:5-6 are often quoted by Christians as evidence for Jesus, but they are not mentioned elsewhere in the bible.
- This is because many parallels to Jesus are seen. Wounded for Transgressions, bruised for iniquities, etc
- Isaiah 53:7-8 are quoted in Acts 8:32-35 where the writers imply that Isaiah was speaking of Jesus.
- Isaiah 53:9 is inaccurately quoted in 1 Peter 2:22 where it is alleged to speak of Jesus.
- Isaiah 53:10 is a strong objection that Isaiah 53 is referring to Jesus at all
- “…he shall see his seed…”, implying the person in this verse has children
- “…he shall prolong his days…”, implying the person in this verse lives a long life
- Both of these phrases are in direct conflict with Jesus who, according to the gospels, died young and childless.
- Isaiah 53:12 is partially quoted in Luke 22:37
- Reading the entire verse does not show any clear indications of a prophecy, especially in context of the entire chapter
Strobel states that Lapides, a devout Jew turned Buddhist, “[Strobel:] Instantly… ….recognized the portrait…” (Strobel, CFC, P. 194) painted by Isaiah in chapter 53 as being Jesus. This is done without any knowledge of Jesus or the New Testament because Lapides, when he received the bible from a pastor, said “[Lapides:] I’ll read the Old Testament, but I’m not going to open up the other one” (Strobel, CFC, P. 194).
The Jewishness of Jesus
This section cherry picks just as much as the previous chapter. The genealogy mentioned in Matthew is immediately contradicted by Luke, a fact that Strobel does not mention here. Lapides cites Isaiah 7:14 as further proof of prophecy fulfillment, which is misrepresented in Matthew.
Isaiah 7:14 is often quoted out of context to provide proof of Jesus. Reading chapter 7 in it’s entirety tells us this is a prophecy that is given to King Ahaz to give him a sign that the Assyria-Israeli alliance will not defeat him. The original Hebrew word that was incorrectly translated as virgin, “almah“, actually translates to “maiden” or “young woman”. Virgin, would be “bethulah“.
Just like we have words in English to distinguish between sexual virginity and a maiden, so to does Hebrew have words to distinguish between them. As shown here[1], Isaiah was referring to a young woman, not a virgin. Attempting to use this as a prophecy for Jesus shows cognitive bias, reliance on incorrect translation, and an inability to read Isaiah in it’s entirety. Isaiah 7 does not mention Jesus, and in Isaiah 8:1-8, it appears that Isaiah fulfills the prophecy with a young prophetess.
Lapides goes on to talk about how much fulfillment he finds in the new testament from the old. There is a very common problem in how he presents this though. He completely ignores the possibility that the writers of the new testament knew about Jewish scriptures as well. The writers of the new testament would be greatly motivated to try twist the old testament to suit their ends as is shown in Matthew in particular. It makes much more sense to assume that the gospels were written with this intent rather than try to see prophecy fulfillment in everything.
Epiphany in the Desert
This is an anecdotal story of how powerful Jesus is in the life of Lapides. Unfortunately, there are millions of people around the globe of different religions, or even those in no religion at all, who have all had similar experiences. Are we to discount their experiences as less powerful simply because Christianity says we should? I’m certain that any Christian who had grown up as an Indian in India and was heavily involved in Hinduism would be saying similar things about Krishna as they do Jesus. Anecdotal spiritual experiences are not evidence for or against a religion. Many atheists have even had them, try talking whit one about how they view it sometime.
Responding to Objections
This section is pretty much a rehash of “The Jewishness of Jesus” trying to explain why Jews don’t believe Jesus is the Messiah. Rather than having me do the explaining, here’s some additional reading that explains why Jews don’t believe that[2].
Strobel then asks Lapides to explain some “difficult arguments” that he brings up.
The Coincidence Argument
As Strobel asks, “[Strobel:] [Is it] possible that Jesus merely fulfilled the prophecies by accident” (Strobel, CFC, P. 198). This question is misleading and misses the important part of a prophecy: that prophecies are supposed to come true whether action or inaction is taken. This means that prophecies, if you believe in them, are literally all fulfilled by coincidence anyways.
Lapides states “[Lapides:] …that the probability of just eight prophecies being fulfilled is one chance in one hundred million billion…” (Strobelm CFC, P. ). That is obviously a large number[citation needed]. If this number could be believed, the improbability of a prophecy happening by coincidence is a better argument against Jesus having actually fulfilled many of them at all.
