We have seen that ‘Christ’ is an Old Testament title.  Let us now look at this question: was Jesus of Nazareth that ‘Christ’ predicted in the Old Testament?

From the Line of David

Psalm 132 in the Old Testament, written 1000 years before Jesus lived, contained a specific prophecy.  It said:

¹⁰ For the sake of your servant David,
do not reject your anointed one. ( = ‘Christ’)

¹¹ The Lord swore an oath to David,
a sure oath he will not revoke:
“One of your own descendants
I will place on your throne….
¹³ For the Lord has chosen Zion…,
¹⁷ “Here I will make a horn grow for David
and set up a lamp for my anointed one.  (Psalm 132:10-17)

You can see that long before Jesus, the Jewish Psalms predicted that God’s anointed one (i.e. ‘Christ’) would come from David.  This is why the gospels show Jesus to be from David – they want us to see that Jesus fulfills this prophecy.

Was Jesus really from the line of David?

But how do we know that they did not just make up the genealogies to get a ‘fulfillment’?  They were sympathetic to Jesus and so perhaps wanted to exaggerate the truth.

When trying to find out what really happened, it helps to have the testimony of hostile witnesses.  A hostile witness was on-hand to see the facts but does not agree with the overall belief, and so has motive for refuting testimony that might be false.  Suppose there was a car accident between persons A and B.  Both blame each other for the accident – so they are hostile witnesses.  If person A says that he saw person B texting just before the accident, and person B admits this, then we could assume that this part of the dispute is true since person B has nothing to gain agreeing to this point.

In the same way, looking at hostile historical witnesses can help us determine what really happened with Jesus.  New Testament scholar Dr. FF Bruce studied Jewish Rabbi references to Jesus in the Talmud and Mishnah.  He noted the following comment about Jesus:

Ulla said: Would you believe that any defence would have been so zealously sought for him (i.e. Jesus)?  He was a deceiver and the All-merciful says: ‘You shall not spare him neither shall you conceal him’[Deut 13:9]  It was different with Jesus for he was near to the kingship”  p. 56

FF Bruce makes this remark about that rabbinical statement:

The portrayal is that they were trying to find a defence for him (an apologetic note against Christians is detected here).  Why would they try to defend one with such crimes?  Because he was ‘near to the kingship’ i.e. of David.  p. 57

In other words, hostile Jewish rabbis did not dispute the Gospel writers’ claim that Jesus was from David.  They did not accept Jesus’ claim to ‘Christ’ and were opposed to the Gospel claims about him, but they still admitted that Jesus was in the royal family of David.  So we know that the Gospel writers did not simply make that up to get a ‘fulfillment’.  Even the hostile witnesses agree on this point.

Was he born of a virgin?

There is always a possibility that this prophesy was fulfilled ‘by chance’.  There were also others from the Royal family.  But being born of a virgin!  There is no possibility that this could happen ‘by chance’.  It is either: 1) a misunderstanding, 2) a fraud, or 3) a miracle – no other option is open.

A virgin birth had been hinted in the beginning with Adam.  In the New Testament, Luke and Matthew clearly state that Mary conceived Jesus while she was a virgin.  Matthew also claimed that this was a fulfillment of a prophecy from Isaiah (ca 750 BC) which said:

Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign: The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and will call him Immanuel (i.e. ‘God with us’) Isaiah 7:14 (and quoted in Matthew 1:23 as a fulfillment)

Perhaps this was just a misunderstanding.  The original Hebrew הָעַלְמָ֗ה (pronounced haalmah) which is translated ‘virgin’ can also mean ‘young maiden’, i.e. a young unmarried woman.  Perhaps that is all that Isaiah meant to say, long ago in 750 BC.  But with a religious need on the part of Matthew and Luke to venerate Jesus they misunderstood Isaiah to mean ‘virgin’ when he really meant ‘young woman’.  Add the unfortunate pregnancy of Mary before her marriage, it developed into ‘divine fulfillment’ in the birth of Jesus.

