Is Jesus of Nazareth the Predicted Messiah?: A Historical-Evidential Approach to Specific Old Testament Messianic Prophecies and Their New Testament Fulfillments

Christians in general--and preachers of prophecy in particular--attribute the fulfillment of hundreds of Old Testament messianic prophecies to Jesus of Nazareth. Often these claims arise in the uncritical environment of Christian churches or popular literature that is treating messianic prophecy. People with critical thinking abilities, and those endowed with a skeptical nature, often have key questions that remain unaddressed in such environments. These thinkers and skeptics are the people that will be most interested in this work.The primary question addressed is this: "Do critically acceptable historical-evidential reasons exist for believing that Jesus Christ is the direct fulfillment of some specific Old Testament messianic texts?" Approaching this question within a framework that eliminates any possibility of staged prophetic fulfillment, and those that may occur by mere chance or collusion, produces results that must be taken seriously. Even with these strict criteria, Jesus emerges as the only viable candidate to fulfill some of the prophecies included in this study. For other prophetic texts, the evidence is not as abundant or convincing. However, even these texts yield several minimal facts that directly impinge on New Testament claims about Jesus.