In a chapter entitled “The Messianic Prophecies of the Old Testament Fulfilled in Jesus Christ,” Josh McDowell lists a grand total of 61 Old Testament prophecies he claims were fulfilled in the life of Jesus. The first great problem with accepting these as valid proof is that there is no extra-biblical source of validation. True, the writers of the New Testament were separated by centuries from the writers of the Old Testament. However they held the same basic religious beliefs and were looking for Jesus to fulfill the messianic prophecies. Furthermore, the historicity of the details of the life of Jesus is not verified outside the New Testament, with the exception of the statement by Tacitus in the Annals of Imperial Rome that Jesus was crucified by Pilate for sedition and a reference in the writings of Flavius Josephus to James, the brother of Jesus. Thus, the validity of the gospels cannot be verified by external sources and must be taken somewhat on faith. As such, using them as fulfillment of Old Testament prophecy is likewise a matter of faith.

– Tim Callahan

@Tim Callahan: You wrote this 274-page hard cover Bible Prophecy: Failure or Fulfillment? book to debunk Biblical prophecy and some secular prophets, yet you admit it is a matter of faith. Why did you write this book tiny Tim with no credentials? Deep internal issues about the death of God perhaps? Or… wait… maybe that’s me… and why I purchased it…

“Our treatment of the problem does not raise the question of the truth of Christianity. It merely deals with the question of the individual’s relationship to Christianity.”

– Kierkegaard

“We discover that we do not know our role; we look for a mirror; we want to remove our make-up and take off what is false and be real. But somewhere a piece of disguise that we forgot still sticks to us. A trace of exaggeration remains in our eyebrows; we do not notice that the corners of our mouth are bent. And so we walk around, a mockery and a mere half: neither having achieved being nor actors.”

– Rilke