Many people have given me an explanation like this, and one cannot refute this because it is impossible to make proofs about whether someone is a virgin or not.  But the explanation is not that simple.  The Septuagint was a Jewish translation of the Hebrew Old Testament into Greek done in 250 BC – two hundred fifty years before Jesus was born.  How did these Jewish rabbis translate Isaiah 7:14 from the Hebrew into Greek?  Did they translate it as ‘young woman’ or ‘virgin’? Though many people seem to know that the original Hebrew הָעַלְמָ֗ה can mean either ‘young woman’ or ‘virgin’, no one brings up the witness of the Septuagint which translates it as παρθένος  (pronounced parthenos), which specifically means ‘virgin’.  In other words, the leading Jewish rabbis in 250 BC understood the Hebrew Isaiah prophecy to mean ‘virgin’, not ‘young woman’ – over two hundred years before Jesus was born.  The ‘virgin birth’ was not invented by the Gospel writers or by early Christians.  It was Jewish long before Jesus came.

Why would leading Jewish scholars in 250 BC make such a fantastic translation that a virgin had a son? If you think it is because they were superstitious and unscientific, let’s think again. People in that time were farmers.  They knew how breeding worked.  Hundreds of years before the Septuagint Abraham and Sarah knew that after a certain age came menopause and then childbearing was impossible. No, scholars in 250 BC did not know modern chemistry and physics, but they understood how animals and people reproduced. They would have known it was impossible to have a virgin birth.  But they did not shrink back and translate it as ‘young woman’ in the Septuagint. No, they stated it in black and white that a virgin would have a son.

Mary’s Context

Now consider the fulfillment part of this story.  Though it cannot be proven that Mary was a virgin, she was remarkably in the only and very brief stage of life where it could remain an open question.  This was an age of large families.  Families with ten children were common.  Given that, what was the chance that Jesus would be the oldest child?  Because if he had had an older brother or sister then we would know for certain that Mary was not a virgin.  In our day when families have about 2 children it is a 50-50 chance, but back then it was closer to a 1 in 10 chance.  The chance was 9 out of 10 that the virgin ‘fulfillment’ should just be dismissed by the simple fact that Jesus had an older sibling – but (against the odds) he didn’t.

Now think about the remarkable timing of Mary’s engagement onto this.  If she had been married even for a few days, the virgin ‘fulfillment’ could again simply be dismissed.  On the other hand, if she had not yet been engaged and was found to be pregnant she would not have had a fiance to care for her.  In that culture, as a pregnant but single woman she would have had to remain alone – if she had been allowed to live.

It is these remarkable and unlikely ‘coincidences’ that make the virgin birth impossible to disprove that strikes me.  These coincidences are not expected, but rather they show a sense of balance and timing as if a Mind were arranging events to show plan and intent.

If Mary had been married before Jesus was born or if Jesus had older siblings, then hostile Jewish witnesses would surely have pointed that out.  Instead it seems that, once again, they agree with the gospel writers on this point.  FF Bruce notes this as he explains how Jesus is mentioned in the rabbis’ writings:

Jesus is referred to in rabbinical literature as Jesus ben Pantera or Ben Pandira.  This might mean ‘the son of the panther’.  The most probable explanation is that it is a corruption of parthenos, the Greek word for ‘virgin’ and arose from Christian references to him as a son of a virgin   (p57-58)

Today, as Jesus’ time, there is hostility to Jesus and the claims of the gospel.  Then, as now, there was significant opposition to him.  But the difference is that back then there were also witnesses, and as hostile witnesses they did not refute some basic points that they could definitely  refute, if these points had been made up or been in error.

The Bible is a remarkable book.  It claims to be inspired by God and to accurately record history.  I used to doubt the historical accuracy for the beginning chapters of the first book in the Bible – Genesis.  This was the account of Adam & Eve, paradise, the forbidden fruit, a tempter, followed by the account of Noah surviving a worldwide flood.  I, like most people today, thought these stories were really poetic metaphors.

