What Can You Learn About the Creator From a Book? - Continue with Real Predictions

As you can read there, the Messiah would be despised by his countrymen. Certain that this would occur, Isaiah wrote as if it had already happened.  "He was despised and was avoided by men."  (Verse 3)  This mistreatment would be totally unjustified because the Messiah would do good for the people.  "Our sicknesses were what he himself carried," is how Isaiah described the Messiah's acts of healing. (Verse 4)  In spite of that, the Messiah would be tried and unjustly condemned, while remaining silent before his accusers.  (Verses 7, 8) He would allow himself to be handed over  to be killed alongside criminals during  his execution, his body would be pierced.  (Verses 5, 12)  Despite dying like a criminal, he would be buried as if a rich man.  (Verse 9) And Isaiah repeatedly stated that the Messiah's unjust death would have stoning power, covering the sins of other humans. -Verses 5, 8, 11, 12. 

All of that came true.  The histories recorded by Jesus' contemporaries -Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John-bear out what Isaiah had foretold did in fact, occur. Some of the events took place  after Jesus' death, so the situation was not one he could have manipulated (Matthew  8:16, 17; 26:67; 27:14, 39-44, 57-60; John 19:1, 34)  The total fulfillment of Isaiah's Messianic prophecy has had a powerful effect on sincere Bible readers over the centuries, including some who formerly did not accept Jesus,  Scholar William Urwick notes:  "Many Jews, in committing to writing the reason of their conversion to Christianity, acknowledged that it was the perusal of this chapter [Isaiah 53] which had shaken their faith in their own creed and teachers." -The Servant of Jehovah.

Urwick made that comment in the late 1800's, when dome might still have doubted whether Isaiah chapter 53 had been written centuries before Jesus' birth.  However, discoveries since then have essentially removed any basis for doubt. In 1947, a Bedouin shepherd near the Dead Sea discovered an ancient scroll of the entire book of Isaiah. Experts in  ancient writing dated the scroll  as being from 125-100 B.C.E.  Then In 1990, a carbon 14 analysis of the scroll gave a date of 202 and 147 B.C.E.   Yes, this famous  scroll of Isaiah was already quite old when Jesus was born. What does comparing it with modern Bibles reveal? 

Next time: What Can You Learn About the Creator From a Book? -  Conclusion of Real Predictions

From the book Is There a Creator That Cares About You?