Jesus was NOT the Messiah

On with the debate. 1) Jesus is not messiah because he did NOT fulfill Messianic prophecies 1.1) The passage in Ezekiel is describing what the LORD will do. The consistent usage of the 1st person personal pronoun (I) finds it's antecedent in the LORD, not in Messiah. 1.2) Again, the person speaking in this passage is the LORD himself, not messiah. Again we see continued use of the 1st person personal pronoun in this passage. 1.3) Once again the author is referring to the LORD, not Messiah. In this passage we see the usage of the 3rd person personal pronoun (He) finding its antecedent in the LORD. "Come, let us go up to the mountain of the LORD, [. .. ] that he may teach us his ways. [. .. ] He shall judge between nations. " 1.4) Once more, this passage is referring to what the LORD will do, not Messiah. Furthermore, my opponent says "The Hebrew scriptures state that the messiah will clearly fulfill this the first time. " There is no mention of a second coming in all of the Torah. " This statement is unproven and simply an assertion with no evidence. Due to the fact that the passages that my opponent uses to demonstrate what Messiah would do actually referring to the LORD, and the fact that my opponent has not given any proof that the second coming of Messiah is contradictory to Torah, this contention can be dismissed. It holds none of the force that my opponent claims it does. 2) Jesus is not messiah because he did NOT embody the personal qualifications 2. A) My opponent claims that Jesus could not have been a prophet, because prophecy cannot exist if the majority of Jews are not in the land. However, again, this is an unsupported assertion. Until my opponent provides some sort of support for this assertion, it falls to the wayside. Furthermore, in the Olivet Discourse, Jesus accurately predicted the destruction of the Temple in 70 AD. This seems to be a confirmation of his prophetic ability. 2. B) Where is it written that the messianic bloodline cannot pass through the mother's side? None of these passages are explicitly patriarchal in their nature. They simply imply that Messiah will come through the line of David (or through Judah in the case of Genesis 49), there is no mention of this only happening through the male bloodline. My opponent also claims that the Messiah will be entirely human with no "supernatural qualities. " On the contrary, the Prophet Isaiah tells us (Chapter 9) that Messiah will be called "Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. " (Isaiah 9:6) The prophet Isaiah was convinced that the coming child who would be born would be called God and would be Everlasting. Those sure seem to be the "supernatural qualities" that my opponent claims Messiah would not have. When given the choice between who is a more reliable expert on Messiah, I will take the Prophet Isaiah over my opponent any day of the week. .. and twice on Sunday. 2. C) My opponent claims that anyone who attempts to change or modify the Torah is a liar and must be a false prophet. However, he has not given any proof that a) Jesus attempted to change Torah, or B) that his assertion is true. In fact, Rabbi's throughout the ages have been reinterpreting Torah law. We see this in the Pharisee's of Jesus' day who had added stipulations to Torah (For example, a limit on how many miles one could walk on Sabbath). We see this in modern rabbinic teaching in that the sacrificial system is no longer necessary. In fact, the Talmud itself is a collection of these reinterpretations. Jesus was doing nothing different than what other rabbis of the day were doing, in taking the words of Torah and reinterpreting them for his context. 3) Mistranslated verses referring to Jesus 3. A) My opponent claims that the word "alma" always means young woman and not "virgin. " He also claims that this translation was introduced later by Christian theologians. This, however, is inaccurate. In the Septuagint (LXX), which is the Greek Translation of the Old Testament, we see that the translators chose the Greek word "Parthenon" when deciding on a Greek equivalent for "alma. " Now, the LXX was translated between the 3rd and 1st centuries BC, by Jewish scholars wishing to provide a version of the OT for the largely Hellenized world. These Jewish scribes, hundreds of years prior to Jesus' birth, saw the word "alma" as "parthenon" which only means "virgin" in Greek. My opponent's assertion here s patently false. 3. B) My opponent claims that Isaiah 53 cannot be referring to Jesus or the coming messiah. While my opponent's interpretation is one of many possible interpretations, he has shown no conclusive evidence as to why this is the only viable interpretation. Isaiah 53 speaks of bearing the sins of others for their forgiveness. For the healing that would come to others through the striping and bruising of the "man of sorrows. " Where else in the OT Scriptures do we see any description of Israel that includes them suffering on behalf of others. Where do we see that the persecution that Israel would undergo would somehow serve to heal the rest of the world? Nowhere. Nowhere in the Hebrew Bible do we see any indication that Israel will serve as a substitute for the sins of others, as Isaiah 53 seems to imply. Rather, the punishment of being led into exile was not done to redeem others. .. it was done as a form of judgement by God. My opponent's interpretation ignores this fact. A brief summary 1) My opponent has confused the deeds that the LORD would do and the deeds that Messiah would do in the verses he has listed. As such, Christ not fulfilling them does not disqualify him as a potential Messiah. Furthermore even if they did apply to Messiah, there is no reason that these events could not take place during the second coming, as my opponent's assertion that Messiah will have only one coming is an unsupported conclusion at this point. 2) My opponent claims that Jesus did not fulfill the character qualifications of Messiah in that he cannot possibly be a prophet as prophecy ceased when the last prophet died and in that Jesus did not descend from David on his paternal lineage. However, both of these claims are simply assertions put forward by my opponent in an interesting exercise of begging the question. 3) My opponent points to what he claims are later Christian interpolations on Hebrew texts. However, in the case of "alma," we see Jews translating this word as "virgin (parthenon)" in the Greek version of the OT (LXX). In addition, my opponent has not given a reason why the Christian interpretation of Isaiah 53 is impossible, and his interpretation ignore several key facts about Israel's exile. Namely that the exile does not serve to redeem anyone of their transgressions and in itself was actually a form of judgement on the people of Israel for their wicked and idolatrous ways. As you can see, my opponent's argument is based on misrepresentations of OT Scriptures, unproven assertions, and faulty information. At this point, he has not fulfilled the burden of proof of which he says he has "the entire BOP in this debate. " Thank you. I look forward to the responses of my opponent.