As I researched this question, I made some fascinating discoveries that made me re-think my beliefs.  One discovery lay embedded in Chinese writing.  To see this you need to know some background about the Chinese.

Written Chinese arose from the beginning of Chinese civilization,  about 4200 years ago, some 700 years before Moses wrote the book of Genesis (1500 BC).  We all recognize Chinese calligraphy when we see it.  What many of us don’t know is that ideograms or Chinese ‘words’ are constructed from simpler pictures called radicals.  It is similar to how English takes simple words (like ‘fire’ and ‘truck’) and combines them into compound words (‘firetruck’).  Chinese calligraphy has changed very little in the thousands of years.  We know this from writing that is found on ancient pottery and bone artifacts.  Only in the 20^th century with the rule of the Chinese communist party has the script been simplified.

For example, consider the Chinese ideogram for the abstract word ‘first’. It is shown here.

‘First’ is a compound of simpler radicals as shown.  You can see how these radicals are all found combined in ‘first’.   The meaning of each of the radicals is also shown.  What this means is that around 4200 years ago, when the first Chinese scribes were forming the Chinese writing they joined radicals with the meaning of ‘alive’+’dust’+’man’ => ‘first’.  But why?  What natural connection is there between ‘dust’ and ‘first’?  There is none.  But notice the creation of the first man in Genesis.

The LORD God formed the man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life and the man became a living being  (Genesis 2:17).

The ‘first’ man (Adam) was made alive from dust.  But where did the ancient Chinese get this connection 700 years before Moses wrote Genesis?  Think about this:

The radicals for ‘dust’ + ‘breath of mouth’ + ‘alive’ are combined to make the ideogram ‘to talk’.  But then ‘to talk’ is itself combined with ‘walking’ to form ‘create’.

But what is the natural connection between ‘dust’, ‘breath of mouth’, ‘alive’, ‘walking’ and ‘create’ that would cause the ancient Chinese to make this relationship?  But this also bears a striking similarity with Genesis 2:17 above.

This similarity continues.  Notice how ‘devil’ is formed from “man moving secretly in the garden”. What is the natural relationship between gardens and devils?  They have none at all.

Yet the ancient Chinese then built on this by then combining ‘devil’ with ‘two trees’ for ‘tempter’!

So the ‘devil’ under the cover of ‘two trees’ is the ‘tempter’.  If I was going to make a natural connection to temptation I might show a sexy woman at a bar, or a tempting sin.  But why two trees?  What does ‘gardens’ and ‘trees’ have to do with ‘devils’ and ‘tempters’?  Compare now with the Genesis account:

The LORD God had planted a garden in the east… in the middle of the garden were the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil (Genesis 2:8-9)

Now the serpent was more crafty… he said to the woman, “Did God really say …” (Genesis 3:1)

To ‘desire’ or ‘covet’ is again connected with a ‘woman’ and ‘two trees’.  Why not relate ‘desire’ in a sexual sense with ‘woman’?  That would be a natural relation.  But the Chinese did not do so.

The Genesis account does show a relation between ‘covet’, ‘two trees’ and ‘woman’.

When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom she took some and ate it.  She also gave some to her husband (Genesis 3:6)

Consider another remarkable parallel.  The Chinese ideogram for ‘big boat’ is shown below and the radicals that construct this are also shown:

They are ‘eight’ ‘people’ in a ‘vessel’.  If I was going to represent a big boat why not have 3000 people in a vessel.  Why eight?  Interesting, in the Genesis account of the flood there are eight people in Noah’s Ark (Noah, his three sons and their four wives).

The parallels between the early Genesis and Chinese writing are remarkable.  One might even think the Chinese read Genesis and borrowed from it, but the origin of their language is 700 years before Moses.   Is it coincidence?  But why so many ‘coincidences’?   Why are there no such parallels with the Chinese for the later Genesis stories of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob?