The Altered Gospel Argument
The altered gospel argument is finally where Strobel almost asks the right question. It’s close enough that the omission itself speaks volumes about whether or not he is truly being objective here. Strobel asks “[Strobel:] Isn’t it possible that the gospel writers fabricated details to make it appear that Jesus fulfilled the prophecies?” (Strobel, CFC, P. 199).
Lapides mentions “[Lapides:] When the gospels were being circulated, there were people living who had been around when all these things happened.” (Strobel, CFC, P. 200). This makes the same argument that the gospels were written early enough that no legendary development would have been possible, a claim which we have no evidence for. It also assumes that people would have been motivated to correct any issues. What would it matter to many people if they hear tales of this Jesus fellow being circulated by a small cult?
Also, while it is true that people could have lived through the years, the gospels were circulated many years after the events they claim to describe. The gospel of John in particular would have been far enough removed from events that almost anyone old enough to have been there and remembered it would be approaching their 70’s. Given that human lifespans started increasing with the advent of modern medicine, it seems safe to say that there would not have been many, if any, voices that would have added conflicting information or additional mythologizing…. exactly like we see in the gospel of John.
Lapides also asks “[Lapides:] …why would Matthew have fabricated fulfilled prophecies and then willingly allowed himself to be put to death for following someone who he secretly knew was really not the Messiah?” (Strobel, CFC, P. 200). To accurately make this claim, we need some evidence for who the writer of Matthew was. As stated in the problems with Chapters 2 and 3, Matthew was released anonymously, and we don’t have any information on how the writer died. Unless Lapides can furnish some evidence of this claim, there is no basis to believe it.
Lapides finishes this section by saying “[Lapides:] …the Jewish community would have jumped on any opportunity to discredit the gospels by pointing out falsehoods…” (Strobel, CFC, P. 200). This assumes the Jewish community would have cared enough to try correct the views of a heretical cult that started up. In a way, the Talmud, which Lapides does reference, does some discrediting in a round about way by mentioning that Christianity was viewed as a heresy.
Overall, the problems in this section are very similar to the problems in chapter 2 and 3, and I will not rehash them here.
The Intentional Fulfillment Argument
This section argues that it is impossible for Jesus to have intentionally fulfilled any prophecies because, “[Lapides:] When you interpret Daniel 9:24-26, it foretells that the Messiah would appear a certain length of time after King Artaxerxes 1 issued a decree… ” (Strobel, CFC, P. 200). This prophecy is based on an interpretation and never once mentions King Artaxerxes 1. While it something would not be possible to prearrange, it would be nice of Lapides to furnish proof of his claims. Unless we take the gospels as being true, there’s no evidence anywhere for this.
In addition, all intentional fulfillment that Lapides attempts to explain away here as being impossible to intentionally fulfill could be explained by the Altered Gospel argument, which Lapides has failed to provide a compelling case against.
Let’s also take a moment to appreciate that if Jesus did not fulfill prophecies by accident, and he did not fulfill them intentionally, what other way could he fulfill prophecies? Maybe we should simply draw the conclusion that prophecies are not real.
The Context Argument
According to Lapides, “[Lappides:] …every single time, the prophecies have stood up and shown themselves to be true.” (Strobel, CFC, P. 201) when read in context. This, as evidenced in the “Pierced for out Transgressions” section, is blatantly false. No amount of reading the prophecies in their context will help, especially when you find reliable translations based on the oldest surviving works.
Everything Must be Fulfilled
Strobel once again finishes off with a tidy wrap up of Christian feel-good anecdotes. Strobel pulls in some quotes to try show just how solid his foundations are by saying “[Strobel:] Ironically, concluded Greenspan, ‘I think I actually came to faith in Y’shua [Jesus] by reading what detractors wrote.’ ” (Strobel, CFC, P. ). Even more ironically, that quote wraps back around and applies to atheists. By reading the un-researched works of people like Strobel, I have had my own belief in the falsity of Christian fundamentalist biblical inerrantists push strengthened considerably. The lack of evidence compels me!
Citations
- Hebrew-English translation of Isaiah: http://www.mechon-mamre.org/p/pt/pt1007.htm
- Why Jesus is not the Jewish Messiah: https://jewsforjudaism.ca/why-jesus-is-not-the-jewish-messiah/