But suppose Genesis is recording real historical events.  Then the Chinese – as a race and language group – originate at Babel (Genesis 11) as all other ancient language/racial groups.  The Babel account tells how the children of Noah had their languages confused by God so that they could not understand each other.  This resulted in their migration out from Mesopotamia, and it restricted inter-marriage to within their language.  The Chinese were one of these peoples dispersing from Babel.  At that time the Genesis Creation/Flood accounts were their recent history.  So when they developed writing for abstract concepts like ‘covet’, ‘tempter’ etc. they took from accounts that were well understood in their history.  Similarly for the development of nouns – like ‘big boat’ they would take from the extraordinary accounts that they remembered.

Thus the accounts of Creation and the Flood were embedded into their language from the beginning of their civilization.  As the centuries passed they forgot the original reason, as so often happens.  If this is the case, then the Genesis account recorded real historical events, not just poetic metaphors.

Chinese Sacrifices

The Chinese also had one of the longest lasting ceremonial traditions that have ever been conducted on earth.  From the start of the Chinese civilization (about 2200 BC), the Chinese emperor on the winter solstice always sacrificed a bull to Shang-Ti (‘Emperor in Heaven’, i.e. God).  This ceremony continued through all the Chinese dynasties.  In fact it was only stopped in 1911 when general Sun Yat-sen overthrew the Qing dynasty.  This bull sacrifice was conducted annually in the ‘Temple of Heaven’, which is now a tourist attraction in Beijing.  So for over 4000 years a bull was sacrificed every year by the Chinese emperor to the Heavenly Emperor   Why?  Long ago, Confucius (551-479 BC) asked this very question.  He said:

“He who understands the ceremonies of the sacrifices to Heaven and Earth… would find the government of a kingdom as easy as to look into his palm!”

What Confucius said was that anyone who could unlock that mystery of the sacrifice would be wise enough to rule the kingdom.  So between 2200 BC when the Border Sacrifice began, to the time of Confucius (500 BC) the meaning of the sacrifice had been lost to the Chinese – even though they continued the annual sacrifice another 2400 years to 1911 AD.

Perhaps, if the meaning of their calligraphy had not been lost Confucius could have found an answer to his question.  Consider the radicals used to construct the word for ‘righteous’.

Righteousness is a compound of ‘sheep’ on top of ‘me’.  And ‘me’ is a compound of ‘hand’ and ‘lance’ or ‘dagger’.  It gives the idea that my hand will kill the lamb and result in righteousness.  The sacrifice or death of the lamb in my place gives me righteousness.

Genesis has many animal sacrifices long before Moses started the Jewish sacrifice system.  For example, Abel (Adam’s son) and Noah offer sacrifices (Genesis 4:4 & 8:20).  It seems that the earliest people understood that animal sacrifices were symbols of a substitute death that was needed for righteousness.  One of Jesus’ titles was ‘lamb of God’ (John 1:29).  His death was the real sacrifice that gives righteousness.  All animal sacrifices – including the ancient Chinese Border Sacrifices – were only a pictures of his sacrifice.  This is what Abraham’s sacrifice of Isaac pointed to, as well as Moses’ Passover sacrifice.  The ancient Chinese seemed to have started with this understanding long before Abraham or Moses lived, though they had forgotten it by Confucius’ day.

This means that the sacrifice and death of Jesus for righteousness was understood from the dawn of human history.  Jesus’ life, death and resurrection was a Divine plan reinforced with signs so people could know it from the beginning of time.

This goes against our instincts.  We think that righteousness is based either on mercy of God or on our merits.  In other words, many think no payment is required for sin since God is solely merciful and not Holy.  Others think that some payment is required, but that we can make the payment by the good things we do.  So we try to be good or religious and we hope it will all work out.  This is contrasted by the Gospel that says:

But now a righteousness from God, apart from Law, has been made known… This righteousness comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe (Romans 3:21-22)

Perhaps the ancients were aware of something that we are in danger of forgetting.

Bibliography

• The Discovery of Genesis.  C.H. Kang & Ethel Nelson.  1979
• Genesis and the Mystery Confucius Couldn’t Solve.  Ethel Nelson & Richard Broadberry. 1994